Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, I was employed in rambling about the woods, exploring and examining a tract of land, of a thousand acres, in the state of Ohio, which I had purchased when in Europe last year, and which had been the principal cause of my present tour. As it was only six miles from {180} Maysville, I crossed the Ohio and went to it on foot. I had expected to have found a mere wilderness, as soon as I should quit the high road, but to my agreeable surprise, I found my land surrounded on every side by fine farms, some of them ten years settled, and the land itself, both in quality and situation, not exceeded by any in this fine country. The population was also astonishing for the time of the settlement, which a muster of the militia, while I was there, gave me an opportunity of knowing—there being reviewed a battalion of upwards of five hundred effective men, most expert in the use of the rifle, belonging to the district of ten miles square.
And now I experienced amongst these honest and friendly farmers real hospitality, for they vied with each other in lodging me at their houses, and in giving me a hearty and generous welcome to their best fare. Robert Simpson from New Hampshire, and Daniel Ker and Thomas Gibson from Pennsylvania, shall ever be entitled to my grateful remembrance. I had no letters of introduction to them—I had no claims on their hospitality, other than what any other stranger ought to have.—But they were farmers, and had not acquired those contracted habits, which I have observed to prevail very generally amongst the traders in this part of the world.
On Saturday I returned to Ellis’s ferry opposite Maysville, to give directions for my baggage being sent after me by the stage to Chilicothe.
On the bank of the Ohio I found squire Ellis seated on a bench under the shade of two locust trees, with a table, pen and ink, and several papers, holding a justice’s court, which he does every Saturday.[134]—Seven or eight men were sitting on the bench with him, awaiting his awards in their several cases.—When he had finished, which was soon after I had taken a seat under the same shade, one of the men invited the squire to drink with them, which he {181} consenting to, some whiskey was provided from landlord Powers, in which all parties made a libation to peace and justice. There was something in the scene so primative and so simple, that I could not help enjoying it with much satisfaction.
I took up my quarters for the night at Powers’s, who is an Irishman from Ballibay, in the county of Monaghan. He pays squire Ellis eight hundred dollars per annum for his tavern, fine farm and ferry. He and his wife were very civil, attentive, and reasonable in their charges, and he insisted much on lending me a horse to carry me the first six miles over a hilly part of the road to Robinson’s tavern, but I declined his kindness, and on Sunday morning, the 9th of August, after taking a delightful bath in the Ohio, I quitted its banks. I walked on towards the N. E. along the main post and stage road seventeen miles to West Union,—the country becoming gradually more level as I receded from the river, but not quite so rich in soil and timber.
The road was generally well settled, and the woods between the settlements were alive with squirrels, and all the variety of woodpeckers with their beautiful plumage, which in one species is little inferiour to that of the bird of Paradise, so much admired in the East Indies.
I stopped at twelve miles at the house of squire Leadham, an intelligent and agreeable man, who keeps a tavern, and is a justice of the peace. I chose bread and butter, eggs and milk for breakfast, for which I tendered a quarter of a dollar, the customary price, but he would receive only the half of that sum, saying that even that was too much. Such instances of modest and just honesty rarely occur.[135]
West Union is three years old since it was laid out for the county town of Adams county. The lots of one third of an acre in size, then sold for about seventy dollars each. There were upwards of one {182} hundred lots, which brought the proprietor above three thousand dollars. It is in a healthy situation, on an elevated plain, and contains twenty dwelling houses, including two taverns and three stores. It has also a court-house and a gaol, in the former of which divine service was performing when I arrived to a numerous Presbyterian congregation. One of the houses is well built with stone; one of the taverns is a large framed house, and all the rest are formed of square logs, some of which are two stories high and very good.
Having to get a deed recorded at the clerk’s office of the county, which could not be done until Monday morning, I stopt Sunday afternoon and night at West Union, where my accommodations in either eating or sleeping, could not boast of any thing beyond mediocrity.
Monday the 10th August, having finished my business and breakfasted, I resumed my journey through a country but indifferently inhabited, and at four miles and a half from West Union, I stopped for a few minutes at Allen’s tavern, at the request of a traveller on horseback, who had overtaken and accompanied me for the last three miles. He was an elderly man named Alexander, a cotton planter in the S. W. extremity of North Carolina, where he owns sixty-four negro slaves besides his plantation—all acquired by industry—he having emigrated from Larne in Ireland, in early life, with no property. He was now going to visit a brother-in-law near Chilicothe. He had travelled upwards of five hundred miles within the last three weeks on the same mare. He had crossed the Saluda mountains, and the states of Tennessee and Kentucky, and had found houses of accommodation at convenient distances all along that remote road, but provender so dear, that he had to pay in many places a dollar for half a bushel of oats.