For eight miles from Tarleton, the road runs through low, rich and miry black oak woods, and now and then a small prairie, and settlements not {199} nearer each other than every two miles. The country then rising into hills the road improves, but it continues equally thinly inhabited, the settlements being mostly on what is called the old county road, which runs parallel to the state road about a mile and a half to the northward of it, and is better and shorter by a mile between Chilicothe and New Lancaster.
After riding a mile among the hills I passed Stukey’s tavern, for six miles beyond which the face of the country is very picturesque; the tops of the hills terminating in rocks, some impending and some perpendicular, while the road leads through a defile winding round their bottoms. The whole country is covered with dwarf oak, and other low shrubs and bushes and some thinly scattered black oaks of stunted growth. This scarcity of timber is partly owing to the poverty of the soil, and partly to the effect of fire, which must have gone through this whole district of six or seven miles, and that at no very distant period back, from many evident marks still remaining. What a grand yet awful scene must have been such a tract of woods in flames!
There is no house for three miles from Stukey’s tavern, and from that to within a mile of New Lancaster, there are but two other settlements.—Then, on descending a low hill, and emerging from the woods into an extensive natural meadow on the western bank of the Hockhocking, that town presents itself suddenly to view, well situated on a rising ground on the opposite side of the river, and making a better appearance at that distance than it has on entering it. A wooden bridge crosses the river, which is here only a rivulet just below the town, and here I passed a number of men engaged in racing their horses.
New Lancaster[145] is a compact little town of one wide street, about six hundred paces long, containing {200} sixty houses, amongst which is a neat little court-house of brick, forty-two by thirty-six feet, just built, with a cupola belfry. There are six stores and nine taverns. There is but one brick house, all the rest being of wood, amongst which conspicuously the best is that of Mr. Bucher a lawyer. In most towns in the United States, the best houses are chiefly inhabited by gentlemen of that profession.
After supping at the inn where the stage stopped, I was shewn to bed up stairs in a barrack room the whole extent of the house, with several beds in it, one of which was already occupied by a man and his wife, from the neighbouring country, who both conversed with me until I feigned sleep, in hopes that would silence them, but though they then ceased to direct their discourse to me, they continued to talk to each other on their most private and domestick affairs, as though there had been no other person in the room. In spite of their conversation I at last fell asleep, but I was soon awoke in torture from a general attack made on me by hosts of vermin of the most troublesome and disgusting genii. I started from the bed, dressed myself, spread a coverlet on the floor, and lay down there to court a little more repose, but I was prevented by a constant noise in the house during the whole night, beginning with church musick, among which some sweet female voices were discernible, and ending in the loud drunken frolicks of some rustick guests, who kept Saturday night until late on Sunday morning.
Previous to going to bed I had sauntered round the town, and I observed all the taverns filled with guests in the roughest style of conviviality, from which I infer that the last day of the week is generally devoted to the orgies of Bacchus; by the same classes of people who on the succeeding day, attend with pious regularity the dogmatick lectures of some fanatick dispenser of the gospel. What an heterogeneous {201} animal is man!—sometimes exalted to an approach towards divinity, sometimes debased to lower than brutality:—A perpetual struggle between the essence and the dregs.
The dawn of morning relieved me from my uncomfortable couch, and going down stairs, I found all as silent as an hour before it had been noisy. I walked out into the town, where the same stillness prevailed, so I lounged along the banks of the Hockhocking enjoying the morning air, until a thick mist rising with the sun envelopped me, when I returned to the inn and finding the stage ready to depart, I again mounted Mr. Willis’s horse, and set out in advance of it.
Leaving New Lancaster and the fog below, I proceeded eighteen miles through a hilly country, with settlements within every mile, many of which were taverns. I then stopped at Babb’s, the sign of the house, appropriate to its being the half way house between Lancaster and Zanesville. Here an old father, two sons and three daughters, (spruce, well formed girls, with a most wonderful volubility of tongue) worried me with questions, until I excused myself from further gratifying their inexhaustible curiosity by pleading fatigue, and throwing myself on a bed, I awaited the arrival of the stage, about an hour, when we got an excellent breakfast, every article of which served as a topick for conversation to our garrulous entertainers, who affected to know a little of every thing and of every body.
Nine miles from Babb’s, through a similar country and very bad road with houses and taverns as in the morning, brought me to Jonathan’s creek, a handsome little river, about twenty yards wide, which I forded. The road was now generally level seven miles to Springfield, mostly through pleasant and rich little bottoms, with the creek close on the right more than half the way, and the country so thickly {202} inhabited, that was it not for the dead girdled[146] trees every where in the corn and wheat fields and meadows, it would have the appearance of an old settlement.
About a mile from Springfield I passed through a fine plain of a light sandy soil very proper for small grain, such as wheat, rye and oats, which has been cleared previous to this country being known to the whites. It is now covered with dwarf oak, hazle, and other copse wood, and contains probably fifteen hundred acres.