I got a very good supper—bathed my feet and went to bed in a room where a man and his wife, a young married couple, in another bed, acted over a {210} similar scene to what I had experienced at New Lancaster, keeping me awake chatting to me until a very late hour.
After a short but sound sleep, I awoke at an early hour well refreshed, and pushed on eleven miles to St. Clairsville, through a fine, well improved, and well inhabited country, which was still hilly, but the ridges were neither so steep nor so high, as they are in general at this side of Chilicothe.
I stopped at Thompson’s stage inn, where Mrs. Thompson who was very civil, prepared me a good breakfast.
St. Clairsville, or Newelstown, as it is more frequently improperly called, is the capital of Belmont county, and is pleasantly situated on the point and top of the highest hill within sight, from whence twelve or fourteen miles of ridges and woods may be seen in every direction, some of them across the Ohio, which I was now again approaching. The town is only about four years old, and already contains eighty good houses, including several stores and taverns. It has a court-house and gaol, and altogether it has the greatest appearance of wealth and business of any town between Chilicothe and itself. There are several Quakers, settled in the neighbourhood, who are a snug, wealthy and industrious people, and who enhance the value of real property in a wide extent around the focus of their settlements.
Leaving St. Clairsville at eleven o’clock, I joined a footman named Musgrave, who was going to Morgantown in Virginia, to collect money to pay off some incumbrances on his lands below Limestone. He was a plain man, but an intelligent, expeditious and economical traveller, whose company shortened the road to Wheeling. It is a well settled country and a fine road, the first six miles from St. Clairsville. We then descended a long hill into the river bottom of Indian Wheeling, where we came to a good grist {211} and saw mill. Keeping down that fine little mill river five miles to its confluence with the Ohio, we forded it five times in that distance.
On the banks of the Ohio is a new town called Canton, laid out by Mr. Zane last year, which has now thirteen houses. We here crossed a ferry of a quarter of a mile to Zane’s island, which we walked across, upwards of half a mile, through a fertile, extensive, and well cultivated farm, the property of Mr. Zane, some of whose apples, pulled from the orchard in passing, were very refreshing to us, while we sat on the bank nearly an hour awaiting the ferry boat. At last the boat came, and we crossed the second ferry of another quarter of a mile to Wheeling.
Here my fellow traveller took leave of me, purposing to go five or six miles further ere night, though it was now five o’clock, and we had already walked upwards of thirty miles since morning.
CHAPTER XXXV
Economy of my late fellow traveller—Proceed towards Washington—Fine view of Wheeling and the Ohio—Lose my road—Get right again by descending a precipice—A fine valley with several handsome seats and mills—Stop at Mr. Eoff’s—A well regulated family—Little Wheeling creek—An obliging traveller—Roney’s point—Beautiful and picturesque country—Alexandria or Hardscramble—M’Crackan’s—Good effects of temperance and cleanliness in travelling.
I stopped at Knox’s inn, where I asked for some beer, not daring to drink wine or spirits. They had none, so I walked out to a small house where I had observed on a sign Beer and Cakes. On entering {212} I found Musgrave making a hearty meal on a cent roll and a pint of beer. He appeared as glad to see me again as if we had been old acquaintances, and had been long parted, and was easily prevailed on to make a second libation with me to the prosperous termination of our journies, in that humble, but wholesome and refreshing beverage. I then returned to Knox’s, where I supped and slept. Next morning at dawn, I took a plunge in the river, and after breakfast, finding my strength invigorated and my spirits renovated by the cold bath, I continued my journey on foot by the most direct road to Washington, instead of awaiting for the stage according to my first intention, as it had to go ten miles out of the direct road to deliver the mail at Charlestown.