I set out at half past nine o’clock, and soon gained the top of the hill immediately over Wheeling, from whence there is a handsome bird’s eye view of that town, Zane’s island in fine cultivation, the two ferries across the Ohio, and the village of Canton beyond; while on the left the Ohio is seen winding among hills five or six miles below, and the view is bounded in that direction, by one ridge rising beyond another to a great distance. Turning round on the narrow ridge over which the road leads, I had Wheeling creek directly under me at the foot of a precipice, it running in such a manner as to make the scite of the town with the hill behind, almost a peninsula, between it and the Ohio.
I had proceeded about a mile, when meeting a traveller, of whom I inquired, I found I had taken a wrong road, in consequence of which I had to descend a steep precipice on my right, letting myself down with my hands from one tree to another, to the bottom. Here I got into the right road, which follows the meanders of the creek up a fine valley that has been settled about thirty years, and is now in a state of excellent cultivation.
{213} At two miles from Wheeling I passed a very handsome house, a fine farm, and a mill of a Mr. Woods on the left. Here I could not help being struck with the difference of appearance between this wooden house painted white, with green jalousie window shutters and red roof, and the stone and brick houses of Ohio and Kentucky, much in favour of the former, however better in reality the latter may be. A mile farther I passed Mr. Chaplin’s fine merchant mill, and about a mile and a half beyond that, where the valley narrows, I observed on the left, some very remarkable large loose rocks, which seem to have fallen from a rocky cliff which impends above.
Half a mile beyond this, I stopped at a Mr. Eoff’s neat cottage and good farm, where every thing had an air of plenty and comfort. Four or five genteel looking young women were all engaged in sedentary domestick avocations, and an old lady served me with some milk and water which I had requested, after which I resumed my walk.
A mile up the side of the creek brought me to Mr. Shepherd’s mill, and elegant house of cut stone.[149] Here the creek forks and the road also, one of the forks called Big Wheeling coming from the S. E. and the right hand road leading along it to Morgantown; the left fork called Little Wheeling, which forms Mr. Shepherd’s mill race, coming from the eastward, and my road towards Washington leading along it, through a narrow valley with small farms, wherever a bottom or an easy declivity of the hills would permit.
I was here overtaken by a man on horseback, who very courteously insisted on my riding his horse, while he walked above a mile. He was a county Tyrone man in the north of Ireland, settled twelve years in America, the last six of which has been in this neighbourhood, where he cultivated a farm with good success. Indeed industry and sobriety is all {214} that is necessary in any part of the United States, to the westward of the mountains, to insure a comfortable independence in a very few years.
My companion stopping at a house on the road, I again proceeded alone to M’Kinley’s tavern, four miles from Shepherd’s. I here left the creek on the left, crossing a smaller one which falls into it from the right, and I then ascended a steep and high hill, called Roney’s point, from its being the point of a ridge, and first owned by one Roney. It was above half a mile to the top of hill, from whence a fine, thickly settled and well cultivated, but very hilly country broke on my view, beautifully variegated with cornfields in tassel—wheat and oat stubble—meadows—orchards—cottages—and stacks of grain and hay innumerable, with a small coppice of wood between every plantation.
Descending a little, a mile and a half further brought me to William Trusdale’s cottage, where I rested, and refreshed with some buttermilk and water, and then went on through the same kind of country, four miles from Trusdale’s, to the Virginia and Pennsylvania boundary line, half a mile beyond which I entered the village of Alexandria. A gust approaching fast I stopped about half an hour at John Woodburn’s tavern. This village is named from a Mr. Alexander, the proprietor of the soil, and is nicknamed Hardscramble, either from the hilly roads by which one arrives at it, or from the difficulty experienced by the first settlers to obtain a subsistence. It contains about a dozen houses and cabins, a meeting house, and three taverns, but it does not seem to thrive.[150]
After the gust I proceeded six miles through a very fine country, charmingly variegated, but hilly, to M’Crackan’s tavern. The rain had rendered the road so slippery, that I could travel but slowly, so that it was almost dark when I arrived there.
{215} I found another traveller in the house, who was going from the western part of Massachusetts near Albany, to the western part of Virginia, as an agent to dispose of some large tracts of land there, owned by some people in Albany. Having got some thickened milk for supper, and bathed my feet in cold water, I had a fine night’s rest.