Gallipoli.—State of the French colony Scioto.—Alexandria at the mouth of the Great Scioto.—Arrival at Limestone in Kentucky.
Gallipoli is situated four miles below Point Pleasant, on the right bank of the Ohio. At this place assembled nearly a fourth part of the French, who, in 1789 and 1790, left their country to go and settle at Scioto: but it was not till after a sojourn of fifteen months at Alexandria in Virginia, where they waited the termination of the war with the savages, that they could take possession of the lands which they had bought so dearly. They were even on the point of being dispossessed of them, on account of the disputes that arose between the Scioto Company and that of the Ohio, of whom the former had primitively purchased these estates; but scarcely had they arrived upon the soil that was destined for {99} them when the war broke out afresh between the Americans and Indians, and ended in the destruction of those unfortunate colonies. There is no doubt that, alone and destitute of support, they would have been all massacred, had it not been for the predilection which all the Indian nations round Canada and Louisiana have for the French. Again, as long as they did not take an active part in that war, they were not disturbed: but the American army having gained a signal advantage near the embouchure of the Great Kenaway, and crossed the Ohio, the inhabitants of Gallipoli were united to it. From that time they were no longer protected, nor could they stir out of the inclosure of their village. Out of two that had strayed not more than two hundred yards, one was scalped and murdered, and the other carried a prisoner a great distance into the interior. When I was at Gallipoli they had just heard from him. He gained his livelihood very comfortably by repairing guns, and exercising his trade as a goldsmith in the Indian village where he lived, and did not express the least wish to return with his countrymen.
The war being terminated, the congress, in order to indemnify these unfortunate Frenchmen for the {100} successive losses which they had sustained, gave them twenty thousand acres of land situated between the small rivers Sandy and Scioto, seventy miles lower than Gallipoli. These twenty thousand acres were at the rate of two hundred and ten acres to every family. Those among them who had neither strength nor resolution enough to go a second time, without any other support than that of their children, to isolate themselves amidst the woods, hew down, burn, and root up the lower parts of trees, which are frequently more than five feet in diameter, and afterward split them to inclose their fields, sold their lots to the Americans or Frenchmen that were somewhat more enterprising. Thirty families only went to settle in their new possessions. Since the three or four years that they have resided there they have succeeded, by dint of labour, in forming for themselves tolerable establishments, where, by the help of a soil excessively fertile, they have an abundant supply of provisions; at least I conceived so, when I was there.
Gallipoli, situated on the borders of the Ohio, is composed solely of about sixty log-houses, most of which being uninhabited, are falling into ruins; the rest are occupied by Frenchmen, who breathe out a {101} miserable existence. Two only among them appear to enjoy the smallest ray of comfort: the one keeps an inn, and distills brandy from peaches, which he sends to Kentucky, or sells it at a tolerable advantage: the other, M. Burau, from Paris, by whom I was well entertained, though unacquainted with him. Nothing can equal the perseverance of this Frenchman, whom the nature of his commerce obliges continually to travel over the banks of the Ohio, and to make, once or twice a year, a journey of four or five hundred miles through the woods, to go to the towns situated beyond the Alleghany Mountains. I learnt from him that the intermittent fevers, which at first had added to the calamities of the inhabitants of Gallipoli, had not shown itself for upwards of three years. That, however, did not prevent a dozen of them going lately to New Orleans in quest of a better fortune, but almost all of them died of the yellow fever the first year after their arrival.
Such was the situation of the establishment of Scioto when I was there. Though they did not succeed better, it is not that the French are less persevering and industrious than the Americans and Germans; it is that among those who departed for Scioto not a tenth part were fit for the toils they {102} were destined to endure. However, it was not politic of the speculators, who sold land at five shillings an acre, which at that time was not worth one in America, to acquaint those whom they induced to purchase that they would be obliged, for the two first years, to have an axe in their hands nine hours a day; or that a good wood-cutter, having nothing but his hands, would be sooner at his ease on those fertile borders, but which he must, in the first place, clear, than he who, arriving there with two or three hundred guineas in his purse, is unaccustomed to such kind of labour. This cause, independent of the war with the natives, was more than sufficient to plunge the new colonists in misery, and stifle the colony in its birth.[34]
On the 25th of July we set out from Gallipoli for Alexandria, which is about a hundred and four miles distant, and arrived there in three days and a half. The ground designed for this town is at the mouth of the Great Scioto, and in the angle which the right bank of this river forms with the north west border of the Ohio. Although the plan of Alexandria has been laid out these many years, nobody goes to settle there; and the number of its houses is not more than twenty, the major part of which are {103} log-houses. Notwithstanding its situation is very favourable with regard to the numerous settlements already formed beyond the new town upon the Great Scioto, whose banks, not so high, and more marshy, are, it is said, nearly as fertile as those of the Ohio. The population would be much more considerable, if the inhabitants were not subject, every autumn, to intermittent fevers, which seldom abate till the approach of winter. This part of the country is the most unwholesome of all those that compose the immense state of Ohio. The seat of government belonging to this new state is at Chillicotha, which contains about a hundred and fifty houses, and is situated sixty miles from the mouth of the Great Scioto. A weekly newspaper is published there.[35]
At Alexandria, and the other little towns in the western country, which are situated upon a very rich soil, the space between every house is almost entirely covered with stramonium. This dangerous and disagreeable plant has propagated surprisingly in every part where the earth has been uncovered and cultivated within twelve or fifteen years; and let the inhabitants do what they will, it spreads still wider every year. It is generally supposed to have made its appearance at James-Town in Virginia, whence it derived {104} the name of Jamesweed. Travellers use it to heal the wounds made on horses’ backs occasioned by the rubbing of the saddle.
Mullein is the second European plant that I found very abundant in the United States, although in a less proportion than the stramonium. It is very common on the road leading from Philadelphia to Lancaster, but less so past the town; and I saw no more of it beyond the Alleghany Mountains.
On the 1st of August we arrived at Limestone in Kentucky, fifty miles lower than Alexandria. There ended my travels on the Ohio. We had come three hundred and forty-eight miles in a canoe from Wheeling, and had taken ten days to perform the journey, during which we were incessantly obliged to paddle, on account of the slowness of the stream. This labour, although painful, at any rate, to those who are unaccustomed to it, was still more so on account of the intense heat. We also suffered much from thirst, not being able to procure any thing to drink but by stopping at the plantations on the banks of the river; for in summer the water of the Ohio acquires such a degree of heat, that it is not fit to be drank till it has been kept twenty-four hours. This excessive heat is occasioned, on the one hand, by the {105} extreme heat of the climate in that season of the year, and on the other, by the slow movement of the stream.
I had fixed on the 1st of October to be the epoch of my return to Charleston in South Carolina, and I had nearly a thousand miles to go by land before I could arrive there, in executing the design I had formed of travelling through the state of Tennessea, which lengthened my route considerably. Pressed for time, I relinquished the intention I had formed of going farther down the Ohio, and took leave of Mr. Samuel Craft, who pursued by himself, in a canoe, his journey to Louisville, whence, after having come down the Ohio and Mississippi, he was to proceed up the river Yazous to go to Natches, and then return by land to the state of Vermont, where he expected to be about the middle of November following, after having made, in six months, a circuit of nearly four thousand miles.