Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 3).djvu/182

 The river Muskingum takes its source toward Lake Eria; it is not navigable for two hundred miles from its mouth in the Ohio, where it is about a hundred and sixty fathoms broad.[32] The country that it runs through, and especially its banks, are extremely fertile.

Near the town of Marietta are the remains of several {91} Indian fortifications. When they were discovered, they were full of trees of the same nature as those of the neighbouring forests, some of which were upwards of three feet diameter. These trees have been hewn down, and the ground is now almost entirely cultivated with Indian corn.

Major-General Hart, with whose son I was acquainted at Marietta, gave, in the Columbia Magazine for the year 1787, Vol. I. No. 9, a plan and a minute description of these ancient fortifications of the Indians: the translation of which is given in his Travels in Upper Pennsylvania. This officer, of the most distinguished merit, fell in the famous battle that General St. Clair[33] lost in 1791, near Lake Eria, against the united savages. When I was at Marietta, General St. Clair was Governor of the State of Ohio, a post which he occupied till this state was admitted in the union. His Excellency coming from Pittsburgh and going to Chillicotha, alighted at the inn where I lodged. As he was travelling in an old chaise, and with-*