Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 4).djvu/121

 *cuted. Yet notwithstanding appearances, our impression of the town was not the most favourable, nor after tolerable beds and a good breakfast next morning, had we reason to alter our opinion when we examined it by day light.

It contains one hundred and twenty houses of all descriptions from middling downwards, in a street about half a mile long, parallel to the river, on a bank of about one hundred feet perpendicular, which the face of the cliff almost literally is, of course the avenues to the landings are very steep and inconvenient. The court-house of stone with a small belfry, has nothing in beauty to boast of. The gaol joins it in the rear.

It is probable that Mr. Zanes, the original proprietor, now regrets that he had not placed the town on the flat below, at the conflux of the Wheeling and Ohio, where Spriggs's inn and the ship-yards now are, instead of cultivating it as a farm until lately, when a resolve of congress to open a new publick state road from the metropolis through the western country, which will come to the Ohio near the mouth of Wheeling creek, induced him to lay it out in town lots, but I fear he is too late to see it become a considerable town to the prejudice of the old one, notwithstanding its more advantageous situation.—The present town does not seem to thrive, if one may judge by the state of new buildings, two only of which I saw going forward in it. The stores also appeared rather thinly stocked with goods, and the retail prices are high. When the new road is finished, it will doubtless be of great use to Wheeling, as it will be a more direct route to the western states, {96} than any of the others hitherto used, and besides there are no material impediments to the navigation of the Ohio with the usual craft, below that town in the driest seasons, when the river is at the lowest.

The surrounding country in sight is hilly and broken,