Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 4).djvu/161



Big Guiandot river—Crumps's farm—Inhospitable reception—General remark—Two hunters—Cotton plantation, and gin for cleaning the cotton—Snakes—Remedy for their bite—Great Sandy river—State boundary—Hanging rock.

Six miles below Bowden's, we passed Big Guiandot river which joins the Ohio from the left, and is about eighty yards wide, having one Buffington's finely situated house and farm on the bank just below it. From Bowden's to Big Guiandot, the banks of the Ohio are well settled on both sides. In the next eleven miles, we passed three creeks on the right, and one on the left hand, the second one called Indian Guiandot, only worth remarking. It coming on to rain very heavy, we stopped here at the end of eleven miles, just above the mouth of a fine little river on the left called Twelve Pole creek, about thirty yards wide, with a ferry and a large scow or flat for carrying over horses or cattle. The house we stopped at was very well situated on the top of a high sloping bank, and was the residence of one Crumps, who had removed here from Kentucky, and possessed the rich and well cultivated surrounding farm. The family were at breakfast, but no place was offered at the table to the wet travellers, though it was well loaded with viands, which Mr. Crumps apparently knew how to make the best use of for fattening, as his corpulency and general appearance strongly indicated a propensity to boorish gluttony. Indeed we were not permitted to enter the eating room, but with a sort of sullen civility, were desired to sit down in an open space which divides two enclosed ends from each other, but all covered with the same roof, and which is the usual style of the cottages in this part of the country. The space in the middle is probably {135} left unenclosed, for the more