Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 4).djvu/177

 *ville;[112] but those attempts to establish towns on their estates, will serve to give some idea of the ambitious and enterprising spirit which actuates the landholders in this country.

Maysville is the greatest shipping port on the Ohio, below Pittsburgh, but it is merely such, not being a place of much business itself, but only serving as the principal port for the north eastern part of the state {149} of Kentucky, as Louisville does for the south western. It has not increased any for several years, and contains only about sixty houses. It is closely hemmed in by the river hills, over which the most direct road from Philadelphia through Pittsburgh and Chilicothe leads to Lexington, and thence through the state of Tennessee to New Orleans.

Several vessels of all sizes from four hundred tons downwards, have been built here, but as none are now going forward, I presume the builders did not find that business answerable to their expectations. It is a post town, the mails from both east and west arriving on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Its situation causing it to be much resorted by travellers, that gives it an appearance of liveliness and bustle, which might induce a stranger to think it a place of more consequence in itself than it really is.

After breakfasting with our host, I delivered a letter of introduction to Mr. George Gallagher, one of the principal