Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 4).djvu/180

 the capital of Braken county, and in the heart of a very rich country, is a thriving town, and will probably continue to be so, notwithstanding it is without the advantage of any navigable river nearer than the Ohio at Maysville.[114]

Mr. Lee a merchant here, to whom I had letters of introduction was polite and obliging.[115] We got an excellent dinner, at Ebert's tavern; after which we hired two horses through Mr. Lee's interest, as it is difficult for strangers to procure horses on hire throughout this country. We engaged one at half a dollar, and the other at three quarters of a dollar a {152} day; the last from a Mr. Fristoe, a small man of sixty-eight, married to his second wife of thirty-two years of age. She is a contrast to her husband in size as well as years, she being tall and fat, and weighing two hundred and forty pounds. She is two years younger than his youngest daughter by his first wife. He has grand and great grand-*children born in Kentucky. He is a Virginian, and was once a man of large property, when he resided on the banks of one of the rivers which fall into the Chesapeak, where he loaded the ship in which captain, afterwards consul O'Brien was captured by the Algerines. By unfortunate land jobbing in Kentucky, he has lost his property, and is now a butcher in Washington.

He is truly a philosopher, contrasting his former with his present situation, with much good humour and pleasantry.

At three o'clock, we left Washington on horseback, and travelled on a good road through a well improved country, four miles to the north fork of Licking river, which we crossed