Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 4).djvu/259

 who had taken great pains to cultivate a good garden, which Mr. Ross does not neglect, and in which, on the top of an ancient Indian tumulus or barrow, is a handsome octangular summer house of lattice work, painted white, which forms a conspicuous and pleasing object.

From Mr. Ross's, which is immediately behind the top of Grant's hill, there is a gradual slope to a small but elevated plain, called Scotch or Scots hill, from its being the residence of several families from the northern Hebrides. It is improperly called a hill as it is no higher than the general level of the town, which is about forty feet above the low water mark of the Monongahela, to the bank of which river this plain extends, from the foot of the hill below Mr. Ross's house.

A valley commencing at the upper extremity of this plain, divides Grant's and Grove hills (the latter the seat of Mr. Tannehill before mentioned) from Boyd's hill, which equally steep and twice as high as Grant's, is the most striking feature in the view, {228} still looking to the right over the principal part of the town. This valley is watered by a little rivulet called Suke's[163] run, which flows past a pleasant retired situation, said to have been formerly inhabited by one Anthony Thompson, long before Pittsburgh was a town. A few indigenous plum trees are the only vestiges of its former occupancy. The rivulet passes Mr. Watson's large brick house, supplies a tanyard owned by general O'Hara, then crossing the Monongahela road, falls into that river at the shipyards, at a low inlet between Scots hill plain and Boyd's hill, where several vessels have been built, some as large as four hundred tons. The coal which supplies Pittsburgh with fuel, is brought on wagons from a distance not