Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 4).djvu/274

 in Upper Louisiana.[174] A few miles farther we spoke two large loaded canoes bound upwards.

Nine miles below Green river, we passed a point of rocks on the right—the only stone on the river between this and Shawanee town, a distance of seventy miles, on which account the section it lies in was bid up at publick sale to ten dollars an acre, though the usual price is two. Three miles from hence we left Blair's ferry on the right, where a road crosses from Kentucky, fifty-four miles to Vincennes. A mile more brought us to Patterson's on the right, where we landed in the skiff. Mr. Patterson is a Scotchman from Aberdeen, which he left before the revolutionary war, going to Grenada in the West Indies, where he managed the noble estate of Harvey's plains (noted for its rum of much superiour quality) nine years. The liver complaint forced him to remove from thence to New York, where he married and resided several years. He brought his family from thence to this place last year. Mrs. Patterson thought they were to find a country abundant in every thing, with little or no trouble, but now, being undeceived by experience, she jocularly remarked, that if the current of the river would change, she would most gladly seize the occasion to return immediately to where she came from. This family is settled in a much more comfortable manner than the generality of new planters. There were some neighbours on a {242} visit, and the table was covered for supper in a very neat and plentiful manner, which, with much hospitality, we