Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 4).djvu/50



Harrisburgh ferry—Old Jameson—The Conestoga massacre—Militia riflemen—Carlisle and Dickenson college.

On Saturday 24th, I arose early, but the ferry-boat not being ready, I partook of an excellent breakfast with my friendly host and his family, and at ten o'clock I embarked in a large flat, with the western mail and several passengers and horses. The flat was worked by nine stout men, with short setting poles shod and pointed with iron, to break the ice and stick in the bottom. Only one set or pushed on the upper side, while eight set on the lower side, to keep the boat from being forced by the current against the ice, while a tenth steered with a large oar behind. A channel for this purpose had been cut through the ice, and was kept open as loaded wagons could cross the river in a flat with more safety than on the ice.

In twenty-two minutes we were landed on the western shore of the Susquehannah in Cumberland county; and I trudged on, my foot paining me very much, until half past twelve o'clock, when I stopped at a tavern seven miles from the ferry and got some refreshment. Here I found a tall active old man of the name of Jameson, seventy-six years of age, who had crossed the ferry with me, and had afterwards passed me on the road, on horseback. He had accompanied his parents from the county Antrim in Ireland when only six years old, had resided thirty-six years at Paxton, near where Harrisburgh has since been built, (where he had been on business) and had afterwards removed to a part of Virginia about two hundred miles distant, where he has a large farm and distillery. He insisted on treating me, as he said, he liked to encourage the consumption of whiskey; of which, and the telling of old stories he was so fond, that he appeared to forget he had so {27} long a journey before