Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 9).djvu/106



Descend the Ohio from Beaver—Georgetown—Steubenville— Wellsburgh—Warren—Wheeling—Marietta—Muskingum river—Guyandat river—Letarts rapids—Kanhaway river—Point Pleasant—Galliopolis—Big Sandy river—Portsmouth—Occurrences and Remarks interspersed.

Portsmouth, Ohio, 18th Nov. 1818.

On the 29th of October I again got afloat.—The weather clear and fine, but the current of the river in most parts so slow that the eye could scarcely discover its motion.—Passed the mouth of Big Beaver Creek, 29-1/4 miles from Pittsburg.

Stopped for the night at a tavern 42-1/2 miles from Pittsburg. Opposite, on the Virginia shore of the river, stands Georgetown, a neat village, with a public ferry.—On little Beaver Creek are several grist and saw mills, a paper-mill, and several other machines. In the mouth of a creek, I observed that the surface of the water was tinged with the oil of naphtha.

A young gentleman, from Virginia, had stopped in the tavern sick; the hostess and neighbours {77} were very attentive to the unfortunate stranger.

October 30. At the distance of half a mile below Little Beaver Creek, the meridional line crosses the river, which separates Pennsylvania from Virginia on the south side of the river, and from the State of Ohio on the north side.