Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 12).djvu/93

 purpose, I think about the first of October, 1798, in company with two friends, Joseph Harness and Leonard Stump, both of whom have long since gone hence. We took with us what provisions we could conveniently carry, and a good rifle to procure more when necessary, and further prepared ourselves to camp wherever night overtook us. Having a long journey before us, we traveled slow, and reached Clarksburgh the third night, which was then near the verge of the western settlements in Virginia, except along the Ohio river. Among our first inquiries of our apparently good, honest, illiterate landlord, was whether he could tell us how far it was to Marietta [Ohio], and what kind of trace we should have? His reply was, 'O yes, I can do that very thing exactly, as I have been recently appointed one of the viewers to lay out and mark a road from here to Marietta, and have just returned from the performance of that duty. The distance on a straight line which we first run was seventy-five miles, but on our return we found and marked another line that was much nearer.' This theory to Mr. Harness