Page:The part taken by women in American history.djvu/84

Rh rocky and steep ascent of the mountain roads. Near the last of November when they reached the point where the Monongahela and the Alleghany meet in the waters of the Ohio, they rested after their terrible struggles through the mountains. The old garrison Fort Pitt was then standing as a protection to the few hundred inhabitants. While their boats in which they had come down the Monongahela were moored the waters rose, and the men rushing to the rescue, the entire party was carried down the river to a point called Fort Mackintosh at the mouth of the Beaver and to the new settlement at Muskingum. Here they embarked for a place known as Buffalo, to which point some of their friends from the East had preceded them. The following spring a company was formed and a settlement established on the Ohio River called Belpre, and here Captain Duvall, Mr. Rouse, and several other settlers, joined by many from New England, moved their families. In 1790, Bathsheba Rouse opened a school for boys and girls at Belpre, which is believed to be the first school for white children in the state of Ohio. Bathsheba Rouse married Richard Greene, the son of Griffin Greene, one of the Ohio Company's agents. Cynthia Rouse became the wife of Hon. Paul Fearing, the first delegate to Congress from the Northwest Territory and for many years a judge of the court. Levi Barber, a receiver of public moneys and a member of Congress for two sessions, was the husband of Elizabeth Rouse. These early settlers were the founders of the state of Ohio. Many of these settlers of the Northwest Territory were men in the prime of life who had exhausted their fortunes in the War of Independence, and being left in the most impoverished condition, had chosen to seek their fortunes in the new country west of the Alleghanies. Many of the young men were the descendants of the Revolutionary patriots who had given their lives for their country. The Moravian school at Bethlehem at this time enjoyed quite a reputation. We find