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14 Lewis Wetzel. 
Virgil have immortalized the Roman agriculture and horticulture, 
and produced a poem not only instructive, but highly attractive, 
and which, for eighteen centuries, has been a classical study. 
After spending a very pleasant day, and receiving many marks of 
kindness and attention from my friends, 1 embarked on board the 
steam boat Hero, at 4, P. M., for the mouth of the Big Beaver 
River. This stream was so named on account of the great number 
of beavers found on its head branches, and in the small ponds from 
which some of its waters flow. it is a stream of considerable mag- 
nitude, abounding in valuable mill seats, and is destined to furnish a 
supply of water for that portion of the Ohio and Pennsylvania Canal 
which passes down its valley. The distance from Steubenville to 
Beaver is about forty miles. . 
Adventure of Lewis Wetzel.*—Amongst the heroes of border 
warfare, Lewis Wetzel held no inferior station. Inured to hard- 
ships while yet in boyhood, and familiar with all the varieties of for- 
est adventure, from that of hunting the beaver and the bear, to that 
of the wily Indian, he became one of the most celebrated marks- 
men of the day. His form was erect, and of that height best adapt- 
ed to activity, being very muscular, and possessed of great bodily 
strength. From constant exercise, he could without fatigue, bear 
prolonged and violent exertion, especially that of running and walk- 
ing; and he had, by practice acquired the art of loading his rifle when 
running at full speed through the forest, and wheeling on the instant; 
he could discharge it with unerring aim, at the distance of eighty or 
one hundred yards, into a mark not larger than a dollar. This art 
he has been known more than once to practice with fatal success on 
his savage foes. 
A marksman of superior skill was, in those days, estimated by the 
other borderers, much in the same way that a knight templar, or a 
knight of the cross, who excelled in the tournament or the charge, 
was, valued by his cotemporaries, in the days of chivalry. Chal- 
lenges of skill often took place ; and marksmen who lived at the dis- 
tance of fifty miles or more from each other, frequently met by ap- 
pointment, to try the accuracy of their aim, on bets of considerable 
amount. Wetzel’s fame had spread far and wide, as the most ex- 
pert and unerring shot of the day. It chanced that a young man, a 
* Received from a gentleman of my acquaintance, to whom one of the party re- 
lated the story; - few years — the — - — place; and with which my 
friend was also familiar n of o 
