ex LIFE OF WILSON. 



stone, which were found in digging on the opposite side of this 

 gigantic mound, where I found the hole still remaining. The 

 whole of an extensive plain a short distance from this is mark- 

 ed out with squares, oblongs and circles, one of which com- 

 prehends several acres. The embankments by which they are 

 distinguished are still two or three feet above the common level 

 of the field. The Big Grave is the property of a Mr. Tomlin- 

 son, or Tumblestone, who lives near, and who would not ex- 

 pend three cents to see the whole sifted before his face. I en- 

 deavoured to work on his avarice, by representing the proba- 

 bility that it might contain valuable matters, and suggested 

 to him a mode by which a passage might be cut into it level 

 with the bottom, and by excavation and arching, a most noble 

 cellar might be formed for keeping his turnips and potatoes. 

 " All the turnips and potatoes I shall raise this dozen years," 

 said he, " would not pay the expense." This man is no anti- 

 quary, or theoretical farmer, nor much of a practical one either 

 I fear; he has about two thousand acres of the best land, and 

 just makes out to live. Near the head of what is called the 

 Long Reach, I called on a certain Michael Cressap, son to the 

 noted colonel Cressap, mentioned in Jefferson's Notes on Vir- 

 ginia. From him I received the head of a Paddle fish, the 

 largest ever seen in the Ohio, which I am keeping for Mr. 

 Peale, with various other curiosities. I took the liberty of 

 asking whether Logan's accusation of his father having killed 

 all his family, had any truth in it; but he replied that it had 

 not. Logan, he said, had been misinformed; he detailed to 

 me all the particulars, which are too long for repetition, and 

 concluded by informing me that his father died early in the re- 

 volutionary war, of the camp fever, near New York. 



"Marietta stands on a swampy plain, which has evidently once 

 been the ancient bed of the Muskingum, and is still occasion- 

 ally inundated to the depth of five or six feet. A Mr. Putnam, 

 son to the old general of Bunker's Hill memory, and Mr. Gill- 

 man and Mr. Fearing', are making great exertions here, in in- 

 troducing and multiplying the race of merinos. The two latter 



