252 ^ Ten Days in Ohio. 



It was first laid off in 1796. " It has two printing offices with week- 

 ly papers, numerous mercantile stores and several flouring mills in 

 and about the town ; amongst the public buildings are a neat and 

 beautifully constructed Bank building ; a new market House, with 

 handsome cut stone columns in front, surmounted by a cupola and 

 bell ; a Court house ; several meeting houses, and an academy for 

 young females. Two of the Hotels are hardly surpassed by any 

 in America, either in size, elegance, or sumptuous entertainment. 

 From the summit of a hill, (the first of which appears, as you descend 

 the river, near this place) rising very abruptly on the west side of the 

 Scioto, to the height of three hundred feet, you have a most delight- 

 ful view of the town and surrounding country interspersed, with woods 

 and verdant lawns, amongst which the Scioto river meanders its si- 

 lent way to the Ohio." Its course from this place, a distance of sev- 

 enty miles, is southerly, through a hilly country. 



A fair. 



While in C. we attended a very interesting Exhibition and Fair, 

 got up by the ladies, who as is usual in odier places are here cele- 

 brated for their zeal and activity in useful and charitable objects. 

 The fair presented a great variety of fancy articles, executed, in 

 the neatest manner, by the ladies of the place, intermixed with 

 natural flowers, and arranged in the most tasteful order on tables 

 around a large hall ; several hundred dollars were realized from the 

 sale and devoted to the purchase of an organ for the Episcopal church. 

 We left Chilicothe at 3. P. M. crossing the Scioto on a well construct- 

 ed bridge, and returning by land on the east side of the river. After 

 crossing the bottom we gradually ascended the upland plains, here 

 about one hundred feet above the bed of the river, leaving the hill 

 region on our right, but still in sight of the road for several miles. 



A Tale. 

 While passing over this tract, a very interesting border tale, narra- 

 ted to me by a gentleman for several years personally acquainted with 

 the actor, was vividly recalled to my mind from the fact that the thea- 

 tre of the story was not far from this spot. Joshua Fleebart, was born 

 and brought up in the frontier settlement of Western Pennsylvania, 

 in the days of her border warfare. He was as much a child of the 

 forest as any of its copper colored tenants ; his whole life, from 

 boyhood to thirty years of age, having been spent in hunting bears, 

 deer, buffaloe, and occasionally Indians. He was also an experienced 

 trapper ; and knew how, with astonishing tact, to counteract and over- 



