so 



the situation of the town exceedingly pleasant and 

 agreeable. It contains perhaps about an hundred 

 houses, built in a very neat manner, with hewn 

 timber, and principally on one street. It has an 

 handsome brick court-house, four stores of goods, 

 and four taverns. T.he town and the adjacent 

 country is settled mostly with Germans, from the 

 vicinity of Lancaster, in Pennsylvania. It is the 

 seat of justice for the county of Fairfield. 



From New-Lancaster to Chilecothe is thirty- 

 eight miles, and the face of the country, excepting 

 near Lancaster, where are a few moderate hills, 

 is very much a continued plain. It has a thin 

 soil and is badly watered. The growth small, 

 consisting mostly of black and white oak and some 

 hickory. The soil inclines to clay, which is con- 

 sidered indifferent for farming land. On the 

 southern extremity of this glade of land com- 

 mence the chains of hills which extend on the 

 Ohio and its branches for several hundred miles,. 

 On the northern extremity of this glade, the land 

 is very flat and low, and much of it too wet for 

 cultivation; but where the swells are so high as 

 not to be overflowed in the winter and spring, 

 the soil is rich, and produces large timber. At 

 the distance of 28 miles from Lancaster, about 

 three miles north of the State road, the Pickawa 

 plains begin and extend to the Scioto river. They 

 are several miles in width, not entirely level, 

 but interspersed with gentle swells, which render 

 fcfre prospect the more agreeable, This tract 5s 



