by a sand bar to the right shore, where Jacob Neasley has a good two story wooden house, with a piazza.[64]
Four miles further we stopped at Wm. Croxton's tavern, the sign of the Black Horse, on the Virginia side, and got a bowl of excellent cider-oil. This is stronger than Madeira and is obtained from the cider by suffering it to freeze in the cask during the winter, and then drawing off and barrelling up the spirituous part which remains liquid, while the aqueous is quickly congealed by the frost. Croxton and his wife had a youthful appearance, notwithstanding they had eight children, seven of whom were living.
He was born in this neighbourhood, lived here during the last Indian war, and cultivated a bottom opposite, through which flows a rivulet called Croxton's run, which turns a grist and saw mill.[65] On the United States appropriating the N. W. territory, now the state of Ohio, he lost all that property by its being purchased by others, before he became informed of the necessity of his securing his tenure by obtaining a grant from the government. He complained {87} of a toothache, from the torture of which I relieved him, by burning the nerve with a hot knitting needle, which however did not prevent him from charging us for our cider.
On the opposite bank a mile below Croxton's, a Mr. White of Middleton in Virginia, is building a fine house of hewn stone; and a mile further on the same side, we admired the romantick situation of a farm house, with a garden tastily filled with a profusion of flowers; opposite to which on the Virginia side, is a remarkable cliff near the top of the high
