Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 4).djvu/156

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  • chase. He is a native of Franche {129} Comtè, and his

wife is from Burgundy. They are very civil and obliging, and have a fine family. It is fifteen years since they arrived in this country, together with nearly 800 emigrants from France, of whom only about twenty families now remain at Galliopolis; the rest having either returned to France, descended the Ohio to French Grant, proceeded to the banks of the Mississippi, or fallen victims to the insalubrity of the climate, which however no longer, or only partially exists, as it has gradually ameliorated in proportion to the progress of settlement.[99]

Menager has a curious machine for drawing water from his well forty or fifty feet deep, and which will answer equally well for any depth. He got the model from Mr. Blennerhasset. As I am not mechanick enough to give an adequate description of it, I shall only remark, that it is equally simple and ingenuous, and saves much labour; the full bucket flying up and emptying itself into a small wooden cistern, while the empty bucket sinks at the same time into the well, and that without being obliged to work a winch as in the common mode, where wells are too deep for pumps.

In Galliopolis there are about fifty houses all of wood, in three long streets parallel to the river, crossed at right angles by six shorter ones, each one hundred feet wide. A spacious square is laid out in the centre, on which they are now making brick to build a court-house for Gallia county.

During a walk through the town after breakfast, we were civilly accosted by an old man at the door of the most western house, who invited us to enter and rest ourselves. He was