Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 4).djvu/166

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would recover. White is an intelligent man, and makes a trade of sinking wells, of which he has sunk a very fine one, of forty-five feet deep for Mr. Hunt, near a good two story house almost finished.

French Grant contains twenty-four thousand acres, given by the United States to some French settlers, who had been disappointed in the titles of their purchases at Galliopolis, amongst whom a Mons. Gervais[106] had for his part four thousand acres, on which he planned a town, which he named Burrsburgh, in honour of the then vice president: but after passing ten solitary years in a small log cabin, with no society except that of his dog and cat, during which time he employed himself in cultivating his little garden, he last year sold his whole tract to Mr. Hunt, except two hundred and seventeen acres, given by him to an {139} agent in Philadelphia, as a recompence for his having enabled him to fulfil the engagement to government by which he held the land. He now lives in Galliopolis, and Mr. Hunt has changed the intended Burrsburgh into a farm.

On our walk to the boat I gave White some directions for himself as preventive to the prevailing disorder, for which he thanked me, and asked our charge for the freight of doctor Merrit's box in such a manner as to preclude the possibility of making any.

We then crossed the river at Greenupsburgh, the seat of justice of Greenup county, in Kentucky. It is laid out for a town within the last year, but it contains as yet only one dwelling house, occupied by one Lyons as a tavern, where the courts are held; immediately in the rear of which is a strong and wretched dungeon of double logs, called the