Passing Turkey creek on the right, and Conoconecq creek on the left, seven miles more brought us opposite to a very handsome insulated mountain, five hundred feet high, on the right, and passing Willow (small) island and bar on the same hand, we landed nearly opposite to buy milk at a decent looking cabin and small farm. It was owned by one Colgin, an Irishman, who has been several years in Kentucky, but only two in his present residence. He has only eight acres cleared, on which he maintains himself, his wife, and seven children, who are all comfortably and even becomingly drest. There was an air of natural civility, and even kindness, in the manner of this family, which I had not observed before on the banks of the Ohio. The children, who were all born in Kentucky, were uncommonly handsome.
Three miles further we passed on the right, Twin creeks, about a hundred yards apart, a mile beyond which we anchored under the Ohio shore at half past nine, and passed under our awning as cold a night as I have experienced in the more northern climates in November. The sudden and frequent changes from excessive heat to excessive cold throughout the United States, are amongst the greatest inconveniences to which the inhabitants are exposed, and are very trying to delicate constitutions, being the cause of pulmonary complaints, which are very common, particularly among the females.
On the clear, cold morning, of the twenty-ninth of July,
- [Footnote: Alexandria, Virginia, in 1783 and remained there nine years, forming a personal
acquaintance with Washington, Knox, and other public men. Sent west on public business in 1791, he remained as deputy-quartermaster of the army until after Wayne's victory, when he purchased land at the mouth of Turkey Creek, and built thereon the house of which Cuming speaks. It was a large two-story frame building, unusually good for the region, and was named "Belvidere." Major Belli married a cousin of General Harrison, and although the founder of Alexandria at the mouth of the Scioto, preferred his home at Turkey Creek, where he died in 1809.—Ed.]
