GALLIPOLIS AS TRAVELERS SAW IT,
1792-1811
By JOHN FRANCIS MCDERMOTT
On the fourth of June, 1790, Major John
Burnham, then at
Marietta, was instructed by General
Rufus Putnam "to proceed
with the people engaged in the service
of the trustees of the Scioto
proprietors . . . to a place on the Ohio
next Chickamaga creek, which
will be shown to you by Col. Meigs where
you will begin operations."
The letter of instructions specified
that the object is to erect four block
[houses] and a number of low huts, agreeably
to the plan which you will have
with you, and clear the lands. Your own
knowledge of hut building, the
block house of round logs which you will
have an opportunity to observe
at Belleprie, together with the plan so clearly
explained, renders it unnecessary
to be very particular; however, you will
remember that I don't expect you
will lay any floors or joyce for the
lower floors; plank for the doors must
be split and hewed and the doors hung
upon wooden hinges; as I don't expect
you will obtain any stone for the backs
of your chimneys, they must be made
of clay first, moulded into tile and
dried in manner you will be shown an
example at Belleprie.
On his arrival Burnham was to clear a spot (which will be pointed
out) and throw up a work, which must be
as near the place marked on the
plan as you can find a convenient or
best landing, where you will erect a
temporary or stone [store?] house and a
cover to keep you men dry till the
block houses are completed, which should
be your next object and after that
to proceed to building huts. In clearing
the lands, whatever timber is useful
for your building, should be cut and
selected for the purpose as you go along
and the rest cleared and burned entirely
off. Your clearing must be in one
continued body and extended up and down
the river equally from your work
as well as from the river.
Four days later Burnham arrived at the
spot which was to
become known as Gallipolis.1
1 E. C. Dawes, "Major John Burnham
and His Company," Ohio State Archaeological
and Historical Quarterly (Columbus), III (1890), 40-4. The thirty-six men of
Burnham's
company were each paid twenty-six cents
a day.
In the present article it is not my
purpose to write either a history of the founding
of Gallipolis or of the early years of
that town. I propose merely an account of the place
as various travelers saw it during the
first two decades and for this I draw upon a number
of sources most of which have not been
used by other writers. For detailed accounts of the
enterprise which led to the founding and
for much detail of the emigration from France
consult: A. B. Hulbert, "Andrew
Craigie and the Scioto Associates," American Antiquarian
Society Proceedings (Worcester,
Mass.), n. s., XXIII (1913), 222-36; A. B. Hulbert, "The
Methods and Operations of the Scioto
Group of Speculators," Mississippi Valley Historical
Review (Cedar Rapids, Ia.), I (1914), 502-15; II (1914),
56-73; T.T. Belote, "The Scioto
Speculation and the French Settlement at
Gallipolis," University of Cincinnati Studies, ser.
2, vol. III, no. 3 (Sept.-Oct. 1907);
John L. Vance, "The French Settlement and Settlers
(283)
284
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
This flurry of activity on the part of
the Ohio Company was
caused by the arrival of the first
French settlers in April and May,
1790, and their protest to Colonel
William Duer and others about
the lack of proper preparations to
receive them.2 They
continued
to disembark in numbers during the
summer and in the middle of
October some six hundred of them arrived
at Gallipolis.3 High
nobility, prosperous bourgeois,
soldiers, artists, professional men,
the religious, artisans, farmers--people
of all conditions were plan-
ning to establish themselves in this new
colony. Rich and poor,
learned and ignorant, devout and
sceptic, oppressed in France for
a conflicting variety of reasons, they
had set out for a French
paradise in the heart of the American
republic. The feelings of some,
at least, were described in a letter
written by one of them from
Buffalo Creek, on the Ohio, October 20,
1790.
An accident having happened to one of
our boats, we have put into a
small creek on the east side of this
great river to repair the damages. I am now
writing on the stump of a tree we have
just cut down, so that you will not
look for elegance or fine sentiment in
this letter, which I send you by a young
man, a native of Pennsylvania, who is
going to New Jersey. We traveled
by short days' journeys from the place
of embarkation, and can not say much
in favor of the manners of the
inhabitants of the road by which we passed,
a very few excepted, who paid some
attention to us and sold the products of
their farms at a reasonable rate; as to
others, they took every mean advantage,
and frequently imposed upon us, in a
shameful manner, demanding three or
four prices for the casual refreshments
of which we and our little ones had
occasion. We hope soon to arrive at our
new territory, where we shall find
things in their original state, such as
God made them and not perverted by the
ungrateful hand of man. To some the surrounding
woods might appear
frightful deserts; to me they are the
paradise of nature; no hosts of greedy
priests; no seas of blood to wade
through; all is quiet, and the savages them-
selves shall soon be taught the art of
cultivating the earth, refinement of
manners, and the duties of genuine
devotion. Under this free and enlightened
dominion the unfortunate and oppressed
of our nation shall ever find an
asylum, our language and customs will
here be preserved in their original
purity for ages to come, and France
shall find herself renovated in the Western
World, without being disgraced by the
frippery of kings or seeing the best
blood wasted in gratyfing [sic] the
ambition of knaves and sycophants. The
weather is already cold, my hand is
numbed, and our little temporary cabin
is so full of smoke that I dare not venture in. So I bid you adieu.
Tomorrow
of Gallipolis," O. S. A. H.
Quar., III (1890), 45-81; Henri Carre, "Les Emigres Francais
en Amerique, 1789-1793," Revue
de Paris, 1 Mai 1898, 311-40; Lawrence J. Kenny, "The
Gallipolis Colony," Catholic
Historical Review (Washington, D. C.), IV (1918-19), 415-51;
John McGovern, "The Gallipolis
Colony," American Catholic Historical Society of Phila-
delphia Records, XXXVII (1926),
29-72; Silvia Harris, tr., "Search for Eden, an Eighteenth-
Century Disaster; Memoires of Count de
Lezay-Marnesia," Franco-American Review (New
Haven, Conn.), II (Summer, 1937), 50-60.
Other useful references will be found cited
by these writers.
2 E. C. Dawes, "The Beginning of
the Ohio Company and the Scioto Purchase,"
O.S.A.H. Quar., IV (1895), 20-1, 24; Rufus Putnam, Memoirs (Boston,
1903), 110.
3 "About six hundred of them went
from hence some time since in two bodies, and
are by this time, I presume, arrived at
their place of destination" -- so Jonathan Dayton
wrote from Elizabeth Town on October 9,
1790, to John Cleves Symmes. See B. W.
Bond, ed., Correspondence of John
Cleves Symmes (New York, 1926), 266-7.
MCDERMOTT: GALLIPOLIS, 1792-1811 285
we pursue our route and hope to be fixed
in our comfortable houses before
the 25th of December.4
*
Such was the beginning of Gallipolis.
Never in its French days
did it achieve the promise it had held
for the eager colonists. The
Indian campaign had prevented a
considerable body from advancing
beyond Marietta; the defeat of Arthur
St. Clair caused many to
turn back into Pennsylvania to seek
refuge in colonies there or in
some of the other eastern states. A
number of skilled workmen had
been enticed to stay in Philadelphia and
other large towns where
their services were of value. Others who
expected to live on the
Ohio were discouraged by the unhappiness
of being caught in the
confusions of the land speculations. The
prospective thousands
never came, but a good part of the
hundreds who arrived in 1790,
with a dribbling of others in the next
year or two, settled down to
make the best of this life to which they
committed themselves. Some
idea of the way they lived and worked we
get from a number of
travelers, French and American, who
visited there during the next
two decades.
The first of these commentators was John
Heckewelder, the
missionary, who, traveling with Putnam
to a peace meeting with the
Indians, entered the town for the first
time on the evening of June
27, 1792. The size and location of the
town, together with some
other facts, he entered in his journal:
We rode on this same evening to the
French settlement of Gallipolis
situated on the North bank of the Ohio
between three and four miles from
the Kanawa. . . . The town of Gallipolis
consists of 150 dwellings. The
inhabitants number between 3 and 400. A
detachment of 50 to 60 men of
the regular army is stationed here for
their protection. Besides a few Virginia
spies or scouts, are kept and paid by
the government. The militia are also
willing to serve for remuneration. The
Chikemage Creek flows back of the
town, and below it empties into the
Ohio. Fine boats are also manufactured
in this town; our vessel is one of them.
At noon we dined with the most
prominent French gentlemen of the place,
at the house of the judge and
doctor, Mr. Petit.5
It was, however, the skilled workmen and
the gardens that most
interested Heckewelder.
4 Belote,
"The Scioto Speculation," 73-7. The writer's name was not given.
Belote
reprinted from the Pennsylvania
Packet (Philadelphia), Nov. 29, 1790.
5 Andre Michaux had a good word for this
doctor of medicine. Little is known of
him beyond the fact that he married Lucy
Woodbridge of Marietta, that later he considered
a trip to France on account of some
inheritance, and in 1800 was divorced by his wife in
what is considered the first case of the
kind in Ohio and the Northwest Territory. See
Louise Rau, "Lucy Backus
Woodbridge, Pioneer Mother," O. S. A. H. Quar., XLIV (1935),
420, 428, 432-3.
286 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
We spent the whole of the following day
in visiting the skilled workmen
and the gardens laid out in European
style. The most interesting shops of
the workmen were those of the goldsmiths
and watchmakers. They showed
us work on watches, compasses, and
sun-dials, finer than any I had ever
beheld.6 Next in interest
were the sculptors and stonecutters. The latter had
two finished mantles, most artistically
carved.7 Gen. Putnam at once pur-
chased one of them for 12 Guineas, the
other was intended for a rich Dutch
gentleman who has built a two-story
house here, 50 ft. long. The upper
part of a mantle was lying there,
ordered by a Spanish gentleman in New
Orleans, which because of the fine
workmanship upon it, was to cost 20 or 22
guineas. The worker in glass, seemed to
be a born artist.8 He made us a
thermometer, a barometer, a glass
tobacco-pipe, a small bottle (which could
contain about a thimble full) and a most
diminutive stopper, and a number
of works of art besides. He also
manufactured precious medicine, nitric
acid, etc. As we were on a journey and
were in daily need of light and fire,
he presented us with a glass full of dry
stuff, which burns as soon as a match
is applied. This stuff he told us was
manufactured from bones. Concerning
the fine gardens I must add the
following, viz: that in them were to be found
the most beautiful flowers, artichokes,
and almond trees, and besides many fine
vineyards, and some rice fields. At a
distance of about 100 steps from the
Ohio, there is a round hill which
probably dates its origin, from the former
inhabitants of this land as also the
remarkable fortifications and buildings to
be found in this country. This hill
about 30 ft. high, has been improved
as a beautiful pleasure garden, with a
pretty summer house on the top.9
6 Among these may have been Francois and
J. G. DeVacht (or Vacz), Flemings, and
Pierre Didier, later a resident of Saint
Louis and state treasurer of Missouri.
7 Obviously the same persons, though a
different purchaser, are mentioned in "A
Biographical Sketch of Dr. A. Saugrain
by a Female Friend, with Remarks upon the French
Settlement of Gallipolis,"
Cincinnati Evening Chronicle, July 14, 1827 (typescript in
Saugrain Collection, Missouri Historical
Society, Saint Louis). "Among the
artists were
two of the name of Chaudivert whose
talents as sculptors and wood carvers had adorned
one of the most beautiful churches in
Paris one of them in stone as well as in wood. Gen-
eral Wilkinson in his passage down the
Ohio, purchased two superb mantlepieces of these
artists." Vance ("French of Gallipolis," 57) gives these men as
Etienne and Pierre
Chandivert.
8 There is little question in my mind that this worker in glass was
Antoine Saugrain.
There is no positive identification
here, but this ties up with two other traveler-accounts a
little later. Also with the sketch by
his "Female Friend" (cited in note 7): "Dr. Saugrain
had acquired great reputation among the
inhabitants of Kenhawa by his success in the
innoculation for the small pox, many of
whom flocked to Gallipolis to be cured. He had
besides many other recourses. He had
brought with him a quantity of phosphorus, glass
tubes and quicksilver.
With the first he made phosphoric light which he sold to the
hunters. With the other he made
ariometers and barometers. He blew his own glass in
winter.
A friend graduated these instruments, all of which were disposed of
either by
wholesale for Kentucky and elsewhere or
in retail to the traders or those who came from
different parts to visit the
colony." Farther on in her sketch she spoke of Indians visiting
Gallipolis: "As they went about
they were conducted to Dr. Saugrain's and there examined
his different machines with great
curiosity. The Doctor has an electric
apparatus and
thought it would be highly amusing to
give them a shock. He placed a piece of coin on
the electric plate and told the
interpreter to desire some of the Indians to keep it, if they
could take it up. One of the Indians
after some hesitation ventured to lay hold of it and
received such a shock that he rushed out
of the house terribly frightened. Dr.
Saugrain
picking up the coin himself without any
effort from the exploded machine left the interpreter
and the other Indians impressed with the
most profound awe for the magician who could
work such wonders. He showed them glass
tubes so arranged as to produce the effect of
blood vessels."
Saugrain had been trained in medicine,
chemistry, and mineralogy. He had left
Paris, his birthplace, near the end of
April, 1790, arrived at Alexandria, July 6, remained
there for about a month, reached
Winchester and stayed there for about a month, and then
set out for Gallipolis (Memorandum in
Saugrain Collection, Missouri Historical Society).
For his life consult H. Foure Selter, L'Odysee
Americaine d'une Famille Francaise (Balti-
more, 1936).
9 John Heckewelder, A Narrative of
the Mission of the United Brethren among the
Delaware and Mohegan Indians . . .; ed. by Wm. E. Connelley (Cleveland,
1907), 66-7.
MCDERMOTT: GALLIPOLIS, 1792-1811 287
The record of his first impression is
one of a busy, contented,
and moderately prosperous people who had
an unusual feeling for
beauty. On November 17 of the same year
he was once more at
Gallipolis. This time he had little to
say except that he "felt great
pity for the poor people there, on
account of their unfortunate
situation." He summarized the story
he heard of the land transac-
tions and Duer's part in them, and added
that the inhabitants, who
now knew they were trespassers on the
Ohio Company's land, in-
tended to appeal to Congress.10
The uncertainty of their position did,
in fact, so discourage
many men of Gallipolis that they removed
or thought of removing
to other parts.11 One of the principal
schemes was that devised in
1792 by Barthelemi Tardiveau, who
had lived for years in the west-
ern part of the United States, with the
aid of Pierre Audrain, a
Frenchman of Pittsburgh, and Pierre
Charles DeHault DeLassus
DeLuziere, a ci-devant noble of Hainault
who had expected to be
among the Ohio colonists but who had
established himself instead
on a farm near Pittsburgh. A settlement
in Upper Louisiana was the
thing; it would bring the French happily
among their fellows in the
West and would provide the king of Spain
with subjects in his
sparse domain west of the Mississippi.
The details of his scheme
are laid out in a letter Tardiveau wrote
from Kaskaskia, July 17,
1792, to Pedro Pablo Abarca y Bolea,
Count of Aranda, Spanish
prime minister. For the colony he
proposed to bring French in-
habitants from Europe by thousands, but
the nucleus was to be
drawn immediately from the unhappy
French in the United States.
It is a pleasant piece of rhetoric.
Your Lordship is not ignorant that a
great number of persons respectable
by their birth and by their fortune, and
ill content with the innovations which
have occurred in France, or, distrustful
of their personal safety at a time of
fermentation which has produced so many
excesses bought a considerable por-
tion of land on the Ohio and took refuge
thereon, with a great number of
artisan and farming families whom they
took over at their own expense. I
believe also that your Lordship is aware
that after three years of lost time
and after huge sums of money have been
spent, these unfortunate people have
10 Ibid., 92-93.
11 Antoine Laforge wrote to his mother
in August, 1792: "Of the 500 who came here
in the beginning, we are now not more
than 200, because some had not sufficient patience
while others were driven away by fear.
And as to those who remain, more than half are
arranging to move away at the earliest
possible opportunity." See Antoine
Laforge,
"Memoir;" tr. by Lawrence J.
Kenny, O.S.A.H. Quar., XXVI (1917), 43-51. Laforge, with
his wife and three children, had sailed
from Havre on February 19, 1790, on the Patriote,
had arrived at Alexandria by May 25, and
reached Gallipolis October 20. By 1796 he was
a resident of New Madrid in Upper Louisiana.
288
OHIO ARCHEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
seen the destruction of their settlement
and the scattering of the majority of
their colonists who were bound in their
service -- both things occurring be-
cause the war between the Americans and
the Indians has not permitted the
company that sold the land to place the
purchasers in possession thereof.
The French emigrants, reduced therefore,
on the one hand, to inhabit
a narrow district on the banks of the Bella
Ribera without being able to
separate in order to advance their
cultivation; continually on the qui vive and
in danger of being attacked by the
Indians, and fatigued, on the other, by the
innumerable snares and rogueries of
which they have been the victims from
the moment they struck America, have
turned their glances towards the Mis-
isipi and adopted with enthusiasm the
idea that has come to them to go
settle near the river of Yllinois.12
Almost a year later the three partners,
then in New Orleans,
obligated themselves to bring one
hundred families from Gallipolis.13
Audrain left New Orleans on April 22 for
Philadelphia; from that
place he was to go to Gallipolis,
collect his emigrants, and proceed
down the Ohio. The Baron de Carondelet
formed the opinion that
the inhabitants of that little town were
"persons of education and
good standing." He believed, too,
that "the poor who remain
among them will follow the leading
families, who will advance them
the necessary funds for their first
settlement." In fact, he became
very enthusiastic over the numerous
advantages that would accrue
to Louisiana.14
The impression that we get from the
promoters of the settle-
ment of Nouvelle Bourbon in the western
Illinois is, of course,
prejudiced by their cause, but the
picture they painted for the
Governor of Louisiana may be worth
including here:
The unfortunate Frenchmen, who having
allowed themselves to be
allured by fraudulent hopes, had
abandoned their native land in order to come
to establish themselves on the Scioto,
victims of their own credulity, and
entangled in the snares that have been
stretched for them, have gradually
disappeared from American territory, in
which they had settled only to
consummate their own ruin. There still
exist on Scioto more than a hundred
families, the feeble and unfortunate
remainder of more than eight hundred
who brought with them considerable
fortunes, the habit of laborious lives, and
almost all the arts and trades -- at
least, the most useful -- of Europe; but
they are disgusted with their situation,
which everything is contributing to
make disagreeable. There is nothing which still detains
among the Americans
this small number of French emigrants,
save the lack of means for transporting
themselves, their wives, children, and
goods to the Misisipi in the lands be-
longing to the domains of His Catholic Majesty.15
Much followed about the excellence that
would result in
Louisiana from the advent of these
colonists. One other bit of the
12 Louis Houck, The
Spanish Regime in Missouri (Chicago, 1909), I, 360-1.
13 Ibid., I, 373.
14 Ibid., I, 376-7.
15 Ibid., I, 389-90.
MCDERMOTT: GALLIPOLIS, 1792-1811 289
Governor's letter is interesting for its
reference to one of the Galli-
polis notables:
This little colony has in its midst a
citizen of the highest usefulness, a
surgeon named M. Lemoine, in whom all these emigrants have the utmost
confidence; and it would be an
affliction to them to lose him at the very
time when their present situation does
not permit them to give him a salary
sufficient to establish him among them.16
The Governor asked therefore that
Lemoine be appointed
official surgeon to Nouvelle Bourbon.
At the time that the tentative agreement
had been reached be-
tween Carondelet and the promoters of
the new settlement, April
1793, a notation was made of the
"principal French emigrants who
still reside at Gallipolis." These
were Vandenbenden, who had been
contractor for biscuit in the arsenals
of Brest, Toulon and Roche-
fort; De Romine, former captain in the
royal corps of engineers; the
Chevalier d'Hebecourt, once an officer
in the queen's regiment;
Petit, a doctor of medicine, Le Moine, a
surgeon ("who understands
Latin"); Gervais and Menager, both
excellent farmers and possessed
of fortunes; Le Drot, who was a
grape-grower and farmer; Didier,
also listed as a farmer (although he was
a jeweler and watchmaker
by trade); Vacz, the watchmaker, and
like Carondelet, a Fleming;
Saugrain, mineralogist and farmer;
Michaux, likewise a farmer and
a man "with a very large
family"; and Berthelot, who was a distiller
as well as a cultivator. The rest,
according to this information for
the Spanish authorities, were
"artisans, workmen, or day-laborers,
and accustomed to the cultivation of the
land; almost all have
cattle, and the goods most necessary for
living."17 Somewhere a
hitch occurred. Most of these principal
emigrants did leave Galli-
polis and Nouvelle Bourbon was founded,
with DeLuziere as its
commandant, but few of the men from Ohio
moved there.18
Although the town was now considerably
reduced in size by
reason of such dispersals as this to the
western country, enough
families remained to keep Gallipolis a
place of interest to travelers.
One noted visitor was the botanist Andre
Michaux who was then
16 Ibid., I, 391.
17 Ibid., I, 395-6.
18 Vandenbenden went to New Madrid;
Didier, whose brother, the priest, was at
Florissant presently went to Saint
Louis; Saugrain and Michaux, after a stay at Lexington,
settled in Saint Louis, too, before
1800; Gervais was later to engineer the relief grant from
Congress and to settle on his ample
share at French Grant. Menager remained at Gallipolis,
as did d'Hebecourt, and Lemoine settled
at Washington, Pennsylvania.
290
OHIO ARCHEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
starting out on a long trip through the
western country, combining
botanizing with an inspection of the
western settlements and popula-
tion for Citizen Edmond Charles Genet.
This staunch republican
arrived at Gallipolis on August 23,
1793. He visited Petit "who
inspired me with the greatest respect by
his good sense, his knowl-
edge and his virtue," but this town
of one hundred and fifty people
seemed after a day's examination so
pitiful that he thought it must be
only humanity that kept Petit attached
to "that unfortunate
colony."19
From a letter of Bishop John Carroll's
we get another glimpse
of the town -- particularly of religious
conditions there -- sometime
apparently in 1792. Writing to a Cardinal,
he said that he had ob-
tained his information from Dom Didier,
the parish priest, who had
come to see him in the East during the
summer.
I have learned hardly anything about
these colonists which could satisfy
either the interest of the Sacred
Congregation or its solicitude regarding those
things which pertain to piety and
religion. Many of them are refugees from
Paris who have brought with them the
vices of the large cities, and a hatred
for religion. It is to be hoped that Dom
Didier will be able to apply a remedy
to this evil and to encourage labor and
simplicity of morals.20
Dom Didier must have felt the situation
hopeless or his posi-
tion among conflicting elements too
difficult, for in the Spanish no-
tation already cited he is spoken of as
being at Florissant in Upper
Louisiana.21 Nevertheless, towards the
end of 1793 two other men
of the church had a more cheering report
to make of Catholicity at
Gallipolis. The tenth of November saw
the arrival of Fathers
Stephen Theodore Badin and Barriere.
Spalding has reported that
these two priests remained for three days at Gallipolis, the inhabitants
of
which were French Catholics, who had
long been without a pastor. They
heartily welcomed the missionaries, who,
during their brief stay, sang High
Mass in the garrison, and baptized forty
children. The good French colonists
were delighted; and shed tears on their
departure.22
Visitors continued to be of all sorts.
In 1794 the most notable,
and the least informative, was General
Victor Collot who, in June,
looked upon the place with a scornful
and pitying eye. Naively
19 Andre Michaux, Travels, R. G.
Thwaites, ed., Early Western Travels (Cleveland,
1904), III, 34-5.
20 Quoted in Peter Guilday, The Life
and Times of John Carroll (New York, 1922),
405. The fragment is not dated, but from
context and from our knowledge of Didier the
summer referred to must be 1792.
21 From 1794 until his death in 1799, he
was cure of the parish at Saint Louis.
22 M. J. Spalding, Sketches of the
Early Catholic Missions of Kentucky (Louisville,
1844?), 62.
MCDERMOTT: GALLIPOLIS, 1792-1811 291
enough this man apparently expected all
the French settlements of
the West to be much like Paris, if
slightly smaller. He estimated
the population to be about ninety or
ninety-five men and forty to
forty-five women.
The town is situated in a platform
covered with stagnant waters, which
renders this spot extremely unhealthy:
and the quality of the land is bad,
being light and sandy. The town is built
of small log huts or log-houses close
to each other, and is flanked by three block-houses;
the whole palisadoed
with great piquets: the streets are laid out in lines,
but the present appearance
of the place is dirty, and it seems to be the abode of
wretchedness.23
The most detailed account of Gallipolis
is, of course, that of
Henry Marie Brackenridge. It was,
admittedly, written many years
after his visit; the man of forty-eight
recalled the experience of the
eight year old boy. Nevertheless, he did
live for a year with
Saugrain and much of what he said is
confirmed by other persons.
His father, the somewhat eccentric Hugh
Henry Brackenridge,
wanting him to learn French by living
among French people, had
sent him to Ste. Genevieve. After living
there for about three years
the boy was called for by John B. C.
Lucas, then in the West on
a trading venture, but, taken ill on the
return trip, he was left by
Lucas at Gallipolis in the care of
Saugrain. It was not until a year
later that he finally returned to
Pittsburgh some months before his
tenth birthday. The most important part
of all this was the friendly
understanding he had acquired of the
French and the complete
command of their language. He was in
several ways, then, fitted to
observe and report, and though we are to
be sceptical of accounts
written long after the event, there are
interesting views here of life
in Gallipolis which, if used with care,
are valuable in our under-
standing of the place.
Brackenridge gives us our first detailed
view of the town itself.
Gallipolis, with the exception of a few
straggling log-houses, of which
that of Dr. S. was one, consisted of two
long rows of barracks built of logs,
and partitioned off into rooms sixteen
or twenty feet wide, with what is
called a cabin roof and wooden chimneys.
At one end there was a larger
room than the rest, which served as a
council chamber and ballroom. This
singular village was settled by people
from Paris and Lyons. . . . Their means
by this time had been exhausted, and
they were beginning to suffer from
the want of the comforts and even
necessaries of life. The country back of
the river was still a wilderness, and
the Gallipolitans did not pretend to
cultivate anything more than small
garden spots, depending for their supply
of provisions on the boats which now
began to descend the river. . . . They
23 Victor Collot, A Journey in North
America (Firenze, 1924), I, 79-81.
292 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL
AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
still assembled at the ball-room twice a
week; it was evident, however, that
they felt disappointment, and were no
longer happy.24
Most of his space, naturally enough,
Brackenridge devoted to
Saugrain, the "cheerful, sprightly
little Frenchman . . . chemist,
natural philosopher, and physician"
with whom he lived. Although
"sans culottism was popular with those who favored that breaking
up of all social economy," the
doctor, we are told, "and many others
in Gallipolis were not of that party;
they were royalists who bitterly
lamented the condition of their native
country."25 But most vividly
Brackenridge recalled Saugrain's
scientific apparatus and the visitors
who fed their curiosity in his little
workroom:
The doctor had a small apartment which
contained his chemical appara-
tus, and I used to sit by him as often
as I could, watching the curious opera-
tions of his blowpipe and crucible. I
loved the cheerful little man and he
became very fond of me in return. Many
of my countrymen used to come
and stare at his doings, which they were
half inclined to think had too near
a resemblance to the black art. The doctor's little phosphoric matches,
igniting spontaneously when the glass
tube was broken, and from which he
derived some emolument, were thought by
some to be rather beyond mere
human power. His barometers and
thermometers, with the scale neatly painted
with the pen, and the frames richly
carved, were objects of wonder, and
some of them are probably still extant
in the West. But what most astonished
some of our visitors was a large peach
in a glass bottle, the neck of which
could only admit a common cork; this was
accomplished by tying the bottle
to the limb of the tree, with the peach
when young inserted into it. His
swans, which swam round basins of water,
amused me more than any of the
wonders exhibited by the wonderful
man.26
Saugrain was a favorite with the
Americans, we are told, not
merely for the strange entertainments he
could perform, not merely
"for his vivacity and sweetness of
temper which nothing could sour,"
but also for "a circumstance which
gave him high claims to the
esteem of the backwoodsmen. He had shown
himself, notwith-
standing his small stature and great
good nature, a very hero in
combat with the Indians." This
occasion was, of course, that almost
entirely disastrous trip he made down
the Ohio in the spring of
1788 when, with his friend Picque, he
acted as advance agent for
the small colony that his
brother-in-law, Dr. Joseph Ignace Guillotin
of Paris, was planning to establish on
the banks of the Ohio. Picque
24 H. M. Brackenridge, Recollections
of Persons and Places in the West. 2nd ed.
(Philadelphia, 1868), 35-6.
25 Ibid., 34-5. The truth of this statement is doubtful. The
people of Gallipolis
were of varied politics, of course. What Saugrain's particular
views were I do not know,
but his brother-in-law was certainly
republican if we are to believe the sentiments he ex-
pressed in his letter to Benjamin
Franklin, June 18, 1787. See the author's "Guillotin
Thinks of America," O.S.A.H.
Quar., XLVII (1938), 132-3.
26 Brackenridge, Recollections, 36-7.
MCDERMOTT: GALLIPOLIS, 1792-1811 293
and one of their two traveling
companions were killed by Indians;
Saugrain and the fourth man saved their
lives only after great pain
and difficulty.27
Mme. Saugrain, Brackenridge found, was
"an amiable young
woman, but not possessing as much
vivacity" as her husband.28 Her
young brother, a boy of Brackenridge's
age, lived with them, and
the two boys made themselves useful
bringing wood and water and
helping in the kitchen as well as
working in the garden and occasion-
ally blacking boots. While weeding
vegetables Henry Marie became
acquainted with a young lady of eighteen
or twenty, Madeleine
Francoise Charlotte Maret, and
apparently enjoyed a mild and shy
flirtation with her. And one day he
saved from drowning Jean
Pierre Romaine Bureau who later married
Mlle. Maret.29 Bracken-
ridge was well treated during his stay;
if he suffered hardships they
were merely those to which the
Gallipolitans were then exposed.
He was certainly treated by the
Saugrains as a member of the family,
and on one occasion he was taken by the
doctor on a trip to the
mouth of the Kanawha River where
"we were treated in a very hos-
pitable manner by Colonel Lewis."
He recorded, too, that it was in
Gallipolis "that for the first time
I tasted wine, and I confess that
I have liked it ever since, while, in an
equal degree, it created a
dislike to brandy, rum, and
whisky."30 It had certainly been an in-
teresting year for the boy when in the
fall of 1795 Captain Smith of
the United States Army took him, on his
father's orders, aboard the
barge bound for Pittsburgh.31
Another traveler who stopped at
Gallipolis in 1795 also devoted
most of the space in his journal to a
picture of Saugrain. The Rev.
James Smith, going down the river with
Thomas Porter, stopped at
27 Ibid., 37-8.
Brackenridge's version makes these Frenchmen seem rather simple-
minded. For a complete account see my
article mentioned in note 25.
28 She was Genevieve Rosalie Michau,
daughter of Jean Michau and Jeanne G. R.
Chevalier, all of Paris, and among the
original settlers of Gallipolis. Born July 24, 1776, she
married Saugrain March 20, 1793, and
died at Saint Louis in 1860, forty years after her
husband.
29 Ibid., 38-9. Brackenridge does not name either, but
from context both' are
identifiable. William G. Sibley, in The
French Five Hundred (Gallipolis, 1901, p. 109), said
they were married in 1797. Bureau in
December 1795, apparently lived in the Saugrain
house (See Vance, "French of
Gallipolis," 60).
30 Brackenridge, Recollections, 39.
31 For more about Brackenridge see the
author's article, "Henry Marie Brackenridge
and His Writings," Western Pennsylvania
Historical Magazine (Pittsburgh), XX (Sept.,
1937), 181-96; and for John B. C. Lucas,
see the author's "John B. C. Lucas in Pennsyl-
vania," Western Pennsylvania Historical
Magazine, XXI (Sept., 1938), 209-30.
294
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
the French town on Tuesday, October 20,
to lay in a supply of
bread. They were informed that the place
contained about one
hundred families "who appear,"
Smith noted, "to live in a very
social, agreeable and friendly manner,
being a frugal and industrious
people." The most notable feature
of the brief stop, however, was
the half hour spent observing the
wonders supplied by a scientific
Frenchman who could have been no other
than Saugrain, enjoying
himself once more by astonishing
travelers. Possibly this was
one party of curious Americans that
young Brackenridge had seen.
Smith must be allowed to report the
scene for himself:
While we were here a civil and well bred
Frenchman obligingly enter-
tained us with a number of curiosities.
He first kindled a fire of a small
clear flame, which, by means of a foot
bellows, he increased or diminished at
his pleasure. He then took a piece of
glass about the shape and size of a
pipe-stem (of which he had a great
number of pieces); he held this glass in
the flame till it began to melt, then
applied it to his mouth and blew it up
like a bladder; this he gave a fillip
with his finger and it burst with an
explosion like the report of a pistol.
Another glass he blew up in the same
manner and thro a tube as fine as a hair
filled it with water, running upward
in a strange manner and filling the
globe at the top. Other pieces he wired
as fine as a hair; indeed it appeared as
if he taught this brittle substance so
far to obey him, that it took any form
he pleased. He showed us a number of
thermometers, barometers, spirit proofs
etc., all of his own make. The virtue
of the spirit proof I tried on different
kinds of spirits, and found it to answer
the purpose for which it was intended by
showing the real strength of the
liquor. He terminated these shows by
exhibiting a chemical composition
which had the peculiar quality of
setting wood on fire. The polite and
agreeable manner in which he entertained
us for about half an hour was
not the smallest gratification to me;
for while it marked the general character
of his nation, it placed his own in a
very conspicious point of view.32
Thomas Chapman, another American who
stopped for
bread one morning in November, carried
away no such pleasant
memory; he was happy to leave a place
where he could not obtain
even one candle. An hour after passing
the Big Kanawha, they
came too at Gallipolis, a Small
miserable looking Village of upwards of 100
little wreatched Log Cabbins, all
Occupied by poor starved sickly looking
Frenchmen. Here we stopped untill 2 P.
M., whilst the Baker made and backed
us a Dozen Loaves of excellent Bread
made from leaven. We could get but
1 Pound of indifferent Butter at Galliopolis,
wch Cost us 13 1/2d pound; they
charged us 2s 3d [per] bushel for
potatoes, & 15 pence for a quart of Salt.
This was a Military Station for 100
Soldiers during the Indian War, but the
number is reduced now to 5, under the
Comman of Captain Derihecour, a
Frenchman.33 The whole Settlement could
not produce one Candle, for altho
the Noble Captain who is Commander in
Chief promised us two, but alas on
32 James Smith, "Journey through
Kentucky and into the Northwest Territory,
1795," quoted in Josiah Morrow,
"Tours into Kentucky and the Northwest Territory,"
O.S.A.H. Quar., XVI (1907), 370-1.
33
Probably the Chevalier Francois d'Hebecourt, captain of militia and deputy
post-
master.
MCDERMOTT: GALLIPOLIS,
1792-1811 295
enquirey of his Domesticks, he found he
was only master of two inches
instead of 2 whole candles. The whole of
the Inhabitants of this Town, the
Governor not excepted, have Starvation
and Sickness strongly pictured in their
faces. Standing Pooles of dirty Water,
and having no other to drink but
what they take from the Ohio, is no
doubt the Cause of their being never free
from the Fever & Ague in the Spring
and Autumn. We left this wreached place
at 2 P. M.34
In this same year the citizens of
Gallipolis arrived at a perma-
nent settlement of titles. As early as
the fall of 1793 Jean Baptiste
Gervais had gone to Philadelphia as
agent for the settlers in seeking
of Congress a clear grant and in March,
1795, that body granted
twenty-four thousand acres farther down
on the Ohio. Four thous-
and acres went to Gervais as his
commission; the remainder was
distributed to ninety-two other
Frenchmen over eighteen years of
age in equal portions of two hundred
seventeen and two-fifths acres.
Other than Gervais, however, few of the
Gallipolitans chose to re-
move from the place to which they had
become attached.35
About the time this grant was being
surveyed and made ready
for them the citizens asked the Ohio
Company to give them the site
of the town and were refused. Bureau and
J. M. Berthelot, the
agents appointed to deal with the
company, had then arrived at an
agreement to purchase both the house
lots in the city and the four-
acre out-lots that had originally been
cleared for them. The resi-
dence of Saugrain and Bureau became a
temporary office for claims
during the re-survey of this property.
Collections were made by an
appointed treasurer. The reserved lots
near the square were divided
into eighteen equal portions and drawn
by "Messrs. Vandenbenden,
Chandiver father, Chandiver son,
Vonschriltz, Gervais, Ferrare, jr.,
La Cour, Davoux, Villerain, Muqui,
Quarleron, Michau, Brunier,
Bureau, Lafillard, child of Vonschriltz,
sr., Francis Valodin, and
Pierre Richou." Late in December a
committee was sent to Marietta
to conclude the purchase.36
In one sense at least, then, the
situation of those who remained
34 November 10, 1795. See Historical
Magazine (Boston), n. s., V (1869), 360.
35 Dawes, "Beginning of the Ohio
Company," 26-9. Putnam in his Memoirs
(p. 123) gave a different figure:
"I have said I did not know how many French arrived at
Gallipolis in the year 1790 -- but on
the first day of November 1795 I found there but
88 of 18 years of age & upward which
I had acation [occasion] to ascertain, by ordor of the
Secretary of the Treasury Department --
for the purpos of Surveying and dividing to them
24000 acres of Land Granted by Congress
March 1795."
36 Vance, "French of
Gallipolis," 59-63. The names I reproduce exactly as in
Vance. A list of the original drawing of
four-acre lots can be found ibid., 57-9. Dawes in
"Beginning of the Ohio
Company" (p.29) said they paid $1.25 per acre.
296
OHIO ARCHEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
in Gallipolis was clearly improved, but
the celebrated C. F. Volney
did not find conditions, when he arrived
there the next summer,
much happier than had some of the
travelers who preceded him. On
July 12, 1796, he wrote to Thomas
Jefferson that he had reached
the place the day before after fourteen
days' travel overland. Of
the town he wrote:
Gallipolis: site mal choisi, rivage
eleve de 70 pieds; plateau et pourtant
marais malsain, log houses, et cinq an
de proces enfin termine. En tout 83
lots de terre. J'ai trouve ici trois
bateaux arrives des Illinois en 42 jours;
charges en peaux. J'ai obtenu tous les
renseignements. Je pars demain.37
In his View of the Soil, however,
Volney devoted considerable
space to Gallipolis. Many of his pages
are filled with his indignation
over the schemes of the speculators and
to a re-stating of the history
of the place. He had become curious
about these people who had
been duped by the French Scioto Company
and misled by the
ecstasies of Brissot de Warville; on his
landing in America in
October, 1795, inquiry brought him only
"a vague story that they
were buried somewhere in the western
wilds, and had not prospered."
The next summer he went westward over
the mountains and after
a "dreary and desolate" trip
arrived at Point Pleasant, where he
saw Col. Andrew Lewis, but his
"eagerness to see the face and hear
the language of my countrymen, once
more, made me hasten thither
without delay." Four miles brought
him to his destination.
I went on, but reflecting that I was
going to visit Frenchmen, disappoint-
ed in their dearest hopes, their vanity
mortified, and their mortification likely
to be aggravated by the sight of one, who
had probably foretold their mis-
fortunes to some of them, my impatience
was greatly diminished. It was
night-fall before I reached the village,
and I could perceive nothing but a
double row of small white houses, built
on the flat top of the bank of the
Ohio, which here laves the foot of a
cliff fifty feet high. The water being low,
I climbed the bank, by a slope formed in
its side, and was conducted to a log
house called an inn. It was kept by a
Frenchman, who asked me but few
questions, and his demeanour evinced the
truth of all my prognostications.
Next day I took a view of the place, and
was struck with its forlorn
appearance; with the thin pale faces,
sickly looks, and anxious air of its
inhabitants. -- They were shy of
conversing with me. Their dwellings, though
made externally cheerful by whitewash,
were only log huts, patched with
clay, and roofed with shingles,
consequently damp, unwholesome, and un-
comfortable. The village forms an oblong
quadrangle of two rows of con-
tiguous buildings, which a spark would
consume altogether. This, with many
other faults, they owe to the negligence
of the company. Adjoining these
huts are gardens, fenced with thorn,
destitute of trees, but well stocked with
useful vegetables. Behind these gardens
runs a creek, nearly parallel to the
37 For this letter see Gilbert Chinard, Volney
et l'Amerique . . .
(Baltimore, 1923),
44-7.
MCDERMOTT: GALLIPOLIS, 1792-1811 297
river, which makes the scite of the town
nearly a peninsula. This creek, at
low water shows a bottom of black mud,
and the overflowings of the river run
up this creek, and spread themselves
over some pestiferous marshes. South-
east lies the broad expanse of the
river, but in front and to the north there
appear nothing but interminable forests.
Above the town, the clayey and
tenacious soil retains the rain water,
and forms marshes, extremely unhealth-
ful in the autumn. From July to November
intermittents are extremely
prevalent.38
Miserable as he found Gallipolis, Volney
declared that the
condition of the place had been
improving since the settling of land
titles the year before.
The settlement had already begun to
revive and prosper, in such a
manner as showed what great things would
have been effected, had not its
progress been checked by such heavy
misfortunes. Still the situation of the
colonists was far from being agreeable.
All the labours of clearing and tillage
were imposed on the family itself of the
proprietor, labourers not being to be
hired but at enormous prices. It may
easily be imagined how severe a hard-
ship it was, on men brought up in the
ease and indolence of Paris, to chop
trees, to plough, to sow, to reap, to
labour in the field or the barn, in a heat
of 85 or 95 degrees. It is true, the
soil was fertile, and the season propitious.
In autumn and winter, venison was a cent
or two a pound, and bread was
two or three cents; but money was
extremely scarce. The maple, tapped in
February, afforded those who attended to
the produce perhaps a hundred
pounds of coarse dark sugar, frequently
injured in the boiling, and extremely
impure. The islets of the river afford a
low creeping vine, with a tolerably
sweet red grape, supposed to have been
propagated from those planted by
the French at Fort Duquesne, the seeds
of which might have been brought
hither by the bears, who are fond of grapes;
but the liquor of this species differs
little from that of the indigenous vine,
which climbs trees sixty feet high, and
bears a small, hard, and black grape.
Swine have been of great use to them,
and they have learned to cure the meat
so well, that, in this journey, I con-
sumed a whole ham, which had only been
well smoked, but which I supposed
to have been boiled. Some, with reason,
prefer them in this state, for the
lean part, when not too much salted, or
when soaked in water, is confessed
to be more wholesome, in hot climates,
than beef.
Such is the condition of the Scioto
colony, which does not altogether
realize the pictures of the inland
paradise given by American farmers, nor the
glories of the future capital of Ohio
and its realms, predicted by a certain
writer. If such encomiasts could hear
their praises as they are rehearsed on
the spot, they would grow disgusted with
that trite, idle, and inflated rhetoric,
which has condemned five hundred
meritorious families to hardship and
misery.39
*
So much for the appearance and fortunes
of Gallipolis in its
first six years. It is nearly six years
more before we have the report
of another traveler. In the last of
February, 1802, Perrin du Lac
left Philadelphia in company with a
Frenchman who had lived for
38 C. F. Volney, A View of the Soil
and Climate of the United States of America;
tr. by C. B. Brown (Philadelphia, 1804), 324-5.
39 Ibid., 327-9.
298
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
some time at Saint Louis and who was
returning there.40 The com-
panion fell sick on the way and Perrin
became anxious to reach
Gallipolis where the man had
acquaintances. They arrived at mid-
night and went to the only inn. After
noting that the population
was about one hundred and sixty and
pointing out the unhealthy
location, Perrin recapitulated the
earlier troubles of the inhabitants.
Although he stayed until April 26, he
had nothing more to say.41
Nor was F. A. Michaux, who also stopped
by in 1802, any more
informative of the condition of the town
in that year. It is once
more the usual historical summary we
find in his journal. A few
bits of new matter he did include:
Gallipoli . . . is composed solely of
about sixty log-houses, most of which
being uninhabited, are falling into
ruins; the rest are occupied by Frenchmen,
who breathe out a miserable existence.
Two only among them appear to
enjoy the smallest ray of comfort: the
one keeps an inn, and distills brandy
from peaches, which he sends to
Kentucky, or sells it at a tolerable advantage:42
the other, M. Burau [sic], from
Paris, by whom I was entertained, though
unacquainted with him. Nothing can equal
the perserverance of this French-
man, whom the nature of his commerce
obliges continually to travel over the
banks of the Ohio, and to make, once or
twice a year, a journey of four or
five hundred miles through the woods to
go to the towns situated beyond the
Alleghany Mountains. I learnt from him
that the intermittent fevers, which
at first had added to the calamities of
the inhabitants of Gallipoli, had not
shown itself for upwards of three years.
That, however, did not prevent a
dozen of them going lately to New
Orleans in quest of a better fortune, but
almost all of them died of the yellow
fever the first year after their arrival.43
The next report, apparently written in
1805, is religious in
nature. After summing up early times,
Jean Dilhet spoke of Dom
Didier and the state of religion in Gallipolis.
[Didier] was a very distinguished man
and he deserved their support,
and they should have abided by his
counsels both as regards things spiritual
as well as worldly concerns; but as he
was a religious and otherwise unpopular,
his ministry was fruitless. . . . Having
no longer a shepherd or leader of any
sort the settlement declined and ere
long Gallipolis was but a memory.
Religion especially had suffered
greatly. Children were no longer baptized,
marriages were contracted without the
presence of a priest, and the people no
longer looked for one from the Bishop. Furthermore, rationalism
and
humanitarianism were introduced there.
On Sundays, instead of assisting at
prayers and Christian and Catholic
instructions, the people attended gather-
ings, and still attend them to be taught
in infidelity, deism and other such
abominations. The children grew up
without being either French or Ameri-
40 Perrin du Lac, Voyage dans les
deux Louisianes . . . 1801-1803 (Lyons, 1805),
109. The companion is not named.
41 Ibid., 139-41.
42 J. M. Berthelot has been mentioned
above as a distiller; Menager in 1807 was
reported keeping the tavern in
Gallipolis. The innkeeper mentioned by Perrin and Michaux
may have been one of these.
43 F. A. Michaux, Travels, Thwaites, ed., Early Western Travels,
III, 182-5.
MCDERMOTT: GALLIPOLIS, 1792-1811 299
cans. At the time I left America I saw
French families from Gallipolis
arriving at Detroit. They told me that
less than twenty were now to be
found there, and that the town had
become entirely American owing to the
influx of Americans there who occupy
first place in everything.44
In contrast to the shocked air of Dilhet
is the sophisticated and
literary tone of Thomas Ashe, the
English traveler, who dated one of
his letters from Gallipolis in July,
1806. He devoted four pages to
giving his readers "a correct and
historical account of [the] rise,
progress, and fall" of this French
settlement "which has made con-
siderable noise in the world" and managed
in them to commit some
amusing errors.45 He did, however,
devote some space to the town as
he saw it:
The place continued rapidly to decline,
and is now, at the period of my
writing, in a fair way of being restored
to nature, and of returning to the
gloom
of its primitive woods. Several houses are tumbling in: several are
shut up; others are burnt down, and the
few that are occupied do not strike
the mind with an impression that they
have long to last. The total number of
habitable houses is reduced to nine,
about seven more are occupied in the
original purchase. Thus I account for
sixteen families out of five hundred
who came into the country a few years
before, big with expectations of felicity,
and dreaming of nothing less than
perpetual comfort and continual happiness.
The sixteen families which persist in
remaining are of those who purchased a
second time. They vainly imagine to make
something of their improvements
and await the operation of the ponds [as
fever-makers] with more fortitude
and determination than judgment and good
sense. They are a most wretched
looking people: the worst hospital in
Europe could not turn out an equal
number so capable of proving the great
degree of humiliation that human
nature is capable of expressing, when
under the hands of neglect, disease, and
indigence. So wretchedly poor is the
place, that a barrel of flour is not to be
had in the whole settlement, and in
place of their being able to purchase some
Indian meal, I have had applications to
know whether I had any to exchange
for fruit and small produce.
They cultivate, as I observed, little
more than fruit and vegetables, and
they depend on the exchange of these for
bread and other necessaries to be had
of boats descending the river. The
peaches thrive and multiply so well, that
one of the old settlers has procured a
still, and makes a brandy, which, at a
tolerable age, is of a very fine
quality. He now contracts for all the peaches
of the settlement; makes about four
hundred gallons of peach-brandy each
season, which he barters for flour,
corn, &c. at the rate of one dollar per
gallon for the liquor, and then sells
his flour, &c. for chickens, young hogs,
and garden produce, with which he
supplies at a cheap rate, boats who may
stand in need of such things on their
passage down the river. I am very much
of opinion that were it not for the
prospect of bringing the peach-brandy trade
into success and a profitable notoriety,
Gallipolis town and settlement would
be entirely abandoned.
Never was a place chosen, or rather
approved of with less judgment. In
the rear of the buildings are a number
of pestiferous ponds; the back country
44 Jean Dilhet, Etat de l'Eglise
Catholique ou Diocese des Etats-Unis de 'lAmerique
Septentrionale; tr. by the Rev. Patrick William Browne, Catholic
University of America,
Studies in Church History (Washington, D. C., 1902), 108-10.
45 Thomas Ashe, Travels in America
Performed in 1806 . . . (London, 1808), 163-7.
300
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
is composed of a series of barren ridges
and internal lands of dangerous swamp;
and the access to the town both by land
and water, is so extremely difficult,
that mere matter of choice will never
conduct to it a visitor, trader, or resident.
I am given to understand notwithstanding
that some New Englanders have
made purchases from the fugitive French
at very reduced prices, and intend
occupying the farms they deserted. If
they put this intention into execution,
the settlement may again take an
artificial rise, though it is difficult to conceive
how the public can a second time be
deceived in respect to a spot whose
climate and properties have been so much
condemned and exposed.46
With such a condescending and sweeping,
though somewhat
erroneous, statement, Ashe polished off
the town. On leaving Galli-
polis he stopped at French Grant to look
over the settlers there.
He found them in better health, he said,
but pursuing "a mean
system of agriculture." They had no
proper idea of farming, but
two distilleries did produce about three
thousand gallons of peach
brandy. On the whole he painted
something of an idyllic picture of
the evening employments in this new
settlement. The same air
of doubt hovers over Ashe's statement
here as at Gallipolis. It is
possible that he wished to make a pretty
scene of the newer place
because he had been displeased at the
original town.47
It is a good deal pleasanter picture --
and no doubt a fairer --
that we find in the Tour of the West of
Fortescue Cuming. After a
long and excellently detailed trip from
the east he arrived at Galli-
polis on July 26, 1807. One of the first
things he saw was a keel-
boat loaded with lead brought up from
Kaskaskia by Canadian-
French boatmen for whom he had
admiration and praise. Of the
town itself he said little:
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 now making brick to build a
court-house for Gallia county. . . . Galli-
opolis abounds with fruit to the planting of which,
French settlers always pay
great attention; but the town does not
thrive, although very pleasantly
situated on an extensive flat.
But in Cuming's account we meet again
one of the original
settlers and learn more of him than we
have from any other report:
We got an excellent breakfast at Mr.
Menager's, a French emigrant, who
keeps a tavern and a store of very well
assorted goods, which he goes yearly
to Baltimore to purchase. He is a native
of Franche Comte, and his wife is
46 Ibid., 167-8.
47 Ibid., 175-8. The doubtfulness
of his report is indicated, for instance, by the
account of the dance given at French
Grant, where the wives of the old Frenchmen were
"dressed in the obsolete times of
Louis XIVth" -- imagine this of Gallipolitans who, Ashe
himself has reminded us, came from
"Paris, Lyons and other great towns of France" and
who left those places in 1790!
MCDERMOTT: GALLIPOLIS, 1792-1811 301
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 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.
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.
One more very agreeable scene he
presents -- a house at the end
of the town and the two old Burgundians
who inhabited it:
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 named
Marion, and with his old wife,
reminded me of Baucis and Philemon, or
of Darby and Joan. They came
here with the first emigrants from
Burgundy -- bought some town lots, on
which they planted fruit trees, and
converted into corn fields, as they could
not procure tenants nor purchasers to
build on them. They have no children
-- they seem much attached to each
other, and are healthy, and content with
their situation.-- They insisted with
much hospitality on our tasting the old
lady's manufacture of cherry bounce,
before they knew that we could converse
with them in their native tongue; but,
when they found that we could not
only do so, but that I could make a
subject of conversation of their own
country, and even of their own province,
from having visited it long since they
had bid it a final adieu -- it was with
difficulty they would permit us to leave
them, before we had spent at least one
day with them. Indeed I never saw the
amor patriae more strongly manifested,
than in the fixed and glistening eyes,
which they rivetted on my face, whilst I
described the present state of their
provincial capital Dijon.48
After Thomas Ashe, it is something to
discover that there were
at least two families happy and content
in this town!
About three months later Christian
Schultz stopped by for a
look. He reported that "the compact
part of the town at present
consists of about twenty-five
houses" and thought that a canal might
solve the difficulty of the pestilential
ponds. After his departure he
learned that a "very valuable salt
spring had lately been discovered."
The remainder of his brief remarks are
the mere commonplaces of
visitors.49
If the memory of Brackenridge is to be
relied upon, by the
48 Fortescue Cuming, Tour of the
West, Thwaites, ed., Early Western Travels, IV
147-9.
49 Christian Schultz, Travels on
an Inland Voyage . . . 1807 and 1808 . . . (New
York, 1810), I, 170-1.
302 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL
AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
spring of 1810 a great change had taken
place. Too much accuracy
of this description cannot be expected;
he speaks, for one thing, of
"twelve years ago" when
obviously it had been nearly fifteen years
since he had left Gallipolis. He is
quoted for what he is worth.
As we passed Point Pleasant, and the
little island below it, Gallipolis,
which I looked for with anxious
feelings, hove in sight. I thought of the
French inhabitants -- I thought of my
friend Saugrain, and I recalled, in the
liveliest colors, the incidents of that
portion of my life which was passed
here. A year is a long time at that
period -- every day is crowded with new,
and great, and striking events. When the
boat landed I ran up the bank, and
looked around; but, alas! how changed!
The Americans had taken the
town in hand, and no trace of antiquity,
that is of twelve years ago, remained.
I hastened to the spot where I expected
to find the abode, the little log-house,
tavern, laboratory, and garden of the
doctor; but they had vanished like the
palace of Aladdin. After some inquiry I
found a little Frenchman, who, like
the old woman of Goldsmith's Village,
was "the sad historian of the deserted
plain" -- that is, deserted by one
race to be peopled by another. He led me
to where a few logs might be seen, as
the only remains of the once happy
tenement which had sheltered me -- but
all around it was a common; the
picture which my imagination had drawn -- the scenes
which my memory loved
to cherish were blotted out and
obliterated. A volume of reminiscences seemed
to be annihilated in an instant! I took
a hasty glance at the new town as I
returned to the boat. I saw brick
houses, painted frames, fanciful inclosures,
ornamental trees! Even by the pond,
which had carried off a third of the
French population by its malaria had
disappeared, and a pretty green had
usurped its place, with a neat brick
court-house in the midst of it. This was
too much; I hastened my pace, and with
sorrow once more pushed into the
stream.50
When he reached Saint Louis a few weeks
later, Brackenridge
found Saugrain long and pleasantly
established there.
The change in Gallipolis had not, of
course, been as complete
as Brackenridge implied, but the English
traveler, John Melish,
a year later confirmed the principal
impression, remarked on the in-
creasing prosperity of the place,
emphasized the healthiness of the
location, and the excellence of the
original colonizing plan that had
failed only through the involved nature
of the land speculations. His
remarks offer an effective close to this
series of views of Gallipolis
in its early decades.
This morning we took a walk round the
town, and I was pleased to find
it in a thriving state. A number of
buildings had been lately erected, most
of them of brick, and a handsome brick
academy was building. A number of
little ponds at the back of the town
were drained, and the fields around had
been recently put into a state of active
cultivation. The town was stocked
with orchards, and the fruit was
excellent. We were introduced to several
of the early French settlers, who gave a
different history of the place from
what I had seen in books. . . .
50 Brackenridge, Recollections, 183-4.
MCDERMOTT: GALLIPOLIS, 1792-1811 303
Galliopolis is the capital of Gallia
county,51 and is beautifully situated,
on a second bank of the Ohio. It is laid
out on a good plan: there is a square
of eight acres in the centre, and the
building ground is divided into squares
of five acres each, by streets of 66 feet wide,
crossing each other at right angles.
The building lots are 85 feet front, by 170 deep, and
contain one third of
an acre. They sell, at present, for from 25 dollars to
200 dollars each. The
number of houses is about 70, and the
inhabitants 300. The public buildings
are a courthouse, and the academy; which
last is to contain a room for a
church, one for a military academy, and
one for a masonic hall.
Except domestic manufactures, there are
none in the town, though there
are several in the country, and some are
projected which would probably
succeed very well. There are no water
falls for machinery on the Ohio, but
they have coal in abundance, and
steam-mills are likely to become very
general. One is projected here. The
different professions are, one tavern-
keeper, two blacksmiths, two tanners,
three storekeepers, three master masons,
and six or seven carpenters. Provisions
are reasonable: flour two dollars per
cwt. beef three dollars, pork three
dollars, corn 33 cents per bushel, butter
61/4 cents per pound eggs 61/4 cents per
dozen, fowls 61/4 cents each. . . .
Galliopolis has been reputed a sickly
place, but this is a mistake; it is
quite healthy, and it is a beautiful
situation. It has been also supposed that no
body should go to a new country, except
they can take an axe in their hand,
and cut down trees. This is also a
mistake. An association of farmers,
mechanics, &c., have the best
chance, because their combined labours are equal
to all their wants. Witness the
Harmonist Society; and I have no doubt,
from what I have learned regarding the
French colony, that it also would
have done very well, had they not been
imposed upon in their own country
as to the land.52
51 For Gallia County, see Henry Howe, Historical Collections of Ohio (Norwalk,
1896), I, 668-81.
52 John Melish, Travels (Philadelphia,
1812), II, 115-7. Melish arrived at Gallipolis
on September 4, 1811.
GALLIPOLIS AS TRAVELERS SAW IT,
1792-1811
By JOHN FRANCIS MCDERMOTT
On the fourth of June, 1790, Major John
Burnham, then at
Marietta, was instructed by General
Rufus Putnam "to proceed
with the people engaged in the service
of the trustees of the Scioto
proprietors . . . to a place on the Ohio
next Chickamaga creek, which
will be shown to you by Col. Meigs where
you will begin operations."
The letter of instructions specified
that the object is to erect four block
[houses] and a number of low huts, agreeably
to the plan which you will have
with you, and clear the lands. Your own
knowledge of hut building, the
block house of round logs which you will
have an opportunity to observe
at Belleprie, together with the plan so clearly
explained, renders it unnecessary
to be very particular; however, you will
remember that I don't expect you
will lay any floors or joyce for the
lower floors; plank for the doors must
be split and hewed and the doors hung
upon wooden hinges; as I don't expect
you will obtain any stone for the backs
of your chimneys, they must be made
of clay first, moulded into tile and
dried in manner you will be shown an
example at Belleprie.
On his arrival Burnham was to clear a spot (which will be pointed
out) and throw up a work, which must be
as near the place marked on the
plan as you can find a convenient or
best landing, where you will erect a
temporary or stone [store?] house and a
cover to keep you men dry till the
block houses are completed, which should
be your next object and after that
to proceed to building huts. In clearing
the lands, whatever timber is useful
for your building, should be cut and
selected for the purpose as you go along
and the rest cleared and burned entirely
off. Your clearing must be in one
continued body and extended up and down
the river equally from your work
as well as from the river.
Four days later Burnham arrived at the
spot which was to
become known as Gallipolis.1
1 E. C. Dawes, "Major John Burnham
and His Company," Ohio State Archaeological
and Historical Quarterly (Columbus), III (1890), 40-4. The thirty-six men of
Burnham's
company were each paid twenty-six cents
a day.
In the present article it is not my
purpose to write either a history of the founding
of Gallipolis or of the early years of
that town. I propose merely an account of the place
as various travelers saw it during the
first two decades and for this I draw upon a number
of sources most of which have not been
used by other writers. For detailed accounts of the
enterprise which led to the founding and
for much detail of the emigration from France
consult: A. B. Hulbert, "Andrew
Craigie and the Scioto Associates," American Antiquarian
Society Proceedings (Worcester,
Mass.), n. s., XXIII (1913), 222-36; A. B. Hulbert, "The
Methods and Operations of the Scioto
Group of Speculators," Mississippi Valley Historical
Review (Cedar Rapids, Ia.), I (1914), 502-15; II (1914),
56-73; T.T. Belote, "The Scioto
Speculation and the French Settlement at
Gallipolis," University of Cincinnati Studies, ser.
2, vol. III, no. 3 (Sept.-Oct. 1907);
John L. Vance, "The French Settlement and Settlers
(283)