that I was
continued, at my early age, practically in charge of the work I
have mentioned. All plans came from headquarters and I was carefully
instructed from there what to do and how to do it. This was a
great and useful experience for me, and it continued until the
summer of 1839.

During most of that time I lived in the family of Mr. Paul Fearing,
an old and respected citizen of Beverly, who had long been engaged
in what was called the river trade. He transported the produce of
the country, chiefly pork, apples, wheat, and corn, from the
neighboring region on flats and scows down the Muskingum, Ohio and
Mississippi to New Orleans, stopping at the riverside towns, selling
his commodities and buying others. The boats were sold at New
Orleans for lumber. The captain and crew, generally consisting of
two men, would return by steamer with the proceeds of their traffic
in sugar, molasses and other productions of the south. This was
the early mode of traffic, but it had largely been broken up by
steamboats, so that at the time I refer to, Mr. Fearing's occupation
was gone; but he had a comfortable little fortune, and, with his
wife and only daughter, lived in a neat cottage on the banks of
the river at Beverly, where I became practically a member of his
family.

The community at Beverly was a very intelligent one, composed mainly
of settlers from Massachusetts on the Ohio Company's purchase.
The valley of the Muskingum is exceedingly fertile, but it is
comparatively narrow and confined by picturesque hills and ridges,
broken by water courses. The settlements were mostly in the valley,
for the hill lands were rough, covered by poor soil, and were
occupied chiefly for grazing. The portion of the valley at Beverly,
and south of it, was singularly fertile and pleasing, and very
valuable. Its owners and occupants were mostly of New England
birth and descent. Their productions had a ready market down the
river, and in that age, before railroads, the valley had a great
advantage in transportation and supplies over the interior parts
of the state. The people were, as a rule, educated in good schools,
and they had a college at Marietta and a female college at Zanesville.
The proposed improvement of the Muskingum, they believed, would
give them another advantage, by securing them water of a depth
sufficient for boats in the dry seasons of the year, as well as
during the "freshets," which they then had to depend upon,