e French at Fort Le Boeuf, and
several famous Indian treaties were signed there. A short distance
below, Anthony Wayne's Western army was encamped during the winter of
1792-93, the place being then styled Legionville. In 1824 George Rapp
founded in the neighborhood a German socialist community, and this
later settlement survives to the present day in the thriving little
rustic town of Economy.

At four o'clock we struck camp on a heavily-willowed shore, at the
apex of the great northern bend of the Ohio (25 miles).[A] Across
the river, on a broad level bottom, are the manufacturing towns of
Rochester and Beaver, divided by the Beaver River; in their rear,
well-rounded hills rise gracefully, checkered with brown fields and
woods in many shades of green, in the midst of which the flowering
white dogwood rears its stately spray. Our sloping willowed
sand-beach, of a hundred feet in width, is thick strewn with
driftwood; back of this a clay bank, eight feet sheer, and a narrow
bottom cut up with small fruit and vegetable patches; the gardeners'
neat frame houses peeping from groves of apple, pear and cherry, upon
the flanking hillsides. A lofty oil-well derrick surmounts the edge of
the terrace a hundred yards below our camp. The bushes and the ground
round about the well are black and slimy with crude petroleum, that
has escaped during the boring process, and the air is heavy with its
odor. We are upon the edge of the far-stretching oil and gas-well
region, and shall soon become familiar enough with such sights and
smells in the neighborhood of our nightly camps.

No sooner had Pilgrim been turned up against a tree to dry, and a
smooth sandy open chosen for the camp, than the proprietor of the soil
appeared--a middling-sized, lanky man, with a red face and a sandy
goatee surmounting a collarless white shirt all bestained with tobacco
juice. He inquired rather sharply concerning us, but when informed of
our innocent errand, and that we should stay with him but the night,
he promptly softened, explaining that the presence of marauding
fishermen and house-boat folk was incompatible with gardening for
profit, and he would have none of them touch upon his shore. As to
us, we were welcome to stop throughout our pleasure, an invitation he
reinforced by sitting upon a stump, whittling vigorously meanwhile,
and glibly gossiping with the Doctor and me for a half-hour, on crop
conditions and the state of the country--"bein' sociabl