hv_coatesi_account_1798_018

last evening, we took our departure, being willingto leave this dear place, having paid three shillings a meal, four shillings for each horse at very coarse hay,fifteen shillings a bushel for corn, and yesterday fifteenshillings a bushel for oats. We crossed French Creek, and for about twelvemiles had a stony road, and through a poor country,when we came to a rich bottom on a small stream,where we found plenty of pasture, being the first we had seen in the woods since we left home, About six miles we came to a house near OilCreek, the second we have seen since leaving Frank-lin. This is the most desirable spot we have seenfor many miles back - a fine fertile bottom onthe creek with suitable plough land, a large streamnot far distant, and a noble spring just by thedoor, large enough to turn a mill. Here we put up for the night, and with some concern turnedour horses loose to pasture in the woods withoutany enclosure, for the first time since leaving home. We lodged pretty comfortably on our blan-kets. Oil Creek is so termed from an oilyfluid, collected from its surface, arrising eitherfrom springs near its margin, or from diferentparts of the creek, It is called Seneca oil, [because]it resembles the Seneca or British oil in smell. We were informed that one man gatheredthree barrels last year which sold at Pittsburgh