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tribes of Indians, and their titles were worthless, the tract designated being owned by the Ohio Company, by purchase from the United States, the Scioto Company having failed to make payment, as per their contract with the government and therefore gained no title - a fact that must have been known to Joel Barlow, our Minister to France, although he afterward claimed that he supposed the title had been secured by the Scioto Company.
     Earnest and well-directed efforts were made to compel the Scioto Company to reimburse these emigrants or establish them in their rights, and during their way to New York and Philadelphia, others remained in Alexandria, while a few returned to France.
     President Washington also interested himself personally in the matter, and the final agreement made with Colonel Duer, the company's agent at New York, was that the company, as far as the means, and transport and establish them upon the Ohio river, opposite the mouth of the Big Kanawha, where they expected their town to be located, erect suitable block-houses, for defence against the attack of hostile Indians, and to survey and lay out a town, to be divided among them in proportion to cash paid in Paris, by each individual, on their lands.  A written agreement to this effect was made, and from that day the emigrants abandoned all claims upon the lands for which they held deeds.
     As soon as wagons and supplies could be obtained, the remaining portion departed from Alexandria, taking the route by Winchester to Brownsville, on the Monongahela river.  The roads proved to be almost impassable, supplies were short, the journey was prolonged far beyond their expectations, and they suffered untold privations before reaching Brownsville.
     The Scioto Company had contracted with Colonel Rufus Putnam to erect buildings and furnish the settlers with provisions.  The contact was filled by him, but the company failed in payment, by which he lost about two thousand dollars.  He sent Major Burnham, with about forty men, for that purpose, among whom was Colonel Robert Safford, a companion and friend of Daniel Boone, the famous Kentuckian.  These two men, with James Burford, were the first white men on the site of Gallipolis.
     The first town, under the name of Fair Haven, had been laid out by the company, opposite the mouth of the Kanawha, and was intended as the point for the location of the French settlers, but as the ground was considered low there and liable to overflow, MAjor Burnham and party proceeded to a point four miles below, where the banks are well elevated above high water mark.
 

ARRIVAL OF THE SETTLERS

     On June 8th, 1790, Major Burnham and party landed at the site of Gallipolis, and Colonel Robert Safford sprang ashore with his ax and had the honor of felling the first tree.  They soon cleared the ground and erected forts and cabins, and most of the colonists arrived during the last week in October, 1790, and took possession of the ones assigned to them.
     Imagine five hundred emigrants from the thickly-populated districts of France, composed entirely of those who were in perfect ignorance of what would be required of them in a new country - physicians, lawyers, jewelers, and other artisans, a few mechanics, servants to the exiled nobility, and many with no trade or profession - suddenly placed in a wilderness of this kind, infested by ferocious wild beasts, and still more murderous bands of lawless Indians.  Great credit for pluck and energy must be given them for remaining, under the circumstances, when, at the time they purchased their lands in France, the country for which they were destined was represented in the most glowing terms, as a paradise abounding in beauty and all that tends to make life a blessing.
     At an early meeting of the settlers the town was named Gallipolis (town of the French.)  On what is now the Public Square, had been erected eighty log cabins, twenty in a row.  At each of the corners were block-homes, two stories in height.  In front of the cabins, close by the river bank, was a small log breastwork, erected for defence while building the cabins.  Above the cabins, on the square, were two other parallel rows of cabins, which, with a high stockade fence and block-houses at each of the upper corners, formed a sufficient fortification in times of danger.  These upper cabins were a story-and-a-half in height, built of hewn logs and furnished in better style than those below, being intended for the wealthier class, and for those appointed to superintend and anage the interets of the colony.  In one of these was a room used for a council chamber and a ball-room, in which balls, soirees, etc., were regularly given, at which the etiquette of St. Cloud was observed.

LEARNING TO FELL TREES.

     A description of their early attempt to adapt themselves to the new life would be amusing, but doubtless was no joke to them.  A number were seriously wounded and some lost their lives in learning to fell trees.  Having no knowledge of the use of the ax, some two or three would tackle some huge monster of the forest from as many different sides, girdling the tree and giving the death blow at the heart; as can be readily seen, the tree would oftentimes slip from the stump on the workmen, or more frequently they (or the admiring group who were watching the process), not being able to tell the direction in which the tree would fall, would be crushed to the ground under the heavy branches.  A short experience of this kind sharpened their wits, and by placing strong men at the ends of two ropes, the other end being fastened to the tree, they found that they could guide it in its fall, and this operation thereafter became less dangerous.  This fact is related to show that, although they were courageous and enterprising and willing to work, and mainly very intelligent, as a class, there were obliged to suffer by practical experience before they were able to adapt themselves to the new mode of living, or make much progress in rendering their situation comfortable.
     As long as provisions lasted, life went comparatively smooth, and a determination prevailed to make the best of the circumstances.  Early every Sunday morning all adult males were required to be on parade and practice tactical evolutions; this was regularly followed by mass and other services of the church, and the afternoon was given to recreation.  Their two great holiday's were the Fourth of July and the date of the destruction of the Bastile, both of which they celebrated with pomp and enthusiasm.  Being cut off from the advantage of a court of justice, they called  a general meeting, made laws and municipal regulations and appointed local officers or managers.  Order and good government were by this method preserved, until superseded by laws emanating from higher authority.
     Although the colonists were willing to work, yet this experience in the wilderness was so entirely new and unexpected, and their former pursuits were so entirely different from what they were required to do here, that for a time they were greatly bewildered, and many were discouraged.  The Americans and hunters were paid to cut the timber and prepare the garden ground which was to receive the seeds brought from France, the immigrants assisting to the best of their ability, and with their natural intelligence and enterprise, rapidly adapting themselves to the situation, and thus the colony began to improve, and the surroundings assume an air of civilization and comfort.

GREAT SUFFERING AND PRIVATIONS.

     It now became apparent that the Scioto Company could never obtain for them any further remuneration for the impositions that had been practiced upon them.  The company had fulfilled nearly all their engagements during the first six months, after which they ceased their supply of provisions to the colonists, and it was given as a reason that one or two of their agents, who had received the funds in France for the purchased lands, had run off with the money to England, and the company were defrauded of the whole, without having purchased or gained title to any of the tract which they had sold to the deceived colonists.  Winter land set in with uncommon severity; the Ohio was frozen over, so that flat-boats could not come down with flour from above; the hunters no longer had meat to sell; they were destitute of almost everything excepting a scanty supply of vegetables, and almost a famine was produced in the settlement.  The money and clothes they had brought with them were nearly gone; they knew not to whom to apply to get their lands, and their utter wretchedness can better be imagined than described.

FINAL SETTLEMENT OF LAND TITLES.

     Judge Ephraim Cutler, of Washington county, son of Rev. Dr. Manasseh Cutler, who was the agent for the New England Ohio Company, in making contract with Congress for their lands, is probably the best authority that can be had upon the subject of the action of the Ohio and Scioto companies, and the French colonists in settling the final title of the latter in the lands at Gallipolis.  He says that William Duer, Royal Flint and Andrew Cragie, styling themselves "Trustees to the proprietors of the Scioto lands," applied to General Rufus Putnam and Dr. Manasseh Cutler two of the directors of the Ohio Company, and bargained with them for the purchase of 148 "forfeited shares."  The 8, 3 and 160 acre lots and the town lots had been already allotted and drawn.  The undrawn portions - equal to 100, 262, and 640 acres to each share, were to be located in a body in the southwest corner of the purchase, in all 196,544 acres.  This contract was ratified by the company.  The lands of the French settlement of Gallipolis were located and occupied in consequence of the arrangement.  General Putnam, as agent for Duer & Co., provided at some $2,000 expense, for the accommodation of the French emigrants there, and lost most all of it by their failure.
     The Scioto Company not only failed in securing the large purchase contemplated, but did not succeed in obtaining the interest for which they stipulated in the lands of the Ohio Company.  They did not pay, and the contract with Putnam and Cutler became a nullity.  All that was required by the contract was that the Scioto Company associates should pay much proportionately as the Ohio Company were to pay to Congress, and relinquish to the Ohio Company the pre-emption right which the Scioto Company was understood to have in reference to lands lying north of the Ohio Company's location.  All was failure on the part of the Scioto Company, but the French emigrants were planted at Gallipolis, and they secured the title to their lands in and about there by purchase from the Ohio Company at $1.25 per acre.  Severe criticism has been made of the act of the company in thus demanding this price from the much-deceived and grossly defrauded people, but it was, in truth, an act of favor and courtesy in deference to their misfortunes.  The Ohio Company were under no obligations to them, and had no agency in inviting or deceiving them.  How much blame there was in the case, and to whom it belonged is now impossible to decide.  Barlow was an enthusiast, but it is not known that he was intentionally false.  Most probably the emigrants we greatly begiled by their own vivid imaginations, and it is easy to

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