miles to go through a lonesome Wilderness. This day as I rode along
the back of Lake Erie I plainly saw the mist or Fog riseing from
the Great Falls of Niagara at a distence of 30 or 40 miles, I reach’d
Cataragus Village in the evening and going to the house where
I had lodg’d before, I found it evacuated and the Door barracaded
up with Bark. I then went thro’ the Town and could find but
3 or 4 houses open in which there was no body but Children who
when the saw me approaching ran in and shut the Doors, & the
Dogs follow’d me about as though I was some thing came to devour them
at length I saw a Squaw comeing from the Woods with a load of wood
on her back and after making her sensible what I wanted she ran
away to a small Cabbin and beckoned to me to go there, according
ly I did & found an Old man Laying Sick who could talk english. I told him I was a
Quaker in order to succeed the better; and wanted Lodging in some
of their houses. he said his old woman was out, and he could not
tell how it might be, for, he lay there, his Old woman at the Other side
and a little Girl at one end, and the house not above 10 or 12 feet
in length, in which I suppose there was 30 bushels of Corn and a
fire in the middle. but he said the would try to mak room for
me. Accordingly when the Old Woman came in they concluded
to let me have her Berth which was a warm and comfortable one.

I got myself some Chocolate for supper and then asking the Old
man if he knew his age, he said he did very well, and this very Summer
he was 120 years Old, that he had seen a great many days, and
been in a great many Wars, but no bullet had ever hurt him, & had
been twice in Philadelphia when it was a little Town. He said his
wife was above 80, & her and her Daughter had rais’d 650 strings
of Corn this Summer 5 of which makes a bushel. All which
he related with so much inno with a great deal more he rela
ted with so much inocence and simplicity I had no reason to doubt
the Simplicity of it veracity of it.

I was well pleas’d with my lodgeing and the Old mans Company as
him with mine, and in the morning left them as soon as it was
light in some hopes of reaching a house on the Allegeny river that day