Halsey and a man named Lasley lived on the middle branch
of Shade river. They hauled grain to the mouth of Hocking,
there loaded in canoes and pushed up to the floating mill on
the Muskingum river above Marietta, a trip that took nine
days to go and return. There were no stores nearer than
Marietta or Gallipolis. Prices were high - sixty-two and one-
half cents for prints, the same for brown sheeting, and tea was
two dollars a pound. Bears, panthers, wolves and deer were
plenty, also small game. Wild turkeys were seen in flocks of
hundreds. Mr. Hecox killed a bear that weighed four hundred
pounds when dressed. William and Jeptha Hecox were in
the woods and treed a half-grown bear. Jeptha ran home to
get an ax, or a gun, and left William and the dogs to watch
the bear. While he was gone the bear came down the tree,
the dogs seized him, and William took a pine knot and struck
him in the head and killed him. Levi Stedman had his hog
pen near his house and one night he was away and a bear
came into the pen to get a hog, but Mrs. Stedman threw a
firebrand at him from the window and frightened him away.
Cyrus Cowdery killed an elk, the last one seen in these parts.
John Sloan was hunting deer one day when his dogs treed a
panther. He shot and wounded it, when it came at him; the
dogs caught hold, and Sloan declares that he "shot the animal
nine times before he killed it." In the year 1804 Mr. Hecox
bought a pair of hand-mill stones, on which they ground wheat
and corn, and sifted it through a buckskin sieve. Levi Sted-
man built a log mill on what is now Chester, and put Mr.
Hecox's hand-mill stones in his mill until he could get larger
ones. These pioneers had to to to the Scioto river to obtain
salt, a journey of seventy miles, and paid two dollars a
bushel for the salt. There was only a horse-path for travel,
and carried by pack horses the salt, the party camping out at
night. Later roads were made for the use of carts and oxen.
They went to Marietta for all mail matter until 1812. There
