Amsden, a highly respected man, who took charge of the
farm, and the family after the death of Father Grover in 1835.
In 1811, a company of Scotch from Glasgow, Scotland,
through the influence of Nahum Ward of the Ohio Company's
Land Purchase, emigrated to Ohio, and settling on Sterling
Bottom, named for the "land of the heather." George Rich-
ardson, the Pattersons, the McCoys and others. Dissatisfaction,
discontent, homesickness and death served to break up and
scatter the company. Only Mr. George Richardson remained,
and he was a merchant and capable of adapting himself to the
primitive conditions of the country. Mrs. Richardson was a
native of Antigua, one of the British West Indies, and had
inherited slaves and plantation interests, but England freed the
slaves, and much of the riches vanished. They had a family,
one daughter, Eliza Richardson. Nicholas Richardson, the
eldest son, married Hannah Lauck. George, Jr., and other
children names unknown. The Richardsons left Sterling Bot-
tom some time in the 30's.
Philip Buffington purchased the Island of Duvol in 1796,
ever since known as Buffington's Island. Joseph Buffington
came from Hampshire county, Virginia, in 1814, bought a
farm, Jacob Buffington also, located on the Ohio bottoms, op-
posite and below the island. They both had large families of
sons and daughters. They were a well-to-do, industrious, hos-
pitable people-good neighbors.
THE PICTURED ROCKS OF ANTIQUITY
The rock of Antiquity is so called from the fact that the
earliest settlers found engraven on its face inscriptions and
figures of ancient date. These consisted of names of persons
not English; also the figure of an Indian cut in the face of the
rock. He was represented as in a squatting position, his right
elbow on his knee, with a tomahawk pipe in his mouth. Dr.
Fuller Elliot, a man of much learning, thought that these in-
scriptions were made by a party of Frenchmen who descended
