uilt a
fort there, soon after LaSalle's last voyage, and, as Crailey Gray
said, had settled the place, and had then been settled themselves by the
pioneer militia. After the Revolution, Carolinians and Virginians had
come, by way of Tennessee and Kentucky; while the adventurous countrymen
from Connecticut, travelling thither to sell, remained to buy--and then
sell--when the country was in its teens. In course of time the little
trading-post of the Northwest Territory had grown to be the leading
centre of elegance and culture in the Ohio Valley--at least they said
so in Rouen; only a few people in the country, such as Mr. Irving of
Tarrytown, for instance, questioning whether a centre could lead.

The pivotal figure, though perhaps not the heart, of this centre, was
unquestionably Mr. Carewe, and about him the neat and tight aristocracy
of the place revolved; the old French remnant, having liberally
intermarried, forming the nucleus, together with descendants of the
Cavaliers (and those who said they were) and the industrious Yankees, by
virtue (if not by the virtues) of all whom, the town grew and prospered.
Robert Carewe was Rouen's magnate, commercially and socially, and, until
an upstart young lawyer named Vanrevel struck into his power with a
broad-axe, politically. The wharves were Carewe's; the warehouses that
stood by the river, and the line of packets which plied upon it,
were his; half the town was his, and in Rouen this meant that he was
possessed of the Middle Justice, the High and the Low. His mother was a
Frenchwoman, and, in those days, when to go abroad was a ponderous and
venturesome undertaking, the fact that he had spent most of his youth
in the French capital wrought a certain glamour about him; for to the
American, Paris was Europe, and it lay shimmering on the far horizon of
every imagination, a golden city. Scarce a drawing-room in Rouen lacked
its fearsome engraving entitled "Grand Ball at the Tuileries," nor
was Godey's Magazine ever more popular than when it contained articles
elaborate of similar scenes of festal light, where brilliant uniforms
mingled with shining jewels, fair locks, and the white shoulders of
magnificently dressed duchesses, countesses, and ladies. Credit for this
description should be given entirely to the above-mentioned periodical.
Furthermore, a sojourn in Paris was held to confer a "certain nameless
and indescribable polish" upon the manners of the visitor; also, there
w