The largest island in the Ohio River lies a mile below Parkersburg, W. Va., and the mouth of the Little Kanawha River. From the beginning it has borne several names but for the last hundred-odd years it has borne but one, the ill-fated name of Blennerhassett.

The romantic tragedy of Blennerhassett Island has been given to the world on a thousand pages; and while it would be inappropriate not to sketch it here again, we will do so with a purpose not before essayed—that of allowing the romance to interpret certain of the phases of the history of the Ohio River which have been treated in preceding pages. The real story, shorn of its glittering, tinselled fabrications, contains an object-lesson in western history that has been ignored in inverse ratio to its inherent value. The romantic and unusual features of the story serve the admirable purpose of embalming and saving a number of facts and suggestions that enable us to form a more perfect picture of the Ohio Valley in the first decade of the nineteenth century than is possible in the case of any other single historical episode.

The story of Blennerhassett Island, for instance, illustrates the experiences of an emigrant in making a pioneer settlement in this valley; again, it shows the character of the political unrest in the day before any real unification of the West and the East had dawned; it illustrates that fervent, lawless type of patriotism with which the first western settlers were sternly imbued; it is full of help in making us able to understand to some degree the nature and passion for land speculation, the rowdy element in the valley, the flatboat days, the character of the infant Ohio Valley settlements, in short, the whole of the rude conditions of the life of the times.

Those who have followed the present record thus far can very well appreciate that all land in the valley had been "taken up" somewhat before the end of the eighteenth century; all the land on the Virginia side had been claimed, probably, by 1780, and, beginning with the Marietta and Cincinnati settlements in 1788, the Ohio and Indiana shore was doubtless in some settler's or speculator's hands by 1796.

In that year the Irish 'emigre' whose name will forever be remembered in the West came to America. Harman Blennerhassett was descended from the choicest Irish stock; his blood could be traced back to the times of King John. He was one of three sons born to noble, wealthy parents residing at Conway Castle, Kerry County, Ireland. The year of his birth is in dispute, but it is sure that it fell in the year 1764 or 1765 at Hampshire, England, where his mother was visiting. As the youngest son he was destined to learn a profession and his education was well attended to.

When young he was placed in the celebrated school at Westminster, England, and later he entered Trinity College, Dublin, from which he was graduated, sharing honors with his lifelong friend, the distinguished Irish patriot and orator, Thomas Addis Emmet. Leaving Trinity, Blennerhassett continued his law studies at King's Inn Courts, Dublin, and was admitted to practise at the Irish bar in 1790. He rounded out his education by a continental tour, visiting the Netherlands and arriving in France in the summer of 1790, at the period when that nation had been rocked in the arms of revolution. This revolutionary spirit was quickly imbibed by a disciple of Rousseau and one thoroughly acquainted with Voltaire, and Blennerhassett returned to his native country with a feeling of genuine sympathy for republicanism. But he cared not for political or social honors and strove to keep aloof from all party affiliation. The quiet and retirement for which he yearned was sought for in vain in a country thoroughly awakened to revolt, so he disposed of his estate and started for Kingsdale where his sister, the wife of Baron de Courcey, resided.

Although Blennerhassett was closely allied to the nobility of Ireland and England he looked with longing toward the free America which had but recently shaken off the identical yoke under which his mother-country —Ireland—was now groaning, and he made haste to England where he completed preparations to transfer his property to America. His estates had yielded him a fortune of one hundred thousand dollars. A share of this was invested in a library and chemical and philosophical apparatus. At this time Blennerhassett was married to Miss Agnew, daughter of the Lieutenant-Governor of the Isle of Man, and granddaughter of the celebrated General Agnew who fell at the battle of German town, much against the wishes of her parents who practically disinherited her for the act. Being endowed with a surprising degree of energy and of a romantic nature however, Mrs. Blennerhassett listened, with delight, to his tales of the far-off America and did not hesitate to link her destiny with his; alienated from her home the prospect of emigration came as a relief so with wife, library, and apparatus, Blennerhasset; set sail for New York in 1796. During the several months that the couple remained in New York they were received by the first American families—more in a parental and brotherly way than in a manner you would call polite and elegant," as he wrote to England. But Blennerhassett had not come across the waters to seek social distinction, and the reports of the quiet, fertile country west of the Alleghenies, where "first families" and social distinctions were not known, were more alluring to him than anything New York had to offer; so, in company with his wife, Blennerhassett set out westward. After a tedious trip they reached Pittsburg in the fall of 1797, and at once embarked in a keelboat for Marietta—the oldest and one of the most important towns on the Ohio. Here they spent the winter of 1797 and 1798, feeling much at home amid the general culture and intellectuality of the Mariettians, the descendants of the sturdy, puritanical stock of Massachusetts and Connecticut They decided to abandon their former plan of looking for land in the States of Kentucky and Tennessee and resolved to locate amid this enterprising settlement.

Lacking any complete information on the subject, there is no ground for speculating on the practicability of Blennerhassett's plan of removal to America or of his adventuring into the Ohio Valley. The moment, however, that he arrives here and begins the work of selecting and building a home we are forced to the conclusion that he was everything that a level-headed, practical man could not be. It is as difficult for the fair-minded student to retain any respect for the Irish immigrant as it is to treat respectfully some of the commonly accepted accounts of those who have written most about him. The most absurd stories have been circulated by writers; some of these have been, seemingly, as gullible as was Blennerhassett when they say he paid a laborer five times the rightful price for collecting mussel-shells along the shore of the Ohio because the man averred he had to dive into fifteen feet of water to gather them! Several such chroniclers assert that Blennerhassett could repeat the entire Iliad "in the original Greek."

In casting about for a "seat" the immigrant at first chose the beautiful height known to-day as Harmar Hill which overlooks the Ohio and Muskingum at Marietta. The difficulty of access, however, is given as his reason for a change of plan. It is doubtful if that was the real reason, because he immediately chose another site infinitely more difficult, the island twelve miles below Marietta which will ever bear his name. The chimerical nature of the island proposition seems to have fascinated the eccentric young man—for he was hardly out of the twenties at the time. The island in question bore the name of Backus from its owner, Elijah Backus of Marietta, editor of the Ohio Gazette and the Territorial and Virginia Herald. It has been said that Washington, in his tour of 1770, included this island in one of his "tomahawk claims," but this is only a rumor; the island, though the largest in the river, is not mentioned in his journal of his trip. It was patented in 1786 by Alexander Nelson, Governor Patrick Henry signing the patent. Mr. Backus purchased it in 1792 from one James Heron (agent?), paying $883.33 for the 297 acres it contained. Blennerhassett bought a one hundred-and-seventy-acre tract (the upper end of the island), paying four thousand five hundred dollars for it—truly an enterprising Yankee bargain! What had been an old blockhouse cabin during the Indian War stood on the portion that Blennerhassett bought, and, in 1798, the year of the purchase, the imigrant, wife, and servants, moved into these temporary quarters.

Backus Island was as picturesque to the eye as it was impracticable for a homestead at that time; its beauty entranced the idealistic immigrant, who named it Isle de Beau; yet he could have gone only half that distance from Marietta and found as beautiful a location and one far more accessible. Also, in descending the Ohio to these island acres, he quite passed out of the range of convenient intercourse with the New Englanders among whom (his biographers affirm) he was disposed to associate, and became a citizen of Virginia. It is probable, however, that the Blennerhassetts were decidedly inclined toward the social caste of the slave State than otherwise. It seems, therefore, that they did not at all pause here on the Ohio because of the New England settlement, but simply because they decided they might go farther and fare worse. At the price, and under the circumstances, Isle de Beau assumes the gorgeous tints of a golden brick—without straw.

The lack of straw becomes plain in a short space of time. Between 1798 and 1800 a mansion was built by Colonel Jos. Barker, a resident on the Muskingum near Marietta, and in the building of it the young couple were exceedingly happy.

To this accomplishment [writes the island's historian, Mr. Gibbens many hands were requisite, in addition to the contractors, house-carpenters and the laborers, the ten negro servants he had purchased as grooms, waiters and watermen. Forest trees, the growth of years innumerable were uprooted, boughs and trunks burned or conveyed away, and the inequalities of ground surface were smoothed and changed in accordance with artistic taste. The giant trees, save here and there reserved ones, together with underbrush which might obstruct the delightful view to the traveller descending Ohio's current, were removed from the broad front of the upper portion of the
sand-pebbled gently-sloping head of the island. Elms, sycamores, and cottonwoods were sacrificed 'neath the strokes ofthe woodman's axe, that better, grander view might be had of the palatial mansion, which he had painted an alabaster whiteness.

Colonel Joseph Barker, of Marietta, who, a few years after, in 1803, built a brigantine and named it Dominic, for Blennerhassett's oldest son, was the principal architect of this uniquely planned residence of costly beauty. An exterior view is given in the cut presented. Springing up at that era of primitive cabins, in almost a wilderness, which had just emerged from the perils of Indian warfare and the presence of ferocious game, it was like a creation of magic, a revelation of paradise in a "boundless contiguity of shade" and unadorned nature. The cost of the princely building, remote from the marts of industry and art, was, it is said, in excess of a half hundred thousand dollars. The exterior improvements of walks, lawns, shrubbery, orchards, flowers and clearing of an hundred acre farm below the structure, doubtless added ten thousand more, the entire expenditure of which among farmers, mechanics and laborers was an appreciated benefit where money was scarce and opportunities to earn it few indeed.

No expense was spared in the construction and decoration, which might impart splendor, usefulness, or convenience. The main building fronted the east and was two stories high, fifty-two feet in length and thirty feet in width. Across the front a deep portico extended, and thence on cither side in circular wings, single stories forty feet in length, connected the principal or centre building with buildings on the north and south sides, each also facing the east, and being twenty-six feet in length and twenty feet in depth and two stories high. The entire structure formed half of an ellipse, with frontage of one hundred and four feet, exclusive of the circular porticoes, or promenade extensions. The right hand wing was used for library, philosophical apparatus, laboratory and study; the left appropriated to an occupancy by the servants. The united taste, culture and consultation of the Blennerhassett pair brought finishing, furnishing and furniture of every apartment in harmony and unison with a matured plan and ideal. The furniture, the best, latest and richest, in every room, was brought from the East by wagon, through Pittsburg, and thence down the Ohio by barge and keel, and was selected to please the eye and add luxurious comfort and convenience to family and numerous guests.

The hall, a spacious room, was painted sombre color, with cornice of plaster, bordered with moulding of gilt, extending around the lofty ceiling, with rich, heavy furniture to correspond. The drawing-room contrasted with the hall in having furniture light in hue and structure, and elegant, with gay carpets splendid mirrors, rich curtains, classic pictures and artistic ornaments. The side-boards—with decanters and wine glasses indispensable to Virginia hospitality in early times—were graced, as were the tables, by a liberal supply of silverware. The finest taste in all the interior, as well as beauty of the exterior surroundings .indicated the refinement of owner and hostes, and the possession and enjoyment of the finest estate in the Virginia section of the Western world, compensated them partly for the absence and immigration from associates and heritage in the older land across the wide, wide sea.

Passing, the question whether this description is overdrawn, there is no question but that every description of its mistress is fairly true to life. Mrs. Blennerhassett, perhaps more graceful than beautiful, was fit to rule in the best mansion in the West. To her outward charm of manner there was added much faith and devotion, in small things as well as in great, to her family and its best interests. She was a brilliantly active girl; and if one prefers to believe that she cleared "a five-rail Virginia fence at a single bound" as infrequently as her husband repeated the entire Iliad in the Greek, it will not be questioned that she was a marvellously good and sweet mother, hostess and friend. The late Maria P. Woodbridge of Marietta has asserted that Mrs. Blennerhasset, for instance, introduced vaccination in the West. In New York her children were vaccinated. She preserved the virus, invited parents to send their little ones to the island, and successfully performed the operation. One of the children long recollected the beautiful Mrs. Blennerhassett. Admiration, love and respect and sympathy are felt for her as we follow her changing life from happy gaiety to lonely death in a New York garret. One of the Blennerhassett children, Dorninic, was born in the blockhouse in 1799; a second, Harman, Jr., was born in the newly completed mansion in 1801.

For six years the life of the Blennerhassetts was, seemingly, very happy; if their island was not the Eden so many have pictured it, there are few hints of the sad ending of the strange drama—though the fickle husband was ever an element of uncertainty. It was not at all out of the range of possibility that his head would be turned by almost any chance adventurer armed with both chivalry and sagacity.

Aaron Burr was such a man; and this Catiline of American politics wrought the ruin of this weak Irishman in a very short space of time. In 1805 Burr entered the Ohio Valley, lacking one year of being fifty years of age. He had run his meteoric course as Revolutionary soldier, member of New York House of Representatives, Attorney General of New York, Commissioner of Revolutionary Claims, Senator from New York from 1791 to 1797, Vice-President of the United States from 1801 to 1804, defeated candidate for Governor of New York, and murderer of Alexander Hamilton. So far as native ability, personal magnetism, and lack of conscience were concerned he was a great enough man to have been guilty of any of the crimes his fiercest enemies ever accused him of plotting; at the same time he was shrewd and brilliant and popular enough to have been able to escape conviction of any crime. We shall not attempt here to sound his unfathomable "designs" as he entered the Ohio Valley, but, rather, attempt merely to sketch his influence on the residents of Blennerhassett Island and the result.

Burr was ambitious and without financial resources. He was quite detested in the East and, in a like measure, was idolized in the West. The entire West and South accepted the outcome of the Burr-Hamilton duel as honorable to all concerned, and extolled Burr in proportion as the East maligned him." Failing in his ambition to become Governor of New York, Burr showed his prescience by turning his face westward. His political prestige gone, little was left to him—few friends and less fortune—unless it was in the West. So long as the reign of the rowdy and outlaw lasted there he had friends; and, so far as fortune was concerned, when all other enterprises failed, who could not launch a land company?

The nominal purpose of Burr's western tour was to see the country and interest people in an investment in land on the Washita, a tributary of the Red River. "His chief power," it has been said of Burr, consisted in his skill in enlisting the good will and sympathy of those with whom he came into contact. It seems, also, that there was a more or less well-defined arrangement between Burr and General James Wilkinson, Major-General of the United States Army, either to provoke an outbreak between Spain and the United States on the Mississippi, or at least to take advantage of an outbreak provided one should occur. The nature of this understanding was such that it was easy for anyone, knowing about it, to infer that Burr and Wilkinson were not faithful to their country. What may have been only a speculation contingent on certain given developments came to be thought to be Burr's deeply plotted act of treason. And the difficulty was, few men lived who could give Burr the benefit of any doubt. Suppose, for instance, that Burr planned a land investment on the Washita; the whole country at that time anticipated a war with Spain; it necessarily followed that all who were to be moved to invest money in the land enterprise must be made to see that the outbreak of such a war would be a benefit and not an injury. It was natural, therefore, that Burr should emphasize to all the military possibilities in such a case. His enemies were not slow to impute to him, justly or  unjustly, a desire if not a determination to bring on the hostilities. They affirmed that he not only planned a war but fancied himself as conqueror of Mexico—and had more ground for their suspicion than they ought to have had.

But to make dark puzzle blacker still, the unsettled political status of the West at that time was dangerous enough without the appearance of any mysterious plotter on the stage. When rivers were the sole avenues of trade there was little commercial affinity between the metropolis of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and those of the Hudson and Potomac, and commerce often determines boundary lines. This we have emphasized sufficiently to make the reader's imagination fully alive to the fate of the West should war be declared against Spain. Burr's far-reaching hatred of the reigning administration, his many prophecies of a dissolution of the United Slates as then constituted, made it a gigantic task to throw from his shoulders the stigma of actually plotting the disunion of his country.

Such was the status when Burr reached Pittsburg, where a boat had been prepared for him in advance. It was the kind of house boat then called an "ark," sixty feet in length and fourteen feet wide; it contained four rooms, a dining-room, kitchen, and two bedrooms, all lighted by glass windows. One roof covered the apartments and served as a promenade deck. It is extremely unfortunate that the journal Burr kept during his tour was not preserved as it would give much interesting information of the Ohio Valley at this early date. Touching at Wheeling and Marietta he recorded that the citizens of the former village seemed quite on a par with eastern villagers, and that many of the houses at Marietta would have been called handsome anywhere. At the latter point he made a tour of the celebrated mounds, and concerning them he records that he found it difficult to reach any satisfactory conclusion—practically agreeing with the opinions of our latest and most accurate scholars.

Dropping down the river he moored his ark out of curiosity at Blennerhassett Island, having heard of the eccentric immigrant when at Marietta. While strolling on the island the strangers were seen by Mrs. Blennerhassett, who sent an invitation to them to come to the house. Burr in reply sent his card, politely declining the offer of hospitality. The lord of the manor being absent Mrs. Blennerhassett took it upon herself to entertain the distinguished traveller and went in person to present an invitation to dinner. This Burr accepted and remained through a pleasant evening at the mansion. At eleven o'clock the travellers again set sail. Burr, without seeing Blennerhassett, accurately took his measurement; be found the man but half satisfied with his island adventure and nearing the bottom of his pocket-book. Whether at this time he broached the subject of this intended land speculation to Mrs. Blennerhassett is very probable but not sure; that she herself was attracted to him strongly and was his true friend through all that followed is a matter of history.

Burr spent the memorable summer of 1805 in the South, sounding people of importance, feted far and wide. In October he ascended the Ohio and paused once more at the island, Blennerhassett again being absent. Reaching the East he addressed his first letter to him in December.

It was a very innocent communication [writes Parton] though the contrary has been asserted- It began with regrets that he had not had the pleasure of meeting Blennerhassett at his home, and inquired when and where they could come together. Its main purport was that Blennerhassett was too much of a man to be satisfied with the commonplace delights of rural seclusion. He should aspire to a career in which his powers would be employed. His fortune, already impaired, would dwindle away gradually, and his children be left destitute. The world was wide, he should go forth from his enervating solitude in pursuit of fortune and of honor.

Whether Burr got his information of Blennerhassett's affairs directly from Mrs. Blennerhassett or from current rumor one cannot say. But the fact remains that there was the best foundation for his suspicion. Blennerhassett was already planning to make a change of residence. This is clear from letters written by him in this same month of December, 1805. In a letter to John Brown, then just settled on the lower Mississippi, Blennerhassett says: "The hints you have given of the predilection you entertain for your last chosen meridian, have kindled in our minds a fire of enthusiastic curiosity, which our present embarrasmcnts will constantly fan. ... "He then speaks of a commercial venture in company with Dudley Woodbridge of Marietta and refers to a necessary abandonment of books and science, "to which, I fear, the state of my affairs will henceforth, I know not how long, condemn me." Six days later, December 15th, he writes a letter to General Devereux in which he speaks of the need of "selling or letting this place to effect a removal to another, where I could embark in mercantile pursuits, or the resumption of my old legal profession."'

Thus it is only right to emphasize the fact of Blennerhassett's purpose to leave the island, before Burr's "innocent" communication of early December reached him. In all the literature of the subject there is not sufficient emphasis of this fact. It may be that in this decision Burr had a part, as he had twice been on Blennerhassett Island, but there is no proof of this.

Such being the case, and Blennerhassett being the vagary he was, this letter of Burr's, received in December, 1805, proved a trump card. The ground was fertile with strange possibilities; and Burr's seed was as timely as fate. In his reply to Burr, dated December 21 st, the 'emigre' states that he is compelled to give over the former hope of remaining on his island where for eight years I have dreamed and hoped I should rest my bones forever, [and desired to go again] into active life, to the resumption of my former profession of the bar, mercantile or other enterprise, if I should find an opportunity of selling or letting my establishment here. . . . Having thus advised you [he continues] of my desire and motives to pursue a change of life, to engage in anything whichmay suit my circumstances,

I hope, Sir, you will not regard it indelicate in me to observe to you how highly I should be honored in being associated with you. in any contemplated enterprise you would permit me to participate in.

Blennerhassett had, in the letter, received a substantial hint at the possible outcome of Burr's land speculation as shown by the following sentence:

Not presuming to know or guess at the intercourse, if any, subsisting between you and the present Government, but viewing the probability of a rupture with Spain, the claim for action the country will make upon your talents, in the event of an engagement against, or subjugation of, any of the Spanish Territories, I am disposed in the confidential spirit of this letter to offer you my friends, and my own services to co-operate in any contemplated measures in which you may embark. . . . I shall await with much anxiety the receipt of your reply. . . .

To be lenient where there is doubt it is safe to say that Blennerhassett was embarking in Burr's scheme because it was, in the main, in line with an earlier plan of his own. It seems that it did not occur to him that Burr might be promoting a land speculation chiefly because of a subtle ulterior motive. He was duped, as were hundreds of others. As the necessary preparations for a commercial venture (securing boats, provisions, and men) were exactly similar, in many respects, to the preparations for a campaign against the Spaniards, it was easy for the adroit fortune-seeker to hoodwink those who would not have engaged in his latter plan, and, at the same time, by hints and suggestions, incite those who would have relished it in the extreme.

For several months Burr's expedition delayed in proportion as the probabilities of a war with Spain decreased; he even sought, for the second time, an appointment from President Jefferson as late as April.

Failing in this he seems to have turned with energy sharpened by bitter anger to the western exploit, whatever it was, and now answered Blennerhassett's letter of December 21st of the year before, which he received in February. It had lain unanswered until now; and it is more than singular that the date of his reply (April 15th) and the date of which President Jefferson makes record in his "Anas" of Burr's second unsuccessful application for a diplomatic or other appointment, should exactly coincide! It is difficult for one not to feel a strong prejudice against Burr in his seeking an appointment from Jefferson after the western "exploit" had been proposed widely; it has every appearance of being a dernier ressort when other lines of activity were blocked.

Source: The Ohio River: A Course of Empire, by Arthur Butler Hulbert 1906 - Transcribed by C. Anthony