Day 2: April 6, 2021
River Bank Cruising
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I had not made it all the way to Tu-Endie-Wei State Park yesterday and decided to do that today before leaving Point Pleasant. It's a good thing I chose to use the riverside walk to get there because I found another statue and an interesting story. I don't recall ever hearing of Anne Bailey. She was born in England, her first husband was killed at the Battle of Point Pleasant, she set out to avenge him, and reportedly did a pretty good job and earned the nickname "Mad Anne". Her second husband was also killed by Indians but Anne lived to be 83 and was still serving as an express rider at the age of 70.
Tu-Endie-Wei is Wyandotte for "point between two waters". The park contains the pleasant point that prompted George Washington to call the place Point Pleasant. It is part battlefield and part gravesite. Many of the soldiers who died in the Battle of Point Pleasant were buried together in what had been the magazine. It is marked by the big circular stone. Chief Cornstalk survived the battle but was murdered by soldiers three years later. A stone obelisk marks his grave.
I had sort of planned on my morning walk including the Point Pleasant River Museum but learned before I took the first step that it had suffered a fire in 2018. There are plans for it to reopen just up the street in September.
I finally left Point Pleasant, and returned to the Ohio side of the river. I made it as far north as Pomeroy before stopping. Pomeroy's downtown faces the river with convenient riverside parking. It makes a pretty good spot to view the western half of the cable-stayed Pomeroy-Mason Bridge.
Part of my drive was on OH-124 and the Ohio River Scenic Byway which certainly lives up to its name. Not all the scenery is on the river, however. Just south of Bacon Hollow next to Long Run Road this great looking house stands in one of the most stunning settings on the river. About a half mile north is a spot where George Washington camped back in 1770. Read the plaque here. The view from where the plaque stands has undoubtedly changed a little in 251 years.
For the second time in my life, I'm spending a night at the Lafayette Hotel in the oldest permanent settlement in the Northwest Territory. The current hotel opened in 1918 but my room is in the "new" Hoag Addition built in 1937. Those bells are from the Mansion House which once occupied the area of the Hoag Addition.

There is actually a telephone in one of those booths, and a sign says "Just pick up the Receiver" to hear the history of the hotel. I tried but got nothing. My first thought was that it was turned off because of the pandemic. My second thought was that it makes no sense to require handling something to find out it is disconnected to protect you from handling it. It's either just broken or they know something about infectious sound waves that I don't.

With outside temperatures in the upper 70s, the room was understandably a little warm and stuffy. As I started to study the air conditioner under the window, I noticed that the windows had screens in them and looked like they might slide. They did, and there was a ceiling fan, too. Fresh air from an open window overlooking a river. Now that's something worth calling home about. On a pay phone. Collect.

On the way to dinner, I looked over a local fishing operation and checked out a few other things near the hotel. If you want to read about how the Marquis kicked off U.S. tourism, there's a straight shot here.
Marietta Brewing isn't completely unique in this regard but it is one of the very few craft breweries I can remember drinking in before I started tracking them that stuck around long enough for me to return to add it to my score. That's porter in the glass and shrimp stir fry in the bowl.

When I returned to my room, I took a look outside to check on my car. Turns out it found a friend.

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