Buffington descendants will appreciate Fortescue Cumming's account of river travel before the island was host to the great civil war battle.

We took them on board, and one proved to be one Buffington, son to the owner of Buffington's island, from whom Pickets had purchased his farm and mill.... Buffington was a very stout young man, and was going to the falls to attend a gathering (as they phrase it in this country) at a justice's court, which squire Sears, who resides at the falls, holds on the last Saturday of every month: He supposed there would be sixty or seventy men there—some plaintiffs, and some defendants in causes of small debts, actions of defamation, assaults, &c. and some to wrestle, fight, [117] shoot at a mark with the rifle for wagers, gamble at other games, or drink whiskey.

"He related a laughable story of a panick which seized the people of his neighbourhood about two years ago, occasioned by a report being spread that two hundred Indians were encamped for hostile purposes on the banks of Shade river.

The whole party followed—crossed the Ohio in canoes, and alarmed the Virginia side by reporting that Buffington's wife, and some others, who had not been forted, were shot and scalped by the Indians; but when the truth came out, they were much ashamed.

"Buffington deals in cattle and hogs, which he occasionally drives to the south branch of the Potomack, where they find a ready market for the supply of Baltimore and the sea coast.