USA > New York > Tioga County > Owego > Early Owego, N.Y.; some account of the early settlement of the village in Tioga County, N.Y., called Ah-wa-ga by the Indians, which name was corrupted by gradual evolution into Owago, Owego, Owegy and finally Owego > Part 25
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41
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Quaker, was constructed mostly of sheet iron. It was sixty feet long, with nine feet beam with a stern wheel, which was driven with a ten-horse power engine, capable of sending it against the current at a speed of four miles an hour. With fifty passengers on board she drew but eight inches of water.
In the spring of 1826 Captain Elgar made his first trip from York Haven to Owego. He reached Wilkes-Barre April 12. His arrival was greeted with the ringing of bells and the firing of cannon. The next day an excursion of Wilkes-Barre citizens was made, by invitation of Capt. Elgar, to Forty Fort. The boat arrived at Towanda May 8, and her coming was received with firing of cannon and the ringing of bells. A public dinner was given for Capt. Elgar the next day, at which the judges of Bradford and Dauphin counties presided. Speeches . were made, in' which Capt. Elgar was com- plimented for his enterprise. A few days afterward he came to Owego and continued his trip to Binghamton. Upon his return he remained at Owego several weeks.
Capt. Elgar experienced much diffi- culty in running his boat, for want of wood. His fuel was dry yellow pine or . pitch knots which he bought of far- mers along the route, and some of it was drawn to the river for several miles. While at Owego the "Cadorus" was tied up in Hollenback's eddy; above Ross street.
Capt. Elgar returned to York Haven, after an absence of four months. In his report to the company he declared his opposition to any further attempts to navigate the Susquehanna river by
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steam, as he believed it to be entirely impracticable, as the river was too shallow except during a few months in each year.
The second steamboat, the . "Sus- quehanna," was built at Baltimore, Md., in 1825-6 by a stock company, which was anxious to secure the trade of the Susquehanna river to that city. She was commanded by Capt. Collins, of Baltimore. Her entire length from stem to stern was eighty-two feet and her stern wheels were each four and one-half feet in diameter. With an en- gine of thirty-horse power and with a hundred passengers on board, she drew twenty-two inche's of water- fourteen more than the "Cadorus."
The state appointed three commis- sioners to accompany the boat on her trial trip. She started on her trial. trip up the river, arriving at Nesco- peck Falls, opposite Berwick, Colum- bia county, Pa., in the afternoon of May 5, 1826,. The ascent of the rapids at that point was looked upon as à difficult and hazardous undertaking. The three commissioners and all ex- cept about twenty of the passengers left the boat there and walked along the shore.
A quantity of rich pine wood had been procured as fuel. With a full head of steam the boat. slowly began the as- cent of the rapids. When she had reachde about the middle of the falls she struck a rock, and the boiler im- mediately burst with a tremendous ex- plosion. It was said that the engineer was dissatisfied with the slow pro- gress of the boat, so to increase the force of the steam he sat down on the safety valve, whereupon the boiler ex- ploded.
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'Two of the passengers were in- stantly killed and others were serious- ly injured. William Camp, of Owego, was one of the injured passengers and he died a few hours after the acci- dent. The engineer was also fatally injured. There was a tradition among river raftsmen that Mr. Maynard, the engineer, had, said that he would "run the boat up the falls or run her to hell," but this appears improbable, for Stewart Pierce's "Annals of Lu -. · zerne County," says of Mr. Maynard's death: "He died in the triumph of a Christian faith. He was a resident of Baltimore and a class-leader in the ? Methodist Episcopal church."
The "Pioneer," the third steamboat, made its experimental trip on the west branch of the Susquehanna river. Her officers made an adverse report, and for nine years no further attempt was made to navigate the river by steam.
The next steamboat intended for. commercial purposes, and the first one built at Owego, was constructed here in 1835 and she was also called the "Susquehanna." The object of her construction was to transport goods and passengers to Wilkes-Barre and intermediate villages, and to tow back coal from the mouth of the Lacka- wanna river.
July 16, 1834, a committee, com- posed of John R. Drake, Stephen Strong, William A. Ely, Henry W. Camp, Stephen B. Leonard, and Thomas Farrington, met at the old Owego hotel and appointed Mr. Camp and Mr. Ely a sub-committee to obtain subscriptions for stock. Three days later a similar meeting of citizens of Wilkes-Barre was held in that city for the same purpose, and a committee
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composed of Col. John L. Butler and six other men was appointed to meet the Owego committee at Towanda "for the purpose of consulting in regard to . such measures mutually as might be considered beneficial to the citizens of the two places respectively." The meeting of the two committees was beld Aug. 11, and the, "Susquehanna Steam Navigation Company" was or- ganized:
A meeting of the stockholders was held at the Owego hotel in this village August 21' and a board of managers was elected, which was composed as follows: James Pumpelly, William A. Ely, Henry W. Camp, Latham A. Bur- rows, Thomas Farrington, Jonathan Platt, Amos Martin, George J. Pum- polly, and. George W. Hollenback, of' Owego, and Samuel D. Ingham, Ed- ward Lynch, Henry Colt, and Henry Pettibone, of Wilkes-Barre. James Pumpelly was chosen president of the board, William Platt treasurer, and . judge Burrows secretary.
The same month John Hopkins, a civil engineer, made an examination of the river between Owego and Wilkes Barre, for the purpose of ascer- taining its susceptibility of improve- ment for the purposes of steamboat navigation and to estimate the expense of making a channel. fifty feet in width (except in rocky places, where 80 or 100 feet was considered the proper width), with at least two feet depth. of water at low water. Mr. Hopkins began his examination .at Owego on Aug. 8. The distance from Owego to Wilkes-Barre is 120 miles, and the cost of removing obstructions and making the channel, as estimated . by him was $10,254. It was the in-
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tention of the company, after having built its boat, to ascertain if a good business could be done at the time of high water, and if so, to improve the river so that boats could run in time of low water as well.
Correspondence was opened with Thomas Blanchard relative to the con- struction of a steamboat, to be built upon his patented plan. Mr. Blanch- ard was a Connecticut man, who had gained some celebrity as the inventor of the lathe for turning gun-stocks, shoe-lasts, and other irregular fornis by a self-directing operation. . He had built boats on the Connecticut river. He had also built the. "Genesee," 'a stemboat on the Genesee river, run- ning between Rochester and Avon, 86 feet in length, 16 feet in breadth, and drawing 18 inches of water. She was. used as a towboat and cost $7,500.
In the winter of 1829-30 he built at Pittsburgh a steamboat for the navi- gation of the Alleghany river on the same plan of his Connecticut river boats. She was named "Alleghany" and was the first boat to ascend: the river to Olean. She was 90 feet long and 17 feet wide. The boat was launched in March, 1830.
On her third trip, while between Warren, Pa., and Olean, N. Y., she ar- rived opposite the Indian village of Cornplanter. Here a deputation of gen- tlemen waited on this ancient and well-known chief and invited him .on board this new, and to him wonderful visitor, a steamboat. He was, in all his native simplicity of dress and man- ner of living, lying on his couch, made of rough pine boards, and covered with deer-skins and blankets. His habitation, a two-story log house, was
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in a'state of decay, without furniture, except. a few benches, and wooden bowls and spoons to eat out of. He was a smart, active man, seemingly possessed of all his strength, mind, and perfect health. He with his son, Charles, :60 years of age, with his son- in-law, came on board the boat and remained on board until she passed six miles up, and then returned in his own canoe, after having 'expressed great pleasure.
When James Pumipolly made. in- quiry relative to Mr. Blanchard, Wil- liam B. Calhoun, of Springfield, Mass., then speaker of the Massachusetts house of representatives, in a letter, connnended him as ;a successful builder of steamboats on the Connec- ticut, Alleghany, and Kenebeck rivers. "i have been for many years person- ally and even intimately acquainted with Mr. Blanchard," writes Mr. Cal- houn, "He is a thorough, practical mechanic, possessing great ingenuity and sagacity, and no. visionary. His early education was deficient, but the powers of his mind are, in my estima- tion, of high character and vigor. He is also a man of excellent heart, tho' sometimes eccentric and queer in his ways. . I can furnish you, if necessary, as many certificates as you could wish from our very best citizens of Mr. B's undisputed merits in refer- ence to. steam navigation on our river."
Mr. Blanchard. came to Owego and. on Sept. 17, 1834, contracted to build a boat 100 feet . long and fourteen feet wide, with his patent arches on each side, for $12,500. These arches were wooden ones, running fore and aft and sustained the principal weight
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of the boat's machinery. The boat was to be provided with four steam en- gines. Two of them were to be ten- inch cylinder and four feet stroke, to propel a thirteen-foot wheel, with buckets ten feet long, at the stern of the boat. The other two engines, of ten-inch diameter and two and one- half foot stroke, were to propel two paddle-wheels, one at each side of the boat, eleven feet in diameter, with buckets four feet long. The boat had . two boilers, and was to draw not to ex- ceed eighteen inches of: water. The boilers were of the construction known as the "log boiler," flue boilers being then unknown. The whole power of the engines was to be not less than fifty-horse power. The pro- pelling power was to exceed twice that required on a lake boat of the same size-that is the paddle-wheel pro- pelling power was to be two or more times :equal to that required on lake waters and the steam power in like proportion. It was believed that such a boat run in shallow water by extra- ordinary propelling .power could navi- gate the Susquehanna river from Owego anywhere below.
The side wheels were exactly equal in power to the stern wheel. When in still water the side wheels were turned in an opposite direction from the stern wheel the boat stood still, mov- ing in neither direction. The passen- ger cabin, which was near the bow of the boat, was fourteen feet wide and sixteen feet long. The boat was near- ly a flat-bottom one.
The contract required the boat to be finished and put into operation on May 1, 1835. Mr. Blanchard . bound
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himself hot to build any other boat with his patent improvements to run on the Susquehanna. George J. Pum- pelly, judge Burrows, and William A. Ely were appointed a building com- mittee, and the construction of the boat was begun in the latter part of September, 1834. It was built on the bank of the river, back of where Gur- don H. Pumpelly's house now stands . under the superintendence of Capt. John J. Tobey, of New York. The iron work and machinery were made in New York and shipped by canal in Oc- tober.
Capt. Tobey began work Oct. 1, 1834. The boat was built under the superin- tendence of Mr. Bampton, a ship car- penter from New York, with a force of from five to ten hands. The winter was a cold one, with much snow, and the boat was not fully completed when she was launched in April, 1835.
There was some ceremony incident to the launching, which was witnessed by many spectators, and George J. Pumpelly christened her the "Súsque- hanna" by breaking a bottle of wine over the bow, in accordance with a time-honored custom. The bottle was attached to the end of a piece of rope and swung over his head. Then 'the boat was towed up to an old plaster dock, near the foot of Court street, where . the arch and boilers were placed in. The cabin and the painting and glazing were not completed until two months later.
May 5, 1835, the "Susquehanna" was run about five miles up the river and performed well. The next day. she was run two or three miles down the
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river through swifter water and came up in good style .;
At 6:40 o'clock in the morning of May 7 the boat started on her first trip to Wilkes-Barre with James Pum- pelly, Jonathan Platt, judge Burrows, and other prominent men on board, stopping at Athens, Towanda, and Me- shoppen, and arriving at Wilkes-Barre at 4:40 p. m. She was welcomed by large crowds of people, who lined the bank at the various places where she stopped. .
She started the next day on her re- turn trip with about 'twenty passen- gers on board. She arrived at Tunk- hannock at 5:30 o'clock. The next day while passing through a rapid known as "horse race," it was found that the shaft 'attached to the stern wheel had become nearly twisted off, and the boat was compelled to lie at Meshoppen two or three weeks for re- pairs. The forward wheels were ren- dered almost entirely useless, the packing of a cylinder having blown out by force of the steam, owing to the cylinder covers being too thin. Capt. Tobey was compelled to come to Owe- go (a distance of seventy miles) for a blacksmith. They made a forge and repaired the shaft. The side wheels being useless, the remainder of the trip to Owego was made by using the stern wheel alone.
Capt. Tobey was captain of the boat on her first trip. James Springsteen was engineer and Ebenezer Allen pilot. The passenger fare from Owego to Wilkes-Barre was $2.50 and the re- turn fare $3.50. The boat carried but fifty passengers. .
In June Capt. Tobey made his sec- ond trip to Wilkes-Barre and returned
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two days afterward without any diffi- culty. He brought up a cargo of twenty barrels of flour and between. twenty and thirty passengers. That year there was a great scarcity of pro- visions, particularly of flour, which was selling here for ten dollars a bar- rel, which was a very high price for those times. This was the most im- portant service rendered to Owego by the boat during her existence. These were the only two trips made by Capt. Tobey to Wilkes-Barre, although when the boat was building he expected to be the captain permanently.
The fourth of July in 1835 was cele- brated at Owego with a military pa- rade, the usual exercises, and a dinner at the "bowery" of the old Owego hotel. That day the "Susquehanna" took an excursion party up the river 'six miles to Whitney's dam. The ex- cursion was liberally advertised and 25 cents were charged for the round . trip. There were about 200 passen- gers. on board, crowding her to her fullest capacity. :
The bottom of the boat was so fat that when the pasengers congregated at one side she rocked over, thus tip- ping the boilers in a position that ren- dered the steam dangerous and the boiler liable to explode. The requests . of Capt. Tobey's to so divide the crowd that about an equal number should be on each side of the boat to preserve its equilibrium were not heeded until he rushed on deck saying, "If you don't stop flocking on to one side I'll blow you to the devil." After return- ing to Owego a second excursion. was made with a load of children.
The side wheels of the boat had been made smaller than the contract speci-
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ted. It was found on the first trip to Wilkes-Barre that they did not dip deep enough into the water. They. were accordingly enlarged after the second trip down the river, and the wheel-houses were also enlarged to correspond. It was believed that the steamboat could be used as a tugboat to draw arks, but it could not be done, for the strain was so great that the rudder would not guide the boat.
In January, 1835, the company de- cided to build two tow boats and the work was placed in the hands of Capt. Tobey. These barges were thirty feet. long and twelve feet wide and were built at Owego. They were intended for the transportation of coal up the. river, and were constructed of planks secured together by half inch rods on a patent plan of Mr: Blanchard. The boats had no timber in them. When . the planks shrunk, the nuts at the end of the rods were turned and the planks drawn tightly together. The barges were used but once, when they were loaded with coal at Lee's creek, a few rods below Nanticoke dam and nine miles below Wilkes-Barre. They were taken to Wilkes-Barre and left there.
While the steamboat was in opera- tion on the river a bill was introduced in the state legislature incorporating the company under the name of the · Susquehanna Steam Navigation Com- pany. The bill became a law May 1, 1835. James Pumpelly and others were constituted a body corporate for the purpose of constructing one or more steamboats and navigating them on the Susquehanna river, for the pur- pose of transporting passengers and property and trading and dealing in mineral coal. The capital stock was
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fixed at $50,000, divided into shares of $10 each.
'The company was managed by nine directors, one of whom was president of the board. The first board of di- rectors was composed of James Pum- pelly, Jonathan Platt, Amos Martin, Henry . W. Camp, . William A. Ely, Latham A. Burrows, George J. Pum- pelly, Thomas Farrington, and Har -. mon Pumpelly; All persons interested in the boat already constructed were deemed stockholders. to the amount of their subscriptions. The company was authorized to improve the naviga- tion of the Susquehanna river from Owego south to the Pennsylvania state line by the removal of all obstructions, natural and artificial, and the erection of wing and side dams. James Pum- pelly was elected president of the board.
In the fall of 1835 the water was not sufficiently high to run the boat and no trip was made down the river. In March, +836, a third trip was made to Wilkes-Barre. Henry W .. Camp was captain, having succeeded Capt. Tobey. Mr. Camp was captain of the boat du- ring the remainder of her existence. An empty barge was taken for the pur- pose .of bringing up a boat load of coal. In returning, when about half way up the river, the forward connecting or main .shaft broke. It was brought to Owego and repaired. Three or four. days later the boat reached Owego with a boat load of coal in tow. This . is believed to have been the first coal ever brought to this village.
The "Susquehanna" started April 18 .on her fourth trip. The proprietors had determined to run her down the
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river for the purpose of selling her. At this time N. P. Willis, the poet, was living at "Glenmary" and writing his "Letters from Under a Bridge," which added much to his literary fame. He was invited to accompany others in the trip and did so. The in- cidents of his journey were entertain- ly and graphically described in the fifteenth letter of the series.
About thirty-one miles below Owego the same shaft broke again in another place. The boat returned at once to Owego using her stern wheel. The boat was tied up at her landing at the. docks, which were under the "old wooden stores in Front street, and an entire new set of shafts was procured in New York at a cost of about $700.
In the fall of 1836 there was no high water for boating. A fifth trip was made, however, the boat leaving Owe- go Oct. 19 at 8:30 a. m. in charge of Capt. Camp. Returning a boat load of coal was brought up as far as Athens, where all was sold except two wagon loads, which were brought to Owego from that point by wagon. The river was too low to make another trip that season.
In the spring of 1837 the boat did nothing. She was forced ashore by the ice near the mouth of the Owego creek and was not got off and repaired until low water: In the fall of the - same year a trip was made down the river. A crank got out of order and was repaired at Wilkes-Barre. She soon afterward got adrift in a freshet and floated four or five miles down the river and went ashore on one of the small island's opposite Plymouth. The man who had made the repairs at Wilkes-Barre attached the boat and
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sold her for his pay. She was struck off at auction for $60 to Augustus C. Laning, who subsequently used the ch gine for his foundry.
In July, 1835, Mr. Blanchard, by his . attorney, John M. Parker, of Owego, began an action at law against the · steamboat company in the supreme · court to recover the sum of $5,000, the balance unpaid on his contract for building the boat with interest. Thomas Farrington defended the case. The defence was that the boat was not completed; that she was defective in .materials and construction, and con- sequently worthless and unfit for. the purposes for which she was built; that . she drew twenty, instead of eighteen
inches of water; that the wheels and wheelhouses had tobemade over; that the machinery was of inferior quality, and that the woodwork of the boat was of poor material.
The suit was tried at the City Hall in New York city before Ogden Ed wards, circuit judge, on the first Mou- day in October, 1837. The jury gave a verdict of $5,240.31 for the plaintiff. This case was of such importance. to the legal fraternity that it was re- ported in Wendell's Reports, Vol. 21, . page 342.
The case was appealed and a new trial granted. It was again tried in New York in May, 1839, and the judg- ment of the previous court was' af- firmed .. Each of the stockholders sub- sequently paid $428.48, his proportion. of the judgment obtained by Blanch- ard. 1 ..
In May, 1835, Blanchard had as- sighed his contract for building the steamboat to James Pumpelly as se- curity for the payment of $500, bor-
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rowed money. This also resulted in a suit at law, the particulars of which may be found by any one interested in Lalor's Supplement to Hill & Denio, page 198.
A representation of the "Susque- hanna" was engraved on the first of- ficial seal used by the village of Owe. go, which seal was made of brass by Sewall J.'Leach in July, 1835.
The "Susquehanna" was the first . and last boat built in Owego for com- mercial purposes. All the large boats. built since have been for pleasure only. The steamboats built here since that time are as follows:
1839. . The Lillie.
1857. The Picnic.
1873. The Owego.
1876. The Lyman Truman.
1884. The Marshland.
1884. The Glenmary.
The construction of the second steamboat built in Owego was begun in 1838 and it was completed at a cost of $2,500 and launched in June, 1839 by John. H. Lillie, an ingenious. mechanic, concerning whom some ac- count has been already given in these papers. It was built on the bank of the river a little below where the. Sus- quehanna was launched. It was built as a pleasure boat, but more especi- ally to test the qualities of a boiler of Mr. Lillie's invention. The hull was thirty-five feet long. The cabin ac- commodated about fifty passengers. Gilbert Forsyth,a painter, took a small share in the investment and did the painting of the boat. The form of the boat was a compromise between that of a yawl and a flat-bottomed boat.
The boiler was an upright one of five or six-horse power and presented
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a great extent of fire surface. . Frour cold water sufficient steam could be generated to start the boat in about five minutes .. Its form was a series of alternate circles of fire and water dues, and the fire. Hues were separa- ted ucar the top so that the firebox was built under only one-half of the boiler: The fire passed up on one side and down the other and then around the whole boiler up to the steam chamber. The water flues were only one inch thick and the fire flues two and one-half inches thick. This ar- rangement gave a strong fire on each side of the one-inch water flues, and it was a powerful, beater. The boiler was made in Auburn state prison in- der Mr. Lillie's direction ... The objec- tion to it was its large diameter, which rendered ic a weak boiler. Similar boilers are used in many houses for generating steam for warming pur. poses.
The engine and machinery : were manufactured at the foundry of Henry W. Camp at Owego in the fall of 1838. The boat was a side-wheeler and the engine was near the stern. There was an awning over the deck in front, and another deck in the rear, with seats. The Chiffe" was used as a pleasure boat during the summer of 1839, mak- ing trips six or eight miles up the river, and particularly around . Big. island, which was then , sometimes known as Crater's island from Philip Crater living thereon, and now known . as Hiawatha island. The boat proved to be a paying investment.
In the fall of 1839 Mr. Lillie and Mr. Forsyth, with their families started down the river with the boat for Cin-
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, cinnati, Ohio, to which city they were about to remove. They had their household goods on board. The boat ran in safety until it reached what was known to raftsmen as Pompey's rift, about three miles above Wysox, Pa., where it was wrecked on a sunken log in the rift. The wreck was sold at auction by the owners, who proceded by the way of Hollidaysburg. and Pittsburgh to their destination.
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