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Thwaites
On the storied Ohio ANNET
CARDS FROM POCKET DO NOT REMOVE
PUBLIC LIBRARY FORT WAYNE AND ALLEN COUNTY, IND.
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GEN
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 04424 7960
GC 977.1 T428ON
AUG 2 2 '67
ON THE STORIED OHIO
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Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016
https://archive.org/details/onstoriedohiohis00thwa 0
Photograph by Chautauqua Photographic Co.
THE FORKS OF THE OHIO
e Broned Off
P ITTSBURG harbor, showing the union of the Monon- gahela and Alleghany rivers in background, with suspen- sion bridge. To the left, steamers towing coal barges.
On the Storied Ohio
An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo
BY REUBEN GOLD THWAITES
Author of "Down Historic Waterways," "Daniel Boone," etc. ; editor of " The Jesuit Relations," etc.
Being a new and revised edition of "Afloat on the Ohio," with new Preface, and full-page illustrations from photographs
A.C MCCLURG
co
917.7 T420 Chicago A. C. McClurg & Co. 1903
BLACK GOL
COPYRIGHT BY REUBEN GOLD THWAITES " Afloat on the Ohio," 1897 " On the Storied Ohio," 1903
Published October 3, 1903
1410261
To
FREDERICK JACKSON TURNER, Ph. D., Professor of American History in the University of Wisconsin, who loves his native West and with rare insight and gift of phrase interprets her story,
this Log of the " Pilgrim" is cordially inscribed.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
PREFACE TO NEW EDITION
-
-
- xiii
CHAPTER I.
On the Monongahela-The over-mountain path-Red- stone Old Fort-The Youghiogheny-Braddock's defeat. - - - - - - I -
CHAPTER II.
First day on the Ohio-At Logstown.
-
-
-
22
CHAPTER III.
Shingis Old Town-The dynamiter-Yellow Creek.
- 29
CHAPTER IV.
An industrial region-Steubenville-Mingo Bottom-In
a steel mill-Indian character.
-
-
-
-
39
CHAPTER V.
House-boat life- Decadence of steamboat traffic-
Wheeling, and Wheeling Creek.
-
-
-
-
50
CHAPTER VI.
The Big Grave-Washington and Round Bottom-A lazy man's paradise-Captina Creek -- George Rogers Clark at Fish Creek-Southern types. - - 64
CHAPTER VII.
In Dixie-Oil and natural gas, at Witten's Bottom- The Long Reach-Photographing crackers-Visitors in camp. - - - - - - - 77
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V111
Contents
CHAPTER VIII. PAGE
Life ashore and afloat-Marietta, " the Plymouth Rock of the West"-The Little Kanawha-The story of Blennerhassett's Island. - - -
- 87
CHAPTER IX.
Poor whites-First library in the West-An hour at Hockingport-A hermit fisher. - -
- 99
CHAPTER X.
Cliff-dwellers, on Long Bottom-Pomeroy Bend-Le- tart's Island, and Rapids-Game, in the early day- Rainy weather-In a "cracker " home. - - - 109
CHAPTER XI.
Battle of Point Pleasant-The story of Gallipolis- Rosebud - Huntington - The genesis of a house- boater. - - - -
- - 125
CHAPTER XII.
In a fog-The Big Sandy-Rainy weather-Operatic gypsies-An ancient tavern. - - -
- - I39
CHAPTER XIII.
The Scioto, and the Shawanese-A night at Rome- Limestone-Keels, flats, and boatmen of the olden time. - - - -
- - 150
CHAPTER XIV.
Produce-boats-A dead town-On the Great Bend- Grant's birthplace-The Little Miami-The genesis of Cincinnati. - - - -
- - 168
CHAPTER XV.
The story of North Bend-The "shakes "-Driftwood- Rabbit hash-A side-trip to Big Bone Lick. - - 182
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Contents
CHAPTER XVI. PAGE
New Switzerland - An old-time river pilot - House- boat life on the lower reaches-A philosopher in rags-Wooded solitudes-Arrival at Louisville. · 202
CHAPTER XVII.
Storied Louisville-Red Indians and white-A night on Sand Island-New Albany-Riverside hermits-The
river falling-A deserted village-An ideal camp. - 218 CHAPTER XVIII.
Village life-A traveling photographer-On a country road-Studies in color-Again among colliers-In sweet content-A ferry romance. - - - - 233
CHAPTER XIX.
Fishermen's tales-Skiff nomenclature-Green River- Evansville-Henderson-Audubon and Rafinesque- Floating shops-The Wabash. - - 25I
CHAPTER XX.
Shawneetown-Farm-houses on stilts-Cave-in-Rock-
Island nights. - - - - 267
CHAPTER XXI.
The Cumberland and the Tennessee-Stately soli- tudes-Old Fort Massac-Dead towns in Egypt- The last camp-Cairo. - - - -
- - 280
Appendix A .- Historical outline of Ohio Valley settle- ment. - - - - - -
- - - 296 Appendix B .- Selected list of Journals of previous trav- elers down the Ohio. - - -
- - 320
INDEX.
- 329
Illustrations
Page
The Forks of the Ohio .
Frontispiece
The Monongahela at Braddock I6
" The Contour of the Rugged Hills "
34
A Floating Sawmill
56
The River Trough 86
Marketing Railway Ties
234
Stately Solitudes .
282
PREFACE
THE historical pilgrimage herein recorded was made in 1894, although the volume itself was not published until three years afterward. The original title was " Afloat on the Ohio; " but the present publishers, in arranging for this revised and illustrated edition, have pre- vailed upon the Author to change the name to " On the Storied Ohio," believing this latter to be more truly descriptive of the character of the book. No doubt this is true, although one naturally hesitates at such a step from fear that some person may thereby be led into thinking this a new work, and thus possi- bly purchasing a duplicate. It is hoped, how- ever, that the similarity of the two titles may prevent such confusion. Here and there ver- bal changes have been made, but it has not been found necessary to enter upon more seri- ous revision; for, while the past nine fruitful years have witnessed great development in the industries of the region, and surprising growth
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Preface
in many of the towns, natural conditions along the great river remain for the most part un- changed from the time when this pilgrimage was undertaken.
There were in the little ship's company four pilgrims - the Author, his Wife ("W-" of the narrative), their Boy of ten and a half years, and the Doctor (he of " Down Historic Water- ways "). The others were bent solely on the outing; but the first-named was, to be frank, quite as much interested in gathering " local color" for his studies of Western history as he was in cultivating a holiday tan. The Ohio River was an important factor in the develop- ment of the West. He therefore wished inti- mately to know the great waterway in its various phases - to see with his own eyes what the borderers saw; in imagination, to redress the pioneer stage and repeople it.
It was a long journey for a mere skiff, those eleven hundred miles from Brownsville, on the Monongahela, down to the Father of Waters. The pilgrims might with much saving of time, energy, and patience have made the journey upon one of the numerous steamers which churn the muddy stream. But, from a steamer's deck, scenes take on a far different aspect than
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Preface
when viewed from near the level of the flood. The manner of a pilgrimage upon our historic waterways should be as nearly as possible that of the pioneer canoeist or flatboatman himself - hence " Pilgrim," and the nightly camp in primitive fashion.
A richly-varied panorama passes in imagina- tion before us as we contemplate the glowing story of the Ohio. A motley company have here performed their parts: Savages of the mound-building age, rearing upon these banks curious earth-works for archæologists of the twentieth century to puzzle over; Iroquois war- parties, silently swooping upon sleeping vil- lages of the Shawanese, and returning in noisy glee to the New York lakes, laden with spoils and captives; La Salle, prince of French ex- plorers and fur-traders, standing at the Falls of the Ohio, and seeking to fathom the geograph- ical mysteries of the continent; French and English fur-traders, in bitter contention for the patronage of the red man; borderers of the rival nations, shedding each other's blood in protracted partisan wars; surveyors like Wash- ington and Boone and the McAfees, clad in leather hunting-shirts and fringed leggings, mapping out future states; hardy frontiers-
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Preface
men, fighting, hunting, or farming, as occasion demanded; George Rogers Clark, descending the river with his handful of heroic Virginians to win for the United States the great North- west, and for himself the laurels of fame; the Marietta pilgrims, beating Revolutionary swords into Ohio plowshares; and all that succeeding tide of immigrants from our own Atlantic coast and every corner of Europe, pouring down the great valley to plant powerful commonwealths beyond the mountains.
The trip was successful, whatever the point of view. Physically, those six weeks " On the Storied Ohio " were an ideal outing - at times rough, to be sure, but exhilarating, health- . giving, brain-inspiring. The Log of the " Pil- grim " seeks faintly to outline the experiences of her crew, but no words can adequately describe the wooded hill-slopes which day by day girt them in; the romantic ravines which corrugate the rim of the Ohio's basin; the beautiful islands which stud the glistening tide ; the great affluents which, winding down for a thousand miles from the Blue Ridge, the Cumberland, and the Great Smoky, pour their floods into the central stream; the giant trees -- sycamores, pawpaws, cork elms, catalpas,
Preface
xvii
walnuts, and what not-which everywhere are in view in this woodland world; the strange and lovely flowers they saw; the curious people they met, black and white, and the varieties of dialect that caught their ears; the details of their charming gypsy life, ashore and afloat, during which they were conscious of red blood tingling through their veins, and, children of Nature, were careless of the work- aday world so far away- simply glad to be alive.
For the better understanding of numerous historical references in the Log, the Author has thought it well to present in the Appendix a brief sketch of the settlement of the Ohio Valley.
A selected list of journals of previous travel- ers down the Ohio has also been added, for the benefit of students of the social and eco- nomic history of this important gateway to the continental interior.
R. G. T.
MADISON, WIS., August, 1903.
ON THE STORIED OHIO
CHAPTER I.
ON THE MONONGAHELA-THE OVER-MOUNTAIN PATH-REDSTONE OLD FORT-THE YOUGH- IOGHENY-BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT.
IN CAMP NEAR CHARLEROI, PA., Friday, May 4 .- Pilgrim, built for the glassy lakes and smooth-flowing rivers of Wisconsin, had suffered unwonted indignities in her rough journey of a thousand miles in a box-car. But beyond a leaky seam or two, which the Doc- . tor had righted with clouts and putty, and some ugly scratches which were only paint- deep, she was in fair trim as she gracefully lay at the foot of the Brownsville shipyard this morning and received her lading.
There were spectators in abundance. Brownsville, in the olden day, had seen many an expedition set out from this spot for the
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On the Storied Ohio
grand tour of the Ohio, but not in the per- sonal recollection of any in this throng of idlers, for the era of the flatboat and pirogue now belongs to history. Our expedition is a revival, and therein lies novelty. However, the historic spirit was not evident among our visitors-railway men, coal miners loafing out the duration of a strike, shipyard hands lying in wait for busier times, small boys blessed with as much leisure as curiosity, and that wonder of wonders, a diffident newspaper reporter. Their chief concern centered in the query, how Pilgrim could hold that goodly heap of luggage and still have room to spare for four passengers? It became evident that her capacity is akin to that of the magician's bag.
"A dandy skiff, gents!" said the foreman of the shipyard, as we settled into our seats- the Doctor bow, I stroke, with W- and the Boy in the stern sheets. Having in silence critically watched us for a half hour, seated on a capstan, his red flannel shirt rolled up to his elbows, and well-corded chest and throat bared to wind and weather, this remark of the fore- man was evidently the studied judgment of an expert. It was taken as such by the good-
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Redstone Creek
natured crowd, which, as we pushed off into the stream, lustily joined in a chorus of "Good- bye!" and "Good luck to yees, an' ye don't git th' missus drowndid 'fore ye git to Cairo!"
The current is slight on these lower reaches of the Monongahela. It comes down gayly enough from the West Virginia hills, over many a rapid, and through swirls and eddies in plenty, until Morgantown is reached; and then, settling into a more sedate course, is at Brownsville finally converted into a mere mill- pond, by the back-set of the four slack-water dams between there and Pittsburg. This means solid rowing for the first sixty miles of our journey, with a current scarcely percep- tible.
The thought of it suggests lunch. At the mouth of Redstone Creek, a mile below Dun- lap Creek, our port of departure, we turn in to a shaly beach at the foot of a wooded slope, in semi-rusticity, and fortify the inner man.
A famous spot, this Redstone Creek. Be- tween its mouth and that of Dunlap's was made, upon the site of extensive Indian forti- fication mounds, the first English agricultural settlement west of the Alleghanies. It is un- safe to establish dates for first discoveries, or
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On the Storied Ohio
for first settlements. The wanderers who, first of all white men, penetrated the fast- nesses of the wilderness were mostly of the sort who left no documentary traces behind them. It is probable, however, that the first Redstone settlement was made as early as 1750, the year following the establishment of the Ohio Company, which had been chartered by the English crown and given a half-million acres of land west of the mountains and south of the Ohio River, provided it established thereon a hundred families within seven years.
"Redstone Old Fort"-the name had ref- erence to the aboriginal earthworks-played a part in the Fort Necessity and Braddock campaigns and in later frontier wars; and, being the western terminus of the over-moun- tain road known at various historic periods as Nemacolin's Path, Braddock's Road, and Cumberland Pike, was for many years the chief point of departure for Virginia expedi- tions down the Ohio River. Washington, who had large landed interests on the Ohio, knew Redstone well; and here George Rogers Clark set out (1778) upon flatboats, with his rough- and-ready Virginia volunteers, to capture the country north of the Ohio for the American
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Brownsville
arms-one of the least known, but most mo- mentous conquests in history.
Early in the nineteenth century, Redstone became Brownsville. But, whether as Red- stone or Brownsville, it was, in its day, like most "jumping off" places on the edge of civilization, a veritable Sodom. Wrote good old John Pope, in his Journal of 1790, and in the same strain scores of other veracious chron- iclers: "At this Place we were detained about a Week, experiencing every Disgust which Rooks and Harpies could excite." Here thrived extensive yards in which were built flatboats, arks, keel boats, and all that miscellaneous collection of water craft which, with their roisterly crews, were the life of the Ohio before the introduction of steam rendered vessels of deeper draught essential; whereupon much of the shipping business went down the river to better stages of water, first to Pittsburg, thence to Wheeling, and to Steubenville.
All that is of the past. Brownsville is still a busy corner of the world, though of a differ- ent sort, with all its romance gone. To the student of Western history, Brownsville will always be a shrine-albeit a smoky, dusty shrine, with the smell of lubricators and the
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On the Storied Ohio
clang of hammers, and much talk thereabout of the glories of Mammon.
The Monongahela is a characteristic moun- tain trough. From an altitude of four or five hundred feet, the country falls in steep slopes to a narrow alluvial bench, and then a broad beach of shale and pebble; the slopes are broken, here and there, where deep, shadowy ravines come winding down, bearing muddy contributions to the greater flood. The higher hills are crowned with forest trees, the lower ofttimes checkered by brown fields, recently planted, and rows of vines trimmed low to stakes, as in the fashion of the Rhine. The stream, though still majestic in its sweep, is henceforth a commercial slack-water, lined with noisy, grimy, matter-of-fact manufactur- ing towns, for the most part literally abutting one upon the other all of the way down to Pittsburg, and fast defiling the once picturesque banks with the gruesome offal of coal mines and iron plants. Surprising is the density of settlement along the river. Often, four or five full-fledged cities are at once in view from our boat, the air is thick with sooty smoke belched from hundreds of stacks, the ear is almost
7
A Deserted Hamlet
deafened with the whirr and roar and bang of milling industries.
Tipples of bituminous coal-shafts are ever in sight-begrimed scaffolds of wood and iron, arranged for dumping the product of the mines into both barges and railway cars. Either bank is lined with railways, in sight of which we shall almost continuously float, all the way down to Cairo, nearly eleven hundred miles away. At each tipple is a miners' hamlet; a row of cottages or huts, cast in a common mold, either unpainted, or bedaubed with that cheap, ugly red with which one is familiar in railway bridges and rural barns. Sometimes these huts, though in the mass dreary enough, are kept in neat repair; but often are they sadly out of elbows-pigs and children pro- miscuously at their doors, paneless sash stuffed with rags, unsightly litter strewn around, misery stamped on every feature of the home- less tenements. Dreariest of all is a deserted mining village, and there are many such-the shaft having been worked out, or an unquench- able subterranean fire left to smolder in neg- lect. Here the tipple has fallen into creaking decrepitude; the cabins are without windows or doors-these having been taken to some
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On the Storied Ohio
newer hamlet; ridge-poles are sunken, chim- neys tottering; soot covers the gaunt bones, which for all the world are like a row of skel- etons, perched high, and grinning down at you in their misery; while the black offal of the pit, covering deep the original beauty of the once green slope, is in its turn being veiled with climbing weeds-such is Nature's haste, when untrammeled, to heal the scars wrought by man.
A mile or two below Charleroi is Lock No. 4, the first of the quartet of obstructions be- tween Brownsville and Pittsburg. We are encamped a mile below the dam, in a cozy little willowed nook; a rod behind our ample tent rises the face of an alluvial terrace, occu- pied by a grain-field running back for an hun- dred yards to the hills, at the base of which is a railway track. Across the river, here some two hundred and fifty yards wide, the dark, rocky bluffs, slashed with numerous ravines, ascend sharply from the flood; at the quarried base, a wagon road and the customary railway; and upon the stony beach, two or three rough shelter-tents, housing the Black Diamond Brass Band, of Monongahela City, out on a
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Mckeesport
week's picnic to while away the period of the strike.
It was seven o'clock when we struck camp, and our frugal repast was finished by lantern- light. The sun sets early in this narrow trough through the foothills of the Laurel range.
MCKEESPORT, PA., Saturday, May 5th. - Out there on the beach, near Charleroi, with the sail for an awning, Pilgrim had been con- verted into a boudoir for the Doctor, who, snuggled in his sleeping-bag, emitted an occa- sional snore-echoes from the Land of Nod. W- and our Boy of ten summers, on their canvas folding-cots, were peacefully oblivious of the noises of the night, and needed the kiss of dawn to rouse them. But for me, always a light sleeper, and as yet unused to our airy bedroom, the crickets chirruped through the long watches.
Two or three freighters passed in the night, with monotonous swish-swish and swelling wake. It arouses something akin to awe, this passage of a steamer's wake upon the beach, a dozen feet from the door of one's tent. First, the water is sucked down, leaving for a moment a wet streak of sand or gravel, a dozen
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On the Storied Ohio
feet in width; in quick succession come heavy, booming waves, running at an acute angle with the shore, breaking at once into angry foam, and wasting themselves far up on the strand, for a few moments making bedlam with any driftwood which chances to have made lodg- ment there. When suddenly awakened by this boisterous turmoil, the first thought is that a dam has broken and a flood is at hand; but, by the time you rise upon your elbow, the scurrying uproar lessens, and gradually dies away as it rolls along a more distant shore.
We were slow in getting off this morning. But the dense fog had been loath to lift; and at first the stove smoked badly, until we dis- covered and removed the source of trouble. This stove is an ingenious contrivance of the Doctor's-a box of sheet-iron, of slight weight, so arranged as to be folded into an incredibly small space: a vast improvement for cooking purposes over an open camp-fire, which Pil- grim's crew know, from long experience in far distant fields, to be a vexation to eyes and soul.
Coaling hamlets more or less deserted were frequent this morning-unpainted, window- less, ragged wrecks. At the inhabited mining villages, either close to the strand or well up
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Among the Miners
on hillside ledges, idle men were everywhere about. Women and boys and girls were stock- ingless and shoeless, and often dirty to a de- gree. But, when conversed with, we found them independent, respectful, and self-respect- ing folk. Occasionally, for the mere sake of meeting these workaday brothers of ours, I would, with canteen slung on shoulder, climb the steep flight of stairs cut in the clay bank, and on reaching the terrace inquire for drink- ing water, talking familiarly with the folk who came to meet me at the well-curb.
There are old-fashioned Dutch ovens in nearly every yard, a few chickens, and often a shed for the cow, that is off on her daily climb over the neighboring hills. Through the black pall of shale, a few vegetables strug- gle feebly to the light; in the corners of the palings, are hollyhocks and four-o'clocks; and, on window-sills, rows of battered tin cans, resplendent in blue and yellow labels, are the homes of verbenas and geraniums, in sickly bloom. Now and then, a back door in the dreary block is distinguished by an arbored trellis bearing a grape-vine, and furnishing for the weary housewife a shady kitchen, al fresco. As a rule, however, there is little attempt to
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On the Storied Ohio
better the homeless shelter furnished by the corporation.
We restocked with provisions at Mononga- hela City, a smart, newish town, and at Eliz- abeth, old and dingy. It was at Elizabeth, then Elizabethtown, that travelers from the Eastern States, over the old Philadelphia Road, chiefly took boat for the Ohio-the Virginians still clinging to Redstone, as the terminus of the Braddock Road. Elizabethtown, in flat- boat days, was the seat of a considerable boat- building industry, its yards in time turning out steamboats for the New Orleans trade, and even sea-going sailing craft; but, to-day, coal barges are the principal output of her decaying shipyards.
By this time, the duties of our little ship's company are well defined. W- supervises the cuisine, most important of all offices; the Doctor is chief navigator, assistant cook, and hewer of wood; it falls to my lot to purchase supplies, to be carrier of water, to pitch tent and make beds, and, while breakfast is being cooked, to dismantle the camp and, so far as may be, to repack Pilgrim; the Boy collects driftwood, wipes dishes, and helps at what he
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The Youghiogheny
can-while all hands row or paddle through the livelong day, as whim or need dictates.
Lock No. 3, at Walton, necessitated a por- tage of the load, over the left bank. It is a steep, rocky climb, and the descent on the lower side, strewn with stone chips, destructive to shoe-leather. The Doctor and I let Pilgrim herself down with a long rope, over a shallow spot in the apron of the dam.
At six o'clock a camping-ground for the night became desirable. We were fortunate, last evening, to find a bit of rustic country in which to pitch our tent; but all through this after- noon both banks of the river were lined with village after village, city after city, scarcely a garden patch between them-Wilson, Coal Valley, Lostock, Glassport, Dravosburg, and a dozen others not recorded on our map, which bears date of 1882. The sun was setting be- hind the rim of the river basin, when we reached the broad mouth of the Youghiogheny (pr. Yock-i-o-gaï-ny), which is implanted with a cluster of iron-mill towns, of which Mckeesport is the center. So far as we could see down the Monongahela, the air was thick with the smoke of glowing chimneys, and the pulsating whang of steel-making plants and
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On the Storied Ohio
rolling-mills made the air tremble. The view up the "Yough " was more inviting; so, with oars and paddle firmly set, we turned off our course and lustily pulled against the strong current of the tributary. A score or two of house-boats lay tied to the Mckeesport shore or were bolstered high upon the beach; a fleet of Yough steamers had their noses to the wharf; a half-dozen fishermen were setting nets; and, high over all, with lofty spans of iron cobweb, several railway and wagon bridges spanned the gliding stream.
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