History of Columbiana County, Ohio and representative citizens, Part 10

Author: McCord, William B., b. 1844
Publication date: 1905
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : Biographical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 912

USA > Ohio > Columbiana County > History of Columbiana County, Ohio and representative citizens > Part 10

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RIVER TRANSPORTATION.

As the Indian and buffalo trails preceded the National and State highways, in blazing the way for civilization's westward march, so the Ohio River preceded the railroads as an avenue of transportation for the pioneers and the pro- ductions of their industry and enterprise. The forest-covered hills, which formed the back- ground for the alluvial bottom lands and ver- dure-clad slopes, no less than the majestic sweep of La Belle Riviere, beckoned the picket lines and the advance guard of the army of occupation. Never was name more appropriate than that applied by the French, who had so transient a heritage in this country, to the river which was to furnish a highway for the com- merce of the new country. A more beautiful stream does not lave the hills and valleys of this vast continent of varied and enchanting scenery.

During the closing decades of the Revolu- tionary period, and the first half of the past century. the Ohio bore on its bo- som the people who were seeking new homes and broader opportunities of the then Western frontier, and a little later, back again to the older settlements, by the same avenue of transportation, were car- ried the products of the virgin soil. Then, when the great forests and mines of Western Penn- sylvania came to be developed, millions on millions of feet of timber and sawed lumber, and great fleets of coal were floated down to the growing markets of the South and South- west, impelled only by the increasing currents supplied to the noble river by the perennial freshets from the mountain streams. The great forests became well nigh exhausted; but the coal, from the old fields of the Keystone State, in ever increasing yields, are yet transported by

river and rail, in quantities up into the scores of millions of bushels yearly, to lower river ports and distant railway points.

The fine floating palaces which navigated the Ohio up to the middle of the 19th century are almost things of the past, especially on the upper waters. The "Granite States," the "Buckeye States," the "Alleghenys," the "Win- chesters," the "Diurnals," and many other fine 'steamers of their class, which for so long car- ried the animate and inanimate freight of the river thoroughfare before the railroads bid for speedier if not cheaper and on the whole safer transportation, have few successors.

THE FIRST STEAMBOAT.

Prior to the use of steam power for navi- gation on the Ohio, covered keel-boats were used to transport freight along the river, pro- pelled up-stream by poles, drifting down-stream with the current. The boat or barge was roughly constructed, and varied from 75 to 100 feet in length. It would carry from 60 to 100 tons, with a sort of rude cabin in the stern for female passengers. The boat usually car- ried a sail for use when the wind was favor- able, and at times one or two boatmen trudged along the bank, hauling the craft with a rope. The first steamboat which descended the river was the "Orleans," a vessel of 400 tons, built at Elizabethtown, near Pittsburg, in 1811, un- der the personal supervision of Robert Fulton, the cost exceeding $50,000. In October of that year the little steamer started from Pittsburg for New Orleans. . It was, in the language of an old writer, "a joy and wonder to the inhabit- ants of the river townships, who saw it pass on its first voyage." It never returned, however, having insufficient power for the long journey against the current, and finally struck a snag and sank at Baton Route, in 1814. For three years, no attempts was made to bring a steamer up the Ohio; but in 1814 the "Enterprise" was built at Redstone, now Brownsville, Pennsyl- vania, and chartered by the government to carry military stores to New Orleans, arriving there in time to take part in the battle on Janu- ary 8th of the next year. And during June,

A RAILROAD BRIDGE IN ELKRUN TOWNSHIP (1,000 feet long, 108 feet high, all built on a curve)

OLD FRIENDS' MEETING HOUSE IN FAIRFIELD TOWNSHIP (Built in 1808)

CUT IN A LARGE DAM OF THE SANDY AND BEAVER CANAL, HANOVER TOWNSHIP

LOCK No. 41 OF THE SANDY AND BEAVER CANAL IN ELKRUN TOWNSHIP (Built by Lusk & Maynard in 1835)

AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS.

1815, the "Enterprise" arrived on the Upper Ohio on her return trip to Pittsburg. It is re- lated that when the little stern-wheeler put in at the Wellsville wharf the entire population of the town turned out, astounded, hardly be- lieving it possible that a steamboat could make her way up-stream all the way from New Orleans.

Nearly every town now had its boat-build- ing yard. Wellsville was one of the first in the field, Robert Skillinger in 1815, establishing a small dock for the building of flatboats. In 1817 he laid the hull for the steamer "Robert. Thompson," and boat-building became an im- portant industry. In 1820 at Steubenville, the steamer "Bazaleel Wells" was built-the "Thompson" and the "Wells" being the earliest steamers built on this section of the river. By the beginning of the year 1832, however, there had been built for the river trade a total of 348 steamers, of which 198 were then running .* The business grew so rapidly that the river towns along the Ohio were converted in IO years' time into busy shipping centers.

DAYS OF THE RIVER TRADERS.

Dozens of the business nien of these com- munities became river traders, making from two to four trips a year from the Upper Ohio to New Orleans, selling and buying merchan- dise. They endured great hardships during the cold winters, were frequently caught in the ice jam for days or even weeks, and considered the ordeal of being forced by low water to walk all or part of the way home from Cincinnati no extraordinary experience. They were the fore- runners of the commercial age of the West.

Wellsville and Liverpool had their share of these adventurous spirits. Their visits to the home town were irregular, and at times they would disappear for two or three years, to re- appear unexpectedly. Merchants became ac- customed to taking yearly trips to Cincinnati, or Louisville, of St. Louis, or even through to Memphis and New Orleans. Many of them thus became fascinated with the life and be- came rivermen to the end of their days. The rivermen of the Upper Ohio "flocked together"

at Wheeling. at Steubenville, at Wellsville, at Liverpool, and at Georgetown, Pennsylvania, just east of the Pennsylvania State line, and about six miles from old Liverpool town. Georgetown to this day remains headquarters for a number of the families and descendants of retired rivermen. Wellsville, on account of its excellent natural harbor, became a cen- ter. James Wells, son of Alexander Wells, founder of the town, followed the river for years. William Bottenburg was one of the pioneers. Gen. J. W. Reilly, afterwards one of the most famous lawyers at the Columbiana County bar, in his early days clerked on a steamboat. . Josiah Thompson, whose father, William Thompson, at that time kept a store in Calcutta, and who was himself in later years one of East Liverpool's famous mer- chants, traded at down-river ports during the year following 1830.

The conditions during these early days are described by William G. Smith, deceased, of East Liverpool-who was among those who early interested themselves in river transpor- tation at that town-in his "Reminiscences of Fawcettstown" (now East Liverpool), pub- lished in the East Liverpool Tribune in 1888.

"The town was in 1826 the most forlorn of any located along the Ohio river. There was not a landing in front of the town for steam- boats except when the river was high. The river had increased its width from bank to bank one-third since the first settlement, leav- ing a wide beach covered with boulders and rocks, so that the water was shoal in front of the town. I purchased a log house with two lots adjoining at Second and Union streets, and moved my store there (although it was at the extreme east end of the town), because the ferry was kept there and it was the only road to the river that a wagon could ascend and (lescend. The ferry road was simply exca- vated in the sand and clay bank, and every freshet washed it away, so a landing had to be built with timber and boulders from the beach. That was a very small commencement yet, strange to say. it was sufficiently large to create a jealously in a portion of the population that caused some trouble. The place at that

*Mack, "History of Columbiana County."

HISTORY OF COLUMBIANA COUNTY

time contained about 18 families, ten of whom were freeholders and the balance renters, the population may have reached one hundred. * *

* * From Washington street west the people wished Market street to be the cen- ter, of business, and fearing that I was going to draw the business to the upper end of town, a few of them clubbed together and bought an old ferry flat, and started an opposition ferry at the foot of Market street, in charge of "King" Smith. He had a small tug in court about license, run the ferry a month or two, and quit the unprofitable enterprise.

"In 1821 I made my first trip, with a small venture, on the river in company with (as he was familiarly known and spoken of) 'Old Father Bottenburg,' and his son Levi, both of whom have stepped behind the curtain and left the stage forever. That trip extended no further south than Memphis, Tennessee, where we sold our boat and remaining stock of pro- duce to a merchant, a son of General Winches- ter, who was somewhat notorious for having been defeated by the Indians. Memphis was new at that time, and contained but two stores and a few groceries (so-called), but the 'gro- ceries' on sale were mostly of the liquid kind, and much of it was carried away in vessels somewhat similar to the skin bottles used by the Eastern nations. * *

* Above the Hamilton farm, on the Virginia side of the river (nearly opposite Walkers), lived a man named Greathouse, who was one of the first pioneers on that side of the river, having set- tled there when Indians were troublesome. The lands of himself and sons bordered the Ohio river. The writer was in the habit of passing them, annually, from 1821 to 1829, and one winter, with a produce boat was caught in the frozen river opposite the old pioneer's lands ; we had to remain there a num- ber of weeks ice-bound, and every night could hear packs of wolves howling through the thick forests owned by the stalwart sons of the old pioneer (he had passed away)."

BOAT-BUILDING AN INDUSTRY.

Mr. Smith continued to trade with lower river ports from Liverpool during the '30's

and in 1830 built the wharf and steamboat landing at the foot of Union street, and near it a warehouse, which was destroyed by the flood of 1832, but was rebuilt a year later. In 1830, too, a steam sawmill was built by An- thony Kearns, William G. Smith, John Hill and William Scott at the western end of Sec- ond street, and near there Abel Coffin started a boat-yard a year, or two later. Here he built two steamboats, the "Olive" and the "De- Kalb," which ran on the lower rivers. George D. Mckinnon, with Abraham Davidson, es- tablished a boat-yard nearby and built many flat-boats. Coffin lived above the town on the land afterward occupied by the Harker Pot- tery Company, and near his home he estab- lished a small boat-yard later in the '30's -- about 1835 and built the steamer "Liver,- pool," owned by the residents of the town. In that day Columbiana county was the second county in the State in the production of wheat, and, since securing a wharf and steamer land- ing, Liverpool had become the shipping point for a large amount of flour, manufactured in mills along the three forks of the Little Beaver that had hitherto been wagoned either to Smith's Ferry or, Wellsville for loading by river.

The stock to build the "Liverpool" was sub- scribed by a dozen or more Liverpool men. It was stipulated that as soon as the first steamer was completed and became a dividend-earner, a second should be built, and the two boats should form a daily line between Pittsburg and Wheeling, meeting at Liverpool and making the town the half-way point and headquarters of the company. It was hoped to procure a line of stage coaches from the north to meet and exchange passengers with the boats at Liverpool. When the "Liverpool Company" was inaugurated, Capt. Richard Huston, a stockholder, was appointed to supervise her construction at Coffin's new yard above the town. The pine lumber brought from Pitts- burg for her cabin, while being kiln dried, was burned and a second lot had to be purchased. The steamer was finally completed, however, and launched with great ceremony. By a vote of the company, Captain Huston was made her

AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS.

commander. She was run for a time between Pittsburg and Wheeling; then, through the in- fluence of two or three of the company, she was loaded at Wheeling for the Arkansas River. Then she was run between Little Rock and New Orleans for a couple of years, and finally sank, a total loss. She never paid a dividend to her owners. Captain Huston for many years built flatboats in East Liverpool, building as many as 26 in one season. He was the father of the Misses Euphemia and Martha Huston, for many years connected with the East Liver,- pool public schools. John S. Blakely & Com- pany built the original Broadway wharf in the early '50's.

At Wellsville, in 1835, 20 years after Rob- ert Skillinger had begun to build flatboats there Robert and David Ralstan, brothers, established a boat-yard and begun the building of more pretentious craft. In 1841-42 they built a large side-wheel steamer for James Farmer, of Salineville, Andrew Bunting and other Wellsville people. Mr. Farmer, who was then a prosperous merchant and had done much river trading, conducted his business with St. Louis and points as far South at New Orleans, with this steamer for a number of years. Philip F. Geisse built the engines for her, and supplied the boilers and all machinery at his shop in Wellsville. A little later the same parties built and equipped the river packet "Union," which made its first trip from Pittsburg to New Or- leans in 1843. In the '40's and early '50's Mr. Geisse built many ferry-boats, most of which were for traffic on the Mississippi.

MERIDIAN DAYS OF THE PORT OF WELLSVILLE.

Those halcyon days of river transportation were great days for the river towns. The height of river prosperity was enjoyed by Wellsville between 1832 and 1842, during which period the town controlled a large share of the river business of 15 Ohio counties, in- cluding the Western Reserve, with its import- ant cheese trade. It was the chief port between Pittsburg and Steubenville. Mack's history says that from 1830 to 1845 over 50,000 bar- rels of flour were shipped annually from Wells-

ville by river. As many as 150 teams frequent- ly arrived in Wellsville in one day from the in- terior, waited their turn to discharge their freight for the river, and reloaded with mer- candise for points north.

Not a few of the older people still living in Wellsville after the beginning of the new cen- tury remembered the big boats that plied from the middle of the '30's to 1855. On the Pitts- burg and Cincinnati line were the "Cincinnati," Capt. William Kountz; the old "Buckeye State," Captain Beltzhoover; the "Philadel- phia," "Allegheny," "Brilliant," "Pittsburg, and "Clipper." These each made a round trip a week between Pittsburg and Cincinnati, and as a result of this schedule, one boat passed clown stream and one up-stream each , day. Those were the meridian days for the river steamboat trade. A few years later, when the railroad had been completed along the river, and to Pittsburg, this fine line of packets was trans -. ferred to the "lower river" trade. The Pitts- burg and Wheeling line of steamers, however, which for many years consisted of the "Win- chester" and the "Diurnal"-one passing each way each day-continued on the "upper river" trade until in the '60's. The "James Nelson," Capt. James Moore of Wellsville, was also, in the Pittsburg and Wheeling trade for some years. Asa Shepherd and Samuel Stevenson (both of Wellsville) were captain and first en- gineer respectively. After the Cleveland & Pittsburg Railroad had been completed from Cleveland to the river, in 1852, and until the "river division" of the Cleveland & Pittsburg had been extended east and south to Pittsburg and to Wheeling, the "Forest City" and a sister boat made each a round trip daily, the one be- tween Wellsville and Pittsburg, the other be- tween Wellsville and Wheeling, connecting with passengers and frieght with the trains at Wellsville. The "Forest City" was commanded by Capt. Austin Murdock, of Wellsville, and Samuel Stevenson was engineer. After the railroad had been built through to the up-river and down-river ports, the "Forest City," which was owned chiefly by Wellsville men, was transferred to the Louisville and St. Louis trade.

HISTORY OF COLUMBIANA .COUNTY

FOR SLACK-WATER NAVIGATION.

Not all the classes of traffic withdrew from the river when the railroad skirted its shores. however. Coal and lumber, as well as great cargoes of iron products billed for points far south, made the river an important factor in the transportation interests of the West. And for 20 years before the opening of the new cen- tury the great river interests clamored for leg- islation by the government to carry out the Ohio slackwater, improvements and give the stream a nine-foot stage 'the year round. As the raft- ing of lumber declined with the devastation of the forests at the headwaters and along the trib- utary streams, the shipping of coal by river de- veloped into huge proportions. Coal was not always towed down the Ohio from the great black diamond markets at the headwaters in fleets of boats and barges by the steam tow- boats of later years. During the middle of the 19th century, each early spring or June rise in the river was the signal for the opening of the coal-boating season, when a gang of a dozen or 20 men would man a pair of coal boats, lashed together, each carrying 25,000 to 30,000 bush- els, and float their cargoes down the swollen stream to the lower ports, guided by ponderous oars at the bow and stern. Rafting of timber in the log and sawed lumber from the timber regions of the Alleghany Mountains was done in the same manner, one great raft, made up of six to a dozen "creek rafts". boomed to- gether, often containing more than 1,000,000 cubic feet of lumber.

But where one of these rafts was run down the Ohio to lower ports in 1905, 50 were marketed in the same way in 1850-60, so near- ly exhausted did the timber supply in the great Western Pennsylvania region become. Of coal, however, over 50,000,000 bushels per annum were being shipped out of Pittsburg harbor alone at the beginning of the century, for Southern ports, and this was practically all sent out during the freshets, three or four times in a year, owing to the absence of a sufficient stage of water at other times. One rise in the river would sometimes carry south 18,000,000 to 20,000,000 bushels of Pittsburg fuel. In

1903 the largest tow-boat on the upper rivers, the "Sprague," was launched at Pittsburg, and towed south on one trip over 1,000,000 bushels.

These coal interests raised the greatest clamor for slack-water improvements during the '90's, but, though the manufacturing inter- ests of the entire Ohio Valley took up the cry of "A nine-foot stage to Cairo," Congress was slow to act. The appropriations were miserly and the work crawled forward in a discourag- ing manner. From 1895 to 1905 the progres- sive men in the river cities conducted the rivers and horbors committee on junketing tours down the stream from Pittsburg every two or three years, and Congressmen R. W. Tayler, of Ohio, and B. B. Dovener, of West Virginia, were particularly urgent in their appeals that the river cities be given relief from railroad freight discrimination by slack-water naviga- tion. The dam and locks at Merill's, in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, were opened in 1904, and the same year a substantial appropriation was made by Congress for the work on Lock No. 7, just east of the Pennsylvania State line, and No. 8, between Walker's and East Liver- pool, which, it was promised, would give East Liverpool an ample harbor by 1908.

RIVER FLOODS AND DISASTERS.

The history of the old Ohio River from the days of the first settlements along her banks includes, as well, a story of disaster by flood and by accident. The freshets, which came as a rule in the spring of the year, when the snows of the mountains melted and swelled the vol- ume of the stream until it overflowed its banks, resulted, as the valley became more thickly populated, in greater and greater damage yearly, first to crops and homes, then to the manufacturing and shipping interests. Toward the close of the century, when the coal interests assembled millions of bushels of fuel in fleets in Pittsburg harbor during the "low water" season, awaiting a rise to carry it to the South- ern market, a sudden freshet always meant wrecked tow-boats and thousands of dollars' loss in sunken coal.

AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS.

The first disastrous flood in the mentory of the old rivermen was that of 1832. The great flood of 1852, the next remarkable high water. established the record for nearly half a century. All the river towns were inundated to a greater or less extent, and Wellsville and East Liver- pool suffered proportionately. The little pot- teries which had been established along the river at East Liverpool only a few years before were almost floated away. Houses, great rafts of lumber and acres of tangled debris swept down on the swollen current, and chickens and even cattle and persons were rescued in mid- stream. Another great freshet occurred in 1865, but the flood of '52 held the record until 1884, when the Ohio reached a height beyond the memory of the oldest settler. The high point was reached on February 7th. The low- lands were under water for miles, and the suf- fering at Wellsville and East Liverpool was great in the lower portions of the two cities, which had been built up since the '50's. Fac- tories and mills were completely shut down; pumps at the water-works were stopped and the towns, nearly surrounded by water. experienced the novelty of a water famine. Buildings of every description floated past, and the damage sustained by citizens of Columbiana County alone ran into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. For the first time since its construc- tion, all trains between Pittsburg and Wells -. ville on the Cleveland & Pittsburg Railroad suspended business for nearly a week, and the river towns were completely cut off from mail or telegraph communication. The Cleveland & Pittsburg tracks were covered almost the en- tire distance between the eastern end of East Liverpool and upper Wellsville. For years after, the "high water mark" of 1884 was painted on the corners of brick buildings in the flooded districts of both cities.

With the subsiding waters, came the cry of hunger all along the river. While yet the waters were in the lowland districts, a little relief boat was sent out by the people of Pitts- burg, and ran down on the bosom of the flood. People in the flooded districts. living in the upper stories of their homes, knowing not the purpose of the little craft and fearing the wash

of the waves from her wheel, fired on her with shotguns at many points between East Liver- pool and Steubenville, and the pilot house of the steamer was riddled with bullets. Organ- ized relief soon followed, committees being ap- pointed at Pittsburg. East Liverpool, Steuben- ville and points further down the river, and within a few days a relief boat was started out, in charge of Rev. E. R. Donahoo, pastor of the West End Presbyterian Church of Pitts- burg, with provisions for the unfortunate.

Other severe freshets caused suffering in 1891 and in 1902. "But the record of 1884 re- mained the high mark up to 1905. The only authentie record kept during all these years on the upper river is at Pittsburg -- where, in 1905, the flood of '52 still remained the high mark- though the waters in '84 reached a greater height at Columbiana County points, owing to the freshets below Pittsburg. The marks at Pittsburg are as follows :

February 10. 1832 35 feet

April 19, 1852 · 31.9 feet

March 18, 1865 · 31.4 feet

February 10, 1866 32

feet

February 6. 1884

· 33.3 feet

February 18, 1891 . 31.3 feet

March 2, 1902 32.4 feet

January 23, 1904

feet

BURNING OF THIE "WINCHESTER."

While the decadence of the river as a means of travel was very marked during the last half of the old century, at least two steamboat disas- ters occurred within that time which brought sorrow to many families in Columbiana Coun- ty. and are remembered as among the most appalling local incidents of the century.

The first of these was the burning of the "Winchester." in the spring of 1867. It was a brand-new steamer, built to take the place in the upper and lower river trade of the old steamer of the same name. The old "Win- chester" and "Diurnal" had run in the '40's and '50's as a daily line between Pittsburg and Wheeling. But the new "Winchester" was about to be put in the Pittsburg and Cincinnati trade. It was commanded by Capt. Asa Shep-

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History of Columbiana County, Ohio and representative citizens, Part 10

Author: McCord, William B., b. 1844 Publication date: 1905 Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : Biographical Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 912

Author: McCord, William B., b. 1844
Publication date: 1905
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : Biographical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 912