USA > Ohio > Allen County > Cairo > On the storied Ohio : an historical pilgrimage of a thousand miles in a skiff, from Redstone to Cairo > Part 2
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It was a mile and a half up the Yough before we reached the open country; and then only the rapidly-gathering dusk drove us ashore, for on near approach the prospect was not pleasing. Finally settling into this damp, shallow pocket in the shelving bank, we find broad-girthed elms and maples screening us from all save the river front, the high bank in the rear fringed with blue violets which emit a delicious odor, backed by a field of waving corn stretching off toward heavily-wooded hills. Our supper cooked and eaten by lan- tern-light, we vote ourselves as, after all, serenely content out here in the starlight-at
I 5
Major Washington
peace with the world, and very close to Na- ture's heart.
There come to us, on the cool evening breeze, faint echoes of the never-ceasing clang of Mckeesport iron mills, down on the Mo- nongahela shore. But it is not of these we talk, lounging in the welcome warmth of the camp-fire; it is of the age of romance, a hun- dred and forty odd years ago, when Major Washington and Christopher Gist, with fam- ished horses, floundered in the ice hereabout, upon their famous midwinter trip to Fort Le Bœuf; when the "Forks of the Yough" be- came the extreme outpost of Western advance, with all the accompanying horrors of frontier war; and later, when Mckeesport for a time rivaled Redstone and Elizabethtown as a cen- ter for boat-building and a point of departure for the Ohio.
PITTSBURG, Sunday, May 6th .- Many of the trees are already in full leaf. The tril- lium is fading. We are in the full tide of early summer, up here in the mountains, and our long journey of six weeks is southward and toward the plain. The lower Ohio may soon be a bake-oven, and the middle of June will be upon us before far-away Cairo is reached.
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On the Storied Ohio
It behooves us to be up and doing. The river, flowing by our door, is an ever-pressing invi- tation to be onward; it stops not for Sunday, nor ever stops-and why should we, mere drift upon the passing tide?
There was a smart thunder-shower during breakfast, followed by a cool, cloudy morning. At eleven o'clock Pilgrim was laden. A south- eastern breeze ruffled the waters of the Yough, and for the first time the Doctor ordered up the sail, with W- at the sheet. It was not long before Pilgrim had the water "singing at her prow." With a rush, we flew past the factories, the house-boats, and the shabby street-ends of Mckeesport, out into the Mo- nongahela, where, luckily, the wind still held.
At Mckeesport, the hills on the right are of a relatively low altitude, smooth and well rounded. It was here that Braddock, in his slow progress toward Fort Duquesne, first crossed the Monongahela, to the wide, level bottom on the left bank. He had found the inner country to the right of the river and below the Yough too rough and hilly for his march, hence had turned back toward the Monongahela, fording the river to take ad- vantage of the less difficult bottom. Some
"T requires a liberal exercise of the historical imagination to convert this " noisy iron-manufacturing town" into the scene of Braddock's Defeat ; but although the fateful ravine has been well built over, its outlines can still easily be traced by local antiquarians.
....
Photograph by Chautauqua Photographic Co.
THE MONONGAHELA AT BRADDOCK
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Braddock's Defeat
four miles below this first crossing, hills reap- proach the left bank, till the bottom ceases; the right thenceforth becomes the more favor- able side for marching. With great pomp, he recrossed the Monongahela just below the point where Turtle Creek enters from the east. Within a forested ravine, but a hundred yards inland, the brilliant column was surrounded by a well-sheltered band of Indians and French half-breeds, and suffered that heart-sickening defeat which will live as one of the most tragic events in American history.
The noisy iron-manufacturing town of Brad- dock now occupies the site of Braddock's de- feat. Not far from the old ford stretches the great dam of Lock No. 2, which we portaged, with the usual difficulties of steep, stony banks. Braddock is but eight miles across country from Pittsburg, although twelve by river. We have, all the way down, an almost constant succession of iron and steel-making towns, chief among them Homestead, on the left bank, seven miles above Pittsburg. The great strike of July, 1892, with its attendant horrors, is a lurid chapter in the story of American in- dustry. With shuddering interest, we view the famous great bank of ugly slag at the base of
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18
On the Storied Ohio
the steel mills, where the barges housing the Pinkerton guards were burned by the mob.
To-day, the Homesteaders are enjoying their Sunday afternoon outing along the town shore-nurses pushing baby carriages, self- absorbed lovers holding hands upon riverside benches, merry-makers rowing in skiffs or crossing the river in crowded ferries; the elec- tric cars, following either side of the stream as far down as Pittsburg, crowded to suffoca- tion with gayly-attired folk. They look little like rioters; yet it seems but the other day when Homestead men and women and children were hysterically reveling in atrocities akin to those of the Paris commune.
Approaching Pittsburg, the high steeps are everywhere crowded with houses-great masses of smoke-color, dotted all over with white shades and sparkling windows, which seem, in the gray afternoon, to be ten thousand eyes coldly staring down at Pilgrim and her crew from all over the flanking hillsides.
Lock No. I, the last barrier between us and the Ohio, is a mile or two up the Mononga- hela, with warehouses and manufacturing plants closely hemming it in on either side. A portage, unaided, appears to be impossible
19
Making a Lock
here, and we resolve to lock through. ‘ But it is Sunday, and the lock is closed. Above, a dozen down-going steamboats are moored to the shore, waiting for midnight and the re- sumption of business; while below, a similar line of ascending boats is awaiting the close of the day of rest. Pilgrim, however, cannot hang up at the levee with any comfort to her crew; it is desirable, with evening at hand, and a thunder-storm angrily rising over the Pittsburg hills, to escape from this grimy pool, flanked about with iron and coal yards, chimney stacks, and a forest of shipping, and quickly to seek the open country lower down on the Ohio, The lock-keepers appreciated our sit- uation. Two or three sturdy, courteous men helped us carry our cargo, by an intricate official route, over coils of rope and chains, over lines of shafting, and along dizzy walks overhanging the yawning basin; while the Doctor, directed to a certain chute in mid- stream, took unladen Pilgrim over the great dam, with a wild swoop which made our eyes swim to witness from the lock.
We had laboriously been rowing on slack- water, all the way from Brownsville, with the help of an hour's sail this morning; whereas,
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On the Storied Ohio
now that we were in the strong current below the dam, we had but to gently paddle to glide swiftly on our way. A hundred steamers, more or less, lay closely packed with their bows upon the right, or principal city wharf. It was raining at last, and we donned our storm wraps. No doubt yellow Pilgrim, ---
thought hereabout to be a frail craft for these waters,-her crew all poncho-clad, slipping silently through the dark water swishing at their sterns, was a novelty to the steamboat men, for they leaned lazily over their railings, the officers on the upper deck, engineers and roustabouts on the lower, and watched us curiously.
Our period of elation was brief. Black storm-clouds, jagged and portentous, were scurrying across the sky; and by the time we had reached the forks, where the Mononga- hela, in the heart of the city, joins forces with the Alleghany, Pilgrim was being buffeted about on a chop sea produced by cross currents and a northwest gale. She can weather an ordinary storm, but for this experience is un- fitted. When a passing steamer threw out long lines of frothy waves to add to the disturbance, they broke over our gunwales; and W- with the coffee pot and the Boy with a tin basin
2 I
Tempest-Tossed
were hard pushed to keep the water below the thwarts.
Seeking the friendly shelter of a house-boat, of which there were scores tied to the left bank, we trusted our drenched luggage to the care of its proprietor, placed Pilgrim in a snug harbor hard by, and, hurrying up a steep flight of steps leading from the levee to the terrace above, found a suburban hotel just as its office clock struck eight.
Across the Ohio, through the blinding storm, the dark outlines of Pittsburg and Allegheny City are spangled with electric lamps which throw toward us long, shimmering lances of light, in which the mighty stream, gray, mys- terious, tempest-tossed, is seen to be surging onward with majestic sweep. Upon its bosom we are to be borne for a thousand miles. Our introduction has been unpropitious; it is to be hoped that on further acquaintance we may be better pleased with La Belle Rivière.
CHAPTER II.
FIRST DAY ON THE OHIO-AT LOGSTOWN.
BEAVER RIVER, Monday, May 7th .- We have to-day rowed and paddled under a cloud- less sky, but in the teeth of frequent squalls, with heavy waves freely dashing their spray upon us. At such times a goodly current, aided by numerous wing-dams, appears of little avail; for, when we rested upon our oars, Pilgrim would be unmercifully driven up stream. Thus it has been an almost continual fight to make progress, and our five-and-twenty miles represent a hard day's work.
We were overloaded, that was certain; so we stopped at Chartier, three miles down the river from Pittsburg, and sent on our portly bag of conventional traveling clothes by ex- press to Cincinnati, where we intend stopping for a day. This leaves us in our rough boat- ing costumes for all the smaller towns en route. What we may lose in possible social embarrass- ments, we gain in lightened cargo.
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·
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Washington's Lands
Here at the mouth of Chartier's Creek was " Chartier's Old Town" of a century and a third ago; a straggling, unkempt Indian village then, but at least the banks were lovely, and the rolling distances clothed with majestic trees. To-day, these creek banks, connected by numerous iron bridges, are the dumping- ground for cinders, slag, rubbish of every de- gree of foulness; the bare hillsides are crowded with the ugly dwellings of iron-workers; the atmosphere is thick with smoke.
Washington, one of the greatest land spec- ulators of his time, owned over 32,000 acres along the Ohio. He held a patent from Lord Dunmore, dated July 5, 1775, for nearly 3,000 acres lying about the mouth of this stream. In accordance with the free-and-easy habit of trans-Alleghany pioneers, ten men squatted on the tract, greatly to the indignation of the Father of his Country, who in 1784 brought against them a successful suit for ejectment. Twelve years later, more familiar with this than with most of his land grants, he sold it to a friend for $12,000.
Just below Chartier are the picturesque McKee's Rocks, where is the first riffle in the Ohio. We "take " it with a swoop, the white-
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On the Storied Ohio
capped waves dancing about us in a miniature rapid. Then we are in the open country, and for the first time find what the great river is like. The character of the banks, for some distance below Pittsburg, differs from that of the Monongahela. The hills are lower, less precipitous, more graceful. There is a de- lightful roundness of mass and shade. Beau- tiful villas occupy commanding situations on hillsides and hilltops; we catch glimpses of spires and cupolas, singly or in groups, peeping above the trees; and now and then a pretty suburban railway station. The railways upon either bank are built on neat terraces, and, far from marring the scene, agreeably give life to it; now and then, three such terraces are to be traced, one above the other, against the dark background of wood and field-the lower and upper devoted to rival railway lines, the central one to the common way. The mouths of the beautiful tributary ravines are crossed either by graceful iron spans, which frame charming undercut glimpses of sparkling water- falls and deep tangles of moss and fern, or by graceful stone arches draped with vines. There are terraced vineyards, after the fashion of the Rhineland, and the gentle arts of the florist
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Natural Gas
and the truck-gardener are much in evidence. The winding river frequently sweeps at the base of rocky escarpments, but upon one side or the other there are now invariably bottom lands-narrow on these upper reaches, but we shall find them gradually widen and lengthen as we descend. The reaches are from four to seven miles in length, but these, too, are to lengthen in the middle waters. Islands are frequent, all day. The largest is Neville's, five miles long and thickly strewn with villas and market-gardens; still others are but long sand- bars grown to willows, and but temporarily in sight, for the stage of water is low just now, not over seven feet in the channel.
Emerging from the immediate suburbs of Pittsburg, the fields broaden, farmsteads are occasionally to be seen nestled in the undula- tions of the hills, woodlands become more dense. There are, however, small rustic towns in plenty; we are seldom out of sight of these. Climbing a steep clay slope on the left bank, we visited one of them-Shousetown, fourteen miles below the city. A sad-eyed, shabby place, with the pipe line for natural gas sprawl- ing hither and yon upon the surface of the ground, except at the street crossings, where
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On the Storied Ohio
a few inches of protecting earth have been laid upon it. The tariff levied by the gas company is ten cents per month for each light, and a dollar and a half for a cook-stove.
We passed, this afternoon, one of the most interesting historic points upon the river-the picturesque site of ancient Logstown, upon the summit of a low, steep ridge on the right bank, just below Economy, and eighteen miles from Pittsburg. Logstown was a Shawanese village as early as 1727-30, and already a notable fur-trading post when Conrad Weiser visited it in 1748. Washington and Gist stopped at "Loggestown" for five days on their visit to the French at Fort Le Bœuf, and several famous Indian treaties were signed there. A short distance below, Anthony Wayne's Western army was encamped during the winter of 1792-93, the place being then styled Legionville. In 1824 George Rapp founded in the neighborhood a German social- ist community, and this later settlement sur- vives to the present day in the thriving little rustic town of Economy.
At four o'clock we struck camp on a heavily- willowed shore, at the apex of the great north-
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Beaver River
ern bend of the Ohio (25 miles) .* Across the river, on a broad level bottom, are the manu- facturing towns of Rochester and Beaver, divided by the Beaver River; in their rear, well-rounded hills rise gracefully, checkered by brown fields and woods in many shades of green, in the midst of which the flowering white dogwood rears its stately spray. Our sloping willowed sand-beach, of a hundred feet in width, is thick strewn with driftwood; back of this a clay bank, eight feet sheer, and a narrow bottom cut up into small fruit and vegetable patches; the gardeners' neat frame houses peeping from groves of apple, pear, and cherry, upon the flanking hillsides. A lofty oil-well derrick surmounts the edge of the ter- race a hundred yards below our camp. The bushes and the ground round about the well are black and slimy with crude petroleum, that has escaped during the boring process, and the air is heavy with its odor. We are upon the edge of the far-stretching oil and gas-well re-
* Figures in parentheses, similarly placed throughout the volume, indicate the meandered river mileage from Pittsburg, according to the map of the Corps of Engineers, U. S. A., published in 1881. The actual mileage of the channel is a trifle greater.
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On the Storied Ohio
gion, and shall soon become familiar enough with such sights and smells in the neighbor- hood of our nightly camps.
No sooner had Pilgrim been turned up against a tree to dry, and a smooth sandy open chosen for the camp, than the proprietor of the soil appeared-a middling-sized, lanky man, with a red face and a sandy goatee surmounting a collarless white shirt all bestained with tobacco juice. He inquired rather sharply concerning us, but when informed of our innocent errand, and that we should stay with him but the night, he promptly softened, explaining that the presence of marauding fishermen and house- boat folk was incompatible with gardening for profit, and he would have none of them touch upon his shore. As to us, we were wel- come to stop throughout our pleasure, an in- vitation he reinforced by sitting upon a stump, whittling vigorously meanwhile, and glibly gossiping with the Doctor and me for a half- hour, on crop conditions and the state of the country-" bein' sociable like," he said, "an' hav'n' nuth'n 'gin you folks, as knows what's what, I kin see with half a eye!"
CHAPTER III.
SHINGIS OLD TOWN-THE DYNAMITER -- YEL- LOW CREEK.
KNEISTLY'S CLUSTER, W. VA., Tuesday, May 8th. - We were off at a quarter past seven, and among the earliest shoppers in Rochester, on the east bank of the Beaver, where supplies were laid in for the day. This busy, prosper- ous-looking place bears little resemblance to the squalid Indian village which Gist found here in November, 1750. It was then the seat of Barney Curran; an Indian trader-the same Curran whom Washington, three years later, employed in the mission to Venango. But the smaller sister town of Beaver, on the lower side of the mouth,-or rather the west- ern outskirts of Beaver a mile below the mouth, -has the most ancient history. On account of a ford across the Beaver, about where is now a slack-water dam, the neighborhood be- came of early importance to the French as a fur-trading center. With customary liberality
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On the Storied Ohio
toward the Indians, whom they assiduously cultivated, the French, in 1756, built for them, on this site, a substantial town, which the English indifferently called Sarikonk, Sohkon, King Beaver's Town, or Shingis Old Town. During the French and Indian War, the place was prominent as a rendezvous for the enemies of American borderers; numerous bloody forays were planned here, and hither were brought to be adopted into the tribes, or to be cruelly tortured, according to savage whim, many of the captives whose tales have made lurid the history of the Ohio Valley.
Passing Beaver River, the Ohio enters upon its grand sweep to the southwest. The wide uplands at once become more rustic, especially those of the left bank, which no longer is threaded by a railway, as heretofore all the way from Brownsville. The two ranges of undulating hills, some three hundred and fifty feet high, forming the rim of the basin, are about a half mile apart; while the river itself is perhaps a third of a mile in width, leaving narrow bottoms on alternate sides, as the stream in gentle curves rebounds from the rocky base of one hill to that of another. When winding about such a base, there is at
31
Side-tracked
this stage of the water a sloping, stony beach, some ten to twenty yards in width, from which ascends the sharp steep, for the most part heavily tree-clad-maples, birches, elms, and oaks of goodly girth, the latter as yet in but half-leaf. On the "bottom side" of the river, the alluvial terrace presents a sheer wall of clay rising from eight to a dozen feet above the beach, which is often thick-grown with willows, whose roots hold the soil from becoming too easy a prey to the encroaching current. Syca- mores now begin to appear in the bottoms, although of less size than we shall meet below. Sometimes the little towns we see occupy a narrow and more or less rocky bench upon the hill side of the stream, but settlement is chiefly found upon the bottoms.
Shippingsport (32 miles), on the left bank, where we stopped this noon for eggs, butter, and fresh water, is on a narrow hill bench-a dry, woe-begone hamlet, side-tracked from the path of the world's progress. While I was on shore, negotiating with the sleepy store- keeper, Pilgrim and her crew waited alongside the flatboat which serves as the town ferry. There they were visited by a breezy, red-faced young man, in a blue flannel shirt and a black
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On the Storied Ohio
slouch hat, who was soon enough at his ease to lie flat upon the ferry gunwale, his cheeks supported by his hands, and talk to W- and the Doctor as if they were old friends. He was a dealer in nitroglycerin cartridges, he said, and pointed to a long, rakish-looking skiff hard by, which bore a red flag at its prow. " Ye see that? Thet there red flag? Well, thet's the law on us glysereen fellers-over five hundred poun's, two flags; un'er five hundred, one flag. I've two hundred and fifty, I have. I tell yer th' steamboats steer clear o' me, an' don' yer fergit it, neither; they jist give me a wide berth, they do, yew bet! 'n' th' railroads, they don' carry no glysereen cartridge, they don't-all uv it by skiff, like yer see me goin'."
These cartridges, he explained, are dropped into oil or gas wells whose owners are desirous of accelerating the flow. The cartridge, in exploding, enlarges the hole, and often the output of the well is at once increased by sev- eral hundred per cent. The young fellow had the air of a self-confident rustic, with little ex- perience in the world. Indeed, it seemed from his elated manner as if this might be his first trip from home, and the blowing of oil wells an incidental speculation. The Boy,
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The Dynamiter
quick at inventive nomenclature, and fresh from a reading of Robert Louis Stevenson, called our visitor "the Dynamiter," and by that title I suppose we shall always remem- ber him.
The Dynamiter confided to his listeners that he was going down the river for "a clean hundred miles, and that's right smart fur, ain't it? How fur down be yees goin'?" The Doc- tor replied that we were going nine hundred; whereat the man of explosives gave vent to his feelings in a prolonged whistle, then a horse laugh, and "Oh come, now! Don' be givin' us taffy! Say, hones' Injun, how fur down air yew fellers goin', anyhow?" It was with some difficulty that he could comprehend the fact. A hundred miles on the river was a great outing for this village lad; nine hundred was rather beyond his comprehension, although he finally compromised by "allowing" that we might · be going as far as Cincinnati. Wouldn't the Doctor go into partnership with him? He had no caps for his cartridges, and if the Doctor would buy caps and "stan' in with him on the cost of the glysereen," they would, regardless of Ohio statutes, blow up the fish in unfre- quented portions of the river, and make two
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On the Storied Ohio
hundred dollars apiece by carrying the spoils in to Wheeling. The Doctor, as a law-abiding citizen, good-naturedly declined; and upon my return to the flat, the Dynamiter was handing the Boy a huge stick of barber-pole candy, saying, "Well, yew fellers, we'll part friends, anyhow-but sorry yew won't go in on this spec'; there's right smart money in 't, 'n' don' yer fergit it!"
By the middle of the afternoon we reached the boundary line (40 miles) between Pennsyl- vania on the east and Ohio and West Virginia on the west. The last Pennsylvania settle- ments are a half mile above the boundary- Smith's Ferry (right), an old and somewhat decayed village, on a broad, low bottom at the mouth of the picturesque Little Beaver Creek ;* and Georgetown (left), a prosperous-looking, sedate town, with tidy lawns running down to the edge of the terrace, below which is a shelv- ing stone beach of generous width. Two high iron towers supporting the cable of a current ferry add dignity to the twin settlements. A
* On this creek was the hunting-cabin of the Seneca (Mingo) chief, Half King, who sent a message of welcome to Washington, when the latter was on his way to Great Mead- ows (1754).
N TEAR East Liverpool, Ohio, forty-five miles below Pitts- burg. The hills still closely approach the river banks, although bottoms now frequently occur. The stream here flows between West Virginia and Ohio.
Photograph by R. W. Johnston & Co.
"THE CONTOUR OF THE RUGGED HILLS"
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West Virginia
stone monument, six feet high, just observable through the willows on the right shore, marks the boundary; while upon the left bank, sur- mounting a high, rock-strewn beach, is the dilapidated frame house of a West Virginia "cracker," through whose garden-patch the line takes its way, unobserved and unthought of by pigs, chickens, and children, which in hopeless promiscuity swarm the interstate premises. 1410261
For many days to come we are to have Ohio on the right bank and West Virginia on the left. There is no perceptible change, of course, in the contour of the rugged hills which hem us in; yet somehow it stirs the blood to reflect that quite within the recollection of all of us in Pilgrim's crew, save the Boy, that left bank was the house of bondage, and that right the land of freedom, and this river of ours the highway between.
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