USA > Ohio > Allen County > Cairo > On the storied Ohio : an historical pilgrimage of a thousand miles in a skiff, from Redstone to Cairo > Part 7
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My little queen was evidently proud of her throne-room, and noted with satisfaction my interest in the Family Record. When I had paid her for butter and eggs, at retail rates, she threw in an extra egg, and, despite my protests, would have Charley take the pail out to the cow, "for an extra squirt or two, for good measure!"
I was bidding them all good-bye, and the queen was pressing me to come again in the morning "fer more stuff, ef ye 'lowed yew wanted any," when the mother of the little brood appeared from over the fields, where she had been to carry water to her lord. A fair, intelligent, rather fine-looking woman,
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On the Storied Ohio
but barefooted like the rest; from her neck behind, dangled a red sunbonnet, and a sunny-haired child of five was in her arms- "sort o' weak in her lungs, poor thing!" she sadly said, as I snapped my fingers at the smiling tot. I tarried a moment with the good mother, as, sitting upon the porch, she serenely smiled upon her children, whose eyes were now lit with responsive love; and I wondered if there were not some romance hidden here, whereby a dash of gentler blood had through this sweet-tempered woman been infused into the coarse clay of the bottom.
CHAPTER XI.
BATTLE OF POINT PLEASANT-THE STORY OF GALLIPOLIS - ROSEBUD - HUNTINGTON - THE GENESIS OF A HOUSE-BOATER.
NEAR GLENWOOD, W. VA., Thursday, May 17th. - By eight o'clock this morning we were in Point Pleasant, W. Va., at the mouth of the Great Kanawha River (263 miles). Cél- oron was here, the eighteenth of August, 1749, and on the east bank of the river, the site of the present village, buried at the foot of an elm one of his leaden plates asserting the claim of France to the Ohio basin. Ninety-seven years later, a boy unearthed this interesting but futile proclamation, and it rests to-day in the museum of the Virginia Historical So- ciety.
The Great Kanawha Valley long had a romantic interest for Englishmen concerned in Western lands. It was in the grant to the old Ohio Company; but that corporation, handicapped in many ways, was practically dead by the time of Lord Dunmore's war.
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On the Storied Ohio
It had many rivals, more or less ephemeral, among them the scheme of George Mercer (1773) to have the territory between the Alle- ghanies and the Ohio-the West Virginia of to-day-erected into the "Province of Van- dalia," with himself as governor, and his cap- ital at the mouth of the Great Kanawha. Washington owned a ten-thousand-acre tract on both sides of the river, commencing a short distance above the mouth, which he surveyed in person, in October, 1770; and in 1773 we find him advertising to sell or lease it; among the inducements he offered was, "the scheme for establishing a new govern- ment on the Ohio," and the contiguity of his lands "to the seat of government, which, it is more than probable, will be fixed at the mouth of the Great Kanawha." Had not the Revolution broken out, and nipped this and many another budding plan for Western col- onization, there is little doubt that what we call West Virginia would have been estab- lished as a state, a century earlier than it was. *
* Washington was much interested in a plan to connect, by a canal, the James and Great Kanawha Rivers, separated at their sources by a portage of but a few miles in length.
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Dunmore's War
A few days ago we were at Mingo Bottom, where lived Chief Logan, whose family were treacherously slaughtered by border ruffians (1774). The Mingos, ablaze with the fire of vengeance, carried the war-pipe through the neighboring villages; runners were sent in every direction to rouse the tribes; tomahawks were unearthed, war-posts were planted; mes- sages of defiance sent to the Virginians; and in a few days Lord Dunmore's war was in full swing, from Cumberland Gap to Fort Pitt, from the Alleghanies to the Wabash.
His lordship, then governor of Virginia, was full of energy, and proved himself a compe- tent military manager. The settlers were or- ganized; the rude log forts were garrisoned; forays were made against the Indian villages as far away as Muskingum, and an army of
The distance from Point Pleasant to Richmond is 485 miles. In 1785, Virginia incorporated the James River Company, of which Washington was the first president. The project hung fire, because of "party spirit and sectional jealousies," until 1832, when a new company was incorporated, under which the James was improved (1836-53), but the Kanawha was untouched. In 1874, United States engineers presented a plan calling for an expenditure of sixty millions, but there the matter rests. The Kanawha is navigable by large steamers for sixty miles, up to the falls at Charleston, and beyond almost to its source, by light craft.
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On the Storied Ohio
nearly three thousand backwoodsmen, armed with smooth-bores and clad in fringed buck- skin hunting-shirts, was put in the field.
One division of this army, eleven hundred strong, under Gen. Andrew Lewis, descended the Great Kanawha River, and on Point Pleas- ant met Cornstalk, a famous Shawnee chief, who, while at first peaceful, had by the Logan tragedy been made a fierce enemy of the whites, and was now the leader of a thou- sand picked warriors, gathered from all parts of the Northwest. On the 10th of October, from dawn until dusk, was here waged in a gloomy forest one of the most bloody and stub- born hand-to-hand battles ever fought between Indians and whites-especially notable, too, because for the first time the rivals were about equal in number. The combatants stood be- hind trees, in Indian fashion, and it is hard to say who displayed the best generalship, Corn- stalk or Lewis. * When the pall of night cov-
* Hall, in Romance of Western History (1820), says that when Washington was tendered command of the Rev- olutionary army, he replied that it should rather be given to Gen. Andrew Lewis, of whose military abilities he had a high opinion. Lewis was a captain in the Little Meadows affair (1752), and a companion of Washington in Braddock's defeat (1755).
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Point Pleasant
ered the hideous contest, the whites had lost one-fifth of their number, while the savages had sustained but half as many casualties. Cornstalk's followers had had enough, how- ever, and withdrew before daylight, leaving the field to the Americans.
A few days later, General Lewis joined Lord Dunmore-who headed the other wing of the army, which had proceeded by the way of Forts Pitt and Gower-on the Pickaway plains, in Ohio; and there a treaty was made with the Indians, who assented to every prop- osition made them. They surrendered all claim to lands south of the Ohio River, re- turned their white prisoners and stolen horses, and gave hostages for future good behavior.
Here at Point Pleasant, a year later, Fort Randolph was built, and garrisoned by a hun- dred men; for, despite the treaty, the Indians were still troublesome. For a long time, Pittsburg, Redstone, and Randolph were the only garrisoned forts on the frontier. The Point Pleasant of to-day is a dull, sleepy town of twenty-five hundred inhabitants, with that unkempt air and preponderance of lounging negroes, so common to small Southern com- munities. The bottom is rolling, fringed with
9
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On the Storied Ohio
large hills, and on the Ohio side drops suddenly for fifty feet to a shelving beach of gravel and clay. Crooked Creek, in whose narrow, wind- ing valley some of the severest fighting was had, empties into the Kanawha a half-mile up the stream, at the back of the town. It was painful to meet several men of intelligence, who had long been engaged in trade here, to whom the Battle of Point Pleasant was a shadowy event, whose date they could not fix, nor whose importance understand; it seemed to be little more a part of their lives, than an obscure contest between Matabeles and whites, in far-off Africa. It is time that our Western and Southern folk were awakened to an ap- preciation of the fact that they have a history at their doors, quite as significant in the annals of civilization as that which induces pilgrim- ages to Ticonderoga and Bunker Hill.
Four miles below, Pilgrim was beached for a time at Gallipolis, O. (267 miles), which has a story all its own. The district belonged, a century ago, to the Scioto Company, an off- shoot of the Marietta enterprise. Joel Barlow, the "poet of the Revolution," was sent to Paris (May, 1788) as agent for the sale of lands. As the result of his personal popularity
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Settlement of Gallipolis
there, and his flaming immigration circulars and maps, he disposed of a hundred thousand acres; to settle on which, six hundred French emigrants sailed for America, in February, 1790. They were peculiarly unsuited for col- onization, even under the most favorable con- ditions-being in the main physicians, jewelers and other artisans, a few mechanics, and noblemen's servants, while many were without trade or profession.
Upon arrival in Alexandria, Va., they found that their deeds were valueless, the land never having been paid for by the Scioto speculators; moreover, the tract was filled with hostile In- dians. However, five hundred of them pushed on to the region, by way of Redstone, and reached here by flatboat, in a destitute condi- tion. The Marietta neighbors were as kind as circumstances would allow, and cabins were built for them on what is now the Public Square of Gallipolis. But they were ignorant of the first principles of forestry or gardening; the initial winter was exceptionally severe, Indian forays sapped the life of the colony, yellow fever decimated the survivors; and, altogether, the little settlement suffered a series of disas-
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On the Storied Ohio
ters almost unparalleled in the story of Amer- ican colonization.
Although finally reimbursed by Congress with a special land grant, the emigrants grad- ually died off, until now, so at least we were assured, but three families of descendants of the original Gauls are now living here. It was the American element, aided by sturdy Ger- mans, who in time took hold of the decayed French settlement, and built up the prosperous little town of six thousand inhabitants which
we find to-day. It is a conservative town, with little perceptible increase in population; but there are many fine brick blocks, the stores have large stocks attractively displayed, and there is in general a comfortable tone about
the place, which pleases a stranger. The Public Square, where the first Gauls had their little forted town, appears to occupy the space of three or four city blocks; there is the cus- tomary band-stand in the center, and seats plentifully provided along the graveled walks which divide neat plots of grass. Over the riverward entrance to the square, is an arch of gas-pipe, perforated for illumination, and bear- ing the dates, "1790-1890,"-a relic, this, of
I33
A Human Wasp-Nest
the centennial which Gallipolis celebrated in the last-named year.
It was with some difficulty that we found a camping-place, this evening. For several miles, the approaches were nearly knee-deep in mud for a dozen feet back from the water's edge, or else the banks were too steep, or the farm- ers had cultivated so closely to the brink as to leave us no room for the tent. In one grue- some spot on the Ohio bank, where a project- ing log fortunately served as a pier, the Doctor landed for a prospecting tour; while I ascended a zigzag path, through steep and rugged land, to a nest of squalid cabins perched by a shabby hillside road. A vicious dog came down to meet me half-way, and might have succeeded in carrying off a portion of my clothing had not his owner whistled him back.
A queer, dingy, human wasp-nest, this dirty little shanty hamlet of Rosebud. Pigs and children wallowed in comradeship, and as every cabin on the precipitous slope necessarily has a basement, this is used as the common barn for chickens, goats, pigs, and cow. It was pleasant to find that there was no sweet milk to be had in Rosebud, for it is kept in open pans, in these fetid rooms, and soon sours-
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On the Storied Ohio
and the cows had not yet come down from the hills. Water, too, was at a premium. There was none to be had, save what had fallen from the clouds, and been stored in a foul cistern, which seemed common property. I drew a pailful of it, not to displease the disheveled group which surrounded me, full of questions; but on the first turning in the lane, emptied the vessel upon the back of a pig, which was darting by with tremulous squeal.
The long twilight was well nigh spent, when, on the Ohio side a mile or two above Glen- wood, W. Va. (287 miles), we came upon a wide, level beach of gravel, below a sloping, willowed terrace, above which sharply rose the "second bottom." Ascending an angling farm roadway, while the others pitched camp, I walked over the undulating bottom to the nearest of a group of small, neat farmhouses,
and applied for milk. While a buxom maid went out and milked a Jersey, that had chanced to come home ahead of her fellows, I sat on the rear porch gossiping with the farm-wife- a Pennsylvania-Dutch dame of ample propor- tions, attired in light-blue calico, and with huge spectacles over her broad, flat nose. She and her "man" own a hundred and fifty
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Bottom Farmers
acres on the bottom, with three cows and other stock in proportion, and sell butter to those neighbors who have no cows, and to house- boat people. As for these latter, though they were her customers, she had none too good an opinion of them; they pretended to fish, but in reality only picked up a living from the farmers; nevertheless, she did know of some "weakly, delicate people " who had taken to boat life for economy's sake, and because an invalid could at least fish, and his family help him at it.
NEAR HUNTINGTON, W. VA., Friday, May 18th .- Backed by ravine-grooved hills, and edged at the waterside with great picturesque boulders, planed and polished by the ever- rushing river, the little bottom farms along our path to-day are pretty bits. But the houses are the reverse of this, having much the aspect of slave-cabins of the olden time-small, one- story, log and frame shanties, roof and gables shingled with "shakes," and little vegetable gardens inclosed by palings. The majority of these small farmers-whose tracts seldom ex- ceed a hundred acres-rent their land, rather than own it. The plan seems to be half-and-
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On the Storied Ohio
half as to crops, with a rental fee for house and pasturage. One man, having a hundred- and-twenty acres, told me he paid three dollars a month for his house, and for pasturage a dollar a month per head.
We were in several of the small towns to- day. At Millersport, O. (293 miles), while W- and the Doctor were up town, the Boy and I remained at the wharf-boat to talk with the owner. The wharf-boat is a conspicuous object at every landing of importance, being a covered barge used as a storehouse for coming and going steamboat freight. It is a private enterprise, for public convenience, with cer- tain monopolistic privileges at the incorporated towns. This Millersport boat cost twelve hun- dred dollars; the proprietor charges twenty per cent of each freight-bill, for handling and stor- ing goods, a fee of twenty-five cents for each steamer that lands, and certain special fees for live stock. Athalia, Haskellville, and Guyandotte were other representative towns. Stave-making appears to be the chief industry, and, as timber is getting scarce, the commu- nities show signs of decay.
We had been told, above, that Huntington, W. Va. (306 miles), was " a right smart chunk
I 37
Huntington
of a town." And it is. There are sixteen thousand people here, in a finely-built city spread over a broad, flat plain. Brick and stone business buildings abound; the broad streets are paved with brick, and an electric- car line runs out along the bottom, through the suburb of Ceredo, W. Va., to Catletts- burg, Ky., nine miles away. Huntington is the center of a large group of riverside towns supported by iron-making and other indus- tries-Guyandotte and Ceredo, in West Vir- ginia; Catlettsburg, just over the border in Kentucky; and Proctorville, Broderickville, Frampton, Burlington, and South Point, on the opposite shore.
We are camping to-night in the dense wil- low grove which lines the West Virginia beach from Huntington to the Big Sandy. Above us, on the wide terrace, are fields and orchards, beyond which we occasionally hear the gong of electric cars. A public path runs by the tent, leading from the lower settlements into Huntington. Among our visitors have been two houseboat men, whose craft is moored a quarter of a mile below. One of them is tall, thick-set, forty, with a round, florid face, and huge mustaches,-evidently a jolly fellow at
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On the Storied Ohio
his best, despite a certain dubious, piratical air; a jaunty, narrow-brimmed straw hat is perched over one ear, to add to the general effect; and between his teeth a corn-cob pipe. His younger companion is medium-sized, slim, and loose-jointed, with a baggy gait, his cap thrown over his head, with the visor in the rear-a rustic clown, not yet outgrown his freckles. But three weeks from the parental farm in Putnam County, Ky., the world is as yet a romance to him. The fellow is inter- esting, because in him can be seen the genesis of a considerable element of the houseboat fraternity. I wonder how long it will be be- fore his partner has him broken in as a river- pirate of the first water.
CHAPTER XII.
IN A FOG-THE BIG SANDY-RAINY WEATH- ER-OPERATIC GYPSIES-AN ANCIENT TAV- ERN.
IRONTON, O., Saturday, May 19th .- When we turned in, last night, it was refreshingly cool. Heavy clouds were scurrying across the face of the moon. By midnight, a copious rain was falling, wind-gusts were flapping our roof, and a sudden drop in temperature ren- dered sadly inadequate all the clothing we could muster into service. We slept late, in consequence, and, after rigging a wind-break with the rubber blankets, during breakfast huddled around the stove which had been brought in to replace Pilgrim under the fly. When, at half-past nine, we pushed off, our houseboat neighbors thrust their heads from the window and waved us farewell.
A dense fog hung like a cloud over land and river. There was a stiff north-east wind, which we avoided by seeking the Ohio shore,
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On the Storied Ohio
where the high hills formed a break; there too, the current was swift, and carried us down right merrily. Shattered by the wind, great banks of fog rolled up stream, sometimes enveloping us so as to narrow our view to a radius of a dozen rods,-again, through the rifts, giving us momentary glimpses on the right, of rich green hills, towering dark and steep above us, iridescent with browns, and grays, and many shades of green; of white- washed cabins, single or in groups, standing out with startling distinctness from som- bre backgrounds; of houseboats, many-hued, moored to willowed banks or bolstered high upon shaly beaches; of the opposite bottom, with its corrugated cliff of clay; and, now and then, a slowly-puffing steamboat cautiously feeling its way through the chilling gloom-a monster to be avoided by little Pilgrim and her crew, for the possibility of being run down in a fog is not pleasant to contemplate. On
board one of these steamers was a sorry com- pany-apparently a Sunday-school excursion. Children in gala dress huddled in swarms to the lee of the great smoke-stacks, and in im- agination we heard their teeth chatter as they
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The Big Sandy
glided by us and in another moment were en- gulfed in the mist.
We catch sight for a moment, through a cloud crevasse, of Ceredo, the last town in West Virginia-a small saw-milling commu- nity stuck upon the edge of the clay cliff, with the broad level bottom stretching out behind like a prairie. A giant railway bridge here spans the Ohio-a weird, impressive thing, as we sweep under it in the swirling current, and crane our necks to see the great stone piers lose themselves in the cloud. But the Big Sandy River (315 miles), which divides West Virginia and Kentucky, was wholly lost to view. In an opening a few moments later, however, we had a glimpse of the dark line of her valley, below which the hills again descend to the Ohio's bank.
Catlettsburg, the first Kentucky town, is at the junction, and extends along the foot of the ridge for a mile or two, apparently not over two blocks wide, with a few outlying shanties on the shoulders of the uplands. Washington was surveying here, on the Big Sandy, in 1770, and entered for one John Fry 2,084 acres round the site of Louisa, a dozen miles up the river; this was the first survey
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On the Storied Ohio
made in Kentucky-but a few months later than Boone's first advent as a hunter on the "dark and bloody ground," and five years before the first permanent settlement in the State. Washington deserves to be remem- bered as a Kentucky pioneer.
We have not only steamers to avoid, -- they appear to be unusually numerous about here, - but snags as well. With care, the whereabouts of a steamer can be distinguished as it steals upon us, from the superior whiteness of its col- umn of "exhaust," penetrating the bank of dark gray fog; and occasionally the echoes are awakened by the burly roar of its whistle, which, in times like this, acts as a fog-horn. But the snag is an insidious enemy, not re- vealing itself until we are within a rod or two, and then there is a quick cry of warning from the stern sheets-"Hard a-port!" or "Star- board, quick!" and only a strong side-pull, aided by W-'s paddle, sends us free from the jagged, branching mass which might readily have swamped poor Pilgrim had she taken it at full tilt.
At Ashland, Ky. (320 miles), we stopped for supplies. There are six thousand inhab- itants here, with some good buildings and a
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At the Levee
fine, broad, stone wharf, but it is rather a dingy place. The steamer "Bonanza" had just landed. On the double row of flaggings lead- ing up to the summit of the bank, were two ant-like processions of Kentucky folk-one, leisurely climbing townward with their bags and bundles, the other hurrying down with theirs to the boat, which was ringing its bell, blowing off steam, and in other ways creating an uproar which seemed to turn the heads of the negro roustabouts and draymen, who bustled around with a great chatter and much false motion. The railway may be doing the bulk of the business, but it does it unostenta- tiously; the steamboat makes far more disturb- ance in the world, and is a finer spectacle. Dozens of boys are lounging at the wharf foot, watching the lively scene with fascinated eyes, probably every one of them stoutly pos- sessed of an ambition akin to that of my young friend in the Cheshire Bottom.
A rain-storm broke the fog-a cold, raw, miserable rain. No clothing we could don appeared to suffice against the chill; and so at last we pitched camp upon the Ohio shore, three miles above the Ironton wharf (325 miles). It is a muddy, dreary nest up here,
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On the Storied Ohio
among the dripping willows. Just behind us on the slope, is the inclined track of the Nor- folk & Western railway-transfer, down which trains are slid to a huge slip, and thence ferried over the river into Kentucky; above that, on a narrow terrace, is an ordinary railway line; and still higher, up a slippery clay bank, lies the cottage-strewn bottom which stretches on into Ironton (13,000 inhabitants).
We were a sorry-looking party, at lunch this noon, hovering over the smoking stove which was set in the tent door, with a wind-screen in front, and moist bedding hung all about in the vain hope of drying it in the feeble heat. And sorrier still, through the long afternoon, as, each encased in a sleeping-bag, we sat upon our cots circling around the stove, W- read- ing to us between chattering teeth from Bar- rie's When a Man's Single. 'Tis good Scot- tish weather we're having; but somehow our thoughts could not rest on Thrums, and we were, for the nonce, a wee bit miserable.
Dinner degenerated into a smoky bite, and then at dusk there was a council of war. The air hangs thick with moisture, our possessions are in various stages from damp to sopping wet, and efforts at drying over the little stove
Seeking Shelter 145
are futile under such conditions. It was dem- onstrated that there was not bed-clothing enough, in such an emergency as this; indeed, an inspection of that which was merely damp, revealed the fact that but one person could be made comfortable to-night. Our bachelor Doctor volunteered to be that one. So we bade him God-speed, and with toilet bag in hand I led my little family up a tortuous path, so slippery in the rain that we were obliged in our muddy climb to cling to grass-clumps and bushes. And thus, wet and bedraggled, did we sally forth upon the Ironton Bottom, seek- ing shelter for the night.
Fortunately we had not far to seek. A kindly family took us in, despite our gruesome aspect and our unlikely story-for what man- ner of folk are we, that go trapesing about in a skiff, in such weather as this, coming from nobody knows where and camping o' nights in the muddy river bottoms? Instead of sending us on, in the drenching rain, to a hotel, three miles down the road, or offering us a ticket on the Associated Charities, these blessed people open their hearts and their beds to us, without question, and what more can weary pilgrims pray for?
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