USA > Pennsylvania > A pioneer outline history of northwestern Pennsylvania > Part 58
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"About 1855 the 'Venango' was built by and commanded by Captain Tom H. Reynolds, and the same year the ' Echo' was built by and commanded by Captain E. Gordon. After them, the 'Leclaire No. 1.' 'Leclaire No. 2.' ' Echo No. 2.' ' Allegheny Belle No. 2.' ' Ida Reese.' and ' Urilda:' also the 'Sam Snowden' and ' Allegheny Clipper.' The two latter were on the river about 1850.
" All of these boats had a carrying capacity of from two hundred to two hundred and fifty tons each, full-length cabins, and all the modern improve- ments (up to that time ) in the way of machinery, etc.
" Before the completion of the Allegheny Valley Railroad to Oil City these boats had all the business they could do, the up-trip consisting of boilers and engines for the oil country, returning with all the oil they could carry at two dollars and a half and three dollars per barrel : and to look back it seems
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HISTORY OF NORTHWESTERN PENNSYLVANIA
like a miracle that no accident occurred from fire. But to return to the days of the 'Planter,' 'Belle No. 2,' and 'Fisher.' These boats were the fastest that were ever on the Allegheny, and they made racing a business. The ' Planter' and ' Belle No. 2' would always back out from the Allegheny wharf together, 'red hot,' and about the only time you could not see the blaze from the tops of the chimneys would be when they were lowered to pass under the bridges. I have frequently heard Jim Conner, pilot of the ' Planter,' call down to Tom O'Donnell that the 'Belle' was ' coming up on us.' ' All right,' would be the answer, 'I have 160, will soon be 190, and the rest easy, Jim, and say good-by to the " Belle."' Both these boats had four boilers, sixteen-inch cylin- ders, and six-feet stroke. When the water was too low in the Allegheny the ' Planter' would sometimes go into the Pittsburg and Wheeling trade against the 'Diurnal' and 'Forrest City,' and I have seen her pass these boats while all were under way, so you may judge of her speed.
"There are men still living who remember when all the freight of the upper country was carried on 'dug-outs,' or ' canoes,' that were propelled by sheer muscle from Pittsburg to Warren, and that carried large quantities of freight to the scattered landings, whence they were transported by pack-horses through a comparative wilderness to the interior. Then came the era of keel- boating, and this was followed by the steamboat, an invention of incalculable advantage to the times.
" The Pittsburg Gazette of May 28, 1830, gives a long account of the first trip of the ' Allegheny.' She left Pittsburg on her third trip on the 14th of May, 1830, with sixty-four passengers and twenty-five or thirty tons of freight. and arrived at Warren at nine o'clock on the 19th,-three and one-half days running time,-and on the same evening she departed from Warren for Olean. At nine o'clock the next day she arrived opposite the Indian village of Corn- planter. Here a deputation of gentlemen waited on this ancient and well- known Seneca chief, and invited him on board this new and, to him, wonderful visitor, a steamboat. He was in all his native simplicity of dress and manner of living, lying on his couch, made of rough pine boards, and covered with deer-skins and blankets. His habitation, a two-story log house, was in a state of decay, without furniture, except a few benches, and wooden bowls and spoons to eat out of. The venerable chief was a lad in the French war, and fought at Braddock's defeat. He was a smart, active man, seemingly pos- sessed of all his strength of mind and perfect health. He, with his son, Charles, sixty years of age, and his son-in-law, came on board and remained until she passed six miles up, and then returned in their own canoe, after ex- pressing great pleasure. At eleven A. M. on Friday, the 21st of May, the . Alle- gheny' landed safely at Olean Point. The boat experienced much trouble and delay in procuring wood, much of which was so green as to prevent, in a great measure, the raising of a proper head of steam.
" Haszard's Register for September, 1830, gives an account of a steam-
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boat celebration at Franklin, in honor of which an elegant banquet was set, and among the honored guests of the occasion is mentioned the name of our venerable townsman, Philip Mechling, Esq. Frederick Crary, father of the late T. G. Crary, of this place, was president of the meeting, at which were assembled some of the most notable men of that day and section. The follow- ing is a list of the steamboats that succeeded in the trade :
". Forest,' November 5. 1840, to April 9, 1844; ' Pauline,' February 2, 1841, to May 10, 1841 ; ' Pulaski,' April 20, 1841, to May 4, 1843; * Alle- gheny Belle,' April 15, 1843, to December 11, 1850; ' Allegheny Belle No. 3,' March 5, 1851, to May 5, 1858; ' Mary Ann,' November 4, 1846, to Decem- ber 29, 1848; 'Arrow,' March 20, 1845, to November 30, 1846; . Arrow- line,' October 13. 1847, to May 27, 1848; 'Arena,' October 23, 1847, to December 6, 1849; ' Allegheny Belle No. 2,' March 15, 1850, to June 28, 1858; ' Allegheny Belle No. 4,' March 19, 1859, to April 21, 1861 ; ‘ Alle- gheny Clipper,' November 11, 1848, to August 26, 1850; . Franklin,' October 28, 1844, to February 16, 1846; ' Fort Pitt,' December 30, 1848, to May 26, 1849; 'Hope No. 2,' April and May, 1848; 'Oneoto,' October 24; 1846, to August 5, 1847 ; . Reveille,' April 5, 1850, to June 20, 1850; . Thomas Scott,' November 15, 1849, to February 24, 1852; ' Star,' November 3, 1850; ‘ Vir- ginia,' November 29, 1850, to May 10, 1851; ' Wave No. 2,' November 16, 1848, to May 11, 1850; 'Cornplanter,' April 9, 1851, to May 23, 1856; ' Clarion,' August 1, 1851, to March 12, 1853; 'Clara Fisher,' May 8, 1852, to December 7, 1857 : ' Echo,' March 22, 1858, to November 15, 1861 ; ' Jus- tice,' December 1, 1851, to May 25, 1853; ' Thos. P. Ray,' December, 1852; . J. B. Gordon,' December, 1852; ' Sam Snowden,' March 26, 1853, to Decem- ber 28, 1853: ' Nebraska,' October 12, 1853, to June 2, 1856; ' Acquilla,' November, 1855; ' Venango,' February 1, 1858, to April 27, 1862; after which, on the completion of the Allegheny Valley Railroad to Kittanning. the steamboat trade began to decline, although some of the finest boats of the trade continued for several years. The ' Echo No. 2,' ' Leclaire No. I,' ' Pe- trolia No. 1.' ' Petrolia No. 2,' ' Peerless,' 'Cottage,' ' Urilda,' ' Ida Reese,' and ' Belle' were steamers famous for their speed and accommodation. Dur- ing the war a number of these last were subsidized by the government for service in the South, and terminated their career in the service as transports.
"During the days of steamboating on the Allegheny it was quite a sight to witness the immense quantities of freight that were piled on the Duquesne wharf in Pittsburg awaiting shipment. The entire wharf from what is now the suspension bridge to the St. Clair Street bridge would be filled with piles of freight. and in the rafting season from five hundred to six hundred pas- sengers left daily on the different boats. They were a rude, jolly, and good- hearted set of men, these woodsmen, who earned good wages on their semi- annual trips, and spent with a reckless liberality and outlay their well-earned money. In those days Jim Lynch's saloon on Irwin Street, in the rear of
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what is now the Hotel Boyer, was a famous resort for raftsmen, and the quantity of 'old Monongahela' consumed there during the progress of a rise was something fearful to contemplate.
"During these excursions the Pittsburg policemen had their hands full. as these sons of the forest were generally powerful and stalwart men, as capable of executing as they were ready to threaten to whip their . weight in wild-cats.' After they had indulged in a close and familiar inspection of the ' elephant' they would turn up on the wharf with a twenty-five-cent oil-cloth satchel or carpet-sack filled with peanuts, a bottle of whiskey in each pocket. and a remnant of their wages, happy and contented and ready for another year's hard service. The Cornplanter Indians furnished some of the finest raft pilots on the river. Their intimate and intuitive knowledge of the water in all stages made their skill invaluable to the craft, and the vast amount of money invested in the immense fleets of lumber rendered their service a very important duty. The wild orgies they held during the return trip. generally in good humor, made the passage anything but a desirable one to timid people. and bad as the Indian generally is, he was less harmful than the white savage. though the aboriginal nature would often assert itself in war-whoops and suggestions of the scalp-dance. Among the motley crowd were generally a lot of fiddlers, who carried their instruments with them to while away the hours, and dancing to the sprightly measures of . Hell on the Wabash' was a favorite pastime.
" The Allegheny River in those early days was the only highway of transportation for the immense lumber product of the pine-forests on the head-waters of the Allegheny, and in the spring and fall such large quantities of it was afloat in the river that the perils of navigation were very great. as they were compelled often to run day and night. It required the greatest skill and accuracy of vision to steer clear of these immense flotillas in the night time that often floated in the dim light without lights sufficient to be discerned at any distance on a cloudy night.
"The prominent landings of the river above Kittanning were Catfish. where all the freight for upper Clarion and Jefferson Counties was delivered. Red Bank was the chief point for Clarion County and Gray's Eddy, and Mahoning for Jefferson County through to Punxsutawney. An innnense freight traffic was carried on at these points during the season, and the ware- houses of James Watterson, at Red Bank : Gould, at Catfish ; Elisha Robin- son, at Parker's Landing: Captain Robert Thompson, at Gray's Eddy : and Jere Bonner, at Mahoning, were, during the fall and winter seasons, crowded to their utmost capacity with the immense bulk of freightage necessary to supply the adjacent regions.
" The first oil, of that important traffic that has grown to such gigantic proportions, was transported to Pittsburg by the steamer " Venango,' from Oil City, in the fall of 1859. There were fifty barrels of the greasy substance
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that in those days brought large prices for uses that have since been so largely extended. The wildest visionary could scarcely have dreamed any- thing more fabulous or so unlikely as the history of this great product, that from those incipient beginnings of little note has grown to a business that extends throughout the whole of the civilized world. The romance of Alladin's lamp has been more than realized in the colossal fortunes it has compassed in success and failure and the great benefits its discovery has conferred upon the civilized world. In mention of the speed made by the boats of that day we may note that the . Cornplanter,' under command of Captain Thos. H. Reynolds, made daily trips from Pittsburg to Catfish Land- ing. leaving Pittsburg in the evening and reaching her destination at ten
Rafting to Pittsburg on the Allegheny River
o'clock the next day, returning to Pittsburg for her evening trip, a distance of one hundred and fifty miles.
" Among the noted resorts, too, of Pittsburg that were most frequented by rivermen in the good old days, we must not forget to mention Ben Trim- ble's Varieties, that were carried on with such liberal patronage from the up-river men. This noted resort was in the building adjoining Joseph Horne's famous dry-goods house, and in its days was one of the most enter- taining places of amusement in the city. In the rafting season it was crowded with rivermen, who roared themselves hoarse at the broad fun and farce that characterized the extended programme.
" Among the pilots of the past we remember Thos. McLemmon, who still
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resides in Kittanning (1879), Good Mead, Jim Hulings, Jake Magee, Henry Bolinger, Nelse Bartholomew, Bill Watterson, Robert Conner, John Conner, Bill Conner, Matt Conner, Thos. Murphy, Alf. Russell, John Russell, Wm. Russell, Peter A. Smith, G. A. Renshaw, Dan Jack, Cal Russell, James McCain, Hugh McCain, Geo. London, and many others whose names have escaped our memory.
" The Susquehanna and Waterford Turnpike road passes diagonally through the county, crossing the Allegheny River at Franklin on a splendid new bridge. The French Creek Canal and Slackwater Navigation, a division of the public improvements of the State, opens a communication from Frank- lin to Meadville, and thence by means of the Beaver and Erie extension (nearly completed in 1843) to Lake Erie. The principal productions of the county for export are lumber and iron. There are several furnaces in operation in a circle of ten or twelve miles around Franklin. This trade for a few years was driven with great activity, so much so as to absorb all the agricultural produce of the region ; but for one or two years past it has been depressed in common with other departments of industry.
" There are several natural curiosities in the county, the most remarkable of which is the peculiarly inflammable oil found floating on the surface of Oil Creek. The following interesting extract from one of several historical num- bers which appeared in the (Franklin) Democratic Arch, in 1842, relates to this subject :
"' The Seneca oil from the oil springs on Oil Creek was used by the Seneca Indians as an unguent, and in their religious worship. It is almost as celebrated as the far-famed naphtha of the Caspian Sea. With it the Senecas mixed their war-paint, which gave them a hideous glistening appearance, and added great permanency to the paint, as it rendered it impervious to water. What a startling spectacle the oil-anointed warrior of the Senecas must have been as he gave forth the fearful war-whoop, or paddled his light canoe along the dark blue waters of the Allegheny and Venango!
"' The other use made of the oil was for religious worship. Here I can- not better describe it than in the imaginative language of the commandant of Fort Duquesne to his Excellency General Montcalm, the unfortunate hero of Quebec. "I would desire," says the commandant, " to assure your Excellency that this is a most delightful land. Some of the most astonishing natural won- ders have been discovered by our people. While descending the Allegheny, fifteen leagues below the mouth of the Conewango, and three above Fort Venango, we were invited by the chief of the Senecas to attend a religious ceremony of his tribe. We landed and drew up our canoes on a point where a small stream entered the river. The tribe appeared unusually solenin. We marched up the stream about half a league, where the company, a large band it appeared, had arrived some days before us. Gigantic hills begirt us on every side. The scene was really sublime. The great chief then recited the
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conquests and heroism of their ancestors. The surface of the stream was covered with a thick scum, which burst into a complete conflagration. The oil had been gathered and lighted with a torch. At the sight of the flames the Indians gave forth a triumphant shout, that made the hills and valley re-echo again !" Here then is revived the ancient fire-worship of the East : there then are the " Children of the Sun."
" A more appropriate region could hardly be selected for the residence of an Indian tribe. The rugged hills. clothed with forests, and abounding with game ; the pure sparkling streams flowing among these hills, furnishing both excellent fishing-grounds and the means of communication, bordered here and there with fertile bottom lands, as sites for their villages and cornfields, and overlooked by remarkable headlands and ' high places' for their graves and places of worship: some of these hills containing lead, too, and perhaps other metals greatly prized by them .- these were strong attractions for the red natives of the forest. Accordingly we find in almost every direction traces of a numerous Indian population once inhabiting this region. Remains of villages are found at the mouth of Oil Creek, and about the mouth and along the waters of French Creek.
" About five miles directly south of Franklin, and nine by the river, on the left bank of the Allegheny, is a remarkable rock, known to the present in- habitants as 'the Indian God.' "-Day's Collections.
" The next important personages who made their appearance upon these shifting scenes were the sires of those who now occupy the soil. A few, in- deed. of the original settlers still remain. The original adventurers, who came in under the act of 1792, were from different sections of the country; some from New England, some from Wyoming Valley, and many from the middle counties of Pennsylvania. They endured the usual hardships of a frontier life until after Wayne's treaty, in 1795. when alarms ceased, popula- tion flowed in more rapidly, and they continued to prosper. especially after the litigation that originated under the land law of 1792 had been quieted.
" The following description of Fort Franklin is from a writer in the Democratic Arch:
". In the spring of 1787 a company of United States troops, under the command of Captain Hart, arrived at this place from Fort Pitt, now Pitts- burg. They amounted in number to eighty-seven, including officers. There were. perhaps. a dozen of other persons not immediately connected with the corps, and this constituted the whole force at that time. Immediately on their arrival. they commenced erecting what they called Fort Franklin, and from which the name of our town is derived. In place of locating it at the mouth of French Creek, so as to command that stream, as well as the Allegheny River, they made their location about one hundred and eighty rods above the mouth of the former, and at a point that would not at all command the latter. The road from Fort Pitt to Le Bœuf crossed the creek within a few
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rods of the fort, and, bad as the reason may appear, it was perhaps the only one that induced the selection. It was a mere path then, but the fording was good, and the ascent of the opposite hill was the most practicable from it. Indeed, the existence of this path, and the erection of the fort near it, in- duced those who settled here at an early period to make their locations also as near as possible to both these supposed advantages. The road. or path. was the only inland thoroughfare to the place, and on it, in the town, was established the hotel, and near this the merchant erected his stall, and the mechanic his shop. Thus was that town in time built upon its present site. far from where strangers think it ought to have been located.
"'Fort Franklin was located immediately above and west of the south end of the French Creek bridge, and consequently on the south bank of French Creek. Like old Fort Venango, it is a parallelogram, the out-works including about one hundred feet square. These works consisted of high em- bankments, outside of which arose tall pine pickets, sixteen feet high. There were four bastions, surmounted by small cannon. Within the area formed by the ditches was the block-house, with a huge stack of chimneys in the centre. In this building were the magazine and munitions. The huts of the soldiers were in the ditch around the blockhouse, and within the pickets. This fort was situated on a bluff bank of the creek, twenty-five or thirty feet high, and nearly perpendicular. To this day is distinctly to be seen a deep ditch running along the top, and near the edge of this bank, some one hundred and twenty feet in length, up the creek. This was intended for a covered way leading from the fort to a small redoubt at the very margin of the creek, which was surmounted by two guns-4-pounders, I think. The garrison had what they called a green-house, or cave, in which they kept vegetables and meat, within a few feet of the excavation now being made at the end of the bridge for the site of a new toll-house. A garrison of near one hundred. including officers and men, was kept at Fort Franklin until 1796, when what is familiarly known as the " Old Garrison," at the mouth of the creek, was erected by the troops at the fort, at a point more convenient for receiving provisions and munitions brought up by boats and canoes from Pittsburg. It was a strong wooden building, a story and a half high, and perhaps thirty by thirty-four feet in length. It was picketed in, but not calculated to be mounted with cannon. Indeed, the necessity for this had ceased, as the treaty of General Wayne with the Indians at Fort Greenville had been made in August. 1795. and was then believed, as it turned out to be, a lasting peace. The troops at this position removed from the fort, which was from that time suffered to dilapidate, and occupied the garrison. This they continued to do until 1803. when they were withdrawn from Franklin altogether. Fort Franklin soon went entirely to ruin. The stone in the chimneys, like those in Fort Venango. were hauled away by the citizens of the place, and used in building founda- tions and chimneys for private dwellings. The " Old Garrison" was occu-
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pied from the organization of the county, in 1805, until 1819 as a common jail, when the county jail was completed. It remained standing, though in ruins, until 1824, when the last vestige disappeared. Indeed, I am told that the very foundation on which it stood has been washed away, and is now part of the bed of French Creek.'
"Franklin, the county seat, was laid out by the commissioners, General William Irvine and Andrew Ellicott, under the act of 1795, at the same time with the Waterford Turnpike, and the towns of Erie and Waterford. It con- tains the usual county buildings, and Presbyterian, Methodist, and Cumber- land Presbyterian churches. It is situated upon a broad plain, a little above the mouth of French Creek, and is surrounded with scenery highly picturesque. There are in the vicinity a furnace, a forge, and several mills, and the place derives considerable trade from several iron works in the surrounding region. The French Creek division of the Pennsylvania canal terminates here, and when the Beaver and Erie canal is completed, a communication will be open from here to the lake. The Allegheny is navigable, in high water, for steam- boats to Pittsburg-distance, by water, one hundred and twenty-four miles. The distance by land is only sixty-eight miles. Two dams on the French Creek navigation, within a mile of the town, afford an immense water-power ; and there are several other dams farther up the creek. A splendid new bridge crosses the Allegheny here, and there is also one across French Creek. Population in 1840, 595. It was made a borough April 14, 1828."-Day's Collections.
" Among the first settlers at this place were Mr. George Powers and Mr. William Connolly. Mr. Connolly came from Meadville in 1800. Mr. Powers came out, in 1787, to assist in erecting the barracks, and subsequently came in 1793 on his own account, and established a store to trade with the Indians. Samuel Ray and John Andrews came in 1795. In 1797 there were only three or four white families in Franklin.
" In the war of 1812 this county was well represented. A call was issued for all the able-bodied men to go to Erie, to protect the frontier from an anticipated attack at that point. All who could be spared from their homes repaired to the scene of expected action. Of the regiment that was formed from this and some of the neighboring counties, Samuel Dale was elected lieutenant-colonel. He was a native of Union County, but had resided in Franklin for many years. About this time the Seneca chief, Cornplanter, came to see Colonel Dale, to inquire into the cause of the war. When this was explained to him, he declared his willingness to accompany him with two hundred warriors. He insisted on the propriety of his going. The corn was planted, and the young men could go as well as not to assist in the war with their white neighbors. Colonel Dale could satisfy him only by agreeing to call upon him should it be actually necessary. During the war Franklin presented quite a busy aspect. All the military and naval stores were brought
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