Venango County, Pennsylvania: Her Pioneers and People (Volume 1), Part 14

Author: Babcock, Charles A.
Publication date: 1879
Publisher:
Number of Pages:

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tending to every nook and corner of a common country.

WATERWAYS AND COMMERCE

The most useful in general of early high- ways were the waterways. The Allegheny river and French creek, and a few lesser streams, may well be considered as the parents of the early commerce of the county. Water carriage is incomparably cheaper than any other in handling heavy commodities like lum- ber, coal, iron, or munitions of war. How our early settlers could have marketed their lumber and other produce by overland carriage is un- thinkable. The navigation of the Allegheny river may be said to begin with the expedition of Celoron in 1749. It is also well established that La Salle, in 1669-70, and Father Hennepin a few years later, came down the Allegheny and visited a number of places in this terri- tory. During French occupation French creek was also utilized in military operations and movements. Military purposes continued to be the end subserved by the navigation of these streams under English rule. But under 'Ameri- can authority, and in subservience to the needs of the American colonists, these streams ac- quired commercial importance. As early as 1790 an appropriation of four hundred dollars was made for the improvement of French creek to Le Boeuf. The principal exports down the creek were peltries and grain or its prod- ucts, flour and whiskey, which were loaded on flatboats and taken to Pittsburgh and other river points. The transportation of salt was also an important industry. The supply was ob- tained at Salina, N. Y., hauled in wagons to Buffalo, brought in sailing vessels to Erie, transported by ox teams to Waterford by way of the old French road, and was loaded on flatboats for shipment to points on French creek, and the Allegheny and Ohio rivers. The Crawford Weekly Messenger of Dec. 12, 1805, states that "eleven flat-bottomed and six keel- boats passed this place during the last freshet in French creek-the former carrying on the average one hundred and seventy, and the lat- ter sixty barrels of salt each, making in the whole two thousand, two hundred and thirty barrels." In the issue of Jan. 1, 1807, is the statement that "during the last rise in French creek twenty-two Kentucky boats or arks passed Meadville loaded with salt and carrying four or five thousand barrels of salt." Under date of Nov. 23, 1809, it is said that "there are at present at Waterford upward of fourteen

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VENANGO COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA

thousand barrels of salt, or over seventy thou- sand bushels, waiting for a rise in the waters" in order to descend to Pittsburgh and points on the Ohio. This traffic did not cease till 1819, when salt wells were sufficiently de- veloped on the Kiskiminitas and Kanandea to supply the demand.

MILITARY IMPORTANCE DURING WAR OF 1812

During the War of 1812, navigation via the Allegheny and French creek contributed in a great degree to Perry's victory on Lake Erie. It is almost impossible to conceive how this victory could have been achieved had these waters been closed. The British commanded the Lakes. Perry's fleet was building in the woods along shore, from timbers as they were cut from the growing trees. The builders were ordinary carpenters under direction of Perry's officers ; ship carpenters could not be obtained. In the meantime, all munitions, supplies and fittings for the ships were being pushed up the Allegheny and French creek in flatboats, by men wading backwards in the water with their shoulders against the boats, moving a step at a time with a "heave-yo, heave." At times, when the boat's movement was beyond the power of human backs or hands, lines were made fast to trees up-stream, tightened by cap- stans aboard, then with yell and heave, and snapping lines and slipping men, inches were gained. The British were astonished, and no wonder, when the ships appeared to sail right out of the forest. They were still more aston- ished later by the work of those ships. The men with their backs to the boats for weeks in the waters of the Allegheny and French creek contributed to that victory as did the powder blackened, half-naked men in the ships ; and the spirit ruling their spirits contributed most of all.

At a later date and until the opening of railroads through this part, farm produce of every description, and lumber in large quan- tities, were shipped from Erie, Mercer, Craw- ford and Venango counties. Crafts of various kinds continued to navigate the river until the Allegheny Valley railroad was completed.

BRIDGES

As stated above, the smaller streams were bridged along the courses of the highways as they were completed. In this matter the many surveyors of a better class than most com- munities possessed in those times must have been of great assistance. In addition to the

county surveyors and their deputies, the State employed several very competent ones to divide the donation lands, and to assist otherwise in the location of settlers upon their allotments. There were Gen. William Irvine and Andrew Ellicott, accompanied by a corps of surveyors, who laid out the town of Franklin in 1795. There were also Richard Irwin, Col. Alexander McDowell, and Col. Samuel Dale. General Mead was not out of reach, and made the sur- vey for the Susquehanna and Waterford turn- pike. All these men and their successors knew the country and could be depended upon to fur- nish the roadmakers and bridgebuilders of early days with the best of expert advice or assist- ance obtainable at that time.

At the opening of the nineteenth century the building of a cantilever, or a high truss or a suspension bridge across such a chasm as that of the Allegheny would have appeared to the colonists about as feasible as the erection of a Jacob's ladder with "angels descending and ascending" upon it. At this time there were very few bridges across the larger streams in the whole country, and the ferries were among the chief hindrances and dangers of travel. One going from Boston to Philadelphia at this time would cross the Connecticut at Spring- field, the Housatonic at Stratford, the Hudson at New York, the Hackensack and Passaic be- tween Jersey City and Newark, the Raritan at New Brunswick, the Delaware at Trenton, and the Neshamong at Bristol, on what were then called ferryboats. The crossing of any of these. streams was attended by much discomfort and danger. The terrors of the ferryboats, and the accidents by no means uncommon, the great distance of the road from help in solitary places, made a journey of any distance in those days an event to be remembered to the end of one's days. Such was the crude state of engi- neering that no bridge of any considerable length had been undertaken in the States. No large river had yet been spanned. The bridge over the Charles river, between Charlestown and Boston, was the first of importance in the Colonies. Its opening in 1786 was looked upon as the culmination of a great feat of engineer- ing. The builder, Cox, made such a reputation by his work that he was called to Ireland to build the bridge at Londonderry. He used on this structure American timber and workmen.

The first bridges across the Allegheny and French creek were built by companies incorpo- rated by acts of Assembly, and were all toll bridges at first. The bridges across the creek were the first to be made free. It is only within the last few years that those crossing the Alle-

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gheny have been taken over by the county and the tolls abolished. The county now realizes, as the State at large does, that the public must really provide for the cost of a toll bridge whether it possesses the title or not; and it may continue paying toll for using its own property long after it has paid both principal and interest of the primary cost, and all ex- penses. Nevertheless, the original toll bridges were doubtless necessary in their time.

At present there are six bridges across the Allegheny owned by the county and free to the public. There are also nearly three hun- dred other bridges, owned by the townships or by the county. Two bridges spanning the river belonging to the Traction Company be- tween Franklin and Oil City still take tolls for vehicles.

In glancing back upon the methods of travel used by this county a century ago, and following the improvements of decades, one might think that Venango was "behind the times." Yes, but what times? She is not be- hind at present in methods of travel, or in ways of doing anything that she attempts to do. Comparing her past with others during the same periods, Venango may say with becoming modesty that her progress has been even more rapid than that of the average community.

THE ALLEGHENY RIVER AND FRENCH CREEK

In speaking of the ancient Allegheny. in a former chapter, reference was made to the time when the course of the river was deter- mined by slight depressions among the hills and the water began its gigantic work of exca- vating the vast chasm through which it runs. The evidence is very clear that the river once flowed along the tops of the present banks. In addition to that given in the former chapter, a few more reasons for this belief are stated. Back of Siverly, in an opening between high hills, is a bed of fine river gravel sixty-five feet thick. The bottom of the gravel is at least two hundred and fifty feet above the present river, and the bed extends for two hundred or more feet in length. Over fifty years ago an oil well was started here. The gravel had to be cribbed for the sixty-five feet, as a tube could not be forced through it. Below this were several feet of sesqui-oxide of iron or "red paint." There are also beds of sand in layers among the openings in the drift-hills along the tops of the river bank. There are also sand and gravel banks two hundred and fifty to three hundred feet above the river on the south side. The beds of gravel and sand

on Cottage Hill, three hundred feet above the river, were mentioned in the former chapter. We find the same gravel and sand beds at Reno, near the tops of the slanting land. At Franklin, back of the McIntosh place, there are sand beds hundreds of feet long, and prob- ably one hundred and fifty feet thick, with their tops two hundred and fifty feet above the river. In French creek valley, on the left bank especially, are sand bars and gravel along the top for more than a mile above the mouth. Opposite the entrance of French creek, across the river, the soil, sand and gravel mostly is from fifty feet deep, near the river, to a hun- dred and fifty further away from the channel. This condition extends below the Big Rock bridge. In the creek valley, where Franklin is, the soil is fifty to seventy-five feet deep. Just above the upper bridge the water has cut a bluff in the solid layered soil about fifty feet high. An old county bill for digging a well in the West Park shows that the well was forty- four feet and ten inches deep. This was the celebrated diamond well whose clear, cool water was pleasing to the palates of early Franklin residents.

The detritus along the tops has every ap- pearance of being deposited by water. The sesqui-oxide is usually found in layers de- posited from water which has become super- saturated. Sand from water is always in layers. Gravel is sorted into coarse and fine at the same level by water, the coarse particles being dropped first. or moved slowest. It may be assumed therefore that these materials were carried by water to their presest positions, or by some other agency which arranged them as if they had been so carried; but the latter part of the supposition is impossible, for the conditions prevail not only to the extent re- ferred to, but to rivers the world over. Sup- pose, therefore, the river to be four hundred feet above its present level at Oil City, it would set back two hundred feet above Warren, and extend up the Conewango nearly to Chau- tauqua Lake; here it would find sand and gravel to wash and roll down to Oil City and to produce the gravel and sand beds in the eddying or backward currents between the hills at this place and at Reno. The water would also extend two hundred feet above Titusville, but would rest against the steep slope of the Summit between that place and Mayville. As the water gradually became lower at Oil City. that against the slope of the Summit would rapidly descend between the hills outlining the Oil creek valley, which are rocky and close to- gether. There are places on both sides of Oil

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creek where the backed-up waters were on the hilltops and formed some high, thin, level meadows, and other spots where rather wide gullies were washed out, now occupied by little runs; and when the waters had backed into a series of springs, like Cherry run, a good- sized piece of flatland was produced. But always there were the high hills, hard, and close together, which at the very end produced a valley having over eleven feet fall to the mile, narrow and rapid, with very little flat land in the bends. As a soil maker, both the going out of the waters and their return to the river are disappointing. When the water was standing or slowly moving in the eddy at Franklin, three hundred feet above its present level, it could have backed up through the hills which formed the present valley of French creek, at least two hundred feet above Mead- ville. But there were many square miles of flat meadows over which it spread, and where it would stand for ages, as we now reckon time, before the hundreds of feet of solid rocks wore away. These meadows were formed by glacial grinding in a former period. The same agent also produced Conneaut and Sugar Creek lakes and the extensive flat lands surrounding them. These, with their level lands, were also inundated. It was a baptism in a faith sure in promise and fulfillment of better things. At the river eddy at Franklin the hold-up waters are swinging in circles around and among the hilltops of the banks, leaving stratified beds of detritus, sand, orange- tinged as it always is from glacial action, rounded gravel from the same source, and stony clay. On the river bank opposite, the same slow-whirling stream is leaving thick beds of soil. In the meantime, the mouth of the creek is made nearly half a mile wide, the valley itself is also widened, and all the valleys entering it. Sugar Creek valley has its present fine form outlined at the top, to be worked downward later. All branches of Sugar creek are widened, the lake branch and the others have their wide foundations laid at the top, except those reaching into the high rocky lands of Plum. Very slowly the river rocks wear away, the waters in the valleys above descend into the narrower beds, and during the silent centuries persuade them to widen out. Finally the river with its insistent pressure wears away the rock strata, and the water leaves the valleys so gently that the rich deposits of soil along the bottoms are not disturbed. French creek

valley is one of Nature's masterpieces, not of grandeur, but of haunting loveliness. Many stupendous forces worked together here to pack great riches into little space. All the con- ditions were favorable, the glaciers, the small grade toward the confluence of less than four feet to the mile, and the slow recession into the river of the waters above. At the same time the sister valley of Sugar creek was fash- ioned. The excellence of this lesser valley ex- tended to a number of her affluents. The whole is a paradise. At the entrance, well within the garden, sits historic Franklin.

During this period the same work was going on throughout the county. The river was in fact a great lake covering the county, except the higher hills, and much contiguous country besides. The same results that have been de- scribed were coming about in all the streams landlocked by the encircling hills. Sandy lake was covered and many fine acres were de- posited, vivified and drained by South and Little Sandys. In Irwin, Clinton and Scrub- grass townships are many flat acres of rich land due to the creeks of those townships. East Sandy worked out to its finger tips at Centerville, and along its whole body. Up the river, Hemlock creek and Porcupine run, and Stuarts, made some fine additions to the assets of the county.

This was the last work of the river on a great scale, for the benefit of the land before she descended into the mystery of the chasm and took her independent way to the ocean. What were some of the results besides those referred to? The architecture of the valleys. They were made larger in every way, from the top downward always, than the little streams destined to occupy them could have produced, and the small stream was given more room to change sides and help in soil making. But the capital result is the vital connection of all the water courses, even to the smallest rill, the lakes, the marshes, the smallest springs, with the great river, the common mother of them all, and the common magnet of all. She holds every drop of all the waters of the hills, val- leys or plains to its old course, established in the old days, over the ground or under it or through the roots and breathing leaves of plants. She draws them all to herself, to go down to the sea. In the days of the overflow, the ways were fixed by which all the waters should ever more seek her to be purified, and should not remain to stagnate.

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CHAPTER V

TRANSPORTATION-EARLY INDUSTRIES-RAILROADS

LUMBERING AND RAFTING POND FRESHETS-IRON BUSINESS-FURNACES-EARLY COMMERCIAL CONDITIONS-STEAM. NAVIGATION-OIL TRANSPORTATION-RAILROADS

LUMBERING AND RAFTING

Timber, in the form of logs, was the most common article which the early settlers pos- sessed to offer in the markets of the world in return for the many things they needed. Dur- ing the winter months the axes filled the forests with echoes ceasing at intervals in spots till crackling branches and tremendous crash told that another choice pine or chestnut was started southward. These sounds rolled through the hollows, and along the answering hilltops, during the dark winter days; till under the bare branches the uneasy snow itself be- gan to trickle toward the river. Then the axes were exchanged for handspikes, and for rare canthooks, for these men were not well sup- plied with implements. The men were strong- handed, indomitable, and rich in neighbors for twenty miles around. All these made the cir- cuit of log gathering. There were sometimes oxen present, and perhaps a team of horses. At times, in the first arduous seasons, only the strength of men could be used; but somehow the logs arrived at the chosen spot on the river and were lashed into rafts by withes and pinned together by means of split planks cross- ing the logs. Some early writers, knowing how few the settlers were, and the scarcity of imple- ments and power for handling such timbers, concluded that these logs must have been warped by the sun from the stumps to the river banks. This was not intended as a joke, but a statement showing simple inability to see how such a thinly settled region could float so many logs to market. But no unusual freak of nature was needed; nothing more mysterious than the wholesome spirit of brotherhood, which also settled in Venango, was back of the many bundles of logs. The men of the coun- try-side arranged to do certain things; they were therefore done. In this way many of tall straight pine trunks were floated to Pittsburgh, Cincinnati or Marietta during the opening years

of the new century to serve as masts for the keelboats which were building even then to take part in the growing commerce of the Mississippi, or the Gulf, or the Great Lakes.

The transportation of lumber, beginning thus early, was aided for many years by primitive watermills and single upright saws, driven by overshot wheels working only at certain stages of water, subject to suspension by ice, flood and drouth. A mill that would cut one hun- dred thousand feet per annum was considered a good investment. Floating sawed lumber to market in rafts was begun by many of the pioneers in 1801. For "snubbing" and tieing up rafts halliards or cables made of hickory splint links were used for some years, the latter being manufactured by mechanics on the Hickory and the Allegheny. In 1805 a new branch of the business developed, in the boating of seasoned lumber from the Brokenstraw, and intermediate points in this county, to New Orleans. The risks were great, but several trips were made in this and the following years and realized good profits, while a few were losers. Many became engaged in this branch of the business. Of the hands and pilots employed, Marcus Hulings and some others would return by sail vessels to Baltimore, and thence home on foot. "The Propers and some others" are mentioned in an old paper as having made the entire journey home from New Orleans a number of times by walking. The best quality of lumber sold delivered to this distant market as high as forty dollars a thousand.

From the small beginnings, in remote co- operative neighborhoods, the manufacture and transportation of lumber under the manage- ment of the Holmans and others on the river, and numbers on the creeks, attained vast pro- portions. In the springtime "rises" these streams would be almost covered for miles with rafts. New towns had grown up, Louis- ville, St. Louis, Wheeling and other inter-

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mediate cities had opened their markets for lumber in addition to the increasing demands of former markets. Re-action wheels, steam mills, circular and gang saws, replaced the overshot-wheel and solitary single saw, in- creasing the output from thousands of feet to millions annually. The business of the county varied with the season of the year. In the middle of the winter or summer the region appeared to be very dull; but at the going out of the ice in spring and the subsequent floods, the town and the whole country above on Oil creek, Hickory, French creek, Hemlock and the Allegheny seemed to be alive with the bustle and preparation of the lumbermen. Large rafts followed one another in succes- sion down the Allegheny. Smaller ones were coming down the creeks, and halting in the eddies, to be coupled into rafts of immense size, sixty-five to seventy-five feet wide, three hundred feet long, and at least two to three feet thick, the boards or planks packed and bound together. Large boats or "broadhorns," as they were called from the width of their oars, frequently accompanied the fleet. These carried special shipments of seasoned lumber, probably manufactured to answer require- ments, as was the custom while this lumber trade was in its prosperous days. The rafts were also supplied with "broadhorns" at bow and stern. These were long, broad planks spiked to lengthy, stout poles at an angle, so that the oar when dipped into the water, would reach no deeper at the end than at the point next to the raft. The heavy craft, having only the speed of the current, could not be steered, as a boat having propelling power could. So when a change from side to side of the cur- rent was necessary to safety, as was frequent, the mass of boards, enough to load a freight train or two, had to be pulled sidewise across the stream by vigorous working of the sweeps fore and aft, aided by unexpurgated streams of advice from the pilot. Like large floating islands, was the appearance of these strange craft, as they were guided down the difficult passages of the river by their noisy crews. The pilots had to be skillful, quick to meet emergencies ; and with a knowledge of the river's bottom from experience, and even from the appearance of the water, that looked like witchery. "A good pilot sees the bed through the swiftest. mud- diest water." The high flatboats and rafts were not only articles of commerce at their destination, but they were the common carriers of much merchandise besides. Many articles which the colonists expected to turn

into ready money, floated on the river to Pitts- burgh and intermediate points to New Orleans. Frequently their delivery was expected from year to year, by purchasers down stream. There was buckwheat flour, "best in the country" then as now. Maple sugar had always a quick sale, and was plentiful with the settlers. Furs and peltries, smoked hams, pork or venison and dried or jerked meats, also went in this manner, and sometimes, when a careful housewife or two were abroad, as they sometimes were-to care for the purse and supply household needs-there were homespun linen white as snow, and butter from some noted maker, very pleasing to south- western palates, and other domestic articles for which the women had ready customers.

POND FRESHETS

Up some of the creeks, the waters were sometimes too shallow to allow the floating of the lumber collected at the mills along their courses, down to river. This was true to a great extent of Oil creek, for its stream was shallow, owing to its quick downgrade. At the headwaters of this stream there was con- siderable lumber for many years, ready for the spring drives. Rarely would the water in the stream be sufficient to float out the logs and boards awaiting market. The lumber man therefore resorted to the expedient of raising the water in the stream by what was called a "pond freshet." To produce this required the cooperation of all mill owners and lumber men upon the stream. A "main dam" was chosen or erected upon the stream. At a given date, all the sluiceways of the dams above were opened and the water was collected in the main dam and allowed to run over for a time, till the stream below was at the usual depth. In the meantime the logs or rafts were col- lected or floated into the basins of the main dam. This was a short distance below Titus- ville. It was so arranged by means of strong uprights called "brackets" or "splash boards' that on a given signal they could be cut loose and the accumulated waters allowed to flow into the narrow stream of the creek. This furnished an average depth of three feet in the shallowest places and had a duration of nearly four hours. It was sufficient, if things went as expected, to float all the lumber to the river. All the arrangements complete. the raftsmen would be ready to cast off the holding ropes, in order. after the first had started. The splashboards were cut away. the water rushing into the narrow channel. There

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Venango County, Pennsylvania: Her Pioneers and People (Volume 1), Part 14

Author: Babcock, Charles A. Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Number of Pages:

Author: Babcock, Charles A.
Publication date: 1879
Publisher:
Number of Pages: