Archer Butler Hulbert

“ THE history of the Ohio Basin rivermen, from those who paddled a canoe and pushed a keel-boat to those who labor today on our steamboats has never been written. The lights and shades of this life have never been pictured by any novelist and perhaps they never can be. Even the student who gleans imperfect pictures from the miscellanies preserved in local histories, must in the very nature of the case, secure but a poor focus on realities. Study as you will, you will only make yourself ridiculous when you attempt to talk to one of the old-time rivermen. ”

“ Regardless of this, however, the boat was set upon the wagon, and Mike and his men, with their long poles ready, as if for an aquatic excursion, were put aboard, Mike in the stern. By dint of laborious dragging, the wagon had attained half the height of the hill, when out shouted the stentorian voice of Mike calling to his men, 'Set poles!'—and the end of every long pole was set firmly in the thick mud; 'Back her!' roared Mike, and down the hill again went wagon, yawl, men, and oxen. ”

“ Nature cast, with a lavish hand, her waters where they would count tremendously in the opening of this continent: for the waters that fell here flowed into the West and the social movement was to be westward. The Ohio, more than any river, was to influence the flood-tides of immigration. ”

“ The immensity of country we have yet to settle, the vast riches of the bowels of the earth, the unexampled advantages of our water courses, which wind without interruption for thousands of miles, the numerous sources of trade and wealth opening to the enterprising and industrious citizens, are reflections that must rouse the most dull and stupid. ”

“ Not until a late period in the expansion era—the day of steam navigation—did the Great Lakes rise to importance as highways of immigration, and south of the Ohio River Basin there was no westward waterway of importance. The day of the keel-boat and barge was of moment in the broadening of the American sphere of influence on this continent, and nowhere is the study of these ancient craft made to so good advantage as on the Ohio and its tributaries. ”

“ I have seen several generations on a single flatboat, from the white haired grand-sire and his aged helpmate, seated in rude chairs of domestic manufacture, with split hickory bottoms, down to the infant babe nestled in its rough hewn cradle, made by the ax of the stalwart young man, father to a group of little 'towheads' who surrounded the parents, and their small assortment of household goods. ”

“ Many invasions from Kentucky had passed up the Scioto and the Miamis. In all these campaigns the soldiery was largely made up of the border settlers of western Pennsylvania and Virginia, and they somehow conceived the notion that they were as much entitled as any one to the splendid lands from which they had driven the Indians. Heretofore the states and the Government had done everything in reason to encourage the western movement and protect it. No one perhaps realized that the Ohio River was to be considered, in any sense, a boundary line. ”

“ THE evolution of craft on the Ohio River portrays in a remarkable manner the economic development of the Central West. Being the one practicable artery in the empire between the Appalachian uplift and the Mississippi, and the Blue Ridge and the Great Lakes, this river was, from the beginning of the eighteenth century onward, the main route of immigration and commerce, and the story of those years is contained in the story of these craft which carried the freight and fortune of the millions who came and built homes and labored here. ”

“ These three craft reigned supreme on the Ohio and its tributaries probably until the close of the Revolutionary War, or about 1785. The canoe never abdicated and never can so long as man loves the water; at numerous points along the Ohio today many a tourist may be seen enjoying the exquisite delight of "paddling his own canoe." The batteau or barge has its direct descendant in the wooden and magnificent steel barges in which thousands of tons of coal and ore are transported yearly up and down the Ohio. ”

“ To row or steer a barge or flat or to pole a keel-boat was work no voyageur of earlier times had undertaken. It was rougher work than had ever been demanded of men in the West and it soon developed rougher men than the West had ever seen. Social conditions, growing spasmodically complex in a new country, made them worse. Once free of savage red-men, the Ohio Valley became a famous retreat for criminals of every class from every state; horse thieves, gamblers, and men guilty of far worse crimes were comparatively safe on the Ohio by 1800 ”

“ Céloron, to inform you of my intentions, which are, that I will not suffer the English on my land; and I invite you, if you are my true children, to not receive them any more in your villages. I forbid, then, by this belt, the commerce which they have established lately in this part of the land, and announce to you that I will no longer suffer it. If you attack them you will make them retire and send them home; by that means you will be always peaceable in your village. I will give you all the aid you should expect from a good father. ”

“ Back in the days of the third generation of rivermen, gambling, like drinking intoxicants, was not a social disgrace; many men of national reputation "sat in" on games of chance which are now outlawed. In such a social atmosphere and in such environment little wonder that the river-boats gained most unenviable reputation, until at last boat-owners were compelled to prohibit all such pastimes. ”

“ Boats once sucked into such bayous are next to lost, it being almost impossible to force so unwieldy a machine as a flat bottomed boat against so powerful a current. It will therefore be safest for boats, never to keep too close to shore, but to keep some distance out in the river. To avoid planters and sawyers requires nothing more but attention, for they always occasion a small breaker where-ever they are, and if your boat seems to be hurried towards them row the boat from them, else if you are dilatory you must abide by the consequence. ”

“ For, be it remembered, there was civil war on the Ohio long before Fort Sumter belched its defiance to secessionism. True, western Virginia and Kentucky were not unbalanced by the fervor that swept the South, but this river highway between them and Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois (as loyal as Vermont or Massachusetts) was the meeting-place of hundreds who could not meet without striking fire. ”

“ We can easily agree with Mr. Cramer that the numerous islands, found in the Ohio River, added greatly to its picturesque grandeur; yet, he reminds us, they caused many shoals and sandbars and greatly embarrassed navigation. Some of these islands contain several acres of rich and fertile soil and, The Navigator tells us, were covered with a luxuriant growth of timber; when cleared and planted with fruit trees the orchards thrived amazingly, bearing the choicest fruit and the crop seldom failing. ”

“ As no mention whatever is made of the Monongahela, and as no plate was buried here, either Céloron's party did not see it, or, believing it took its rise in Pennsylvania and was already settled by the English, they tacitly omitted to claim it for their king. The first supposition is absurd; the formation of the country is particularly significant and would attract the attention of the most unobserving; the meeting of the river tides, the difference in the color of the waters—everything would attract the attention of the voyageur. ”

“ From the canoe, we now see ships of two or three hundred tons burden, masted and rigged, descending the same Ohio, laden with the products of the country, bound to New Orleans,—thence to any part of the world.—Thus the rise and progress of the trade and the trader on the western waters, thus the progress of our country from infancy to manhood, and thus the flattering prospects of its future greatness through the channels of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. ”

“ Formerly, and at the time when the riprap dams were constructed, the coal business was carried on by means of floating coal barges, drawing at most four feet water, which were not assisted in their descending navigation by steamers, and which never returned, but were sold as lumber at their point of destination. The increasing demand down the river for the Pittsburg coal, the increase in the value of lumber, and the general systematizing of the trade, all combine to revolutionize the mode of transportation. ”

“ In each instance improved methods of locomotion came into violent contact with the old. And, as in the case of the struggle between angry packhorse-men and wagon- and coach-drivers, the new method was a labor-saving invention. No string of ponies could bear what a great Conestoga wagon would carry. It took less "hands" to transport a given amount of freight on wagons than by the old packsaddle system. The difference in the case of barge and flat-boat and steamboat was much more marked and the struggle so much more bitter. ”

“ One house serves for winter and summer residences—the current and towboat carrying you back and forth. You can always be traveling, yet always at home. Your livelihood is gained sometimes one way, sometimes another—who questions? A man builds such a home, puts his family aboard ”

“ As frequent landing is attended with considerable loss of time and some hazard, you should contrive to land as seldom as possible, you need not even lie by at night, provided you trust to the current, and keep a good look out; if you have a moon, so much the better. When you bring to, the strength of your cable is a great safe-guard. A quantity of fuel and other necessaries, should be laid in at once, and every boat ought to have a canoe along side, to send on shore when necessary. ”

“ By trusting to the current there is no danger to be feared in passing the islands as it will carry you past them in safety. On the other hand, if you row, and by so doing happen to be in the middle of the river on approaching an island, there is great danger of being thrown on the upper point of it before you are aware, or have time to regain the current. In case you get aground in such a situation, become entangled among the aquatic timber, which is generally abundant, or are driven by the force of the water among the tops or trunks of other trees, you may consider yourself in imminent danger ”

“ The United States received from that dangerous nation a title to the lower Ohio Valley. But the general government was by this time at its wits' end to keep the acquired territory from the restless inhabitants of its own impoverished colonies. Colonel Harmar wrote the Secretary of War now that he had, by force of arms, driven off all intruders for a distance of seventy miles below Pittsburg, but that the number beyond "was immense" and that nothing could prevent the lands being occupied in the old Virginia way "unless Congress enters into immediate measures." ”

“ The time is not altogether lost, as most of the men, being provided with rifles, betake themselves to the woods and search for the deer, the hares or the turkeys that are generally abundant there. Three days may pass before the wind changes, and the advantages gained on the previous five days are forgotten. Again the boat proceeds, but in passing over a shallow place, runs on a log, swings with the current, but hangs fast with her lee-side almost under water. ”

“ The history of the canoe cannot be repeated, for the Indians are vanished who loved the bright presents brought to them from the East; and the fur bearing animals which once supplied the eastern markets are gone. We speak of the value of our cargoes on the Ohio today; it is great, truly; but what would be the value today of the furs brought in one season down the Wabash, Licking, Miami, Scioto, Kanawha, Muskingum, and Beaver and up the Ohio to Pittsburg, in those days when canoes bore their precious tons of freight? ”

“ The men, who have rested a few minutes, are ordered to take their stations and lay hold of their oars, for the river must be crossed, it being seldom possible to double such a point and proceed along the same shore. The boat is crossing, its head slanting to the current, which is, however, too strong for the rowers, and when the other side of the river has been reached, it has drifted perhaps a quarter of a mile. The men are by this time exhausted, and, as we shall suppose it to be 12 o'clock, fasten the boat to a tree on the shore. ”