Allegheny River

“ Inclined-plane railways are constructed up the face of this hill, and mounting to the top, there is a superb view over the town. The Allegheny River comes from the northeast and the Monongahela from the southeast, through deep and winding gorges cut into the rolling tableland, and uniting form the Ohio, flowing away to the northwest also through a deep gorge, although its bordering ridges of hills are more widely separated. Pittsburg stands upon the low flat surface of the peninsula, above the junction of the rivers, which has some elongated ridgy hills, stretching eastward through the centre. ”

“ Its mean rate of flow is 3 miles an hour, and its mean fall is about .70 of a foot to the mile. The Allegheny and Monongahela are regarded as having equal claims as the source of the river, though the Allegheny is longer, with 123 miles of navigation. The Allegheny rises on the plateau of northern Pennsylvania west of the Allegheny Mountains, drains Lake Chautauqua in New York, and descends through a series of narrow valleys to its junction with the Monongahela. ”

“ There are three great interests concerned in the problem of the bridges over the Allegheny River at Pittsburgh: (1) those who frequently cross the river or whose business requires the transportation of workmen, raw and manufactured material, and supplies from one side of the river to the other; (2) those concerned in the navigation of the river and harbor, and (3) those who own and operate the bridges. ”

“ We have no beechnuts this season and most of the fur bearing animals have migrated south of here where there are chestnuts, acorns and hickory nuts.
Brothers, I will tell you where my camp is, and you will always find the latch-string out. My camp stands at the very head of the Allegheny River, 1700 feet above sea level. From the cabin door you could throw a stone over the divide to where the water flows into the west branch of the Susquehanna. In a half hour a person can, from my camp, catch trout from the waters of the Allegheny, and the Susquehanna. ”

“ With rivers no more turbid than the Allegheny River at Pittsburg, and rivers having floods of such short duration that the use of flood-flows can be avoided by the use of reservoirs, sand filters are adequate for clarification. For waters which are much muddier than the Allegheny, as, for instance, the Ohio at Cincinnati and at Louisville, sand filtration alone is inadequate. ”

“ This town is about thirty miles below the town of Erie, and ten below the line between Pennsylvania and New-York, John M’Mahon proprietor.”
The trade between the Allegheny River and the Lakes was at this time well established and, it was predicted, would become of great importance. Pittsburg was receiving from Onondaga salt works in New York State two thousand barrels of salt annually. Immense quantities of timber were also constantly being hurried toward their destinations by the current of the Allegheny. Quite an extensive trade in salt fish from Lake Erie was carried on in 1806, and Mr. ”

“ From these data we have estimated the annual river traffic under each of the bridges, and very roughly, its value. [32] These amounts are shown graphically in comparison with the corresponding figures for traffic over the bridges in Diagrams 1, 2 and 3. To briefly summarize, it may be stated that the river traffic of the Allegheny River in one year amounts in the aggregate to about 3,500,000 tons, including all freight carriers and power boats, roughly valued at about $105,000,000; and about 35,000 human beings, passengers by boat. ”

“ A vast amount of water traffic is carried on inland waterways all over the world under fixed bridges with far less head room than is provided for under the Allegheny River bridges. It is customary in other parts of the country and the world to establish for rivers a minimum head room for bridges at a high navigable stage, which stage is considerably lower than the maximum or even the ordinary high flood stage. ”

“ They continued by Nemacolin’s road a little way; then they left this road into the west for the Monongahela River, and turned north for the Allegheny River above Dekanawida, the Forks of the Ohio where the Monongahela and the Allegheny joined. There they would have the Allegheny to cross with the pack horses, and then they would be on the north or Logstown side of the Ohio.
Christopher Gist had several men and two pack horses. There was snow upon the Great Mountains—the rocky Alleghany Mountains; the footing was bad for horse and man. The forest was getting wintry ”

“ Another telegram from Nineveh said that up to noon 175 bodies had been taken from the river at that point.
The stage of water in the Allegheny this afternoon became so alarming that residents living in the low-lying districts began to remove their household effects to a higher grade. The tracks of the Pittsburgh and Western Railroad are under water in several places, and great inconvenience is felt in moving trains. ”

“ At times the ravines are deep and the river tortuous, and again it meanders across the rich flat bottom lands of a broad valley. In its winding course among these mountain ranges, this renowned river passes through and displays almost the whole geological formation of Pennsylvania. The primary rocks are to the eastward of the Susquehanna, and the bituminous coal measures begin on the western Allegheny slope, so that the river cuts into a rock stratification over six miles in thickness, as one after another formation comes to the surface. ”

“ They were to go in small parties, not more than twenty fighting men to any one of them. They were to change none of our landmarks, enter none of our towns without permission from the Town Council, and to keep between the lake and the great bend of the river, which the Lenni-Lenape called Allegheny, but was known to us as the River of the Tallegewi.
"Thus they had begun to come, few at first, like the trickle of melting ice in the moon of the Sun Returning, and at the last, like grasshoppers in the standing corn. They fished out our rivers and swept up the game like fire in the forest. ”

“ The Little Schuylkill River here falls into the larger stream, and a branch follows it northward to Tamaqua, while the main line goes westward to Pottsville. The summit of the Blue Ridge is the eastern boundary of the coal-fields, and the country beyond is wild and broken. The next great Allegheny ridge extending across the country is the Broad Mountain beyond Pottsville, though between it and the Blue Ridge there are several smaller ridges, one being Sharp Mountain. ”

“ The Allegheny rises between two and three hundred miles following its different meanders, N. E. of Pittsburgh. [Pg 89] Its current runs about three miles an hour except in floods, when it is sometimes impelled at the rate of six or seven. Its banks were uninhabited except by the aborigines, and a line of distant posts fortified by the French, to preserve the communication by this route between Canada and Louisiana, previous to the conquest of the former country by the British in 1759; also to prevent the extension of the Anglo-American settlements to the westward of this river ”

“ After the Revolutionary War there was naturally an unsettled state of affairs, and many farmers and adventurers turned their thought to the country west of the Allegheny Mountains and River, as the land of opportunity, consequently there was much desultory travel over the Boone Road. Unemployment prevailed everywhere, and hordes of penniless ex-soldiers, turned adrift by their victorious new nation, traveled backwards and forwards along all the known highways and trails, picking up a day’s work as best they could, their precarious mode of living giving them the name of “cider tramps.” ”

“ Six bridges spanning the river and electric lines crossing them have brought Allegheny into close industrial and social relations with the main part of Pittsburg, and on the hills of Allegheny are beautiful homes of wealthy men. ”

“ Lawrence merchants could afford to undersell those of New York.
Many people thought that the wheat and flour and other products of western New York would all go down the Susquehanna to Baltimore and Philadelphia. Rough boats known as “arks” were built and floated down the river in the high water caused by the melting of the snows in the Allegheny highlands. From two to five hundred barrels of flour were carried in one of these craft. As the boats could not be sailed up the river, they were taken to pieces at the end of the voyage and sold for lumber. ”

“ Allegheny is served by the Baltimore & Ohio and the Pittsburg & Western railways, by the Pittsburg, Ft. Wayne & Chicago, the Western Pennsylvania, the Buffalo & Allegheny Valley, the Cleveland & Pittsburg, the Erie & Pittsburg, the Pittsburg, Youngstown & Ashtabula, and the Chautauqua divisions of the Pennsylvania railway system, and by Ohio river freight and passenger boats. Extending along the river fronts for about 6 1/2 m. are numerous large manufactories and the headquarters of the shipping interests ”

“ The dams change the river into a series of long, still ponds, which are deep enough to float the coal barges. Below Pittsburg, in the Ohio, is another dam which sets the water back and makes a harbor for the city.
There is no coal to send down the Allegheny, but there are logs to be rafted, and there is much oil, for the river120 flows through the petroleum region around Oil City. Some of this is taken to refineries at Pittsburg and made ready for use. Much natural gas is obtained by boring and is used in the city for warming houses and for cooking. ”

“ It flourishes from Allegheny county, Pennsylvania, southward along the Alleghany mountains to northern Georgia and Alabama, westward along the valley of the Ohio river to southern Iowa, through Oklahoma and the valley of the Brazos river in eastern Texas. It thrives best along streams and in dense, rich woods. It reaches its fullest development on the slopes of the Alleghany mountains in North Carolina and Tennessee. ”

“ Anna, standing up in the vehicle, was sawing on the lines until he crashed into a big ash tree and fractured the poor girl’s skull. She was picked up by some of the hunters and carried home unconscious theunconscious the next thing was to get the news to her husband. Oscar at that time had just finished a raft on West Hickory Creek, while his old time rival, McMeans, was completing one on East Hickory, which stream flowed into “The Beautiful River”, almost directly opposite to the West Hickory Run. ”

“ The Allegheny flows westward and afterwards southward to the Ohio; the west branch of the Susquehanna goes eastward to break through the entire Allegheny chain in seeking the Atlantic; and the smaller stream, the Genesee, flows northward through New York between two long Allegheny ridges, the chief affluent of Lake Ontario. The Genesee passes through a valley of great beauty and gives water-power to many mills, a canal also being constructed to improve its navigation. ”

“ Marin, who hurried on down the Allegheny building Forts Machault (Venango) at the junction of Rivière aux Bœufs and the Allegheny, and Duquesne at the junction of Allegheny and Monongahela, should have named the Youghiogheny “English Creek.” When once on the way, the time taken by the French and English to reach the key position of the West—Pittsburg—varied inversely as the length of the portages they had to traverse. ”

“ The word Alleghany has come down to us, from the earliest times, as the name of the great right-hand fork of the Ohio, and also as the name, from the same remote period of antiquity, of the chain of mountains of which the stream itself may be said to be the most remote northeasterly tributary. In this form it is evidently a local term, applied geographically, according to the general principles of the Indian languages, like hanna in the Susquehanna, and hannock in the Rappahannock, which appear to denote, in each case, a river, or torrent of water. ”

“ Look down, ye Alleghenies, into the Conemaugh vale,
And see the rising waters, and hear the bitter wail;
The swollen streams now empty their contents in the lake,
The waters rise to kiss the skies and walls of granite shake.
Oh, hear that awful booming; the dam has given way!
An avalanche of water God's hand alone can stay!
Oh, leap, ye hills, before it and keep this torrent back,
Or devastated towns and homes will mark its onward track!
Look down, ye Alleghenies, upon this vale of woe;
Ten thousand corpses at your base their soulless faces show ”

“ In the middle of November, with an interpreter and four attendants, and Christopher Gist as a guide, he left Will's Creek, and following the Indian trace through forest solitudes, gloomy with the fallen leaves, and solemn sadness of late autumn, across mountains, rocky ravines, and streams, through sleet and snows, he rode in nine days to the fork of the Ohio. How lonely was the spot, where, so long unheeded of men, the rapid Allegheny met nearly at right angles 'the deep and still' water of the Monongahela! At once Washington foresaw the destiny of the place. ”

“ This inequality of the surface is not confined to the Allegheny mountain; the country between the Monongahela and Ohio rivers, although less elevated, is not better adapted for the bed of a road, being filled with impediments of hills and hollows, which present considerable difficulties, and wants that super-abundance and convenience of stone which is found in the mountain. ”

“ Within sight of the main road which crosses the summit dividing the waters of the Alleghany River from those running into the Genesee is to be seen a cluster of abundant streams which unite and cross the highway—a noisy torrent—rejoicing in being among the head-waters of the latter river, and the brightest product of overflowing springs. ”