Chattahoochee River

“ There are several rapids in this short distance, during which the river varies its breadth from five hundred yards to half a mile. Its channel is stony. At the grand rapid, the Saskatchawan forms a sudden bend, from south to east, and works its way through a narrow channel, deeply worn into the limestone strata. The stream, rushing with impetuous force over a rocky and uneven bottom, presents a sheet of foam, and seems to bear with impatience the straitened confinement of its lofty banks. ”

“ YOUNG PEOPLE AT CHAUTAUQUA. A BOY'S LETTER.
Dear Tom,—I last saw you waving your cap as our train rolled out of the station. That night I slept on a shelf in the sleeping-car, and the next morning we got breakfast at Hornellsville; and it was a good one, I tell you. About noon we got off the cars at Jamestown, and after dinner rode over the hill in a stage, and came to what looked like a narrow river winding among the trees.
This they said was the outlet of Chautauqua Lake. You would suppose that the water runs into Lake Erie, which is only seven miles away from Lake Chautauqua. ”

“ The mud-bar and adjacent waters were so entirely of the same color that the line of demarcation was not readily apparent, and had it not been for the drift rubbish around the former it might have escaped our scrutiny even at our short distance from it. The Indians say that the White River rises in glacier-bearing lands, and that it is very swift, and full of rapids along its whole course. So swift is it at its mouth, that as it pours its muddy waters into the rapid Yukon it carries them nearly across that clear blue stream ”

“ Some few of the Indians judiciously vary the two methods to suit the circumstances. On long stretches of only moderately swift water the tired trackers would take turns in resting in the canoe, using a paddle to hold the bow out from the shore. The current of the Dayay is very swift, and two days' "tracking" is often required to traverse the navigable part of the stream. Every few hundred yards or so the river needs to be crossed, wherever the timber on the banks is dense, or where the circuitous river cuts deep into the high hillsides that form the boundaries of its narrow valley. ”

“ Hitchiti town was, in Hawkins' time, established on the eastern bank of Chatahuchi river, four miles below Chiaha. The natives possessed a narrow strip of good land bordering on the river, and had the reputation of being honest and industrious. They obtained their name from Hitchiti creek, so called at its junction with Chatahuchi river, [and in its upper course Ahíki (Ouhe-gee) ; cf. List] from Creek: ahítchita "to look up (the stream) ." ”

“ This illustrates how completely man has the destinies of river fish under his control. Suppose that instead of a fish house with movable barriers, an impassable dam had been built. Of course the fish would have been locked out, and their kind exterminated in that immediate region. This is precisely what has happened in almost every river and stream on the Atlantic coast of the United States. Shad and salmon were formerly abundant in every river of New England—and shad and alewives in every considerable stream south to Florida. ”

“ When you consider that the low grade railroad route to the West must turn the Alleghany mountains to the North and use the limited space between those mountain spurs and the lake to reach the West without unnecessary expenditure of steam power, it would seem that Chautauqua Lake had been adjusted to the coming lines of travel, and we already have the Lake Shore, the Nickel Plate, the Erie, and the different Alleghany River lines, with more lines soon to come, to connect the Lehigh, the Lackawanna, the West Shore, and kindred systems with the great West. ”

“ By degrees some portions of the bottom come in this way to be filled up to the surface of the river, and wide flat marshy spaces are formed on either side of the main stream. During floods these spaces are overflowed with muddy water, in the same way as in the case of the valley plains just described, and a coating of mud or sand is laid down on them until they slowly rise above the ordinary level of the river, which winds about among them in endless branching streams. Vegetation springs up on these flat swampy lands; animals, too, find food and shelter there ”

“ The smaller rivers of this region have as yet received no names from white hunters; if they have names among the Indians, these are unknown to us. There are no mountains, hills, or other remarkable objects to serve as points of departure, nearer than the Rocky Mountains and the Arkansa. The river itself, which we supposed to be the Red river of Natchitoches, is a permanent landmark ”

“ Atchina-álgi, or "Cedar Grove," the northernmost of all the Creek settlements, near the Hillabi-Etowa trail, on a side creek of Tallapoosa river and forty miles above Niuya'áχa. Settled from Lutchapóga.
Atchina Hátchi, or "Cedar Creek," a village settled by Indians from Ka-iläídshi, q. v. on a creek of the same name.
[Pg 129] Chatahuchi, a former town of the Lower Creeks, on the headwaters of Chatahuchi river. Probably abandoned in Hawkins' time; he calls it "old town Chatahutchi;" cf. Chatahuchi river. Called Chata Uche by Bartram (1775) , Chatahoosie by Swan (1791) . ”

“ Saskatchewan River here literally widens to seventy miles of swamp, where you can barely find foot room dry soled except in winter, when the marsh turns to iron ice twelve feet thick. Through this swamp country runs a ridge of rock northeasterly to Hudson Bay. Down this ridge run Nelson and Hayes and Churchill Rivers in a succession of rapids and lakes, wild rough barren country, where you can paddle in summer or course by dog-train in winter for four hundred miles without sight of arable land or human dwelling. Along this ridge the railroad runs from the wheat plains. ”

“ After coasting the southern shore of Lake Erie, he arrived at the Chautauqua portage—now known as Barcelona or Portland—on the sixteenth of July; and with the dawn of the following day began the ascent of Chautauqua Creek, called by the French Rivière aux Pommes. Much patience and labor was expended on this unnavigable stream, and it was not until the twenty-second of the following month that the band entered Chautauqua Lake, having spent six days of this time in toiling over the six-mile portage which connects Chautauqua Creek with the lake. ”

“ Improving navigation of Chatahoochie river.For continuing the improvement of the navigation of Chatahawchie river from Cedar Bluff to the Big Spring, in Florida, according to the report of the assistant quartermaster charged with the superintendence of the removal of obstructions, two thousand dollars. ”

“ It forms two horseshoes and an ox-bow connected, as we see it from our windows; and when the tide is out diminishes to a rivulet about two feet in width. At flood it is more than twice the width of the Wissahickon, and when the high tides of August come its magnitude is surprising.
Then we understand why the hay-ricks (which we wickedly tell our friends from the "Hub" resemble gigantic loaves of Boston brown bread) are on stilts, for, regardless of dikes or boundaries, this tortuous creek spreads over its whole valley, as if in emulation of the greater river of which it is a tributary. ”

“ The Assineboine or Stony River drains the rolling prairie lands 500 miles west from Red River, and many a smaller stream and rushing, bubbling brook carries into its devious channel the waters of that vast country which lies between the American boundary-line and the pine woods of the lower Saskatchewan. ”

“ It is very evident that the mud which is carried down by the Saskatchiwine River, has formed the land that lies between it and the lake, for the distance of upwards of twenty miles in the line of the river, which is inundated during one half of the summer, though covered with wood. This lake forms an irregular horse-shoe, one side of which runs to the North-West, and bears the name of Pine-Island Lake, and the other, known by the name already mentioned, runs to the East of North, and is the largest: its length is about twenty-seven miles, and its greatest breadth about six miles. ”

“ At the time this immense cypress swamp is flooded, it exhibits the appearance of a vast number of large trees, standing in a lake, or a bay of the sea. The name of black river, at the distance of sixty miles, is changed, and it is then called the Washata river. Here the course of the river tends to the westward, and the land becomes sufficiently high to admit of cultivation near the bank of the river. At the mouth of the Washata, and near lake Cattahoola, is a small settlement, where the settlers have raised an embankment to prevent inundation when the water is high. ”

“ At the Grand Rapids, near the mouth of this river, they were obliged to make a portage of no less than three miles, but the magnificent view of these “Rapids” fully repaid them for the toil they underwent in passing them.
The Saskatchewan is one of the largest rivers in America, being full 1600 miles in length, from its source in the Rocky Mountains to its débouchure, under the name of the “Nelson River,” in Hudson’s Bay. For some distance above Lake Winnipeg, the country upon its banks is well wooded. ”

“ A reasonable system of forestry and water purification is all that is required, and this is needed not only by the fish in the streams, but by the people living on the banks. It has been shown that a river which is too foul for fish to live in is not fit to flow near the habitations of man. Obstructions, such as dams, may, in most instances, be overcome by fish ladders. The salmon has profited much by these devices in Europe, and the immense dams in American rivers will doubtless be passable, even for shad and alewives, if the new system of fish-way construction devised by Col. ”

“ A short notice of the origin of these conflicting titles might, perhaps, be interesting to some readers; but in addition to our lack of complete information, the limits of this sketch will not permit it.
Between Cheat river, at the fertile bottom called the Horse-shoe, and the summit of the mountain which divides the Western from the Atlantic waters, the country is thinly peopled, and only cultivated in the largest tributary vallies: the long spurs of the Backbone being too sterile to serve any other purpose than ranges for cattle and animals of the chase. ”

“ The country on both sides of the river is exceedingly grand and impressive. There are huge lofty mountains, often of irregular shape, covered with tall pines and rich hardwood. Its chief tributaries are the Matapedia, the Upsalquitch, the Patapedia, and the Quatawamkedgewick, or ‘Tom Kedgewick.’ The head waiters are within fifteen miles of the St. John, and that river may be reached by canoe with a portage of only three miles along the Grand River connection.
The Meeting of the Waters
The length of the Restigouche is over 200 miles. ”

“ This horsepath began at the Rock Landing on Okóni river, a British post just below Wilkinson and about four miles below Milledgeville, Georgia, passed Fort Hawkins built upon the Okmúlgi old fields, then the site of Macon, on the shore opposite, then Knoxville, then the old Creek agency on Flint river, then crossed Patsilāíka creek, the usual ford on Chatahuchi river lying between Kasíχta and Apatá-i Creek. ”

“ It is still the river of Marquette and Joliet, Nicolet, Groseilliers and Radisson, La Salle and Tonty, Hennepin and Accau, Gray Gowns and Black Gowns, Iberville and Bienville, St. Ange and Laclede; for across every portage into the valley of that river, it was the men of France, so far as we know, who passed, first of Europeans, from Lake Erie up to Lake Chautauqua; or across to Fort Le Boeuf and down French Creek into the Alleghany and the Ohio (La Belle Rivière) ; or up the Maumee and across to the Wabash (the Appian Way) ”

“ It is not very hard to keep a raft or any floating object in the center of the current of a stream, even if left alone at times, but the number of things which present themselves from time to time to drag it out of this channel seems marvelous.
Old watermen and rafting lumbermen know that while a river is rising it is hard to keep the channel, even the driftwood created by the rise clinging to the shores of the stream. ”

“ For several years federal authorities called the stream East Fork, but it was locally known as Little River. In 1926, at the suggestion of the writer, the USBGN officially named the stream Little Deschutes River, and this name has come into general use. ”

“ Red Lake River and the Assiniboina extend the area of “coast” navigable by steamers in the Red River Valley to 900 miles—much more than is enjoyed internally by the United Kingdom and France together. Throughout the districts thus permeated by navigable rivers, rye, oats, barley, potatoes, grass, and wheat, grow as well as they do in Minnesota; and to these wild regions must be added the country along the great north Saskatchewan, and even the region which lies between it and the Rocky Mountains in a northerly direction. ”

“ Near the junction of the Kokatahi the Hokitika turns abruptly to the south-west and changes its character becoming, for more than a mile a deep slow flowing river, the shingle deposits of its smaller but more rapid tributary having damned the waters of the main river back to a considerable extent. Its left bank consists of large morainic accumulations covered with forest vegetation, the right bank being low and covered with shrubs and ferns. ”