Cumberland River

“ The Cumberland river rising, in the mountains of Southeastern Kentucky, flows nearly due East and West and upon the same parallel of latitude on which Bowlinggreen is situated, until within sixty or seventy miles of that place, when it inclines to the Southwest. The Green river affords a line extending eastward, and defensible, beyond the point where the Cumberland begins to bend to the Southwest. At this point the two rivers are about thirty miles apart. The country throughout this section of the State is broken but accessible to the march of large bodies of troops. ”

“ There is an old Indian burying ground at the upper end of the town, where we found several human bones enclosed in thin flattish stone tombs close to the surface.
Cumberland river mixes its clear blue stream with the muddy Ohio at an embouchure of about three hundred yards wide. It is the principal river for business in the state of Tennessee, Nashville the capital, being situated on its banks, one hundred and eighty miles by water, and one hundred and thirty by land, above its conflux with the Ohio. ”

“ CUMBERLAND RIVER, a large southern branch of the Ohio river, U.S.A., rising in the highest part of the Cumberland plateau in south-east Kentucky, and emptying into the Ohio in Kentucky (near Smithland) after a devious course of 688 m. through that state and Tennessee. It drains a basin of somewhat more than 18,000 sq. m., and is navigable for light-draught steamers through about 500 m. under favourable conditions—Burnside, Pulaski county, 518 m. from the mouth, is the head of navigation—and through 193 m.—to Nashville—all the year round; for boats drawing not more than 3 ft. ”

“ From Pineville it is under contract, thirteen miles, to Cumberland Gap. This gap is being tunnelled (work going on at both ends) by an independent company, the tunnel to be open to all roads. The Louisville and Nashville may run up the south side of the Cumberland range to Big Stone Gap, or it may ascend the Cumberland River and its Clover Fork, and pass over to Big Stone Gap that way, or it may do both. A road is building from Knoxville to Cumberland Gap, and from Johnson City to Big Stone Gap. A road is running from Bristol to within twenty miles of Big Stone Gap ”

“ There is a suggestiveness in the fact that it is Cumberland dialect. The very center of hoosierdom in the South is the Cumberland Plateau with its associated Cumberland Mountains, Cumberland River, Cumberland Gap, and Cumberland Presbyterianism. The name Cumberland in these, however, is honorary in origin, the river and mountains having been named for that Duke of Cumberland who is known to the Scotch as "The Butcher of Culloden." But many of the settlers of this region, or their immediate forebears, were from Cumberland county, England, and so "hoozer" was a natural importation to the region. ”

“ Beyond all these comes a wilder and barer district, where the hills draw closer to the river, and cultivation and population become more rare, and where at length, over the massive and rounded outlines of the fells, as we rise towards the great “dorsal ridge” of England, we catch glimpses of the Cumberland Mountains and of the Cheviots.
To trace the Wear upwards or downwards is like ascending or descending the stream of English history; from the busy present we move back into the feudal age, and at length into the quietude of primitive Nature. ”

“ There appears to be only about thirty acres of land, badly cleared and worse cultivated around it, though the soil seems very good, but as it is as yet only considered as a temporary landing to boats bound up and down Cumberland river, the inhabitants depend on what they can make by their intercourse with them, and are not solicitous to cultivate more land than will suffice to give them maize enough for themselves and their horses. ”

“ There are many of them known on Cumberland river.
The country westward of the Alleghaney abounds with springs of common salt. The most remarkable we have heard of are at Bullet's lick, the Big bones, the Blue licks, and on the North fork of Holston. The area of Bullet's lick is of many acres. Digging the earth to the depth of three feet, the water begins to boil up, and the deeper you go, and the drier the weather, the stronger is the brine. A thousand gallons of water yield from a bushel to a bushel and a half of salt, which is about 80 lb. ”

“ The land generally is good, and is an exceeding well-watered country, as well as the country on Holstein River, abounding with fine springs and little brooks. For about fifty miles, as you travel along the valley, Cumberland Mountain appears to be a very high ridge of white rocks, inaccessible in most places to either man or beast, and affords a wild, romantic prospect. ”

“ From Cumberland to a point in measure with Connellsville, on the Youghiogheny river, fifty-one and one-half miles. From Cumberland to a point in measure with the lower end of the falls of Youghiogheny, which will lie two miles north of the public road, forty-three miles. From Cumberland to the intersection of the route with the Youghiogheny river, thirty-four miles.
"Nothing is here said of the Little Youghiogheny, which lies nearer Cumberland; the stream being unusually crooked, its navigation can only become the work of a redundant population. ”

“ When leaving the dock on the Niagara River Line steamers at Lewiston, or coming up the river from Niagara-on-the-Lake, it is enthralling to look up at these great cliffs, and in imagination casting the mind back into the centuries, see the mighty river as it once poured its torrents direct in one concentrated mass from the edge of these heights into the open river lying at their feet. ”

“ Cumberland, or Shawanee river, intersects the boundary between Virginia and North Carolina 67 miles from the Missisipi, and again 198 miles from the same river, a little above the entrance of Obey's river into the Cumberland. Its clear fork crosses the same boundary about 300 miles from the Missisipi. Cumberland is a very gentle stream, navigable for loaded batteaux 800 miles, without interruption; then, intervene some rapids of 15 miles in length, after which it is again navigable 70 miles upwards, which brings you within 10 miles of the Cumberland mountains. ”

“ Satrd April 8th—We all pact up and started crost Cumberland gap about one oclock this Day We Met a great maney peopel turned Back for fear of the indians but our Companey goes on Still with good courage we come to a very ugly Creek with steep Banks & have it to cross several times on this Creek we camp this night.
Sunday 9th—this morning we wait at camp for the cattle to Be drove up to kill a Beef tis late Before they come & peopel makes out alittel snack & agree to go on till Night we git to Cumberland River & there we camp meet 2 more men turn Back. ”

“ McLaggan reached Paint lake. Quartz was still in sight, but not so frequent in occurrence. There are a number of islands in the lake with rocky shores and small, mixed timber. Below Elbow lake the river banks are high, the country becomes rougher, and fire has bared the rocks of soil. White quartz crops out in considerable quantities. Along the banks of Cumberland lake there are considerable quantities of limestone, which may “become very valuable in time.” ”

“ Nor does the chalk stream usually run like a western river. It moves at most times but little faster than the rivers on which men go boating or float-fishing for roach. Its environment is smooth, its course is peaceful, and its fall gradual. It is all this that gives the flavour and charm of the unexpected, when you{66} arrive at the bank and find a stream gliding past your feet as translucent as if it had just gushed out from a limestone mountain in Cumberland. ”

“ It descends rapidly at its head to the highland bench below the mountains and traverses this to the falls, then flows in rapids (the Great Shoals) for some 10 m. through a fine gorge with cliffs 300-400 ft. high, and descends between bluffs of decreasing height and beauty into its lower level. Save in the mountains its gradient is slight, and below the falls, except for a number of small rapids, the flow of the stream is equable. ”

“ Where it falls into the sea it is fully a mile broad; at Harrisburg it is nearly of the same breadth, and from three to five feet deep. There are seven falls in this river, which, with the numerous islands and rocks, render it navigable only for a few miles by large vessels.
The River Potomac rises on the north-west side of the Alleghany Mountains, and after running a north-east course of sixty miles to Cumberland, is joined eighteen miles below, by a branch coming from the south-west. ”

“ Cumberland is a stirring town of about twenty thousand people, and with its great business in coal, iron, and railroads it seems like a larger city. Thence the National Road runs through the gap in Wills mountain (Fig. 36) to Frostburg, a dozen miles west and fifteen hundred feet higher. The road soon bears northward into Pennsylvania and crosses the Monongahela river at Brownsville, about forty miles94 south of Pittsburg. Coal is mined here, and boats were running in those early days, as coal barges and steamboats run to-day, down to the great iron city. ”

“ Their forms are softer and more undulating, and they are, too, clothed with a rich vegetation, and frequently overgrown with wood. In Cumberland and Westmorland are inwreathed those charming lakes whose beauties constantly attract a number of tourists. Even the ridge of the Cheviot Hills is not much more than about two thousand feet above the level of the sea: but stretching from east-north-east to west-south-west, with the river Tweed on one side, and the Solway firth on the other, they form a natural boundary between England and Scotland. ”

“ At a certain point of this continuation of Cumberland Mountain, called Stone Mountain, the main fork of Powell's River has in the course of ages worn itself a way down to a practical railroad pass at water-level, thus opening connection between the coking coal on the north and the iron ores on the south of the mountain. No pass that I have ever seen—except those made by the Doe River in the Cranberry region of North Carolina—has its wild, enrapturing loveliness; towering above on each side are the mountain walls, ancient and gray and rudely disordered ”

“ Major James Francis had the contract for making and delivering those between Cumberland and Brownsville. John Snowdan had the contract for those between Brownsville and Wheeling. They were hauled in six-horse teams to their sites. Those between Brownsville and Cumberland have recently been reset and repainted. The milestones west of the Ohio River are mostly of sandstone, and are fast disappearing under the action of the weather. Some are quite illegible though the word “Cumberland” at the top can yet be read on almost all. ”

“ The rocks are sandstone through which the Rockcastle River has cut deep gorges and chasms, and the weathering of the cliffs has left the strata and crevices exposed with so much of the regularity of layers of masonry as to tell at once the story of the impression made on the early explorers of the region, and the suggestion by Nature herself of a name for the beautiful stream that dashes along to join the Cumberland many miles below. ”

“ In one way or another very many species have passed these barriers. The falls of the Cumberland limit the range of most of the larger fishes of the river, but the streams above it have their quota of darters and minnows. It is evident that the past history of the stream must enter as a factor into this discussion, but this past history it is not always possible to trace. Dams or artificial waterfalls now check the free movement of many species, especially those of migratory habits; while conversely, numerous other species have extended their range through the agency of canals. ”

“ Catchment basins are easily constructed in small streams, but to suggest such a thing for large streams with a variable flow, the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers for example, is to gamble with success. The retention of the sediment "in the townships where it belongs" is visionary. Some of the sediment comes from the caving banks of the river itself. This could not be eliminated. Furthermore, if the stream is deprived of much of its sediment, the power which ordinarily is expended in carrying its load can then be spent in further scour of its banks. ”

“ The banks of the river became higher as we advanced and were adorned with pines, poplars and willows.
Though the weather was very cold we travelled more comfortably than at any preceding time since our departure from Cumberland as we had light carioles which enabled us to ride nearly the whole day warmly covered up with a buffalo robe. We were joined by Mr. McLeod of the North-West Company who had kindly brought some things from Green Lake which our sledges could not carry. ”

“ The river DUDDON as a thing of beauty has often been overpraised, no less an authority than Wordsworth setting the example when, in his “Scenery of the Lakes,” he says it may be compared, such and so varied are its beauties, with any river of equal length in any country. Yet there are streams in Wales, and even in the north of England, which their admirers would not hesitate to rank above it. It rises upon Wrynose Fell, on the confines of Westmorland, Cumberland, and Lancashire, and for twenty-five miles or so is the boundary between the two latter counties. ”

“ On the south side of Lake Ontario, opposite Toronto, is the Niagara Portal, where the mouth of the Niagara River, with high banks on either hand, makes its entrance into the lake, forming the only uninterrupted deep water harbour on that shore.
Here the rapid waters, outfall of all the gatherings of the inland Upper Lakes, pour out in fullest volume, enabling entrance even in winter, when all other harbours are closed in the grasp of ice. It is worthy of its mighty source, the product of the greatest Fresh Water Lakes in all the world. ”