Ohio River

“ From the beginning the Ohio Valley seems to have been a highway for migration, and the home of a culture of its own. The sciences of American archeology and ethnology are too new to enable us to speak with confidence upon the origins and earlier distribution of the aborigines, but it is at least clear that the Ohio river played an important part in the movements of the earlier men in America, and that the mounds of the valley indicate a special type of development intermediate between that of the northern hunter folk, and the pueblo building races of the south. ”

“ I imagine that this river presents almost every variety of river scenery; sometimes its clear wave waters a meadow of level turf; sometimes it is bounded by perpendicular rocks; pretty dwellings, with their gay porticos are seen, alternately with wild intervals of forest, where the tangled bear-brake plainly enough indicates what inhabitants are native there. Often a mountain torrent comes pouring its silver tribute to the stream, and were there occasionally a ruined abbey, or feudal castle, to mix the romance of real life with that of nature, the Ohio would be perfect. ”

“ THE Ohio River is a greater and more important stream than is generally realized. It drains a vast and rich territory; its northern source is in latitude 42° 20′, while its mouth, thirteen hundred miles away, is in latitude 37° north. ”

“ The Ohio River makes its beginning here, and in all but the season of low water the wharves of the city are lined with boats, barges and tugs, destined for every mentionable point on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. The Ohio River is here, as all along its course, an uncertain [Pg 337] and capricious stream. Sometimes, in spring, or early summer, it creeps up its banks and looks menacingly at the city. At other times it seems to become weary of bearing the boats, heavily laden with merchandise, to their destined ports, and so takes a nap, as it were. ”

“ In seventy-five years (1827-1902) $6,752,042.04 was appropriated for the Ohio River and much of that was portioned out to the Mississippi, Missouri, and Arkansas.
It is impossible to determine with absolute assurance when and where the first prominent movement looking toward the improvement of the Ohio River originated. With the burst of population into the West came the realization that the great waterway was a priceless possession. ”

“ There is no other valley in the world that is to be found, explored, conquered, reconquered [Pg 104] and settled like the Ohio Basin. What a line of daring voyageurs that was from La Salle to Céloron and Washington, who feasted their eyes upon the virgin beauty of La Belle Rivière, from their heavily-loaded, long canoes; in these craft came the explorers of Ohio and Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois; they ploughed the waters of the Muskingum far back in the distant day when those waters were, as the name implies, clear as an elk’s eye ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Ohio River above Cincinnati has a water-shed area, estimated by U. S. Census Bureau, of 100,000 square miles, one-tenth of which is of limestone formation. The hardness of the water varies in proportion to the contribution from this formation. The water, at the mouth of the Big Sandy, is .8 of a degree hardness; at Markley Farm, 41⁄2 to 8; at Dayton sand-beach, 7 to 8; at pump-works, 6 to 8; Eden reservoir, 7 to 9; Eggleston Avenue sewer, 7 to 13; wells in the banks of the river at Dayton sand-beach, 32 to 39; and those at Sedamsville 50 to 60 degrees. ”

“ One of these spread upward from the neighborhood of Akron to the east and west of where Cleveland stands; but by far the largest flooded nearly all that part of Ohio which the glaciers failed to cover, from beyond where Pittsburg is to where Cincinnati is. At the last point a mighty ice dam formed every winter till as the climate grew warmer and the ice thawed more and more, the waters burst the dam, and poured their tide down the Ohio River to the Mississippi, while those of the northern lake rushed through the Cuyahoga to Lake Erie, and both lakes disappeared forever. ”

“ The Ohio River was the great channel by which the tide of immigration flowed over the prairies of the Old Northwest and the blue grass region of Kentucky; and accident frequently led one man to the slave-holding States and his neighbor to the North. ”

“ Greed of the great round dollar has been the commanding passion, and nowhere has it burned more fiercely. All the crimes, treacheries, deceptions, and frauds practiced under the sun have been repeated on the Ohio between Pittsburg and Cairo. Some, perhaps unknown elsewhere, have here been committed. But here, too, that old-time clear love of living for life’s sake only, the thing which makes sailors sing the world over, was deeply felt. In its lower extremities the river reaches practically southern climes while its northern arms reach out into New York and Pennsylvania. ”

“ South of the forty-first parallel, the rivers have no reservoirs to hold any part of the flow from their water-shed. Within this vast area few lakes or ponds exist. The superabundance of water has no restraint, but at once takes to the bottom lands. To this southern system the Ohio River notably belongs, with all its tributaries. Within its two hundred thousand square miles of area, scarcely a natural reservoir is to be found. No other part of the country is so devoid of basins. ”

“ The other day, when the river was rising, a Cincinnati follower of the apostle's calling averred that there was no use fishing when the water was coming up. As the variable Ohio is like the ocean tide, ever rising or falling, it would seem that the thousands in this valley who make fishing their livelihood must be playing a losing game.
There are many beautiful islands on these lower reaches of the river. We followed the narrow channel between Little Hurricane and the Kentucky shore, a charming run of two or three miles, with both banks a dense tangle of drift-wood, weeds and vines. ”

“ From the source of the Ohio to its outlet its waters imbosom more than an hundred islands, some of such matchless loveliness that it is worthy of remark that such slight allusion has been made to them in the numerous pencillings of Ohio scenery. In the fresh, early summertime, when the deep green of vegetation is in its luxuriance, they surely constitute the most striking feature of the river. Most of them are densely wooded to the water's edge ”

“ Other northern affluents, as the Muskingum, the Scioto, and the Miami, descend, like the Allegheny, from the plain studded with lakes not far from Lake Erie. The southern affluents are larger, and rise, like the Monongahela, among the upland glades of the Appalachians or on the Appalachian plateau. The Kanawha (navigable to Charleston, W. Va.) and the Licking traverse salt-yielding regions. The Kentucky River (navigable to Beattyville, Ky.) joins the Ohio above the Louisville Rapids and marks the natural division between the middle and lower courses of the river. ”

“ The Ohio river, as before hinted, differs from those just described, in the rapidity of its current, the width of its bed, the character of its channel, and in several other respects; but as its general character is well known, a few remarks in relation to it will here suffice. The obstructions to its navigation are sand-bars, some few rafts and mags, and rapids, to which the intricacy of its channel in several places may be added. During a middle and high stage of water, the obstructions entirely [Pg 174] disappear, and an accelerated current is the only difficulty to be encountered. ”

“ Second only to such obstructions was the “Falls of the Ohio,” the one spot in all its course of nearly a thousand miles where steamboat navigation was impossible until the construction of a canal, which followed the route of the ancient portage path two and one-half miles in length between the present sites of Louisville and Shipping-port, Kentucky. In this distance the Ohio makes a fall of about twenty-five feet caused by a ledge of rocks extending across the river. Steamboating is impracticable here save only when the river is at flood-tide. ”

“ The Ohio River is very crooked. It turns to nearly every point of the compass. In one instance, in going up it, for example, I well remember that after going for some time in a northerly and then in a north-westerly direction, we suddenly turned to the west, as if we were going back again to Cincinnati.
The hour at which the steamer was to sail, according to the advertisement in the papers, was ten o'clock. Most of the passengers were on board before this time. There was, however, a large amount of freight to come on board afterward. ”

“ There are about 78 villages and towns and 13 cities on the Ohio River between Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, a distance of 460 miles. The population on this portion of the river, and its contributing streams, is over 31⁄2 millions. The average population, per square mile of drainage area, on the Ohio River is 47 ”

“ Many fine towns and cities border the Ohio, the larger places standing chiefly at the mouths of the affluents. Below Louisville the valley broadens and the skirting hills retire to a great distance from the river banks. As the larger part of the drainage comes from the mountain districts, the Ohio is unable in times of very heavy rainfall or rapid thaw of the winter's snow to carry off the vast quantity of water suddenly emptied into it. ”

“ It is only when the vast areas contributing to a single river are considered, that the proof of the forest theory seems clear. Take the Ohio River, for illustration. The area drained by it is 214,000 square miles, or twenty-two times as much as that which in Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut is drained by the Connecticut River; an area which includes portions of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Kentucky. ”

“ It is always rising or falling. As at the South the item of most interest in the newspapers is the price of cotton, and in New York the price of gold, so in the West the special duty of the news-gatherer is to keep the public advised of the depth of the rivers. The Ohio, during the rainy seasons, is forty feet deeper than it is during the dry. Between the notch which marks the lowest point to which the river has ever fallen at Cincinnati and that which records the point of its highest rise, the distance is sixty-four feet. ”

“ I believe that farming will continue to be one of Ohio's chief sources of wealth. Two thirds of its surface bears glacial soil which contains an abundant and various plant diet. Improved methods of preparing foods for distant markets, and the promise of these markets becoming more accessible through the River-Gulf-Panama Canal route will stimulate cultivation. The advantages of the Ohio River as a means of transportation elicited an early response. In 1794 regular trips, one in four weeks by keel sailboats, were begun between Cincinnati and Pittsburg ”

“ 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. ”

“ During the dry season, great quantities of merchandise are brought hither, designed to supply the inhabitants on the Ohio River, and the waters that flow into it, as boats can go from hence, when they cannot from higher up the river. Boat building is carried on at this place to a great extent, and several large keel boats and some vessels have been built. ”

“ Near the mouth of the Little Beaver Creek the boundary line between the States of Pennsylvania and Ohio, meets the Ohio river, 42 miles below Pittsburgh. Near the creek are some rich bottoms or intervals, but the land back rises into high hills; on some of them is a good soil and capable of cultivation. There are some handsome farms, producing wheat, rye, barley, oats, flax, hemp and Indian corn. ”

“ Even the great Ohio River was but a tributary of a larger river of which they had no definite information. The trip, in the language of the Indian, from the headwaters of the Holston (Hogo higee) to the Wabash (Ohio) required for its performance “two paddles, two warriors, three moons.” [20] These glowing descriptions only whetted the adventurous appetite and soon such hardy pioneers as Daniel Boone and his comrades sought this territory where they could live near to nature and be freed from high taxes. ”

“ Since 1825, when the first step toward improving the Ohio was taken, the general plan has been to secure additional low-water depths at islands and bars by the construction of low dams across chutes, by building dikes where the river was wide and shallow, by dredging and by the removal of rocks and snags. Various plans of improvement were seriously mooted. Among these Charles Ellet’s plan of supplying the Ohio with a regular flow of water by means of reservoirs was strongly urged upon the Government about 1857. ”