On the storied Ohio; an historical pilgrimage of a thousand miles in a skiff, from Redstone to Cairo

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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT.

ON THE STORIED OHIO

PITTSBURG harbor, showing the union of the Monon-
•*- gahela and Alleghany rivers in background, with suspen-
sion bridge. To the left, steamers towing coal barges.

On the Storied Ohio

An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand
Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo

BY

REUBEN GOLD THWAITES

Author of "Down Historic Waterways,'" "Daniel

Boone," etc. $ editor of " The Jesuit

Relations," etc.

Being a new and revised edition of ' < Afloat on

the Ohio" with new Preface y and full-page

illustrations from photographs

Chicago

A. C. McClurg & Co.

1903

¥ HFMrAUY Ofi
CONGRESS,

T*0 COfHsB Red&ved

OCT T9 1909

CLASS O. XXa Wa

Copyright
By Reuben Gold Thwaites

" Afloat on the Ohio," 1897
" On the Storied Ohio," 1903

Published October

:9°3

\°i

V

o

To

FREDERICK JACKSON TURNER, Ph. Z>.,

Professor of American History in the University of

Wisco?isin, zvho loves his native West

and -with rare insight and gift of phrase

interprets her story,

this Log of the "Pilgrim''' is cordially inscribed.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

Preface to New Edition --»--- xiii
Chapter I.

On the Monongahela — The over-mountain path — Red-
stone Old Fort — The Youghiogheny — Braddock's
defeat. --------- j

Chapter II.
First day on the Ohio — At Logstown. - - - -22

Chapter III.
Shingis Old Town — The dynamiter — Yellow Creek. - 29

Chapter IV.
An industrial region — Steubenville — Mingo Bottom — In
a steel mill — Indian character. - - - - 39

Chapter V.
House-boat life — Decadence of steamboat traffic —
Wheeling, and Wheeling Creek. - - - - 50

Chapter VI.
The Big Grave — Washington and Round Bottom — A
lazy man's paradise — Captina Creek — George Rogers
Clark at Fish Creek — Southern types. - - - 64

Chapter VII.

In Dixie — Oil and natural gas, at Witten's Bottom —
The Long Reach— Photographing crackers — Visitors

in camp. - 77

vii

viii Contents

Chapter VIII. page

Life ashore and afloat — Marietta, " the Plymouth Rock
of the West" — The Little Kanawha — The story of
Blennerhassett's Island. ------ 87

Chapter IX.

Poor whites — First library in the West — An hour at
Hockingport — A hermit fisher. - - - - 99

Chapter X.

Cliff-dwellers, on Long Bottom — Pomeroy Bend — Le-
tart's Island, and Rapids — Game, in the early day —
Rainy weather — In a " cracker " home. - 109

Chapter XI.
Battle of Point Pleasant — The story of Gallipolis —
Rosebud — Huntington — The genesis of a house-
boater. 125

Chapter XII.
In a fog — The Big Sandy — Rainy weather — Operatic
gypsies — An ancient tavern. - - - - - 139

Chapter XIII.
The Scioto, and the Shawanese — A night at Rome —
Limestone — Keels, flats, and boatmen of the olden
time. --------- jijq

Chapter XIV.

Produce-boats — A dead town — On the Great Bend —
Grant's birthplace — The Little Miami — The genesis
of Cincinnati. - 168

Chapter XV.
The story of North Bend— The ' ' shakes "—Driftwood-
Rabbit hash— A side-trip to Big Bone Lick. - - 182

Contents ix

Chapter XVI. PAGE

New Switzerland — An old-time river pilot — House-
boat life on the lower reaches — A philosopher in
rags — Wooded solitudes — Arrival at Louisville. - 202

Chapter XVII.
Storied Louisville — Red Indians and white — A night on
Sand Island — New Albany — Riverside hermits — The
river falling — A deserted village — An ideal camp. - 218

Chapter XVIII.
Village life — A traveling photographer — On a country
road — Studies in color — Again among colliers — In
sweet content — A ferry romance. - - - - 233

Chapter XIX.
Fishermen's tales — Skiff nomenclature — Green River —
Evansville — Henderson — Audubon and Rafinesque —
Floating shops — The Wabash. - - - - 251

Chapter XX.
Shawneetown — Farm-houses on stilts — Cave-in-Rock —

Island nights. 267

Chapter XXI.
The Cumberland and the Tennessee — Stately soli-
tudes— Old Fort Massac — Dead towns in Egypt —
The last camp — Cairo. 280

Affendix A. — Historical outline of Ohio Valley settle-
ment. -- 296

Affiendix i?.— Selected list of Journals of previous trav-
elers down the Ohio. - 320

Index. ---- 329

Illustrations

Page
The Forks of the Ohio Frontispiece

The Monongahela at Braddock 16 v

u The Contour of the Rugged Hills "... 34

A Floating Sawmill 56

The River Trough S6

Marketing Railway Ties 234 ~

Stately Solitudes 282 y

PREFACE

The historical pilgrimage herein recorded
was made in 1894, although the volume itself
was not published until three years afterward.
The original title was " Afloat on the Ohio ; "
but the present publishers, in arranging for
this revised and illustrated edition, have pre-
vailed upon the Author to change the name
to " On the Storied Ohio," believing this latter
to be more truly descriptive of the character
of the book. No doubt this is true, although
one naturally hesitates at such a step from
fear that some person may thereby be led
into thinking this a new work, and thus possi-
bly purchasing a duplicate. It is hoped, how-
ever, that the similarity of the two titles may
prevent such confusion. Here and there ver-
bal changes have been made, but it has not
been found necessary to enter upon more seri-
ous revision; for, while the past nine fruitful
years have witnessed great development in the
industries of the region, and surprising growth
xiii

xiv Prefa

ce

in many of the towns, natural conditions along
the great river remain for the most part un-
changed from the time when this pilgrimage
was undertaken.

There were in the little ship's company four
pilgrims — the Author, his Wife (" W — " of
the narrative), their Boy of ten and a half years,
and the Doctor (he of " Down Historic Water-
ways "). The others were bent solely on the
outing; but the first-named was, to be frank,
quite as much interested in gathering " local
color" for his studies of Western history as
he was in cultivating a holiday tan. The Ohio
River was an important factor in the develop-
ment of the West. He therefore wished inti-
mately to know the great waterway in its
various phases — to see with his own eyes what
the borderers saw; in imagination, to redress
the pioneer stage and repeople it.

It was a long journey for a mere skiff, those
eleven hundred miles from Brownsville, on the
Monongahela, down to the Father of Waters.
The pilgrims might with much saving of time,
energy, and patience have made the journey
upon one of the numerous steamers which
churn the muddy stream. But, from a steamer's
deck, scenes take on a far different aspect than

Prefaa

xv

when viewed from near the level of the flood.
The manner of a pilgrimage upon our historic
waterways should be as nearly as possible that
of the pioneer canoeist or flatboatman himself
— hence " Pilgrim," and the nightly camp in
primitive fashion.

A richly-varied panorama passes in imagina-
tion before us as we contemplate the glowing
story of the Ohio. A motley company have
here performed their parts: Savages of the
mound-building age, rearing upon these banks
curious earth-works for archaeologists of the
twentieth century to puzzle over ; Iroquois war-
parties, silently swooping upon sleeping vil-
lages of the Shawanese, and returning in noisy
glee to the New York lakes, laden with spoils
and captives; La Salle, prince of French ex-
plorers and fur-traders, standing at the Falls of
the Ohio, and seeking to fathom the geograph-
ical mysteries of the continent; French and
English fur-traders, in bitter contention for the
patronage of the red man; borderers of the
rival nations, shedding each other's blood in
protracted partisan wars ; surveyors like Wash-
ington and Boone and the McAfees, clad in
leather hunting-shirts and fringed leggings,
mapping out future states ; hardy frontiers-

xvi Preface

men, fighting, hunting, or farming, as occasion
demanded; George Rogers Clark, descending
the river with his handful of heroic Virginians
to win for the United States the great North-
west, and for himself the laurels of fame; the
Marietta pilgrims, beating Revolutionary swords
into Ohio plowshares; and all that succeeding
tide of immigrants from our own Atlantic coast
and every corner of Europe, pouring down the
great valley to plant powerful commonwealths
beyond the mountains.

The trip was successful, whatever the point
of view. Physically, those six weeks " On the
Storied Ohio " were an ideal outing — at times
rough, to be sure, but exhilarating, health-
giving, brain-inspiring. The Log of the " Pil-
grim " seeks faintly to outline the experiences
of her crew, but no words can adequately
describe the wooded hill-slopes which day by
day girt them in; the romantic ravines which
corrugate the rim of the Ohio's basin; the
beautiful islands which stud the glistening tide ;
the great affluents which, winding down for
a thousand miles from the Blue Ridge, the
Cumberland, and the Great Smoky, pour their
floods into the central stream ; the giant trees
— sycamores, pawpaws, cork elms, catalpas,

Preface xvii

walnuts, and what not — which everywhere are
in view in this woodland world ; the strange
and lovely flowers they saw; the curious
people they met, black and white, and the
varieties of dialect that caught their ears ; the
details of their charming gypsy life, ashore
and afloat, during which they were conscious
of red blood tingling through their veins, and,
children of Nature, were careless of the work-
aday world so far away — simply glad to be
alive.

For the better understanding of numerous
historical references in the Log, the Author
has thought it well to present in the Appendix
a brief sketch of the settlement of the Ohio
Valley.

A selected list of journals of previous travel-
ers down the Ohio has also been added, for
the benefit of students of the social and eco-
nomic history of this important gateway to the
continental interior.

R. G. T.

Madison, Wis., August, 1903.

ON THE STORIED OHIO

CHAPTER- I.

On the Monongahela — The over-mountain
path — Redstone Old Fort — The Yough-
iogheny — braddock's defeat.

In camp near Charleroi, Pa., Friday,
May 4. — Pilgrim, built for the glassy lakes
and smooth-flowing rivers of Wisconsin, had
suffered unwonted indignities in her rough
journey of a thousand miles in a box-car. But
beyond a leaky seam or two, which the Doc-
tor had righted with clouts and putty, and
some ugly scratches which were only paint-
deep, she was in fair trim as she gracefully lay
at the foot of the Brownsville shipyard this
morning and received her lading.

There were spectators in abundance.
Brownsville, in the olden day, had seen many
an expedition set out from this spot for the
1

2 On the Storied Ohio

grand tour of the Ohio, but not in the per-
sonal recollection of any in this throng of
idlers, for the era of the flatboat and pirogue
now belongs to history. Our expedition is a
revival, and therein lies novelty. However,
the historic spirit was not evident among our
visitors — railway men, coal miners loafing
out the duration of a strike, shipyard hands
lying in wait for busier times, small boys
blessed with as much leisure as curiosity, and
that wonder of wonders, a diffident newspaper
reporter. Their chief concern centered in the
query, how Pilgrim could hold that goodly
heap of luggage and still have room to spare
for four passengers? It became evident that
her capacity is akin to that of the magician's
bag.

"A dandy skiff, gents!" said the foreman
of the shipyard, as we settled into our seats —
the Doctor bow, I stroke, with W — and the
Boy in the stern sheets. Having in silence
critically watched us for a half hour, seated on
a capstan, his red flannel shirt rolled up to his
elbows, and well-corded chest and throat bared
to wind and weather, this remark of the fore-
man was evidently the studied judgment of an
expert. It was taken as such by the good-

Redstone Creek 3

natured crowd, which, as we pushed off into
the stream, lustily joined in a chorus of ' 'Good-
bye !" and "Good luck to yees, an' ye don't
git th' missus drowndid 'fore ye git to Cairo!"

The current is slight on these lower reaches
of the Monongahela. It comes down gayly
enough from the West Virginia hills, over
many a rapid, and through swirls and eddies
in plenty, until Morgantown is reached; and
then, settling into a more sedate course, is at
Brownsville finally converted into a mere mill-
pond, by the back-set of the four slack-water
dams between there and Pittsburg. This
means solid rowing for the first sixty miles of
our journey, with a current scarcely percep-
tible.

The thought of it suggests lunch. At the
mouth of Redstone Creek, a mile below Dun-
lap Creek, our port of departure, we turn in to
a shaly beach at the foot of a wooded slope,
in semi-rusticity, and fortify the inner man.

A famous spot, this Redstone Creek. Be-
tween its mouth and that of Dunlap's was
made, upon the site of extensive Indian forti-
fication mounds, the first English agricultural
settlement west of the Alleghanies. It is un-
safe to establish dates for first discoveries, or

4 On the Storied Ohio

for first settlements. The wanderers who,
first of all white men, penetrated the fast-
nesses of the wilderness were mostly of the
sort who left no documentary traces behind
them. It is probable, however, that the first
Redstone settlement was made as early as
1750, the year following- the establishment of
the Ohio Company, which had been chartered
by the English crown and given a half-million
acres of land west of the mountains and south
of the Ohio River, provided it established
thereon a hundred families within seven years.
"Redstone Old Fort" — the name had ref-
erence to the aboriginal earthworks — played
a part in the Fort Necessity and Braddock
campaigns and in later frontier wars; and,
being the western terminus of the over-moun-
tain road known at various historic periods as
Nemacolin's Path, Braddock's Road, and
Cumberland Pike, was for many years the
chief point of departure for Virginia expedi-
tions down the Ohio River. Washington, who
had large landed interests on the Ohio, knew
Redstone well; and here George Rogers Clark
set out (1778) upon flatboats, with his rough-
and-ready Virginia volunteers, to capture the
country north of the Ohio for the American

Brownsville 5

arms — one of the least known, but most mo-
mentous conquests in history.

Early in the nineteenth century, Redstone
became Brownsville. But, whether as Red-
stone or Brownsville, it was, in its day, like
most " jumping off" places on the edge of
civilization, a veritable Sodom. Wrote good
old John Pope, in his Journal of 1790, and in
the same strain scores of other veracious chron-
iclers: ' l At this Place we were detained about
a Week, experiencing every Disgust which
Rooks and Harpies could excite. " Here thrived
extensive yards in which were built flatboats,
arks, keel boats, and all that miscellaneous
collection of water craft which, with their
roisterly crews, were the life of the Ohio before
the introduction of steam rendered vessels of
deeper draught essential; whereupon much of
the shipping business went down the river to
better stages of water, first to Pittsburg, thence
to Wheeling, and to Steubenville.

All that is of the past. Brownsville is still
a busy corner of the world, though of a differ-
ent sort, with all its romance gone. To the
student of Western history, Brownsville will
always be a shrine — albeit a smoky, dusty
shrine, with the smell of lubricators and the

6 On the Storied Ohio

clang of hammers, and much talk thereabout
of the glories of Mammon.

The Monongahela is a characteristic moun-
tain trough. From an altitude of four or five
hundred feet, the country falls in steep slopes
to a narrow alluvial bench, and then a broad
beach of shale and pebble ; the slopes are
broken, here and there, where deep, shadowy
ravines come winding down, bearing muddy
contributions to the greater flood. The higher
hills are crowned with forest trees, the lower
ofttimes checkered by brown fields, recently
planted, and rows of vines trimmed low to
stakes, as in the fashion of the Rhine. The
stream, though still majestic in its sweep, is
henceforth a commercial slack-water, lined
with noisy, grimy, matter-of-fact manufactur-
ing towns, for the most part literally abutting
one upon the other all of the way down to
Pittsburg, and fast defiling the once picturesque
banks with the gruesome offal of coal mines
and iron plants. Surprising is the density of
settlement along the river. Often, four or five
full-fledged cities are at once in view from our
boat, the air is thick with sooty smoke belched
from hundreds of stacks, the ear is almost

A Deserted Hamlet 7

deafened with the whirr and roar and bang of
milling industries.

Tipples of bituminous coal-shafts are ever
in sight — begrimed scaffolds of wood and iron,
arranged for dumping the product of the mines
into both barges and railway cars. Either
bank is lined with railways, in sight of which
we shall almost continuously float, all the way
down to Cairo, nearly eleven hundred miles
away. At each tipple is a miners' hamlet; a
row of cottages or huts, cast in a common
mold, either unpainted, or bedaubed with that
cheap, ugly red with which one is familiar in
railway bridges and rural barns. Sometimes
these huts, though in the mass dreary enough,
are kept in neat repair; but often are they
sadly out of elbows — pigs and children pro-
miscuously at their doors, paneless sash stuffed
with rags, unsightly litter strewn around,
misery stamped on every feature of the home-
less tenements. Dreariest of all is a deserted
mining village, and there are many such — the
shaft having been worked out, or an unquench-
able subterranean fire left to smolder in neg-
lect. Here the tipple has fallen into creaking
decrepitude; the cabins are without windows
or doors — these having been taken to some

8 On the Storied Ohio

newer hamlet; ridge-poles are sunken, chim-
neys tottering; soot covers the gaunt bones,
which for all the world are like a row of skel-
etons, perched high, and grinning down at you
in their misery; while the black offal of the
pit, covering deep the original beauty of the
once green slope, is in its turn being veiled
with climbing weeds — such is Nature's haste,
when untrammeled, to heal the scars wrought
by man.

A mile or two below Charleroi is Lock No.
4, the first of the quartet of obstructions be-
tween Brownsville and Pittsburg. We are
encamped a mile below the dam, in a cozy
little willowed nook; a rod behind our ample
tent rises the face of an alluvial terrace, occu-
pied by a grain-field running back for an hun-
dred yards to the hills, at the base of which is
a railway track. Across the river, here some
two hundred and fifty yards wide, the dark,
rocky bluffs, slashed with numerous ravines,
ascend sharply from the flood; at the quarried
base, a wagon road and the customary railway;
and upon the stony beach, two or three rough
shelter-tents, housing the Black Diamond
Brass Band, of Monongahela City, out on a

McKeesport 9

week's picnic to while away the period of the
strike.

It was seven o'clock when we struck camp,
and our frugal repast was finished by lantern-
light. The sun sets early in this narrow trough
through the foothills of the Laurel range.

McKeesport, Pa., Saturday, May 5th. —
Out there on the beach, near Charleroi, with
the sail for an awning, Pilgrim had been con-
verted into a boudoir for the Doctor, who,
snuggled in his sleeping-bag, emitted an occa-
sional snore — echoes from the Land of Nod.
W — and our Boy of ten summers, on their
canvas folding-cots, were peacefully oblivious
of the noises of the night, and needed the kiss
of dawn to rouse them. But for me, always
a light sleeper, and as yet unused to our airy
bedroom, the crickets chirruped through the
long watches.

Two or three freighters passed in the night,
with monotonous swish-swish and swelling
wake. It arouses something akin to awe, this
passage of a steamer's wake upon the beach,
a dozen feet from the door of one's tent.
First, the water is sucked down, leaving for a
moment a wet streak of sand or gravel, a dozen

io On the Storied Ohio

feet in width; in quick succession come heavy,
booming waves, running at an acute angle with
the shore, breaking at once into angry foam,
and wasting themselves far up on the strand,
for a few moments making bedlam with any
driftwood which chances to have made lodg-
ment there. When suddenly awakened by
this boisterous turmoil, the first thought is
that a dam has broken and a flood is at hand;
but, by the time you rise upon your elbow, the
scurrying uproar lessens, and gradually dies
away as it rolls along a more distant shore.

We were slow in getting off this morning.
But the dense fog had been loath to lift; and
at first the stove smoked badly, until we dis-
covered and removed the source of trouble.
This stove is an ingenious contrivance of the
Doctor's — a box of sheet-iron, of slight weight,
so arranged as to be folded into an incredibly
small space: a vast improvement for cooking
purposes over an open camp-fire, which Pil-
grim's crew know, from long experience in far
distant fields, to be a vexation to eyes and soul.

Coaling hamlets more or less deserted were
frequent this morning — unpainted, window-
less, ragged wrecks. At the inhabited mining
villages, either close to the strand or well up

Among the Miners 1 1

on hillside ledges, idle men were everywhere
about. Women and boys and girls were stock-
ingless and shoeless, and often dirty to a de-
gree. But, when conversed with, we found
them independent, respectful, and self-respect-
ing folk. Occasionally, for the mere sake of
meeting these workaday brothers of ours, I
would, with canteen slung on shoulder, climb
the steep flight of stairs cut in the clay bank,
and on reaching the terrace inquire for drink-
ing water, talking familiarly with the folk who
came to meet me at the well-curb.

There are old-fashioned Dutch ovens in
nearly every yard, a few chickens, and often
a shed for the cow, that is off on her daily
climb over the neighboring hills. Through
the black pall of shale, a few vegetables strug-
gle feebly to the light; in the corners of the
palings, are hollyhocks and four-o'clocks; and,
on window-sills, rows of battered tin cans,
resplendent in blue and yellow labels, are the
homes of verbenas and geraniums, in sickly
bloom. Now and then, a back door in the
dreary block is distinguished by an arbored
trellis bearing a grape-vine, and furnishing for
the weary housewife a shady kitchen, al fresco.
As a rule, however, there is little attempt to

12 On the Storied Ohio

better the homeless shelter furnished by the
corporation.

We restocked with provisions at Mononga-
hela City, a smart, newish town, and at Eliz-
abeth, old and dingy. It was at Elizabeth,
then Elizabethtown, that travelers from the
Eastern States, over the old Philadelphia Road,
chiefly took boat for the Ohio — the Virginians
still clinging to Redstone, as the terminus of
the Braddock Road. Elizabethtown, in flat-
boat days, was the seat of a considerable boat-
building industry, its yards in time turning out
steamboats for the New Orleans trade, and
even sea-going sailing craft; but, to-day, coal
barges are the principal output of her decaying
shipyards.

By this time, the duties of our little ship's
company are well defined. W — supervises
the cuisine, most important of all offices; the
Doctor is chief navigator, assistant cook, and
hewer of wood; it falls to my lot to purchase
supplies, to be carrier of water, to pitch tent
and make beds, and, while breakfast is being
cooked, to dismantle the camp and, so far as
may be, to repack Pilgrim; the Boy collects
driftwood, wipes dishes, and helps at what he

The Youghiogheny 13

can — while all hands row or paddle through the
livelong day, as whim or need dictates.

Lock No. 3, at Walton, necessitated a por-
tage of the load, over the left bank. It is a
steep, rocky climb, and the descent on the
lower side, strewn with stone chips, destructive
to shoe-leather. The Doctor and I let Pilgrim
herself down with a long rope, over a shallow
spot in the apron of the dam.

At six o'clock a camping-ground for the night
became desirable. We were fortunate, last
evening, to find a bit of rustic country in which
to pitch our tent; but all through this after-
noon both banks of the river were lined with
village after village, city after city, scarcely a
garden patch between them — Wilson, Coal
Valley, Lostock, Glassport, Dravosburg, and
a dozen others not recorded on our map, which
bears date of 1882. The su,n was setting be-
hind the rim of the river basin, when we
reached the broad mouth of the Youghiogheny
(pr. Yock-i-o-gai'-ny), which is implanted
with a cluster of iron-mill towns, of which
McKeesport is the center. So far as we could
see down the Monongahela, the air was thick
with the smoke of glowing chimneys, and the
pulsating whang of steel-making plants and

14 On the Storied Ohio

rolling-mills made the air tremble. The view
up the "Yough" was more inviting; so, with
oars and paddle firmly set, we turned off our
course and lustily pulled against the strong
current of the tributary. A score or two of
house-boats lay tied to the McKeesport shore or
were bolstered high upon the beach; a fleet of
Yough steamers had their noses to the wharf;
a half-dozen fishermen were setting nets; and,
high over all, with lofty spans of iron cobweb,
several railway and wagon bridges spanned
the gliding stream.

It was a mile and a half up the Yough before
we reached the open country; and then only
the rapidly-gathering dusk drove us ashore,
for on near approach the prospect was not
pleasing. Finally settling into this damp,
shallow pocket in the shelving bank, we find
broad-girthed elms and maples screening us
from all save the river front, the high bank in
the rear fringed with blue violets which emit
a delicious odor, backed by a field of waving
corn stretching off toward heavily-wooded
hills. Our supper cooked and eaten by lan-
tern-light, we vote ourselves as, after all,
serenely content out here in the starlight — at

Major Washington 15

peace with the world, and very close to Na-
ture's heart.

There come to us, on the cool evening
breeze, faint echoes of the never-ceasing clang
of McKeesport iron mills, down on the Mo-
nongahela shore. But it is not of these we
talk, lounging in the welcome warmth of the
camp-fire; it is of the 'age of romance, a hun-
dred and forty odd years ago, when Major
Washington and Christopher Gist, with fam-
ished horses, floundered in the ice hereabout,
upon their famous midwinter trip to Fort Le
Bceuf; when the " Forks of the Yough" be-
came the extreme outpost of Western advance,
with all the accompanying horrors of frontier
war; and later, when McKeesport for a time
rivaled Redstone and Elizabethtown as a cen-
ter for boat-building and a point of departure
for the Ohio.

Pittsburg, Sunday, May 6th. — Many of
the trees are already in full leaf. The tril-
lium is fading. We are in the full tide of
early summer, up here in the mountains, and
our long journey of six weeks is southward and
toward the plain. The lower Ohio may soon
be a bake-oven, and the middle of June will
be upon us before far-away Cairo is reached.

1 6 On the Storied Ohio

It behooves us to be up and doing. The river,
flowing by our door, is an ever-pressing invi-
tation to be onward; it stops not for Sunday,
nor ever stops — and why should we, mere
drift upon the passing tide?

There was a smart thunder-shower during
breakfast, followed by a cool, cloudy morning.
At eleven o'clock Pilgrim was laden. A south-
eastern breeze ruffled the waters of the Yough,
and for the first time the Doctor ordered up
the sail, with W — at the sheet. It was not
long before Pilgrim had the water ' ' singing at
her prow." With a rush, we flew past the
factories, the house-boats, and the shabby
street-ends of McKeesport, out into the Mo-
nongahela, where, luckily, the wind still held.

At McKeesport, the hills on the right are of
a relatively low altitude, smooth and well
rounded. It was here that Braddock, in his
slow progress toward Fort Duquesne, first
crossed the Monongahela, to the wide, level
bottom on the left bank. He had found the
inner country to the right of the river and
below the Yough too rough and hilly for his
march, hence had turned back toward the
Monongahela, fording the river to take ad-
vantage of the less difficult bottom. Some

TT requires a liberal exercise of the historical imagination
-*• to convert this "noisy iron-manufacturing town" into
the scene of Braddock's Defeat ; but although the fateful
ravine has been well built over, its outlines can still easily
be traced by local antiquarians.

Braddock's Defeat \j

four miles below this first crossing, hills reap-
proach the left bank, till the bottom ceases;
the right thenceforth becomes the more favor-
able side for marching. With great pomp, he
recrossed the Monongahela just below the
point where Turtle Creek enters from the east.
Within a forested ravine, but a hundred yards
inland, the brilliant column was surrounded by
a well-sheltered band of Indians and French
half-breeds, and suffered that heart-sickening
defeat which will live as one of the most tragic
events in American history.

The noisy iron-manufacturing town of Brad-
dock now occupies the site of Braddock's de-
feat. Not far from the old ford stretches the
great dam of Lock No. 2, which we portaged,
with the usual difficulties of steep, stony banks.
Braddock is but eight miles across country
from Pittsburg, although twelve by river. We
have, all the way down, an almost constant
succession of iron and steel-making towns,
chief among them Homestead, on the left
bank, seven miles above Pittsburg. The great
strike of July, 1892, with its attendant horrors,
is a lurid chapter in the story of American in-
dustry. With shuddering interest, we view the
famous great bank of ugly slag at the base of

1 8 On the Storied Ohio

the steel 'mills, where the barges housing the
Pinkerton guards were burned by the mob.

To-day, the Homesteaders are enjoying
their Sunday afternoon outing along the town
shore — nurses pushing baby carriages, self-
absorbed lovers holding hands upon riverside
benches, merry-makers rowing in skiffs or
crossing the river in crowded ferries; the elec-
tric cars, following either side of the stream
as far down as Pittsburg, crowded to suffoca-
tion with gayly-attired folk. They look little
like rioters; yet it seems but the other day
when Homestead men and women and children
were hysterically reveling in atrocities akin to
those of the Paris commune.

Approaching Pittsburg, the high steeps are
everywhere crowded with houses — great masses
of smoke-color, dotted all over with white
shades and sparkling windows, which seem, in
the gray afternoon, to be ten thousand eyes
coldly staring down at Pilgrim and her crew
from all over the flanking hillsides.

Lock No. i, the last barrier between us and
the Ohio, is a mile or two up the Mononga-
hela, with warehouses and manufacturing
plants closely hemming it in on either side.
A portage, unaided, appears to be impossible

Making a Lock. a 9

here, and we resolve to lock through. But it
is Sunday, and the lock is closed.' -Above, a
dozen down-going steamboats are moored to
the shore, waiting for midnight and the re-
sumption of business; while below, a similar
line of ascending boats is awaiting the close
of the day of rest. Pilgrim, however, cannot
hang up at the levee with any comfort to her
crew; it is desirable, with evening at hand,
and a thunder-storm angrily rising over the
Pittsburg hills, to escape from this grimy pool,
flanked about with iron and coal yarjds,: chimney
stacks, and a forest of shipping, and quickly
to seek the open country lower down on the
Ohio. The lock-keepers appreciated our sit-
uation. Two or three sturdy, courteous men
helped us carry our cargo, by an intricate
official route, over coils of rope and chains,
over lines of shafting, and along dizzy walks
overhanging the yawning basin; while the
Doctor, directed to a certain chute in mid-
stream, took unladen Pilgrim over the great
dam, with a wild swoop which made our eyes
swim to witness from the lock.

We had laboriously been rowing on slack-
water, all the way from Brownsville,; with the
help of an hour's sail this morning; whereas,

20 On the Storied Ohio

now that we were in the strong current below
the dam, we had but to gently paddle to glide
swiftly on our way. A hundred steamers,
more or less, lay closely packed with their
bows upon the right, or principal city wharf.
It was raining at last, and we donned our
storm wraps. No doubt yellow Pilgrim, —
thought hereabout to be a frail craft for these
waters, — her crew all poncho-clad, slipping
silently through the dark water swishing at their
sterns, was a novelty to the steamboat men, for
they leaned lazily over their railings, the officers
on the upper deck, engineers and roustabouts
on the lower, and watched us curiously.

Our period of elation was brief. Black
storm-clouds, jagged and portentous, were
scurrying across the sky; and by the time we
had reached the forks, where the Mononga-
hela, in the heart of the city, joins forces with
the Alleghany, Pilgrim was being buffeted
about on a chop sea produced by cross currents
and a northwest gale. She can weather an
ordinary storm, but for this experience is un-
fitted. When a passing steamer threw out long
lines of frothy waves to add to the disturbance,
they broke over our gunwales ; and W — with
the coffee pot and the Boy with a tin basin

Tempest-Tossed 2 1

were hard pushed to keep the water below
the thwarts.

Seeking the friendly shelter of a house-boat,
of which there were scores tied to the left
bank, we trusted our drenched luggage to the
care of its proprietor, placed Pilgrim in a snug
harbor hard by, and, hurrying up a steep flight
of steps leading from the levee to the terrace
above, found a suburban hotel just as its office
clock struck eight.

Across the Ohio, through the blinding storm,
the dark outlines of Pittsburg and Allegheny
City are spangled with electric lamps which
throw toward us long, shimmering lances of
light, in which the mighty stream, gray, mys-
terious, tempest-tossed, is seen to be surging
onward with majestic sweep. Upon its bosom
we are to be borne for a thousand miles. Our
introduction has been unpropitious; it is to be
hoped that on further acquaintance we may
be better pleased with La Belle Riviere.

CHAPTER II.
First day on the Ohio — At Logstown.

Beaver River,' Monday, May 7th. — We
have to-day rowed and paddled under a cloud-
less sky, but in the teeth of frequent squalls,
with heavy waves freely dashing their spray
upon us. At ,sueh times a goodly. current,
aided by numerous wing-dams, appears of
little avail-; for, when we rested upon oun oars,
Pilgrim would be unmercifully drwea up
stream. Thus it has been an almost continual
fight to make progress, and our five-and-twenty
miles represent a hard day's work. :

We were overloaded,- that was certain; so
we stopped at Chartier, three miles* down the
river from Pittsburg, and' sent oh xmr' portly
bag of conventional traveling clothes by ex-
press to Cincinnati, where we intend stopping
for a day. This leaves us in our rough boat-
ing costumes for all the smaller towns en route.
What we may lose in possible social embarrass-
ments, we gain in lightened cargo.
22

Washington's Lands 23

Here at the mouth of Charter's Creek was
" Chartier's Old Town "; of ;a century and a
third ago ; a straggling, unkempt Indian village
theny but ,at least the banks were lovely, and
the rolling distances clothed with majestic
trees/ To-day, these creek banks, connected
by numerous iron bridges, are the dumping-
ground for cinders, slag, rubbish of every de-
gree of foulness; the bare hillsides are crowded
with the ugly dwellings of iron-workers; the
atmosphere is thick with smoke.

Washington, one of the greatest land spec-
ulators of his time, owned over 32,000 acres
along the Ohio. He held a patent from Lord
Dunmore, dated July 5, 1775, for nearly 3,000
acres, lyjng about the mouth of this stream.
Iriv accordance with the free-and-easy habit of
tranS-Alleghany pioneers, ten men squatted on
the tract, greatly to the indignation of the
Father of his Country, who in 1784 brought
against them a successful suit for ejectment.
Twelve years later, more familiar with this
than with most of his land grants, he sold it
to a friend for $12,000.

Just below Chartier are the picturesque

McKee's Rocks, where is the first riffle in the

iQhig. ; We < ' take " it with a swoop, the white-

24 On the Storied Ohio

capped waves dancing about us in a miniature
rapid. Then we are in the open country, and
for the first time find what the great river is
like. The character of the banks, for some
distance below Pittsburg, differs from that of
the Monongahela. The hills are lower, less
precipitous, more graceful. There is a de-
lightful roundness of mass and shade. Beau-
tiful villas occupy commanding situations on
hillsides and hilltops; we catch glimpses of
spires and cupolas, singly or in groups, peeping
above the trees; and now and then a pretty
suburban railway station. The railways upon
either bank are built on neat terraces, and, far
from marring the scene, agreeably give life to
it; now and then, three such terraces are to
be traced, one above the other, against the
dark background of wood and field — the lower
and upper devoted to rival railway lines, the
central one to the common way. The mouths
of the beautiful tributary ravines are crossed
either by graceful iron spans, which frame
charming undercut glimpses of sparkling water-
falls and deep tangles of moss and fern, or by
graceful stone arches draped with vines. There
are terraced vineyards, after the fashion of the
Rhineland, and the gentle arts of the florist

Natural Gas 25

and the truck-gardener are much in evidence.
The winding river frequently sweeps at the
base of rocky escarpments, but upon one side
or the other there are now invariably bottom
lands — narrow on these upper reaches, but we
shall find them gradually widen and lengthen
as we descend. The reaches are from four to
seven miles in length, but these, too, are to
lengthen in the middle waters. Islands are
frequent, all day. The largest is Neville's, five
miles long and thickly strewn with villas and
market-gardens; still others are but long sand-
bars grown to willows, and but temporarily in
sight, for the stage of water is low just now,
not over seven feet in the channel.

Emerging from the immediate suburbs of
Pittsburg, the fields broaden, farmsteads are
occasionally to be seen nestled in the undula-
tions of the hills, woodlands become more
dense. There are, however, small rustic towns
in plenty; we are seldom out of sight of these.
Climbing a steep clay slope on the left bank,
We visited one of them — Shousetown, fourteen
miles below the city. A sad-eyed, shabby
place, with the pipe line for natural gas sprawl-
ing hither and yon upon the surface of the
ground, except at the street crossings, where

26 On the Storied Ohio

a few inches of protecting ^arth Jiaye, been, laid
upon it. The tariff levied by the gas company
is ten cents per month for each light, and a
dollar and a half for a cook-stove.

We passed, this afternoon, one of the most
interesting historic points upon the river — the
picturesque site of ancient Logstown, upon
the summit of a low, steep ridge on the right
bank, just below Economy, and eighteen miles
from Pittsburg. Logstown was a Shawanese
village as early as 1727-30, and already a
notable fur-trading post when Conrad Weiser
visited it in 1748. Washington and Gist
stopped at ' * Loggestown " for five days on
their visit to the Ereneh at Fort Le Bqeuf,
and several famous Indian treaties were signed
there. . A short * distance l^elow, Anthony
Wayne's Western army was encamped during
the ; winter of 3 "7.92-93, .the place being then
styled Legionville. . In 1824 George Rapp
founded in the neighborhood, a German social-
ist community* and this later settlement sur-
vives to the present day in the thriving little
rustic town of Economy.

At four o'clock we struck camp on a heavily-
willowed shore, at the apex of the great north-

Beaver River 27

ern bend of the Ohio (25 miles).* Across the
river, on a broad level bottom, are the manu-
facturing towns of Rochester and Beaver,
divided by the Beaver River; in their rear,
well-rounded hills rise gracefully, checkered
by brown fields and woods in many shades
of green, in the midst of which the flowering
white dogwood rears its stately spray. Our
sloping willowed sand-beach, of a hundred feet
in width, is thick strewn with driftwood; back
of this a clay bank, eight feet sheer, and a
narrow bottom cut up into small fruit and
vegetable patches; the gardeners' neat frame
houses peeping from groves of apple, pear, and
cherry, upon the flanking hillsides. A lofty
oil-well derrick surmounts the edge of the ter-
race a hundred yards below our camp. The
bushes and the ground round about the well
are black and slimy with crude petroleum, that
has escaped during the boring process, and the
air is heavy with its odor. We are upon the
edge of the far-stretching oil and gas-well re-

* Figures in parentheses, similarly placed throughout the
volume, indicate the meandered river mileage from Pittsburg,
according to the map of the Corps of Engineers, U. S. A.,
published in 1881. The actual mileage of the channel is a
trifle greater.

28 On the Storied Ohio

gion, and shall soon become familiar enough
with such sights and smells in the neighbor-
hood of our nightly camps.

No sooner had Pilgrim been turned up against
a tree to dry, and a smooth sandy open chosen
for the camp, than the proprietor of the soil
appeared — a middling-sized, lanky man, with
a red face and a sandy goatee surmounting a
collarless white shirt all bestained with tobacco
juice. He inquired rather sharply concerning
us, but when informed of our innocent errand,
and that we should stay with him but the
night, he promptly softened, explaining that
the presence of marauding fishermen and house-
boat folk was incompatible with gardening
for profit, and he would have none of them
touch upon his shore. As to us, we were wel-
come to stop throughout our pleasure, an in-
vitation he reinforced by sitting upon a stump,
whittling vigorously meanwhile, and glibly
gossiping with the Doctor and me for a half-
hour, on crop conditions and the state of the
country — "bein' sociable like," he said, "an'
hav'n' nuth'n 'gin you folks, as knows what's
what, I kin see with half a eye!"

CHAPTER III.

Shingis Old Town — The dynamiter — Yel-
low Creek.

Kneistly's Cluster, W. Va., Tuesday,
May 8th. — We were off at a quarter past seven,
and among the earliest shoppers in Rochester,
on the east bank of the Beaver, where supplies
were laid in for the day. This busy, prosper-
ous-looking place bears little resemblance to
the squalid Indian village which Gist found
here in November, 1750. It was then the
seat of Barney Curran, an Indian trader — the
same Curran whom Washington, three years
later, employed in the mission to Venango.
But the smaller sister town of Beaver, on the
lower side of the mouth, — or rather the west-
ern outskirts of Beaver a mile below the mouth,
— has the most ancient history. On account
of a ford across the Beaver, about where is
now a slack-water dam, the neighborhood be-
came of early importance to the French as a
fur-trading center. With customary liberality
29

30 On the Storied Ohio

toward the Indians, whom they assiduously
cultivated, the French, in 1756, built for them,
on this site, a substantial town, which the
English indifferently called Sarikonk, Sohkon,
King Beaver's Town, or Shingis Old Town.
During the French and Indian War, the place
was prominent as a rendezvous for the enemies
of American borderers; numerous bloody forays
were planned here, and hither were brought to
be adopted into the tribes, or to be cruelly
tortured, according to savage whim, many of
the captives whose tales have made lurid the
history of the Ohio Valley.

Passing Beaver River, the Ohio enters upon
its grand sweep to the southwest. The wide
uplands at once become more rustic, especially
those of the left bank, which no longer is
threaded by a railway, as heretofore all the
way from Brownsville. The two ranges of
undulating hills, some three hundred and fifty
feet high, forming the rim of the basin, are
about a half mile apart; while the river itself
is perhaps a third of a mile in width, leaving
narrow bottoms on alternate sides, as the
stream in gentle curves rebounds from the
rocky base of one hill to that of another.
When winding about such a base, there is at

Side-tracked 3 1

this stage of the water a sloping, stony beach,
some ten to twenty yards in width, from which
ascends the sharp steep, for the most part
heavily tree-clad — maples, birches, elms, and
oaks of goodly girth, the latter as yet in but
half-leaf. On the "bottom side" of the river,
the alluvial terrace presents a sheer wall of
clay rising from eight to a dozen feet above the
beach, which is often thick-grown with willows,
whose roots hold the soil from becoming too
easy a prey to the encroaching current. Syca-
mores now begin to appear in the bottoms,
although of less size than we shall meet below.
Sometimes the little towns we see occupy a
narrow and more or less rocky bench upon the
hill side of the stream, but settlement is chiefly
found upon the bottoms.

Shippingsport (32 miles), on the left bank,
where we stopped this noon for eggs, butter,
and fresh water, is on a narrow hill bench — a
dry, woe-begone hamlet, side-tracked from
the path of the world's progress. While I was
on shore, negotiating with the sleepy store-
keeper, Pilgrim and her crew waited alongside
the flatboat which serves as the town ferry.
There they were visited by a breezy, red-faced
young man, in a blue flannel shirt and a black

32 On the Storied Ohio

slouch hat, who was soon enough at his ease
to lie flat upon the ferry gunwale, his cheeks
supported by his hands, and talk to W — and
the Doctor as if they were old friends. He
was a dealer in nitroglycerin cartridges, he
said, and pointed to a long, rakish-looking
skiff hard by, which bore a red flag at its prow.
"Ye see that? Thet there red flag? Well,
thet's the law on us glyser^?;z fellers — over five
hundred poun's, two flags; un'er five hundred,
one flag. I've two hundred and fifty, I have.
I tell yer th' steamboats steer clear o' me, an'
don' yer fergit it, neither; they jist give me a
wide berth, they do, yew bet! 'n' th' railroads,
they don' carry no glyser^;z cartridge, they
don't — all uv it by skiff, like yer see me goin'."
These cartridges, he explained, are dropped
into oil or gas wells whose owners are desirous
of accelerating the flow. The cartridge, in
exploding, enlarges the hole, and often the
output of the well is at once increased by sev-
eral hundred per cent. The young fellow had
the air of a self-confident rustic, with little ex-
perience in the world. Indeed, it seemed
from his elated manner as if this might be his
first trip from home, and the blowing of oil
wells an incidental speculation. The Boy,

The Dynamiter 33

quick at inventive nomenclature, and fresh
from a reading of Robert Louis Stevenson,
called our visitor "the Dynamiter," and by
that title I suppose we shall always remem-
ber him.

The Dynamiter confided to his listeners that
he was going down the river for "a clean
hundred miles, and that's right smart fur, ain't
it? How fur down be yees goin'?" The Doc-
tor replied that we were going nine hundred;
whereat the man of explosives gave vent to
his feelings in a prolonged whistle, then a horse
laugh, and "Oh come, now! Don' be givin'
us taffy! Say, hones' Injun, how fur down air
yew fellers goin', anyhow?" It was with some
difficulty that he could comprehend the fact. A
hundred miles on the river was a great outing
for this village lad; nine hundred was rather
beyond his comprehension, although he finally
compromised by " allowing" that we might
be going as far as Cincinnati. Wouldn't the
Doctor go into partnership with him? He had
no caps for his cartridges, and if the Doctor
would buy caps and "stan' in with him on the
cost of the glysereen, " they would, regardless
of Ohio statutes, blow up the fish in unfre-
quented portions of the river, and make two
3

34 On the Storied Ohio

hundred dollars apiece by carrying the spoils
in to Wheeling. The Doctor, as a law-abiding
citizen, good-naturedly declined; and upon my
return to the flat, the Dynamiter was handing
the Boy a huge stick of barber-pole candy,
saying, ''Well, yew fellers, we'll part friends,
anyhow — but sorry yew won't go in on this
spec'; there's right smart money in 't, 'n' don'
yer fergit it!"

By the middle of the afternoon we reached
the boundary line (40 miles) between Pennsyl-
vania on the east and Ohio and West Virginia
on the west. The last Pennsylvania settle-
ments are a half mile above the boundary —
Smith's Ferry (right), an old and somewhat
decayed village, on a broad, low bottom at the
mouth of the picturesque Little Beaver Creek;*
and Georgetown (left), a prosperous-looking,
sedate town, with tidy lawns running down to
the edge of the terrace, below which is a shelv-
ing stone beach of generous width. Two high
iron towers supporting the cable of a current
ferry add dignity to the twin settlements. A

* On this creek was the hunting-cabin of the Seneca
(Mingo) chief, Half King, who sent a message of welcome to
Washington, when the latter was on his way to Great Mead-
ows (i754)-

~\JEAR East Liverpool, Ohio, forty- five miles below Pitts-
-*- * burg. The hills still closely approach the river banks,
although bottoms now frequently occur. The stream here
flows between West Virginia and Ohio.

West Virginia 35

stone monument, six feet high, just observable
through the willows on the right shore, marks
the boundary; while upon the left bank, sur-
mounting a high, rock-strewn beach, is the
dilapidated frame house of a West Virginia
" cracker," through whose garden-patch the
line takes its way, unobserved and unthought
of by pigs, chickens, and children, which in
hopeless promiscuity swarm the interstate
premises.

For many days to come we are to have
Ohio on the right bank and West Virginia on
the left. There is no perceptible change, of
course, in the contour of the rugged hills which
hem us in; yet somehow it stirs the blood to
reflect that quite within the recollection of all
of us in Pilgrim's crew, save the Boy, that left
bank was the house of bondage, and that right
the land of freedom, and this river of ours the
highway between.

East Liverpool (44 miles) and Wellsville
(48 miles) are long stretches of pottery and
tile-making works, both of them on the Ohio
shore. There is nothing there to lure us, how-
ever, and we determined to camp on the banks
of Yellow Creek (51 miles), a peaceful little
Ohio stream some two rods in width, its mouth

36 On the Storied Ohio

crossed by two great iron spans, for railway
and highway. But although Yellow Creek
winds most gracefully and is altogether a
charming bit of rustic water, deep-set amid
picturesque slopes of field and wood, we fail
to find upon its banks an appropriate camping-
place. Upon one side a country road closely
skirts the shore, and on the other a railway,
while for the mile or more we pushed along
small farmsteads almost abutted. Hence we
retrace our path to the great river, and, drop-
ping down-stream for two miles, find what we
seek upon the lower end of the chief of Kneist-
ly's Cluster — two islands on the West Virginia
side of the channel.

It is storied ground, this neighborhood of
ours. Over there at the mouth of Yellow
Creek was, a hundred and twenty years ago,
the camp of Logan, the Mingo chief; opposite,
on the West Virginia shore, Baker's Bottom,
where occurred the treacherous massacre of
Logan's family. The tragedy is interwoven
with the history of the trans- Alleghany border;
and schoolboys have in many lands and tongues
recited the pathetic defense of the poor Mingo,
who, more sinned against than sinning, was
crushed in the inevitable struggle between

A World of Woodland 37

savagery and civilization. ' ' Who is there to
mourn for Logan?"

We are high and dry on our willowed island.
Above, just out of sight, are moored a brace
of steam pile-drivers engaged in strengthening
the dam which unites us with Baker's Bottom.
To the left lies a broad stretch of gravel strand,
beyond which is the narrow water fed by the
overflow of the dam; to the right, the broad
steamboat channel rolls between us and the
Ohio hills, while the far-reaching vista down-
stream is a feast of shade and tint, by land and
water, with the lights and smoke of New Cum-
berland and Sloan's Station faintly discernible
near the horizon. All about us lies a beautiful
world of woodland. The whistle of quails in-
numerable broke upon us in the twilight, suc-
ceeding to the calls of rose-breasted grosbeaks
and a goodly company of daylight followers; in
this darkening hour, the low, plaintive note of
the whip-poor-will is heard on every hand,
now and then interrupted by the hoarse bark
of owls. There is a gentle tinkling of cow-
bells on the Ohio shore, and on both are human
voices confused by distance. All pervading is
the deep, sullen roar of a great wing-dam, a
half mile or so down-stream.

38 On the Storied Ohio

The camp is gypsy-like. Our washing lies
spread on bushes, where it will catch the first
peep of morning sun. Perishable provisions
rest in notches of trees, where the cool evening
breeze will strike them. Seated upon the
"grub" box, I am writing up our log by aid of
the lantern hung from a branch overhead,
while W — , ever busy, sits by with her mend-
ing. Lying in the moonlight, which through
the sprawling willows gayly checkers our sand
bank, the Doctor and the Boy are discussing
the doings of Br'er Rabbit — for we are in the
Southland now, and may any day meet good
Uncle Remus.

CHAPTER IV.

An industrial region — Steubenville — Min-
go Bottom — In a steel mill — Indian
character.

Mingo Junction, Ohio, Wednesday, May
9th. — We had a cold night upon our island.
Upon arising this morning, a heavy fog en-
veloped us, at first completely veiling the sun;
soon it became faintly visible, a great ball of
burnished copper reflected in the dimpled flood
which poured between us and the Ohio shore.
Weeds and willows were sopping wet, as was
also our wash, and the breakfast fire was a
comfortable companion. But by the time we
were off, the cloud had lifted, and the sun
gushed out with promise of a warm day.

Throughout the morning, Pilgrim glided
through a thickly settled district, reminding
us of the Monongahela. Sewer-pipe and vit-
rified-brick works, and iron and steel plants,
abound on the narrow bottoms. The factories
and mills themselves generally wear a pros-
39

4o On the Storied Ohio

perous look; but the dependent towns vary in
appearance, from clusters of shabby, down-at-
the-heel cabins, to lines of neat and well-
painted houses and shops.

We visited the vitrified-brick works at New
Cumberland, W. Va. (56 miles), where the
proprietor kindly explained his methods, and
talked freely of his business. It was the old
story, too close a competition for profit,
although the use of brick pavements is fast
spreading. Fire clay available for the purpose
is abundant on the banks of the Ohio all the
way from Pittsburg to Kingston (60 miles).
A few miles below New Cumberland, on the
Ohio shore, we inspected the tile works at
Freeman, and admired the dexterity which the
workmen had attained.

But what interested us most of all was the
appalling havoc which these clay and iron in-
dustries are making with the once beautiful
banks of the river. Each of them has a large
daily output of debris, which is dumped un-
mercifully upon the water's edge in heaps from
fifty to a hundred feet high. Sometimes for
nearly a mile in length, the natural bank is
deep buried out of sight; and we have from
our canoe naught but a dismal wall of rubbish,

Forest-mantled Slopes 41

crowding upon the river to the uttermost limit
of governmental allowance. Fifty years hence,
if these enterprises multiply at the present
ratio, and continue their present methods, the
Upper Ohio will roll between continuous banks
of clay and iron offal, down to Wheeling and
beyond.

Before noon we had left behind us this in-
dustrial region, and were again in rustic sur-
roundings. The wind had gone down, the
atmosphere was oppressively warm, the sun's
reflection from the glassy stream came with
almost scalding effect upon our faces. We
had rigged an awning over some willow hoops,
but it could not protect us from this reflection.
For an hour or two — one may as well be
honest — we fairly sweltered upon our pilgrim-
age, until at last a light breeze ruffled the
water and brought blessed relief.

The hills are not as high as hitherto, and
are more broken. Yet they have a certain
majestic sweep, and for the most part are
forest-mantled from base to summit. Between
them the river winds with noble grace, contin-
ually giving us fresh vistas, often of surpassing
loveliness. The bottoms are broader now,
and frequently semicircular, with fine farms

42 On the Storied Ohio

upon them, and prosperous villages nestled in
generous groves. Many of the houses betoken
age, or what passes for it in this relatively new
country, being of the colonial pattern, with
fan-shaped windows above the doors, Grecian
pillars flanking the front porch, and wearing
the air of comfortable respectability.

Beautiful islands lend variety to the scene,
some of them mere willowed "tow-heads"
largely submerged in times of flood, while
others are of a permanent character, often
occupied by farms. We have with us a copy
of Cuming's Western Pilot (Cincinnati, 1834),
which is still a practicable guide for the Ohio,
as the river's shore lines are not subject to so
rapid changes as those of the Mississippi;
but many of the islands in Cuming's are not
now to be found, having been swept away in
floods, and we encounter few new ones. It
is clear that the islands are not so numerous
as sixty years ago. The present works of the
United States Corps of Engineers tend to per-
manency in the status quo; doubtless the gov-
ernment map of 1 88 1 will remain an authori-
tative chart for a half century or more to come.

W — 's enthusiasm for botany frequently
takes us ashore. Landing at the foot of some

Botanizing 43

eroded steep which, with ragged charm, rises
sharply from the gravelly beach, we fasten
Pilgrim's painter to a stone, and go scrambling
over the hillside in search of flowers, bearing
in mind the Boy's constant plea, to "Get only
one of a kind," and leave the rest for seed;
for other travelers may come this way, and
'tis a sin indeed to exterminate a botanical
rarity. But we find no rarities to-day — only
Solomon's seal, trillium, wild ginger, cranebill,
jack-in-the-pulpit, wild columbine. Poison
ivy is on every hand, in these tangled woods,
with ferns of many varieties — chiefly maiden-
hair, walking leaf, and bladder. The view
from projecting rocks, in these lofty places, is
ever inspiring: the country spread out below
us, as in a relief map; the great glistening
river winding through* its hilly trough; a
rumpled country for a few miles on either side,
gradually trending into broad plains, checkered
with fields on which farmsteads and rustic
villages are the chessmen.

At one o'clock we were at Steubenville,
Ohio (67 miles), where the broad stoned wharf
leads sharply up to the smart, well-built, sub-
stantial town of some sixteen thousand inhab-
itants. W — and I had some shopping to do

44 On the Storied Ohio

there, while the Doctor and the Boy remained
down at the inevitable wharf-boat, and gos-
siped with the philosophical agent, who be-
moaned the decadence of steamboat traffic in
general, and the rapidly falling stage of water
in particular.

Three miles below Steubenville is Mingo
Junction, where we are the guests of a friend
who is superintendent of the iron and steel
works here. The population of Mingo is
twenty-five hundred. From seven to twelve
hundred are employed in the works, according
to the exigencies of business. Ten per cent
of them are Hungarians and Slavonians — a
larger proportion would be dangerous, our host
avers, because of the tendency of these people
to " run the town" when sufficiently numerous
to make it possible. The Slavs in the iron
towns come to America for a few years, intent
solely on saving every dollar within reach.
They are willing to work for wages which from
the American standard seem low, but to them
almost fabulous; herd together in surprising
promiscuity; maintain a low scale of clothing
and diet, often to the ruin of health; and
eventually return to Eastern Europe, where
their savings constitute a little fortune upon

Fit for the Boneyard 45

which they can end their days in ease. This
sort of competition is fast degrading legitimate
American labor. Its regulation ought not to
be thought impossible.

A visit to a great steel-making plant, in full
operation, is an event in a man's life. Par-
ticularly remarkable is the weird spectacle
presented at night, with the furnaces fiercely
gleaming, the fresh ingots smoking hot, the
Bessemer converter "blowing off," the great
cranes moving about like things of life, bearing
giant kettles of molten steel; and amidst it
all, human life held so cheaply. Nearer to
mediaeval notions of hell comes this fiery scene
than anything imagined by Dante. The work-
ing life of one of these men is not over ten
years, B — says. A decade of this intense
heat, compared to which a breath of outdoor
air in the close mill-yard, with the midsummer
sun in the nineties, seems chilly, wears a man
out — "only fit for the boneyard then, sir,"
was the laconic estimate of an intelligent boss
whom I questioned on the subject.

Wages run from ninety cents to five dollars
a day, with far more at the former rate than
the latter. A ninety-cent man working in a
place so hot that were water from a hose turned

46 On the Storied Ohio

upon him it would at once be resolved into
scalding steam, deserves our sympathy. It is
pleasing to find in our friend, the superinten-
dent, a strong fellow-feeling for his men, and
a desire to do all in his power to alleviate their
condition. He has accomplished much in
improving the morale of the town; but deep-
seated, inexorable economic conditions, ap-
parently beyond present control, render nuga-
tory any attempts to better the financial
condition of the underpaid majority.

Mingo Junction — " Mingo Bottom" of old —
was an interesting locality in frontier days.
On this fertile river bench was long one of the
strongest of the Mingo villages. During the
last week of May, 1782, Crawford's little army
rendezvoused here, en route to Sandusky, a
hundred and fifty miles distant, and intent on
the destruction of the Wyandot towns. But
the Indians had not been surprised, and the
army was driven back with slaughter, reaching
Mingo the middle of June, bereft of its com-
mander. Crawford, who was a warm friend
of Washington, suffered almost unprecedented
torture at the stake, his fate sending a thrill
of horror through all the Western settlements.

Let us not be too harsh in our judgment of

Red Man and White Man 47

these red Indians. At first, the white colo-
nists from Europe were regarded by them as
of supernatural origin, and hospitality, vener-
ation, and confidence were displayed toward
the new-comers. But the mortality of the
Europeans was soon made painfully evident
to them. When the early Spaniards, and
afterward the English, kidnaped tribesmen
for sale into slavery, or for use as captive
guides, and even murdered them on slight
provocation, distrust and hatred naturally suc-
ceeded to the sentiment of awe. Like many
savage races, like the earlier Romans, the In-
dian looked upon the member of every tribe
with which he had not made a formal peace
as a public enemy; hence he felt justified in
wreaking his vengeance on the race, whenever
he failed to find individual offenders. He was
exceptionally cruel, his mode of warfare was
skulking, he could not easily be reached in the
forest fastnesses which he alone knew well,
and his strokes fell heaviest on women and
children; so that whites came to fear and un-
speakably to loathe the savage, and often
added greatly to the bitterness of the struggle
by retaliation in kind. The white borderers
themselves were frequently brutal, reckless,

48 On the Storied Ohio

lawless; and under such conditions, clashing
was inevitable. But worse agents of discord
than the agricultural colonists were the itiner-
ants who traveled through the woods visiting
the tribes, exchanging goods for furs; these
often cheated and robbed the Indian, taught
him the use of intoxicants, bullied and brow-
beat him, appropriated his women, and in
general introduced serious demoralization into
the native camps. The bulk of the whites
doubtless intended to treat the Indian honor-
ably; but the forest traders were beyond the
pale of law, and news of the details of
their transactions seldom reached the coast
settlements.

As a neighbor, the Indian was difficult to
deal with, whether in the negotiation of treaties
of amity, or in the purchase of lands. Having
but a loose system of government, there was
no really responsible head, and no compact
was secure from the interference of malcon-
tents, who would not be bound by treaties
made by the chiefs. The English felt that the
red men were not putting the land to its full
use, that much of the territory was growing up
as a waste, that they were best entitled to it
who could make it the most productive. On

Civilization against Savagery 49

the other hand, the earlier cessions of land
were made under a total misconception; the
Indians supposed that the new-comers would,
after a few years of occupancy, pass on and
leave the tract again to the natives. There
was no compromise possible between races
with precisely opposite views of property in
land. The struggle was inevitable — civiliza-
tion against savagery. No sentimental notions
could prevent it. It was in the nature of
things that the weaker must give way. The
Indian was a formidable antagonist, and there
were times when the result of the struggle
seemed uncertain; but in the end he went to
the wall. In judging the vanquished enemy
of our civilization, let us not underestimate his
intellect, or the many good qualities which
were mingled with his savage vices, or fail to
credit him with sublime courage, and a tribal
patriotism which no disaster could cool.
4

CHAPTER V.

Houseboat life — Decadence of steam-
boat traffic — Wheeling, and Wheeling
Creek.

Above Moundsville, W. Va., Thursday,
May ioth. — Our friends saw us off at the
gravelly beach just below the " works." There
was a slight breeze ahead, but the atmosphere
was agreeable, and Pilgrim bore a happy crew,
now as brown as gypsies; the first painful effects
of sunburn are over, and we are hardened in
skin and muscle to any vicissitudes which are
likely to be met upon our voyage. Rough
weather, river mud, and all the other exigencies
of a moving camp, are beginning to tell upon
clothing; we are becoming like gypsies in rai-
ment, as well as color. But what a soul-
satisfying life is this gypsy ing! We possess
the world, while afloat on the Ohio!

There are, in the course of the summer, so
many sorts of people traveling by the river,—
steamboat passengers, campers, fishers, house-
50

Skiff Lore 5 1

boat folk, and what not, — that we attract little
attention of ourselves, but Pilgrim is indeed a
curiosity hereabout. What remarks we over-
hear are about her, — " Honey skiff, that!"
-Right smart skiff!" -Good skiff for her
place, but no good for this yere river!" and
so on. She is a lap-streak, square-sterned
craft, of white cedar three-eighths of an inch
thick; fifteen feet in length and four of beam;
weighs just a hundred pounds; comfortably
holds us and our luggage, with plenty of
spare room to move about in; is easily pro-
pelled, and as stanch as can be made. Upon
these waters, we meet nothing like her. Not
counting the curious floating boxes and
punts, which are knocked together out of
driftwood, by boys and poor whites, and are
numerous all along shore, the regulation
Ohio river skiff is built on graceful lines,
but of inch boards, heavily ribbed, and is a
sorry weight to handle. The contention is,
that to withstand the swash of steamboat
wakes breaking upon the shore, and the rush
of drift in times of flood, a heavy skiff is nec-
essary; there is a tendency to decry Pilgrim
as a plaything, unadapted to the great river.
A reasonable degree of care at all times, how-

52 On the Storied Ohio

ever, and keeping the boat drawn high on the
beach when not in use, — such care as we
are familiar with upon our Wisconsin inland
lakes, — would render the employment of such
as she quite practicable, and greatly lessen the
labor of rowing on this waterway.

The houseboats, dozens of which we see
daily, interest us greatly. They are scows, or
"flats," greatly differing in size, with low-
ceilinged cabins built upon them — sometimes
of one room, sometimes of half a dozen, and
varying in character from a mere shanty to a
well-appointed cottage. Perhaps the greater
number of these craft are afloat in the river,
and moored to the bank, with a gang-plank
running to shore; others are "beached," hav-
ing found a comfortable nook in some higher
stage of water, and been fastened there,
propped level with timbers and driftwood.
Among the houseboat folk are young working
couples starting out in life, and hoping ulti-
mately to gain a foothold on land; unfortunate
people, who are making a fresh start; men
regularly employed in riverside factories and
mills; invalids, who, at small expense, are
trying the fresh-air cure; others, who drift up
and down the Ohio, seeking casual work; and

Houseboat Folk 53

legitimate fishermen, who find it convenient to
be near their nets, and to move about accord-
ing to the needs of their calling. But a goodly
proportion of these boats are inhabited by the
lowest class of the population, — poor "crack-
ers " who have managed to scrape together
enough money to buy, or enough energy and
driftwood to build, such a craft; and, near or
at the towns, many are occupied by gamblers,
illicit liquor dealers, and others who, while
plying nefarious trades, make a pretense of
following the occupation of the Apostles.

Houseboat people, whether beached or afloat,
pay no rent, and heretofore have paid no taxes.
Kentucky has recently passed, more as a police
regulation than as a means of revenue, an act
levying a State tax of twenty-five dollars upon
each craft of this character; and the other
commonwealths abutting upon the river are
considering the policy of doing likewise. The
houseboat men have, however, recently formed
a protective association, and propose to fight
the new laws on constitutional grounds, the
contention being that the Ohio is a national
highway, and that commerce upon it cannot
be hampered by State taxes. This view does
not, however, affect the taxability of ' 'beached"

54 On the Storied Ohio

boats, which are clearly squatters on State
soil.

Both in town and country, the riffraff of
the houseboat element are in disfavor. It is
not uncommon for them, beached or tied up,
to remain unmolested in one spot for years,
with their pigs, chickens, and little garden
patch about them, mayhap a swarm or two of
bees, and a cow enjoying free pasturage along
the weedy bank or on neighboring hills. Oc-
casionally, however, as the result of spasmodic
local agitation, they are by wholesale ordered
to betake themselves to some more hospitable
shore; and not a few farmers, like our friend
at Beaver River, are quick to pattern after the
city police, and order their visitors to move on
the moment they seek a mooring. For the
truth is, the majority of those who "live on
the river," as the phrase goes, have the repu-
tation of being pilferers; farmers tell sad tales
of despoiled chicken-roosts and vegetable gar-
dens. From fishing, shooting, collecting chance
driftwood, and leading a desultory life along
shore, like the wreckers of old they naturally
fall into this thieving habit. Having neither
rent nor taxes to pay, and for the most part
not voting, and having no share in the polit-

Floating Shops 55

ical or social life of landsmen, they are in the
State, yet not of it, — a class unto themselves,
whose condition is well worthy the study of
economists.

Interspersed with the houseboat folk, al-
though of different character, are those whose
business leads them to dwell as nomads upon
the river — merchant peddlers, who spend a
day or two at some rustic landing, while scour-
ing the neighborhood for oil-barrels and junk,
which they load in great heaps upon the flat
roofs of their cabins, giving therefor, at goodly
prices, groceries, crockery, and notions, —
often bartering their wares for eggs and dairy
products, to be disposed of to passing steam-
ers, whose clerks in turn "pack" them for the
largest market on their route; blacksmiths,
who moor their floating shops to country beach
or village levee, wherever business can be had;
floating theaters and opera companies, with
large barges built as play-houses, towed from
town to town by their gaudily-painted tugs, on
which may occasionally be perched the vocif-
erous ' ' steam piano " of our circus days,
"whose soul-stirring music can be heard for
four miles;" traveling sawyers, with old steam-
boats made over into sawmills, employed by

56 On the Storied Ohio

farmers to "work up" into lumber such logs
as they can from time to time bring down to
the shore — the product being oftenest used in
the neighborhood, but occasionally rafted, and
floated to the nearest large town; and a mis-
cellaneous lot of traveling craftsmen who live
and work afloat, — chairmakers, upholsterers,
feather and mattress renovators, photogra-
phers,— who land at the villages, scatter abroad
their advertising cards, and stay so long as the
ensuing patronage warrants.

A motley assortment, these neighbors of ours,
an uncultivated field for the fiction writers.
We have struck up acquaintance with many
of them, and they are not bad fellows, as the
world goes — philosophers all, and loquacious
to a degree. But they cannot, for the life of
them, fathom the mystery of our cruise. We
are not in trade? we are not fishing? we
are not canvassers? we are not show-people?
"What 'n 'tarnation air ye, anny way? Oh,
come now! No fellers is do'n' th' river fur
fun, that's sartin — ye're jist gov'm'nt agints!
Thet's my way o' think'n'. Well, 'f ye kin
find fun in 't, then done go ahead, I say! But
all same, we'll be friends, won't we? Yew bet,
strangers! Ye're welcome t' all in this yere

/^R AFT of this character are to be met throughout the

length of the river. They are respectively adapted to

all manner of callings — from horseshoeing to sazvmilling,

junkshops to country stores , photograph galleries to comic opera

companies.

The Fire Canoe 57

shanty boat — ain't no bakky 'bout yer close,
yew fellers?" We meet with abundant cour-
tesy of this rude sort, and weaponless sleep
well o' nights, fearing naught from our comrades
for the nonce.

We again have railways on either bank.
The iron horse has almost eclipsed the ' ' fire
canoe," as the Indians picturesquely styled the
steamboat. We occasionally see boats tied
up to the wharves, evidently not in commission;
but, in actual operation, we seldom meet or
pass over one or two daily. To be sure, the
low stage of water, — from six to eight feet
thus far, and falling daily, — and the coal strike,
militate against navigation interests. But the
truth is, there is very little business now left
for steamboats, beyond the movement of coal,
stone, bricks, and other bulky material, some
way freight, and a light passenger traffic. The
railroads are quicker and surer, and of course
competition lowers the charges.

The heavy manufacturing interests along the
river now depend little upon the steamers,
although originally established here because
of them. I asked our friend, the superinten-
dent at Mingo, what advantage was gained by
having his plant upon the river. He replied:

58 On the Storied Ohio

"We can get all the water we want, and we
use a great deal of it; and it is convenient to
empty our slag upon the banks; but our chief
interest here is in the fact that Mingo is a rail-
way junction. " By rail he gets his coal and
ore, and ships away his product. Were the
coal to come a considerable distance, the river
would be the cheaper road; but it is obtained
from neighboring hill mines that are practically
owned by the railways. This coal, by the
way, costs $1.10 at the shaft mouth, and
$1.75 landed at the Mingo works. As for the
sewer-pipe, brick, and pottery works, they are
along stream because of the great beds of clay
exposed by the erosion of the river.

It is fortunate for the stability of these
towns, that the Ohio flows along the trans-
continental pathway westward, so that the
great railway lines may serve them without
deflection from their natural course. Had
the great stream flowed south instead of west,
the industries of the valley doubtless would
gradually have been removed to the transverse
highways of the new commerce, save where
these latter crossed the river, and thus have
left scores of once thriving communities mere
'longshore wrecks of their former selves. This

At Wheeling 59

is not possible, now. The steamboat traffic
may still further waste, until the river is no
longer serviceable save as a continental drain-
age ditch; but, chiefly because of its railways,
the Ohio Valley will continue to be the seat
of an industrial population which shall wax fat
upon the growth of the nation's needs.

By the middle of the afternoon, we were at
Wheeling (91 miles). The town has fifty
thousand inhabitants, is substantially built, of
a distinctly Southern aspect; well stretched
out along the river, but narrow; with gaunt,
treeless, gully-washed hills of clay rising ab-
ruptly behind, giving the place a most forbid-
ding appearance from the water. There are
several fine bridges spanning the Ohio; and
Wheeling Creek, which empties on the lower
edge of town, is crossed by a maze of steel
spans and stone arches; the well-paved wharf,
sloping upward from the Ohio, is nearly as
broad and imposing as that of Pittsburg;*
houseboats are here by the score, some of them

* Upon the Ohio and kindred rivers, the terra "wharf"
applies to the river beach when graded and paved, ready for
the reception of steamers. Such a wharf must not be con-
founded with a lake or seaside wharf, a staging projected into
the water.

60 On the Storied Ohio

the haunts of fishing clubs, as we judge from
the names emblazoned on their sides — "Mys-
tic Crew," " South Side Club," and the like.

For the first time upon our tour, negroes
are abundant upon the streets and lounging
along the river front. They vary in color from
yellow to inky blackness, and in raiment from
the ' ' dude, " smart in straw hat, collars and
cuffs, and white-frilled shirt with glass-dia-
mond pin, to the steamboat roustabout, all
slouch and rags, and evil-eyed.

Wheeling Island (300 acres), up to thirty
years ago mentioned in travelers' journals as a
rare beauty-spot, is to-day thick-set with cot-
tages of factory hands and small villas, and
commonplace; while smoky Bridgeport, oppo-
site on the Ohio side, was from our vantage-
point a mere smudge upon the landscape.

Wheeling Creek is famous in Western his-
tory. The three Zane brothers, Ebenezer,
Jonathan, and Silas, — typical, old-fashioned
names these, bespeaking the God-fearing,
Bible-loving, Scotch-Presbyterian stock from
which sprang so large a proportion of trans-
Alleghany pioneers, — explored this region as
early as 1769, built cabins, and made improve-
ments— Silas at the forks of the creek, and

The Siege of Wheeling 61

Ebenezer and Jonathan at the mouth. Dur-
ing three or four years, it was a hard fight
between them and the Indians; but, though
several times driven from the scene, the Zane
brothers stubbornly reappeared, and rebuilt
their burned habitations.

Before the Revolutionary War broke out,
the fortified home of the Zanes, at the creek
mouth, was a favorite stopping stage in the
savage-haunted wilderness; and many a trav-
eler in those early days has left us in his journal
a thankful account of his tarrying here. The
Zane stockade developed into Fort Fincastle,
in Lord Dunmore's time; then, Fort Henry,
during the Revolution; and everyone who
knows his Western history at all has read of
the three famous sieges of Wheeling (1777,
1 78 1, and 1782), and the daring deeds of its
men and women, which help illumine the
pages of border annals. Finally, by 1784, the
fort at Wheeling, that had never surrendered,
was demolished as no longer necessary, for the
wall of savage resistance was now pushed far
westward. Wheeling had become the western
end of a wagon road across the Panhandle,
from Redstone, and here were fitted out many
flatboat expeditions for the lower Ohio; later,

62 On the Storied Ohio

in steamboat days, the shallow water of the
upper river caused Wheeling to be in midsum-
mer the highest port attainable; and to this
day it holds its ground as the upper terminus
of several steamboat lines.

Below Wheeling are several miles of factory
towns nestled by the strand, and numerous
coal tipples, with their begrimed villages.
Fishermen have been frequent to-day, in
houseboats of high and low degree, and in
land camps composed of tents and board shan-
ties, with rows of seines and tarred pound-nets
stretched in the sun to dry; tow-headed chil-
dren abound, almost as nude as the pigs and
dogs and chickens amongst which they waddle
and roll; women-folk busy themselves with
the multifarious cares of home-keeping, while
their lords are in shady nooks mending nets,
or listlessly examining traut lines which ap-
pear to yield but empty hooks; they tell us
that when the river is falling, fish bite not, and
yet they serenely angle on, dreaming their
lives away.

A half mile above Big Grave Creek (101
miles), we, too, hurry into camp on a shelving
bank of sand, deep-fringed with willows; for
over the western hills thunder-clouds are rising,

A Threatened Storm 63

with wind gusts. Level fields stretch back of
us for a quarter of a mile, to the hills which
bound the bottom; at our front door majes-
tically rolls the growing river, perhaps a third
of a mile in width, black with the reflection of
the sky, and wrinkled now and then with
squalls which scurry over its bubbling surface.*
The storm does not break, but the bending
tree-tops crone, and toads innumerable rend
the air with their screaming whistles. We
had great ado, during the cooking of dinner,
to prevent them from hopping into our little
stove, as it gleamed brightly in the early dusk;
and have adopted special precautions to keep
them from the tent, as they jump about in the
tall grass, appeasing their insectivorous ap-
petites.

* It was in this neighborhood, a mile or two above our
camp, where the bottom is narrower, that Capt. William
Foreman and twenty other Virginia militiamen were killed
in an Indian ambuscade, Sept. 27, 1777. An inscribed stone
monument was erected on the spot in 1835, but we could not
find it.

CHAPTER VI.

The Big Grave — Washington, and Round
Bottom — A lazy man's Paradise — Cap-
tina Creek — George Rogers Clark at
Fish Creek — Southern types.

Near Fishing Creek, Friday, May nth.
— There had been rain during the night, with
fierce wind gusts, but during breakfast the
atmosphere quieted, and we had a genial,
semi-cloudy morning.

Off at 8 o'clock, Pilgrim's crew were soon
exploring Moundsville. There are five thou-
sand people in this old, faded, countrified
town. They show you with pride the State
Penitentiary of West Virginia, a solemn-look-
ing pile of dark gray stone, with the feeble
battlements and towers common to American
prison architecture. But the chief feature of
the place is the great Indian mound — the " Big
Grave" of early chroniclers. This earthwork
is one of the largest now remaining in the
United States, being sixty-eight feet high and

64

The Big Grave 65

a hundred in diameter at the base, and has for
over a century attracted the attention of trav-
elers and archaeologists.

We found it at the end of a straggling street,
on the edge of the town, a quarter of a mile
back from the river. Around the mound has
been left a narrow plat of ground, utilized as
a cornfield; and the stout picket fence which
encloses it bears peremptory notice that ad-
mission is forbidden. However, as the pro-
prietor was not easily accessible, we exercised
the privilege of historical pilgrims, and, letting
ourselves in through the gate, picked our way
through rows of corn, and ascended the great
cone. It is covered with a heavy growth of
white oaks, some of them three feet in diam-
eter, among which the path picturesquely
ascends. The summit is fifty-five feet in diam-
eter, and the center somewhat depressed, like
a basin. From the middle of this basin a
shaft some twenty-five feet in diameter has
been sunk by explorers, for a distance of per-
haps fifty feet; at one time, a level tunnel
connected the bottom of this shaft with the
side of the cone, but it has been mostly oblit-
erated. A score of years ago, tunnel and shaft
were utilized as the leading attractions of a
5

66 On the Storied Ohio

beer garden — to such base uses may a great
historical landmark descend!

Dickens, who apparently wrote the greater
part of his American Notes while suffering
from dyspepsia, has a note of appreciation for
the Big Grave: ". . . the host of Indians who
lie buried in a great mound yonder — so old that
mighty oaks and other forest trees have struck
their roots into its earth; and so high that it
is a hill, even among the hills that Nature
planted around it. The very river, as though
it shared one's feelings of compassion for the
extinct tribes who lived so pleasantly here, in
their blessed ignorance of white existence,
hundreds of years ago, steals out of its way to
ripple near this mound; and there are few
places where the Ohio sparkles more brightly
than in the Big Grave Creek. "

There is a sharp bend in the river, just
below Moundsville, with Dillon's Bottom
stretching long and wide at the apex on the
Ohio shore — flat green fields, dotted with little
white farmsteads, each set low in its apple
grove, and a convoluted wall of dark hills
hemming them in along the northern horizon.
Then below this comes Round Bottom, its
counterpart on the West Virginia side, and

Round Bottom 67

coursing through it a pretty meadow creek,
Butler's Run.

Writes Washington, in 1781, to a corre-
spondent who is thinking of renting lands in
this region: " I have a small tract called the
round bottom containing about 600 Acres,
which would also let. It lyes on the Ohio,
opposite to pipe Creek, and a little above Cap-
teening." Across the half mile of river are
the little levels and great slopes of the Ohio
hills, through which breaks this same Pipe
Creek; and hereabout Cresap's band murdered
a number of inoffensive Shawanese, a tragedy
which was one of the inciting causes of Lord
Dunmore's War (1774).

We crossed over into Ohio, and pulled up
on the gravelly spit at the mouth of Pipe.
While the others were botanizing high on the
mountain side, I went along a beach path
toward a group of whitewashed cabins, intent
on replenishing the canteen. Upon opening
the gate of one of them, two grizzly dogs came
bounding out, threatening to test the strength
of my corduroy trousers. The proprietor cau-
tiously peered from a window, and, much to
my relief, called off the animals. Satisfied,
apparently, that I was not the visitor he ex-

68 On the Storied Ohio

pected, the fellow lounged out and sat upon
the steps, where I joined him. He was a tall,
raw-boned, loose-jointed young man, with a
dirty, buttonless flannel shirt which revealed
a hairy breast; upon his trousers hung a variety
of patches, in many stages of grease and de-
crepitude; a gray slouch hat shaded his little
fishy eyes and hollow, yellow cheeks; and the
snaky ends of his yellow mustache were stiff
with accumulations of dried tobacco juice.
His fat, waddling wife, in a greasy black gown,
followed with bare feet, and, arms akimbo,
listened in the open door.

A coal company owns the rocky river front,
here and at many places below, and lets these
cabins to the poor-white element, so numerous
on the Ohio's banks. The renter is privileged
to cultivate whatever land he can clear on the
rocky, precipitous slopes, which is seldom
more than half an acre to the cabin; and he
may, if he can afford a cow, let her run wild
in the scrub. The coal vein, a few rods back
of the house, is only a few inches thick, and
poor in quality, but is freely resorted to by the
cotters. He worked whenever he could find
a job, my host said — in the coal mines and

A Lazy Man's Paradise 69

quarries, or on the bottom farms, or the rail-
road which skirts the bank at his feet.

1 'But I tell ye, sir, th' /talians and Hun-
garians is spoil'n' this yere country fur white
men; 'n' I do'n' see no prospect for hits be'n'
better till they get shoved out uv 't!" Yet he
said that life wasn't so hard here as it was in
some parts he had heard tell of — the climate
was mild, that he " 'lowed;" a fellow could go
out and get a free bucket of coal from the hill-
side "back yon;" he might get all the "light
wood 'n' patchin' stuff" he wanted, from the
river drift; could, when he "hankered after
'em," catch fish off his own front-door yard;
and pick up a dollar now and then at odd jobs,
when the rent was to be paid, or the "oF
woman " wanted a dress, or he a new coat.

This is clearly the lazy man's Paradise. I
do not remember to have heard that the South
Sea Islanders, in the ante-missionary days,
had an easier time of it than this. What new
fortune will befall my friend when he gets the
Italians and Hungarians "shoved out," and
"things pick up a bit," I cannot conceive.

A pleasing panorama he has from his door-
way— across the river, the fertile fields of
Round Bottom, once Washington's; Captina

jo On the Storied Ohio

Island, just below, long and thickly-willowed,
dreamily afloat in a glassy sea, reflecting every
change of light; the whole girt about with the
wide uplands of the winding valley, and over-
head the march of sunny clouds.

Captina Creek (108 miles) is not far down
on the Ohio bank, and beside it the little
hamlet of Powhattan Point, with the West
Virginia hills thereabout exceptionally high
and steep, and wooded to the very top. Wash-
ington, who knew the Ohio well, down to the
Great Kanawha, wrote of this creek in 1770:
" A pretty large creek on the west side, called
by Nicholson [his interpreter] Fox-Grape-Vine,
by others Captema creek, on which, eight miles
up, is the town called Grape-Vine Town."
Captina village is its white successor. But
there were also Indians at the mouth of the
creek; for when George Rogers Clark and his
missionary companion, Jones, two years later
camped opposite on," the Virginia shore, they
went over to make a morning call on the na-
tives, who repaid it in the evening, doubtless
each time receiving freely from the white men's
bounty.

The next day was Sunday, and the travelers
remained in camp, Jones recording in his jour-

Running the Gauntlet ji

nal that he " instructed what Indians came
over." In the course of his prayer, the mis-
sionary was particularly impressed by the atti-
tude of the chief of Grape-Vine Town, named
Frank Stephens, who professed to believe in
the Christian God; and he naively writes, "I
was informed that, all the time, the Indians
looked very seriously at me." Jones appears
to have been impressed also with the hardness
of the beach, where they camped in the open,
doubtless to avoid surprises: "Instead of
feathers, my bed was gravel-stones, by the
river side . . . which at first seemed not
to suit me, but afterward it became more
natural."

In those days, traveling was beset with diffi-
culties, both ashore and afloat. Eight years
later (spring of 1780), three flatboats were
descending the Ohio, laden with families in-
tending to settle in Kentucky, when they suf-
fered a common fate, being attacked by Indians
off Captina Creek. Several men and a child
were killed, and twenty-one persons were car-
ried into captivity — among them, Catherine
Malott, a girl in her teens, who subsequently
became the wife of that most notorious of bor-
der renegades, Simon Girty.

J2 On the Storied Ohio

On the West Virginia shore, not over a third
of a mile below Captina Creek, empties Grave
Yard Run, a modest rivulet. It would of itself
not be noticeable amid the crowd of minor
creeks and runs, coursing down to the great
river through rugged ravines which corrugate
the banks. But it has a history. Here, late
in October or early in November, 1772, young
George Rogers Clark made his first stake west
of the Alleghanies, rudely cultivating a few
acres of forest land on what is now called
Cresap's Bottom, surveying for the neighbors,
and in the evenings teaching their children in
the little log cabin of his friend, Yates Con-
well, at the mouth of Fish Creek, a few miles
below. Fish Creek was in itself famous as
one of the sections of the great Indian trail,
' 'The Warrior Branch," which, starting in
Tennessee, came northward through Kentucky
and Southern Ohio, and, proceeding by way
of this creek, crossed over to Dunkard Creek,
thence to the mouth of Redstone. Wash-
ington stopped at Conwell's in March or April,
1774; but Clark was away from home at the
time, and the " Father of his Country" never
met the man who has been dubbed the < ' Wash-
ington of the West." Lord Dunmore's War

Floating Opera 73

was hatching, and a few months later the Fish
Creek surveyor and schoolmaster had entered
upon his life work as an Indian fighter.

At Bearsville (126 miles) we first meet a
phenomenon common to the Ohio — the edges
of the alluvial bottom being higher than the
fields back of them, forming a natural levee,
above which curiously rise to our view the
spires and chimneys of the village. Harris'
Journal (1803) made early note of this, and
advanced an acceptable theory: "We fre-
quently remarked that the banks are higher at
the margin than at a little distance back. I
account for it in this manner: Large trees,
which are brought down the river by the inun-
dations, are lodged upon the borders of the
bank, but cannot be floated far upon the
champaign, because obstructed by the growth
of wood. Retaining their situation when the
waters subside, they obstruct and detain the
leaves and mud, which would else recoil into
the stream, and thus, in process of time, form
a bank higher than the interior flats."

Tied up to Bearsville landing is a gayly
painted barge, the home of Price's Floating
Opera Company, and in front its towing-
steamer, "Troubadour." A steam calliope is

74 On the Storied Ohio

part of the visible furniture of the establish-
ment, and its praises as a noise-maker are
sung in large type in the handbills which, with
numerous colored lithographs of the perform-
ers, adorn the shop windows in the neighboring
river towns.

Two miles farther down, on a high bank at
the mouth of Fishing Creek, lies New Martins-
ville, West Va. (127 miles), a rather shabby
town of fifteen hundred souls. As W — and
I passed up the main street, seeking for a
grocery, we noticed that the public hall was
being decorated for a dance to come off to-
night; and placards advertising the event were
everywhere rivaling the gaudy prints of the
floating opera.

Meanwhile, a talkative native was inter-
viewing the Doctor, down at the river side.
It required some good-natured fencing on the
part of our skipper to prevent the Virginian
from learning all about our respective families
away back to the third generation. He was
a short, chubby man, with a Dixie goatee, his
flannel shirt negligee, and a wide-brimmed
straw hat jauntily set on the back of his head.
He was sociable, and sat astride of our beached
prow, punctuating his remarks with squirts of

Indian Mounds 75

tobacco juice, and a bit of lath with which he
meditatively tapped the gunwale; the mean-
time, with some skill, casting pebbles into the
water with his bare toes. " Ax'n yer pardon,
mam!" he said, scrambling from his perch
upon W — 's appearance; and then, pushing us
off, he bowed with much Southern gallantry,
and hat in hand begged we would come again
to New Martinsville, and stay longer.

The hills lining these reaches are lower than
above, yet graceful in their sweeping lines.
Conical mounds sometimes surmount them,
relics of the prehistoric time when our Indians
held to the curious fashion of building earth-
works. We no longer entertain the notion
that a separate and a prouder race of wild
men than we know erected these tumuli.
That: pleasant fiction has departed from us;
but the works are none the less interesting,
now that more is known of their origin.

Two miles below New Martinsville, on the
West Virginia shore, we pitch camp, just as
the light begins to sink over the Ohio hills.
The atmosphere is sweet with the odor of
wild grape blossoms, and the willow also is in
bloom. Poison ivy, to whose baneful touch
fortunately none of us appear susceptible, grows

76 On the Storied Ohio

everywhere about. From the farmhouse on
the narrow bottom to our rear comes the me-
lodious tinkle-tinkle of cow bells. The oper-
atic calliope is in full blast, at Bearsville, its
shrieks and snorts coming down to us through
four miles of space, all too plainly borne by
the northern breeze; and now and then we
hear the squeak of the New Martinsville riddles.
There are no mosquitoes as yet, but burly May-
chafers come stupidly dashing against our tent,
and the toads are piping merrily.

CHAPTER VII.

In Dixie — Oil and natural gas, at Wit-
ten's Bottom — The Long Reach — Pho-
tographing crackers — Visitors in camp.

Above Marietta, Saturday, May 12th. —
Since the middle of yesterday afternoon we
have been in Dixie, — that is, when we are on
the West Virginia shore. The famous Mason
and Dixon Line (lat. 390 43' 26") touches the
Ohio at the mouth of Proctor's Run (121^
miles).

There was a heavy fog this morning, on
land and river. But through shifting rifts
made by the morning breeze, we had kaleido-
scopic, cloud-framed pictures of the dark, jut-
ting headlands which hem us in; of little white
cabins clustered by the country road which on
either bank crawls along narrow terraces be-
tween overtopping steeps and sprawling beach,
or winds through fertile bottoms, according to
whether the river approaches or recedes from
its inclosing bluffs; of hillside fields, tipped at
77

yS On the Storied Ohio

various angles of ascent, sometimes green with
springing grain, but oftenest gray or brown or
yellow, freshly planted, — charming patches of
color, in this somber-hued world of sloping
woodland.

At Williamson's Island (134 miles) the fog
lifted. The air was heavy with the odor of
petroleum. All about us were the ugly, tow-
ering derricks of oil and natural gas wells —
Witten's Bottom on the right, with its abutting
hills; the West Virginia woods across the river,
and the maple-strewn island between, all cov-
ered with scaffolds. The country looks like a
rumpled fox-and-geese board, with pegs stuck
all over it. A mile and a half below lies Sis-
tersville, W. Va. , the emporium of this greasy
neighborhood — great red oil-tanks and smoky
refineries its chief est glory; crude and raw, like
the product it handles. We landed at Wit-
ten's Bottom, — W — , the Boy, and I, — while
the Doctor, philosophically preferring to take
the oily elephant for granted, piloted Pilgrim
to the rendezvous a mile below.

Oil was "struck" here two or three years
ago, and now within a distance of a few miles
there are hundreds of wells — "two hun'rd in
this yere gravel alone, sir!" I was told by a

Among the Oil Wells 79

red-headed man in a red shirt, who lived with
his numerous family in a twelve-feet-square
box at the rear of a pumping engine. An en-
gine serves several wells, — the tumbling-rods,
rudely boxed in, stretching off through the
fields and over the hills to wherever needed.
The operatives dwell in little shanties scattered
conveniently about; in front of each is a ver-
tical half-inch pipe, six or eight feet high,
bearing a half bushel of natural-gas flame
which burns and tosses night and day, winter
and summer, making the Bottom a warm cor-
ner of the earth, when the unassisted temper-
ature is in the eighties. It is a bewildering
scene, with all these derricks thickly scattered
around, engines noisily purring, walking-beams
forever rearing and plunging, the country cob-
webbed with tumbling-rods and pipe lines, the
shanties of the operatives with their rude lamp-
posts, and the face of Nature so besmeared
with the crude output of the wells that every
twig and leaf is thick with grease.

Just above Witten's commences the Long
Reach of the Ohio — a charming panorama, for
sixteen and a half miles in a nearly straight
line to the southwest. Little towns line the
alternating bottoms, and farmsteads are nu-

80 On the Storied Ohio

merous on the slopes. But they are rocky
and narrow, these gentle shoulders of the hills,
and a poor class of folk occupy them — half
fishers, half farmers, a cross between my
Round Bottom friend and the houseboat no-
mads.

A picturesquely-dilapidated log house, with
whitewashed porch in front, and a vine arbor
at the rear, attracted our attention at the foot
of the reach, near Grape Island. I clambered
up, to photograph it. The ice was broken by
asking for a drink of water. A gaunt girl of
eighteen, the elder of two, with bare feet, her
snaky hair streaming unkempt about a smirk-
ing face, went with a broken-nosed pitcher to
a run, which could be heard splashing over its
rocky bed near by. The meanwhile, I took a
seat in the customary arcade between the
living room and kitchen, and talked with her
fat, greasy, red-nosed father, who confided to
me that he was "a pi'neer from way back."
He occupied his own land — a rare circum-
stance among these riverside "crackers;" had
a hundred and thirty acres, worth twenty dol-
lars the acre; "jist yon ways," back of the
house, in the cliff-side, there was a coal vein
two feet thick, as yet only "worked" for his

Photographing Crackers 81

own fuel; and lately, he had struck a bank of
firebrick clay which might some day be a
"good thing for th' gals."

On leaving, I casually mentioned my desire
to photograph the family on the porch, where
the light was good. While I walked around
the house outside, they passed through the
front room, which seemed to be the common
dormitory as well as parlor. To my surprise
and chagrin, the girls and their dowdy mother
had, in those brief moments of transition, con-
trived to arrange their hair and dress to a de-
gree which took from them all those picturesque
qualities with which they had been invested at
the time of my arrival. The father was being
reproved, as he emerged upon the porch, for
not "slick'n' his ha'r, and wash'n' and fix'n'
up, afore hav'n' his pictur' taken;" but the old
fellow was obdurate, and joined me in remon-
strance against this transformation to the com^
monplace, on the part of his women-folk.
However, there was no profit in arguing with
them, and I took my snap-shot with a con-
viction that the film was being wasted.

We were in several small towns to-day, in
pursuance of the policy of distributing our
shopping, so as to see as much of the shore
6

82 On the Storied Ohio

life as practicable. Chief among them have
been New Matamoras (141 miles) and St.
Mary's (154 miles), in West Virginia, and
Newport, in Ohio (155 miles). Rather dingy
villages, these — each, after their kind, with a
stone wharf thick-grown with weeds; a flour-
ing mill at the head of the landing; a few
cheap-looking, battlemented stores; boys and
men lounging about with that air of comfort-
able idling which impresses one as the main
characteristic of rustic hamlets, where nobody
seems ever to have anything to do; a ferry
running to the opposite shore — for cattle and
wagons, a heavy flat, with railings, made to
drift with the current; and for foot passengers,
a lumbering skiff, with oars chucking noisily
in their roomy locks.

Every now and then we run across bunches
of oil and gas wells; and great signs, like those
advertising boards which greet railway trav-
elers approaching our large cities, are here and
there perched upon the banks, notifying steam-
boat pilots, in letters a foot high, that a pipe
line here crosses the river, the vicinity being
consequently unsafe for mooring.

Our camp, to-night, is on a bit of grassy
ledge at the summit of a rocky bank, ten miles

A Camp Bore 83

above Marietta, on the Ohio side. A rod or
so back of us is the country road, which winds
along at the foot of a precipitous steep. It is
narrow quarters here, and too near the high-
way for comfort, but nothing better seemed to
offer at the time we needed it; and the outlook
is pleasant, through the fringing oaks and elms,
across the broad river into West Virginia.

We had not yet pitched tent, and all hands
were still clambering over the rocks with Pil-
grim's cargo, rather glad that there was no
more of it, when our first camp- bore ap-
peared— a middling-sized man, florid as to
complexion, with a mustache and goatee, and
in a suit of seedy black, surmounted by a
crushed-in Derby hat; and, after the fashion
of the country, giving evidence, on his collar-
less white shirt, of a free use of chewing to-
bacco. I have seldom met a fellow with better
staying qualities. He was a strawberry grower,
he said, and having been into Newport, a half
dozen miles up river, was walking to his home,
which was a mile or two off in the hills. Would
we object if, for a few moments, he tarried
here by the roadside? and perhaps we could
accommodate him with a drink of water? Pa-
tiently did he watch the preparation of dinner,

84 On the Storied Ohio

and spice each dish with commendations of
W — 's skill at making the most of her few
utensils.

Right glibly he chattered on; now about the
decadence of womankind; now about straw-
berry-growing upon these Ohio hills — with the
crop just coming on, and berries selling at a
shilling to-day, in Marietta, when they ought
to be worth twenty cents; now on politics, and
of course he was a Populist; now on the hard
times, and did we believe in free silver? He
would take no bite with us, but sat and talked
and talked, despite plain hints, growing plainer
with the progress of time, that his family needed
him at nightfall. Dinner was eaten, and dishes
washed; the others left on a botanical round-
up, and I produced my writing materials, with
remarks upon the lateness of the hour. At
last our guest arose, shook the grass from his
clothes, with a shake of hands bade me good-
night, wishing me to convey his " good-bye"
to the rest of our party, and as politely as pos-
sible expressed the great pleasure which the
visit had given him.

Some farmer boys came down the hillside
to fish at the bank, and talked pleasantly of
their work and of the ever-changing phases of

A Street Fakir 85

the river. Other farmers passed our roadside
door, in wagons, on buckboards, by horseback,
and on foot; in neighborly tone, but with ill-
disguised curiosity in their eyes, wishing me
good evening. When the long twilight was
almost gone, and the moon an hour high over
the purple dusk of the West Virginia hills, the
botanists returned, aglow with their exercise,
and rich with trophies of blue and dwarf lark-
spur, pink and white stone-crop, trailing ar-
butus, and great laurel.

And then, as we were preparing to retire, a
sleek and dapper fellow, though with clothes
rather the worse for wear, came trudging along
the road toward Marietta. Seeing our camp,
he asked for a drink. Being apparently dis-
posed to tarry, the Doctor, to get him started,
offered to walk a piece with him. Our com-
rade staid out so long, that at last I went down
the road in search of him, and found the pair
sitting on a moonlit bank, as cozily as if they
had been always friends. The stranger had
revealed to the Doctor that he was a street
fakir, "by perfesh," and had "struck it rich"
in Chicago during the World's Fair, but some-
how had lost the greater part of his gains, and
was now associated with his brother, who had

86 On the Storied Ohio

a junk-boat; the brother was "well heeled,"
and staid and kept store at the boat, while
the fakir, as the walking partner, "rustled
'round 'mong th' grangers, to stir up trade. "
The Doctor had, in their talk, let slip some-
thing about certain Florida experiences, and
when I arrived on the scene was being skillfully
questioned by his companion as to the proba-
bilities of "a feller o' my perfesh ketch'n' on,
down thar?" The result of this pumping pro-
cess must have been satisfactory; for when we
parted with him, the fakir declared he was
"go'n' try 't on thar, next winter, 'f I bust me
bottom dollar!"

/J CHARACTERISTIC view, in the upper reaches.
^■*- The shafts of oil wells are see?i thickly strewing the
left bank. Railways follow each shore, but only the one on
the right is here shown.

CHAPTER VIII.

Life ashore and afloat — Marietta, "the
Plymouth Rcck of the West" — The
Little Kanawha — The story of Blen-
nerhassett's Island.

Blennerhassett's Island, Sunday, May
13th. — The day broke without fog, at our
camp on the rocky steep above Marietta. The
eastern sky was veiled with summer clouds, all
gayly flushed by the rising sun, and in the
serene silence of the morning there hung the
scent of dew, and earth, and trees. In the
east, the distant edges of the West Virginia
hills were aglow with the mounting light before
it had yet peeped over into the river trough,
where a silvery haze lent peculiar charm to
flood and bank Up river, one of the Three
Brothers isles, dark and heavily forested,
seemed in the middle ground to float on air.
A bewitching picture this, until at last the sun
sprang clear and strong above the fringing
hills, and the spell was broken.
87

88 On the Storied Ohio

The steamboat traffic is improving as we
get lower down. Last evening, between land-
ing and bedtime, a half dozen passed us, up
and down, breathing heavily as dragons might,
and leaving behind them foamy wakes which
loudly broke upon the shore. Before morn-
ing, I was at intervals awakened by as many
more. A striking spectacle, the passage of a
big river steamer in the night; you hear, fast
approaching, a labored pant; suddenly, around
the bend, or emerging from behind an island,
the long white monster glides into view,
lanterns gleaming on two lines of deck, her
electric searchlight uneasily flitting to and
fro, first on one landmark, then on another,
her engine bell sharply clanging, the measured
pant developing into a burly, all-pervading
roar, which gradually declines into a pant
again — and then she disappears as she came,
her swelling wake rudely ruffling the moonlit
stream.

We caught up with a large lumber raft this
morning, descending from Pittsburg to Cin-
cinnati. The half-dozen men in charge were
housed midway in a rude little shanty, and
relieved each other at the sweeps — two at
bow, and two astern. It is an easy, lounging

Transplanted Yankees 89

life, most of the way, with some difficulties in
the shallows, and in passing beneath the great
bridges. They travel night and day, except
in the not infrequent wind-storms blowing up
stream; and it will take them another week to
cover the three hundred miles between this
and their destination. Far different fellows,
these commonplace raftsmen of to-day, from
the "lumber boys" of a half-century or more
ago, when the river towns were regularly
"painted red" by the men who followed the
Ohio by raft or flatboat. Life along shore
was then more picturesque than comfortable.

Later, we stopped on the Ohio shore to chat
with a group of farmers having a Sunday talk,
their seat a drift log, in the shade of a willowed
bank. They proved to be market gardeners
and fruit-growers — well-to-do men of their
class, and intelligent in conversation; all of
them descendants of the sturdy New Engend-
ers who settled these parts.

While the others were discussing small Traits
with these transplanted Yankees, who proved
quite as full of curiosity about us as we con-
cerning them, I went down shore a hundred
yards, struggling through the dense fringe of
willows, to photograph a junk-boat just putting

90 On the Storied Ohio

off into the stream. The two rough-bearded,
merry-eyed fellows at the sweeps were setting
their craft broadside to the stream — that "the
current might have more holt of her," the chief
explained. They were interested in the kodak,
and readily posed as I wished, but wanted to
see what had been taken, having the common
notion that it is like a tintype camera, with
results at once attainable. They offered our
party a ride for the rest of the day, if we
would row alongside and come aboard, but I
thanked them, saying their craft was too slow
for our needs; at which they laughed heartily,
and "lowed" we might be traders, too, anx-
ious to get in ahead of them — "but there's
plenty o' room o' th' river, for yew an' we,
stranger! Well, good luck to yees! We'll see
yer down below, somewhar, I reckon!"

Just before lunch, we were at Marietta, at
the mouth of the Muskingum (171 miles), a
fine stream, here two hundred and fifty yards
wide. A storied river, this Muskingum. We
first definitely hear of it in 1748, the year the
original Ohio Company was formed. Celoron
was here the year following, with his little
band of French soldiers and Indians, vainly
endeavoring to turn English traders out of the

Planting of Marietta 91

Ohio Valley. Christopher Gist came, some
months later; then the trader Croghan, for
" Old Wyandot Town," the Indian village on
this river, was a noted centre in Western forest
traffic. Moravian missionaries appeared in due
time, establishing on the banks of the Mus-
kingum the ill-fated convert villages of Schon-
brunn, Gnadenhutten, and Salem. In 1785,
Fort Harmar was reared on the site of Wyan-
dot Town. Lastly, in the early spring of 1788,
came, in Ohio river flatboats, that famous body
of New England veterans of the Revolution,
under Gen. Rufus Putnam, and planted Mari-
etta— " the Plymouth Rock of the West."

We smile at these Ohio pilgrims, for digni-
fying the hills which girt in the Marietta bot-
tom, with the names of the seven on which
Rome is said to be built — for having a Campus
Martius and a Sacra Via, and all that, out
here among the sycamore stumps and the wild
Indians. But a classical revival was just then
vigorously affecting American thought, and it
would have been strange if these sturdy New
Englanders had not felt its influence, fresh
as they were from out the shadows of Harvard
and Yale, and in the awesome presence of
crowds of huge monumental earthworks, whose

92 On the Storied Ohio

age, in their day, was believed to far outdate
the foundations of the Eternal City itself.
They loved learning for learning's sake; and
here, in the log-cabins of Marietta, eight hun-
dred miles west of their beloved Boston, among
many another good thing they did for poster-
ity, they established the principle of public
education at public cost, as a national prin-
ciple.

They were soldier colonists. Washington,
out of a full heart, for he dearly loved the
West, said of them: "No colony in America
was ever settled under such favorable auspices
as that which has just commenced at the Mus-
kingum. Information, property, and strength
will be its characteristics. I know many of
the settlers personally, and there never were
men better calculated to promote the welfare
of such a community." And when, in 1825,
La Fayette had read to him the list of Marietta
pioneers, — nearly fifty military officers among
them, — he cried: "I know them all! I saw
them at Brandywine, Yorktown, and Rhode
Island. . They were the bravest of the brave!"

Yet, for a long time, Marietta met with
small measure of success. Miasma, Indian
ravages, and the conservative temperament of

A New England Town 93

the people combined to render slow the
growth of this Western Plymouth. There
were, for a time, extensive ship-building yards
here; but that industry gradually declined,
with the growth of railway systems. In our
day, Marietta, with its ten thousand inhab-
itants, prospers chiefly as a market town and
an educational center, with some manufactur-
ing interests. We were struck to-day, as we
tarried there for an hour or two, with the re-
markable resemblance it has in public and
private architecture, and in general tone, to a
typical New England town — say, for example,
Burlington, Vt. Omitting its river front, and
its Mound Cemetery, Marietta might be set
bodily down almost anywhere in Massachu-
setts, or Vermont, or Connecticut, and the
chance traveler would see little in the place
to remind him of the West. I know of no
other town out of New England of which the
same might be said.

Below Marietta, the river bottoms are, for
miles together, edged with broad stretches of
sloping beach, either deep with sand or natu-
rally paved with pebbles — sometimes treeless,
but often strewn with clumps of willow and
maple and scrub sycamore. The hills, now

94 On the Storied Ohio

rounder, less ambitious, and more widely sep-
arated, are checkered with fields and forests,
and the bottom lands are of more generous
breadth. Pleasant islands stud the peaceful
stream. The sylvan foliage has by this time
attained very nearly its fullest size. The horse
chestnut, the pawpaw, the grape, and the
willow are in bloom. A gentle pastoral scene
is this through which we glide.

It is evident that it would be a scalding day
but for the gentle breeze astern; setting sail,
we gladly drop our oars, and, with the water
rippling at our prow, sweep blithely down the
long southern reach to Parkersburg, W. Va. ,
at the mouth of the Little Kanawha (183 miles).
In the full glare of the scorching sun, Parkers-
burg looks harsh and dry. But it is well built,
and, as seen from the river, apparently pros-
perous. The Ohio is here crossed by the once
famous million-dollar bridge of the Baltimore
& Ohio railway. The wharf is at the junction
of the two streams, but chiefly on the shore of
the unattractive Little Kanawha, which is
spanned by several bridges, and abounds in
steamers and houseboats moored to the land.
Clark and Jones did not think well of Little
Kanawha lands, yet there were several families

Blennerhassett's Island 95

on the river as early as 1763, and Trent,
Croghan, and other Fort Pitt fur-traders had
posts here. There were only half-a-dozen
houses in 1 800, and Parkersburg itself was not
laid out until ten years later.

Blennerhassett's Island lies two miles be-
low— a broad, dark mass of forest, at the head
joined by a dam to the West Virginia shore,
from which it is separated by a slender chan-
nel. Blennerhassett's is some three and a half
miles long; of its five hundred acres, four hun-
dred are under cultivation in three separate
tenant farms. We landed at the upper end,
where Blennerhassett had his wharf, facing the
Ohio shore, and found that we were tres-
passing upon "The Blennerhassett Pleasure
Grounds. " A seedy-looking man, who repre-
sented himself to be the proprietor, promptly
accosted us and levied a "landing fee" of ten
cents per head, which included the right to
remain over night. A little questioning de-
veloped the fact that thirty acres at the head
of the island belong to this man, who rents
the ground to a market gardener, — together
with the comfortable farmhouse which occu-
pies the site of Blennerhassett's mansion, — but
reserves to himself the privilege of levying toll

96 On the Storied Ohio

on visitors. He declared to me that fifteen
thousand people came to the island each sum-
mer, generally in large railway and steamboat
excursions, which gives him an easily-acquired
income sufficient for his needs. It is a pity
that so famous a place is not a public park.

The touching story of the Blennerhassetts
is one of the best known in Western annals.
Rich in culture and worldly possessions, but
wildly impracticable, Harman Blennerhassett
and his beautiful wife came to America in
1798. Buying this lovely island in the Ohio,
six hundred miles west of tidewater, they built
a large mansion, which they furnished lux-
uriously, adorning it with fine pictures and
statuary. Here, in the midst of beautiful
grounds, while Blennerhassett studied astron-
omy, chemistry, and galvanism, his brilliant
spouse dispensed rare hospitality to their many
distinguished guests; for, in those days, it was
part of a rich young man's education to take a
journey down the Ohio, into "the Western
parts, " and on returning home to write a book
about it.

But there came a serpent to this Eden.
Aaron Burr was among their visitors (1805),
while upon his journey to New Orleans, where

Burr's Treason 97

he hoped to set on foot a scheme to seize
either Texas or Mexico, and set up a republic
with himself at the head. He interested the
susceptible Blennerhassetts in his plans, the
import of which they probably little under-
stood; but the fantastic Englishman had suf-
fered a considerable reduction of fortune, and
was anxious to recoup, and Burr's representa-
tions were aglow with the promise of such
rewards in the golden southwest as Cortes and
Coronado sought. Blennerhassett's purse was
opened to the enterprise of Burr; large sums
were spent in boats and munitions, which were,
tradition says, for a time hid in the bayou
which, close by our camp, runs deep into the
island forest. It has been filled in by the
present proprietor, but its bold shore lines, all
hung with giant sycamores, are still in evi-
dence.

President Jefferson's proclamation (October,
1806) shattered the plot, and Blennerhassett
fled to join Burr at the mouth of the Cumber-
land. Both were finally arrested (1807), and
tried for treason, but acquitted on technical
grounds. In the meantime, people from the
neighboring country sacked Blennerhassett's
house; then came creditors, and with great
7

98 On the Storied Ohio

waste seized his property; the beautiful place
was still further pillaged by lawless ruffians,
and turned into ignoble uses; later, the man-
sion itself was burned through the carelessness
of negroes — and now, all they can show us are
the old well and the noble trees which once
graced the lawn. As for the Blennerhassetts
themselves, they wandered far and wide, every-
where the victims of misfortune. He died on
the Island of Guernsey (1831), a disappointed
office-seeker; she, returning to America to seek
redress from Congress for the spoliation of her
home, passed away in New York, before the
claim was allowed, and was buried by the Sis-
ters of Charity.

CHAPTER IX.

Poor whites — First library in the West —
An hour at Hockingport — A hermit

FISHER.

Long Bottom, Monday, May 14th. — Push-
ing up stream for two miles this morning, the
commissary department replenished the day's
stores at Parkersburg. Forepaugh's circus
was in town, and crowds of rustics were com-
ing in by wagon road, railway trains, and
steamers and ferries on both rivers. The
streets of the quaint, dingy Southern town
were teeming with humanity, mainly negroes
and poor whites. Among the latter, flat,
pallid faces, either flabby or too lean, were
under the swarms of blue, white, and yellow
sunbonnets — sad faces, with lack-luster eyes,
coarse hair of undecided hue, and coarser
speech. These Audreys of Dixie-land are the
product of centuries of ill-treatment on our
soil; indented white servants to the early coast
colonists were in the main their ancestors;
99

L.ofC.

ioo On the Storied Ohio

with slave competition, the white laborer in the
South lost caste until even the negro despised
him; and ill-nurture has done the rest. Then,
too, in these bottoms, malaria has wrought its
work, especially among the underfed; you see
it in the yellow skin and nerveless tone of
these lanky rustics, who are in town to enjoy
the one bright holiday of their weary year.

Across the river, in Ohio, is Belpre (short
for Belle Prairie, and now locally pronounced
Bel'pry), settled by Revolutionary soldiers, on
the Marietta grant, in 1789-90. I always
think well of Belpre, because here was estab-
lished the first circulating library in the
Northwest. Old Israel Putnam, he of the
wolf-den and Bunker Hill, amassed many
books. His son Israel, on moving to Belpre
in 1796, carried a considerable part of the
collection with him — no small undertaking
this, at a time when goods had to be carted
all the way from Connecticut, over rivers and
mountains to the Ohio, and then floated
down river by flatboat, with a high tariff for
every pound of freight. Young Israel was
public-spirited, and, having been at so great
cost and trouble to get this library out to the
wilderness, desired his fellow-colonists to en-

A Pioneer Library 101

joy it with him. It would have been unfair
not to distribute the expense, so a stock com-
pany was formed, and shares were sold at ten
dollars each. Of the blessings wrought in
this rude frontier community by the books
which the elder Israel had collected for his
Connecticut fireside, there can be no m®re
eloquent testimony than that borne by an old
settler, who, in 1802, writes to an Eastern
friend: "In order to make the long winter
evenings pass more smoothly, by great exer-
tion I purchased a share in the Belpre library,
six miles distant. Many a night have I passed
(using pine knots instead of candles) reading
to my wife while she sat hatcheling, carding
or spinning." The association was dissolved
in 181 5 or 1 8 16, and the books distributed
among the shareholders; many of these vol-
umes are still extant in this vicinity, and sev-
eral are in the college museum at Marietta.

There are few descendants hereabout of the
original New England settlers, and they live
miles apart on the Ohio shore. We went up
to visit one, living opposite Blennerhassett's
Island. Notice of our coming had preceded
us, and we were warmly welcomed at a sub-
stantial farmhouse in the outskirts of Belpre,

102" On the Storied Ohio

with every evidence about of abundant pros-
perity. The maternal great-grandfather of
our host for an hour was Rufus Putnam, an
ancestor to be proud of. Five acres of goose-
berries are grown on the place, and other
small-fruits in proportion — all for the Par-
kersburg market, whence much is shipped
north to Cleveland. Our host confessed to a
little malaria, even on this upper terrace — or
4 'second bottom," as they style it — but ''the
land is good, though with many stones — nat-
ural conditions, you know, for New Eng-
landers. " It was pleasant for a New England
man, not long removed from his native soil,
to find these people, who are a century away
from home, still claiming kinship.

At the Big Hockhocking River (197 miles),
on a high, semicircular bottom, is Hocking-
port, a hamlet with a population of three
hundred. Here, on a still higher bench, a
quarter of a mile back from the river, Lord
Dunmore built Fort Gower, one of a chain of
posts along his march against the Northwest
Indians (1774). It was from here that he
marched to the Pickaway Plains, on the Scioto
(near Circleville, O.), and concluded that
treaty of peace to which Chief Logan refused

Peaceful Hockingport 103

his consent. There are some remains yet left
of this palisaded earthwork of a century and
a quarter ago, but the greater part has been
obliterated by plowing, and a dwelling occu-
pies a portion of the site.

It had been very warm, and we had needed
an awning as far down as Hockingport, where
we cooled off by lying on the grass in the
shade of the village blacksmith's shop, which
is, as well, the ferry-house, with the bell hung
between two tall posts at the top of the bank,
its rope dangling down for public use. The
smith-ferryman came out with his wife — a
burly, good-natured couple — and joined us in
our lounging, for it is not every day that
river travelers put in at this dreamy, far-
away port. The wife had camped with her
husband, when he was boss of a railway con-
struction gang, and both of them frankly en-
vied us our trip. So did a neighboring store-
keeper, a tall, lean, grave young man, clean-
shaven, coatless and vestless, with a blue-
glass stud on his collarless white shirt. Ap-
parently there was no danger of customers
walking away with his goods, for he left his
store-door open to all comers, not once glanc-
ing thitherward, in the half-hour he sat with

104 On the Storied Ohio

us on a stick of timber, in which he pensively
carved his name.

Life goes easily in Hockingport. Years
ago there was some business up the Big
Hocking (short for Big Hockhocking), a stream
of a half-dozen rods' width, but now no steamer
ventures up — the railroads do it all; as for the
Ohio — well, the steamers now and then put
off a box or bale for the four shop-keepers,
and once in a while a passenger patronizes
the landing. There is still a little country
traffic, and formerly a sawmill was in opera-
tion here; you see its ruins down there below.
Hockingport is a type of several rustic ham-
lets we have seen to-day; they are often in
pairs, one either side of the river, for compan-
ionship's sake.

We are idling, despite the knowledge that on
turning every big bend we are getting farther
and farther south, and mid-June on the Lower
Ohio is apt to be sub-tropical. But the sink-
ing sun gives us a shadowy right bank, and
that is most welcome. The current is only
spasmodically good. Every night the river
falls from three to six inches, and there are
long stretches of slack-water. The steamers
pick their way carefully; we do not give them

Taking a Wake 105

as wide a berth as formerly, for the wakes
they turn are no longer savage — but wakes,
even when sent out by stern-wheelers at full
speed, now give us little trouble; it did not
take long to learn the knack of "taking"
them. Whether you meet them at right an-
gles, or in the trough, there is the same deli-
cious sensation of rising and falling on the
long swells — there is no danger, so long as
you are outside the line of foaming breakers;
within those, you may ship water, which is
not desirable when there is a cargo. But the
boys at the towns sometimes put out in their
rude punts into the very vortex of disturb-
ance, being dashed about in the white roar
at the base of the ponderous paddle wheels,
like a Fiji Islander in his surf-boat. We heard,
the other day, of a boatload of daring young-
sters being caught by the wheel, their craft
smashed into kindling-wood, and they them-
selves all drowned but one.

The hills, to-day, sometimes break sharply
off, leaving an eroded, often vine-festooned pal-
isade some fifty feet in height, at the base of
which is a long, tree-clad slope of debris;
then, a narrow, level terrace from fifty to a
hundred yards in width, which drops suddenly

106 On the Storied Ohio

to a rocky beach; this in turn is often lined
along the water's edge with irregularly-shaped
boulders, from the size of Pilgrim to fifteen
or twenty feet in height, and worn smooth
with the grinding action of the river. The
effect is highly picturesque. We shall have
much of this below.

At the foot of one of these palisades lay a
shanty-boat, with nets sprawled over the roof
to dry, and a live-box anchored hard by.
1 'Hello, the boat!" brought to the window
the head of the lone fisherman, who dreamily
peered at us as we announced our wish to be-
come his customers. A sort of poor-white
Neptune, this tall, lean, lantern-jawed old
fellow, with great round, iron-rimmed spec-
tacles over his fishy eyes, his hair and beard
in long, snaky locks, and clothing in dirty tat-
ters. As he put out in his skiff to reach the
live-box, he continuously spewed tobacco juice
about him, and in an undertone growled gar-
rulously, as though used to soliloquize in his
hermitage, where he lay at outs with the
world. He had been in this spot for two
years, he said, and sold fish to the daily Par-
kersburg steamer — when there were any fish.
But, for six months past, he " hadn't made

A Hermit Fisherman 107

enough to keep him in grub," and had now
and then to go up to the city and earn some-
thing. For forty years had he followed the
apostles' calling on ' ' this yere Ohio, " and the
fishing was never so poor as now — yes, sir!
hard times had struck his business, just like
other folks'. He thought the oil wells were
tainting the water, and the fish wouldn't
breed — and the iron slag, too, was spoiling
the river, and he knew it. He finally pro-
duced for us, out of his box, a three-pound
fish, — white perch, calico bass, and catfish
formed his stock in trade, — but, before hand-
ing it over, demanded the requisite fifteen
cents. Evidently he had had dealings with a
dishonest world, this hermit fisher, and had
learned a thing or two.

Perfect camping places are not to be found
every day. There are so many things to
think of — a good landing place; good height
above the water level, in case of a sudden
rise; a dry, shady, level spot for the tent;
plenty of wood, and, if possible, a spring; and
not too close proximity to a house. Occa-
sionally we meet with what we want, when
we want it; but quite as often, ideal camping
places, perhaps abundant half the day, are not

108 On the Storied Ohio

to be found at five o'clock, our usual hour for
homeseeking. The Doctor is our agent for
this task, for, being bow oar, he can clamber
out most easily. This evening, he ranged both
shores for a considerable distance, with ill
success, so that we are settled on a narrow
Ohio sand-beach, in the midst of a sparse
willow copse, only two feet above the river.
Dinner was had at the very water's edge.
After a time, a wind-storm arose and flapped
the tent right vigorously, causing us to pin
down tightly and weight the sod-cloth; while,
amid distant thundering, every preparation
was made for a speedy embarkation in the
event of flood. The bellow of the frogs all
about us, the scream of toads, and the heavy
swash of passing steamers dangerously near
our door, will be a sufficient lullaby to-night.

CHAPTER X.

Cliff-dwellers on Long Bottom — Pom-
eroy Bend — Letart's Island and Rap-
ids— Game in the early day — Rainy
weather — in a " cracker " home.

Letart's Island, Tuesday, May 15th. —
After we had gone to bed last night, — we in
the tent, the Doctor and Pilgrim under the fly,
which serves as a porch roof, — the heavenly
floodgates lifted; the rain, coming in sheets,
beat a fierce tattoo on the tightly-stretched
canvas, and visions of a sudden rise in the
fickle river were uppermost in our dreams.
Everything about us was sopping at daybreak;
but the sun rose clear and warm from a bed
of eastern clouds, and the midnight gale had
softened to a gentle breeze.

Palisades were frequent to-day. We stopped
just below camp, at an especially picturesque
Ohio hamlet, — Long Bottom (207 miles), —
where the dozen or so cottages are built close
against the bald rock. Clambering over great
water-worn boulders, at the river's brink, the
109

no On the Storied Ohio

Doctor and I made our way up through a
dense tangle of willows and poison ivy and
grape-vines, emerging upon the country road
which passes at the foot of this row of modern
cliff-dwellings. For the most part, little gar-
dens, with neat palings, run down from the
cottages to the road. One sprawling log house,
fairly embowered in vines, and overtopped by
the palisade rising sheer for thirty feet above
its back door, looked in this setting for all the
world like an Alpine chalet, lacking only stones
on the roof to complete the picture. I took a
kodak shot at this, also at a group of tousle-
headed children in the door of a decrepit shanty
built entirely within a crevice of the rock —
their Hibernian mother, with one hand holding
an apron over her head, and the other shield-
ing her eyes, shrilly crying to a neighboring
cliff-dweller: "Miss McCarthy! Miss Mc-
Carthy! There's a feller here, a photergraph'n'
all the people in the Bottom! Come, quick!"
Then they eagerly pressed around me, Ger-
mans and Irish, big and little, women and
children mostly, asking for a view of the
picture, which I gave all in turn by letting
them peep into the ground-glass "finder" — a
pretty picture, they said it was, with the colors

The Pomeroy Bend 1 1 1

all in, and "wonderfully like," though a wee
bit small.

Speaking of color, we are daily struck with
the brilliant hues in the workaday dresses of
women and children seen along the river. Red
calico predominates, but blues and yellows,
and even greens, are seen, brightly splashing
the somber landscape.

After Long Bottom, we enter upon the
south-sweeping Pomeroy Bend of the Ohio,
commencing at Murraysville (208 miles) and
ending at Pomeroy (247 miles). It is of itself
a series of smaller bends, and, as we twist
about upon our course, the wind strikes us
successively on all quarters; sometimes giving
the Doctor a chance to try his sail, which he
raises on the slightest provocation, — but at
all times agreeably ruffling the surface that
would otherwise reflect the glowing sun like a
mirror.

The sloping margins of the rich bottoms are
now often cultivated almost to the very edge
of the stream, with a line of willow trees left
as a protecting fringe. Farmers doing this
take a gambling risk of a summer rise. Where
the margins have been left untouched by the
plow, there is a dense mass of vegetation—

H2 On the Storied Ohio

sycamores, big of girth and towering to a hun-
dred feet or more, abound on every hand; the
willows are phenomenally-rapid growers; and
in all available space is the rank, thick-stand-
ing growth of an annual locally styled "horse-
weed," which rears a cane-like stalk full
eighteen or twenty feet high — it has now at-
tained but four or five feet, but the dry stalks
of last year's growth are everywhere about,
showing what a formidable barrier to landing
these giant weeds must be in midsummer.

We chose for a camping place Letart's
Island (232 miles), on the West Virginia side,
not far below Milwood. From the head, where
our tent is pitched on a sandy knoll thick-
grown to willows, a long gravel spit runs far
over toward the Ohio shore. The West Vir-
ginia channel is narrow, slow and shallow;
that between us and Ohio has been lessened
by the island to half its usual width, and the
current sweeps by at a six-mile gait, in which
the Doctor and I found it difficult to keep our
footing while having our customary evening
dip. Our island is two long, forested humps
of sand, connected by a stretch of gravel beach,
giving every evidence of being submerged in
times of flood; everywhere are chaotic heaps

Letart's Falls 1 1 3

of driftwood, many cords in extent; derelict
trees are lodged in the tops of the highest wil-
lows and maples — ghostly giants sprawling in
the moonlight; there is an abandon of vege-
table debris, layer after layer laid down in sandy
coverlids. Wild grasses, which flourish on all
these flooded lands, here attain enormous size.
Dispensing with our cots for the nonce, we
have spread our blankets over heaps of dried
grass pulled from the monster tufts of last
year's growth. The Ohio is capable of raising
giant floods; it is still falling with us, but there
are signs at hand, beyond the slight sprinkle
which cooled the air for us at bedtime, of
rainy weather after the long drouth. When
the feeders in the Alleghanies begin to swell,
we shall perch high o' nights.

Near Cheshire, O., Wednesday, May
1 6th. — The fine current at the island gave us
a noble start this morning. The river soon
widens, but Letart's Falls, a mile or two be-
low, continue the movement, and we went
fairly spinning on our way. These so-called
falls, rapids rather, long possessed the imag-
ination of early travelers. Some of the chron-
iclers have, while describing them, indulged in

8

1 14 On the Storied Ohio

flights of fancy.* They are of slight conse-
quence, however, even at this low stage of
water, save to the careless canoeist who has
had no experience in rapid water, well-strewn
with sunken boulders. The scenery of the
locality is wild, and somewhat impressive.
The Ohio bank is steep and rugged, abounding
in narrow little terraces of red clay, deeply
gullied, and dotted with rough, mean shanties.
It all had a forbidding aspect, when viewed in
the blinding sun; but before we had passed, an
intervening cloud cast a deep shadow over the
scene, and, softening the effect, made the
picture more pleasing.

Croghan was at Letart (1765), on one of
his land-viewing trips for the Ohio Company,
and tells us that he saw a "vast migrating
herd " of buffalo cross the river here. In the
beginning of colonization in this valley, buffalo
and elk were to be seen in herds of astonishing
size; traces of their well-beaten paths through
the hills, and toward the salt licks of Kentucky

* Notably, Ashe's Travels; but Palmer, while Saying that
" they are the only obstruction to the navigation of the Ohio,
except the rapids at Louisville," declares them to be of slight
difficulty, and, referring to Ashe's account, says, ' ' Like great
part of his book, it is all romance."

Herds of Buffalo 1 1 5

and Illinois, were observable until within re-
cent years. Gordon, an early traveler down
the Ohio (1766), speaks of " great herds of
buffalo, we observed on the beaches of the
river and islands into which they come for air,
and coolness in the heat of the day;" he com-
menced his raids on them a hundred miles
below Pittsburg. Hutchins (1778) says, "the
whole country abounds in Bears, Elks, Buf-
faloe, Deer, Turkies, &c."* Bears, panthers,
wolves, eagles, and wild turkeys were indeed
very plenty at first, but soon became extinct.
The theory is advanced by Dr. Doddridge, in
his Notes on Virginia, that hunters' dogs in-
troduced hydrophobia among the wolves, and
this ridded the country of them sooner than
they would naturally have gone; but they were
still so numerous in 1817, that the traveler
Palmer heard them nightly, * ' barking on both
banks."

Venomous serpents were also numerous in
pioneer days, and stayed longer. The story is
told of a tumulus up toward Moundsville, that

*Tbe last buffalo on record, in the Upper Ohio region,
■was killed in the Great Kanawha Valley, a dozen miles from
Charleston, W. Va., in 1815. Five years later, in the same
vicinity, was killed probably the last elk seen east of the Ohio.

1 1 6 On the Storied Ohio

abounded in snakes, particularly rattlers. The
settlers thought to dig them out, but they came
to such a mass of human bones that that plan
was abandoned. Then they instituted a block-
ade by erecting a tight-board fence around
the mound, and, thus entrapping the reptiles,
extirpated the colony in a few days.

Paroquets were once abundant west of the
Alleghanies, up to the southern shore of the
Great Lakes, and great flocks haunted the
salt springs; but to-day they may be found
only in the middle Southern states. There
were, in a state of nature, no crows, black-
birds, or song-birds in this valley; they fol-
lowed in the wake of the colonist. The honey
bee came with the white man, — or rather, just
preceded him. Rats followed the first settlers,
then opossums, and fox squirrels still later.
It is thought, too, that the sand-hill and whoop-
ing cranes, and the great blue herons which
we daily see in their stately flight, are birds of
these later days, when the neighborhood of
man has frightened away the enemies which
once kept them from thriving in the valley.
Turkey buzzards appear alone to remain of
the ancient birds; the earliest travelers note
their presence in great flocks, and to-day there

Cliff-Dwellers 117

are few vistas open to us, without from one to
dozens of them wheeling about in mid-air,
seeking what they may devour. Public opinion
in the valley is opposed to the wanton killing
of these scavengers, so useful in a climate as
warm as this.

Three miles below Letart's Rapids, is the
motley settlement of Antiquity, O. , a long row
of cabins and cottages nestled at the base of a
high, vine-clad palisade, similar to that which
yesterday we visited at Long Bottom. Some
of these cliff-dwellings are picturesque, some
exhibit the prosperity of their owners, but
many are squalid. At the water's edge is that
which has given its name to the locality, an
ancient rock, which once bore some curious
Indian carving. Hall (1820) found only one
figure remaining, "a man in a sitting posture,
making a pipe;" to-day, even thus much has
been largely obliterated by the elements. But
Antiquity itself is not quite dead. There is a
ship-yard here; and a sawmill in active opera-
tion, besides the ruins of two others.

We also passed Racine (240 miles), another
Ohio town — a considerable place, no doubt,
although only the tops of the buildings were,
from the river level, to be seen above the high

1 1 8 On the Storied Ohio

bank; these, and an enticing view up the
wharf-street. Of more immediate interest,
just then, were the heavens, now black and
threatening. Putting in hurriedly to the West
Virginia shore, we pitched tent on a shelving
clay beach, shielded by the ever-present wil-
lows, and in five minutes had everything under
shelter. With a rumble and bang, and a great
flurry of wind, the thunder-storm broke upon
us in full fury. There had been no time to
run a ditch around the tent, so we spread our
cargo atop of the cots. The Boy engineered
riverward the streams of water which flowed
in beneath the canvas; W — , ever practical,
caught rain from the dripping fly, and did the
family washing, while the Doctor and I pre-
pared a rather pasty lunch.

An hour later, we bailed out Pilgrim, and
once more ventured upon our way. It is a
busy district between Racine and Sheffield
(251 miles). For eleven miles, upon the Ohio
bank, there are few breaks between the
towns, — Racine, Syracuse, Minersville, Pom-
eroy, Coalport, Middleport, and Sheffield.
Coal mines and salt works abound, with other
industries interspersed; and the neighborhood
appears highly prosperous. Its metropolis is

A Connecticut Ancestry 119

Pomeroy, in shape a "shoe-string" town, —
much of it not over two blocks wide, and
stretching along for two miles, at the foot of
high palisades. West Virginia is not far be-
hind, in enterprise, with the salt-work towns
of New Haven, Hartford, and Mason City, —
bespeaking, in their names, a Connecticut
ancestry.

The afternoon sun gushed out, and the face
of Nature was cleanly beautiful, as, leaving
the convolutions of the Pomeroy Bend, we
entered upon that long river-sweep to the
south-by-southwest, which extends from Pom-
eroy to the Big Sandy, a distance of sixty-
eight miles. A mile or two below Cheshire,
O. (256 miles), we put in for the night on the
West Virginia shore. There is a natural pier
of rocky ledge, above that a sloping beach of
jagged stone, and then the little grassy terrace
which we have made our home.

Searching for milk and eggs, I walked along
a railway track and then up through a corn-
field, to a little log farm-house, whose broad
porch was shingled with "shakes" and shaded
by a lusty grape-vine. Fences, house, and out-
buildings had been newly whitewashed, and
there was all about an uncommon air of neat-

120 On the Storied Ohio

ness. A stout little girl of eleven or twelve,
met me at the narrow gate opening through
the garden palings. It may be because a gyp-
sying trip like this roughens one in many
ways, — for man, with long living near to Na-
ture's heart, becomes of the earth, earthy, —
that she at first regarded me with suspicious
eyes, and, with one hand resting gracefully on
her hip, parleyed over the gate, as to what
price I was paying in cash, for eggs and milk,
and where I hailed from.

With her wealth of blond hair done up in a
saucy knot behind; her round, honest face;
her lips thick, and parted over pearly teeth;
her nose saucily retrousse; and her flashing,
outspoken blue eyes, this barefooted child of
Nature had a certain air of authority, a con-
sciousness of power, which made her womanly
beyond her years. She must have seen that I
admired her, this little "cracker" queen, in
her clean but tattered calico frock; for her
mood soon melted, and with much grace she
ushered me within the house. Calling Sam,
an eight -year-old, to ' ' keep the gen'lem'n com-
p'ny," she prettily excused herself, and scamp-
ered off up the hillside in search of the cows.

A barefooted, loose-jointed, gaunt, sandy-

An Ambitious Boy 121

haired, freckled, open-eyed youngster is Sam.
He came lounging into the room, and, taking
my hat, hung it on a peg above the fireplace;
then, dropping into a big rocking-chair, with
his muddy legs hanging over an arm, at once,
with a curious, old-fashioned air, began ' ' keep-
ing company" by telling me of the new litter
of pigs, with as little diffidence as though I
were an old neighbor who had dropped in on
the way to the cross-roads. "And thet thar
new Shanghai rooster, mister, ain't he a beauty?
He cost a dollar, he did — a dollar in silver,
sir!"

There was no difficulty in drawing Sam
out. He is frankness itself. What was he
going to make of himself ? Well, he ' ' 'lowed "
he wanted to be either a locomotive engineer
or a steamboat captain — hadn't made up his
mind which. "But whatever a boy wants
to be, he will be!" said Sam, with the decided
tone of a man of the world, who had seen
things. I asked Sam what the attractions
were in the life of an engine driver. He
4 ' 'lowed " they went so fast through the world,
and saw so many different people; and in
their lifetime served on different roads, maybe,
and surely they must meet with some excite-

122 On the Storied Ohio

ment. And in that of a steamboat captain ?
''Oh! now yew're talk'n', mister! A right
smart business, thet! A boss'n' o' people
'round, a seein' o' th' world, and noth'n' 't all
to do! Now, that's right smart, I take it!"
It was plain where his heart lay. He saw the
steamers pass the farm daily, and once he
had watched one unload at Point Pleasant —
well, that was the life for him! Sam will
have to be up and doing, if he is to be the
monarch of a stern-wheeler on the Ohio; but
many another "cracker" boy has attained
this exalted station, and Sam is of the sort to
win his way.

Soon the kine came lowing into the yard,
and my piquant young friend who had met
me at the gate stood in the doorway talking
with us both, while their brother Charley, an
awkward, self-conscious lad of ten, took my
pail and milked into it the required two
quarts. It is a large, square room, where I
was so agreeably entertained. The well-
chinked logs are scrupulously whitewashed;
the parental bed, with gay pillow shams,
bought from a peddler, occupies one corner;
a huge brick fireplace opens black and yawn-
ing, into the base of a great cobblestone

A Cracker Queen 123

chimney reared against the house without,
after the fashion of the country; on pegs
about, hang the best clothes of the family;
while a sewing-machine, a deal table, a cheap
little mirror as big as my palm, a few un-
framed chromos, and a gaudy ''Family Rec-
ord" chart hung in an old looking-glass
frame, — with appropriate holes for tintypes of
father, mother, and children, — complete the
furnishings of the apartment, which is parlor,
sitting-room, dining-room, and bedroom all in
one.

My little queen was evidently proud of her
throne-room, and noted with satisfaction my
interest in the Family Record. When I had
paid her for butter and eggs, at retail rates,
she threw in an extra egg, and, despite my
protests, woulci have Charley take the pail out
to the cow, "for an extra squirt or two, for
good measure!"

I was bidding them all good-bye, and the
queen was pressing me to come again in the
morning "fer more stuff, ef ye 'lowed yew
wanted any," when the mother of the little
brood appeared from over the fields, where
she had been to carry water to her lord. A
fair, intelligent, rather fine-looking woman,

1 24 On the Storied Ohio

but barefooted like the rest; from her neck
behind, dangled a red sunbonnet, and a
sunny-haired child of five was in her arms —
"sort o' weak in her lungs, poor thing!" she
sadly said, as I snapped my fingers at the
smiling tot. I tarried a moment with the
good mother, as, sitting upon the porch, she
serenely smiled upon her children, whose eyes
were now lit with responsive love; and I
wondered if there were not some romance
hidden here, whereby a dash of gentler blood
had through this sweet-tempered woman been
infused into the coarse clay of the bottom.

CHAPTER XL

Battle of Point Pleasant — The story of
Gallipolis — Rosebud — Huntington —
The genesis of a house-boater.

Near Glenwood, W. Va. , Thursday, May
17th. — By eight o'clock this morning we were
in Point Pleasant, W. Va., at the mouth of
the Great Kanawha River (263 miles). Cel-
oron was here, the eighteenth of August, 1749,
and on the east bank of the river, the site of
the present village, buried at the foot of an
elm one of his leaden plates asserting the claim
of France to the Ohio basin. Ninety-seven
years later, a boy unearthed this interesting
but futile proclamation, and it rests to-day in
the museum of the Virginia Historical So-
ciety.

The Great Kanawha Valley long had a
romantic interest for Englishmen concerned
in Western lands. It was in the grant to
the old Ohio Company; but that corporation,
handicapped in many ways, was practically
dead by the time of Lord Dunmore's war.
125

126 On the Storied Ohio

It had many rivals, more or less ephemeral,
among them the scheme of George Mercer
(x773) to have the territory between the Alle-
ghanies and the Ohio — the West Virginia of
to-day — erected into the ' ' Province of Van-
dalia, " with himself as governor, and his cap-
ital at the mouth of the Great Kanawha.
Washington owned a ten-thousand-acre tract
on both sides of the river, commencing a
short distance above the mouth, which he
surveyed in person, in October, 1770; and in
1773 we find him advertising to sell or lease
it; among the inducements he offered was,
"the scheme for establishing a new govern-
ment on the Ohio," and the contiguity of his
lands "to the seat of government, which, it is
more than probable, will be fixed at the
mouth of the Great Kanawha." Had not the
Revolution broken out, and nipped this and
many another budding plan for Western col-
onization, there is little doubt that what we
call West Virginia would have been estab-
lished as a state, a century earlier than it
was.*

* Washington was much interested in a plan to connect,
by a canal, the James and Great Kanawha Rivers, separated
at their sources by a portage of but a few miles in length.

Dunmore's War 1 27

A few days ago we were at Mingo Bottom,
where lived Chief Logan, whose family were
treacherously slaughtered by border ruffians
(1774). The Mingos, ablaze with the fire of
vengeance, carried the war-pipe through the
neighboring villages; runners were sent in
every direction to rouse the tribes; tomahawks
were unearthed, war-posts were planted; mes-
sages of defiance sent to the Virginians; and
in a few days Lord Dunmore's war was in full
swing, from Cumberland Gap to Fort Pitt,
from the Alleghanies to the Wabash.

His lordship, then governor of Virginia, was
full of energy, and proved himself a compe-
tent military manager. The settlers were or-
ganized; the rude log forts were garrisoned;
forays were made against the Indian villages
as far away as Muskingum, and an army of

The distance from Point Pleasant to Richmond is 485 miles.
In 1785, Virginia incorporated the James River Company,
of which Washington was the first president. The project
hung fire, because of "party spirit and sectional jealousies,"
until 1832, when a new company was incorporated, under
which the James was improved (1836-53), but the Kanawha
was untouched. In 1874, United States engineers presented
a plan calling for an expenditure of sixty millions, but there
the matter rests. The Kanawha is navigable by large
steamers for sixty miles, up to the falls at Charleston, and
beyond almost to its source, by light craft.

128 On the Storied Ohio

nearly three thousand backwoodsmen, armed
with smooth-bores and clad in fringed buck-
skin hunting-shirts, was put in the field.

One division of this army, eleven hundred
strong, under Gen. Andrew Lewis, descended
the Great Kanawha River, and on Point Pleas-
ant met Cornstalk, a famous Shawnee chief,
who, while at first peaceful, had by the
Logan tragedy been made a fierce enemy of
the whites, and was now the leader of a thou-
sand picked warriors, gathered from all parts
of the Northwest. On the ioth of October,
from dawn until dusk, was here waged in a
gloomy forest one of the most bloody and stub-
born hand-to-hand battles ever fought between
Indians and whites — especially notable, too,
because for the first time the rivals were about
equal in number. The combatants stood be-
hind trees, in Indian fashion, and it is hard to
say who displayed the best generalship, Corn-
stalk or Lewis.* When the pall of night cov-

* Hall, in Romance of Western History (1820), says
that when Washington was tendered command of the Rev-
olutionary army, he replied that it should rather be given to
Gen. Andrew Lewis, of whose military abilities he had a
high opinion. Lewis was a captain in the Little Meadows
affair (1752), and a companion of Washington in Braddock's
defeat (1755).

Point Pleasant 129

ered the hideous contest, the whites had lost
one-fifth of their number, while the savages
had sustained but half as many casualties.
Cornstalk's followers had had enough, how-
ever, and withdrew before daylight, leaving
the field to the Americans.

A few days later, General Lewis joined
Lord Dunmore — who headed the other wing
of the army, which had proceeded by the way
of Forts Pitt and Gower— on the Pickaway
plains, in Ohio; and there a treaty was made
with the Indians, who assented to every prop-
osition made them. They surrendered all
claim to lands south of the Ohio River, re-
turned their white prisoners and stolen horses,
and gave hostages for future good behavior.

Here at Point Pleasant, a year later, Fort
Randolph was built, and garrisoned by a hun-
dred men; for, despite the treaty, the Indians
were still troublesome. For a long time,
Pittsburg, Redstone, and Randolph were the
only garrisoned forts on the frontier. The
Point Pleasant of to-day is a dull, sleepy town
of twenty-five hundred inhabitants, with that
unkempt air and preponderance of lounging
negroes, so common to small Southern com-
munities. The bottom is rolling, fringed with
9

130 On the Storied Ohio

large hills, and on the Ohio side drops suddenly
for fifty feet to a shelving beach of gravel and
clay. Crooked Creek, in whose narrow, wind-
ing valley some of the severest fighting was
had, empties into the Kanawha a half-mile up
the stream, at the back of the town. It was
painful to meet several men of intelligence,
who had long been engaged in trade here, to
whom the Battle of Point Pleasant was a
shadowy event, whose date they could not fix,
nor whose importance understand; it seemed
to be little more a part of their lives, than an
obscure contest between Matabeles and whites,
in far-off Africa. It is time that our Western
and Southern folk were awakened to an ap-
preciation of the fact that they have a history
at their doors, quite as significant in the annals
of civilization as that which induces pilgrim-
ages to Ticonderoga and Bunker Hill.

Four miles below, Pilgrim was beached for
a time at Gallipolis, O. (267 miles), which has
a story all its own. The district belonged, a
century ago, to the Scioto Company, an off-
shoot of the Marietta enterprise. Joel Barlow,
the "poet of the Revolution," was sent to
Paris (May, 1788) as agent for the sale of
lands. As the result of his personal popularity

Settlement of Gallipolis 131

there, and his flaming immigration circulars
and maps, he disposed of a hundred thousand
acres; to settle on which, six hundred French
emigrants sailed for America, in February,
1790. They were peculiarly unsuited for col-
onization, even under the most favorable con-
ditions— being in the main physicians, jewelers
and other artisans, a few mechanics, and
noblemen's servants, while many were without
trade or profession.

Upon arrival in Alexandria, Va. , they found
that their deeds were valueless, the land never
having been paid for by the Scioto speculators;
moreover, the tract was rilled with hostile In-
dians. However, five hundred of them pushed
on to the region, by way of Redstone, and
reached here by flatboat, in a destitute condi-
tion. The Marietta neighbors were as kind as
circumstances would allow, and cabins were
built for them on what is now the Public Square
of Gallipolis. But they were ignorant of the
first principles of forestry or gardening; the
initial winter was exceptionally severe, Indian
forays sapped the life of the colony, yellow
fever decimated the survivors; and, altogether,
the little settlement suffered a series of disas-

132 On the Storied Ohio

ters almost unparalleled in the story of Amer-
ican colonization.

Although finally reimbursed by Congress
with a special land grant, the emigrants grad-
ually died off, until now, so at least we were
assured, but three families of descendants of
the original Gauls are now living here. It was
the American element, aided by sturdy Ger-
mans, who in time took hold of the decayed
French settlement, and built up the prosperous
little town of six thousand inhabitants which
we find to-day. It is a conservative town,
with little perceptible increase in population;
but there are many fine brick blocks, the stores
have large stocks attractively displayed, and
there is in general a comfortable tone about
the place, which pleases a stranger. The
Public Square, where the first Gauls had their
little forted town, appears to occupy the space
of three or four city blocks; there is the cus-
tomary band-stand in the center, and seats
plentifully provided along the graveled walks
which divide neat plots of grass. Over the
riverward entrance to the square, is an arch of
gas-pipe, perforated for illumination, and bear-
ing the dates, "1790- 1890," — a relic, this, of

A Human Wasp-Nest 133

the centennial which Gallipolis celebrated in
the last-named year.

It was with some difficulty that we found a
camping-place, this evening. For several
miles, the approaches were nearly knee-deep in
mud for a dozen feet back from the water's edge,
or else the banks were too steep, or the farm-
ers had cultivated so closely to the brink as to
leave us no room for the tent. In one grue-
some spot on the Ohio bank, where a project-
ing log fortunately served as a pier, the Doctor
landed for a prospecting tour; while I ascended
a zigzag path, through steep and rugged land,
to a nest of squalid cabins perched by a shabby
hillside road. A vicious dog came down to
meet me half-way, and might have succeeded
in carrying off a portion of my clothing had
not his owner whistled him back.

A queer, dingy, human wasp-nest, this dirty
little shanty hamlet of Rosebud. Pigs and
children wallowed in comradeship, and as every
cabin on the precipitous slope necessarily has
a basement, this is used as the common barn
for chickens, goats, pigs, and cow. It was
pleasant to find that there was no sweet milk
to be had in Rosebud, for it is kept in open
pans, in these fetid rooms, and soon sours —

134 C>n the Storied Ohio

and the cows had not yet come down from the
hills. Water, too, was at a premium. There
was none to be had, save what had fallen from
the clouds, and been stored in a foul cistern,
which seemed common property. I drew a
pailful of it, not to displease the disheveled
group which surrounded me, full of questions;
but on the first turning in the lane, emptied
the vessel upon the back of a pig, which was
darting by with tremulous squeal.

The long twilight was well nigh spent, when,
on the Ohio side a mile or two above Glen-
wood, W. Va. (287 miles), we came upon a
wide, level beach of gravel, below a sloping,
willowed terrace, above which sharply rose
the " second bottom." Ascending an angling
farm roadway, while the others pitched camp,
I wTalked over the undulating bottom to the
nearest of a group of small, neat farmhouses,
and applied for milk. While a buxom maid
went out and milked a Jersey, that had chanced
to come home ahead of her fellows, I sat on
the rear porch gossiping with the farm-wife —
a Pennsylvania-Dutch dame of ample propor-
tions, attired in light-blue calico, and with
huge spectacles over her broad, flat nose.
She and her "man" own a hundred and fifty

Bottom Farmers 135

acres on the bottom, with three cows and other
stock in proportion, and sell butter to those
neighbors who have no cows, and to house-
boat people. As for these latter, though they
were her customers, she had none too good an
opinion of them; they pretended to fish, but
in reality only picked up a living from the
farmers; nevertheless, she did know of some
"weakly, delicate people" who had taken to
boat life for economy's sake, and because an
invalid could at least fish, and his family help
him at it.

Near Huntington, W. Va., Friday, May
1 8th. — Backed by ravine-grooved hills, and
edged at the waterside with great picturesque
boulders, planed and polished by the ever-
rushing river, the little bottom farms along our
path to-day are pretty bits. But the houses
are the reverse of this, having much the aspect
of slave-cabins of the olden time — small, one-
story, log and frame shanties, roof and gables
shingled with "shakes," and little vegetable
gardens inclosed by palings. The majority of
these small farmers — whose tracts seldom ex-
ceed a hundred acres — rent their land, rather
than own it. The plan seems to be half-and-

136 On the Storied Ohio

half as to crops, with a rental fee for house
and pasturage. One man, having a hundred-
and-twenty acres, told me he paid three dollars
a month for his house, and for pasturage a
dollar a month per head.

We were in several of the small towns to-
day. At Millersport, O. (293 miles), while
W — and the Doctor were up town, the Boy
and I remained at the wharf-boat to talk with
the owner. The wharf-boat is a conspicuous
object at every landing of importance, being a
covered barge used as a storehouse for coming
and going steamboat freight. It is a private
enterprise, for public convenience, with cer-
tain monopolistic privileges at the incorporated
towns. This Millersport boat cost twelve hun-
dred dollars; the proprietor charges twenty per
cent of each freight-bill, for handling and stor-
ing goods, a fee of twenty-five cents for each
steamer that lands, and certain special fees
for live stock. Athalia, Haskellville, and
Guyandotte were other representative towns.
Stave-making appears to be the chief industry,
and, as timber is getting scarce, the commu-
nities show signs of decay.

We had been told, above, that Huntington,
W. Va. (306 miles), was " a right smart chunk

Huntington 137

of a town." And it is. There are sixteen
thousand people here, in a finely-built city
spread over a broad, flat plain. Brick and
stone business buildings abound; the broad
streets are paved with brick, and an electric-
car line runs out along the bottom, through
the suburb of Ceredo, W. Va., to Catletts-
burg, Ky., nine miles away. Huntington
is the center of a large group of riverside towns
supported by iron-making and other indus-
tries— Guyandotte and Ceredo, in West Vir-
ginia; Catlettsburg, just over the border in
Kentucky; and Proctorville, Broderickville,
Frampton, Burlington, and South Point, on
the opposite shore.

We are camping to-night in the dense wil-
low grove which lines the West Virginia beach
from Huntington to the Big Sandy. Above
us, on the wide terrace, are fields and orchards,
beyond which we occasionally hear the gong
of electric cars. A public path runs by the
tent, leading from the lower settlements into
Huntington. Among our visitors have been
two houseboat men, whose craft is moored a
quarter of a mile below. One of them is tall,
thick-set, forty, with a round, florid face, and
huge mustaches, — evidently a jolly fellow at

138 On the Storied Ohio

his best, despite a certain dubious, piratical
air; a jaunty, narrow-brimmed straw hat is
perched over one ear, to add to the general
effect; and between his teeth a corn-cob pipe.
His younger companion is medium-sized, slim,
and loose-jointed, with a baggy gait, his cap
thrown over his head, with the visor in the
rear — a rustic clown, not yet outgrown his
freckles. But three weeks from the parental
farm in Putnam County, Ky. , the world is as
yet a romance to him. The fellow is inter-
esting, because in him can be seen the genesis
of a considerable element of the houseboat
fraternity. I wonder how long it will be be-
fore his partner has him broken in as a river-
pirate of the first water.

CHAPTER XII.

In a fog — The Big Sandy — Rainy weath-
er— Operatic gypsies — An ancient tav-
ern.

Ironton, O., Saturday, May 19th. — When
we turned in, last night, it was refreshingly
cool. Heavy clouds were scurrying across the
face of the moon. By midnight, a copious
rain was falling, wind-gusts were flapping our
roof, and a sudden drop in temperature ren-
dered sadly inadequate all the clothing we
could muster into service. We slept late, in
consequence, and, after rigging a wind-break
with the rubber blankets, during breakfast
huddled around the stove which had been
brought in to replace Pilgrim under the fly.
When, at half-past nine, we pushed off, our
houseboat neighbors thrust their heads from
the window and waved us farewell.

A dense fog hung like a cloud over land and
river. There was a stiff north-east wind,
which we avoided by seeking the Ohio shore,
139

140 On the Storied Ohio

where the high hills formed a break; there
too, the current was swift, and carried us
down right merrily. Shattered by the wind,
great banks of fog rolled up stream, sometimes
enveloping us so as to narrow our view to a
radius of a dozen rods, — again, through the
rifts, giving us momentary glimpses on the
right, of rich green hills, towering dark and
steep above us, iridescent with browns, and
grays, and many shades of green; of white-
washed cabins, single or in groups, standing
out with startling distinctness from som-
bre backgrounds; of houseboats, many-hued,
moored to willowed banks or bolstered high
upon shaly beaches; of the opposite bottom,
with its corrugated cliff of clay; and, now and
then, a slowly-puffing steamboat cautiously
feeling its way through the chilling gloom — a
monster to be avoided by little Pilgrim and her
crew, for the possibility of being run down in
a fog is not pleasant to contemplate. On
board one of these steamers was a sorry com-
pany— apparently a Sunday-school excursion.
Children in gala dress huddled in swarms to
the lee of the great smoke-stacks, and in im-
agination we heard their teeth chatter as they

The Big Sandy 141

glided by us and in another moment were en-
gulfed in the mist.

We catch sight for a moment, through a
cloud crevasse, of Ceredo, the last town in
West Virginia — a small saw-milling commu-
nity stuck upon the edge of the clay cliff, with
the broad level bottom stretching out behind
like a prairie. A giant railway bridge here
spans the Ohio — a weird, impressive thing, as
we sweep under it in the swirling current, and
crane our necks to see the great stone piers
lose themselves in the cloud. But the Big
Sandy River (315 miles), which divides West
Virginia and Kentucky, was wholly lost to
view. In an opening a few moments later,
however, we had a glimpse of the dark line of
her valley, below which the hills again descend
to the Ohio's bank.

Catlettsburg, the first Kentucky town, is at
the junction, and extends along the foot of
the ridge for a mile or two, apparently not
over two blocks wide, with a few outlying
shanties on the shoulders of the uplands.
Washington was surveying here, on the Big
Sandy, in 1770, and entered for one John Fry
2,084 acres round the site of Louisa, a dozen
miles up the river; this was the first survey

142 On the Storied Ohio

made in Kentucky — but a few months later
than Boone's first advent as a hunter on the
''dark and bloody ground," and five years
before the first permanent settlement in the
State. Washington deserves to be remem-
bered as a Kentucky pioneer.

We have not only steamers to avoid, — they
appear to be unusually numerous about here, —
but snags as well. With care, the whereabouts
of a steamer can be distinguished as it steals
upon us, from the superior whiteness of its col-
umn of ' ' exhaust, " penetrating the bank of
dark gray fog; and occasionally the echoes
are awakened by the burly roar of its whistle,
which, in times like this, acts as a fog-horn.
But the snag is an insidious enemy, not re-
vealing itself until we are within a rod or two,
and then there is a quick cry of warning from
the stern sheets — "Hard a-port!" or "Star-
board, quick!" and only a strong side-pull,
aided by W — 's paddle, sends us free from the
jagged, branching mass which might readily
have swamped poor Pilgrim had she taken it
at full tilt.

At Ashland, Ky. (320 miles), we stopped
for supplies. There are six thousand inhab-
itants here, with some good buildings and a

At the Levee

H3

fine, broad, stone wharf, but it is rather a dingy
place. The steamer "Bonanza" had just
landed. On the double row of flaggings lead-
ing up to the summit of the bank, were two
ant-like processions of Kentucky folk — one,
leisurely climbing townward with their bags
and bundles, the other hurrying down with
theirs to the boat, which was ringing its bell,
blowing off steam, and in other ways creating
an uproar which seemed to turn the heads of
the negro roustabouts and draymen, who
bustled around with a great chatter and much
false motion. The railway may be doing the
bulk of the business, but it does it unostenta-
tiously; the steamboat makes far more disturb-
ance in the world, and is a finer spectacle.
Dozens of boys are lounging at the wharf
foot, watching the lively scene with fascinated
eyes, probably every one of them stoutly pos-
sessed of an ambition akin to that of my
young friend in the Cheshire Bottom.

A rain-storm broke the fog — a cold, raw,
miserable rain. No clothing we could don
appeared to suffice against the chill; and so at
last we pitched camp upon the Ohio shore,
three miles above the Ironton wharf (325
miles). It is a muddy, dreary nest up here,

144 On ^e Storied Ohio

among the dripping willows. Just behind us
on the slope, is the inclined track of the Nor-
folk & Western railway-transfer, down which
trains are slid to a huge slip, and thence ferried
over the river into Kentucky; above that, on a
narrow terrace, is an ordinary railway line; and
still higher, up a slippery clay bank, lies the
cottage-strewn bottom which stretches on into
Ironton (13,000 inhabitants).

We were a sorry-looking party, at lunch this
noon, hovering over the smoking stove which
was set in the tent door, with a wind-screen
in front, and moist bedding hung all about in
the vain hope of drying it in the feeble heat.
And sorrier still, through the long afternoon,
as, each encased in a sleeping-bag, we sat upon
our cots circling around the stove, W — read-
ing to us between chattering teeth from Bar-
rie's When a Mans Single. Tis good Scot-
tish weather we're having; but somehow our
thoughts could not rest on Thrums, and we
were, for the nonce, a wee bit miserable.

Dinner degenerated into a smoky bite, and
then at dusk there was a council of war. The
air hangs thick with moisture, our possessions
are in various stages from damp to sopping
wet, and efforts at drying over the little stove

Seeking Shelter 145

are futile under such conditions. It was dem-
onstrated that there was not bed-clothing
enough, in such an emergency as this; indeed,
an inspection of that which was merely damp,
revealed the fact that but one person could
be made comfortable to-night. Our bachelor
Doctor volunteered to be that one. So we
bade him God-speed, and with toilet bag in
hand I led my little family up a tortuous path,
so slippery in the rain that we were obliged in
our muddy climb to cling to grass-clumps and
bushes. And thus, wet and bedraggled, did
we sally forth upon the Ironton Bottom, seek-
ing shelter for the night.

Fortunately we had not far to seek. A
kindly family took us in, despite our gruesome
aspect and our unlikely story — for what man-
ner of folk are we, that go trapesing about in
a skiff, in such weather as this, coming from
nobody knows where and camping o' nights in
the muddy river bottoms? Instead of sending
us on, in the drenching rain, to a hotel, three
miles down the road, or offering us a ticket on
the Associated Charities, these blessed people
open their hearts and their beds to us, without
question, and what more can weary pilgrims
pray for?

146 On the Storied Ohio

Sciotoville, O., Sunday, May 20th. — After
breakfast, and settling our modest score, we
rejoined the Doctor, and at ten o'clock pulled
out again; being bidden good-bye at the land-
ing, by the children of our hostess, who had
sent us by them a bottle of fresh milk as a
parting gift.

It had rained almost continuously, through-
out the night. To-day we have a dark gray
sky, with fickle winds. A charming color
study, all along our path: the reds and grays
and yellows of the high clay-banks which edge
the reciprocating bottoms, the browns and
yellows of hillside fields, the deep greens of
forest verdure, the vivid white of bankside
cabins, and, in the background of each new
vista, bold headlands veiled in blue. W —
and the Boy are in the stern sheets, wrapped
in blankets, for there is a smart chill in the air,
and we at the oars pull lively for warmth. In
our twisting course, sometimes we have a
favoring breeze, and the Doctor rears the sail;
but it is a brief delight, for the next turn brings
the wind in our teeth, and we set to the blades
with renewed energy. In the main, we make
good time. The sugar-loaf hills, with their

A Gypsy Lunch 147

castellated escarpments, go marching by with
stately sweep.

Greenup Court House (334 miles) is a bright
little Kentucky county-seat, well-built at the
feet of thickly-forested uplands. At the lower
end of the village, the Little Sandy enters
through a wooded dale, which near the mouth
opens into a broad meadow. Not many miles
below, is a high sloping beach, picturesquely
bestrewn with gigantic boulders which have in
ages past rolled down from the hill-tops above.
Here, among the rocks, we again set up a rude
screen from the still piercing wind; and, each
wrapped in a gay blanket, lunch as operatic
gypsies might, in a romantic glen, enjoying
mightily our steaming chocolate, and the
warmth of our friendly stove — for dessert,
taking a merry scamper for flowers, over the
ragged ascent from whence the boulders came.
Everywhere about is the trumpet creeper, but
not yet in bloom. The Indian turnip is in
blossom here, and so the smaller Solomon's
seal, yellow spikes of toad-flax, blue and pink
phlox, glossy May apple; high up on the hill-
side, the fire pink and wintergreen; and, down
by the sandy shore, great beds of blue wild

148 On the Storied Ohio

lupin, and occasionally stately spikes of the
familiar moth mullein.

With the temperature falling rapidly, and a
drizzling rain taking the starch out of our en-
thusiasm, we early sought a camping ground.
For miles along here, springs ooze from the
base of the high clay bank walling in the wide
and rocky Ohio beach, and dry spots are few
and far between. We found one, however, a
half mile above Little Scioto River (346
miles),* with drift-wood enough to furnish us
for years, and the beach thick-strewn with fos-
sils of a considerable variety of small bivalves,
which latter greatly delighted the Doctor and
the Boy, who have brought enough specimens
to the tent door to stock a college museum.

Dinner over, the crew hauled Pilgrim under
cover, and within prepared for her sailing-
master a cosy bed, with the entire ship's stock
of sleeping-bags and blankets. W — , the Boy,
and I then started off to find quarters in Scio-
toville (1,000 inhabitants), which lies just
below the river's mouth, here a dozen rods

*Two miles up the Little Scioto, Pine Creek enters. Per-
haps a mile and a half up this creek was, in 177 1, a Mingo
town called Horse Head Bottom, which cuts some figure in
border history as a nest of Indian marauders.

A Riverside Tavern 149

wide. Scrambling up the slimy bank, through
a maze of thorn trees, brambles, and sycamore
scrubs, we gained the fertile bottom above, all
luscious with tall grasses bespangled with wild
red roses and the showy pentstemon. The
country road leading into the village is some
distance inland, but at last we found it just
beyond a patch of Indian corn waist high, and
followed it, through a covered bridge, and
down to a little hotel at the lower end of town.
A quaint, old-fashioned house, the Scioto-
ville tavern, with an inner gallery looking out
into a small garden of peaches, apples, pears,
plums, and grapes — a famous grape country
this, by the way. In our room, opening from
the gallery, is an antique high-post bedstead;
everywhere about are similar relics of an early
day. In keeping with the air of serene old
age, which pervades the hostelry, is the white-
haired landlady herself. In well-starched
apron, white cap, and gold-rimmed glasses,
she benignly sits rocking by the office stove,
her feet on the fender, reading Wallace's
Prince of India; and looking, for all the world,
as if she had just stepped out of some old
portrait of — well, of a tavern-keeping Martha
Washington.

CHAPTER XIII.

The Scioto, and the Shawanese — A night
at Rome — Limestone — Keels, flats, ani3
boatmen of the olden time.

Rome, O., Monday, May 21st. — At inter-
vals through the night, rain fell, and the temp-
erature was but 460 at sunrise. However,
by the time we were afloat, the sun was fit-
fully gleaming through masses of gray cloud,
for a time giving promise of a warmer day.
Dark shadows rested on the romantic ravines,
and on the deep hollows of the hills; but else-
where over this gentle landscape of wooded
amphitheatres, broad green meadows, rocky
escarpments, and many-colored fields, light
and shade gayly chased each other. Never
were the vistas of the widening river more
beautiful than to-day.

There are saw-mill and fire-brick industries

in the little towns, which would be shabby

enough in the full glare of day. But they are

all glorified in this changing light, which

150

Shannoah Town 1 5 1

brings out the rich yellows and reds in sharp
relief against the gloomy background of the
hills, and mellows into loveliness the soft
grays of unpainted wood.

At the mouth of the Scioto (354 miles), is
Portsmouth, O. (15,000 inhabitants), a well-
built, substantial town, with good shops. It lies
on a hill-backed terrace some forty feet above
the level of the neighboring bottoms, which
give evidence of being victims of the high
floods periodically covering the low lands
about the junction of the rivers. Just across
the Scioto is Alexandria, and on the Kentucky
side of the Ohio can be seen the white hamlet
of Springville, at the feet of the dentated hills
which here closely approach the river.

The country about the mouth of the Scioto
has long figured in Western annals. Being a
favorite rendezvous for the Shawanese, it nat-
urally became a resort for French and Eng-
lish fur-traders. The principal part of the
first Shawanese village — Shannoah Town, in
the old journals — was below the Scioto's
mouth, on the site of Alexandria; it was the
chief town of this considerable tribe, and here
Gist was warned back, when in March, 1 75 1 ,
he ventured thus far while inspecting lands for

152 On the Storied Ohio

the Ohio Company. Two years later, there
was a great — perhaps an unprecedented — flood
in the Ohio, the water rising fifty feet above
the ordinary level, and destroying the larger
part of the Shawanese village. Some of the
Indians moved to the Little Miami, and others
up the Scioto, where they built, successively,
Old and New Chillicothe; but the majority
remained, and rebuilt their town on the higher
land north of the Scioto, where Portsmouth
now stands. An outlying band had had, from
before Gist's day, a small town across the
Ohio, the site of Springville; and it was here
that George Croghan had his stone trading
house, which was doubtless, after the manner
of the times, a frontier fortress. In the
French and Indian war (1758), the Shawanese,
tiring of continual conflict, withdrew from
their Ohio River settlements to Old (or Up-
per) Chillicothe, and thus closed the once im-
portant fur-trade at the mouth of the Scioto.
It was while the Indian town at Portsmouth
was still new (1755), that a party of Shawan-
ese brought here a Mrs. Mary Ingles, whom
they had captured while upon a scalping foray
into Southwestern Virginia. The story of the
remarkable escape of this woman, at Big

A Thrilling Escape 153

Bone Lick, of her long and terrible flight
through the wilderness along the- southern
bank of the Ohio and up the Great Kanawha
Valley, and her final return to home and kin-
dred, who viewed her as one delivered from
the grave, is one of the most thrilling in West-
ern history.*

Although the Shawanese had removed from
their villages on the Ohio, they still lived in
new towns in the north, within easy striking
distance of the great river; and, until the
close of the eighteenth century, were a con-
tinual source of alarm to those whose busi-
ness led them to follow this otherwise inviting
highway to the continental interior. Flat-
boats bearing traders, immigrants, and trav-
elers were frequently waylaid by the savages,
who exhausted a fertile ingenuity in luring
their victims to an ambuscade ashore; and,
when not successful in this, would in narrow
channels, or when the current swept the craft
near land, subject the voyagers to a fierce fus-
ilade of bullets, against which even stout plank
barricades proved of small avail.

* See Shaler's Kentucky (Amer. Commonwealth series),
Collins's History of Kentucky, and Hale's Trans-Allegkany
Pioneers. Shaler gives the date as 1756; but Hale, a descend-
ant of Mrs. Ingles, makes it 1755.

1 54 On the Storied Ohio

Vanceburgh, Ky. (375 miles), is a little town
at the bottom of a pretty amphitheatre of
hills. There was a floating photographer
there, as we passed, with a gang-plank run
out to the shore, and framed specimens of his
work hung along the town side of his ample
barge. Men with teams were getting wagon-
loads of sand from the beach, for building
purposes. And, a mile or two down, a float-
ing saw and planing-mill — the "Clipper,"
which we had seen before, up river — was
busied upon logs which were being rolled down
the beach from the bank above. There are
several such mills upon the river, all seem-
ingly occupied with "tramp work," for there
is a deal of logging carried on, in a small and
careful way, by farmers living on these wooded
hills.

Vanceburgh was for the time bathed in
sunlight; but, as we continued on our way, a
heavy rain-cloud came creeping up over the
dark Ohio hills, and, descending, cut off our
view, at last lustily pelting us as we sat en-
cased in rubber. We had been in our pon-
chos most of the day, as much for warmth as
for shelter; for there was an all-pervading
chill, which the fickle sun, breaking its early

Cistern Water 155

promise, had failed to dissipate. Thus, amid
showers alternating with sunbeams, we pro-
ceeded unto Rome (381 miles). An Ohio
village, this Rome, and so fallen from its once
proud estate that its postoffice no longer bears
the name — it is simply " Stout's," if, in these
degenerate days, you would send a letter
hither.

It was smartly raining, when we put in on
the stony beach above Rome. The tent went
up in a hurry, and under it the cargo ; but by
the time all was housed the sun gushed out
again, and, stretching a line, we soon had our
bedding hung to dry. It is a charming situa-
tion; in this melting atmosphere, we have
perhaps the most striking effects of cloud, hill,
bottom, islands, and glancing river, which
have yet been vouchsafed us.

The Romans, like most rural folk along the
river below Wheeling, chiefly drink cistern
water. Earlier in our pilgrimage, we stoutly
declined to patronize these rain-water reser-
voirs, and I would daily go far afield in search
of a well; but lately, necessity has driven us
to accept the cistern, and often we find it
even preferable to the well, on those rare oc-
casions when the latter can be found at vil-

156 On the Storied Ohio

lages or farm-houses. But there are cisterns
and cisterns — foul holes like that at Rosebud,
others that are neatness itself, with all man-
ner of grades between. As for river water,
ever yellow with clay, and thick as to motes,
much of it is used in the country parts. This
morning, a bevy of negroes came down the
bank from a Kentucky field; and each in turn,
creeping out on a drift log, — for the ground is
usually muddy a few feet up from the water's
edge, — lay flat on his stomach and drank
greedily from the roily mess.

At dusk, there was again a damp chill, and
for the third time we left the Doctor to keep
bachelor's hall upon the beach. It was rain-
ing smartly by the time the tavern was reached,
nearly a mile down the bank. Our advent
caused a rare scurrying to and fro, for two
commercial "drummers," who were to depart
by the early morning boat, occupied the
"reg'lar spar' room," the landlady informed us,
and a bit of a cubby-hole off the back stairs
had to be arranged for us. Guests are rari-
ties, at the hostelry in Rome.

Near Ripley, O., Tuesday, May 22nd. —
There was an inch of snow last night, on the

The Rival Banks 157

hills about, and a morning Cincinnati paper
records a heavy fall in the Pennsylvania
mountains. The storm is general, and the
river rose two feet over night. When we set
off, in mid-morning, it was raining heavily;
but in less than an hour the clouds broke, and
the rest of the day has been an alternation of
chilling showers and bursts of warm sunshine,
with the same succession of alluring vistas,
over which play broad bands of changing light
and shade, and overhead the storm clouds torn
and tossed in the upper currents.

Our landlord at Rome asserted at breakfast
that Kentucky was fifty years behind the Ohio
side, in improvements of every sort. Thus far,
we have not ourselves noticed differences of
that degree. Doubtless before the late civil
war, — all the ante-bellum travelers agree in
this, — when the blight of slavery was resting
on Virginia and Kentucky, the south shore of
the Ohio was as another country; but to-day,
so far as we can ascertain from a surface view,
the little villages on either side are equally
dingy and woe-begone, and large Southern
towns like Wheeling, Parkersburg, Point
Pleasant, and Maysville are very nearly an
offset to Steubenville, Marietta, Pomeroy,

158 On the Storied Ohio

Ironton, and Portsmouth. North-shore towns
of wealth and prominence are more numerous
than on the Dixie bank, and are as a rule
larger and somewhat better kept, with the
negro element less conspicuous; but to say
that the difference is anywhere near as marked
as the landlord averred, or as my own previous
reading on the subject led me to expect, is
grossly to exaggerate.

After leaving Manchester, O. (394 miles),
with a beautiful island at its door, there are
spasmodic evidences of the nearness of a
great city market. A large proportion of the
hills are completely denuded of their timber,
and patched with rectangular fields of green,
brown, and yellow; upon the bottoms there
are frequent truck farms; now and then are
stone quarries upon the banks, with capacious
barges moored in front; and upon one or two
rocky ledges were stone-crushers, getting out
material for concrete pavements. When we
ask the bargemen, in passing, whither their
loads are destined, the invariable reply is,
' ' The city " — meaning Cincinnati, still seventy
miles away.

Limestone Creek (405 miles) occupies a large
space in Western story, for so insignificant

Limestone Creek 1^9

a stream. It is now not over a rod in width,
and at no season can it be over two or three.
One finds it with difficulty along the mill-
strewn shore of Maysville, Ky. , the modern
outgrowth of the Limestone village of pioneer
days. Limestone, settled four years before
Marietta or Cincinnati, was long Kentucky's
chief port of entry on the Ohio; immigrants
to the new state, who came down the Ohio,
almost invariably booked for this point, thence
taking stage to Lexington, and travelers in the
early day seldom passed it by unvisited. But
years before there was any settlement here,
the valley of Limestone Creek, which comes
gently down from low-lying hills, was regarded
as a convenient doorway into Kentucky.
When (1776) George Rogers Clark was com-
ing down the river from Pittsburg, with pow-
der given by Patrick Henry, then governor of
Virginia, for the defence of Kentucky settlers
from British-incited savages, he was chased
by the latter, and, putting into this creek,
hastily buried the precious cargo on its banks.
From here it was cautiously taken overland
to the little forts, by relays of pioneers, through
a gauntlet of murderous fire.

About twenty-five miles from Limestone,

160 On the Storied Ohio

too, was another attraction of the early time, —
the great Blue Lick sulphur spring; here, in a
valley surrounded by wooded hills, formerly
congregated great herds of buffalo and deer,
which licked the salty earth, and hunters soon
learned that this was a royal ground for game.
The Battle of the Blue Lick (1782) will ever
be famous in the annals of Kentucky.

The Ohio was a mighty waterway into the
continental interior, in the olden days of Lime-
stone. Its only compeer was the so-called
" Wilderness Road," overland through Cum-
berland Gap — the successor of ' ' Boone's trail, "
just as Braddock's Road was the outgrowth of
' ' Nemacolin's path. " Until several years after
the Revolutionary War, the country north of
the Ohio was still Indian land, and settlement
was restricted to the region south of the river;
so that practically all West-going roads from
the coast colonies centered either on Fort
Pitt or Redstone, or on Cumberland Gap. On
the out-going trip, the Wilderness Road was
the more toilsome of the two, but it was safer,
for the Ohio's banks were beset with thieving
and often murdering savages. In returning
east, many who had descended the river pre-
ferred going overland through the Gap, to

Two Routes Westward 1 6 1

painfully pulling up stream through the shal-
lows, with the danger of Indians many times
greater than when gliding down the deep cur-
rent. The distance over the two routes from
Philadelphia, was nearly equal, when the wind-
ings of the river were taken into account; but
the Carolinians and the Georgians found
Boone's Wilderness Road the shorter of the
two, in their migrations to the promised land
of ' ' OF Kaintuck. " And we should not over-
look the fact, that of much importance was
still a third route, up the James and down the
Great Kanawha; a route whose advantage to
Virginia, Washington early saw, and tried in
vain to have improved by a canal connecting
the two rivers.*

Even before the opening of the Revolution,
the Ohio was the path of a considerable emi-
gration. We have seen Washington going
down to the Great Kanawha with his survey-
ing party, in 1770, and finding that settlers
were hurrying into the country for a hundred
miles below Fort Pitt. By the close of the
Revolution, the Ohio was a familiar stream.
Pittsburg, from a small trading hamlet and

* See ante, p. 126.
11

1 62 On the Storied Ohio

fording-place, had grown by 1785 to have a
thousand inhabitants, chiefly supported by
boat-building and the Kentucky carrying trade;
and boat-yards were common up both the
Monongahela and the Youghiogheny, for a
distance of sixty miles. Nevertheless, it was
not until 1792 that there were regular conven-
iences for carrying passengers and freight down
the Ohio; the emigrant or trader, on arrival
at Pittsburg or Redstone, had generally to
wait until he could either charter a boat or
have one built for him, although sometimes he
found a chance " passenger flat" going down.*
This difficulty in securing river transportation
was one of the reasons why the majority chose
the Wilderness Road.

' ' The first thing that strikes a stranger from
the Atlantic," says Flint (18 14), "is the sin-
gular, whimsical, and amusing spectacle of the
varieties of water-craft, of all shapes and
structures." These, Flint, who knew the

* Palmer (18 17) paid five dollars for his passage from Pitts-
burg to Cincinnati (465 miles), without food, and fifty cents
per hundred pounds for freight to Marietta. Imlay (1792)
says the rate in his time from Pittsburg to Limestone was
twenty-five cents per hundred. In 1803, Harris paid four
dollars-and-a-half per hundred for freight, by wagon from
Baltimore to Pittsburg.

Early Water Craft 163

river well, separates into seven classes: (1)
"Stately barges," the size of an Atlantic
schooner, with "a raised and outlandish-look-
ing deck;" one of these required a crew of
twenty-five to work it up stream. (2) Keel-
boats — long, slender, and graceful in form,
carrying from fifteen to thirty tons, easily pro-
pelled over the shallows, and much used in
low water, and in hunting trips to Missouri,
Arkansas, and the Red River country. (3)
Kentucky flats (or ' ' broad-horns"), ' ' a species
of ark, very nearly resembling a New England
pig-stye;" these were from forty to a hundred
feet in length, fifteen feet in beam, and car-
ried from twenty to seventy tons. Some of
these flats were not unlike the house-boats of
to-day. "It is no uncommon spectacle to see
a large family, old and young, servants, cattle,
hogs, horses, sheep, fowls, and animals of all
kinds," all embarked on one such bottom. (4)
Covered "sleds," ferry-flats, or Alleghany
skiffs, carrying from eight to twelve tons. (5)
Pirogues, of from two to four tons burthen,
"sometimes hollowed from one big tree, or
the trunks of two trees united, and a plank
rim fitted to the upper part." (6) Common
skiffs and dug-outs. (7) "Monstrous anom-

164 On the Storied Ohio

alies," not classifiable, and often whimsical in
design. To these might be added the ' * float-
ing shops or stores, with a small flag out to indi-
cate their character," so frequently seen by
Palmer (18 17), and thriftily surviving unto this
day, minus the flag. And Hall (1828) speaks of a
flat-bottomed row-boat, ' 'twelve feet long, with
high sides and roof," carrying an aged couple
down the river, they cared not where, so long
as they could find a comfortable home in the
West, for their declining and now childless
years.

The first four classes here enumerated, were
allowed to drift down stream with the current,
being steered by long sweeps hung on pivots.
The average speed was about three miles an
hour, but the distances made were consider-
able, from the fact that in the earliest days
they were, from fear of Indians, usually kept
on the move through day and night, — the
crew taking turns at the sweeps, that the craft
might not be hung up on shore or entangled
in the numerous snags and sawyers. In going
up stream, the sweeps served as oars, and in
the shallows long pushing-poles were used.

As for the boatmen who professionally pro-
pelled the keels and flats of the Ohio, they

The Flatboatmen 165

were a class unto themselves — "half horse,
half alligator," a contemporary styled them.
Rough fellows, much given to fighting, and
drunkenness, and ribaldry, with a genius for
coarse drollery and stinging repartee. The
river towns suffered sadly at the hands of this
lawless, dissolute element. Each boat carried
from thirty to forty boatmen, and a number
of such boats frequently traveled in company.
After the Indian scare was over, they generally
stopped over night in the settlements, and the
arrival of a squadron was certain to be fol-
lowed by a disturbance akin to those so familiar
a few years ago in our Southwest, when the
cowboys would undertake to "paint a town
red." The boatmen were reckless of life,
limb, and reputation, and were often more
numerous than those of the villagers who cared
to enforce the laws; while there was always
present an element which abetted and throve
on the vice of the river-men. The result was
that mischief, debauchery, and outrage ran
riot, and in the inevitable fights the citizens
were generally beaten.

The introduction of steamboats (18 14) soon
effected a revolution. A steamer could carry
ten times as much as a barge, could go five

1 66 On the Storied Ohio

times as fast, and required fewer men; it trav-
eled at night, quickly passing from one port
to another, pausing only to discharge or re-
ceive cargo; its owners and officers were men
of character and responsibility, with much
wealth in their charge, and insisted on disci-
pline and correct deportment. The flatboat
and the keel-boat were soon laid up to rot on
the banks; and the boatmen either became
respectable steamboat hands and farmers, or
went into the Far West, where wild life was
still possible.

Shipment on the river, in the flatboat days,
was only during the spring and autumnal
floods; although an occasional summer rise,
such as we are now getting, would cause a
general activity. In the autumn of 1818,
Hall reports that three millions of dollars'
worth of merchandise were lying on the shores
of the Monongahela, waiting for a rise of water
to float them to their destination. "The
Western merchants were lounging discontent-
edly about the streets of Pittsburg, or moping
idly in its taverns, like the victims of an ague."
The steamers did something to alleviate this
condition of affairs; but it was not until the
coming of railways, to carry goods quickly and

A Gretna Green 167

cheaply across country to deep-water ports
like Wheeling, that permanent relief was felt.

But what of the Maysville of to-day? It
extends on both sides of Limestone Creek for
about two miles along the Kentucky shore, at
no point apparently over five squares wide,
and for the most part but two or three; for
back of it forested hills rise sharply. There
is a variety of industries, the business quarter
is substantially built, and there are numerous
comfortable homes with pretty lawns.

On the opposite shore is Aberdeen, where
Kentucky swains and lasses, who for one rea-
son or another fail to get a license at home,
find marriage made easy — a peaceful, pleasant,
white village, with trees a-plenty, and roman-
tic hills shutting out the north wind.

We are camped to-night on a picturesque
sand-slope, at the foot of a willow-edged bot-
tom, and some seven feet above the river level.
We need to perch high, for the storm has been
general through the basin, and the Ohio is
rising steadily.

CHAPTER XIV.

Produce boats— A dead town — On the
Great Bend — Grant's birthplace — The
Little Miami — The genesis of Cincin-
nati.

Point Pleasant, O., Wednesday, May
23rd. — The river rose three feet during the
night. Steamers go now at full speed, no
longer fearing the bars; and the swash upon
shore was so violent that I was more than
once awakened, each time to find the water
line creeping nearer and nearer to the tent
door. As we sweep onward to-day, upon an
accelerated current, the fringing willows,
whose roots before the rise were many feet up
the slopes of sand and gravel, are gracefully-
dipping their boughs in the rushing flood.
With the rise, come the sweepings of the
beaches — bits of lumber, fallen trees, barrels,
boxes, 'longshore rubbish of every sort; some-
times it hangs in ragged rafts, and we steer
clear of such, for Pilgrim's progress is greater
than that of these unwelcome companions of
168

Tobacco 169

the voyage, and we wish no entangling alli-
ances.

Much tobacco is raised on the rounded,
gently-sloping hills below Maysville. Away
up on the acclivities, in sheltered spots near
the fields in which they are to be transplanted,
or in fence-corners in the ever-broadening
bottoms, we note white patches of thin cloth
pinned down over the young plants to protect
them from untoward frosts. There are many
tobacco warehouses to be seen along the
banks — apparently farmers cooperate in main-
taining such; and in front of each, a roadway
leads down to the water's edge, indicating a
steamboat landing. On the town wharves are
often seen portly barrels, — locally, "punch-
eons,"— filled with the weed, awaiting ship-
ment by boat; most of the product goes to
Louisville, but there are also large buyers in
the smaller Kentucky towns.

Occasionally, to-day, we have seen moored
to some rustic landing a great covered barge,
quite of the fashion of the golden age of Ohio
boating. At one end, a room is partitioned
off to serve as cabin, and the sweeps are oper-
ated from the roof. These are produce-
boats, which are laden with coarse vegetables

170 On the Storied Ohio

and sometimes live stock, and floated down
to Cincinnati or Louisville, and even to St.
Louis and New Orleans. In ante-bellum
days, produce-boats were common enough,
and much money was made by speculative
buyers who would dispose of their cargo in
the most favorable port, sell the barge, and
then return by rail or steamer; just as, in
still earlier days, the keel or flatboat owner
would sell both freight and vessel on the
Lower Mississippi, — or abandon the craft if
he could not sell it, — and "hoof it home," as
a contemporary chronicler puts it.

Ripley, Levanna (417 miles), Higginsport
(421 miles), Chilo (431 miles), Neville (435
miles), and Point Pleasant (442 miles) are the
Ohio towns to-day; and Dover (417 miles),
Augusta (424 miles), and Foster (435 miles),
their rivals on the Kentucky shore. Saw-
mills and distilleries are the leading industries,
and there are broad paved wharves; but a
listless air pervades them all, as if once they
basked in the light of better days. Foster is
rather the shabbiest of the lot. As I passed
through to find the postomce, at the upper
edge of town, where the hills come down
to meet the bottom, I saw that half of the

A Natural Death 171

store buildings still intact were closed, many
dwellings and warehouses were in ruins, and
numerous open cellars were grown to grass
and weeds. Few people were in sight, and
they loafing at the corners. The postoffice
occupied a vacated store, evidently not swept
these six months past. The youthful master,
with chair tilted back and his feet on an old
washstand which did duty as office table, was
listlessly whittling a finger-ring from a peach-
stone; but shoving his feet along, he made
room for me to write a postal card which I
had brought for the purpose.

"What is the matter with this town?" I
asked, as I scratched away.

"Daid, I reck'n!" and he blew away the
peach-stone dust which had accumulated in
the folds of his greasy vest.

" Yes, I see it is dead. What killed it?"

"Oh! just gone daid — sort o' nat'ral daith,
I reck'n."

We had a pretty view this morning, three
or four miles below Augusta, from the top of
a tree-denuded Kentucky hill, some two hun-
dred and fifty feet high. Hauling Pilgrim
into the willows, we set out over a low, culti-
vated bottom, whose edges were being lapped

172 On the Storied Ohio

by the rising river, to the detriment of the
springing corn; then scrambling up the ter-
race on which the Chesapeake & Ohio railway
runs, we crawled under a barb-wire fence,
and ascended through a pasture, our right of
way contested for a moment by a gigantic
Berkshire boar, which was not easily van-
quished. When at last we gained the top, by
dint of clambering over rail-fences and up
steep slopes bestrewn with mulleins and boul-
ders, and over patches of freshly-plowed
hardscrabble, the sight was well worth the
rough climb. The broad Ohio bottom, op-
posite, was thick-dotted with orchard clumps,
from which rose the white houses and barns
of small tillers. On the generous slopes of
the Kentucky hills, all corrugated with wooded
ravines, were scores of fertile farmsteads,
each with its ample tobacco shed — the bet-
ter class of farmers on the hilltops, their
buildings often silhouetted against the western
sky, and the meaner sort down low on the
river's bank. Through this pastoral scene,
the broad river winds with noble sweep, until,
both above and below, it loses itself in the
purple mist of the distant hills.

We are now upon the Great Bend of the

Kaleidoscopic Vistas 173

Ohio, beginning at Neville (435 miles) and
ending at Harris's Landing (519 miles), with
North Bend (482 miles) at the apex. The
bend is itself a series of convolutions, and our
point of view is ever changing, so that we
have kaleidoscopic vistas, — and with each new
setting, good-humoredly dispute with each
other, we at the oars, and the others in the
stern-sheets, as to which is the more beautiful,
the unfolding or the dissolving view.

Our camp to-night is beside a little hillside
torrent on the lower edge of Point Pleasant.
We are well up on the rocky slope; an aban-
doned stone-quarry lies back of us, up the hill
a bit; and leading into the village, half a mile
away, is a picturesque country road, overhung
with sumacs and honey locusts — overtopped
on one side by a precipitous pasture, and on
the other dropping suddenly to a beach thick-
grown to willows, maples, and scrub syca-
mores.

The Boy and I made an expedition into the
town, for milk and water, but were obliged to
climb one of the sharpest ascents hereabout,
before our search was rewarded. A pretty
little farmstead it is, up there on the lofty hill
above us, with a wealth of chickens and an

174 On the Storied Ohio

ample dairy, and fat fields and woods gently
sloping backward into the interior. The good
farm-wife was surprised that I was willing to
"pack" commodities, so plentiful with her,
down so steep a path; but canoeing pilgrims
must not falter at trifles such as this.

Point Pleasant is the birthplace of General
Grant. Not every hamlet has its hero, here-
about. Everyone we met this evening, —
seeing we were strangers, the Boy and I, — told
us of this halo which crowns their home.

Cincinnati, Thursday, May 24th. — During
the night there were frequent heavy downpours,
during which the swollen torrent by our side
roared among its boulders right lustily; and
occasionally a heavy farm-wagon crossed the
country bridge which spans the ravine just
above us, its rumblings echoing in the quarried
glen for all the world like distant thunder.
Before turning in, each built a cairn upon the
beach, at the point which he thought the
water might reach by morning. The Boy,
more venturesome than the rest, piled his
cairn highest up the slope; and when daylight
revealed the fact that the river, in its four-feet
rise, had crept nearest his goal, there was
much juvenile rejoicing.

The River Rising 175

There is a gray sky, this morning. With a
cold headwind on the starboard quarter, we
hug the lee of the Ohio shore. The river is
well up in the willows now. Crowding Pil-
grim as closely as we may, within the narrow
belt of unruffled water, our oars are swept by
their bending boughs, which lightly tremble
on the surface of the flood. The numerous
rock-cumbered ravines, coursing down the
hills or through the bottom lands, a few days
since held but slender streams, or were, the
most of them, wholly dry; but now they are
brimming with noisy currents all flecked with
foam — pretty pictures, these yawning gullies,
overhung with cottonwoods and sycamores,
with thick undergrowth of green-brier and
wild columbine, and the yellow buds of the
celandine poppy.

The hills are showing better cultivation, as
we approach the great city. The farm-houses
are in better style, the market gardens larger,
prosperity more evident. Among the pleasing
sights are frequent farmsteads at the summits
of the slopes, with orchards and vineyards, and
gardens and fields, stretching down almost to
the river — quite, indeed, on the Ohio side, but in
Kentucky flanked at the base by the railway

176 On the Storied Ohio

terrace. Numerous ferries connect the Ken-
tucky railway stations with the eastern bank;
one, which we saw just above New Richmond,
O. (446 miles), was run by horse power, a
weary nag in a tread-mill above each side-
paddle. Although Kentucky has the railway,
there is just here apparent a greater degree of
thrift in Ohio — the towns more numerous,
fields and truck-gardens more ample, on the
whole a better class of farm-houses, and fre-
quently, along the country road which closely
skirts the shore, comfortable little broad-bal-
conied inns, dependent on the trade of fishing
and outing parties.

Just below the Newport waterworks are
several coal-barge harbors — mooring-grounds
where barges lie in waiting, until hauled off
by tugs to the storage wharves. In the rear
of one of these fleets, at the base of a market
garden, we found a sunny nook for lunch — for
here on the Kentucky side the cold wind has
full sweep, and we are glad of shelter when at
rest. Across the river is a broad, low bottom
given up to market gardeners, who jealously
cultivate down to the water's edge, leaving the
merest fringe of willows to protect their do-
main. At the foot of this fertile plain, the

Cincinnati 177

Little Miami River (460 miles) pours its muddy
contribution into the Ohio; and beyond this
rises the amphitheater of hills on which Cin-
cinnati (466 miles) is mainly built. We see
but the outskirts here, for two miles below us
there is a sharp bend in the river, and only a
dark pall of smoke marks where the city lies.
But these outlying slopes are well dotted with
gray and white groups of settlement, separated
by stretches of woodland over which play
changing lights, for cloud masses are sweeping
the Ohio hills while we are still basking in
the sun.

Above us, crowning the Kentucky ascents,
or nestled on their wooded shoulders, are many
beautiful villas, evidently the homes of the
ultra-wealthy. Close at hand we have the
pleasant chink-chink of caulking hammers, for
barges are built and repaired in this snug har-
bor. Now and then a river tug comes, with
noisy bluster of smoke and steam, and amid
much tightening and slackening of rope, and
wild profanity, takes captive a laden barge, —
as a cowboy might a refractory steer in the
midst of a herd, — and hauls it off to be dis-
gorged down stream. And just as we conclude
our lunch, German women come with hoes to

178 On the Storied Ohio

practice the gentle art of horticulture — a char-
acteristic conglomeration, in the heart of our
busy West; the millionaire on the hill-top, the
tiller on the slope, shipwright on the beach,
and grimy Commerce master of the flood.

Setting afloat on a boiling current, thick
with driftwood, we soon were coursing be-
tween city-lined shores — on the Kentucky
side, Newport and Covington, respectively
above and below Licking River; and in an
hour were making our way through the laby-
rinth of steamers thickly moored with their
noses to land, and cautiously creeping around
to a quiet spot at the stern of a giant wharf-
boat — no slight task this, with the river ' ' on
the jump," and a false move liable to swamp
us if we strike an obstruction at full gait. No
doubt we all breathed freer when Pilgrim, too,
was beached, — although it be only confessed
in the privacy of the log. With her and her
cargo safely stored in the wharf-boat, we
sought a hotel, and, regaining our bag of
clothing, — shipped ahead of us from McKee's
Rocks, — donned urban attire for an inspection
of the city.

And a noble city it is, that has grown out
of the two block-houses which George Rogers

Losantiville 1 79

Clark planted here in 1780, on his raid against
the Indians of Chillicothe. In 1788, John
Cleves Symmes, the first United States judge
of the Northwest Territory, purchased from
Congress a million acres of land, lying on the
Ohio between the two Miami Rivers. Mat-
thias Denman bought from him a square mile
at the eastern end of the grant, "ona most
delightful high bank" opposite the Licking,
and — on a cash valuation for the land, of two
hundred dollars — took in with him as partners
Robert Patterson and John Filson. Filson
was a schoolmaster, had written the first his-
tory of Kentucky, and seems to have enjoyed
much local distinction. To him was entrusted
the task of inventing a name for the settle-
ment which the company proposed to plant
here. The outcome was "Losantiville," a
pedagogical hash of Greek, Latin, and French:
L, for Licking; os, mouth; anti, opposite;
vilie, city — Licking-opposite-City, or City-op-
posite-Licking, whichever is preferred. This
was in August. The Fates work quickly, for
in October poor Filson was scalped by the
Indians in the neighborhood of the Big Miami,
before a settler had yet been enticed to Lo-
santiville. But the survivors knew how to

180 On the Storied Ohio

"boom" a town; lots were given away by
lottery to intending actual settlers; and in a
few months Symmes was able to write that
"It populates considerably."

A few weeks previous to the planting of
Losantiville, a party of men from Redstone
had settled Columbia, at the mouth of the
Little Miami, about where the suburb of Cal-
ifornia now is; and, a few weeks later, a third
colony was started by Symmes himself at
North Bend, near the Big Miami, at the west-
ern extremity of his grant; and this, the
judge wished to make the capital of the new
Northwest Territory. At first, it was a race
between these three colonies. A few miles
below North Bend, Fort Finney had been
built in 1785-86, hence the Bend had at first
the start; but a high flood dampened its pros-
pects, the troops were withdrawn from this
neighborhood to Louisville, and in the winter
of 1789-90 Fort Washington was built at Lo-
santiville by General Harmar. The neighbor-
hood of the new fortress became, in the ensu-
ing Indian war, the center of the district.

To Losantiville, with its fort, came Arthur
St. Clair, the new governor of the Northwest
Territory (January, 1790); and, making his
headquarters here, laid violent hands on Fil-

Mad Anthony Wayne 1 8 1

son's invention, at once changing the name
to Cincinnati, in honor of the Society of the
Cincinnati, of which the new official was a
prominent member — "so that," Symmes sor-
rowfully writes, " Losantiville will become
extinct." Five years of Indian campaigning
followed, the features of which were the crush-
ing defeats of Harmar and St. Clair, and the
final victory of Mad Anthony Wayne at Fallen
Timbers. It was not until the Treaty of
Greenville (1795), the result of Wayne's bril-
liant dash into the wilderness, that the Rev-
olutionary War may properly be said to have
ended in the West.

Those were stirring times on the Ohio, both
ashore and afloat; but, amidst them all, Cin-
cinnati grew apace. Ellicott, in 1796, speaks
of it as k4a very respectable place," and in
1 8 14 Flint found it the only port that could
be called a town, from Steubenville to Nat-
chez, a distance of fifteen hundred miles; in
1825 he reports it greatly grown, and crowded
with immigrants from Europe and from our
own Eastern states. The impetus thus early
gained has never lessened, and Cincinnati is
to-day one of the best built and most substan-
tial cities in the Union.

CHAPTER XV.

The story of North Bend — The ' ' shakes" —
Driftwood — Rabbit Hash — A side-trip
to Big Bone Lick.

Near Petersburg, Ky., Friday, May

25th. — This morning, an hour before noon, as

we looked upon the river from the top of the

Cincinnati wharf, a wild scene presented itself.

The shore up and down, as far as could be

seen, was densely lined with packets and

freighters; beyond them, the great stream,

here half a mile wide, was rushing past like a

mill-race, and black with all manner of drift,

some of it formed into great rafts from each of

which sprawled a network of huge branches.

Had we been strangers to this offscouring of a

thousand miles of beach, swirling past us at a

six-mile gait, we might well have doubted the

prudence of launching little Pilgrim upon such

a sea. But for two days past we had been

amidst something of the sort, and knew that

to cautious canoeists it was less dangerous

than it appeared.

182

Among the Drift 183

A strong head wind, meeting this surging
tide, is lashing it into a white-capped fury.
But lying to with paddle and oars, and dodging
ferries and towing-tugs as best we may, Pilgrim
bears us swiftly past the long line of steamers
at the wharf, past Newport and Covington,
and the insignificant Licking,* and out under
great railway bridges which cobweb the sky.
Soon Cincinnati, shrouded in smoke, has dis-
appeared around the bend, and we are in the
fast-thinning suburbs — homes of beer-gardens
and excursion barges, havens for freight-flats,
and villas of low and high degree.

When we are out here in the swim, the
drift-strewn stream has a more peaceful aspect
than when looked at from the shore. Instead
of rushing past as if dooming to destruction
everything else afloat, the debris falls behind,
when we row, for our progress is then the
greater. Dropping our oars, our gruesome
companions on the river pass us slowly, for
they catch less wind than we; and then, so
silent the steady march of all, we seem to be
drifting up-stream, until on glancing at the
shore the hills appear to be swiftly going down

*So called from the Big Buffalo Lick, upon its banks.

184 On the Storied Ohio.

and the willow fringes up, — until the sight
makes us dizzy, and we are content to be at
quits with these optical delusions.

We no longer have the beach of gravel or
sand, or strip of clay knee-deep in mud. The
water, now twelve feet higher than before the
rise, has covered all; it is, indeed, swaying the
branches of sycamores and willows, and meet-
ing the edges of the corn-fields of venturesome
farmers who have cultivated far down, taking
the risk of a "June fresh." Often could we,
if we wished, row quite within the bulwark of
willows, where a week ago we would have
ventured to camp.

The Kentucky side, to-day, from Covington
out, has been thoroughly rustic, seldom broken
by settlement; while Ohio has given us a suc-
cession of suburban towns all the way out to
North Bend (482 miles), which is a small man-
ufacturing place, lying on a narrow bottom at
the base of a convolution of gentle, wooded
hills. One sees that Cincinnati has a better
and a broader base; North Bend was handi-
capped by nature, in its early race.

When Ohio came into the Union (1803), it
was specified that the boundary between her
and Indiana should be a line running due

Visiting Crackers 185

north from the mouth of the Big Miami. But
the latter, an erratic stream, frequently the
victim of floods, comes wriggling down to the
Ohio through a broad bottom grown thick to
willows, and in times of high water its mouth
is a changeable locality. The boundary mon-
ument is planted on the meridian of what was
the mouth, ninety-odd years ago; but to-day
the Miami breaks through an opening in the
quivering line of willow forest, a hundred yards
eastward (487 miles).

Garrison Creek is a modest Kentucky afflu-
ent, just above the Miami's mouth. At the
point, a group of rustics sat on a log at the
bank-top, watching us approach. Landing in
search of milk and water, I was taken by one
of them in a lumbersome skiff a short distance
up the creek, and presented to his family.
They are genuine " crackers," of the coarsest
type — tall, lean, sallow, fishy-eyed, with tow-
colored hair, an ungainly gait, barefooted, and
in nondescript clothing all patches and tatters.
The tousle-headed woman, surrounded by her
copies in miniature, keeps the milk neatly, in
an outer dairy, perhaps because of market
requirements; but in the crazy old log-house,
pigs and chickens are free comers, and the

1 86 On the Storied Ohio

cistern from which they drink is foul. Here
in this damp, low pocket of a bottom, annually
flooded to the door-sill, in the midst of veg-
etation of the rankest order, and quite un-
heedful of the simplest of sanitary laws, these
yellow-skinned " crackers" are cradled, wed-
ded, and biered. And there are thousands
like unto them, for we are now in the heart of
the " shake" country, and shall hear enough
of the plague through the remainder of our
pilgrimage. As for ourselves, we fear not, for
it is not until autumn that danger is imminent,
and we are taking due precaution under the
Doctor's guidance.

Two miles beyond, is the Indiana town of
Lawrenceburg, with the unkempt aspect so
common to the small river places; and two
miles still farther, on a Kentucky bottom,
Petersburg, whose chiefest building, as viewed
from the stream, is a huge distillery. On a
high sandy terrace, a mile or so below, we
pitch our nightly camp. All about are wil-
lows, rustling musically in the evening breeze,
and, soaring far aloft, the now familiar syca-
mores. Nearly opposite, in Indiana, the little
city of Aurora is sparkling with points of light,
strains of dance music reach us over the way,

Lost in the Fog 187

and occasional shouts and gay laughter; while
now and then, in the thickening dusk of the
long day, we hear skiffs go chucking by from
Petersburg way, and the gleeful voices of men
and women doubtless being ferried to the ball.

Near Warsaw, Ky., Saturday, May 26th. —
Our first mosquito appeared last night, but he
was easily slaughtered. It has been a com-
fort to be free, thus far, from these pests of
camp life. We had prepared for them by
laying in a bolt of black tarlatan at Wheel-
ing,— greatly superior this, to ordinary white
mosquito bar, — but thus far it has remained
in the shopman's wrapper.

The fog this morning was of the heaviest.
At 4 o'clock we were awakened by the sharp
clanging of a pilot's signal bell, and there,
poking her nose in among our willows, a dozen
feet from the tent, was the ''Big Sandy," one
of the St. Louis & Cincinnati packet line.
She had evidently lost her bearings in the
mist; but with a deal of ringing, and a noisy
churning of the water by the reversed paddle-
wheel, pulled out and disappeared into the
gloom.

The river, still rising, is sweeping down an

1 88 On the Storied Ohio

ever-increasing body of rubbish. Islands and
beaches, away back to the Alleghanies on the
main stream, and on thousands of miles of
affluents, are yielding up those vast rafts of
drift-wood and fallen timber, which have con-
tinually impressed us on our way with a
sense of the enormous wastage everywhere in
progress — necessary, of course, in view of the
prohibitive cost of transportation. Neverthe-
less, one thinks pitifully of the tens of thou-
sands who, in congested districts, each winter
suffer unto death for want of fuel; and here is
this wealth of forest debris, the useless play-
thing of the river. But not only wreckage of
this character is borne upon the flood. The
thievish river has picked up valuable saw-logs
that have run astray, lumber of many sorts,
boxes, barrels — and now and then the body of
a cow or horse that has tumbled to its death
from some treacherous clay-cliff or rocky ter-
race. The beaches have been swept clean by
the rushing flood, of whatever lay upon them,
be it good or bad, for the great scavenger ex-
ercises no discretion.

The bulk of the matter now follows the
current in an almost solid raft, as it caroms
from shore to shore. Having swift water

Rabbit Hash 189

everywhere at this stage, for the most part we
avoid entangling Pilgrim in the procession,
but row upon the outskirts, interested in the
curious medley, and observant of the many
birds which perch upon the branches of the
floating trees and sing blithely on their way.
The current bears hard upon the Aurora
beach, and townsfolk by scores are out in
skiffs or are standing by the water's edge, en-
gaged with boat-hooks in spearing choice
morsels from the debris rushing by their
door — heaping it upon the shore to dry, or
gathering it in little rafts which they moor
to the bank. It is a busy scene; the wreckers,
men, women, and children alike, are so en-
gaged in their grab-bag game that they have
no eyes for us; unobserved, we watch them
at close range, and speculate upon their re-
spective chances.

Rabbit Hash, Ky. (502 miles), is a crude
hamlet of a hundred souls, lying nestled in a
green amphitheater. A horse-power ferry runs
over to the larger village of Rising Sun, its
Indiana neighbor. There is a small general
store in Rabbit Hash, with postomce and
paint-shop attachment, and near by a tobacco
warehouse and a blacksmith shop, with a few

190 On the Storied Ohio

cottages scattered at intervals over the bot-
tom. The postmaster, who is" also the store-
keeper and painter, greeted me with joy, as
I deposited with him mail-matter bearing
eighteen cents' worth of stamps; for his is one
of those offices where the salary is the value
of the stamps cancelled. It is not every day
that so liberal a patron comes along.

"Jemimi! Bill! but guv'm'nt business 's
look'n' up — there'll be some o' th' rest o' us
a-want'n' this yere off'c', a'ter nex' 'lection, I
reck'n'."

It was the blacksmith, who is also the ferry-
man, who thus bantered the delighted post-
master,— a broad-faced, big-chested, brown-
armed man, with his neck-muscles standing
out like cords, and his mild blue eyes dancing
with fun, this rustic disciple of Tubal Cain.
He sat just without the door, leather apron on,
and his red shirt-sleeves rolled up, playing
checkers on an upturned soap-box, with a jolly
fat farmer from the hill-country, whose broad
straw hat was cocked on the back of his bald
head. The merry laughter of the two was in-
fectious. The half-dozen spectators, small
farmers whose teams and saddle-horses were
hitched to the postoffice railing, were them-

Checkers 191

selves hilarious over the game; and a saffron-
skinned, hollow-cheeked woman in a blue sun-
bonnet, and with a market-basket over her arm,
stopped for a moment at the threshold to look
on, and then passed within the store, her
eyes having caught the merriment, although
her facial muscles had apparently lost their
power of smiling.

Joining the little company, I found that the
farmer was a blundering player, but made up
in fun what he lacked in science. I tried to
ascertain the origin of the name Rabbit Hash,
as applied to the hamlet. Every one had a
different opinion, evidently invented on the
spur of the moment, but all " 'lowed" that
none but the tobacco agent could tell, and he
was off in the country for the day; as for them-
selves, they had, they confessed, never thought
of it before. It always had been Rabbit Hash,
and like enough would be to the end of time.

We are on the lookout for Big Bone Creek,
wishing to make a side trip to the famous Big
Bone Lick, but among the many openings
through the willows of the Kentucky shore we
may well miss it, hence make constant inquiry
as we proceed. There was a houseboat in
the mouth of one goodly affluent. As we hove

192 On the Storied Ohio

in sight, a fat woman, whose gunny-sack apron
was her chief attire, hurried up the gang-plank
and disappeared within.

"Hello, the boat!" one of us hailed.

The woman's fuzzy head appeared at the
window.

"What creek is this?"

" Gunpowder, I reck'n!" — in a deep, man-
like voice.

"How far below is Big Bone?"

"Jist a piece!"

"How many miles?"

"Two, I reck'n."

Big Bone Creek (512 miles), some fifty or
sixty feet wide at the mouth, opens through a
willow patch, between pretty, sloping hills.
A houseboat lay just within — a favorite situa-
tion for them, these creek mouths, for here
they are undisturbed by steamer wakes, and
the fishing is usually good. The proprietor, a
rather distinguished-looking mulatto, despite
his old clothes and plantation straw-hat, was
sitting in a chair at his cabin door, angling;
his white wife was leaning over him lovingly,
as we shot into the scene, but at once with-
drew inside. This man, with his side-whiskers
and fine air, may have been a head-waiter or

Big Bone Creek 193

a dance-fiddler in better days; but his soft,
plaintive voice, and hacking cough, bespoke
the invalid. He told us what he knew about
the creek, which was little enough, as he had
but recently come to these parts.

At an ordinary stage in the Ohio, the Big
Bone cannot be ascended in a skiff for more
than half a mile; now, upon the backset, we
are able to proceed for two miles, leaving but
another two miles of walking to the Lick itself.
The creek curves gracefully around the bases
of the sugar-loaf hills of the interior. Under
the swaying arch of willows, and of ragged,
sprawling sycamores, their bark all patched
with green and gray and buff and white, we
have charming vistas — the quiet water, thick
grown with aquatic plants; the winding banks,
bearing green-dragons and many another flower
loving damp shade; the frequent rocky pal-
isades, oozing with springs; and great blue
herons, stretching their long necks in wonder,
and then setting off with a stately flight which
reminds one of the cranes on Japanese ware.
Through the dense fringe of vegetation, we
have occasional glimpses of the hillside farms —
their sloping fields sprinkled with stones, their
often barren pastures, numerous abandoned
13

194 On the Storied Ohio

tracts overgrown with weeds, and blue-grass
lush in the meadows. Along the edges of
the Creek, and in little pocket bottoms, the
varied vegetation has a sub-tropical luxuriance,
and in this now close, warm air, there is a rank
smell suggestive of malaria.

These bottoms are annually overflowed, so
that the crude little farmsteads are on the
rising ground — whitewashed cabins, many of
them of logs, serve as houses; for stock, there
are the veriest shanties, affording practically
no shelter; best of all, the rude tobacco-dry-
ing sheds, in many of which some of last year's
crop can still be seen, hanging on the strips.
We are out of the world, here; and barefooted
men and boys, who with listless air are fishing
from the banks, gaze at us in dull wonder as
we thread our tortuous way.

Finally, we learned that we could with profit
go no higher. Before us were two miles of
what was described as the roughest sort of hill
road, and the afternoon sun was powerful; so
W — accepted the invitation of a rustic fisher-
man to rest with his "women folks" in a little
cabin up the hill a bit. Seeing her safely
housed with the good-natured ' ' cracker " farm-
wife, the Doctor, the Boy, and I trudged off

Big Bone Lick 195

toward Big Bone Lick. The waxy clay of the
roadbed had recently been wetted by a shower;
the walking, consequently, was none of the
best. But we were repaid with charming
views of hill and vale, a softly-rolling scene
dotted with little gray and brown fields, clumps
of woodland, rail-fenced pastures, and cabins
of the crudest sort — for in the autumn-tide,
the curse of malaria haunts the basin of the
Big Bone, and none but he of fortune spurned
would care here in this beauty-spot to plant
his vine and fig-tree. Now and then our path
leads us across the winding creek, which in
these upper reaches tumbles noisily over ledges
of jagged rock, above which luxuriant syca-
mores, and elms, and maples arch gracefully.
At each picturesque fording-place, with its
inevitable watering-pool, are stepping-stones
for foot pilgrims; often a flock of geese are
sailing in the pool, with craned necks and
flapping wings hissing defiance to disturbers
of their sylvan peace.

The travelers we meet are on horseback —
most of them the yellow-skinned, hollow-
cheeked folk, with lack-luster eyes, whom we
note in the cabin doors, or dawdling about
their daily routine. On nearing the Lick,

196 On the Storied Ohio

two young horsewomen, out of the common,
look interestedly at us, and I stop to inquire
the way, although the village spire is peering
above the tree-tops yonder. Pretty, buxom,
sweet-faced lassies, these, with soft, pleasant
voices, each with her market-basket over her
arm, going homeward from shopping. It
would be interesting to know their story —
what it is that brings these daughters of a
brighter world here into this valley of the liv-
ing death.

Two hundred yards farther, where the road
forks, and the one at the right hand ascends
to the small hamlet of Big Bone Lick, there is
an interesting picture beneath the way-post: a
girl in a blue calico gown, her face deep hidden
in her red sunbonnet, sits upon a chestnut
mount, with a laden market-basket before her;
while by her side, astride a coal-black pony,
which fretfully paws to be on his way, is a
roughly dressed youth, his face shaded by a
broad slouched hat of the cowboy order.
They have evidently met there by appoint-
ment, and are so earnestly conversing — she
with her hand resting lovingly, perhaps dep-
recatingly, upon his bridle-arm, and his free
hand nervously stroking her horse's mane,

The Mammoth 197

while his eyes are far afield — that they do not
observe us as we pass; and we are free to
weave from the incident any sort of cracker
romance which fancy may dictate.

The source of Big Bone Creek is a marshy
basin some fifty acres in extent, rimmed with
gently-sloping hills, and freely pitted with
copious springs of a water strongly sulphurous
in taste, with a suggestion of salt. The odor
is so powerful as to be all-pervading, a quarter
of a mile away, and to be readily detected at
twice that distance. This collection of springs
constitutes Big Bone Lick, probably the most
famous of the many similar licks in Kentucky,
Indiana, and Illinois.

The salt licks of the Ohio basin were from
the earliest times resorted to in great numbers
by wild beasts, and were favorite camping-
grounds for Indians, and for white hunters
and explorers. This one was first visited by
the French as early as 1729, and became
famous because of the great quantities of re-
mains of animals which lay all over the marsh,
particularly noticeable being the gigantic bones
of the extinct mammoth — hence the name
adopted by the earliest American hunters,
' 'Big Bone." These monsters had evidently

198 On the Storied Ohio

been mired in the swamp, while seeking to
lick the salty mud, and died in their tracks.
Pioneer chronicles abound in references to the
Lick, and we read frequently of hunting-par-
ties using the ribs of the mammoth for tent
poles, and sections of the vertebrae as camp
stools and tables. But in our own day, there
are no surface evidences of this once rich
treasure of giant fossils; although occasionally
a ' ' find " is made by enterprising excavators, —
several bones having thus been unearthed only
a week ago. They are now on exhibition in
the neighboring village, preparatory to being
shipped to an Eastern museum.

As we hurried back over the rolling highway,
thunder-clouds grandly rose out of the west,
and great drops of rain gave us moist warning
of the coming storm. W — was watching us
from the cabin door, as we made the last
turning in the road, and, accompanied by the
farm-wife and her two daughters, came trip-
ping down to the landing. She had been
entertained in the one down-stairs room, as
royally as these honest cracker women-folk
knew how; seated in the family rocking-chair,
she had heard in those two hours the social
gossip of a wide neighborhood; learned, too,

Skiffing for Pleasure 199

that the cold, wet weather of the last fort-
night had killed turkey-chicks and goslings by
the score; heard of the damage being done to
corn and tobacco, by the prevalent high water;
was told how Bess and Brindle fared, off in
the rocky pasture which yields little else than
mulleins; and how far back Towser had to go,
to claim relationship to a collie. "And
weren't we really show-people, going down
the river this way, in a skiff? or, if we weren't
show-people, had we an agency for something?
or, were we only in trade?" It seems a diffi-
cult task to make these people on the bottoms
believe that we are skiffing it for pleasure — it
is a sort of pleasure so far removed from their
notions of the fitness of things; and so at last
we have given up trying, and let them think
of our pilgrimage what they will.

The entire family now assembled on the
muddy bank, and bade us a really affectionate
farewell, as if we had been, in this isolated
corner of the world, most welcome guests who
were going all too soon. In a few strokes
of the oars we were rounding the bend; and
waving our hands at the little knot of watch-
ers, went forth from their lives, doubtless
forever.

200 On the Storied Ohio

The storm soon burst upon us in full fury.
Clad in rubber, we rested under giant trees, or
beneath projecting rock ledges, taking advan-
tage of occasional lulls to push on for a few
rods to some new shelter. The numerous
little hillside runs which, in our journey up,
were but dry gullies choked with leaves and
boulders, were now brimming with muddy tor-
rents, rushing all foam-flecked and with deaf-
ening roar into the central stream. At last
the cloud curtain rolled away, the sun gushed
out with fiery rays, the arch of foliage sparkled
with splendor — in meadow and on hillside, the
face of Nature was cleanly beautiful.

At the creek mouth, the distinguished mu-
latto still was fishing from his chair, and stand-
ing by his side was his wife throwing a spoon.
They nodded to us pleasantly, as old friends
returned. Gliding by their boat, Pilgrim was
soon once more in the full current of the swift-
flowing Ohio.

We are high up to-night, on a little grass
terrace in Kentucky, two miles above Warsaw.
The usual country road lies back of us, a rod
or two, and then a slender field surmounted
by a woodland hill. Fortune favors us, almost

Perched High 201

nightly, with seemly abiding-places. In no
shelter could we sleep more comfortably than
in our cotton home.

CHAPTER XVI.

New Switzerland — An old-time river
pilot — Houseboat life, on the lower

reaches a philosopher in rags wood-

ed solitudes arrival at louisville.

Near Madison, Ind., Sunday, May 27th. —
At supper last night, a houseboat fisherman,
going by in his skiff, parted the willows fring-
ing our beach, and offered to sell us some of
his wares. We bought from him a two-pound
catfish, which he tethered to a bush overhang-
ing the water, until we were ready to dress it;
giving us warning, that meanwhile it would be
best to have an eye on our purchase, or the
turtles would devour it. Hungry thieves, these
turtles, the fisherman said; you could leave
nothing edible in water or on land, unpro-
tected, without constant fear of the reptiles —
which reminds me that yesterday the Doctor
and the Boy found on the beach a beautiful
box tortoise.

Our fish was swimming around finely, at
202

Licensed Houseboats 203

the end of his cord, when the executioner ar-
rived, and when finally hung up in a tree was
safe from the marauders. This morning the
fisherman was around again, hoping to obtain
another dime from the commissariat; but
though we had breakfasted creditably from
the little ''cat," we had no thought of stock-
ing our larder with his kind. So the grizzly
man of nets took a fresh chew of tobacco, and
sat a while in his boat, "pass'n' th' time o'
day" with us, punctuating his remarks with
frequent expectorations.

The new Kentucky houseboat law taxes each
craft of this sort seven-and-a-half dollars, he
said: five dollars going to the State, and the
remainder to the collector. There was to be
a patrol boat, "to see that th' fellers done
step to th' cap'n's office an' settle." But the
houseboaters were going to combine and fight
the law on constitutional grounds, for they had
been told that it was clearly an interference
with commerce on a national highway. As
for the houseboaters voting — well, some of
them did, but the most of them didn't. The
Indiana registry law requires a six months'
residence, and in Kentucky it is a full year, so
that a houseboat man who moves about any,

204 On the Storied Ohio

" jes' isn't in it, sir, thet's all." However, our
visitor was not much disturbed over the prac-
tical disfranchisement of his class — it seemed,
rather, to amuse him; he was much more con-
cerned in the new tax, which he thought an
outrageous imposition. In bidding us a cheery
good-bye, he noticed my camera. "Yees be
one o' them photygraph parties, hey?" and
laughed knowingly, as though he had caught
me in a familiar trick. No child of nature so
simple, in these days, as not to recognize a
kodak.

Warsaw, Ky. (524 miles), just below, has
some bankside evidences of manufacturing, but
on the whole is rather down at the heel. A
contrast this, to Vevay (533 miles), on the
Indiana shore, which, though a small town on
a low-lying bottom, is neat and apparently
prosperous. Vevay was settled in 1803, by
John James Dufour and several associates,
from the District of Vevay, in Switzerland,
who purchased from Congress four square
miles hereabout, and, christening it New Swit-
zerland, sought to establish extensive vineyards
in the heart of this middle West. The Swiss
prospered. The colony has had sufficient vi-
tality to preserve many of its original charac-

A Notable Pilot 205

teristics unto the present day. Much of the
land in the neighborhood is still owned by the
descendants of Dufour and his fellows, but the
vineyards are not much in evidence. In fact,
the grape-growing industry on the banks of
the Ohio, although commenced at different
points with great promise, by French, Swiss,
Germans, and Americans alike, has not real-
ized their expectations. The Ohio has proved
to be unlike the Rhine in this respect. In the
long run, the vine in America appears to fare
better in a more northern latitude.

Three miles above Vevay, near Plum Creek,
I was interested in the Indiana farm upon
which Heathcoat Picket settled in 1795 — some
say in 1790. In his day, Picket was a notable
flatboat pilot. He was credited with having
conducted more craft down the river to New Or-
leans, than any other man of his time — going
down on the boat, and returning on foot. It is
said that he made over twenty trips of this char-
acter, which is certainly a marvelous record at a
time when there were only Indian trails through
the more than a thousand miles of dense forest
between Vevay and New Orleans, and when a
savage enemy might be expected to lurk be-
hind any tree, ready to slay the rash pale-face.

206 On the Storied Ohio

Picket's must have been a life of continuous
adventure, as thrilling as the career of Daniel
Boone himself; yet he is now known to but a
local antiquarian or two, and one stumbles
across him only in foot-notes. The border
annals of the West abound with incidents as
romantic as any which have been applauded
by men. Daniel Boone is not the only hero
of the frontier; he is not even the chief hero, —
he is but a type, whom an accident of litera-
ture has made conspicuous.

The Kentucky River (541 miles) enters at
Carrollton, Ky. , — a well-to-do town, with
busy-looking wharves upon both streams, —
through a wide and rather uninteresting bot-
tom. But, over beyond this, one sees that it
has come down through a deep-cut valley,
rimmed with dark, rolling hills, which speak
eloquently of a diversified landscape along its
banks. The Indian Kentucky, a small stream
but half-a-dozen rods wide, enters from the
north, five miles below — "Injun Kaintuck," it
was called by a jovial junk-boat man stationed
at the mouth of the tributary. There are, on
the Ohio, several examples of this peculiar
nomenclature: a river enters from the south,
and another affluent coming in from the north,

Houseboat Life 207

nearly opposite, will have the same name with
the prefix l* Indian." The reason is obvious;
the land north of the Ohio remained Indian
territory many years after Kentucky and Vir-
ginia were recognized as white man's country,
hence the convenient distinction — the river
coming in from the north, near the Kentucky,
for instance, became "Indian Kentucky," and
so on through the list.

Houseboats are less frequent, in these
reaches of the river. The towns are fewer
and smaller than above; consequently there
is less demand for fish, or for desultory labor.
Yet we seldom pass a day, in the most rustic
sections, without seeing from half-a-dozen to
a dozen of these craft. Sometimes they are
a few rods up the mouths of tributaries, half
hidden by willows and overhanging sycamores;
again, in picturesque openings of the willow
fringe along the main shore ; or, boldly planted
at the base of some rocky ledge. At the
towns, they are variously situated: in the
water, up the beach a way, or high upon the
bottom, whither some great flood has carried
them in years gone by. Occasionally, when
high and dry upon the land, they have a bit
of vegetable garden about them, rented for a

208 On the Storied Ohio

time from the farmer; but, even with the
floaters, chickens are commonly kept, gener-
ally in a coop on the roof, connected with the
shore by a special gang-plank for the fowls;
and the other day, we saw a thrifty house-
boater who had several colonies of bees.

There was a rise of only two feet, last night;
evidently the flood is nearly at its greatest.
We are now twenty feet above the level of ten
days ago, and are frequently swirling along
over what were then sharp, stony slopes, and
brushing the topmost boughs of the lower
lines of willows and scrub sycamores. Thus
we have a better view of the country; and,
approaching closely to the banks, can from
our seats at any time pluck blue lupine by the
armful. It thrives mightily on these grav-
elled shores, and so do the bignonia vine, the
poison ivy, and the Virginia creeper. The
hills are steeper, now, especially in Indiana;
many of them, although stony, worked-out,
and almost worthless, are still, in patches,
cultivated to the very top; but for the most
part they are clothed in restful green. Over-
head, in the summer haze, turkey-buzzards
wheel gracefully, occasionally chased by au-
dacious hawks; and in the woods, we hear the

Melancholy Fishers 209

warble of song-birds. Shadowy, idle scenes,
these rustic reaches of the lower Ohio, through
which man may dream in Nature's lap, all
regardless of the workaday world.

It was early evening when we passed Madi-
son, Ind. (553 miles), a fairly-prosperous fac-
tory town of about twelve thousand souls.
Scores of the inhabitants were out in boats,
collecting driftwood; and upon the wharf was
a great crowd of people, waiting for an excur-
sion boat which was to return them to Louis-
ville, whence they had come for a day's outing.
It was a lifeless, melancholy party, as excur-
sion folk are apt to be at the close of a gala
day, and they wearily stared at us as we pad-
dled past.

Just below, on the Kentucky shore, on my
usual search for milk and water, I landed at a
cluster of rude cottages set in pleasant market
gardens. While the others drifted by with
Pilgrim, I had a goodly walk before finding
milk, for a cow is considered a luxury among
these small riverside cultivators; the man who
owns one sells milk to his poorer neighbors.
Such a nabob was at last found. The animal
was called down from the rocky hills, by her
barefooted owner, who, lank and malaria-
14

2io On the Storied Ohio

skinned, leaned wearily against the well-curb,
while his wife, also guiltless of hose and shoes,
milked into my pail direct from the lean and
hungry brindle.

By the time the crew were reunited, storm-
clouds, thick and black, were fast rising in the
west. Scudding down shore for a mile, with
oars and paddle aiding the swift current, we
failed to find a proper camping-place on the
muddy bank of the far-stretching bottom.
Rain-drops were now pattering on our rubber
spreads, and it was evident that a blow was
coming; but despite this, we bent to the work
with renewed vigor, and shot across to the lee
shore of Indiana — finally landing in the midst
of a heavy shower, and hurriedly pitching
tent on a rocky slope at the base of a vertical
bank of clay. Above us, a government bea-
con shines brightly through the persistent
storm, with the keeper's neat little house and
garden a hundred yards away. In the tree-
tops, up a heavily-forested hill beyond, the
wind moans right dismally. In this sheltered
nook, we shall be but lulled to sleep by the
ceaseless pelting of the rain.

Louisville, Monday, May 28th. — At mid-

A Shanty-Boatman 211

night, the heavens cleared, with a cold north
wind; the early morning atmosphere was
nipping, and we were glad of the shelter of
the tent during breakfast. The river fell eight
inches during the night, and on either bank is
a muddy strip, which will rapidly widen as
the water goes down.

Below us, twenty rods or so, moored to the
boulder-strewn shore, was a shanty-boat. In
the bustle of landing, last night, we had not
noticed this neighbor, and it was pitch-dark
before we had time to get our bearings. I
think it is the most dilapidated affair we have
seen on the river — the frame of the cabin is
out of plumb, old clothes serve for sides and
flap loudly in the wind; while two little boys,
who peered at us through slits in the airy walls,
looked fairly miserable with cold.

The proprietor of the craft came up to visit
us, while breakfast was being prepared, and re-
mained until we were ready to depart — a tall,
slouchy fellow, clothed in shreds and patches;
he was in the prime of life, with a depressed
nose set in a battered, though not unpleasant
countenance. None of our party had ever
before seen such garments on a human being — ■
old bits of flannel, frayed strips of bagging-

212 On the Storied Ohio

stuff, and other curious odds and ends of fab-
rics, in all the primitive colors, the whole
roughly basted together with sack-thread. He
was a philosopher, was this rag-tag-and-bob-
tail of a man, a philosopher with some mother-
wit about him. For an hour, he sat on his
haunches, crouching over our little stove, and
following with cat-like care W — 's every move-
ment in the culinary art; she felt she was under
the eye of a critic who, though not voicing his
opinions, looked as if he knew a thing or two.

As a conversationist, our visitor was fluent
to a fault. It required but slight urging to
draw him out. His history, and that of his
fathers for some generations back, he recited
in much detail. He himself had, in his best
days, been a sub-contractor in railway con-
struction; but fate had gone against him, and
he had fallen to the low estate of a shanty-
boatman. His wife had " gone back on him,"
and he was left with two little boys, whom he
proposed to bring up as gentlemen — "yaas,
sir-r, gen'lem'n, yew hear me! ef I is only a
shanty-boat feller!"

"I thote I'd come to visit uv ye," he had
said by way of introduction; "ye're frum a
city, ain't yer? Yaas, I jist thote hit. City

Benefits of Education 2 1 3

folks is a more 'com'dat'n' 'n country folks.
Why? Waal, yew fellers jist go back 'ere in
th' hills away, 'n them thar country folks
they'd hardly answer ye, they're thet selfish-
like. Give me city folks, I say, fer get'n' long
with!"

And then, in a rambling monologue, while
chewing a straw, he discussed humanity in
general, and the professions in particular. ' ' I
ain't got no use fer lawyers — mighty hard show
them fellers has, fer get'n' to heaven. As fer
doctors — waal, they'll hev hard sledd'n, too;
but them fellers has to do piles o' dis'gree'bl'
work, they do; I'd jist rather fish fer a liv'n',
then be a doctor! Still, sir-r, give me an eddi-
cated man every time, says I. Waal, sir-r,
'n' ye hear me, one o' th' richest fellers right
here in Madison, wuz born 'n' riz on a shanty-
boat, 'n' no mistake. He jist done pick up his
eddication from folks pass'n' by, jes' as yew
fellers is a passin', 'n' they might say a few
wuds o' infermation to him. He done git a
fine eddication jes' thet way, 'n' they ain't no
flies on him, these days, when money-gett'n'
is 'roun'. Jes' noth'n' like it, sir-r! Eddica-
tion does th' biz!"

An observant man was this philosopher, and

214 On the Storied Ohio

had studied human nature to some purpose.
He described the condition of the poor farmers
along the river, as being pitiful; they had no
money to hire help, and were an odd lot, any-
way— the farther back in the hills you get, the
worse they are.

He loved to talk about himself and his lowly
condition, in contrast with his former glory as
a sub-contractor on the railway. When a
man was down, he said, he lost all his friends —
and, to illustrate this familiar experience, told
two stories which he had often read in a book
that he owned. They were curious, old-fash-
ioned tales of feudal days, evidently written
in a former century, — he did not know the
title of the volume, — and he related them in
what evidently were the actual words of the
author: a curious recitation, in the pedantic
literary style of the ancient story-teller, but in
the dialect of an Ohio-river * 'cracker." His
greatest ambition, he told us, was to own a
floating sawmill; although he carefully inquired
about the laws regulating peddlers in our State,
and intimated that sometime he might look
us up in that capacity, in our Northern home.

As we approach Louisville to-day, the set-:
tlements somewhat increase in number, al-

Distance Lends Enchantment 215

though none of the villages are of great size;
and, especially in Kentucky, they are from
ten to twenty miles apart. The fine hills con-
tinue close upon our path until a few miles
above Louisville, when they recede, leaving
on the Kentucky side a broad, flat plain sev-
eral miles square, for the city's growth. For
the most part, these stony slopes are well
wooded with elm, buckeye, maple, ash, oak,
locust, hickory, sycamore, cotton-wood, a few
cedars, and here and there a catalpa and a
pawpaw giving a touch of tropical luxuriance
to the hillside forest; while blackberry bushes,
bignonia vines, and poison ivy are every-
where abundant; otherwise, there is little of
interest to the botanist. Redbirds, catbirds,
bluebirds, blackbirds, and crows are chatter-
ing noisily in the trees, and turkey-buzzards
everywhere swirl and swoop in mid-air.

The narrow little bottoms are sandy; and
on lowland as well as highland there is much
poor, rock-bewitched soil. The little white-
washed farmsteads look pretty enough in
the morning haze, lying half hid in forest
clumps; but upon approach they invariably
prove unkempt and dirty, and swarming with
shiftless, barefooted, unhealthy folk, whom

216 On the Storied Ohio

no imagination can invest with picturesque
qualities. Their ragged, unpainted tobacco-
sheds are straggling about, over the hills; and
here and there a white patch in the corner of
a gray field indicates a nursery of tobacco
plants, soon to be transplanted into ampler
soil.

It is not uncommon to find upon a hillside
a freshly-built log-cabin, set in the midst of a
clearing, with bristling stumps all around, re-
minding one of the homes of new settlers on
the far-away logging-streams of Northern
Wisconsin or Minnesota; the resemblance is
the closer, for such notches cut in the edge of
the Indiana and Kentucky wilderness are often
found after a row of many miles through a
winding forest solitude apparently but little
changed from primeval conditions. Now and
then we come across quarries, where stone is
slid down great chutes to barges which lie
moored by the rocky bank; and frequently is
the stream lined with great boulders, which
stand knee-deep in the flood that eddies and
gurgles around them.

On the upper edge of the great Louisville
plain, we pitched tent in the middle of the
afternoon; and, having brought our bag of

The Savage State 217

land-clothes with us in the skiff, from Cincin-
nati, took turns under the canvas in effecting
what transformation was desirable, prepara-
tory to a visit in the city. In the early twi-
light we were floating past Towhead Island,
with its almost solid flank of houseboats,
threading our way through a little fleet of
pleasure yachts, and at last shooting into the
snug harbor of the Boat Club. The good-
natured captain of the U. S. Life Saving Sta-
tion took Pilgrim and her cargo in charge for
the night, and by dusk we were bowling over
metropolitan pavements en route to the house
of our friend — strange contrast, this lap of
luxury, to the soldier-like simplicity of our
canvas home. We have been roughing it for
so long,— less than a month, although it seems
a year, — that all these conveniences of civil-
ization, these social conventionalities, have to
us a sort of foreign air. Thus easily may man
descend into the savage state.

CHAPTER XVII.

Storied Louisville — Red Indians and

white a night on sand island new

Albany — Riverside hermits — The river

FALLING A DESERTED VILLAGE An IDEAL

CAMP.

Sand Island, Tuesday, May 29th. — Our
Louisville host is the best living authority on
the annals of his town. It was a delight and
an inspiration to go with him, to-day, the
rounds of the historic places. Much that was
to me heretofore foggy in Louisville story was
made clear, upon becoming familiar with the
setting. The contention is made that La
Salle was here at the Falls of the Ohio, during
the closing months of 1669; but it was over a
century later, under British domination, be-
fore a settlement was thought of. Dr. John
Connolly entertained a scheme for founding a
town at the Falls, but Lord Dunmore's War
(1774), and the Revolution quickly following,
combined to put an end to it; so that when
George Rogers Clark arrived on the scene with
218

Falls of the Ohio 2 1 9

his little band of Virginian volunteers (May,
1778), en route to capture the Northwest for
the State of Virginia, he found naught but a
savage-haunted wilderness. His log fort on
Corn Island, in the midst of the rapids, served
as a base of military operations, and was the
nucleus of American settlement, although later
the inhabitants moved to the mainland, and
founded Louisville.

The falls at Louisville are the only consid-
erable obstruction to Ohio-River navigation.
At an average stage, the descent is but twenty-
seven feet in two-and-a-half miles; in high
flood, the rapids degenerate into merely swift
water, without danger to descending craft.
At ordinary height, it was the custom of pio-
neer boatmen, in descending, to lighten their
craft of at least a third of the cargo, and thus
pass them down to the foot of the north-side
portage (Clarksville, Ind.), which is three-
quarters of a mile in length; going up, lightened
boats were towed against the stream. With
the advent of larger craft, a canal with locks
became necessary — the Louisville and Portland
Canal of to-day, which is operated by the fed-
eral government.

The action of the water, hastened by the

220 On the Storied Ohio

destruction of trees whose roots originally
bound the loose soil, has greatly worn the
islands in the rapids. Little is now left of
historic Corn Island, and that little is, at low
water, being blasted and ground into cement
by a mill hard by on the main shore. To-
day, with a flood of nearly twenty feet above
the normal stage of the season, not much of
the island is visible, — clumps of willows and
sycamores, swayed by the rushing current,
giving a general idea of the contour. Goose
Island, although much smaller than in Clark's
day, is a considerable tract of wooded land,
with a rock foundation. Clark was once its
owner, his home being opposite on the Indiana
shore, where he had a fine view of the river,
the rapids, and the several islands. As for
Clarksville, somewhat lower down, and back
from the river a half mile, it is now but a
cluster of dwellings on the outskirts of New
Albany, a manufacturing town which is rap-
idly absorbing all the neighboring territory.

Feeling obliged to make an early start, we
concluded to pass the night just below the
canal on Sand Island, lying between New
Albany and Louisville's noisy manufacturing
suburb, Portland. An historic spot is this

An Aboriginal Tradition 221

insular home of ours. At the treaty of Fort
Charlotte, Cornstalk told Lord Dunmore the
legend familiar among Ohio River savages —
that here, in ages past, occurred the last great
battle between the white and the red Indians.
It is one of the puzzles of the antiquarians,
this tradition that white Indians once lived in
the land, but were swept away by the reds;
Cornstalk had used it to spur his followers to
mighty deeds, it was a precedent which Pon-
tiac dwelt upon when organizing his conspir-
acy, and King Philip is said to have been
inspired by it. But this is no place to discuss
the genesis of the tale. Suffice it, that on
Sand Island have been discovered great quan-
tities of ancient remains. No doubt, in its
day, it was an over-filled burying-ground.

Noises, far different from the clash of sav-
age arms, are in the air to-night. Far above
our heads a great iron bridge crosses the Ohio,
some of its piers resting on the island, — a busy
combination thoroughfare for steam and elec-
tric railways, for pedestrians and for vehicles,
plying between New Albany and Portland.
The whirr of the trolley, the scream and rum-
ble of locomotives, the rattle of wagons; and
just above the island head, the burly roar of

222 On the Storied Ohio

steamboats signaling the locks, — these are the
sounds which are prevalent. Through all this
hubbub, electric lamps are flashing, and just
now a steamer's search-light swept our island
shore, lingering for a moment upon the little
camp, doubtless while the pilot satisfied his
curiosity. Let us hope that savage warriors
never o' nights walk the earth above their
graves; for such scenes as this might well
cause those whose bones lie here to doubt
their senses.

Near Brandenburg, Ky., Wednesday,
30th. — We stopped at New Albany, Ind. (603
miles), this morning, to stock the larder and
to forward our shore-clothes by express to
Cairo. It is a neat and busy manufacturing
town, with an excellent public market. A gala
aspect was prevalent, for it is Memorial Day;
the shops and principal buildings were gay
with bunting, and men in Grand Army uni-
forms stood in knots at the street corners.

The broad, fertile plain on both sides of the
river, upon which Louisville and New Albany
are the principal towns, extends for eight or
nine miles below the rapids. The first hills
to approach the stream are those in Indiana.

Ragged Farmsteads 223

Salt River, some ten or twelve rods wide, en-
ters from the south twenty-one miles below
New Albany, between uninteresting high clay
banks, with the lazy-looking little village of
West Point, Ky. , occupying a small rise of
ground just below the mouth. The Kentucky
hills come close to the bank, a mile or two
farther down, and then the familiar character-
istics of the reaches above Louisville are re-
sumed— hills and bottoms, sparsely settled
with ragged farmsteads, regularly alternating.

At five o'clock we put in at a rocky ledge
on the Indiana side, a mile-and-a-half above
Brandenburg. Behind us rises a precipitous
hill, tree-clad to the summit. The Doctor
found up there a new phlox and a pretty pink
stone-crop, to add to our herbarium, while here
as elsewhere the bignonia grows profusely in
every crevice of the rock. At dark, two rag-
ged and ill-smelling young shanty-boat men,
who are moored hard by, came up to see us,
and by our camp-fire to whittle chips and
drone about hard times. But at last we tired
of their idle gossip, which had in it no ele-
ment of the picturesque, and got rid of them
by hinting our desire to turn in.

The towns were few to-day, and small.

224 On the Storied Ohio

Brandenburg, with eight hundred souls, was
the largest — a sleepy, ill-paved, shambling
place, with apparently nobody engaged in any
serious calling; its chief distinction is an archi-
tectural monstrosity, which we were told is
the court-house. The little white hamlet of
New Amsterdam, Ind. (650 miles), looked
trim and bright in the midst of a green thicket.
Richardson's Landing, Ky. , is a disheveled
row of old deserted houses, once used by lime-
burners, with a great barge wrecked upon the
beach. At the small, characterless Indiana
village of Leavenworth (658 miles), I sought
a traveling photographer, of whom I had been
told at Brandenburg. My quest was for a
dark-room where I might recharge my ex-
hausted kodak; but the man of plates had
packed up his tent and moved on — I would
no doubt find him in Alton, Ind., fifteen miles
lower down.

We have had stately, eroded hills, and
broad, fertile bottoms, hemming us in all day,
and marvelous ox-bows in the erratic stream.
The hillsides are heavily wooded, sometimes
the slopes coming straight down to the stony
beach, without intervening terrace; where
there are such terraces, they are narrow and

Malaria-Ridden 225

rocky, and the homes of shanty-men; but
upon the bottoms are whitewashed dwell-
ings of frame or log, tenanted by a better class,
who sometimes have goodly orchards and ex-
tensive corn-cribs. The villages are generally
in the deep-cut notches of the hills, where the
interior can be conveniently reached by a
wagon-road — a country "rumpled like this,"
they say, for ten or twelve miles back, and
then stretching off into level plains of fertility.
Now and then, a deserted cabin on the ter-
races,— windowless and gaunt, — tells the story
of some "cracker" family that malaria has
killed off, or that has "pulled up stakes"
and gone, to seek a better land.

At Leavenworth, the river, which has been
flowing northwest for thirty miles, takes a
sudden sweep to the southwest, and thencefor-
ward we have a rapid current. However, we
need still to ply our blades, for there is a stiff
head-wind, with an eager nip in it, to escape
which we seek the lee as often as may be,
and bask in the undisturbed sunlight. Right
glad we were, at luncheon-time, to find a
sheltered nook amidst a heap of boulders on
the Kentucky shore, and to sit on the sun-
warmed sand and drink hot tea by the side of
15

226 On the Storied Ohio

a camp-fire, rejoicing in the kindness of Prov-
idence.

There are few houseboats, since leaving
Louisville; to-day we have seen but three or
four — one of them merrily going up stream,
under full sail. Islands, too, are few — the
Upper and Lower Blue River, a pretty pair,
being the first we have met since Sunday.
The water is falling, it now being three or
four feet below the stage of a few days since,
as can readily be seen from the broad dado of
mud left on the leaves of willows and syca-
mores; while the drift, recently an ever-pres-
ent feature of the current, is rapidly lodging
in the branches of the willows and piling up
against the sand-spits; and scrawling snags
and bobbing sawyers are catching on the bars,
and being held for the next "fresh."

There is little life along shore, in these lower
waters. There are two lines of ever-widen-
ing, willowed beach of rock and sand or mud;
above them, perpendicular walls of clay, which
edge either rocky terraces backed by grand
sweeps of convoluted hills, — sometimes wooded
to the top, and sometimes eroded into pal-
isades,— or wide-stretching bottoms given over
to small farms or maybe dense tangles of forest.

Point Sandy 227

In the midst of this world of shade, nestle
the whitewashed cabins of the small tillers;
but though they swarm with children, it is not
often that the inhabitants appear by the river-
side. We catch a glimpse of them when
landing on our petty errands, we now and
then see a houseboater at his nets, and in the
villages a few lackadaisical folk are lounging
by the wharf; but as a rule, in these closing
days of our pilgrimage, we glide through what
is almost a solitude. The imagination has
not far to go afield, to rehabilitate the river
as it appeared to the earliest voyagers.

Late in the afternoon, as usual wishing
water and milk, we put ashore in Indiana,
where a rustic landing indicated a settlement
of some sort, although our view was confined
to a pretty, wooded bank, and an unpainted
warehouse at the top of the path. It was a
fertile bottom, a half-mile wide, and stretch-
ing a mile or two along the river. Three
neat houses, one of them of logs, constituted
the village, and all about were grain-fields
rippled into waves by the northwest breeze.

The first house, a quarter of a mile inland,
I reached by a country roadway; it proved to
be the postoffice of Point Sandy. Chickens

228 On the Storied Ohio

clucked around me, a spaniel came fawning
for attention, a tethered cow mooed plain-
tively, but no human being was visible. At
last I discovered a penciled notice pinned to
the horse-block, to the effect that the post-
master had gone into Alton (five miles distant)
for the day; and should William Askins call
in his absence, the said Askins was to remem-
ber that he promised to call yesterday, but
never came; and now would he be kind enough
to come without fail to-morrow before sun-
down, or the postmaster would be obliged to
write that letter they had spoken about. It
was quite evident that Askins had not called;
for he surely would not have left that myste-
rious notice sticking there, for all Point Sandy
to read and gossip over. It is to be hoped
that there will be no bloodshed over this
affair; across the way, in Kentucky, there
would be no doubt as to the outcome.

I looked at Boss, and wondered whether in
Indiana it were felony to milk another man's
cow in his absence, with no ginger jar at
hand, into which to drop a compensatory
dime. Then I saw that she was dry, and con-
cluded that to attempt it might be thought a
violation of ethics. The postmaster's well,

The Deserted Village 229

too, proved to be a cistern, — pardon the Hi-
bernicism, — and so I went farther.

The other frame house also turned out to
be deserted, but evidently only for the day,
for the lilac bushes in the front yard were
hung with men's flannel shirts drying in the
sun. A buck goat came bleating toward me,
with many a flourish of his horns, from which
it was plain to be seen why the family wash
was not spread upon the grass. From here I
followed a narrow path through a wheat-field,
the grain up to my shoulders, toward the log
dwelling. A mangy little cur disputed my
right to knock at the door; but, flourishing
my two tin pails at him, he flew yelping to
take refuge in the hen-coop. To my sum-
mons at the portal, there came no response,
save the mewing of the cat within. It was
clear that the people of Point Sandy were not
at home, to-day.

I would have retreated to the boat, but,
chancing to glance up at the overhanging hills
which edge in the bottom, saw two men sit-
ting on a boulder in front of a rude log hut on
the brink of a cliff, curiously watching my
movements on the plain. Thankful, now,
that the postmaster's cow had gone dry, and

230 On the Storied Ohio

that these observant mountaineers had not
had an opportunity to misinterpret my con-
duct, I at once hurried toward the hill, hope-
ful that at the top some bovine might be
housed, whose product could lawfully be ac-
quired. But after a long and laborious climb,
over shifting stones and ragged ledges, I was
met with the discouraging information that
the only cow in these parts was Hawkins'
cow, and Hawkins was the postmaster, —
"down yon, whar yew were a-read'n' th' no-
tices on th' hoss-block." Neither had they
any water, up there on the cliff-top — " don' use
very much, stranger; 'n' what we do, we done
git at Smithfield's, in th' log-house down yon,
'n' I reck'n their cistern's done gone dry, any-
how!"

"But what is the matter down there?" I
asked of the old man, — they were father and
son, this lounging pair who thus loftily sat in
judgment on the little world at their feet;
"why are all the folks away from home?"

He looked surprised, and took a fresh chew
while cogitating on my alarming ignorance of
Point Sandy affairs: "Why, ain' ye heared?
I thote ev'ry feller on th' river knew thet
yere — why, ol' Hawkins, his wife's brother's

The World as It Is 231

buried in Alton to-day, 'n' th' neighbors done
gwine t' th' fun'ral. Whar your shanty-boat
been beached, thet ye ain' heared thet yere?"

As the sun neared the horizon, we tried
other places below, with no better success;
and two miles above Alton, Ind. (673 miles),
struck camp at sundown, without milk for our
coffee — for water, being obliged to settle and
boil the roily element which bears us onward
through the lengthening days. Were there
no hardships, this would be no pilgrimage
worthy of the name. We are out, philosoph-
ically to take the world as it is; he who is not
content to do so, had best not stir from home.

But our camping-place, to-night, is ideal.
We are upon a narrow, grassy ledge; below
us, the sloping beach astrewn with jagged
rocks; behind us rises steeply a grand hillside
forest, in which lie, mantled with moss and
lichens, and deep buried in undergrowth, boul-
ders as large as a " cracker's" hut; romantic
glens abound, and a little run comes noisily
down a ravine hard by, — it is a witching back-
door, filled with surprises at every turn.
Beeches, elms, maples, lindens, pawpaws,
tulip trees, here attain a monster growth, —
with grape-vines, their fruit now set, hanging

232 On the Storied Ohio

in great festoons from the branches; and all
about, are the flowers which thrive best in
shady solitudes — wild licorice, a small green-
brier, and, although not yet in bloom, the
sessile trillium. We are thoroughly isolated;
a half-mile above us, faintly gleams a govern-
ment beacon, and we noticed on landing that
three-quarters of a mile below is a small cabin
flanking the hill. Naught disturbs our quiet,
save the calls of the birds at roosting-time, and
now and then the hoarse bellow of a passing
packet, with its legacy of boisterous wake.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Village life — A traveling photographer
— On a country road — Studies in color —
Again among colliers — In sweet con-
tent— A FERRY ROMANCE.

Near Troy, Ind., Friday, June ist. — Be-
low Alton, the hills are not so high as above.
We have, however, the same thoroughly rustic
landscape, the same small farms on the bot-
toms and wretched cabins on the slopes, the
same frontier-like clearings thick with stumps,
the same shabby little villages, and frequent
ox-bow windings of the generous stream, with
lovely vistas unfolding and dissolving with pano-
ramic regularity. It is not a region where house-
boaters flourish — there is but one every ten
miles or so; as for steamboats, we see on an
average one a day, while two or three usually
pass us in the night.

A dry, unpainted little place is Alton, Ind.,
with three down-at-the-heel shops, a tavern, a
saloon, and a few dwellings; there was no
233

234 On the Storied Ohio

bread obtainable here, for love or money, and
we were fain to be content with a bag of
crackers from the postomce grocery. The
promised photographer, who appears to be a
rapid traveler, was said to have gone on to
Concordia, eight miles below.

Deep Water Landing, Ind. (676 miles), is a
short row of new, whitewashed houses, with a
great board sign displaying the name of the
hamlet, doubtless to attract the attention of
pilots. A rude little show-case, nailed up
beside the door of the house at the head of the
landing-path, contains tempting samples of
crockery and tinware. Apparently some en-
terprising soul is trying to grow a town here,
on this narrow ledge of clay, with his landing
and his shop as a nucleus. But it is an unlikely
spot, and I doubt if his "boom" will develop
to the corner-lot stage.

Rono, Ind., a mile below, with its limewashed
buildings set in a bower of trees, at the base
of a bald bluff, is a rather pretty study in gray
and green and white. The most notable fea-
ture is a little school-house-like Masonic hall
set high on a stone foundation, with a steep
outer stairway — which gives one an impression
that Rono is a victim of floods, and that the

/I FAMILIAR scene upo?i the river. Bulky freight,
■*■■*■ such as coal, timber, ties, stone, and brick, is thus moved
much more cheaply than by rail.

A Logging Town 235

brethren occasionally come in boats to lodge-
meetings.

Concordia, Ky. (681 miles), rests on the
summit of a steep clay bank, from which men
were loading a barge with bark. Great piles
of blocks, for staves, ornamented the crest of
the rise — a considerable industry for these
parts, we were told. But the photographer,
whom we were chasing, had ''taken" every
Concordian who wished his services, and moved
on to Derby, another Kentucky village, which
at last we found, six miles farther down the
river.

The principal occupation of the people of
Derby is getting out timber from the hillside
forests, six to ten miles in the interior. Oak,
elm, and sycamore railway-ties are the spe-
cialty, these being worth twenty cents each
when landed upon the wharf. A few months
ago, Derby was completely destroyed by fire,
but, although the timber business is on the
wane here, much of the place was rebuilt on
the old foundations; hence the fresh, unpainted
buildings, with battlement fronts, which, with
the prevalence of open-door saloons and a
woodsy swagger on the part of the inhabitants,

236 On the Storied Ohio

give the place a breezy, frontier aspect now
seldom to be met with this side of the Rockies.

Here at last was the traveling photographer.
His tent, flapping loudly in the wind, occupied
an empty lot in the heart of the village — a
saloon on either side, and a lumberman's
boarding house across the way, where the
1 ' artist " was at dinner, pending which I waited
for him at the door of his canvas gallery. He
evidently seeks to magnify his calling, does
this raw youth of the camera, by affecting
what he conceives to be the traditional garb
of the artistic Bohemian, but which resembles
more closely the costume of the minstrel
stage — a battered silk hat, surmounting flow-
ing locks glistening with hair-oil; a loose vel-
veteen jacket, over a gay figured vest; and a
great brass watch-chain, from which dangle
silver coins. As this grotesque dandy, evi-
dently not long from his native village, came
mincing across the road in patent-leather slip-
pers, smoking a cigarette, with one thumb in
an arm-hole of his vest, and the other hand
twirling an incipient mustache, he was plainly
conscious of creating something of a swell in
Derby.

It was a crazy little dark-room to which I

A Traveling Photographer 237

was shown — a portable affair, much like a
coffin-case, which I expected momentarily to
upset as I stood within, and be smothered in a
cloud of ill-smelling chemicals. However,
with care I finally emerged without accident,
and sufficiently compensated the artist, who
seemed not over-favorable to amateur compe-
tition, although he chatted freely enough about
his business. It generally took him ten days,
he said, to ''finish" a town of five or six hun-
dred inhabitants, like Derby. He traveled on
steamers with his tenting outfit, but next sea-
son hoped to have money enough to "do the
thing in style," in a houseboat of his own, an
establishment which would cost say four hun-
dred dollars; then, in the winter, he could
beach himself at some fair-sized town, and
perhaps make his board by running a local
gallery, taking to the water again on the ear-
liest spring "fresh." "I could live like a
fight'n' cock then, cap'n, yew jist bet yer bot-
tom dollar!"

The temperature mounted with the prog-
ress of the day; and, the wind dying down,
the atmosphere was oppressive. By the time
Stephensport, Ky. (695 miles), was reached,
in the middle of the afternoon, the sun was

238 On the Storied Ohio

beating fiercely upon the glassy flood, and our
awning came again into play, although it
could not save us from the annoyance of the
reflection. The barren clay bank at the mouth
of Sinking Creek, upon which lies Stephens-
port, seemed fairly ablaze with heat, as I went
up into the straggling hamlet to seek for sup-
plies. There were no eggs to be had here;
but, at last, milk was found in the farther end
of the village, at a modest little cottage quite
embowered in roses, with two century plants
in tubs in the back-yard, and a trim fruit and
vegetable garden to the rear of that, enclosed
in palings. I remained a few minutes to chat
with the little housewife, who knows her roses
well, and is versed in the gentle art of horti-
culture. But her horizon is painfully nar-
row— first and dearest, the plants about her,
which is not so bad; in a larger way, Stephens-
port and its petty affairs; but beyond that
very little, and that little vague.

It is ever thus, in such far-away, side-tracked
villages as this — the world lies in the basin of
the hills which these people see from their-
doors; if they have something to love and do for,
as this good woman has in her bushes, seeds,
and bulbs, then may they dwell happily in

An Unwelcome Caller 239

rustic obscurity; but where, as is more com-
mon, the small-beer of neighborhood gossip is
their meat and drink, there are no folk on the
footstool more wretched than the denizens of
a dead little hamlet like Stephensport.

We are housed this night on the Kentucky
side, a mile-and-a-half above Cloverport,
whose half-dozen lights are glimmering in the
stream. In the gloaming, while dinner was
being prepared, a ragged but sturdy wanderer
came into camp. He was, he said, a moun-
taineer looking for work on the bottom farms;
heretofore he had, when he wanted it, always
found it; but this season no one appeared to
have any money to expend for labor, and it
seemed likely he would be obliged to return
home without receiving an offer. We made
the stranger no offer of a seat at our humble
board, having no desire that he pass the night
in our neighborhood; for darkness was com-
ing on apace, and, if he long tarried, the
woodland road would be as black as a pocket
before he could reach Cloverport, his alleged
destination. So starting him off with a bis-
cuit or two, he was soon on his way toward
the village, whistling a lively tune.

240 On the Storied Ohio

Crooked Creek, Ind., Saturday, 2d. — We
had but fairly got to bed last night, after our
late dinner, when the heavens suddenly dark-
ened, fierce gusts of wind shook the tent vio-
lently, and then rain fell in blinding sheets.
For a time it was lively work for the Doctor
and me, tightening guy-ropes and ditching in
the soft sand, for we were in an exposed
position, catching the full force of the storm.
At last, everything secured, we in serenity
slept it out, awakening to find a beautiful
morning, the grape-perfumed air as clear as
crystal, the outlines of woods and hills and
streams standing out with sharp definition,
and over all a hushed charm most soothing to
the spirit.

Cloverport (705 miles) is a typical Kentucky
town, of somewhat less than four thousand
inhabitants. The wharf-boat, which runs up
and down an iron tramway, according to the
height of the flood, was swarming with negroes,
watching with keen delight the departure of
the "E. D. Rogan, " as she noisily backed out
into the river and scattered the crowd with
great showers of spray from her gigantic stern-
wheel. It was a busy scene on board — negro
roustabouts shipping the gang-plank, and sing-

Picaninnies 241

ing in a low pitch an old-time plantation mel-
ody; stokers, stripped to the waist, shoveling
coal into the gaping furnaces; chambermaids
hanging the ship's linen out to dry; passengers
crowded by the shore rail, on the main deck;
the bustling mate shouting orders, apparently
for the benefit of landsmen, for no one on
board appeared to heed him; and high up, in
front of the pilot-house, the spruce captain,
in gold-laced cap, and glass in hand, as im-
movable as the Sphinx.

At the head of the slope were a picturesque
medley of colored folk, of true Southern plan-
tation types, so seldom seen north of Dixie.
Two wee picaninnies, drawn in an express
cart by a half-dozen other sable elfs, attracted
our attention, as W — and I went up-town
for our day's marketing. We stopped to take
a snap-shot at them, to the intense satisfac-
tion of the little kink-haired mother of the
twins, who, barring her blue calico gown,
looked as though she might have stepped out
of a Zulu group.

Cloverport has brick-works, gas wells, a

flouring-mill, and other industries. The streets

are unkempt, as in most Kentucky towns, and

mules attached to crazy little carts are the

16

242 On the Storied Ohio

chief beasts of burden; but the shops are well-
stocked; there were many farmers in town,
on horse and mule back, doing their Saturday
shopping; and an air of business confidence
prevails.

In this district, coal-mines again appear,
with their riverside tipples, and their offal de-
filing the banks. In general, these reaches
have many of the aspects of the Monongahela,
although the hills are lower, and mining is on
a smaller scale. Cannelton, Ind. (717 miles),
is the headquarters of the American Cannel
Coal Co. ; there are, also, woolen and cotton
mills, sewer-pipe factories, and potteries.
W — and I went up into the town, on an er-
rand for supplies, — we distribute our small
patronage, for the sake of frequently going
ashore, — and were interested in noting the
cheery tone of the business men, who reported
that the financial depression, noticeable else-
where in the Ohio Valley, has practically been
unfelt here. Hawesville, Ky. , just across the
river, has a similarly prosperous look, but we
did not row across to inspect it at close range.
Tell City, Ind. , three miles below, is another
flourishing factory town, whose wharf-boat
was the scene of much bustle. Four miles

Walls of Clay 243

still lower down lies the sleepy little Indiana
village of Troy, which appears to have profited
nothing from having lively neighbors.

From the neighborhood of Derby, the en-
vironing hills had, as we proceeded, been less-
ening in height, although still ruggedly beauti-
ful. A mile or two below Troy, both ranges
suddenly roll back into the interior, leaving
broad bottoms on either hand, occasionally
edged with high clay banks, through which the
river has cut its devious way. Elsewhere, these
bottoms slope gently to the beach and every-
where are cultivated with such care that often
no room is left for the willow fringe, which
heretofore has been an ever-present feature of
the landscape. Hereafter, to the mouth, we
shall for the most part row between parallel
walls of clay, with here and there a bankside
ledge of rock and shale, and now and then a
cragged spur running out to meet the river.
We have now entered the great corn and
tobacco belt of the Lower Ohio, the region of
annual overflow, where the towns seek the
highlands, and the bottom farmers erect their
few crude buildings on posts, prepared in case
of exceptional flood to take to boats.

The prevalent eagerness on the part of

244 On the Storied Ohio

farmers to obtain the utmost from their land
made it difficult, this evening, to find a proper
camping-place. We finally found a narrow
triangle of clay terrace, in Indiana, at the
mouth of Crooked Creek (727 miles), where
not long since had tarried a houseboater en-
gaged in making rustic furniture. It is a pretty
little bit, in a group of big willows and syca-
mores, and would be comfortable but for the
sand-flies, which for the first time give us an-
noyance. The creek itself, some four rods
wide, and overhung with stately trees, winds
gracefully through the rich bottom; we have
found it a charming water to explore, being
able to proceed for nearly a mile through
lovely little wide-spreads abounding in lilies
and sweet with the odor of grape-blossoms.

Across the river, at Emmerick's Landing, —
a little cluster of unpainted cabins, — lies the
white barge of a photographer, just such a
home as the Derby artist covets. The Ohio
is here about half-a-mile wide, but high-pitched
voices of people on the opposite bank are plainly
heard across the smooth sounding-board; and
in the quiet evening air comes to us the ' ' chuck-
chuck " of oars nearly a mile away. Following
a torrid afternoon, with exasperating head-

Nearing the End 245

winds, this cool, fresh atmosphere, in the long
twilight, is inspiring. Overhead is the slender
streak of the moon's first quarter, its reflection
shimmering in the broad and placid stream
rushing noiselessly by us to the sea. In bliss-
ful content we sit upon the bank, and drink
in the glories of the night. The days of our
pilgrimage are nearing their end, but our en-
thusiasm for this al fresco life is in no measure
abating. That we might ever thus dream and
drift upon the river of life, far from the labored
strivings of the world, is our secret wish, to-
night.

We had long been sitting thus, having
silent communion with our thoughts, when
the Boy, his little head resting on W — 's
shoulder, broke the spell by murmuring from
the fullness of his heart, "Mother, why can-
not we keep on doing this, always ?"

Yellowbank Island, Sunday, June 3d. —
Pilgrim still attracts more attention than her
passengers. When we stop at the village
wharfs, or grate our keel upon some rustic
landing, it is not long before the Doctor, who
now always remains with the boat, no matter
who goes ashore, is surrounded by an admir-

246 On the Storied Ohio

ing group, who rap Pilgrim on the ribs, try to
lift her by the bow, and study her graceful
lines with the air of connoisseurs. Barefooted
men fishing on the shores, in broad straw
hats and blue jeans, invariably "pass the
time o' day" with us as we glide by, crying
out as a parting salute, " Ye've a honey skiff,
thar!" or, " Right smart skiff, thet yere!"

We have many long, dreary reaches to-day.
Clay banks twelve to twenty feet in height,
and growing taller as the water recedes, rise
sheer on either side. Fringing the top of
each is often a row of locusts, whose roots in
a feeble way hold the soil; but the river cuts
in at the base, wherever the changing current
impinges on the shore, and at low water great
slices, with a gurgling splash, fall into the
stream, which now is of the color of dull gold,
from the clay held in solution. Often may
be seen upon the brink ruins of buildings that
have collapsed from this undercut of the fickle
flood ; and many others, still inhabited, are in
dangerous proximity to the edge, only biding
their time.

This morning, we passed the Indiana ham-
lets of Lewisport (731 miles) and Grand View
(736 miles), and by noon were at Rockport

Paddle-Wheel Skiffs

247

(741 miles), a smart little city of three thou-
sand souls, romantically perched upon a great
rock, which on the right bank rises abruptly
from the wide expanse of bottom. From the
river, there is little to be seen of Rockport
save two wharves, — one above, the other be-
low, the bold cliff which springs sheer for a
hundred feet above the stream, — two angling
roads leading up into the town, a house or
two on the edge of the hill, and a huge water-
tower crowning all.

A few miles below, we ran through a nar-
row channel, a few rods wide, separating an
elongated island from the Indiana shore. It
much resembles the small tributary streams,
with a lush undergrowth of weeds down to the
water's edge, and arched with monster syca-
mores, elms, maples, and persimmons. Fre-
quently had we seen skiffs upon the shore,
arranged with stern paddle-wheels, turned by
levers operated by men standing or sitting in
the boat. But we had seen none in operation
until, shooting down this side channel, we
met such a craft coming up, manned by two
fellows who seemed to be having a treadmill
task of it; they assured us, however, that
when a man was used to manipulating the

248 On the Storied Ohio

levers he found it easier than rowing, espe-
cially in ascending stream.

Yellowbank Island, our camp to-night, lies
nearest the Indiana shore, with Owensboro,
Ky. (749 miles), just across the way. We
have had no more beautiful home on our long
pilgrimage than this sandy islet, heavily grown
to stately willows. While the others were
preparing dinner, I pulled across the rapid
current to an Indiana ferry-landing, where
there is a row of mean frame cabins, like the
negro quarters of a Southern farm, all elevated
on posts some four feet above the level. A
half-dozen families live there, all of them
small tenant farmers, save the ferryman — a
strapping, good-natured fellow, who appears
to be tne nabob of the community.

Several hollow sycamore stumps house sows
and their litters; but the only cow in the
neighborhood is owned by a young man who,
when I came up, was watering some refrac-
tory mules at a pump-trough. He paused
long enough to summon Boss and milk a
half-gallon into my pail, accepting my dime
with a degree of thankfulness which was quite
unnecessary, considering that it was quid pro
quo. Tobacco is a more important crop than

The Ferryman's Daughter 249

corn hereabout, he said; farmers are rather
impatiently waiting for rain, to set out the
young plants. His only outbuilding is a mon-
ster corn-crib, set high on posts — the airy
basement, no better than an open shed, serv-
ing for a stable; during the few weeks of
severe winter weather, horses and cow are
removed to the main floor, and canvas nailed
around the sides to keep out the wind. Even
this slight protection is not given to stock by
all planters; the majority of them appear to
provide only rain shelters, and even these can
be of slight avail in a driving storm.

Later, in the failing light, W — and I to-
gether pulled over to the " cracker " settlement,
seeking drinking-water. A stout young man
was seated on the end of the ferry barge,
talking earnestly with the ferryman's daughter,
a not unattractive girl, but pale and thin, as
these women are apt to be. Evidently they
are lovers, and not ashamed of it, for they
gave us a friendly smile as we knotted our
painter to the barge-rail, and expressed great
interest in Pilgrim, she being of a pattern new
to them.

We are in a noisy corner of the world.
Over on the Indiana bottom, a squeaky fiddle is

250 On the Storied Ohio

grinding out dance-tunes, hymns, and ballads
with charming indifference. We thought we
detected in a high-pitched " Annie Laurie''
the voice of the ferryman's daughter. There
seems, too, to be a deal of rowing on the
river, evidently Owensboro folk getting back
to town from a day in the country, and coun-
try folk hieing home after a day in the city.
The ferryman is in much demand, judging
from the frequent ringing of his bell, — one on
either bank, set between two tall posts, with
a rope dangling from the arm. At early dusk,
the cracked bell of the Owensboro Bethel re-
sounded harshly in our ears, as it advertised
an evening service for the floating population;
and now the wheezy strains of a melodeon
tell us that, although we stayed away, doubt-
less others have been attracted thither. The
sepulchral roars of passing steamers echo
along the wooded shore, the night wind rustles
the tree-tops, Owensboro dogs are much
awake, and the electric lamps of the city
throw upon our canvas screen the fantastic
shadows of leaves and dancing boughs.

CHAPTER XIX.

Fishermen's tales — Skiff nomenclature-
Green River — Evansville — Hender-
son— Audubon and Rafinesque — Float-
ing trade — The Wabash.

Green River Towhead, Monday, June
4th. — We were shopping in Owensboro, this
morning, soon after seven o'clock. The busi-
ness quarter was just stirring into life; and
the negroes who were lounging about on every
hand were still drowsy, as if they had passed
the night there, and were reluctant to be up
and doing. There is a pretty court-house in
a green park, the streets are well paved, and
the shops clean and bright, with their wares
mostly under the awnings on the sidewalk, for
people appear to live much out of doors here —
and well they may, with the temperature 73 °
at this early hour, and every promise of a
scorching day.

I wonder if a fisherman could, if he tried,
be exact in his statements. One of them,
below Owensboro, who kept us company for
251

252 On the Storied Ohio

a mile or two down stream, declared that at
this stage of the water he made forty and fifty
dollars a week, "'n' I reck'n I ote to be con-
tint." A few miles farther on, another com-
plained that when the river was falling, the
water was so muddy the fish would not bite;
and even in the best of seasons, a fisherman
had "a hard pull uv it; hit ain't no business
fer a decent man !" 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 thou-
sands 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. Between
Three-Mile Island and Indiana, is another in-
teresting cut-short, where the shores are un-
disturbed by the work of the main stream,
and trees and undergrowth come down to the
water's edge; the air is quivering with the

A Study in Names 253

songs of birds, and resonant with sweet smells;
while over stumps, and dead and fallen trees,
grape-vines luxuriantly festoon and cluster.
Near the pretty group of French Islands, two
government dredges, with their boarding
barges, were moored to the Kentucky shore —
waiting for coal, we were told, before resum-
ing operations in the planting of a dike. I
took a snap-shot at the fleet, and heard one
man shout to another, "Bill, did yer notice
they've a photograph gallery aboord ?" They
appear to be a jolly lot, these dredgers, and
inclined to take life easily, in accordance with
the traditions of government employ.

We frequently see skiffs hauled upon the
beach, or moored between two protecting
posts, to prevent their being swamped by
steamer wakes. The names they bear interest
us, as betokening, perhaps, the proclivities of
their owners. "Little Joe," "Little Jim,"
"Little Maggie," and like diminutives, are
common here, as upon the towing-tugs and
steam ferries of broader waters— and now and
then we have, by contrast, "Xerxes," "Achil-
les, " ' ' Hercules. " Sometimes the skiff is named
after its owner's wife or sweetheart, as
"Maggie G.," "Polly H.," or from the rustic

254 On the Storied Ohio

goddesses, "Pomona," "Flora," "Ceres;" on
the Kentucky shore, we have noted ' * Stone-
wall Jackson," and "Robert E. Lee," and
one Ohio boat was labeled "Little Phil."
Literature we found represented to-day, by
" Octave Thanet" — the only case on record,
for the Ohio-River "cracker" is not much
given to books. Slang claims for its own,
many of these knockabout craft — " U. Bet,"
"Git Thair," "Go it, Eli," "Whoa, Emma!"
and nondescripts, like "Two Doves," "Poker
Chip," and "Game Chicken," are not infre-
quent.

In these stately solitudes, towns are far be-
tween. Enterprise, Ind. (755 miles), is an
unpainted village with a dismal view — back
of and around it, wide bottom lands, with
hills in the far distance; up and down the
river, precipitous banks of clay, with willow
fringes on that portion of the shore which is
not being cut by the impinging current. Scuf-
fletown, Ky. {j6j miles), is uninviting. New-
burgh, on the edge of a bluff, across the river
in Indiana, is a ragged little place that has
seen better days; but the backward view of
Newburgh, from below Three-Mile Island,
made a pretty picture, the whites and reds of

Turkey-Buzzards 255

the town standing out in sharp relief against
the dark background of the hill.

Green River (775 miles), a gentle, rustic
stream, enters through the wide bottoms of
Kentucky. We had difficulty in finding it in
the wilderness of willows — might not have
succeeded, indeed, had not the red smoke-
stack of a small steamer suddenly appeared
above the bushes. Soon, the puffing craft de-
bouched upon the Ohio, and, quickly overtak-
ing us, passed down toward Evansville.

Green River Towhead, two miles below,
claimed us for the night. There is a shanty,
midway on the island, and at the lower end
the landing of a railway-transfer. We have
our camp at the upper end, in a bed of spot-
less white sand, thick grown to dwarf willows.
Entangled drift-wood lies about in monster
heaps, lodged in depressions of the land, or
against stout tree-trunks; a low bar of gravel
connects our home with Green River Island,
lying close against the Indiana bank; sand-
flies freely joined us at dinner, and I hear, as
I write, the drone of a solitary mosquito, — the
first in many days; while upon the bar, at sun-
set, a score of turkey-buzzards held silent
council, some of them occasionally rising and

256 On the Storied Ohio

wheeling about in mid-air, then slowly light-
ing and stretching their necks, and flapping
their wings most solemnly, before rejoining
the conference.

Cypress Bend, Tuesday, 5th. — The tem-
perature had materially fallen during the night,
and the morning opened gray and hazy.
Evansville, Ind. (783 miles), made a charming
Turneresque study, as her steeples and factory
chimneys developed through the mist. It is
a fine, well-built town, of some fifty thousand
inhabitants, with a beautiful little postorfice
in the Gothic style — a refutation, this, of the
well-worn assertion that there are no credits
able government buildings in our small Amer-
ican cities. A railway bridge here crosses the
Ohio, numerous sawmills line the bank; alto-
gether, there is business bustle, the like of
which we have not seen since leaving Louis-
ville.

Henderson (795 miles) is a substantial Ken-
tucky town of nine thousand souls, with large
tobacco interests, we are told, ranking next
to Louisville in this regard. Through the
morning, the mist had been thickening.
While we were passing beneath the railway
bridge at Henderson, thunder sounded, and

Audubon at Henderson 257

the western sky suddenly blackened. Pulling
rapidly in to the town shore, shelter was found
beneath the overhanging deck of a deserted
wharf-boat. We had just completed prepa-
rations with the rubber blankets and ponchos,
when the deluge came. But the sheltering
deck was not water-tight; soon the rain came
pouring in upon us through the uncaulked
cracks, and we were nearly as badly off in our
close-smelling quarters as in the open. How-
ever, we were a merry party under there, with
the Doctor giving us a touch of "Br'er Rab-
bit," and the boy relating a fantastic dream
he had had on the Towhead last night; while
I told them the story of Audubon, whose name
will ever be associated with Henderson.

The great naturalist was in business at
Louisville, early in the century; but in 18 12,
he failed in this venture, and moved to Hen-
derson, where his neighbors thought him a
trifle daft, — and certainly he was a ne'er-do-
well, wandering around the woods, with hair
hanging down on his shoulders, a far-away
look in his eyes, and communing with the
birds. In 1818, the botanist Rafinesque, on
the first of his several tramps down the Ohio
valley, — he had a favorite saying, that the
17

258 On the Storied Ohio

only way for a botanist to travel, was to
walk, — stopped over at Henderson to visit this
crazy fellow of whom he had heard. Raf-
inesque had a hope that Audubon might buy
some of his colored drawings; but when he
saw the wonderful pictures which Audubon
had made, he acknowledged that his own were
inferior — a sore confession for Rafinesque, who
was an egotist of the first water. Audubon
had but humble quarters, for it was hard work
in those days for him to keep the wolf from
the door; nevertheless, he entertained the dis-
tinguished traveler, whom he was himself
destined to far eclipse. One night, a bat flew
into Rafinesque's bedroom, and in driving it
out he used his host's fine Cremona as a club,
thus making kindling-wood of it. Two years
later, still steeped in poverty, Audubon left
Henderson. It was 1826 before he became
known to the world of science, when little of
his life was left in which to enjoy the fame at
last awarded him.

We had lunch on Henderson Island, three
miles down, and for warmth walked briskly
about on the strand, among the willow clumps.
It rained again, after we had taken our seats
in the boat, and the head-wind which sprang

Fishermen's Tales 259

up was not unwelcome, for it necessitated a
right lively pull to make headway. W — and
the Boy, in the stern-sheets, were not uncom-
fortable when swathed to the chin in the
blankets which ordinarily serve us as cushions.

Ten miles below Henderson, was a little fleet
of houseboats, lying in a thicket of willows along
the Indiana beach. We stopped at one of
them, and bought a small catfish for dinner.
The fishermen seemed a happy company, in
this isolated spot. The women were engaged
in household work, but the men were spending
the afternoon collected in the cabin of one of
their number, who had recently arrived from
Green River. While waiting for the fish to
be caught in a live-box, I visited with the little
band. It was a comfortable room, furnished
rather better than the average shore cabin,
and the Green River man's family of half-a-
dozen were well-kept, pleasant-faced, and
polite. Altogether it was a much more re-
spectable houseboat company than any we
have yet seen on the river. But the fish-
stories which that Green River man tells, with
an honest-like, open-eyed sobriety, would do
credit to Munchausen.

The rain, at first spasmodic, became at last

260 On the Storied Ohio

persistent. Two miles farther down, at Cy-
press Bend (806 miles), we ran into an Indi-
ana hill, where on a steep slope of yellow
shale, all strewn with rocks, our tent was hur-
riedly pitched. There was no driving of pegs
into this stony base, so we weighted down the
canvas with round-heads, and fastened our
guys to bushes and boulders as best we might.
Huddled around the little stove, under the fly,
the crew dined sumptuously en course, from
canned soup down to strawberries for dessert, —
for Evansville is a good market. It is not
always, we pilgrims fare thus high — the re-
sources of Rome, Thebes, Bethlehem, Hercu-
laneum, and the other classic towns with
which the Ohio's banks are dotted, being none
of the best. Some days, we are fortunate to
have aught in our larder.

Brown's Island, Wednesday, 6th. — This
morning's camp-fire was welcome for its
warmth. The sky has been clear, but a sharp,
cold wind has prevailed throughout the day,
quite counteracting the sun's rays; we noticed
townsfolk going about in overcoats, their hands
in their pockets. In the ox-bow curves, the
breeze came in turn from every quarter, some-

A Windy Day 261

times dead ahead and again pushing us swiftly
on. In seeking the lee shore, Pilgrim pursued
a zigzag course, back and forth between the
States, — now under the brow of towering clay
banks, corrugated by the flood, and honey-
combed by swallows, which in flocks screamed
and circled over our heads; again, closely
brushing the fringe of willows and sycamores
and maples on low-lying shores. Thus did
we for the most part paddle in placid water,
while above us the wind whistled in the tree-
tops, rustled the blooming elders and the tall
grasses of the plain, and, out in the open river,
caused white-caps to dance right merrily.

We met at intervals to-day, several house-
boats, the most of them bearing the inscription
prescribed by the new Kentucky license law,
which is now being enforced, the essential
features of which inscription are the home and
name of the owner, and the date at which
the license expires. The standard of edu-
cation among houseboaters is evinced by the
legend borne by a trader's craft which we
boarded near Slim Island: "Lisens exp.rs
Maye the 24 1895." The young woman in
charge, a slender creature in a brilliant red
calico gown, with blue ribbons at the corsage,

262 On the Storied Ohio

had been but recently married to her lord,
who was back in the country stirring up trade.
She had few notions of business, and allowed
us to put our own prices on such articles as
we purchased. The stock was a curious med-
ley— a few staple groceries, bacon and dried
beef, candies, crockery, hardware, tobacco,
a small line of patent medicines, in which
blood-purifiers chiefly prevailed, bitters, ginger
beer, and a glass case in which were displayed
two or three women's straw hats, gaudily-
trimmed. The woman said their custom was,
to tie up to some convenient shore and ' i buy
a little stuff o' the farmers, 'n' in that way
trade springs up," and thus become known.
Two or three weeks would exhaust any neigh-
borhood, whereupon they would move on for
a dozen miles or so. Late in the autumn,
they select a comfortable beach, and lie by
for the winter.

Mt. Vernon, Ind. (819 miles), is on a high,
rolling plain, with a rather pretty little court-
house set in a park of grass, some good busi-
ness buildings, and huge flouring-mills, which
appear to be the leading industry. Another
flouring-mill town, with the addition of the
characteristic Kentucky distillery, is Union-

The Wabash 263

town (833 miles), on the southern shore — a
bright, neat little city, backed by smooth,
picturesque green hills.

The feature of the day was the entrance,
through a dreary stretch of clay banks, of the
Wabash River (838 miles), which divides In-
diana from Illinois. Three hundred and sixty
yards wide at the mouth, about half the width
of the Ohio, it is the most important of the
latter's northern affluents, and pours into the
main stream a swift-rushing body of clear,
green water, which at first boldly pushes over
to the heavily-willowed Kentucky shore the
roily mess of the Ohio, and for several miles
exerts a considerable influence in clarification.
The Lower Wabash, flowing through a soft
clay bottom, runs an erratic course, and its
mouth is a variable location, so that the
bounds of Illinois and Indiana, hereabout,
fluctuate east and west according to the ex-
igencies of the floods. The far-reaching bot-
tom itself, however, is apparently of slight
value, giving evidence, in the dreary clumps
of dead timber, of being frequently inundated.

An interesting stream is the Wabash, from
an historical point of view. La Salle knew
of it in 1677, and was planning to prosecute

264 On the Storied Ohio

his fur trade over the Maumee and the Wa-
bash; but the Iroquois held the portage, and
for nearly forty years thereafter forbade its
use by whites. Joliet thought the Wabash
the headwaters of what we know as the Lower
Ohio, and in his map (1673) styled the latter
the Wabash, down to its mouth. Vincennes,
an old Wabash town, was one of the posts
captured so heroically for the Americans by
George Rogers Clark, during the Revolution-
ary War. In 18 14, there was established at
New Harmony, also on the Wabash, the com-
munistic seat of the Harmonists, who had
moved thither from Pennsylvania, to which,
dissatisfied with the West, they returned ten
years later.

Numerous islands have to-day beautified
the Ohio. Despite their inartistic names,
Diamond and Slim are tipped at head and
foot with charming banks and willowed sand,
and each center is clothed in a luxurious for-
est, rimmed by a gravelly beach piled high
with drift and gnarled roots: the whole, with
startling clearness, inversely reflected in the
mirrored flood. Wabash Island, opposite the
mouth of the great tributary, is an insular
woodland several miles in length.

Shawneetown 265

Among the prettiest of these jewels stud-
ding our silvery path, is the upmost of the
little group known as Brown's Islands, on
which we are passing the night. It was an
easy landing on the hard sand, and a com-
fortable carry to a level opening in the wil-
lows, where we have a model camp with a
great round sycamore block for a table; an
Evansville newspaper does duty as a table-
cloth, and two logs rolled alongside serve for
seats. Four miles below, the smoke of Shaw-
neetown (848 miles) rises lazily above the
dark level line of woods; while across the
river, in Kentucky, there is an unbroken for-
est fringe, without sign of life as far as the
eye can reach. A long glistening bar of sand
connects our little island home with the Illi-
nois mainland; upon it was being held, in the
long twilight, that evening council of turkey-
buzzards, which we so often witness when in
an island camp. Sand-pipers went fearlessly
about among them, bobbing their little tails
with nervous vehemence; redbirds trilled their
good-nights in the tree-tops; and, daintily
wading in the sandy shallows, object lessons
in patience, were great blue herons, carefully
peering for the prey which never seems to be

266 On the Storied Ohio

found. As night closed in upon us, owls dis-
mally hooted in the mainland woods, buzzards
betook themselves to inland roosts, herons
winged their stately flight to I know not
where, and over on the Kentucky shore could
faintly be heard the barking of dogs at the
little "cracker" farmsteads hid deep in the
lowland forest.

CHAPTER XX.

Shawneetown — Farm-houses on stilts —
Cave-in-Rock — An island night.

Half-Moon Bar, Thursday, June 7th. — A
head-breeze prevailed all day, strong enough
to fan us into a sense of coolness, but leaving
the water as unruffled as a mill-pond; thus did
we seem, in the vivid reflections of the early
morning, to be sailing between double lines of
shore, lovely in their groupings of luxuriant
trees and tangled heaps of vine-clad drift. It
was a hazy, mirage-producing atmosphere, the
river appearing to melt away in space, and
the ever-charming island heads looming un-
supported in mid-air. From the woods, the
piercing note of locusts filled the air as with
the ceaseless rattle of pebbles against innu-
merable window-panes.

At a distance, Shawneetown appears as if

built upon higher land than the neighboring

bottom; but this proves, on approach, to be

an optical illusion, for the town is walled in by a

267

268 On the Storied Ohio

levee some thirty feet in height, above the top of
which loom its chimneys and spires. Shawnee-
town, laid out in 1808, soon became an im-
portant post on the Lower Ohio, and indeed
ranked with Kaskaskia as one of the principal
Illinois towns, although in 18 17 it still only
contained from thirty to forty log dwellings.
During the reign of the Ohio-River bargemen,*
it was notorious as the headquarters of the
roughest elements in that boisterous class, and
frequently the scene of most barbarous out-
rages— " the odious receptacle," says a chron-
icler of the time, "of filth and villany."

In those lively days, which lasted with more
or less vigor until about 1830, — by which time,
steamboats had finally overcome popular pre-
judice and gained the upper hand in river
transportation, — the people of Shawneetown
were largely dependent on the trade of the
salt works of the neighboring Saline Reserve.
The salt-licks — at which in early days the
bones of the mammoth were found, as at Big
Bone Lick — commenced a few miles below
the town, and embraced a district of about
ninety thousand acres. While Illinois was

* See Chapter XIII.

Buildings on Stilts 269

still a Territory, these salines were rented by
the United States to individuals, but were
granted to the new State (18 18) in perpetuity.
The trade, in time, decreased with the deca-
dence of river traffic; and Shawneetown has
since had but slow growth — it now being a
dreary little place of three thousand inhab-
itants, with unmistakable evidences of having
long since seen its best days.

The farmers upon the wide bottoms of the
lower reaches now invariably have their dwel-
lings, corn-cribs, and tobacco-sheds set upon
posts, varying from five to ten feet high, ac-
cording to the surrounding elevation above
the normal river level. At present we are, as
a rule, hemmed in by banks full thirty or forty
feet in height above the present stage. After
a hard climb up the steps which are frequently
found cut into the clay, to facilitate access
to the river, it is with something akin to awe
that we look upon these buildings on stilts,
for they bespeak, in times of great flood, a
rise in the river of between fifty and sixty feet.

Three miles above Saline River, I scrambled
up to photograph a farm-house of this char-
acter. In order to get the building within the
field of the camera, it was necessary to mount

270 On the Storied Ohio

a cob-house of loose rails, which did duty as a
pig-pen. A young woman of eighteen or
twenty years, attired in a dazzling-red calico
gown, came out on the front balcony to see
the operation; and, for a touch of life, I held
her in talk until the picture was taken. She
was not at all averse to thus posing, and
chatted as familiarly as though we were old
friends. The water, my model said, came at
least once a year to the main floor of the house,
some ten feet above the level of the land, and
forty feet above the normal river stage; ' ' every
few years " it rose to the eaves of this story -
and-a-half dwelling, when the family would
embark in boats, hieing off to the back-lying
hills, a mile-and-a-half away. An event of
this sort seemed quite commonplace to the
girl, and not at all to be viewed as a calamity.
As in other houses of the bottom farmers of
this district, there is no wall-paper, no plaster
upon the walls, and little or nothing else to be
injured by water. Their few household pos-
sessions can readily be packed into a scow,
together with the live-stock, and behold the
family is ready, if need be, to float away to
the ends of the earth. As a matter of fact, if
they carry food enough with them, and a rain-

In Egypt 271

proof tent, their season on the hills is but a
prolonged picnic. When the waters suffi-
ciently subside, they float back again to their
home; the river mud is scraped out of the
rooms, the kitchen-stove rubbed up a bit, and
soon everything is again at rights, with a fresh
layer of alluvial deposit to fertilize the fields.

Few of these small farmers own the lands
they till; from Pittsburg down, the great ma-
jority of Ohio River planters are but tenants.
The old families that once owned the soil are
living in the neighboring towns, or in other
parts of the country, and renting out their
acres to these cultivators. We were told that
the rental fee around Owensboro is usually in
kind, — fourteen bushels of good, salable corn
being the rate per acre. In ' ' Egypt, " as
Southern Illinois is called, the average rent is
four or five dollars in money, except in years
when the water remains long upon the ground,
and thus shortens the season; then the fee is
correspondingly reduced. The girl on the
balcony averred that in 1893 it amounted to
one-third the value of the average yield.

The numerous huge stilted corn cribs we
see are constructed so that wagons can drive
up into them, and, after unloading in bins on

272 On the Storied Ohio

either side, descend another incline at the far
end. Sometimes a portion of the crib is
boarded up for a residence, with windows,
and a little balcony which does double duty
as a porch and a landing-stage for the boats
in time of high water. Scattered about on
the level are loosely-built sheds of rails, for
stock, which practically live al fresco, so far
as actual storm-shelter goes.

Usually the flooded bottoms are denuded of
trees, save perhaps a narrow fringe along the
bank, and a few dead trunks scattered here and
there; while back, a third or a half-mile from
the river, lies a dense line of forest, far be-
yond which rises the low rim of the basin.
But just below Saline River (857 miles), a
lazy little stream of a few rods' width, the
hills, now perhaps eighty or a hundred feet in
height, again approach to the water's edge;
and henceforth to the mouth we are to have
alternating semi-circular, wooded bottoms and
shaly, often palisaded uplands, grown to scrub
and vines much in the fashion of some of the
middle reaches. A trading-boat was moored
just within the Saline, where we stopped for
lunch under a clump of sycamores. The
owner obtains butter and eggs from the

Cave-in-Rock 273

farmers, in exchange for his varied wares, and
sells them at a goodly profit to passing steam-
ers, which will always stop when flagged.

Approaching Cave-in-Rock, 111. (869 miles),
the right bank is for several miles an almost con-
tinuous palisade of lime-stone, thick-studded
with black and brown flints. In the breaking
down of this escarpment, popularly styled
Battery Rocks, numerous caves have been
formed, the largest of which gave the place
its name. It is a rather low opening into the
rock, perhaps two hundred feet deep, and the
floor some twenty feet above the present level of
the river; in times of flood, it is frequently so
filled with water that boats enter, and thousands
of silly people have, in two or three generations
past, carved or painted their names upon the
vaulted roof .* From this large entrance hall,
a chimney-like hole in the roof leads to other
chambers, said to be imposing and widely
ramified — "not unlike a Gothic cathedral,"
said Ashe, an early English traveler (1806),
who appears to have everywhere in these
Western wilds sought the marvellous, and

* " Scrawled over by that class of aspiring travelers who
defile noble monuments with their worthless names." — Ir-
ving, in The Alhambra.
18

274 On the Storied Ohio

found it. About 1801, a band of robbers made
these inner recesses their home, and fre-
quently sallied hence to rob passing boats,
and incidentally to murder the crews. As for
the little hamlet of Cave-in-Rock, nestled in
a break in the palisade, a few hundred yards
below, it was, between 1801 and 1805, the
seat of another species of brigandage — a land
speculation, wherein schemers waxed rich
from the confusion engendered by conflicting
claims of settlers, the outgrowth of carelessly-
phrased Indian treaties and overlapping French
and English patents. From 1804 to 18 10, a
Congressional committee was engaged in
straightening out this weary tangle; and its
decisions, ratified by Congress, are to-day the
foundation of many land-titles in Indiana and
Illinois.

We are in camp to-night upon the Illinois
shore, opposite Half-Moon Bar (872 miles),
and a mile above Hurricane Island. Tower-
ing above us are great sycamores, cypress,
maples, and elms, and all about a dense jungle
of grasses, vines, and monster weeds — the
rank horse-weed being now some ten feet high,
with a stem an inch in diameter; the dead
stalks of last year's growth, in the broad roll-

An Enchanted Land 275

ing fields to our rear, indicate a possibility of
sixteen feet, and an apparent desire to out-
rival the corn. Cane-brake, too, is prevalent
hereabout, with stalks two inches or more
thick. The mulberries are reddening, the
Doctor reports on his return with the Boy
from a botanizing expedition, and black-caps
are turning; while bergamont and vervain are
among the plants newly added to the her-
barium.

Stewart's Island, Friday, 8th. — We arose
this morning to find the tent as wet from dew
and fog as if there had been a shower, and
the bushes by the landing were sparkling with
great beads of moisture. The bold, black
head of Hurricane Island stood out with start-
ling distinctness, framed in rolling fog; through
a cloud-bank on the horizon, the sun was
bursting with the dull glow of burnished cop-
per. By the time of starting, the fog had
lifted, and the sun swung clear in a steel-blue
sky; but there was still a soft haze on land
and river, which dreamily closed the ever-
changing vistas, and we seemed to float through
an enchanted land.

The approach to Elizabethtown, 111. (877

276 On the Storied Ohio

miles), is picturesque; but of the dry little
town of seven hundred souls, with its rocky,
undulating streets set in a break in the line of
palisades, very little is to be seen from the
river. Quarrying for paving-stones appears
to be the chief pursuit of the Elizabethans.
At Rose Clare, 111., a string of shanties three
miles below, are two idle plants of the Argyle
Lead and Fluor-Spar Mining Co. Carrsville,
Ky., is another arid, hillside hamlet, with
striking escarpments stretching above and be-
low for several miles. Mammoth boulders, a
dozen or more feet in height, relics doubtless
of once formidable cliffs, here line the river-
side. The palisaded hills reappear in Illinois,
commencing at Parkinson's Landing, a dreary
little settlement on a waste of barren, stony
slope flanking the perpendicular wall.

Just above Golconda Island (890 miles), on
the Illinois side, we were witness to a "meet"
of farmers for a squirrel-hunt, a favorite amuse-
ment in these parts. There were five men
upon a side, all carrying guns; as we passed,
they were shaking hands, preparatory to sep-
arating for the battue. Upon the bank above,
in a grove of cypress, pawpaw, and sycamore,
their horses were standing, unhitched from the

Squirrel-Hunters 277

poles of the wagons in which they had been
driven, and, tied to trees, feeding from boxes
set upon the ground. It was pleasant to see
that these people, who must lead dreary lives
upon the malaria-stricken and flood-washed
bottoms, occasionally take a holiday with a
spice of rational adventure in it; although
there is the probability that this squirrel-hunt
may be followed to-night by a roystering at
the village tavern, the losing side paying the
score.

We reached Stewart's Island (901 miles) at
five o'clock, and went into camp upon the
landing-beach of hard, white sand, facing
Kentucky. The island is two miles long, the
owner living in Bird's Point Landing, Ky. ,
just below us — a rather shabby but pictur-
esquely-situated little village, at the base of
pretty, wooded hills. A hundred and fifty
acres of the island are planted to corn, and
the owner's laborers — a white overseer and
five blacks — are housed a half-mile above us,
in a rude cabin half-hidden in a generous ma-
ple grove.

The white man soon came down to the
strand, riding his mule, and both drank freely
from the muddy river. He was a fairly-intel-

278 On the Storied Ohio

ligent young fellow, and proud of his mount —
no need of lines, he said, for "this yer mule;
ye on'y say 'gee!' and 'haw!' and he done git
thar ev'ry time, sir-r! Tears to me, he jist
done think it out to hisself, like a man would.
Hit ain't no use try'n' boss that yere mule,
he's thet ugly when he's sot on 't — but jist pat
him on th' naick and say, ' So thar, Solomon!'
and thar ain't no one knows how to act better
'nhe."

As we were at dinner, in the twilight, the
five negroes also came riding down the angling
roadway, in picturesque single file, singing
snatches of camp-meeting songs in that weird
minor key with which we are so familiar in ' 'ju-
bilee" music. Across the river, a Kentucky
darky, riding a mule along the dusky wood-
land road at the base of the hills, and evidently
going home from his work in the fields, was sing-
ing at the top of his bent, possibly as a stim-
ulus to failing courage. Our islanders shouted
at him in derision. The shoreman's replies,
which lacked not for spice, came clear and
sharp across the half-mile of smooth water,
and his tormentors quickly ceased chaffing.
Having all drunk copiously, men and mules
resumed their line of march up the bank, and

An Island Night 279

disappeared as they came, still chanting the
crude melodies of their people. An hour later,
we could hear them at the cabin, singing
1 ' John Brown's Body " and other old friends —
with the moon, bright and clear in its first
quarter, adding a touch of romance to the
scene.

CHAPTER XXL

The Cumberland and the Tennessee —
Stately solitudes — Old Fort Mas-
sac— Dead towns in Egypt — The last
camp — Cairo.

Opposite Metropolis, III. , Saturday, June
9th. — As we were dressing this morning, at
half-past five, the echoes were again awakened
by the vociferous negro on the Kentucky
shore, who was going out to his work again,
as noisy as ever. One of our own black men
walked down the bank, ostensibly to light his
pipe at the breakfast fire, but really to satisfy
a pardonable curiosity regarding us. The
singing brother on the mainland appeared to
amuse him, and he paused to listen, saying,
'<Dat yere nigger, he got too loud voice!"
Then, when he had left our camp and regained
the top of the bank, he leaned upon his hoe
and yelled: "Say, niggah, ober dere! whar
you git dat mule?"

280

Repartee 28 1

"Who you holl'rin' at, you brack island
niggah?" was the quick reply.

"You Ian' niggah, you tink you smart!"

"Fse so smart, I done want no liv'n' on
island, wi' gang boss, 'n not 'lowed go 'way!"

The tuneful darky had evidently here
touched a tender spot, for our man turned
back into the field to his work; and the other,
kicking the mule into action, trotted off to the
tune of " Dar's a meet'n' here, to-night!"

We went up into the field, to see the labor-
ers cultivating corn. The sun was blazing
hot, without a breath of air stirring, but the
great black fellows seemed to mind it not,
chattering away to themselves like magpies,
and keeping up their conversation by shouts,
when separated from each other at the ends
of plow-rows. A natural levee, eight and ten
feet high, and studded with large tree- willows,
rims in the island farm like the edge of a basin.
We were told that this served as a barrier
only against the June "fresh," for the regular
spring floods invariably swamp the place; but
what is left within the bowl, when the outer
waters subside, soon leaches through the sandy
soil.

After passing the pretty shores of Dog Isl-

282 On the Storied Ohio

and, not far below, the bold, dark headland
of Cumberland Island soon bursts upon our
view. We follow the narrow eastern channel,
in order to greet the Cumberland River (909
miles), which half-way down its island name-
sake,— at the woe-begone little village of
Smithland, Ky., — empties a generous flood
into the Ohio, The Cumberland, perhaps
a quarter-of-a-mile wide, debouches through
high clay banks, which might readily be melted
in the turbulent cross-currents produced by
the mingling of the rivers; but to avoid this,
the government engineers have built a wing-
dam running out from the foot of the Cum-
berland, nearly half-way into the main river.
This quickly unites the two streams, and
the reinforced Ohio is thereafter perceptibly
widened.

Tramp steamers are numerous, on these
lower reaches. We have seen perhaps a dozen
such to-day, stopping at the farm landings as
well as at the crude and infrequent ham-
lets,— mere notches of settlement in the
wooded lines of shore, — doing a small busi-
ness in chance cargoes and in passengers who
flag them from the bank. A sultry atmos-
phere has been with us through the day. The

■ TflE W near Metropolis, Illinois, showing the character of
* the lozver reaches. " These lozu, broad, heavily-timbered
bottoms *' are frequently inundated. "Now and then the
encroaching river has remained too long in some belt of forest,
and we have great clumps of dead trees, which spri?ig aloft in
stately picturesqueness, thickly clad to the limb- tops with
Virginia creeper.'''' The shores are lined throughout with
driftwood, which with each " rise ' ' is again caught up
and given a fresh term of travel.

<k

The Tennessee 283

glassy surface of the river has, when not lashed
into foam by passing boats, dazzled the eyes
most painfully. The hills, from below Stewart's
Island, have receded on either side, generally
leaving either low, broad, heavily-timbered
bottoms, or high clay banks which stretch
back wide plains of yellow and gray corn-
land — frequently inundated, but highly pro-
ductive. Now and then the encroaching river
has remained too long in some belt of forest,
and we have great clumps of dead trees, which
spring aloft in stately picturesqueness, thickly-
clad to the limb-tips with Virginia creeper.
A bit of shaly hillside occasionally abuts upon
the river, though less frequently than above;
and often such a spur has lying at its feet a
row of half-immersed boulders, delicately car-
peted with mosses and with clinging vines.

The Tennessee River (918 miles), the larg-
est of the Ohio's tributaries, is, where it enters,
about half the width of the latter. Coming
down through a broad, forested bottom, with
several pretty islands off its mouth, it presents
a pleasing picture. Here again the govern-
ment has been obliged to put in costly works
to stop the ravages of the mingling torrents
in the soft alluvial banks. The Ohio, with

284 On the Storied Ohio

the united waters of the Cumberland and the
Tennessee, henceforth flows majestically to
the Mississippi, a full mile wide between her
shores.

Paducah( 1 3, 000 inhabitants), next to Louis-
ville Kentucky's most important river port,
lies on a high plain just below the Tennessee.
It is a stirring little city, with the usual large
proportion of negroes, and the out-door busi-
ness life everywhere met with in the South.
Saw-mills, iron plants, and ship-yards line the
bank; at the wharf are large steamers doing
a considerable business up the Cumberland
and Tennessee, and between Paducah and
Cairo and St. Louis; and there is a consider-
able ferry business to and from the Illinois
suburb of Brooklyn.

Seven miles below the Tennessee, on the
Illinois side, we sought relief from the blazing
sun within the mouth of Seven Mile Creek,
which is cut deep through sloping banks of
mud, and overhung by great sprawling syca-
mores. These always interest us from the
generosity of their height and girth, and from
their great variety of color-tones, induced by
the patchy scaling of the bark — soft grays,
buffs, greens, and ivory whites prevailing.

Fort Massac 285

When sufficiently refreshed in this cool bower,
we ventured once more into the fierce light of
the open river, and two miles below shot into
the broader and more inviting Massac Creek
(928 miles), just as, of old, George Rogers
Clark did with his little flotilla, when en route
to capture Kaskaskia. Clark, in his Journal
written long after the event, said that this
creek is a mile above Fort Massac; his mem-
ory failed him — as a matter of fact, the
steep, low7 hill of iron-stained gravel and clay,
on which the old stronghold was built, is but
two hundred yards below. *

The French commander who, in October,
1758, evacuated and burned Fort Duquesne
on the approach of the English army under
General Forbes, dropped down the Ohio for
nearly a thousand miles, and built l ' a new
fort on a beautiful eminence on the north bank
of the river." But there was a fortified post
on this hillock at a much earlier date (about
171 1), erected as a headquarters for mission-
aries, and to guard French fur-traders from

* " In the evening of the same day I ran my Boats into a
small Creek about one mile above the old Fort Missack; Re-
posed ourselves for the night, and in the morning took a
Rout to the Northv.est."' — Clark's letter to Mason.

286 On the Storied Ohio

marauding Cherokees; and Pownall's map notes
one here in 175 1. This fort of 1758 was but
an enlarged edition of the old. The new
stronghold, with a garrison of a hundred men,
was the last built by the French upon the Ohio,
and it was occupied by them until they evac-
uated the country in 1763. England does not
appear to have made any attempt to repair
and occupy the works then destroyed by the
French, although urged to do so by her mili-
tary agents in the West. Had they held Fort
Massac, no doubt Clark's expedition to capture
the Northwest for the Americans might easily
have been nipped in the bud; as it was, the
old fortress was a ruin when he "reposed" on
the banks of the creek at its feet.

When, in 1793- 1794, the French agent
Genet was fomenting his scheme for capturing
Louisiana and Florida from Spain, by the aid
of Western filibusters, old Fort Massac was
thought of as a rallying-point and base of sup-
plies; but St. Clair's proclamation of March
24, 1794, ordering General Wayne to restore
and garrison the place, for the purpose of pre-
venting the proposed expedition from passing
down the river, ended the conspiracy, and Genet
left the country. A year later, Spain, who had at

Spain's Intrigues 287

intervals sought to detach the Westerners from
the Union, and ally them with her interests
beyond the Mississippi, renewed her attempts
at corrupting the Kentuckians, and gained to
her cause no less a man than George Rogers
Clark himself. Among other designs, Fort
Massac was to be captured by the adventurers,
whom Spain was to supply with the sinews of
war. There was much mysterious correspond-
ence between the latter's corruption agent,
Thomas Power, and the American General
Wilkinson, at Detroit; but finally Power, in
disguise, was sent out of the country under
guard, by way of Fort Massac, and his escape
into Spanish territory practically ended this
interesting episode in Western history. The
fort was occupied as a military post by our
government until the close of the War of
1 81 2-1 5; what we see to-day, are the ruins of
the establishment then abandoned.

No doubt the face of this rugged promon-
tory of gravel has, within a century, suffered
much from floods; but the remains of the
earthwork on the crest of the cliff, some fifty
feet above the present river-stage, are still
easily traceable throughout. The fort was
about forty yards square, with a bastion at

288 On the Storied Ohio

each corner. There are the remains of an un-
stoned well near the center; the ditch sur-
rounding the earthwork is still some two-and-
a-half or three feet below the surrounding
level, and the breastwork about two feet above
the inner level; no doubt, palisades once sur-
mounted the work, and were relied upon as the
chief protection from assault. The grounds,
a pleasant grassy grove several acres in extent,
are now enclosed by a rail fence, and neatly
maintained as a public park by the little city
of Metropolis, which lies not far below. It
was a commanding view of land and river,
which was enjoyed by the garrison of old Fort
Massac. Up stream, there is a straight stretch
of eleven miles to the mouth of the Tennessee;
both up and down, the shore lines are under
full survey, until they melt away in the dis-
tance. No enemy could well surprise the
holders of this key to the Lower Ohio.

Our camp is on the sandy beach opposite
Metropolis, and two hundred yards below the
Kentucky end of the ferry. Behind us lies a
deep forest, with sycamores six and eight feet
in diameter; a country road curving off through
the woods, to the sparse rustic settlement lying
some two miles in the interior — on higher

Opposite Metropolis 289

ground than this wooded bottom, which is an-
nually overflowed. Now and then the bluster-
ing little steam-ferry comes across to land
Kentucky farm-folk and their mules, going
home from a Saturday's shopping in Metrop-
olis. Occasionally a fisherman passes, lagging
on his oars to scan us and our quarters; and
from one of them, we purchased a fish. As
the still, cool night crept on, Metropolis was
astir; across the mile of intervening water,
darted tremulous shafts of light; we heard
voices singing and laughing, a fiddle in its
highest notes, the purring of a stationary en-
gine, and the bay and yelp of countless dogs.
Later, a packet swooped down with smothered
roar, and threw its electric search-light on the
city wharf, revealing a crowd of negroes gath-
ered there, like moths in the radiance of a
candle; there were gay shouts, and a mad
scampering — we could see it all, as plainly as
if in ordinary light it had been but a third of
the distance; and then the roustabouts struck
up a weird song as they ran out the gang-
plank, and, laden with boxes and bales, began
swarming ashore, like a procession of black
ants carrying pupa cases.
19

290 On the Storied Ohio

Mound City Towhead, Sunday, 10th. —
During the night, burglarious pigs would have
raided our larder, but the crash of a falling
kettle wakened us suddenly, as did geese the
ancient Romans. The Doctor and I sallied
forth in our pajamas, with clods of clay in
hand, to send the enemy flying back into the
forest, snorting and squealing with baffled
rage.

We were afloat at half -past seven, under an
unclouded sky, with the sun sharply reflected
from the smooth surface of the river, and the
temperature rapidly mounting.

The Fort Massac ridge extends down stream
as far as Mound City, but soon degenerates
into a ridge of clay varying in height from
twenty-five to fifty feet above the water level.
Upon the low-lying bottom of the Kentucky
shore, is still an interminable dark line of
forest. The settlements are meager, and now
wholly in Illinois: For instance, Joppa (936
miles), a row of a half-dozen unpainted, dilap-
idated buildings, chiefly stores and abandoned
warehouses, bespeaking a river traffic of the
olden time, that has gone to decay; a hot,
dreary, baking spot, this Joppa, as it lies
sprawling upon the clay ridge, flanked by a

Fort Wilkinson 291

low, wide gravel beach, on which gaunt, bell-
ringing cows are wandering, eating the leaves
of fallen trees, for lack of better pasturage.
Our pilot map, of sixty years ago, records the
presence of Wilkinsonville (942 miles), on
the site of old Fort Wilkinson of the War of
1 8 12-15, but few along the banks appear to
have ever heard of it; however, after much
searching, we found the place for ourselves,
on an eminence of fifty feet, with two or three
farm-houses as the sole relics of the old estab-
lishment. Caledonia (Olmstead P. O.), nine
miles down, consists of several large buildings
on a hill set well back from the river. Mound
City (959 miles), — the ' ' America " of our time-
worn map, — in whose outskirts we are camped
to-night, is a busy town with furniture fac-
tories, lumber mills, ship-yards, and a railway
transfer. Below that, stretches the vast ex-
tent of swamp and low woodland on which
Cairo (967 miles) has with infinite pains been
built — like "brave little Holland," holding
her own against the floods solely by virtue of
her encircling dike.

Houseboats have been few, to-day, and they
of the shanty order and generally stranded
high upon the beach. One sees now and then,

292 On the Storied Ohio

on the Illinois ridge, the cheap log or frame
house of a "cracker," the very picture of des-
olate despair; but on the Kentucky shore are
few signs of life, for the bottom lies so low
that it is frequently inundated, and settlement
ventures no nearer than two or three miles
from the riverside. A fisherman comes occa-
sionally into view, upon this wide expanse of
wood and water and clay-banks; sometimes
we hail him in passing, always getting a re-
spectful answer, but a stare of innocent curi-
osity.

Our last home upon the Ohio is facing the
Kentucky shore, on the cleanly sand-beach of
Mound City Towhead, a small island which
in times of high water is but a bar. The tent
is screened in a willow clump; just below us,
on higher ground, sycamores soar heaven-
ward, gayly festooned with vines, hiding from
us Mound City and the Illinois mainland.
Across the river, a Kentucky negro is singing
in the gloaming; but it is over a mile away,
and, while the tune is plain, the words are
lost. Children's voices, and the bay of
hounds, come wafted to us from the northern
shore. A steamer's wake rolls along our isl-
and strand, dangerously near the camp-fire;

The Last Night 293

the river is still falling, however, and we no
longer fear the encroachments of the flood.
The Doctor and I found a secluded nook,
where in the moonlight we took our final
plunge.

It is sad, this bidding good-bye to the stream
which has floated us so merrily for a thousand
miles, from the mountains down to the plain.
We elders linger long by the last camp-fire,
to talk in fond reminiscence of the six weeks
afloat; while the Boy no doubt dreams peace-
fully of houseboats and fishermen, of gigantic
bridges and flashing steel-plants, of coal-mines
and oil-wells, of pioneers and Indians, and all
that — of six weeks of kaleidoscopic sensations,
at an age when the mind is keenly active, and
the heart open to impressions which can
never be dimmed so long as his little life shall
last.

Cairo, Monday, 1 ith. — At our island camp,
last night, we were but nine miles from the
mouth of the Ohio, a distance which could
easily have been made before sundown; but
we preferred to reach our destination in the
morning, the better to arrange for railway
transportation, hence our agreeable pause up-
on the Towhead.

294 On the Storied Ohio

Before embarking for the last run, this
morning, we made a neat heap on the beach,
of such of our stores, edible and wearable, as
had been requisite to the trip, but were not
worth the cost of sending home. Feeling
confident that some passing fisherman would
soon be tempted ashore to inspect this curi-
ous landmark, and yet might be troubled by
nice scruples as to the policy of appropriating
the find, we conspicuously labeled it: " Aban-
doned by the owners! The finder is welcome
to the lot."

Quickly passing Mound City, now bustling
with life, Pilgrim closely skirted the monoto-
nous clay-banks of Illinois, swept rapidly un-
der the monster railway bridge which stalks
high above the flood, and loses itself over the
tree-tops of the Kentucky bottom, and at a
quarter-past eight o'clock was pulled up at
Cairo, with the Mississippi in plain sight over
there, through the opening in the forest. In
another hour or two, she will be housed in a
box-car; and we, her crew, having again
donned the garb of landsmen, will be speed-
ing toward our northern home, this pilgrimage
but a memory.

Such a memory! As we dropped below the

An Unwelcome End 295

Towhead, the Boy, for once silent, wistfully
gazed astern. When at last Pilgrim had been
hauled upon the railway levee, and the Doctor
and I had gone to summon a shipping clerk,
the lad looked pleadingly into W — 's face.
In tones half-choked with tears, he expressed
the sentiment of all: "Mother, is it really
ended ? Why can't we go back to Browns-
ville, and do it all over again ?"

APPENDIX A.

Historical outline of Ohio Valley

SETTLEMENT. v

Englishmen had no sooner set foot upon our
continent, than they began to penetrate inland
with the hope of soon reaching the Western
Ocean, which the coast savages, almost as
ignorant of the geography of the interior as
the Europeans themselves, declared lay just
beyond the mountains. In 1586, we find
Ralph Lane, governor of Raleigh's ill-fated
colony, leading his men up the Roanoke River
for a hundred miles, only to turn back dis-
heartened at the rapids and falls, which neces-
sitated frequent portages through the forest
jungles. Twenty years later (1606), Christo-
pher Newport and the redoubtable John Smith,
of Jamestown, ascended the James as far as
the falls — now Richmond, Va. ; and Newport
himself, the following year, succeeded in reach-
ing a point forty miles beyond, but here again
was appalled by the difficulties and returned.
296

Historical Outline 297

There was, after this, a deal of brave talk
about scaling the mountains; but nothing
further was done until 1650, when Edward
Bland and Edward Pennant again tried the
Roanoke, though without penetrating the wil-
derness far beyond Lane's turning point. It
is recorded that, in 1669, John Lederer, an
adventurous German surgeon, commissioned
as an explorer by Governor Berkeley, as-
cended to the summit of the Blue Ridge, in
Madison County, Va. ; but although he was
once more on the spot the following season,
with a goodly company of horsemen and In-
dians, and had a bird's-eye view of the over-
mountain country, he does not appear to
have descended into the world of woodland
which lay stretched between him and the set-
ting sun. It seems to be well established that
the very next year (1671), a party under Abra-
ham Wood, one of Governor Berkeley's major-
generals, penetrated as far as the Great Falls
of the Great Kanawha, only eighty miles from
the Ohio — doubtless the first English explora-
tion of waters flowing into the latter river.
The Great Kanawha was, by Wood himself,
called New River, but the geographers of the
time styled it Wood's. The last title was

298 On the Storied Ohio

finally dropped; the stream above the mouth
of the Gauley is, however, still known as New.
These several adventurers had now demon-
strated that while the waters beyond the
mountains were not the Western Ocean, they
possibly led to such a sea; and it came to be
recognized, too, that the continent was not as
narrow as had up to this time been supposed.

Meanwhile, the French of Canada were
casting eager eyes toward the Ohio, as a gate-
way to the continental interior. But the
French-hating Iroquois held fast the upper
waters of the Mohawk, Delaware, and Susque-
hanna, and the long but narrow watershed
sloping northerly to the Great Lakes, so that
the westering Ohio was for many years sealed
to New France. An important factor in Amer-
ican history this, for it left the great valley
practically free from whites while the English
settlements were strengthening on the sea-
board; when at last the French were ready
aggressively to enter upon the coveted field,
they had in the English colonists formidable
and finally successful rivals.

It is believed by many, and the theory is
not unreasonable, that the great French fur-
trader and explorer, La Salle, was at the Falls

Historical Outline 299

of the Ohio (site of Louisville) "in the autumn
or early winter of 1669." How he got there,
is another question. Some antiquarians be-
lieve that he reached the Alleghany by way
of the Chautauqua portage, and descended the
Ohio to the Falls; others, that he ascended
the Maumee from Lake Erie, and, descending
the Wabash, thus discovered the Ohio. It
was reserved for the geographer Franquelin to
give, in his map of 1688, the first fairly-accu-
rate idea of the Ohio's path; and Father Hen-
nepin's large map of 1697 showed that much
had meanwhile been learned about the river.
No doubt, by this time, the great waterway
was well-known to many of the most adven-
turous French and English fur-traders, possibly
better to the latter than to the former; unfor-
tunately, these men left few records behind
them, by which to trace their discoveries. As
early as 1684, we incidentally hear of the Ohio
as a principal route for the Iroquois, who
brought peltries "from the direction of the
Illinois" to the English at Albany, and the
French at Quebec. Two years after this, ten
English trading-canoes, loaded with goods,
were seen on Lake Erie by French agents,
who in great alarm wrote home to Quebec

300 On the Storied Ohio

about them. Writes De Nonville to Seignelay,
"I consider it a matter of importance to pre-
clude the English from this trade, as they
doubtless would entirely ruin ours — as well by
the cheaper bargains they would give the In-
dians, as by attracting to themselves the French
of our colony who are in the habit of resorting
to the woods."

Herein lay the gist of the whole matter:
The legalized monopoly granted to the great
fur-trade companies of New France, with the
official corruption necessary to create and per-
petuate that monopoly, made the French trade
an expensive business, consequently goods were
dear. On the other hand, the trade of the
English was untrammeled, and a lively com-
petition lowered prices. The French cajoled
the Indians, and fraternized with them in their
camps; whereas, the English despised the sav-
ages, and made little attempt to disguise their
sentiments. The French, while claiming all
the country west of the Alleghanies, cared
little for agricultural colonization; they would
keep the wilderness intact, for the fostering of
wild animals, upon the trade in whose furs
depended the welfare of New France — and
this, too, was the policy of the savage. By

Historical Outline 301

English statesmen at home, our continental
interior was also chiefly prized for its forest
trade, which yielded rich returns for the mer-
chant adventurers of London. The policies
of the English colonists and of their general
government were ever clashing. The latter
looked upon the Indian trade as an entering
wedge; they thought of the West as a place
for growth. Close upon the heels of the
path-breaking trader, went the cattle-raiser,
and, following him, the agricultural settler
looking for cheap, fresh, and broader lands.
No edicts of the Board of Trade could repress
these backwoodsmen; savages could and did
beat them back for a time, but the annals of
the border are lurid with the bloody struggle
of the borderers for a clearing in the Western
forest. The greater part of them were Scotch-
Irish from Pennsylvania, Virginia, the Caro-
linas — a hardy race, who knew not defeat.
Steadily they pushed back the rampart of
savagery, and won the Ohio valley for civiliza-
ation.

The Indian early recognized the land-grab-
bing temper of the English, and felt that a
struggle to the death was impending. The
French browbeat their savage allies, and, easily

302 On the Storied Ohio

inflaming their passions, kept the body of them
almost continually at war with the English —
the Iroquois excepted, not because the latter
were English-lovers, or did not understand
the aim of English colonization, but because
the earliest French had won their undying
enmity. Amidst all this weary strife, the In-
dian, a born trader who dearly loved a bar-
gain, never failed to recognize that the goods
of his French friends were dear, and that those
of his enemies, the English, were cheap. We
find frequent evidences that for a hundred
years the tribesmen of the Upper Lakes car-
ried on an illicit trade with the hated Eng-
lish, whenever the usually-wary French were
thought to be napping.

It is certain that English forest traders were
upon the Ohio in the year 1700. In 171 5, —
the year before Governor Spotswood of Vir-
ginia, "with much feasting and parade," made
his famous expedition over the Blue Ridge, —
there was a complaint that traders from Car-
olina had reached the villages on the Wabash,
and were poaching on the French preserves.
French military officers built little log stock-
ades along that stream, and tried in vain to
induce the Indians of the valley to remove to

Historical Outline 303

St. Joseph's River, out of the sphere of Eng-
lish influence. Everywhere did French traders
meet English competitors, who were not to be
frightened by orders to move off the field.
New France, therefore, determined to connect
Canada and Louisiana by a chain of forts
throughout the length of the Mississippi basin,
which should not only secure untrammeled
communication between these far-separated
colonies, but aid in maintaining French su-
premacy throughout the region. Yet in 1725
we still hear of "the English from Carolina"
busily trading with the Miamis under the very
shadow of the guns of Fort Ouiatanon (near
Lafayette, Ind.), and the French still vainly
scolding thereat. What was going on upon
the Wabash, was true elsewhere in the Ohio
basin, as far south as the Creek towns on the
sources of the Tennessee.

About this time, Pennsylvania and Virginia
began to exhibit interest in their own over-
lapping claims to lands in the country north-
west of the Ohio. Those colonies were now
settled close to the base of the mountains, and
there was heard a popular clamor for pastures
new. French ownership of the over-moun-
tain region was denied, and in 1728 Pennsyl-

304 On the Storied Ohio

vania "viewed with alarm the encroachments
of the French." The issue was now joined ;
both sides claimed the field, but, as usual, the
contest was at first among the rival forest
traders. In the Virginia and Pennsylvania
capitals, the transmontane country was still
a misty region. In 1729, Col. William Byrd,
an authority on things Virginian, was able to
write that nothing was then known in that
colony of the sources of the Potomac, Roan-
oke, and Shenandoah. That very same year,
Chaussegros de Lery, chief engineer of New
France, went with a detachment of troops
from Lake Erie to Chautauqua Lake, and
proceeded thence by Conewango Creek and
Alleghany River to the Ohio, which he care-
fully surveyed down to the mouth of the
Great Miami. It was not until 1736 that
Col. William Mayo, in laying out the boun-
daries of Lord Fairfax's generous estate, dis-
covered in the Alleghanies the head-spring of
the Potomac, where ten years later was planted
the famous " Fairfax Stone," the southwest
point of the boundary between Virginia and
Maryland.

Affairs moved slowly in those days. New
France was corrupt and weak, and the Eng-

Historical Outline 305

lish colonists, unaided by the home govern-
ment, were not strong. For many years,
nothing of importance came out of this rivalry
of French and English in the Ohio Valley,
save the petty quarrels of fur-traders, and the
occasional adventure of some Englishman
taken prisoner by Indians in a border foray,
and carried far into the wilderness to meet
with experiences the horror of which, as
preserved in their published narratives, to
this day causes the blood of the reader to
curdle.

Now and then, there were voluntary adven-
turers into these strange lands. Such were
John Howard, John Peter Sailing, and two
other Virginians who, the story goes, went
overland (1740 or 1741) under commission of
their inquisitive governor, to explore the coun-
try to the Mississippi. They went down Coal
and Wood's Rivers to the Ohio, which in Sal-
ling's journal is called the "Alleghany." Fi-
nally, a party of French, negroes, and Indians
took them prisoners and carried them to New
Orleans, where on meager fare they were held
in prison for eighteen months. They escaped
at last, and had many curious adventures by
land and sea, until they reached home, from

306 On the Storied Ohio

which they had been absent two years and
three months. There are now few countries
on the globe where a party of travelers could
meet with adventures such as these.

At last, the plot thickened; the tragedy was
hastened to a close. France now formally
asserted her right to all countries drained by
streams emptying into the St. Lawrence, the
Great Lakes, and the Mississippi. This vast
empire would have extended from the comb
of the Rockies on the west — discovered in
1743 by the brothers La Verendrye — to the
crest of the Appalachians on the east, thus
including the western part of New York and
New England. The narrow strip of the At-
lantic coast alone would have been left to the
domination of Great Britain. The demand
made by France, if acceded to, meant the
death-blow to English colonization on the
American mainland; and yet it was made not
without reason. French explorers, mission-
aries, and fur-traders had, with great enter-
prise and fortitude, swarmed over the entire
.region, carrying the flag, the religion, and the
commerce of France into the farthest forest
wilds; while the colonists of their rival, busy in
solidly welding their industrial common-

Historical Outline 307

wealths, had as yet scarcely peeped over the
Alleghany barrier.

It was asserted on behalf of Great Britain,
that the charters of her coast colonies carried
their bounds far into the West; further, that
as, by the treaty of Utrecht (171 3), France
had acknowledged the suzerainty of the British
king over the Iroquois confederacy, the Eng-
lish were entitled to all lands " conquered" by
those Indians, whose war-paths had extended
from the Ottawa River on the north to the
Carolinas on the south, and whose forays
reached alike to the Mississippi and to New
England. In this view was made, in 1744, the
famous treaty at Lancaster, Pa., whereat the
Iroquois, impelled by rum and presents, pre-
tended to give to the English entire control of
the Ohio Valley, under the claim that the for-
mer had in various encounters conquered the
Shawanese of that region and were therefore
entitled to it. It is obvious that a country
occasionally raided by marauding bands of
savages, whose homes are far away, cannot
properly be considered theirs by conquest.

Meanwhile, both sides were preparing to
occupy and hold the contested field. New
France already had a weak chain of water-

308 On the Storied Ohio

side forts and commercial stations, — the ren-
dezvous of fur-traders, priests, travelers, and
friendly Indians, — extending, with long inter-
vening stretches of savage-haunted wilderness,
through the heart of the continent, from Lower
Canada to her outlying post of New Orleans.
It is not necessary here to enter into the de-
tails of the ensuing French and Indian War,
the story of which Parkman has told us so
well. Suffice it briefly to mention a few only
of its features, so far as they affect the Ohio
itself.

The Iroquois, although concluding with the
English this treaty of Lancaster, ''on which,
as a corner-stone, lay the claim of the colonists
to the West," were by this time, as the result
of wily French diplomacy, growing suspicious
of their English protectors; at the same time,
having on several occasions been severely
punished by the French, they were less ran-
corous in their opposition to New France.
For this reason, just as the English were get-
ting ready to make good their claim to the
Ohio by actual colonization, the Iroquois began
to let in the French at the back door. In
1749, Galissoniere, then governor of New
France, dispatched to the great valley a party

Historical Outline 309

of soldiers under Celoron de Bienville, with
directions to conduct a thorough exploration,
to bury at the mouths of principal streams
lead plates graven with the French claim, — a
custom of those days, — and to drive out Eng-
lish traders. Celoron proceeded over the
Lake Chautauqua route, from Lake Erie to
the Alleghany River, and thence down the
Ohio to the Miami, returning to Lake Erie
over the old Maumee portage. English traders,
who could not be driven out, were found swarm-
ing into the country, and his report was dis-
couraging. The French realized that they
could not maintain connection between New
Orleans and their settlements on the St. Law-
rence, if driven from the Ohio valley. The
governor sent home a plea for the shipment of
ten thousand French peasants to settle the
region; but the government at Paris was just
then as indifferent to New France as was King
George to his colonies, and the settlers were
not sent.

Meanwhile, the English were not idle. The
first settlement they made west of the moun-
tains, was on New River, a branch of the
Kanawha (1748); in the same season, several
adventurous Virginians hunted and made land-

310 On the Storied Ohio

claims in Kentucky and Tennessee. Before
the close of the following year (1749), there
had been formed, for fur-trading and colonizing
purposes, the Ohio Company, composed of
wealthy Virginians, among whom were two
brothers of Washington. King George granted
the company five hundred thousand acres,
south of and along the Ohio River, on which
they were to plant a hundred families and
build and maintain a fort. As a base of sup-
plies, they built a fortified trading-house at
Will's Creek (now Cumberland, Md.), near
the head of the Potomac, and developed a
trail ("Nemacolin's Path"), sixty miles long,
across the Laurel Hills to the mouth of Red-
stone Creek, on the Monongahela, where was
built another stockade (1752).

Christopher Gist, a famous backwoodsman,
was sent (1750), the year after Celoron's ex-
pedition, to explore the country as far down
as the falls of the Ohio, and select lands for
the new company. Gist's favorable report
greatly stimulated interest in the Western
country. In his travels, he met many Scotch-
Irish fur-traders who had passed into the West
through the mountain valleys of Pennsylvania,
Virginia, and the Carolinas. His negotiations

Historical Outline 3 1 1

with the natives were of great value to the
English cause.

It was early seen, by English and French
alike, that an immense advantage would accrue
to the nation first in possession of what is now
the site of Pittsburg, the meeting-place of the
Monongahela and Alleghany rivers to form the
Ohio — the ''Forks of the Ohio," as it was
then called. In the spring of 1753, a French
force occupied the new fifteen-mile portage
route between Presque Isle (Erie, Pa.) and
French Creek, a tributary of the Alleghany.
On the banks of French Creek they built Fort
Le Boeuf, a stout log-stockade. It had been
planned to erect another fort at the Forks of
the Ohio, one hundred and twenty miles be-
low; but disease in the camp prevented the
completion of the scheme.

What followed is familiar to all who have
taken any interest whatever in Western his-
tory. In November, Governor Dinwiddie, of
Virginia, sent one of his major-generals, young
George Washington, with Gist as a companion,
to remonstrate with the French at Le Bceuf
for occupying land ' ' so notoriously known to
be the property of the Crown of Great Britain."
The French politely turned the messengers

312 On the Storied Ohio

back. In the following April (1754), Wash-
ington set out with a small command, by the
way of Will's Creek, to forcibly occupy the
Forks. His advance party were building a
fort there, when the French appeared and
easily drove them off. Then followed Wash-
ington's defeat at Great Meadows (July 4).
The French were now supreme at their new
Fort Duquesne. The following year, General
Braddock set out from Virginia, also by Ne-
macolin's Path; but, on that fateful ninth of
July, fell in the slaughter-pen which had been
set for him at Turtle Creek by the Indians of
the Upper Lakes, under the leadership of a
French fur-trader from far-off Wisconsin.

From the time of Braddock's defeat until
the close of the war, French traders, with
savage allies, poured the vials of their wrath
upon the encroaching settlements of the Eng-
lish backwoodsmen. Nemacolin's Path, now
known as Braddock's Road, made for the In-
dians of the Ohio an easy pathway to the
English borders of Pennsylvania, Virginia,
and Maryland. In the parallel valleys of the
Alleghanies was waged a partisan warfare,
which in bitterness has probably not had its
equal in all the long history of the efforts of

Historical Outline 313

expanding civilization to beat down the encir-
cling walls of barbarism. In 1758, Canada
was attacked by several English expeditions,
the most of which were successful. One of
these was headed by General John Forbes,
and directed against Fort Duquesne. After a
remarkable forest march, overcoming mighty
obstacles, Forbes arrived at his destination to
find that the French had blown up the fortifi-
cations, some of the troops retreating to Lake
Erie and others to rehabilitate Fort Massac on
the Lower Ohio.

Thus England gained possession of the val-
ley. New France had been cut in twain.
The English Fort Pitt commanded the Forks
of the Ohio, and French rule in America was
now doomed. The fall of Quebec soon fol-
lowed (1759), then of Montreal (1760); and
in 1763 was signed the Treaty of Paris, by
which England obtained possession of all the
territory east of the Mississippi River, except
the city of New Orleans and a small outlying
district. In order to please the savages of the
interior, and to cultivate the fur-trade, — per-
haps also, to act as a check upon the westward
growth of the too-ambitious coast colonies, —
King George III. took early occasion to com-

314 On the Storied Ohio

mand his "loving subjects" in America not to
purchase or settle lands beyond the mountains,
"without our especial leave and license." It
is needless to say that this injunction was not
obeyed. The expansion of the English col-
onies in America was irresistible; the Great
West was theirs, and they proceeded in due
time to occupy it.

Long before the close of the French and
Indian War, English colonists — whom we will
now, for convenience, call Americans — had
made agricultural settlements in the Ohio
basin. As early as 1752, we have seen, the
Redstone fort was built. In 1753, the French
forces, on retiring from Great Meadows, burned
several log cabins on the Monongahela. The
interesting story of the colonizing of the Red-
stone district, at the western end of Brad-
dock's Road, has been outlined in Chapter I.
of the text; and it has been shown, in the
course of the narrative of the pilgrimage, how
other districts were slowly settled in the face
of savage opposition. Although driven back
in numerous Indian wars, these American bor-
derers had come to the Ohio valley to stay.

We have seen the early attempt of the Ohio
Company to settle the valley. Its agents

Historical Outline 315

blazed the way, but the French and Indian
War, and the Revolution soon following,
tended to discourage the aspirations of the
adventurers, and the organization finally
lapsed. Western land speculators were as
active in those days as now, and Washington
was chief among them. We find him first in-
terested in the valley, through broad acres
acquired on land-grants issued for military
services in the French and Indian War; Rev-
olutionary bounty claims made him a still
larger landholder on Western waters; and, to
the close of the century, he was actively in-
terested in schemes to develop the region.
We are not in the habit of so regarding him,
but both by frequent personal presence in the
Ohio valley, and extensive interests at stake
there, the Father of his Country was the most
conspicuous of Western pioneers. Dearly did
Washington love the West, which he knew so
well; when the Revolutionary cause looked
dark, and it seemed possible that England
might seize the coast settlements, he is said
to have cried, "We will retire beyond the
mountains, and be free!" and in his declining
years he seemed to regret that he was too old
to join his former comrades of the camp, in
their colony at Marietta.

3 16 On the Storied Ohio

As early as 1754, Franklin, in his famous
Albany Plan of Union for the colonies, had a
device for establishing new states in the West,
upon lands purchased from the Indians. In
1773, he displayed interest in the Walpole
plan for another colony, — variously called
Pittsylvania, Vandalia, and New Barataria —
with its proposed capital at the mouth of the
Great Kanawha. There were, too, several
other Western colonial schemes, — among
them the Henderson colony of Transylvania,
between the Cumberland and the Tennessee,
the seat of which was Boonesborough. Read-
ers of Roosevelt well know its brief but bril-
liant career, intimately connected with the
development of Tennessee and Kentucky.
But the most of these hopeful enterprises came
to grief with the political secession of the
colonies; and when the coast States ceded
their Western land-claims to the new general
government, and the Ordinance of 1787 pro-
vided for the organization of the Territory
Northwest of the River Ohio, there was no
room for further enterprises of this character. *

* See Turner's ' ' Western State-Making in the Revolution-
ary Era," in Amer. Hist. Rev., Vol. I.; also, Alden's "New
Governments West of the Alleghanies, " in Bull. Univ. Wis.,
Hist. Series, Vol. II.

Historical Outline 317

The story of the Ohio is the story of the
West. With the close of the Revolution,
came a rush of travel down the great river.
It was more or less checked by border warfare,
which lasted until 1794; but in that year,
Anthony Wayne, at the Battle of Fallen
Timbers, broke the backbone of savagery
east of the Mississippi; the Tecumseh upris-
ing (1 8 1 2-1 3) came too late seriously to affect
the dwellers on the Ohio.

There were two great over-mountain high-
ways thither, one of them being Braddock's
Road, with Redstone (now Brownsville, Pa.)
and Pittsburg as its termini; the other was
Boone's old trail, or Cumberland Gap. With
the latter, this sketch has naught to do.

By the close of the Revolution, Pittsburg —
in Gist's day, but a squalid Indian village, and
a fording-place — was still only " a distant out-
post, merely a foothold in the Far West."
By 1785, there were a thousand people there,
chiefly engaged in the fur-trade and in for-
warding emigrants and goods to the rapidly-
growing settlements on the middle and lower
reaches of the river. The population had
doubled by 1803. By 18 12 there was to be
seen here just the sort of bustling, vicious

3 1 8 On the Storied Ohio

frontier town, with battlement-fronts and rag-
ged streets, which Buffalo and then Detroit
became in after years. Cincinnati and Chi-
cago, St. Louis and Kansas City, had still
later, each in turn, their share of this experi-
ence; and, not many years ago, Bismarck,
Omaha, and Leadville. From Philadelphia
and Baltimore and Richmond, there were run-
ning to Pittsburg or Redstone regular lines of
stages for the better class of passengers; freight
wagons laden with immense bales of goods
were to be seen in great caravans, which fre-
quently were "stalled" in the mud of the
mountain roads; emigrants from all parts of
the Eastern States, and many countries of
Europe, often toiled painfully on foot over
these execrable highways, with their bundles
on their backs, or following scrawny cattle
harnessed to makeshift vehicles; and now and
then came a well-to-do equestrian with his
pack-horses, — generally an Englishman, — who
was out to see the country, and upon his re-
turn to write a book about it.

At Pittsburg, and points on the Alleghany,
Youghiogheny, and Monongahela, were boat-
building yards which turned out to order a
curious medley of craft — arks, flat- and keel-

Historical Outline 319

boats, barges, pirogues, and schooners of
every design conceivable to fertile brain.
Upon these, travelers took passage for the then
Far West, down the swift-rolling Ohio. There
have descended to us a swarm of published
journals by English and Americans alike, giv-
ing pictures, more or less graphic, of the men
and manners of the frontier; none is without
interest, even if in its pages the priggish au-
thor but unconsciously shows himself, and
fail's to hold the mirror up to the rest of na-
ture. With the introduction of steamboats, —
the first was in 1 8 1 1 , but they were slow to
gain headway against popular prejudice, — the
old river life, with its picturesque but rowdy
boatmen, its unwieldy flats and keels and
arks, began to pass away, and water traffic to
approach the prosaic stage; the crossing of
the mountains by the railway did away with
the boisterous freighters, the stages, and the
coaching-taverns; and when, at last, the river
became paralleled by the iron way, the glory
of the steamboat epoch itself faded, riverside
towns adjusted themselves to the new highways
of commerce, new centers arose, and "side-
tracked" ports fell into decay.

APPENDIX B.

Selected list of Journals of previous
travelers down the ohio.

Gist, Christopher. Gist's Journals; with
historical, geographical, and ethnological
notes, and biographies of his contemporaries,
by William M. Darlington. Pittsburg, 1893.

Gist's trip down the valley, from October, 1750, to May,
175 1, was on horseback, as far as the site of Frankfort, Ky.
On his second trip into Kentucky, from November, 175 1, to
March n, 1752, he touched the river at few points.

Gordon, Harry. Extracts from the Journal
of Captain Harry Gordon, chief engineer in
the Western department in North America,
who was sent from Fort Pitt, on the River
Ohio, down the said river, etc., to Illinois,
in 1766.

Published in Pownall's "Topographical Description of
North America," Appendix, p. 2.

Washington, George. Journal of a tour to

the Ohio River. [Writings, ed. by Ford, vol.

II. New York, 1889.]

The trip lasted from October 5 to December 1, 1770. The
320

Bibliography 321

party went in boats from Fort Pitt, as far down as the mouth
of the Great Kanawha. This journal is the best on the sub-
ject, written in the eighteenth century.

Pownall, T. A topographical description
of such parts of North America as are con-
tained in the [annexed] map of the Middle
British Colonies, etc. London, 1776.

Contains "Extracts from Capt. Harry Gordon's Journal,"
"Extracts from Mr. Lewis Evans' Journal" of 1743, and
" Christopher Gist's Journal " of 1750-51.

Hutchins, Thomas. Topographical descrip-
tion of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and
North Carolina, comprehending the Rivers
Ohio, Kenhawa, Sioto, Cherokee, Wabash,
Illinois, Mississippi, etc. London, 1778.

St. John, M. Lettres d'un cultivateur
Americain. Paris, 1787, 3 vols.

Vol. 3 contains an account of the author's boat trip down
the river, in 1784.

De Vigni, Antoine F. S. Relation of his
voyage down the Ohio River from Pittsburg
to the Falls, in 1788.

Graphic and animated account by a French physician who
came out with the Scioto Company's immigrants to Galli-
polis. Given in "Proc. Amer. Antiq. Soc", Vol. XI., pp.
369-380.

May, John. Journal and letters [to the
Ohio country, 1788-89]. Cincinnati, 1873.

One of the best, for economic views. May was a Boston
merchant.

322 On the Storied Ohio

Formany Samuel S. Narrative of a journey
down the Ohio and Mississippi in 1789-90.
With a memoir and illustrative notes, by Ly-
man C. Draper. Cincinnati, 1888.

A lively and appreciative account. Touches social life at
the garrisons, en route.

Ellicott, Andrew. Journal of the late com-
missioner on behalf of the United States during
part of the year 1796, the years 1797, 1798,
1799, and part of the year 1800: for determin-
ing the boundary between the United States
and Spain. Philadelphia, 1803.

His trip down the river was in 1796.

Baily, Francis. Journal of a tour in un-
settled parts of North America, in 1796 and
1797. London, 1856.

The author's river voyage was in 1796.

Harris, Thaddeus Mason. Journal of a tour
into the territory northwest of the Alleghany
Mountains; made in the spring of the year
1803. Boston, 1805.

A valuable work. The author traveled on a flatboat.

Michaux, F. A. Travels to the west of the
Alleghany Mountains. London (2nd ed.),
1805.

Excellent, for economic conditions. The expedition was
made in 1802.

Bibliography 323

Ashe, Thomas. Travels in America, per-
formed in 1806. London, 1808.

Among the best of the early journals, although abounding
in exaggerations.

Cuming, F. Sketches of a tour to the
Western country, etc., commenced in 1807
and concluded in 1809. Pittsburg, 18 10.

Bradbury, John. Travels [1809- 11] in the
interior of America. Liverpool, 18 17.

Melish, John. Travels in the United States
of America [181 1]. Philadelphia, 1812,2 vols.

Vol. 2 contains the journal of the author's voyage down
the river, in a skiff. The account of means of early naviga-
tion is graphic.

Flint, Timothy. Recollections of the last

ten years. Boston, 1826.

There is no better account of boats, and river life gener-
ally, in 1814-15, the time of Flint's voyage.

Fearon, Henry Bradshaiu. Sketches of
America [18 17]. London, 18 19.

Palmer, John. Journal of travels in the
United States of North America [18 17]. Lon-
don, 1818.

Evans, Estwick. A pedestrian tour [18 18]
of four thousand miles through the Western
states and territories. Concord, N. H., 18 19.

Birkbeck, Morris. Notes on a journey in

324 On the Storied Ohio

America, from the coast of Virginia to the
Territory of Illinois. London, 18 18.

The author traveled, in 18 17, by light wagon from Rich-
mond to Pittsburg; and from Pittsburg to Cincinnati by
horseback. This book, interesting for economic conditions,
together with the author's " Letters from Illinois," did much
to inspire emigration to Illinois from England. His English
colony, at English Prairie, 111., was much visited by travelers
of the period.

Faux, W. Journal of a tour to the United
States [in 18 19].

Excellent pictures of American life and agricultural meth-
ods, by an English gentleman farmer. Attacks Birkbeck's
roseate views.

Ogden, George W. Letters from the West,
comprising a tour through the Western coun-
try [1 821], and a residence of two summers in
the States of Ohio and Kentucky. New Bed-
ford, Mass., 1823.

Welby, Adlard. A visit to North America
and the English settlements in Illinois. Lon-
don, 1821.

The author went by horseback, occasionally touching the
river towns.

Beltrami, J. C. Pilgrimage in Europe and
America. London, 1828, 2 vols.

In Vol. II the author describes a steamboat journey in
1823, from Pittsburg to the mouth.

Bibliography 325

Hall, James. Letters from the West.

London, 1828.

Valuable for scenery, manners, and customs, and anec-
dotes of early Western settlement.

Anonymous. The Americans as they are;
described by a tour through the valley of the
Mississippi. London, 1828.

Trollope, Mrs. [Frances M.]. Domestic
manners of the Americans. London and New
York, 1832.

A lively caricature, the precursor of Dickens' "American
Notes." Mrs. Trollope's voyages on the Ohio were in 1828
and 1830.

Vigne, Godfrey T. Six months in Amer-
ica. London, 1832, 2 vols.

Hamilton, T. Men and manners in Amer-
ica. Philadelphia, 1833.

Includes a steamboat journey from Pittsburg to New
Orleans.

Alexander, Capt. J. E. Transatlantic
sketches. London, 1833, 2 vols.

Vol. II. has an account of a trip up the river.

Stuart, James. Three years in North Amer-
ica. New York, 1833, 2 vols.

Vol. II. includes a voyage up the Ohio. The author takes
issue, throughout, with Mrs. Trollope.

Brackenridge, H M. Recollections of per-

326 On the Storied Ohio

sons and places in the West. Philadelphia,
1834.

Describes river trips, during the first decade of the cen-
tury.

Tudor, Henry. Narrative of a tour [1831-

32] in North America. London, 1834, 2 vols.

The Ohio trip is in Vol. II.

Arfwedson, C. D. The United States and
Canada, in 1832, 1833, and 1834. London,
1834, 2 vols.

In Vol. II is a report of a steamboat trip up the river.
Latrobe, Charles Joseph. The rambler in
North America. New York, 1835, 2 v°ls-

Vol. II has an account of a descending steamboat voyage.

Anonymous. A winter in the West. By a
New Yorker. New York (2nd ed.), 1835, 2
vols.

In Vol. I. is an entertaining account of a stage-coach ride
in 1833, from Pittsburg to Cleveland, touching all settle-
ments on the Upper Ohio down to Beaver River.

Nichols, Thomas L. Forty years of Amer-
ican life. London, 1864, 2 vols.

In Vol. I. the author tells of a steamboat tour from Pitts-
burg to New Orleans, in 1840.

Dickens, Charles. American notes. New
York, 1842.

Bibliography 327

Dickens, in 1841, traveled in steamboats from Pittsburg to
St. Louis. His dyspeptic comments on life and manners in
the United States, at the time grated harshly on the ears of
our people; but afterward, they grew strong and wise
enough to smile at them. The book is to-day, like Mrs.
Trollope's, entertaining reading for an American.

Rubio (pseud.). Rambles in the United
States and Canada, in 1845. London, 1846.

A typical English growler, who thinks America ' ' the
most disagreeable of all disagreeable countries;" neverthe-
less, he says of the Ohio, ' ' a finer thousand miles of river
scenery could hardly be found in the wide world."

Mackay, Alex. The Western world; or,
travels in the United States in 1846-47. Lon-
don, 1849.

Good for its character sketches, glimpses of slavery, and
report of economic conditions.

Robertson, James. A few months in Amer-
ica [winter of 1853-54]. London, n. d.

Chiefly statistical.

Murray, Charles Augustus. Travels in
North America. London, 1854, 2 vols.

Vol. I has the Ohio-river trip. The author is an appre-
ciative Englishman, and tells his story well.

Murray, Henry A . Lands of the slave and
the free. London, 1855, 2 vols.

In Vol. I is an account of an Ohio-river voyage.

Ferguson, William. America by river and
rail [in 1855]. London, 1856.

328 On the Storied Ohio

Lloyd, James T. Steamboat directory, and
disasters on the Western waters. Cincinnati,
1856.

Valuable for stories and records of the early days of river
transportation.

Anonymous. A short American tramp in
the fall of 1864. By the editor of "Life in
Normandy." Edinburgh, 1865.

An English geologist's journal. Distorted and overdrawn,
on the travel side. He took steamer from St. Louis to Cin-
cinnati.

Bishop, Nathaniel H. Four months in a
sneak-box. Boston, 1879.

The author, in the winter of 1875-76, voyaged in an open
boat from Pittsburg to New Orleans, and along the Gulf
coast to Florida.

INDEX.

ABERDEEN, Ky., 167.
^ Albany, N. Y.. 299, 316.
Alden, George H., 316.
Alexander, J. E., 325.
Alexandria, O., 151.
Alexandria, Va., 131.
Allegheny City, Pa., 21.
Alton, Ind., 224, 228, 231, 233, 234.
America, 111. See Mound City,

111.
Antiquity, O., 115.
Arfwedson, C. D., 326.
Ashe, Thomas, 114, 273, 323.
Ashland, Ky., 142, 143.
Athalia, O., 136.
Audubon, John James, 257, 258.
Augusta, Ky., 170, 171.
Aurora, Ind., 186, 187.

BAKER'S BOTTOM.W.Va., 36.
Baily, Francis, 322.
Baltimore, 162, 318.
Barlow, Joel, 130, 131.
Bearsville, O., 73, 74.
Beaver, Pa., 27-30.
Belpre, O., 100-102.
Beltrami, J. C, 324.
Berkeley, Sir William, 297.
Bethlehem, Ind., 260.
Big Bone Creek, 191-200.
Big Bone Lick, 152, 153, 191, 195-

198, 268.
Big Buffalo Lick, 183.
Big Grave Creek, 62-66.
Bird's Point Landing, Ky., 277.
Birkbeck, Morris, 323, 324.
Bishop, Nathaniel H.,328.
Bismarck, N. D., 318.
Bland, Edward, 297.
Blennerhassett, Harman, 95-98.
Blennerhassett's Island, 95-98,

101.
Blue Lick, 160.
Boone, Daniel, 142, 206.
Boonesborough, Ky., 316.

Boone's Trail. See Wilderness

Road.
Brackenridge, H. M., 325, 326.
Bradbury, John, 323.
Braddock, Gen. Edward, 4, 16,

17, 128, 312.
Braddock, Pa., 17.
Braddock's Road, 4, 12, 160, 312,

3i4» 317-
Brandenburg, Ind., 223, 224.
Bridgeport, O., 60.
Broderickville, O., 137.
Brooklyn, 111., 284.
Brown's Islands, 265, 266.
Brownsville, Pa., 1-6, 8, 12, 15, 19,

30, 61, 129, 131, 160, 162, 180,

295- 3i4. 317. 3i8.
Buffalo, N. Y., 318.
Burlington, O., 137.
Burr, Aaron, 96, 97.
Butler's Run, 67.
Byrd, Col. William, 304.

/^•AIRO, 111., 7, 15, 222, 284, 291,
V^ 294, 295-
California, O., 180.
Caledonia, 111. See Olmstead,

111.
Cannelton, Ind., 242.
Captina, O., 70, 71.
Captina Creek, 67, 70-72.
Captina Island, 69, 70.
Carrollton, Ky., 206.
Carrsville, Ky., 276.
Catlettsburg, Ky., 137, 141.
Cave-in-Rock, 111., 273, 274.
Celeron de Bienville, 90, 125, 309,

310.
Ceredo, W. Va., 137, 141.
Charleroi, Pa., 5, 8, 9.
Charleston, W. Va., 115, 127.
Chartier, Pa., 22, 23.
Chartier's Creek, 23.
Cherokee Indians, 286.
Cheshire, O., 119.

329

33°

On the Storied Ohio

Chesapeake & Ohio railway, 172.

Chicago, 318.

Chillicothe, O., 152, 179.

Chilo, O., 170.

Cincinnati, 88, 157, 159, 162, 170,

177-184, 217, 252, 318, 324, 328.
Circleville, O., 102.
Clark, George Rogers, 4, 5, 70,

72, 73, 94, 159, 178, 179, 218-220,

264, 285-287.
Clarksville, Ind, 219, 220.
Cloverport, Ky., 239-242.
Coal Valley, Pa., 13.
Collins, Richard H., 153.
Columbia, O., 180.
Concordia, Ky., 234, 235.
Conewango Creek, 304.
Connolly, Dr. John, 218.
Conwell, Yates, 72.
Corn Island, 219, 220.
Cornstalk, Shawanee chief, 128,

129, 221.
Covington, Ky., 178, 183, 184.
Crawford, Col. William, 46.
Creek Indians, 303.
Cresap, Michael, 67.
Cresap's Bottom, 72.
Croghan, George, 91, 95, 114, 152.
Crooked Creek, 130, 244.
Cumberland, Md., 310.
Cumberland Gap, 127, 160-162,

317.

Cumberland Island, 282.
Cumberland Pike. See Brad-
dock's Road.
Cuming, F., 322, 323.
Curran, Barney, 29.
Cypress Bend, 260.

DARLINGTON, William M.,
320.
Doddridge, Joseph, 115.
Deep Water Landing, Ind., 234.
De Lery, Gaspard Chaussegros,

304-
Denman, Matthias, 179.
De Nonville, Gov. Jacques Rene

de Brisay, 300.
Derby, Ky., 235-237, 243, 244.
Detroit, Mich., 287, 318.
De Vigni, Antoine F. S., 321.
Diamond Island, 264.
Dickens, Charles, 66, 325, 326.
Dillon's Bottom, 66.
Dinwiddie, Gov. Robert, 311.
Dog Island, 281, 282.
Dover, Ky., 170.
Draper, Lyman C, 321.

Dravosburg, Pa., 13.
Dufour, John James, 204, 205.
Dunkard Creek, 72.
Dunlap Creek, 3.
Dunmore, Lord, 23, 61, 102, 103,
125-129, 218, 221.

EAST LIVERPOOL, O., 35-
Economy, Pa., 26.
Elizabeth, Pa., 12, 15.
Elizabethtown, 111., 275, 276.
Ellicott, Andrew, 181, 322.
Emmerick's Landing, Ky., 244.
English Prairie, 111., 324.
Enterprise, Ind., 254.
Erie, Pa., 311.
Evans, Estwick, 323.
Evans, Lewis, 321.
Evansville, Ind., 255, 256, 260,
265.

FAIRFAX, Lord, 304.
Fallen Timbers, 181, 317.
Falls of Ohio. See Louisville,

Ky.
Faux, W., 324.

Fearon, Henry Bradshaw, 323.
Ferguson, William, 327.
Filson, John, 179-181.
Fish Creek, 72, 73.
Fishing Creek, 74.
Flint, Timothy, 162, 163, 181, 323.
Forbes, Gen. John, 285, 313.
Forks of the Ohio. See Pitts-
burg.
Forman, Samuel S., 322.
Foreman, Capt. William, 63.
Fort Charlotte, 221.

Duquesne, 16, 17, 285, 312,
313. See Pittsburg.

Fincastle, 61.

Finney, 180.

Gower, 102, 103, 129.

Harmar, 91.

Henry, 61.

Le Bceuf, 15, 26, 311, 312.

Massac, 285-288, 290, 313.

Necessity, 4.

Pitt, 127, 129, 160-162. See
Pittsburg.

Randolph, 129.

Washington, 180.

Wilkinson, 291.
Foster, Ky., 170, 171.
Frampton, O., 137.
Frankfort, Ky., 320.
Franklin, Benjamin, 316.
Franquelin, Jean B. L., 299.

Index

331

Freeman, O., 40.

French, in Ohio valley, 15, 17, 29,

30, 90, 125, 131, 132, 197, 205, 285,

286, 298-313, 321.
French Creek, 311.
French Islands, 253.
Fry, John, 141.

GALISSONIERE, Count de,
308
Gallipolis, O., 130-133.
Garrison Creek, 185.
Genet, Edmund Charles, 286.
George III., king, 309, 310, 313,

314.
Georgetown, Pa., 34.
Germans, in Ohio valley, 26, 132,

205.
Girty, Simon, 71.
Gist, Christopher, 15, 26, 29, 91,

151, 152, 310, 311, 317, 320, 321.
Glassport, Pa., 13.
Glenwood, W. Va., 134.
Gnadenhiitten, 91.
Golconda Island, 276.
Goose Island, 220.
Gordon, Harry, 115, 320, 321.
Grand View, Ind., 246.
Grant, Gen. Ulysses S., 174.
Grape Island, 80.
Grape-Vine Town. See Captina,

O.
Grave Yard Run, 72.
Great Bend, 172, 173.
Great Meadows, 312, 314.
Green River Island, 255.
Green River Towhead, 255, 256.
Greenup Court House, Ky., 147.
Greenville, O., treaty of, 181.
Gunpowder Creek, 192.
Guyandotte, W. Va., 136.

HALE, John P., 153.
Half King, 34.
Half-Moon Bar, 274.
Hall, Tames, 117, 128, 164, 325.
Hamilton, T., 325.
Harmar, Gen. Josiah, 180, 181.
Harmonists, 264.
Harris, Thaddeus Mason, 162,

322.
Harris's Landing, 173.
Hartford, W. Va., 119,
Haskellville, O., 136.
Hawesville, Ky., 242.
Henderson, Ky., 256-259.
Henderson, Richard, 316.
Henderson Island, 258.

Hennepin, Father Louis, 299.
Henry, Patrick, 159.
Herculaneum, Ind., 260.
Higginsport, O., 170.
Hockingport, O., 102-J.04.
Homestead, Pa., 17, 10.
Horse Head Bottom, 148.
House-boat life, 50-57, 62, 134,

135, 203, 204, 207, 208.
Howard, John, 305, 306.
Hungarians, in Ohio valley, 44,

45, 69.
Huntington, W. Va., 136-139.
Hurricane Island, 274, 275.
Hutchins, Thomas, 115, 321.

TMLAY, Gilbert, 162.
1 Ingles, Mrs. Mary, 152, 153.
Ironton, O., 143-146, 157.
Iroquois Indians, 264, 298, 299,

302, 307, 308.
Irving, Washington, 273.
Italians, in Ohio valley, 69.

JAMESTOWN, Va., 296.
•J Jefferson, Thomas, 97.
Joliet, Louis, 264.
Jones, Rev. David, 70, 71, 94.
Joppa, 111., 290, 291.

[KANSAS CITY, 318.

iv Kaskaskia, 111., 268, 285.

King Philip, 221.

Kingston, O., 40.

Kneistly's Cluster Islands, 36-39.

LA FAYETTE, Marquis de, 92.
Lake Chautauqua, 299, 304, 309.
Lake Erie, 299, 304, 309, 313.
Lancaster, Pa., 307.
Lane, Ralph, 296, 297.
La Salle, Chevalier de, 218, 263,

264, 298. 299.
Latrobe, Charles Joseph, 326.
La Verendrye Brothers, 306.
Lawrenceburg, Ind., 186.
Leadville, Colo., 318.
Leavenworth, Ind., 224,225.
Lederer, John, 297.
Letart's Falls, 113, 114, 117.
Letart's Island, 112.
Levanna, O., 170.
Lewis, Gen. Andrew, 128, 129.
Lewisport, Ind., 246.
Lexington, Ky., 159.
Limestone Creek, 158, 159, 162,

167.
Little Beaver Creek, 34.

332

On the Storied Ohio

Little Hurricane Island, 252.

Little Meadows, 128.

Lloyd, James T., 328.

Logan, Mingo chief, 36, 37, 102.

103, 127, 128.
Logstown, Pa., 26.
Long Bottom, O., 109-111, 117.
Long Reach, 79,80.
Losantiville. See Cincinnati.
Lostock, Pa., 13.
Louisa, Ky., 141, 142.
Louisville, Ky., 114, 169, 170, 180,

209, 214-223, 226, 256, 284, 298, 299.
Lower Blue River Island, 226.

MACKAY, Alex., 327.
McKee's Rocks, 23, 178.
McKeesport, Pa., 13-16.
Madison, Ind., 209-214.
Madison County, Va., 297.
Malott, Catherine, 71.
Manchester, O., 157.
Marietta, O., 83-85, 87, 90-93, 130,

131, 157. 159. 162, 315.
Mason and Dixon line, 77.
Mason City, VV. Va., 119.
Massac Creek, 285.
May, John, 321.
May, Col. William, 304.
Maysville, Ky., 157, 159, 167, 169.
Melish, John, 323.
Mercer, George, 126.
Metropolis, 111, 288, 289.
Miami Indians, 303.
Michaux, F. A., 322.
Middleport, O., 118.
Millersport, O., 136.
Milwood, W. Va., 112.
Minersville, O., 118.
Mingo Bottom, 127.
Mingo Indians, 36, 37, 46, 127, 148.
Mingo Junction, O., 44-50, 57, 58.
Monongahela City, Pa., 8, 12.
Montreal, 313.
Moravian missionaries, 91.
Morgantown, Pa., 3.
Mound builders, 3, 4, 64-66.
Mound City, 111., 290-292, 294.
Mound City Tovvhead, 292-295.
Moundsville, W. Va., 64-66, 115.
Mt. Vernon, Ind., 262.
Murray, Charles Augustus, 327.
Murray, Henry A., 327.
Murraysville, W. Va., in.

NATCHEZ, Miss., 181.
Nemacolin's Path, 160, 310, 312.
See Braddock's Road.

Neville, O., 170, 173.
Neville's Island, 25.
New Albany, Ind., 220-223.
New Amsterdam, Ind., 224.
New Barataria, 316.
Newburgh, Ind., 254, 255.
New Cumberland, W. Va., 37, 40.
New Harmony, Ind., 264.
New Haven, W. Va., 119.
New Martinsville, W. Va., 74-77.
New Matamoras, W. Va.,82.
New Orleans, 12, 96, 97, 170, 205,

305. 309, 3i3. 325, 328.
Newport, Christopher, 296.
Newport, Ky., 176, 178, 183.
Newport, O., 82, 83.
New Richmond, O., 176.
Nichols, Thomas L., 326.
Nicholson, interpreter, 70.
Norfolk & Western Railway, 144.
North Bend, O., 173, 180, 181, 184,
Northwest Territory, 316.

OGDEN, George W., 324-
Ohio Company, 4,90, 114, 125,
152, 310,314, 315-
Old Wyandot Town, 91.
Olmstead, 111., 291.
Omaha, Nebr., 318.
Owensboro, Ky., 248-251, 271.

DADUCAH, Ky., 284.

A Palmer, John, 114, 115, 162,

164, 323-
Parkersburg, W. Va., 94, 95, 99,

100, 102, 157.
Parkinson's Landing, III., 276.
Parkman, Francis, 308.
Patterson, Robert, 179.
Pennant, Edward, 297.
Petersburg, Ky., 186, 187.
Philadelphia, 12, 161, 318.
Pickaway Plains, 102, i«3, 129.
Picket, Heathcoat, 205, 206.
Pine Creek, 148.
Pipe Creek, 67.
Pittsburg, 3, 5, 6, 8, 17-22, 24, 25,

27, 40, 59, 88, 129, 159, 166, 271,

311-313, 316-318, 320, 321, 323.

324, 326, 328.
Plum Creek, 205.
Point Pleasant, W. Va., 125, 127-

130, 157. 170. 173, 174-
Point Sandy, Ind., 227-231.
Pomeroy, O., in, 118, 119, 157.
Pomeroy Bend, in, 119.
Pontiac, Indian chief, 221.
Pope, John, 5.

Index

333

Portland, Ky., 219-221.
Portsmouth, O., 151-153, 157.
Power, Thomas, 287.
Powhattan Point, W. Va., 70.
Pownall, T., 286, 320, 321.
Presque Isle, 311.
Proctor's Run, 77.
Proctorville, O., 137.
Putnam, Israel, Jr., 100, 101.
Putnam, Israel, Sr., 100.
Putnam, Gen. Rufus, 91, 102.

/QUEBEC, 299, 313.

RABBIT HASH, Ky., 189-191.
Racine, O., 117, 118.
Rafinesque, Constantine S., 257,

258.
Rapp, George, 26.
Redstone Creek, 3-5, 72, 310.
Redstone Old Fort. See Browns-
ville, Pa.
Richardson's Landing, Ky., 224.
Richmond, Va., 296, 318, 324.
Ripley, O., 170.
Rising Sun, Ind., 189.
River Alleghany, 20, 299, 304, 305,
309, 311, 318.

Beaver, 27-30.

Big Hockhocking, 102-104.

Big Miami, 179, 180, 185.

Big Sandy, 119, 137, 141.

Cherokee, 321.

Coal, 305.

Cumberland, 97, 282, 284,

316.
Delaware, 298.
Gauley, 298.

Great Kanawha, 70, 115, 125-
130, 153. 161, 297, 309, 316,
321.
Great Miami, 304.
Green, 255, 259.
Illinois, 321.

Indian Kentucky, 206, 207.
James, 126, 127, 161, 296.
Kentucky, 206.
Licking, 179, 183.
Little Kanawha, 94, 95.
Little Miami, 152, 177, 179,

180.
Little Sandy, 147.
Little Scioto, 148.
Maumee, 264, 299, 309.
Miami, 309.

Mississippi, 284, 294, 303,
306, 307, 313, 321.

River Mohawk, 298.

Monongahela, 1-20, 39, 162.,
166, 310, 311, 318.

Muskingum, 90, 91, 127.

New, 297, 298, 309.

Ottawa, 307.

Potomac, 304, 310.

Roanoke, 296, 297, 304.

St. Joseph's, 303.

St. Lawrence, 306, 309.

Saline, 269, 272, 273.

Salt, 223.

Shenandoah, 304.

Scioto, 102, 103, 151-153, 321.

Susquehanna, 298.
Tennessee, 283, 284, 288,
303, 316.

Wabash, 127, 263, 264, 302,
321.

Wood, 305. See New.

Youghiogheny, 13-16, 162,
318.
Robertson, James, 327.
Rochester, Pa., 27-30.
Rockport, Ind., 246, 247.
Rocky Mountains, discovery of,

306.
Rome, O., 155-157, 260.
Rono, Ind., 234, 235.
Roosevelt, Theodore, 316.
Rosebud, O., 133, 134,156.
Rose Clare, 111., 276.
Round Bottom, 66, 69.

ST. CLAIR, Gen. Arthur, 180,
181, 286.
St. John, M., 321.
St. Louis, 170, 284, 318, 326, 328.
St. Mary's, W. Va., 82.
Salem, O., 91.

Saline Reserve (Illinois), 268, 269.
Sailing, John Peter, 305, 306.
Sand Island, 220-222.
Sandusky, O., 46.
Sarikonk. See Beaver, Pa.
Schonbrunn, 91.
Scioto Company, 130-132, 321.
Sciotoville, O., 148-150.
Scotch-Irish, in Ohio valley, 60,

61, 301, 310.
Scuffletown, Ky., 254.
Seignelay, Marquis de, 300.
Seneca Indians, 34.
Seven Mile Creek, 284, 285.
Shaler, Nathaniel S., 153.
Shannoah Town, 151, 152.
Shawanee Indians, 26, 67, 128-

130, 151-153, 307.

334

On the Storied Ohio

Shawneetown, 111., 267-269.

Sheffield, O., 118.

Shingis Old Town. See Beaver,

Pa.
Shippingsport, Pa., 31-34.
Shousetown, Pa., 25.
Sinking Creek, 238.
Sistersville, W. Va., 78.
Slavonians, in Ohio valley, 44,

45-
Slim Island, 261, 264.
Sloan's Station, O., 37.
Smith, John, 296.
Smithland, Ky., 282.
Smith's Ferry, Pa., 34.
Sohkon. See Beaver, Pa.
South Point, O., 137.
Spaniards, Western conspiracy,

of, 286, 287.
Springville, Ky., 151, 152.
Spotswood, Gov. Alexander, 302.
Steamboats, first on Ohio, 165,

166.
Stephens, Frank, 71.
Stephensport, Ky., 237-239.
Steubenville, O., 5, 43, 44, 157, 181.
Stewart's Island, 277-281, 283.
Stuart, James, 325.
Swiss, in Ohio valley, 204, 205.
Symmes, John Cleves, 179-181.
Syracuse, O., 118.

XECUMSEH, Indian chief, 317.
* Tell City, Ind.,242.
Three Brothers Islands, 87.
Three-Mile Island, 252, 254.
Transylvania, 316.
Treaty, of Lancaster, Pa., 307,

308; of Paris, 313; of Utrecht,

307.
Trent, William, 95.
Tudor, Henry, 326.
Turner, Frederick J., 316.
Turtle Creek, 17, 312.
Trollope, Frances M., 325, 327.
Troy, Ind., 243.

NIONTOWN, Ky., 262, 263.
Upper Blue River Island,

U

VANDALIA, Province of, 126,
316.
Vanceburgh, Ky., 154.
Venango, 29.
Vevay, Ind., 204, 205.
Vigne, Godfrey T., 325.
Vincennes, Ind., 264.

WABASH ISLAND, 264.
Walpole, Thomas, 316.

Walton, Pa., 13.

Warrior Branch, 72.

Wars, French and Indian, 15, 17,
29, 30, 90, 91, 152, 153, 285, 2S6,
308, 314, 315; Pontiac's, 221;
Lord Dunmore's, 36, 37, 61, 67,
72, 73, 102, 103, 125-129, 218, 221;
Revolution, 61, 63, 91, 92, 100,
126, 128, 130, 151-161, 181, 182,
264, 315, 317; of 1812-15, 287, 291.

Warsaw, Ky., 200, 204.

Washington, George, 4, 15, 23, 26,
29, 34, 46, 67, 69, 70, 72, 92, 126-
128, 141, 142, 161, 310-312, 315,
320, 321.

Wayne, Anthony, 26, 181, 286, 317.

Weiser, Conrad, 26.

Welby, Adlard, 324.

Wellsville, 0.,35-

West Point, Ky., 223.

Wheeling, W. Va., 5, 41, 59-62,
155. 157. 167, 187.

Wheeling Creek, 59-61.

Wheeling Island, 60.

Wilderness Road, 160-162, 317.

Wilkinson, Gen. James, 287.

Wilkinsonville, 111., 291.

Williamson's Island, 78.

Wills Creek, 310, 312.

Wilson, Pa., 13.

Witten's Bottom, 78, 79.

Wood, Abraham, 297.

Wyandot Indians, 46, 91.

yELLOWBANK ISLAND, 248
1 250.
Yellow Creek, 35, 36.

7ANE BROTHERS, 60, 61.

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