Afloat on the Ohio Part 2

CHAPTER IV.

An industrial region--Steubenville--Mingo 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 enveloped 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 sh.o.r.e. 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 vitrified-brick works, and iron and steel plants, abound on the narrow bottoms. The factories and mills themselves generally wear a prosperous look; but the dependent towns vary in appearance, from cl.u.s.ters 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 c.u.mberland, 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 compet.i.tion 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 c.u.mberland, on the Ohio sh.o.r.e, 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 industries are making with the once beautiful banks of the river. Each of them has a large daily output of debris, which is dumped unmercifully 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, 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 industrial region, and were again in rustic surroundings. The wind had gone down, the atmosphere was oppressively warm, the sun's reflection from the gla.s.sy 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 pilgrimage, until at last a light breeze ruffled the water and brought blessed relief.

The hills are not as high as. .h.i.therto, 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 n.o.ble grace, continually giving us fresh vistas, often of surpa.s.sing loveliness. The bottoms are broader now, and frequently semicircular, with fine farms upon them, and prosperous villages nestled in generous groves. Many of the houses betoken age, or what pa.s.ses 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 c.u.ming's _Western Pilot_ (Cincinnati, 1834), which is still a practicable guide for the Ohio, as the river's sh.o.r.e lines are not subject to so rapid changes as those of the Mississippi; but many of the islands in c.u.ming'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 permanency in the _status quo_; doubtless the government map of 1881 will remain an authoritative chart for a half century or more to come.

W----'s enthusiasm for botany frequently takes us ash.o.r.e. Landing at the foot of some 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 maidenhair, 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, substantial town of some sixteen thousand inhabitants. W---- and I had some shopping to do there, while the Doctor and the Boy remained down at the inevitable wharf-boat, and gossiped with the philosophical agent, who bemoaned 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 const.i.tute a little fortune upon which they can end their days in ease. This sort of compet.i.tion 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. Particularly 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 h.e.l.l comes this fiery scene than anything imagined by Dante. The working 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 upon him it would at once be resolved into scalding steam, deserves our sympathy. It is pleasing to find in our friend, the superintendent, 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, apparently beyond present control, render nugatory 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 beach 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 commander. 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 these red Indians. At first, the white colonists from Europe were regarded by them as of supernatural origin, and hospitality, veneration, 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 succeeded to the sentiment of awe. Like many savage races, like the earlier Romans, the Indian 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 unspeakably 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, lawless; and under such conditions, clashing was inevitable. But worse agents of discord than the agricultural colonists were the itinerants 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 browbeat 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 honorably; 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 malcontents, 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 ent.i.tled to it who could make it the most productive. On 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, pa.s.s 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--civilization 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.

CHAPTER V.

Houseboat life--Decadence of steamboat traffic--Wheeling, and Wheeling Creek.

Above Moundsville, W. Va., Thursday, May 10th.--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 raiment, as well as color. But what a soul-satisfying life is this gypsying! 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 pa.s.sengers, campers, fishers, house-boat folk, and what not,--that we attract little attention of ourselves, but Pilgrim is indeed a curiosity hereabout. What remarks we overhear 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 propelled, 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 sh.o.r.e, and the rush of drift in times of flood, a heavy skiff is necessary; there is a tendency to decry Pilgrim as a plaything, unadapted to the great river. A reasonable degree of care at all times, however, 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 sh.o.r.e; others are "beached," having 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 ultimately 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 legitimate fishermen, who find it convenient to be near their nets, and to move about according to the needs of their calling. But a goodly proportion of these boats are inhabited by the lowest cla.s.s of the population,--poor "crackers" who have managed to sc.r.a.pe 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 pa.s.sed, 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 ab.u.t.ting upon the river are considering the policy of doing likewise. The houseboat men have, however, recently formed a protective a.s.sociation, and propose to fight the new laws on const.i.tutional 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" 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. Occasionally, however, as the result of spasmodic local agitation, they are by wholesale ordered to betake themselves to some more hospitable sh.o.r.e; 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 reputation of being pilferers; farmers tell sad tales of despoiled chicken-roosts and vegetable gardens. From fishing, shooting, collecting chance driftwood, and leading a desultory life along sh.o.r.e, 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 political or social life of landsmen, they are in the State, yet not of it,--a cla.s.s unto themselves, whose condition is well worthy the study of economists.

Interspersed with the houseboat folk, although 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 scouring 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 pa.s.sing steamers, 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 vociferous "steam piano" of our circus days, "whose soul-stirring music can be heard for four miles;" traveling sawyers, with old steamboats made over into sawmills, employed by farmers to "work up" into lumber such logs as they can from time to time bring down to the sh.o.r.e--the product being oftenest used in the neighborhood, but occasionally rafted, and floated to the nearest large town; and a miscellaneous lot of traveling craftsmen who live and work afloat,--chairmakers, upholsterers, feather and mattress renovators, photographers,--who land at the villages, scatter abroad their advertising cards, and stay so long as the ensuing patronage warrants.

A motley a.s.sortment, 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 canva.s.sers? 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! That'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 shanty boat--ain't no bakky 'bout yer close, yew fellers?" We meet with abundant courtesy 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.senger traffic. The railroads are quicker and surer, and of course compet.i.tion 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 superintendent at Mingo, what advantage was gained by having his plant upon the river. He replied: "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 railway 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 transcontinental 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 'longsh.o.r.e wrecks of their former selves. This is not possible, now.

The steamboat traffic may still further waste, until the river is no longer serviceable save as a continental drainage 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 abruptly behind, giving the place a most forbidding 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;[A] houseboats are here by the score, some of them the haunts of fishing clubs, as we judge from the names emblazoned on their sides--"Mystic 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 gla.s.s-diamond 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 cottages of factory hands and small villas, and commonplace; while smoky Bridgeport, opposite on the Ohio side, was from our vantage-point a mere smudge upon the landscape.

Wheeling Creek is famous in Western history. The three Zane brothers, Ebenezer, Jonathan and Silas,--typical, old-fashioned names these, bespeaking the G.o.d-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 improvements--Silas at the forks of the creek, and Ebenezer and Jonathan at the mouth. During 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 traveler 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, 1781, 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, in steamboat days, the shallow water of the upper river caused Wheeling to be in midsummer 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 shanties, with rows of seines and tarred pound-nets stretched in the sun to dry; tow-headed children 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 trout lines which appear 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, 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 majestically 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.[B]

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 gra.s.s, appeasing their insectivorous appet.i.tes.

[Footnote A: Upon the Ohio and kindred rivers, the term "wharf"

applies to the river beach when graded and paved, ready for the reception of steamers. Such a wharf must not be confounded with a lake or seaside wharf, a staging projected into the water.]

[Footnote B: 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--Captina Creek--George Rogers Clark at Fish Creek--Southern types.

Near Fishing Creek, Friday, May 11th.--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.