Historic Highways of America Volume IX Part 7

33-1/2 Snag. Opposite Industry, below Safe Harbor landing.

33-2/3 Sunken boat.* Left side below last.

41 Snag. Sunken barge. Left channel of Line island there is a snag.

42-1/2 Wreck. Wreck of steamer Winchester, burnt, left channel of Babb's island, Va., sh.o.r.e; not much in the way.

49-3/4 Sunken boat.* In channel foot of Baker's island; dangerous.

63 Snag. Foot of Brown's island; old.

63-1/4 Snag. Center of River, head of cable eddy.

67 Wreck and Left channel, pier Pittsburg cofferdam. and Steubenville railroad bridge.

67-1/2 Sunken barge. Left side above Steubenville; dangerous.

68 Sunken barge. Opposite Steubenville landing, center of river.

70-3/4 Snags.* Several in the vicinity of the Virginia and Ohio cross creeks.

73-1/4 Sunken boats.* Two, right side, above Wellsburg, Va.

76 Sunken boats.* Left, below block-house run.

76-1/2 Snag. Right side, below last; should come out.

78-3/4 Wreck. Old, opposite brick house, close on left sh.o.r.e.

81-1/2 Snags. Two, right of channel, above Warren.

81-3/4 Snag.* Old, right side, near white frame house.

83 Ice breaker. Head of Pike island, at coal shaft.

84 Sunken Edge of bar, not dangerous, barge.* opposite brick house.

87 Logs, Left and center, bottom of etc. river, one mile below Burlington.

88 Sunken boat. Sunken ferry-boat, close in right side, Martinsville.

89-1/4 Sunken At ship-yard, Wheeling, barge.* dangerous.[75]

Captain Sanders, in the forties, had estimated that it cost about fifteen dollars to remove each ordinary snag from the Ohio. In the Mississippi the roots of snags could be thrown into the deep pools where they would soon become buried in mud; but on the Ohio such pools were not frequent and it was usually necessary to carry the roots ash.o.r.e and destroy them with gunpowder. Sanders reported that up to September 1837 there had been three thousand three hundred and three obstructions removed from the Ohio. In 1839 there had been about ten thousand removed; at which time the work ceased. Some of the snags were six feet in diameter at the b.u.t.t and over one hundred feet in length. In a report in 1835, on Mississippi improvement, Lieutenant Bowman stated: "It is a well-established fact that snags do not move far from where they first fall in, the weight of the earth attached to their roots serving as an anchor. It is also well established that trees which once float seldom form snags. Admitting this, it is sufficiently evident that if the banks are once cleared, there can be no subsequent formation of snags."

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

A company was incorporated by the legislature of Kentucky to cut a ca.n.a.l around the falls in 1804, but nothing was done until January 12, 1825, when the Louisville and Portland Ca.n.a.l Company was organized, with a capital of $600,000. The stock was taken by about seventy persons, residing in Kentucky, Ohio, Missouri, New Hampshire, Ma.s.sachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, the United States holding 2,335 shares, and 1,665 issued to private individuals. Many difficulties attended the construction of the work, which was not completed until December 5, 1830. During the year 1831 406 steamboats, 46 keel-boats, and 357 flat-boats, measuring 76,323 tons, pa.s.sed through the locks.[76]

The venture was highly successful from a financial point of view thanks to outrageous tolls that were charged. A twenty-four thousand dollar boat of three hundred tons running between Cincinnati and St. Louis expended in tolls in the Louisville and Portland Ca.n.a.l in five years a sum equal to her entire cost. "A boat of one hundred and ninety tons, owned at Cincinnati, has been in the habit of making her trips from this city to St. Louis and back, in two weeks, and has pa.s.sed the ca.n.a.l _four_ times in one month. Her toll, each trip, at $60 per ton, was $114, and her toll for one month was $456, or at the rate of $5,472 per year, which is nearly half the value of such a boat."[77]

From 1831 to 1843, 13,756 steamboats pa.s.sed through the Ca.n.a.l, and 4,701 keeland flat-boats, with a total tonnage of two and a half million tons, netting a toll of $1,227,625.20.[78] On the stock owned by the United States a cash dividend (to 1843) of $258,378 was earned--$23,378 more than the Government's original investment. Other stockholders fared equally well from this systematic highway robbery. Such a drain on the public purse as was the Louisville-Portland Ca.n.a.l in the "good old days"

would not be countenanced a moment today. The ca.n.a.l was rebuilt and enlarged in 1872, and in 1874 it pa.s.sed into the control of the United States by the authority of Congress.

Following is a synopsis of the expenditures on account of the ca.n.a.l previous to June 11, 1874, the date when the United States a.s.sumed complete control and management:

"Expended by the ca.n.a.l company on original ca.n.a.l. $1,019,277.09

Expended by the ca.n.a.l company on subsequent improvements and construction 120,000.00

Expended by the ca.n.a.l company for enlargement of ca.n.a.l 1,825,403.00

Expended by the United States for enlargement of ca.n.a.l, from appropriations 1,463,200.00

Expended by the United States from funds derived from toll collections 150,000.00 -------------- Total cost $4,577,880.09

_Cost of the ca.n.a.l to the United States._

Original stock $ 233,500

Total appropriations for enlargement 1,463,200

Ca.n.a.l bonds paid 1,172,000 ------------- Gross cost $2,868,700

Amount of dividends paid by the ca.n.a.l company to the United States 257,778 ------------- Net cost $2,610,922"[79]

The following table shows the traffic, in tons, of the ca.n.a.l since 1886:

_Articles._ _1886 to 1901_ _Fiscal year_ _Total for 16_ _inclusive._ _1902._ _years._

Coal 22,365,240-3/4 1,019,947-1/2 23,385,188-1/4 Salt 124,363-3/4 5,760-1/4 130,124 Oil 60,944-1/4 1,211-1/2 62,155-3/4 Whiskey 21,442-1/4 1,117 22,559-1/4 Tobacco 90,270-1/2 1,705 91,975-1/2 Cotton 140,213 2,299-1/2 142,512-1/2 Lumber 3,401,021 85,305-1/2 3,486,326-1/2 Corn and wheat 151,621 5,933-1/2 157,554-1/2 Iron: ore and manufactured 518,642-1/2 34,634-1/2 553,277 Steel rails 685,182 183,016 868,198 Produce 84,396-1/2 4,864 89,260-1/2 Hay and straw 198,523-1/2 6,224-1/4 204,747-3/4 Flour 19,830-1/2 510-1/2 20,341 Stock 98,954 4,233-3/4 103,187-3/4 Sugar and mola.s.ses 125,746-3/4 11,022-1/2 136,769-1/4 Staves and shingles 475,310-3/4 34,405-1/2 509,716-1/4 Cement 40,568-3/4 835-3/4 41,404-1/2 Miscellaneous 1,319,552 69,518-1/2 1,389,070-1/2 -------------- ------------- -------------- Total 29,921,823-3/4 1,472,545 31,394,368-3/4[80]

Since 1825, when the first step toward improving the Ohio was taken, the general plan has been to secure additional low-water depths at islands and bars by the construction of low dams across chutes, by building dikes where the river was wide and shallow, by dredging and by the removal of rocks and snags. Various plans of improvement were seriously mooted. Among these Charles Ellet's plan of supplying the Ohio with a regular flow of water by means of reservoirs was strongly urged upon the Government about 1857.[81] Near the same time Herman Haupt proposed a plan of improvement by means of a system of longitudinal mounds and cross dams so arranged as to make a ca.n.a.l on one side of the river some two hundred feet wide, or a greater width, and reducing the grade to nearly an average of six inches per mile between Pittsburg and Louisville.[82] A few years later Alonzo Livermore secured a patent for a combination of dams and peculiar open chutes through the dams, arranged so as to r.e.t.a.r.d the flow and lessen the velocity of the water from higher to lower pools without interfering with the free pa.s.sage of the boats through the chutes; chutes were subst.i.tuted for locks.

In 1866 the condition of the river improvements and the great change in the river trade--which loudly called for improved methods--is tersely summed up by Engineer W. Milnor Roberts as follows:

"For the purpose intended, namely, the making of an improved low-water navigation, looking to a depth not exceeding two and one-half feet, the general plan designed, and in part executed, under the superintendence of Captain Sanders, was judicious; and if all the proposed dams had been finished in accordance with his plans there would have been a better navigation, especially for low-water craft, than there has been during the twenty-two years which have elapsed since the works were left, many of them, in a partly finished condition. Some of these wing dams, as might reasonably have been antic.i.p.ated, have, in the course of years, been gradually injured by the action of floods, and in some cases portions of the stone have been removed by persons without authority, for their own private purposes. It is important to note the change which has taken place in the coal trade, not only on account of its great and increasing magnitude, but on account of the altered system upon which it is conducted. Formerly, and at the time when the riprap dams were constructed, the coal business was carried on by means of floating coal barges, drawing at most four feet water, which were not a.s.sisted in their descending navigation by steamers, and which never returned, but were sold as lumber at their point of destination. The increasing demand down the river for the Pittsburg coal, the increase in the value of lumber, and the general systematizing of the trade, all combine to revolutionize the mode of transportation. It is now [1866] carried on by means of large barges, each containing ten to twelve, some as high as sixteen thousand bushels of coal, which are arranged in fleets, generally of ten or twelve barges, towed by powerful steamers built and employed for that special purpose. Enough of these barges are owned by the coal operators to enable them to leave the loaded barges at their various points of coal delivery, down the Ohio, or on the Mississippi and other rivers, while they return to Pittsburg with a corresponding fleet of empty barges, to be again loaded, ready for the next coal-boat freshet. As these barges, when loaded draw from six feet to eight feet of water, it is obvious that they can only descend when there is what is now called a 'coal-boat rise' in the river--that is, a flood giving not less than eight feet water in the channels.

"This coal shipment from Pittsburg, which in 1844 only amounted to about 2,500,000 bushels per annum, now amounts to about 40,000,000 bushels per annum. I have, in the special report mentioned, referred to the construction of railroads as having affected the business which was formerly carried on the Ohio river during the comparatively low water.

The lower the water, the higher the rates of freight and pa.s.senger travel, when there was no railroad compet.i.tion; but now, when the prices on the river during very low water approach the railroad prices, the freight, whenever it can, will of course take the railroad, on account of the saving of time and greater certainty of delivery; and thousands of pa.s.sengers always prefer the railroad to the river. But in this connection it is proper to note that since 1844 a large local business between various points on the Ohio, both freight and pa.s.senger, has gradually sprung up and become important, which scarcely had existence at that time. The population along the river and in the counties in the several States bordering upon it, and tributary to the river business, has wonderfully increased. So that although a portion of the river business has been attracted to the railroad, the business of steamboats, as a whole, independently of the coal trade, has become much greater than it was in 1844. Meanwhile the coal business has more than kept pace with the increase of population and wealth along the Ohio, in consequence of a steadily augmenting demand for the Pittsburg coal on the Mississippi and other western rivers."[83]

The method of inland navigation by means of slackwater formed by dams pa.s.sable by locks was early proposed for the Ohio River after the first experiment made of this method on the Green River, Kentucky, in 1834-36 by Chief Engineer Roberts. The successful operation of this system on the Monongahela and Muskingum Rivers exerted a powerful influence in its favor, and for many years its adoption on the Ohio was urged patiently though unsuccessfully. At last the important matter was advocated with success, and in 1885 the first of a series of locks and movable dams was erected at Davis Island, four and one-half miles below Pittsburg. The work now is rapidly being completed, the plan being to give a minimum depth of six feet of water in the Ohio by means of thirty-eight dams and locks between Pittsburg and the mouth of the Great Miami, below Cincinnati. This form of improvement will of course be extended in time to the mouth of the Ohio.

From past experience with dams in the river, the cost of locks is estimated as follows:

For an average lock of six hundred feet length and one hundred and ten feet width, with navigable pa.s.s of six hundred feet length, and with weirs of two hundred and forty feet available openings, all arranged to provide six feet navigable depth in the shoalest parts of the improved channels of the pools, with an average lift at each dam of seven and two-tenths feet:

Lock, including cofferdam, excavations, foundations, masonry, timber, and ironwork of fixed and movable parts, power plant, machinery, and accessories $350,000