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 Conwell, 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. Washington 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 "Washington of the West." Lord Dunmore's Warwas 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 frequently 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 inundations, 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 ispart of the visible furniture of the establishment, and its praises as a noise-maker are sung in large type in the handbills which, with numerous colored lithographs of the performers, 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 Martinsville, 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 interviewing 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 negligée, 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 oftobacco juice, and a bit of lath with which he meditatively tapped the gunwale, the meantime, with some skill, casting pebbles into the water with his bare toes. "Ax'n yer pardon, ma'm!" 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 earthworks. 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, growseverywhere about. From the farmhouse on the narrow bottom to our rear comes the melodious tinkle-tinkle of cow bells. The operatic 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 fiddles. There are no mosquitoes as yet, but burly May-chafers come stupidly dashing against our tent, and the toads are piping merrily.
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. 39° 43' 26") touches the Ohio at the mouth of Proctor's Run (121½ miles).
There was a heavy fog this morning, on land and river. But through shifting rifts made by the morning breeze, we had kaleidoscopic, cloud-framed pictures of the dark, jutting headlands which hem us in; of little white cabins clustered by the country road which on either bank crawls along narrow terraces between 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 atvarious 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, towering 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 covered 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 Sistersville, W. Va., the emporium of this greasy neighborhood—great red oil-tanks and smoky refineries its chiefest glory; crude and raw, like the product it handles. We landed at Witten'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 ared-headed man in a red shirt, who lived with his numerous family in a twelve-foot-square box at the rear of a pumping engine. An engine 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 vertical 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 corner of the earth, when the unassisted temperature is in the eighties. It is a bewildering scene, with all these derricks thickly scattered around, engines noisily puffing, walking-beams forever rearing and plunging, the country cobwebbed 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 arenumerous 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 nomads.
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 smirking 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 circumstance among these riverside "crackers;" had a hundred and thirty acres, worth twenty dollars 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 hisown 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, contrived to arrange their hair and dress to a degree 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 hay'n' his pictur' taken;" but the old fellow was obdurate, and joined me in remonstrance against this transformation to the commonplace, on the part of his women-folk. However, there was no profit in arguing with them, and I took my snap-shot with a conviction 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 shorelife 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 flouring mill at the head of the landing; a few cheap-looking, battlemented stores; boys and men lounging about with that air of comfortable 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 travelers approaching our large cities, are here and there perched upon the banks, notifying steamboat 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 milesabove 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 highway 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 Pilgrim's cargo, rather glad that there was no more of it, when our first camp-bore appeared—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 collarless white shirt, of a free use of chewing tobacco. 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? Patiently did he watch the preparation of dinner,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 strawberry-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 possible 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 ofthe 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 larkspur, pink and white stone-crop, trailing arbutus, 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 disposed to tarry, the Doctor, to get him started, offered to walk a piece with him. Our comrade 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 somehow had lost the greater part of his gains, and was now associated with his brother, who hada 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 something about certain Florida experiences, and when I arrived on the scene was being skillfully questioned by his companion as to the probabilities of "a feller o' my perfesh ketch'n' on, down thar?" The result of this pumping process 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!"
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.
The steamboat traffic is improving as we get lower down. Last evening, between landing 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 morning, 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 Cincinnati. 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, lounginglife, 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 Englanders who settled these parts.
While the others were discussing small fruits with these transplanted Yankees, who proved quite as full of curiosity about us as we concerning them, I went down shore a hundred yards, struggling through the dense fringe of willows, to photograph a junk-boat just puttingoff 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, anxious 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. Céloron was here the year following, with his little band of French soldiers and Indians, vainly endeavoring to turn English traders out of theOhio Valley. Christopher Gist came, some months later; then the trader Croghan, for "Old Wyandot Town," the Indian village at the mouth, was a noted center in Western forest traffic. Moravian missionaries appeared in due time, establishing on the banks of the Muskingum the ill-fated convert villages of Schönbrunn, Gnadenhütten, and Salem. In 1785, Fort Harmar was reared on the site of Wyandot 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 Marietta—"the Plymouth Rock of the West."
We smile at these Ohio pilgrims, for dignifying the hills which girt in the Marietta bottom, 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, whoseage, 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 hundred miles west of their beloved Boston, among many another good thing they did for posterity, they established the principle of public education at public cost, as a national principle.
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 Muskingum. 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 ofthe 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 inhabitants, prospers chiefly as a market town and an educational center, with some manufacturing interests. We were struck to-day, as we tarried there for an hour or two, with the remarkable 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 Massachusetts, 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 naturally paved with pebbles—sometimes treeless, but often strewn with clumps of willow and maple and scrub sycamore. The hills, nowrounder, less ambitious, and more widely separated, 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, Parkersburg looks harsh and dry. But it is well built, and, as seen from the river, apparently prosperous. 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 familieson 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 1800, and Parkersburg itself was not laid out until ten years later.
Blennerhassett's Island lies two miles below—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 channel. Blennerhassett's is some three and a half miles long; of its five hundred acres, four hundred 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 trespassing upon "The Blennerhassett Pleasure Grounds." A seedy-looking man, who represented 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 developed 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 occupies the site of Blennerhassett's mansion,—but reserves to himself the privilege of levying tollon visitors. He declared to me that fifteen thousand people came to the island each summer, 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 luxuriously, adorning it with fine pictures and statuary. Here, in the midst of beautiful grounds, while Blennerhassett studied astronomy, 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, wherehe 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 understood; but the fantastic Englishman had suffered a considerable reduction of fortune, and was anxious to recoup, and Burr's representations 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 evidence.
President Jefferson's proclamation (October, 1806) shattered the plot, and Blennerhassett fled to join Burr at the mouth of the Cumberland. 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 greatwaste seized his property; the beautiful place was still further pillaged by lawless ruffians, and turned into ignoble uses; later, the mansion 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, everywhere 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 Sisters of Charity.
Long Bottom, Monday, May 14th.—Pushing 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 coming 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;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 Belpré (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 Belpré, because here was established 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 Belpré 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 toenjoy it with him. It would have been unfair not to distribute the expense, so a stock company 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 more 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 exertion I purchased a share in the Belpré 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 1815 or 1816, and the books distributed among the shareholders; many of these volumes are still extant in this vicinity, and several 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 substantial farmhouse in the outskirts of Belpré,with every evidence about of abundant prosperity. The maternal great-grandfather of our host for an hour was Rufus Putnam, an ancestor to be proud of. Five acres of gooseberries are grown on the place, and other small-fruits in proportion—all for the Parkersburg market, whence much is shipped north to Cleveland. Our host confessed to a little malaria, even on this upper terrace—or "second bottom," as they style it—but "the land is good, though with many stones—natural conditions, you know, for New Englanders." 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 Hockingport, 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 refusedhis 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 occupies 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 construction gang, and both of them frankly envied us our trip. So did a neighboring storekeeper, a tall, lean, grave young man, clean-shaven, coatless and vestless, with a blue-glass stud on his collarless white shirt. Apparently there was no danger of customers walking away with his goods, for he left his store-door open to all comers, not once glancing thitherward in the half-hour he sat withus 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 operation here; you see its ruins down there below. Hockingport is a type of several rustic hamlets we have seen to-day; they are often in pairs, one either side of the river, for companionship'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 sinking 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 themas 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 angles, or in the trough, there is the same delicious 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 disturbance, 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 youngsters being caught by the wheel, their craft smashed into kindling-wood, and they themselves all drowned but one.
The hills, to-day, sometimes break sharply off, leaving an eroded, often vine-festooned palisade 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 suddenlyto 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. "Hello, the boat!" brought to the window the head of the lone fisherman, who dreamily peered at us as we announced our wish to become his customers. A sort of poor-white Neptune, this tall, lean, lantern-jawed old fellow, with great round, iron-rimmed spectacles over his fishy eyes, his hair and beard in long, snaky locks, and clothing in dirty tatters. As he put out in his skiff to reach the live-box, he continuously spewed tobacco juice about him, and in an undertone growled garrulously, 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 Parkersburg steamer—when there were any fish. But, for six months past, he "hadn't madeenough to keep him in grub," and had now and then to go up to the city and earn something. 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 produced for us, out of his box, a three-pound fish,—white perch, calico bass, and catfish formed his stock in trade,—but, before handing 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. Occasionally we meet with what we want, when we want it; but quite as often, ideal camping places, while abundant half the day, are notto 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.
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, theDoctor 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 gardens, 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 at 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 shielding her eyes, shrilly crying to a neighboring cliff-dweller: "Miss McCarthy! Miss McCarthy! There's a feller here, a photergraph'n' all the people in the Bottom! Come, quick!" Then they eagerly pressed around me, Germans 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 colorsall 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—sycamores,big of girth and towering to a hundred feet or more, abound on every hand; the willows are phenomenally-rapid growers; and in all available space is the rank, thick-standing growth of an annual locally styled "horse-weed," which rears a cane-like stalk full eighteen or twenty feet high—it has now attained 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 Virginia 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 heapsof driftwood, many cords in extent; derelict trees are lodged in the tops of the highest willows and maples—ghostly giants sprawling in the moonlight; there is an abandon of vegetable 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 16th.—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 below, continue the movement, and we went fairly spinning on our way. These so-called falls, rapids rather, long possessed the imagination of early travelers. Some of the chroniclers have, while describing them, indulged inflights of fancy.AThey are of slight consequence, 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 Kentuckyand Illinois, were observable until within recent 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 commenced his raids on them a hundred miles below Pittsburg. Hutchins (1778) says, "the whole country abounds in Bears, Elks, Buffaloe, Deer, Turkies, &c."BBears, panthers, wolves, eagles, and wild turkeys were indeed very plenty at first, but soon became extinct. The theory is advanced by Dr. Doddridge, in hisNotes on Virginia, that hunters' dogs introduced 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, thatabounded 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 blockade, 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, blackbirds, or song-birds in this valley; they followed 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 whooping 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 to remain alone of the ancient birds; the earliest travelers note their presence in great flocks, and to-day thereare 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 operation, 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 highbank; 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 willows, 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 prepared 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, Pomeroy, Coalport, Middleport, and Sheffield. Coal mines and salt works abound, with other industries interspersed; and the neighborhood appears highly prosperous. Its metropolis isPomeroy, 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 behind, 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 Pomeroy 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 cornfield, to a little log farm-house, whose broad porch was shingled with "shakes" and shaded by a lusty grape-vine. Fences, house, and outbuildings had been newly whitewashed, and there was all about an uncommon air of neatness.A stout little girl of eleven or twelve, met me at the narrow gate opening through the garden palings. It may be because a gypsying trip like this roughens one in many ways,—for man, with long living near to Nature'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 saucilyretrousse; and her flashing, outspoken blue eyes, this barefooted child of Nature had a certain air of authority, a consciousness 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 comp'ny," she prettily excused herself, and scampered off up the hillside in search of the cows.
A barefooted, loose-jointed, gaunt, sandy-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 "keeping 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 "'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 excitement.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 yawning, into the base of a great cobblestonechimney 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 unframed chromos, and a gaudy "Family Record" 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, would 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,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.
Footnote A:(return)Notably, Ashe'sTravels; 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."
Notably, Ashe'sTravels; 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."
Footnote B:(return)The 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.
The 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.