<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN>
<h1>AFLOAT ON THE OHIO</h1>
<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza">
<h1>Afloat on the Ohio</h1></div>
<div class="stanza">
<h2>AN HISTORICAL PILGRIMAGE,</h2>
<h2>OF A THOUSAND MILES IN A</h2>
<h2>SKIFF, FROM REDSTONE TO</h2>
<h2>CAIRO</h2></div>
<div class="stanza">
<h2>BY</h2></div>
<div class="stanza">
<h2>REUBEN GOLD THWAITES</h2></div>
<div class="stanza">
<p><i>Secretary of the State Historical Society of</i></p>
<p><i>Wisconsin, Editor of "The Jesuit Relations,"</i></p>
<p><i>Author of "The Colonies,</i></p>
<p><i>1492-1750," "Historic Waterways,"</i></p>
<p><i>"The Story of Wisconsin,"</i></p>
<p><i>"Our Cycling</i></p>
<p><i>Tour in England,"</i></p>
<p><i>etc., etc.</i></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<h5>CHICAGO</h5>
<h5>WAY & WILLIAMS</h5>
<h5>1897</h5></div> </div>
<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza">
<p><span class="smcap">COPYRIGHT</span></p>
<p><span class="smcap">BY REUBEN GOLD THWAITES</span></p>
<p><span class="smcap">A.D., 1897</span></p>
</div> </div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="pagev" id="pagev"></SPAN>[pg v]</span>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza">
<h5><i>To</i></h5>
<h5>FREDERICK JACKSON TURNER, Ph. D.,</h5>
<p><i>Professor of American History in the University of</i></p>
<p><i>Wisconsin, who loves his native West</i></p>
<p><i>and with rare insight and gift of phrase</i></p>
<p><i>interprets her story,</i></p>
<p><i>this Log of the "Pilgrim" is cordially inscribed.</i></p>
</div> </div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="pagevi" id="pagevi"></SPAN>[pg vi]</span>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="pagevii" id="pagevii"></SPAN>[pg vii]</span>
<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza">
<p class="i10"> </p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p><span class="smcap">Preface.</span> <SPAN href="#pagexi">xi</SPAN></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p><span class="smcap">Chapter I.</span></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>On the Monongahela—The over-mountain path—Redstone
Old Fort—The Youghiogheny—Braddock's defeat. <SPAN href="#page1">1</SPAN></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p><span class="smcap">Chapter II.</span></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>First day on the Ohio—At Logstown. <SPAN href="#page22">22</SPAN></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p><span class="smcap">Chapter III.</span></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>Shingis Old Town—The dynamiter—Yellow Creek. <SPAN href="#page29">29</SPAN></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p><span class="smcap">Chapter IV.</span></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>An industrial region—Steubenville—Mingo Bottom—In
a steel mill—Indian character. <SPAN href="#page39">39</SPAN></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p><span class="smcap">Chapter V.</span></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>House-boat life—Decadence of steamboat traffic—Wheeling,
and Wheeling Creek. <SPAN href="#page50">50</SPAN></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p><span class="smcap">Chapter VI.</span></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>The Big Grave—Washington and Round Bottom—A
lazy man's paradise—Captina Creek—George Rogers
Clark at Fish Creek—Southern types. <SPAN href="#page64">64</SPAN></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p><span class="smcap">Chapter VII.</span></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>In Dixie—Oil and natural gas, at Witten's Bottom—The
Long Reach—Photographing crackers—Visitors in camp. <SPAN href="#page77">77</SPAN></p>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="pageviii" id="pageviii"></SPAN>[pg viii]</span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<p><span class="smcap">Chapter VIII.</span></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>Life ashore and afloat—Marietta, "the Plymouth Rock
of the West"—The Little Kanawha—The story of
Blennerhassett's Island. <SPAN href="#page87">87</SPAN></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p><span class="smcap">Chapter IX.</span></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>Poor whites—First library in the West—An hour at
Hockingport—A hermit fisher. <SPAN href="#page99">99</SPAN></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p><span class="smcap">Chapter X.</span></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>Cliff-dwellers, on Long Bottom—Pomeroy Bend—Letart's
Island, and Rapids—Game, in the early day—Rainy
weather—In a "cracker" home. <SPAN href="#page109">109</SPAN></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p><span class="smcap">Chapter XI.</span></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>Battle of Point Pleasant—The story of Gallipolis—Rosebud—Huntington—The
genesis of a houseboater. <SPAN href="#page125">125</SPAN></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p><span class="smcap">Chapter XII.</span></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>In a fog—The Big Sandy—Rainy weather—Operatic
gypsies—An ancient tavern. <SPAN href="#page139">139</SPAN></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p><span class="smcap">Chapter XIII.</span></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>The Scioto, and the Shawanese—A night at Rome—Limestone—Keels,
flats, and boatmen of the olden time. <SPAN href="#page150">150</SPAN></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p><span class="smcap">Chapter XIV.</span></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>Produce-boats—A dead town—On the Great Bend—Grant's
birthplace—The Little Miami—The genesis of Cincinnati. <SPAN href="#page168">168</SPAN></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p><span class="smcap">Chapter XV.</span></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>The story of North Bend—The "shakes"—Driftwood—Rabbit
hash—A side-trip to Big Bone Lick. <SPAN href="#page182">182</SPAN></p>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="pageix" id="pageix"></SPAN>[pg ix]</span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<p><span class="smcap">Chapter XVI.</span></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>New Switzerland—An old-time river pilot—Houseboat
life on the lower reaches—A philosopher in
rags—Wooded solitudes—Arrival at Louisville. <SPAN href="#page202">202</SPAN></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p><span class="smcap">Chapter XVII.</span></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>Storied Louisville—Red Indians and white—A night on
Sand Island—New Albany—Riverside hermits—The
river falling—A deserted village—An ideal camp. <SPAN href="#page218">218</SPAN></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p><span class="smcap">Chapter XVIII.</span></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>Village life—A traveling photographer—On a country
road—Studies in color—Again among colliers—In
sweet content—A ferry romance. <SPAN href="#page233">233</SPAN></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p><span class="smcap">Chapter XIX.</span></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>Fishermen's tales—Skiff nomenclature—Green River—Evansville—Henderson—Audubon
and Rafinesque—Floating shops—The Wabash. <SPAN href="#page251">251</SPAN></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p><span class="smcap">Chapter XX.</span></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>Shawneetown—Farm-houses on stilts—Cave-in-Rock—Island nights. <SPAN href="#page267">267</SPAN></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p><span class="smcap">Chapter XXI.</span></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p>The Cumberland and the Tennessee—Stately solitudes—Old
Fort Massac—Dead towns in Egypt—The
last camp—Cairo. <SPAN href="#page280">280</SPAN></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p><i>Appendix A.</i>—Historical outline of Ohio Valley settlement. <SPAN href="#page296">296</SPAN></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p><i>Appendix B.</i>—Selected list of Journals of previous travelers
down the Ohio. <SPAN href="#page320">320</SPAN></p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p><span class="smcap">Index.</span> <SPAN href="#page329">329</SPAN></p>
</div> </div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="pagex" id="pagex"></SPAN>[pg x]</span>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="pagexi" id="pagexi"></SPAN>[pg xi]</span>
<h2>PREFACE.</h2>
<p>There were four of us pilgrims—my Wife,
our Boy of ten and a half years, the Doctor,
and I. My object in going—the others went
for the outing—was to gather "local color"
for work in Western history. The Ohio River
was an important factor in the development
of the West. I wished to know the great
waterway intimately in its various phases,—to
see with my own eyes what the borderers saw;
in imagination, to redress the pioneer stage,
and repeople it.</p>
<p>A motley company have here performed
their parts: Savages of the mound-building
age, rearing upon these banks curious earthworks
for archæologists of the nineteenth century
to puzzle over; Iroquois war-parties,
silently swooping upon sleeping villages of the
Shawanese, and in noisy glee returning to the
New York lakes, laden with spoils and captives;
La Salle, prince of French explorers
and coureurs de bois, standing at the Falls of
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="pagexii" id="pagexii"></SPAN>[pg xii]</span>
the Ohio, and seeking to fathom the geographical
mysteries of the continent; French and
English fur-traders, in bitter contention for
the patronage of the red man; borderers of
the rival nations, shedding each other's blood
in protracted partisan wars; surveyors like
Washington and Boone and the McAfees, clad
in fringed hunting-shirts and leathern leggings,
mapping out future states; hardy frontiersmen,
fighting, hunting, or farming, as occasion
demanded; George Rogers Clark, descending
the river with his handful of heroic Virginians
to win for the United States the great Northwest,
and for himself the laurels of fame;
the Marietta pilgrims, beating Revolutionary
swords into Ohio plowshares; and all that
succeeding tide of immigrants from our own
Atlantic coast and every corner of Europe,
pouring down the great valley to plant powerful
commonwealths beyond the mountains.
A richly-varied panorama of life passes before
us as we contemplate the glowing story of
the Ohio.</p>
<p>In making our historical pilgrimage we might
more easily have "steamboated" the river,—to
use a verb in local vogue; but, from the
deck of a steamer, scenes take on a different
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="pagexiii" id="pagexiii"></SPAN>[pg xiii]</span>
aspect than when viewed from near the level
of the flood; for a passenger by such a craft,
the vistas of a winding stream change so rapidly
that he does not realize how it seemed to
the canoeist or flatboatman of old; and there
are too many modern distractions about such
a mode of progress. To our minds, the manner
of our going should as nearly as possible
be that of the pioneer himself—hence our skiff,
and our nightly camp in primitive fashion.</p>
<p>The trip was successful, whatever the point
of view. Physically, those six weeks "Afloat
on the Ohio" were a model outing—at times
rough, to be sure, but exhilarating, health-giving,
brain-inspiring. The Log of the "Pilgrim"
seeks faintly to outline our experiences,
but no words can adequately describe the
wooded hill-slopes which day by day girt us
in; the romantic ravines which corrugate the
rim of the Ohio's basin; the beautiful islands
which stud the glistening tide; the great affluents
which, winding down for a thousand
miles, from the Blue Ridge, the Cumberland,
and the Great Smoky, pour their floods into
the central stream; the giant trees—sycamores,
pawpaws, cork elms, catalpas, walnuts,
and what not—which everywhere are in view
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="pagexiv" id="pagexiv"></SPAN>[pg xiv]</span>
in this woodland world; the strange and lovely
flowers we saw; the curious people we met,
black and white, and the varieties of dialect
which caught our ear; the details of our
charming gypsy life, ashore and afloat, during
which we were conscious of the red blood
tingling through our veins, and, alert to the
whisperings of Nature, were careless of the
workaday world, so far away,—simply glad to
be alive.</p>
<p>For the better understanding of the numerous
historical references in the Log, I have
thought it well to present in the Appendix
a brief sketch of the settlement of the Ohio
Valley. To this Appendix, as a preliminary
reading, I invite those who may care to follow
"Pilgrim" and her crew upon their long journey
from historic Redstone down to the Father
of Waters.</p>
<p>A selected list of Journals of previous travelers
down the Ohio, has been added, for the
benefit of students of the social and economic
history of this important gateway to the continental
interior.</p>
<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza">
<p>R. G. T.</p>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<p><span class="smcap">Madison, Wis.</span>, October, 1897.</p>
</div> </div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="page1" id="page1"></SPAN></span>
<h2>AFLOAT ON THE OHIO</h2>
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