Historical Society Notes Historical Society Tour, 1963 C W

HISTORICAL SOCIETY NOTES HISTORICAL SOCIETY TOUR, 1963 C W. W. Elkin The Twentieth Tour of the Historical Society was conducted on July 20, 1963, and comprised a combined bus trip to East Liverpool via U.S. Route 30, through Imperial, Clinton and Chester, and a boat trip on the Chaperon down the Ohio River as far as Steubenville. At East Liverpool an opportunity was given to visit the local museum in the Carnegie Library building, where there is an unusually fine display of ceramics, Indian relics, antiques and a collection of portrait paintings, some of them by David Blythe. On the Chaperon a buffet lunch and a generous dinner were served. Music was furnished by a small orchestra. East Liverpool is a well-known pottery center 43 miles from Pittsburgh on the Ohio River at a point where the river flows east to west, an unusual thing in U.S. rivers. Originally called St. Clair and Fawcettstown, in 1798 it was named for the English town of Liverpool. In 1830 the name was changed to East Liverpool to dis- tinguish it from a town in Medina County, Ohio. Among the various towns passed on the trip down the river was Wellsville, Ohio, founded in 1797, the terminus of the first railroad connecting the Ohio River with the Great Lakes. At an early date there were daily steamer connections with Pittsburgh. Other towns passed on the trip were :New Cumberland, Toronto, Weirton, as well as the Islands Baker, Brown and Black. At Yellow Creek occurred the Massacre at which the noted Indian Logan lost his family, for which his famous (reputed) speech was made. At Steubenville, founded in 1797 and named for Baron von Steuben, drill-master of the Revolution, the boat was turned for the return trip to East Liverpool. On this trip Captain Fred Way, Jr., lec- tured on the various sites on the Ohio and West Virginia shores of the Ohio River. Speaking on pottery and the association of Andrew Carnegie withEast Liverpool, was Mr.Chester Bennett, whose ances- tors took an active part inthe early pottery activities. Mr.Bennett also referred to Carnegie's early life in Old Allegheny and suggested that the proposed stadium in Allegheny be named in Carnegie's honor. Also speaking most interestingly on pottery was Mr. William H. Vodrey, Jr. 408 HISTORICAL SOCIETY NOTES OCTOBER Messrs. Barth, our host at the museum, and Vodrey have been onmany tours and were instrumental inmaking all arrangements for our stop in East Liverpool. In spite of the rain during part of the day, it was a general feel- ing that the members had a most enjoyable trip, thanks to the well- laidplans of Director Christie and the force of the Chaperon. Incidentally it may be of interest to note that the Columbiana County Historical Society is celebrating Morgan's Raid in the Ohio Valley, in which several of the towns and locations mentioned in the boat trip were concerned. (See article by George Swetnam in the Pittsburgh Press, July 21, 1963.) AN HISTORICAL VOYAGE James Waldo Fawcett Of course, there are many models for an account of a voyage. Given the necessary talent, one might write as Homer did or Mark Twain, Charles Darwin or Richard Halliburton. The 20th summer "faring-forth" of the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania was possessed of most, if not all of the aspects of an Odyssey. It was human, it was novel, it was in a sense adventurous, it occurred in circumstances tangibly heroic. A narrator of sufficient genius very well might have made himself immortal by reporting it with the grace and distinction of, say, Jules Verne. The same observation would apply, no doubt, to the Society's trips, from 1932 onward, to such engaging places as Erie, Beaver, Kittanning, Brownsville, Gettysburg, Fort Necessity, Mountain Lake Park and Brady's Bend. Wherever history has been created there must be reason for historical visiting. That is why people cross the world to Egypt, Greece and Italy. Even under modern conditions of Hiltonian luxury itis possible to have personal acquaintance with the Pyramids, the Parthenon and the Coliseum. It surely was with some such motive that 216 members and friends of the Society assembled at 4338 Bigelow Boulevard, Pitts- burgh 13, on the morning of Saturday, July 20, 1963, and boarded a fleet of four buses rented from Grove City and New Wilmington 1963 HISTORICAL SOCIETY NOTES 409 owners for the initial portion of the expedition. The weather was re- marked to be "uncertain," but not one of the enlisted passengers chose to defect. Loading and departing were managed without dis- cernible difficulty under the direction of Robert D. Christie, who gave the impression of being an entire Cook's Tour organization all compact in his imperturbable self. He even had provided that the conveyances should be labeled so that strangers might be informed as to what company was in-transit. It suited some of us indubitably to follow Thorstein Veblen in his notion that riding is socially preferable to walking. In any case we responded naturally to the pleasure of sweeping grandly and in procession through the city and eventually, incredibly soon, over the imaginary boundary into the country known for a century as West Virginia. Notice of arrival at East Liverpool, called simply Liverpool among the natives, was given as we crossed the long bridge from Chester and saw a devotedly agreeable young gentleman of "going on 13" holding up for our attention a sign reading historical society turn left, which our drivers willingly obeyed. At the terminal of our motoring we learned that No. 3 bus had broken down and that No. 4, possibly in harmony with the ancient axiom about precedence, had arrived first. The tourists were welcomed at the Liverpool Carnegie Library and community museum by Harold B. Barth, curator of the latter and an ideal guide for all places and things Ohioan. More than a few of his guests promptly expressed their conviction that every town should have such a collection of antiquities and such a faithful and effective collector of them. Only a few minutes were required to prove that a most appealing aspect of an inhabited center of whatever size is its records, including its artifacts. The story of Rebecca at the well, as told in a yellow-clay pitcher glazed and baked on the now-vanished "peninsula" of Liverpool about 1839, is an example of the fascinating charm of this timeless principle. Leaving the museum with a silent pledge to return to itsomeday, the Dear Lord willing,we walked the short distance to the boat await- ing us. Named, maybe with a cautious intention for the younger generations, the Chaperon, the vessel belongs to Frank Johnston of Cincinnati and his family ;and the captain himself, his wifeand their son were on board and courteously greeted us as we embarked. Their craft is all-steel, neatly painted white, arranged to accommodate 600 people. Its technical definition is that of a "common carrier," but to us, 410 HISTORICAL SOCIETY NOTES OCTOBER at firstglance anyway, it was palatial, within reason even magnificent. Luncheon was served shortly after our ship pulled away from the shore, followed at a proper interval by a delicious supper. But the feast of beauty available to us all afternoon and through the early evening was even more enjoyable. Perhaps the fact that the H.S.W.P. entourage was a special audience had much to do with the impression. Experience on the Nile, the Rhine or the Hudson con- ceivably had prepared us to be appreciative. Seriously, however, the Ohio is a majestic spectacle. Industry has not entirely spoiled it. The grandeur of its bordering hills,stillclothed as they are with the same indigenous flora as the Indians and the first European travelers saw in the 18th Christian century, is what it was when the French de- nominated the river: La Belle Riviere. Oak, red and sugar maple, black walnut, hickories of several varieties, beech, tulip, sweet gum, wildcherry, sassafras and pawpaw trees stillraise themselves from the water's edge as they did when surgeon Johann D. Shopf made note of them in 1784. The same fauna persists according to sportsmen who report encounters with deer, bear, lynx, wildcat, raccoon, opossum, gray and black squirrel, groundhog. Inbrief, the remark of Thomas Ashe in 1806 continues to be a valid comment :"No scene can be more pleasing to a philosophic mind than this." Certainly, we passengers on the Chaperon did not witness every worthy detail recorded by the Ohio's chroniclers. Our craft nonethe- less served our purpose with notable effectiveness. Even those of us who were not professional students of the past were antiquarians of a kind as we were carried through the broad and gloriously verdant valley that day — the anniversary in the Old Style calendar of the poet Petrarch's birth in 1304. We felt, the majority of us, that, as history began before it was told and may endure after no historian remains to tell it,we ourselves are historically significant, at least to the extent of our conscious participation in the place and the time to which we belong. That was the importance for us of the 201st day of 1963. We were alertly alive in the picture of this age in this world, and the value of that truth was dramatized for us by what was happening over our heads. The Weather Bureau had forecast thunderstorms and the ob- servatories had notified us of a partial eclipse of the sun. Both were correct in their prophecies.

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