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This 1864 sketch of Pomroy's Express passenger packet on the Allegheny River shows one of the many enterprising river men who ferried people from one place to another. In the era before roads and rail traffic, packet were an economic way to travel quickly. AllCarnege hhra,~ of Pittoboogh, Ponnoyloan~ Room George Washington when, under orders from nearby settlements likewise prospered from For some, the waters have held Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia, he explored natural resources and growing industries: ittsburgh'sfortune through rivers brimtrade withand meaning.industry, the land at the confluence in 1753. The next steel-making towns along the Monongahela while for others, heavy spring rains and year, a fort was constructed by a few Virginia River such as Homestead, Duquesne, and large ice jams caused only flooding militia under the command of Captain Trent McKeesport; coal mining towns along the and destruction. From the early days representing the Ohio Company, and the first Allegheny such as Cheswick; and fired clay of exploration through two centuries of white settlement on the site of modern-day made into glass, tile, and enameled porcelain industrial development and travel, the rivers Pittsburgh was established. in such towns as Beaver and of Pittsburgh have brought adventure and By 1790, nearly 130 families occupied 36 Monaca. prosperity to its citizens. log houses, one stone house, one frame One of the first known written accounts of "I spent some time in viewing the rivers house, and five stores, but the area didn't see river trade between Pittsburgh and New and the land in the fork, which I think substantial growth until the end of Indian Orleans dates to 1807, when a group of extremely well suited for a fort, as it has hostilities in 1795. By the time the city was farmers in Greensburg needed coffee, tea, and absolute command of both rivers. It has well incorporated in 1816, the population topped flour. They didn't have much money to timbered land all around and is very 6,000 and the village by the rivers became a purchase these provisions, but did have an convenient for building." This from young hub of regional travel and trade. Other abundance of distilled whiskey. With

WESTERNPENNSYLVANIA HISTORY I SPRING2006 13 little demand locally for the liquor, Irwin riverboat captains, merchants, and packet boatyards employed several hundred people businessman James Fleming, Sr., proposed (passenger) travelers. and they were among the best boat builders transporting the whiskey by flatboat to New on the river." Not only were these ships ornate Smoke and Steam Orleans where it could be sold or traded for and graceful, but they were also the It's hard now to visualize a time when the air much-needed supplies. powerhouses of the waterways. In the early around Pittsburgh, especially at the Point, Fleming's journal reads more like a ship's days of river traffic, these steam-driven was thick with smoke. The dark skies, at least log than a diary, but tells us much. The voyage workhorses moved massive amounts of at first, were not a result of steel mills but began on April 3, 1807. The flatboat was materials. laden with more than 500 gallons of whiskey from the steamboats that clogged the wharves The mid-19th century brought prosperity in 14 barrels and 500 pounds of deer skins of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers. By to the trade companies operating on the that would later be sold for 10 cents a pound. the 1830s, Pittsburgh was the hub of waterways. In one shipment from the upper Stops for trade and sales were made in boatbuilding; it's said that some of the finest Allegheny to Pittsburgh, more than three Steubenville, Louisville, and Baton Rouge. steamships and sternwheelers that plied the million feet of board lumber was floated The trip took seven weeks and, except for a Mississippi and beyond were constructed downriver to be used for the construction of "strong spring storm' was fairly uneventful. here. Mrs. V.D. Drynan, president of the homes and buildings. The cost to move this Fleming returned via steamer ship to New Pittsburgh Civic Club, recalled in a 1929 material was about $9 per 1,000 feet. Another York, then crossed the Alleghenies by stage speech, "In 1837 before Pittsburgh was load saw 14,000 barrels of salt from mines in coach, returning with nearly $200 in profit considered much, most of the boat building New York state transported south down the for the farmers. This same trip would be business was centered in Glenwillard or Allegheny and Ohio rivers at a cost of $8 per made countless times in years to come by Shoustown as it was known then. The barrel. On the return trip to Pittsburgh and

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4 Tall Tales fathoms and no bottom found.' Although the about the eerie glow. Pittsburgh's river history includes tales of existence of a hole in the river was never The 's three rivers is as strange events - not only the oft-told sight proven, swimmers and boatmen fervently vast and far-reaching as the waterways of the B-25 ditching (and then disappearing) avoided the area. themselves. From the mysterious mound- near Homestead in 1956, but forgotten stories Another tale of the unexplained came from building Indians who were gone before of eerie events and strange sightings handed a steamboat captain in the 1930s who Europeans arrived, to early packet boat down by riverboat captains and deckhands, described an eerie yellow light in the rocks travelers, to captains, to people fishing even stories predating modern river traffic. along the shoreline in the Ohio River just right up until today, Pittsburghers are still Native Americans believed evil spirits dwelled below Parkersburg. Many believed it had learning how the three great rivers have defined in the dark and muddy waters of the Ohio. something to do with the wreck of a packet the region and shaped the city's history. 0 Another story, this from 1786, told of a "hole" boat in 1916. On a cold February night that at the bottom of the Ohio River near McKees year, the Kanawha capsized and 17 people Rocks. More than a century later (in 1910), drowned. Shortly after the boat went down, Daniel Burns is president of the Mifflin Township the Pittsburg Dispatch was reporting, "Just the strange yellowish light appeared. Many Historical Society and the author of Duquesne and Bedford and Its Neighbors (both Arcadia). below the bend of the river is deep water packet boats passing the place of the wreck He has just completed Pittsburgh's Rivers, to be which has been sounded by a line of 60 would point it out to passengers curious released this summer.

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