Historic Highways of America/Volume 9/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI
THE NAVIGATION OF THE OHIO
THE neglect of the Ohio River by the United States government cannot be better suggested than by comparing the expenditures on that river with the appropriations for the great land thoroughfare—the Cumberland Road. In thirty-two years (1806–1838) the government spent $6,823,559.52 on the Cumberland Road. In seventy-five years (1827–1902) $6,752,042.04 was appropriated for the Ohio River and much of that was portioned out to the Mississippi, Missouri, and Arkansas.
It is impossible to determine with absolute assurance when and where the first prominent movement looking toward the improvement of the Ohio River originated. With the burst of population into the West came the realization that the great waterway was a priceless possession.
It would be interesting to know in detail the actual condition of the Ohio, say at the dawning of the eighteenth century. That it was greatly clogged with sunken logs and protruding reefs and bars, of course, goes without saying. Perhaps the average stage of water was less than it is today; and yet the vast amount of water that stood in the tangled forests and open swamps and meadows drained off so slowly as to maintain a more uniform stage of water than is true in our day of alternate flood and drought. If less water flowed in the Ohio's bed a century ago the volume was at least more uniform than it is today.
As early as January 1817 a resolution was passed by the Legislature of Ohio inviting the coöperation of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Indiana for the improvement of their great waterway. Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky promptly responded, and in 1819 a preliminary examination was made by General Blackburn of Virginia, General John Adair of Kentucky, General E. W. Tupper of Ohio and Walter Lowrie, Esq. of Pennsylvania who made reports to their several legislatures under the date of November 2, 1819. But during the generation following, each of these commonwealths became absorbed in internal improvements. Ohio, for instance, between 1819 and 1844, built seven hundred and sixty-five miles of canals costing nearly ten millions and almost as many miles of turnpike at a cost of four millions. Ohio also built seventy miles of railway, and in 1836 began to improve her most valuable river, the Muskingum, for slack-water navigation. Thus there was reason enough why Ohio could not undertake the improvement of the Ohio River. Her sister states were equally engaged with internal affairs, and though some steps were taken toward surveying the Ohio along the shores of several states the matter was left, as should have been the case, to the general Government.
This meant a long delay, but at last, in 1825, the great work was undertaken; since 1836 there has been a continual struggle to compel the Government to do its duty by the Ohio River and its great commerce. In 1837 the Government commenced a system of surveys and an improvement of the low-water channels by means of riprap stone dams, arranged so as to prevent the spread of the water by guiding and maintaining it in comparatively narrow channels. The work was put under the direction of Captain Sanders of the War Department. This system was continued at intervals until 1844, when, the appropriation being exhausted, the work suddenly ceased, not to be resumed until 1866.
Something of the difficulties of the old engineers may be estimated from the records left by them concerning the various obstructions in the Ohio River. "Thirty years ago," wrote an engineer in 1866, "there were considerable tracts of woods abounding the stream . . forming dangerous obstructions to navigation. Gradually, since that period, the number of settlers along the river valley has greatly increased, and the bottom lands . . have been cleared; so that comparatively few trees remain that are liable to fall into the stream. And the same is true of most of the principal tributaries. I refer to this to show the probability that when the present snags and logs are removed, a slight expenditure annually will keep the river clear of this character of obstructions." The snags and logs of generations had been almost untouched by the government—"left to the uncertain and unpaid-for attention of private individuals." The plan now (1866) to rid the valley entirely of these great impediments to navigation marks a new era in the history of the Ohio. It was found, upon examination, that in the six hundred odd miles between Pittsburg and Louisville there were seventy-five separate points where there were snags, forty-nine "logs and loggy places," twenty-eight wrecks and seventy-two "sunken boats &c." Between Louisville and Cairo there were some sixty additional obstructions of similar nature—a total of two hundred and eighty-five obstruction points. A schedule of these obstructions, between Pittsburg and Wheeling for instance, will be found interesting. The asterisks refer to obstructions in or near the channel at comparatively low water:
| Distance from Pittsburg. | Snags, etc. | Wrecks, etc. | Remarks. |
| 2½ | Wreck. | In the right channel of Brunot's island below the point on the left side. | |
| 3 | Wreck. | Same side as last, half mile below. | |
| 3⅓ | Sunken barge. | Left channel Brunot's island, first below point. | |
| 4 | 2 wrecks.* | Sunken in main channel near old pork-house; one of them has lately washed ashore. | |
| 9¾ | Sunken barge. | In shore on left side in way of good landing; above Hamilton's house, on Neville island, a large coal barge has stranded just below, but may be gotten off. | |
| 13 | 2 wrecks.* | Above Boyle's landing; first, on right side, across channel, is very dangerous; second, in above, left. | |
| 15 | Wreck. | Near Shousetown, left side, close in shore. | |
| 16 | Snag. | Opposite Sewickley, a little below Boyle's landing. | |
| 16½ | Sunken barge. | Right shore below Sewickley, in way of boats at high water. | |
| 18½ | Stranded barge.* | Coal barge stranded, Logtown bar, below Economy. | |
| 19½ | Sunken barge.* | In channel of two boats, Logtown creek. | |
| 21 | Snag. | Below foot of Crow island, right side. | |
| 23⅔ | Snag. | One-third mile above Freedom, Penn., right side. | |
| 24 | Snag. | Close in shore at Freedom. | |
| 24¼ | Snag. | In main channel, very large, below landing. | |
| 30⅓ | Sunken boat. | Close in to right; not dangerous below Raccoon creek. | |
| 30¼ | Sunken boat. | In channel below last; dangerous. | |
| 33½ | Snag. | Opposite Industry, below Safe Harbor landing. | |
| 33⅔ | Sunken boat.* | Left side below last. | |
| 41 | Snag. | Sunken barge. | Left channel of Line island there is a snag. |
| 42½ | Wreck. | Wreck of steamer Winchester, burnt, left channel of Babb's island, Va., shore; not much in the way. | |
| 49¾ | Sunken boat.* | In channel foot of Baker's island; dangerous. | |
| 63 | Snag. | Foot of Brown's island; old. | |
| 63¼ | Snag. | Center of River, head of cable eddy. | |
| 67 | Wreck and cofferdam. |
Left channel, pier Pittsburg and Steubenville railroad bridge. | |
| 67½ | Sunken barge. | Left side above Steubenville; dangerous. | |
| 68 | Sunken barge. | Opposite Steubenville landing, center of river. | |
| 70¾ | Snags.* | Several in the vicinity of the Virginia and Ohio cross creeks. | |
| 73¼ | Sunken boats.* | Two, right side, above Wellsburg, Va. | |
| 76 | Sunken boats.* | Left, below block-house run. | |
| 76½ | Snag. | Right side, below last; should come out. | |
| 78¾ | Wreck. | Old, opposite brick house, close on left shore. | |
| 81½ | Snags. | Two, right of channel, above Warren. | |
| 81¾ | Snag.* | Old right side, near white frame house. | |
| 83 | Ice breaker. | Head of Pike island, at coal shaft. | |
| 84 | Sunken barge.* | Edge of bar, not dangerous, opposite brick house. | |
| 87 | Logs, etc. |
Left and center, bottom of river, one mile below Burlington. | |
| 88 | Sunken boat. | Sunken ferry-boat, close in right side, Martinsville. | |
| 89¼ | Sunken barge.* | At ship-yard, Wheeling, dangerous.[1] |
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 ashore 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 butt 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 canal, which followed the route of the ancient portage path two and one-half miles in length between the present sites of Louisville and Shippingport, 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 canal around the falls in 1804, but nothing was done until January 12, 1825, when the Louisville and Portland Canal Company was organized, with a capital of $600,000. The stock was taken by about seventy persons, residing in Kentucky, Ohio, Missouri, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, 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, passed through the locks.[2]
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 Canal 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 passed the canal 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."[3]
From 1831 to 1843, 13,756 steamboats passed through the Canal, and 4,701 keel-and flat-boats, with a total tonnage of two and a half million tons, netting a toll of $1,227,625.20.[4] 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 Canal in the "good old days" would not be countenanced a moment today. The canal was rebuilt and enlarged in 1872, and in 1874 it passed into the control of the United States by the authority of Congress.
Following is a synopsis of the expenditures on account of the canal previous to June 11, 1874, the date when the United States assumed complete control and management:
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The following table shows the traffic, in tons, of the canal since 1886:
| Articles. | 1886 to 1901 inclusive. |
| Fiscal year 1902. |
| Total for 16 years. |
| Coal | 22,365,240¾ | 1,019,947½ | 23,385,188¼ | ||
| Salt | 124,363¾ | 5,760¼ | 130,124 | ||
| Oil | 60,944¼ | 1,211½ | 62,155¾ | ||
| Whiskey | 21,442¼ | 1,117 | 22,559¼ | ||
| Tobacco | 90,270½ | 1,705 | 91,975½ | ||
| Cotton | 140,213 | 2,299½ | 142,512½ | ||
| Lumber | 3,401,021 | 85,305½ | 3,486,326½ | ||
| Corn and wheat | 151,621 | 5,933½ | 157,554½ | ||
| Iron: ore and manufactured | 518,642½ | 34,634½ | 553,277 | ||
| Steel rails | 685,182 | 183,016 | 868,198 | ||
| Produce | 84,396½ | 4,864 | 89,260½ | ||
| Hay and straw | 198,523½ | 6,224¼ | 204,747¾ | ||
| Flour | 19,830½ | 510½ | 20,341 | ||
| Stock | 98,954 | 4,233¾ | 103,187¾ | ||
| Sugar and molasses | 125,746¾ | 11,022½ | 136,769¼ | ||
| Staves and shingles | 475,310¾ | 34,405½ | 509,716¼ | ||
| Cement | 40,568¾ | 835¾ | 41,404½ | ||
| Miscellaneous | 1,319,552 | 69,518½ | 1,389,070½ | ||
| Total | 29,921,823¾ | 1,472,545 | 31,394,368¾[6] |
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.[7] 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 canal 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.[8] 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 retard the flow and lessen the velocity of the water from higher to lower pools without interfering with the free passage of the boats through the chutes; chutes were substituted 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 anticipated, 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 assisted 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 passenger travel, when there was no railroad competition; 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 passengers 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 passenger, 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."[9]
The method of inland navigation by means of slackwater formed by dams passable 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 pass 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:
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But the extra width and height of lock esplanade filling, extra length of weirs, and extra channel dredging, incident to the individual locations of the dams, increase the above estimates to final totals of from nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars to one million, one hundred thousand dollars at the individual dams.
The expenditures of the Government on the Ohio River from 1827 to 1902 are as follows:
| Act of Congress. | Appropriation. | Remarks. |
| March 3, 1827, | $30,000.00 | |
| March 3, 1835, | 50,000.00 | |
| July 2, 1836, | 20,000.00 | |
| March 3, 1837, | 60,000.00 | |
| July 7, 1838, | 50,000.00 | |
| June 11, 1844, | 100,000.00 | |
| March 3, 1847, | 6,479.25 | |
| August 30, 1852, | 90,000.00 | |
| June 23, 1866, | 172,000.00 | Allotment of money already appropriated, for improving Mississippi, Missouri, Arkansas, and Ohio Rivers. |
| June 23, 1866, | 80,000.00 | Allotment for snag boats and apparatus for improving western rivers. |
| March 2, 1867, | 100,000.00 | |
| July 25, 1868, | 85,000.00 | Allotment for repair, preservation, extension, and completion of river and harbor works. |
| July 11, 1870, | 50,000.00 | |
| March 3, 1871, | 50,000.00 | |
| June 10, 1872, | 200,000.00 | |
| March 3, 1873, | 200,000.00 | |
| June 23, 1874, | 150,000.00 | |
| March 3, 1875, | 300,000.00 | |
| August 14, 1876, | 175,000.00 | |
| June 18, 1878, | 300,000.00 | |
| June 18, 1878, | 50,000.00 | Harbor of refuge at or near Cincinnati. |
| March 3, 1879, | 250,000.00 | |
| June 14, 1880, | 250,000.00 | |
| March 3, 1881, | 350,000.00 | |
| March 21, 1882, | 100,000.00 | Continuing work on Davis Island dam. |
| August 2, 1882, | 350,000.00 | |
| August 2, 1882, | 16,000.00 | Harbor of refuge near Cincinnati, Ohio. |
| July 5, 1884, | 600,000.00 | |
| July 5, 1884, | 17,000.00 | Same. |
| August 5, 1886, | 375,000.00 | |
| August 11, 1888, | 380,000.00 | |
| September 19, 1890, | 300,000.00 | |
| January 19, 1891, | 2,128.87 | Relief of Stubbs & Lackey. Treasury settlement No. 2593. |
| July 13, 1892, | 360,000.00 | |
| August 18, 1894, | 250,000.00 | |
| June 3, 1896, | 250,000.00 | |
| July 1, 1898, | 15,000.00 | Allotment for restoring levee and banks of Ohio River at or near Shawneetown, Ill. |
| March 3, 1899, | 375,000.00 | |
| June 13, 1902, | 359,000.00 | Amount appropriated, $400,000; $41,000 being for Falls of Ohio River, at Louisville, Ky. |
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| Total, | $6,565,608.12 |
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- ↑ Id., p. 251.
- ↑ House Reports 39th Congress, Second Session, Ex. Doc. 56, part 2, p. 323.
- ↑ Memorial of the Citizens of Cincinnati to the Congress of the United States, 1844, p. 39.
- ↑ Id., p. 38.
- ↑ Annual Report of the Chief of Engineers, U. S. Army, 1902, Appendix H. H., p. 1978.
- ↑ Id., p. 1980.
- ↑ House Records, 41st Congress, Third Session, Ex. Doc. no. 72, p. 4.
- ↑ Id., p. 5.
- ↑ House Reports 39th Congress, Second Session, Ex. Doc. 56. Part II, p. 262.
- ↑ Report of the Chief of Engineers U. S. Army, 1902, Appendix D. D., p. 1846.