Flint's Letters from America, 1818-1820

by active 19th century James Flint

As a great part of my notes since I last wrote, relate to rapids, bars, islands, &c. I shall omit the description of many of them, as being altogether uninteresting.

On the 14th of October, I embarked on the Monongahela, about half a mile above its junction with the Allegany. A gentleman to whom I had been introduced, very kindly assisted me in arranging my lading, and rowed me down to the lower point of the town.

The Allegany being a clear, and the Monongahela {67} a turbid river, their compound, the Ohio, as might be expected, is of the intermediate character. The mud, that covers the gravel at the height of three or four feet above the present level of the water, shows, that a very slight rising of the river carries much soil along with it. One of the earliest writers who gives a detail of the beauties of this river, states, that the bottom, and even fishes, may be seen in several fathoms of water. During the present dry season, the bottom is indistinctly visible at the depth of five or six feet. The water, when taken up in a bright tinned vessel, appears to be perfectly limpid; but after standing in it for an hour, a very small sediment is deposited. From the experience of boatmen, and others who drink this water, it is understood to be healthful.

To me this was a novel method of travelling. Steep ridges of hills on both sides of the river, about 300 feet above the surface of the water, and these covered with a profusion of timber, now clothed in all the variegated hues of autumn, form an avenue of the most magnificent description. For nearly the length of six miles, the surface of the water has all the smoothness of a mill-pond, which gave an additional effect to the scenery, but which imposed on me the labour of rowing incessantly. My boat, besides being without rudder, or even that short piece of keel in the after-part which is so essential in moving forward in a straight line, went on in a zig-zag direction, occasioning much trouble, and promising no great degree of safety on my coming into quick running water.

At a rapid, six miles from Pittsburg, a boat has recently been stove. I saw the people on shore drying their goods. In this same rapid, my ill sailing bark put about broadside to the current. On reaching the lower extremity of the declivity, {68} my situation was rather alarming. Here the violence of the current being opposed by deeper and more placid water, produces a sort of heaving motion. The sidelong motion over this swelling surface, was much aggravated by a top-heavy load. Travellers are fortunate when they arrive early in the season, as the stream at that period propels a boat much quicker than the most laborious rowing can do now.

After having passed several rapids, which are commonly called ripples in this country, I attempted to land for the night, on the head of Dead Man’s Island, a low bar covered with small willows, but found the water to be so shallow that I could not approach the dry ground, and that with a short rope, I could not effect a mooring to any log, bush, or fixed object. The possibility of an unforeseen rise of water in such a long river caused me to determine not to sleep aground, without being securely fastened. It was now nearly dark, and I judged it impossible to cross to the opposite shore to find a mooring, as the roaring of the Dead Man’s Ripple, (a furious rapid, between the island and the right hand shore,) convinced me that I was already almost within its draught. The only alternative which remained, was to push into the principal stream. I adopted it, and was soon carried through an impetuous winding channel, where I could perceive large dark-coloured masses, supposed to be rocks, above water, at small distances on each side.

October 15. Last night I put ashore about half a mile below the Dead Man’s Ripple. The margin was of a convenient depth, admitting my lying aground, to avoid the danger of my leaky bark’s sinking in the night. Having made it fast to a log, and piled up my boxes toward the prow, and spread three pieces of board over the seats behind for a {69} bed, I covered the three hoops with a sheet for a canopy, laid down my portmanteau for a pillow, and wrapping myself in a blanket, I went to rest.

As I neither saw any light, nor heard the voice of a human being, I imagined that I was far from the neighbourhood of any house. The only sounds that saluted my ear, arose from bells attached to cows in the woods, and from the breakers produced by the Ripple. The sheet which served me for a roof, was not long enough to reach the sides of the boat, a cold wind that blew down the river, passed in a constant current through my lodgment, and for a considerable time prevented me from sleeping. About midnight I heard the noise of footsteps approaching me on the gravel, and looked out to see what my visitor might be: a faint glimmering of moonlight enabled me to discover the white face of a young cow that had come down to drink.

It would be imprudent to sleep ashore and leave goods in a boat on the river, boatmen being much blamed for stealing.

I put off about seven o’clock in the morning. A continuation of the same ridges of hills, and the same woods, bounded the view on both sides of the river. The bottom land is narrow, and the parts which have been cleared are chiefly covered with crops of Indian corn. Bottom land is of two sorts; the lower by the margin of the river; and the higher by the foot of the ridge. The lower bottoms are about twenty feet higher than the surface of low water; but as the trees on the beach are peeled by ice and drifted wood, to the height of four or five feet above the level of the ground, occasioned by floods; it follows that the lower bottoms are subject to inundation, and that their height must be increased {70} by the earth deposited from every high rising of the waters. Nothing, in the present state of things, seems to offer a solution of the formation of the higher bottoms, which are here about twenty feet higher than the lower ones, and appear to be equally flat, and forming plains parallel to them. I shall hereafter be very attentive to facts with regard to this anomaly.