As the eighteenth century neared its close the great highways converging upon Pittsburg and its neighboring towns on the Youghiogheny and Monongahela became the routes of the great flood-tide of immigration which in a day filled the Middle West with towns and cities. The emigrant reached navigable waters at Pittsburg, if he came over Forbes’s Road or the Pittsburg Pike; if he followed Braddock’s Road he found himself on navigable waters at Brownsville, or, continuing the land journey, he reached Wheeling on the Ohio. If he came over the Genesee Road through New York he would reach the Allegheny waters at Warren or Watertown, Pennsylvania.
At any of these points he would, perhaps, provide himself with a handbook of information concerning his prospective route. One of these, The Navigator, was published in Pittsburg in the first year of the nineteenth century by Zadok Cramer. Its title-page (fifth edition) affirms the book to be “the trader’s useful guide in navigating the Monongahela, Allegheny, Ohio and Mississippi Rivers; containing an ample account of these much admired waters, from the head of the former to the mouth of the latter; a concise description of their towns, villages, harbours, settlements, &c with particular directions how to navigate them, in all stages of the water, pointing out their rocks, ripples, channels, islands, bluffs, creeks, rivers &c. and the distances from place to place.”[45]
Perhaps the typical emigrant would not secure such a guide book but the information for which he made eager inquiry at his port of embarkation is contained here and is of great interest to the student of the times because of the variety of matters treated. Of the Ohio and its two great tributaries let us quote the following information:
“Monongahela
“This river rises at the foot of the Laurel Mountain, in Virginia, thence meandering in a N. by E. direction, passes into Pennsylvania, and receives Cheat river from the S.S.E. Thence winding to a N. by W. direction, separates Fayette and Westmorland from Washington county, and passing into Allegheny county receives the Youghiogheny river at Pittsburgh, fifteen miles below the mouth of the former, and by land, fifty-five below Cheat. The Monongahela is about 450 yards wide at its mouth, measuring from the top of bank to bank, and in the fall and spring freshes has water enough to carry ships of 400 tons burthen; these, however, subside quickly and render the navigation for such vessels very precarious. One great difficulty attending the navigation of vessels of burden down this river arises from the almost impossibility of keeping them in the proper channel, it being in many places very narrow, and full of short turns around points of islands which are numerous. This observation will also apply to the Ohio, especially as low down as Wheelen [Wheeling], ninety miles below Pittsburgh.”
The waters of the Monongahela River, in those days as in these, were very muddy, and had it not been for the magnificent trees which abundantly lined the firm banks, the stream could not have been termed very beautiful. These trees were chiefly walnuts, black-oaks, hickories, maples, and button-woods, and afforded a bountiful supply of logs for the many sawmills which the pioneers had already erected along the river at the mouths of the various tributaries. Mr. Cramer tells us that the lumber obtained from these logs was floated down to Pittsburg, Wheeling, or some more remote point, and sold for a price ranging from a dollar to a dollar and a half per hundred feet. The country of the Monongahela was, even at this early day (1806), well populated; the land along the river was fertile and productive, and sold at any price from twelve to thirty dollars an acre. The “bottoms” contained many valuable sugar-maples and Cramer estimated that, if properly managed, each tree would yield four pounds of maple-sugar per annum—about one dollar a tree each season.
“The mean velocity of the current of this river is about two miles an hour, and is in a middling state of the water, uninterrupted with falls, impeding the navigation, from Morgantown to its mouth, a distance of one hundred miles; thence upwards the navigation is frequently interrupted by rapids, but is navigable however for small crafts for fifty or sixty miles further. The west branch in high water is navigable for fifteen miles, and communicates with a southern branch of the Little Kenhawa, by a portage of eight miles.”
According to The Navigator, such cereals as wheat, oats, barley, rye, and buckwheat were already raised to “great perfection” in the valley of the Monongahela. It was a soil especially adapted to raising exceptional wheat crops and Mr. Cramer informs us that the flour made from Monongahela Valley wheat sold for two dollars more per barrel in New Orleans than Kentucky flour. Apples and peaches were staple fruit crops of the Monongahela country and these fruits were not infrequently made into brandy. Peach brandy was a luxury in the South and sold at a dollar a gallon.
“Allegheny
“This is a beautiful, large and navigable river, taking its rise in Lycoming county, P. within a few miles of the head waters of Sinemahoning creek, a navigable stream that falls into the Susquehanna river, to which there is a portage of 23 miles. Thence pursuing a N. course passes into New-York state, winding to the N. W. about 20 miles, turns gradually to the S. W. enters Pennsylvania, and meandering in about that direction 180 miles, joins the Monongahela at Pittsburgh.