"Rafts of pine boards at headwater mills were made up of platforms, 16 feet square and from 18 to 25 courses thick, 9 pins or “grubs” holding boards in place as rafted. Four or five platforms were coupled in tandem with 3 feet “cribs” at each joint, making an elastic piece 73 feet or 92 feet long for a 4 or 5 platform piece as the case might be, 10 feet wide.
"At Larrabee or at Millgrove four of these pieces were coupled into a Warren fleet, 32 feet wide, 149 feet or 187 feet long.
"Four Warren pieces or fleets were put together at Warren to make up a Pittsburg fleet. At Pittsburg four or more Pittsburg fleets were coupled to make an Ohio River fleet. Some became very large, often covering nearly two acres of surface, containing about 1,500,000 feet of lumber at Cincinnatti[Cincinnatti] or at Louisville. They each had a hut for sheltering the men and for cooking their food. They often ran all night on the Ohio. To find where the shore was on a very dark night, the men would throw potatoes, judging from the sound how far away the river bank was and of their safe or dangerous position. These men were of rugged bodies and of daring minds.
"A small piece, in headwaters and creeks, had an oar or sweep at each end of the piece to steer the raft with. Each oar usually had two men to pull it. An oar-stem was from 28 to 35 feet long, 8″ by 8″, and tapered to 4″ by 4″, shaved to round hand-hold near the end toward center of raft. The oar blade was 12′, 14′ or 16′ long, and 18″ to 20″ wide, a pine plank, 4″ thick at the oar-stem socket, and 1″ thick at the out-end, tapered its whole length.
"There were other sizes of stem and blade, but the above indicates the power that guided a raft of lumber along the flood-tides, crooked streams, and over a dozen mill dams to the broader river below.
"From the Allegheny boats or scows, 30 feet long and 11 feet wide, carried loads of baled hay, butter, eggs and other farm produce to the oil fields of Venango County in the ’60’s, sold there and took oil in barrels to the refinery at Pittsburg. Then sold the scows to carry coal or goods down the Ohio.
"Mr. Westerman built five boats at Roulette about 1870, 40 feet long and 12 feet wide, loaded them with lumber and shingles and started for Pittsburg, but the boats were too long for the dams and broke up at Burtville, the first dam.
"Much of the pine timber of the west half of Potter county was cut in sawlogs and sent to mills at Millgrove and Weston’s in log drives down the river and Oswayo Creek into the State of New York. The lumber was shipped via the Genesee Valley Canal to Albany and New York City and other points on the Hudson River.
"The first steamboat to steam up the river from Warren was in 1830. It was built by Archibald Tanner, Warren’s first merchant, and David Dick and others of Meadville. It was built in Pittsburg; the steamer was called Allegheny. It went to Olean, returned and went out of commission.
"The late Major D. W. C. James furnished the incident of the Allegheny voyage. A story was told by James Follett regarding the trip of the Allegheny from Warren, which illustrates the lack of speed of steamboats on the river at that early day.