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Afloat on the Ohio

<h2>CHAPTER IX.</h2> <h4>Poor whites—First library in the West—An hour at Hockingport—A hermit fisher.</h4> Long Bottom, Monday, May 14th.—Pushing up stream for two miles this morning, the commissary department replenished the day's stores at Parkersburg. Forepaugh's circus was in town, and crowds of rustics were coming in by wagon road, railway trains, and steamers and ferries on both rivers. The streets of the quaint, dingy Southern town were teeming with humanity, mainly negroes and poor whites. Among the latter, flat, pallid faces, either flabby or too lean, were under the swarms of blue, white, and yellow sunbonnets—sad faces, with lack-luster eyes, coarse hair of undecided hue, and coarser speech. These Audreys of Dixie-land are the product of centuries of ill-treatment on our soil; indented white servants to the early coast colonists were in the main their ancestors; with slave competition, the white laborer in the South lost caste until even the negro despised him; and ill-nurture has done the rest. Then, too, in these bottoms, malaria has wrought its work, especially among the underfed; you see it in the yellow skin and nerveless tone of these lanky rustics, who are in town to enjoy the one bright holiday of their weary year. Across the river, in Ohio, is Belpré (short for Belle Prairie, and now locally pronounced Bel'pry), settled by Revolutionary soldiers, on the Marietta grant, in 1789-90. I always think well of Belpré, because here was established the first circulating library in the Northwest. Old Israel Putnam, he of the wolf-den and Bunker Hill, amassed many books. His son Israel, on moving to Belpré in 1796, carried a considerable part of the collection with him—no small undertaking this, at a time when goods had to be carted all the way from Connecticut, over rivers and mountains to the Ohio, and then floated down river by flatboat, with a high tariff for every pound of freight. Young Israel was public-spirited, and, having been at so great cost and trouble to get this library out to the wilderness, desired his fellow-colonists to enjoy it with him. It would have been unfair not to distribute the expense, so a stock company was formed, and shares were sold at ten dollars each. Of the blessings wrought in this rude frontier community by the books which the elder Israel had collected for his Connecticut fireside, there can be no more eloquent testimony than that borne by an old settler, who, in 1802, writes to an Eastern friend: "In order to make the long winter evenings pass more smoothly, by great exertion I purchased a share in the Belpré library, six miles distant. Many a night have I passed (using pine knots instead of candles) reading to my wife while she sat hatcheling, carding or spinning." The association was dissolved in 1815 or 1816, and the books distributed among the shareholders; many of these volumes are still extant in this vicinity, and several are in the college museum at Marietta. There are few descendants hereabout of the original New England settlers, and they live miles apart on the Ohio shore. We went up to visit one, living opposite Blennerhassett's Island. Notice of our coming had preceded us, and we were warmly welcomed at a substantial farmhouse in the outskirts of Belpré, with every evidence about of abundant prosperity. The maternal great-grandfather of our host for an hour was Rufus Putnam, an ancestor to be proud of. Five acres of gooseberries are grown on the place, and other small-fruits in proportion—all for the Parkersburg market, whence much is shipped north to Cleveland. Our host confessed to a little malaria, even on this upper terrace—or "second bottom," as they style it—but "the land is good, though with many stones—natural conditions, you know, for New Englanders." It was pleasant for a New England man, not long removed from his native soil, to find these people, who are a century away from home, still claiming kinship. At the Big Hockhocking River (197 miles), on a high, semicircular bottom, is Hockingport, a hamlet with a population of three hundred. Here, on a still higher bench, a quarter of a mile back from the river, Lord Dunmore built Fort Gower, one of a chain of posts along his march against the Northwest Indians (1774). It was from here that he marched to the Pickaway Plains, on the Scioto (near Circleville, O.), and concluded that treaty of peace to which Chief Logan refused his consent. There are some remains yet left of this palisaded earthwork of a century and a quarter ago, but the greater part has been obliterated by plowing, and a dwelling occupies a portion of the site. It had been very warm, and we had needed an awning as far down as Hockingport, where we cooled off by lying on the grass in the shade of the village blacksmith's shop, which is, as well, the ferry-house, with the bell hung between two tall posts at the top of the bank, its rope dangling down for public use. The smith-ferryman came out with his wife—a burly, good-natured couple—and joined us in our lounging, for it is not every day that river travelers put in at this dreamy, far-away port. The wife had camped with her husband, when he was boss of a railway construction gang, and both of them frankly envied us our trip. So did a neighboring storekeeper, a tall, lean, grave young man, clean-shaven, coatless and vestless, with a blue-glass stud on his collarless white shirt. Apparently there was no danger of customers walking away with his goods, for he left his store-door open to all comers, not once glancing thitherward in the half-hour he sat with us on a stick of timber, in which he pensively carved his name. Life goes easily in Hockingport. Years ago there was some business up the Big Hocking (short for Big Hockhocking), a stream of a half-dozen rods' width, but now no steamer ventures up—the railroads do it all; as for the Ohio—well, the steamers now and then put off a box or bale for the four shop-keepers, and once in a while a passenger patronizes the landing. There is still a little country traffic, and formerly a sawmill was in operation here; you see its ruins down there below. Hockingport is a type of several rustic hamlets we have seen to-day; they are often in pairs, one either side of the river, for companionship's sake. We are idling, despite the knowledge that on turning every big bend we are getting farther and farther south, and mid-June on the Lower Ohio is apt to be sub-tropical. But the sinking sun gives us a shadowy right bank, and that is most welcome. The current is only spasmodically good. Every night the river falls from three to six inches, and there are long stretches of slack-water. The steamers pick their way carefully; we do not give them as wide a berth as formerly, for the wakes they turn are no longer savage—but wakes, even when sent out by stern-wheelers at full speed, now give us little trouble; it did not take long to learn the knack of "taking" them. Whether you meet them at right angles, or in the trough, there is the same delicious sensation of rising and falling on the long swells—there is no danger, so long as you are outside the line of foaming breakers; within those, you may ship water, which is not desirable when there is a cargo. But the boys at the towns sometimes put out in their rude punts into the very vortex of disturbance, being dashed about in the white roar at the base of the ponderous paddle wheels, like a Fiji Islander in his surf-boat. We heard, the other day, of a boatload of daring youngsters being caught by the wheel, their craft smashed into kindling-wood, and they themselves all drowned but one. The hills, to-day, sometimes break sharply off, leaving an eroded, often vine-festooned palisade some fifty feet in height, at the base of which is a long, tree-clad slope of debris; then, a narrow, level terrace from fifty to a hundred yards in width, which drops suddenly to a rocky beach; this in turn is often lined along the water's edge with irregularly-shaped boulders, from the size of Pilgrim to fifteen or twenty feet in height, and worn smooth with the grinding action of the river. The effect is highly picturesque. We shall have much of this below. At the foot of one of these palisades lay a shanty-boat, with nets sprawled over the roof to dry, and a live-box anchored hard by. "Hello, the boat!" brought to the window the head of the lone fisherman, who dreamily peered at us as we announced our wish to become his customers. A sort of poor-white Neptune, this tall, lean, lantern-jawed old fellow, with great round, iron-rimmed spectacles over his fishy eyes, his hair and beard in long, snaky locks, and clothing in dirty tatters. As he put out in his skiff to reach the live-box, he continuously spewed tobacco juice about him, and in an undertone growled garrulously, as though used to soliloquize in his hermitage, where he lay at outs with the world. He had been in this spot for two years, he said, and sold fish to the daily Parkersburg steamer—when there were any fish. But, for six months past, he "hadn't made enough to keep him in grub," and had now and then to go up to the city and earn something. For forty years had he followed the apostles' calling on "this yere Ohio," and the fishing was never so poor as now—yes, sir! hard times had struck his business, just like other folks'. He thought the oil wells were tainting the water, and the fish wouldn't breed—and the iron slag, too, was spoiling the river, and he knew it. He finally produced for us, out of his box, a three-pound fish,—white perch, calico bass, and catfish formed his stock in trade,—but, before handing it over, demanded the requisite fifteen cents. Evidently he had had dealings with a dishonest world, this hermit fisher, and had learned a thing or two. Perfect camping places are not to be found every day. There are so many things to think of—a good landing place; good height above the water level, in case of a sudden rise; a dry, shady, level spot for the tent; plenty of wood, and, if possible, a spring; and not too close proximity to a house. Occasionally we meet with what we want, when we want it; but quite as often, ideal camping places, while abundant half the day, are not to be found at five o'clock, our usual hour for homeseeking. The Doctor is our agent for this task, for, being bow oar, he can clamber out most easily. This evening, he ranged both shores for a considerable distance, with ill success, so that we are settled on a narrow Ohio sand-beach, in the midst of a sparse willow copse, only two feet above the river. Dinner was had at the very water's edge. After a time, a wind-storm arose and flapped the tent right vigorously, causing us to pin down tightly and weight the sod-cloth; while, amid distant thundering, every preparation was made for a speedy embarkation in the event of flood. The bellow of the frogs all about us, the scream of toads, and the heavy swash of passing steamers dangerously near our door, will be a sufficient lullaby to-night. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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