Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 November 1893 — STEAMBOATING ON THE OHIO. [ARTICLE]

STEAMBOATING ON THE OHIO.

Half a Century Ago Sidewheelers Made Big Money for tbelr Owners. It was from 1840 to 1855 that steamboatiDg was at its height, says the Pittsburg Post. Fortunes were made in those years by men who owned and ran boats. There were lots of steamers on the river then. The embryo industries of that period depended on the river entirely, for railroads had only been proposed, not built. About 1000 steamboats were built at Pittsburg annually to run on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. That city was noted for the trim crafts it placed on the water, as some of the biggest and best running steamers were built at the head waters of tbe Ohio. The boats of the early steamboating days were all side-wheelers. It was not until late that the advent of the stern wheel boats occurred, and when it did they were not looked upon with favor by the denizens of the side-wheel crafts. The river men regarded them as an inferior kind of a boat, on whose decks it was beneath the dignity of a first-class steamboatman to tread. The packets were of good size and stoutly built. They were not supplied with swinging stages and steam capstans, and their engines were of sure but not so graceful movement as engines now, and electric lights for steamboats were not even dreamed of. But they served their purpose in making big money for their owners.

There was but one organized packet company ruuning boats down the river from Pittsburg. It was the old Pittsburg and Cincinnati Packet Line and it owned about twenty-five steamboats, some of which left the Pittsburg wharf daily. Among them were the Buckeye State, the Hibernia, Pittsburg, Crystal Palace and Pennsylvania. These boats were all stoutly built and especially adopted for fast running. The laws relat ing to racing were not so stringent then as now, and exciting contests of speed on the river occurred daily. One of the swiftest of the paokets was the Pennsylvania. She was the largest of the Cincinnati boats, and made some splendid records on the Ohio. She was 210 feet long and thirty-one feet beam. Another fast steamer was the Alleghany. She was not so large as the Pennsylvania, but was almost as speedy. Some of these old Cincinnati Packet Line boats were sunk, a few burned, and the others wore out in the river service. Besides the Cincinnati Company’s packets there were several steamers, most of them owned by Pittsburgers, which ran down the river and which had no regular trades, but made trips whenever and wherever there was occasion for their services. They were chiefly to St. Louis and New Orleans, the trip to the last named point being completed in about twenty days. There were a few boats running up the Monongahela and Alleghany rivers. Brownsville was as far up as the slackwater improvements extended on the Monongahela, and Franklin was the head of navigation on the Alleghany.