Ohio History Journal

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OLD OHIO RIVER STEAMBOAT DAYS

OLD OHIO RIVER STEAMBOAT DAYS

 

 

MEMORIES OF UPPER OHIO RIVER ACTIVITIES BETWEEN

1860 AND 1890

 

BY W. G. SIBLEY

A great river is a powerful influence over the lives

of all who dwell on its banks, just as lofty hills or moun-

tains, seen day after day, finally come to have meaning

in a man's life, as does any other striking natural en-

vironment. When a river is intimately associated with

the affairs of a small community, its whole population

becomes conscious of it. So it was, with boyhood in the

late 'sixties and 'seventies, when spent in almost any vil-

lage along the Ohio River between Pittsburgh and Cin-

cinnati, a never-to-be-forgotten experience, for in those

decades the Ohio was "the stream of the empire" when

the West was in the making.

The river and its activities, seen season after season,

and year after year, get a strong grip on a boy's imagi-

nation, desires and ambitions. It gave me from 1865 to

1880 my first glimpse of the wide, wide world--and its

unknown Far Away--to be explored in later years. I

learned intimately its seasonal changes, its high waters

and low waters, its near-by beaches, bars and creeks, its

floating ice in winter, its fishing and swimming in sum-

mer, its skating and johnboat adventures. Every village

boy on the bank was acutely conscious of the Ohio

River all the year around. It was so with me from young

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