RIVER NAMESAKES OF THE STATE OF OHIO
by CAPT.
FREDERICK WAY, JR.
It is quite probable that no one will
know precisely how many
steamboats of the western rivers were
named to honor the state
of Ohio. A share, at least, of those
named Ohio honor the river
they plied, and not the state.
Actually, in only one isolated case
is it possible to be sure the state of
Ohio was honored, and not the
river. That is the steam towboat Ohio,
built in 1930 for the Standard
Unit Navigation Company. We know this
one honors the state
because her sister vessels are the Tennessee,
Indiana, and Louisiana,
all state names.
There are three vessels on the
Mississippi River system today
named Ohio, of which the above
mentioned is the largest. The
other two, one a ferryboat and the
other a tug, seem to be named
for the river.
There have been an amazing number of
steamboats named Ohio
since the inception of steam navigation
(1811) on the rivers of
the Mississippi system, which, to go
back to old-style usage, we
will call the Western Waters. Boats of
this name were constructed
in fair regularity. One was running in
the 1830's, another in 1842.
One was built at Cincinnati in 1849,
and was succeeded by the
Ohio No. 2 in 1855. She, in turn, was succeeded by the Ohio
No. 3
in 1858, and the Ohio No. 4 came
out in 1868. A large stern-
wheeler ran between Cincinnati,
Memphis, and New Orleans in
the 1880's named Ohio. A small
towboat of the name was built
at Cincinnati in 1899. Then, at
Marietta, Ohio, in 1908 the steamer
Avalon was renamed Ohio, and the
next year, at the same city, a
new packet was built named Ohio. A
ferry built at Paducah,
Kentucky, in 1924 bore the name, and
was followed by an Ohio
No. 2 a few years later.
In addition to these, there were two
packets called Ohio Belle
back in the 1840's and 1850's, and
another in the 1860's which
was sold south to become the Alabama
Belle. There was an Ohio
Mail in the 1840's. A freight boat built at Metropolis,
Illinois, was
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named Ohio Mills in 1876. The
Knox yard at Harmar, Ohio, built
an Ohio Valley in 1863. Capt.
William Bainbridge Miller, a native
of Austinburg, Ohio, bought the Civil
War gunboat Ibex in 1865
and renamed it Ohio Valley. Earlier
still there was an Ohio Valley,
built in 1841, for the Cincinnati-New
Orleans trade.
It cannot be said with certainty that
any of these were named for
the state, and it is quite possible the
owners were not too sure
themselves.
There can be no such doubt, however,
about the three handsome
packets named Buckeye State. These
were named to honor the
sovereign state. They appeared in the
years 1850, 1878, and 1883,
respectively. Each made an indelible
mark in river lore, and tales
still are told in pilothouses about
them.
The original Buckeye State was
one of a line of combination
passenger and freight boats which
operated between Cincinnati and
Pittsburgh before the time those cities
were connected by rail.
In 1850, when this Buckeye State appeared
"on the track," there
was daily service between those two
ports, including Sundays.
Punctually at 11 A.M. a line steamer
backed away from Pittsburgh
for Cincinnati. Similarly, at 10 A.M. daily one of
the boats cleared
Cincinnati for the upriver terminal.
This service required seven
side-wheelers, as one week was
necessary for the round trip. This
schedule was maintained during
favorable river stages from 1842
through the spring of 1856, by which
time the rail connections
had made such inroads that the line was
abandoned. The life of
the ordinary steamboat on Western
Waters in 1850 was reckoned
at five years, for during the existence
of the Pittsburgh & Cincinnati
Packet Line some twenty or twenty-five
boats in all were used
over the fourteen-year period. The Buckeye
State was the most
famed of the lot.
Inasmuch as a great bulk of the trade
consisted of getting
passengers from one port to another at
the fastest possible speed,
the Buckeye State and her sister
boats were built primarily with that
thought in mind. It was no uncommon
event for the Buckeye State
to leave Pittsburgh at 11 A.M. on a Sunday
morning and discharge
her passengers at Cincinnati before
dark on Monday evening. The
River Namesakes of the State of
Ohio 285
upstream voyage usually required from
fifty to sixty hours, in-
cluding all stops. It was usual to land
at least sixty times en route
to handle business, and to make perhaps
three or four additional
stops for fuel.
With speed so accented, rivalry between
various boats was
heated and spirited, and the steamer
which "carried the horns" was
high in popular esteem. At the time the
Buckeye State was built,
the fastest upstream run from
Cincinnati to Pittsburgh had been
made in December 1847 by a steamer
named Telegraph No. 2.
She came up in 44 hours, 47 minutes.
This record was a challenge,
especially because the Telegraph No.
2 was an "outsider," owned
in Louisville and run in competition
with the established line of
boats between Cincinnati and
Pittsburgh. Several attempts were
made to beat the record of the Telegraph,
but with no success. The
Buckeye State was built with fine lines and enormous engine and
boiler power for the express purpose of
returning the laurels
where they belonged-to the upper Ohio
River.
The construction of this boat was
superintended by a Pittsburgher,
David Holmes. The hull was laid at the
E. & N. Porter Shipyard
at Shousetown, Pennsylvania, a small
village on the Ohio River
about sixteen miles below Pittsburgh.
The place is now known
as Glenwillard, and all traces of the
boat-building industry are
gone. Yet there was a time when, at
this hamlet, there was con-
structed the most fabulous of all
Mississippi steamers, the Great
Republic, in the winter of 1866-67. The Porter yard, operated by
two brothers, Ezra and Nathan, built
hulls and cabin framing (as
was usual practice for many years in
the Pittsburgh vicinity) and
sent the new boats in uncompleted state
to Pittsburgh for engines,
boilers, cabins, painting, and the
finishing touches.
On February 17, 1850, the Buckeye
State made her maiden trip,
and made it under strained
circumstances. A rival, independent
steamer, the Cincinnati, elected
to compete on an identical schedule.
Both boats whipped up and down the
river for a month. The
anxiety caused the original captain of
the Buckeye State, Samuel J.
Reno, one of the popular commanders of
the day, to become ill.
He was taken ashore at Cincinnati and
removed to the Broadway
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Hotel, where he died within a day or
so. His body was brought to
Pittsburgh aboard the Buckeye State,
which was draped in mourning
for the occasion.
Captain Reno had intended a "speed
trial" with the new boat,
but due to the competition he was
forced to fight, plus some un-
favorable river conditions and his own
fatal illness, he went to his
grave not knowing the outcome.
The command of the boat was given over
to Capt. Sam Dean
of Martins Ferry, Ohio, an uncle of
William Dean Howells.
Sam Dean vowed he would vindicate the
dead commander and
win the victory. On May 1, 1850, he
gave the word and the
Buckeye State, without freight to burden her and with two hundred
passengers aboard, left Cincinnati
"at railroad speed" with the
sole purpose of getting up the Ohio
River as fast as possible. In
exactly twenty-four hours she was at
Belpre, Ohio, and twenty-
four miles ahead of the Telegraph
No. 2's time. When thirty-six
hours were out, she was in Brown's
Island above Steubenville,
and in forty-three hours even, she
arrived in Pittsburgh. She whipped
the Telegraph's time by one hour
and forty-seven minutes. She did
more than that. In the century which
has elapsed since May 2,
1850, no boat has equaled the record!
No boat has come within
gunshot of it! Due to altered
conditions on the river nowadays,
with permanent locks which must be
used, it is quite likely that
no commercial steamer or vessel will surpass
the ancient speed
record of the Buckeye State.
This boat continued in the trade
between Cincinnati and Pitts-
burgh through the spring season of
1856, shortly after which
she was taken to the wreckers and
dismantled. She carried thousands
and thousands of people, many of them
going west for the Gold
Rush. She had several accidents in her
career, all of them minor in
character, but for the most part she
did her job well. This author
saw mention in an old Wheeling
newspaper that in October 1850
Capt. Dean offered to take up the Ohio
River, aboard his Buckeye
State, the stone selected by the state of Ohio to go in the
Washington
Monument. Further reference could not
be located, but it would
be interesting to know whether the
vessel contributed this per-
River Namesakes of the State of
Ohio 287
manent share to the state's and the
nation's history. In any event,
a century ago, she carried two hundred
persons from Cincinnati
to Pittsburgh faster than man ever had
traveled between those two
cities before-and faster than rivermen
ever have traveled up that
river since.
The pilots on that fast trip appear to
have been two Ohio persons.
The author says "appear"
guardedly, for the only account of the
crew handed down to this generation
comes from the recollections
of an old riverman. One of the pilots
was Capt. Tom Witten,
whose family located on a farm along
the Ohio River about midway
between Sardis and Matamoras, Ohio, in
1793. The Witten family
continues to occupy the farm today. The
other probably was
William Clark of Portsmouth. Tom
Witten's participation is fairly
certain, as several accounts mention
him; they say that he dis-
tinguished himself as the boat passed
under the Wheeling sus-
pension bridge (then the only span over
the Ohio River) by
mounting a life-size model of a
reindeer which had been placed on
top of the pilothouse. Tom Witten got
up that reindeer, doffed
his silk hat to the crowd, and let out
a spontaneous cheer as the
boat sailed under the span.
The reindeer was put on the boat as a
symbol of superlative
speed. The usual adornment of river
boats of that day were gilded
deer horns, and the boat that
"wore the horns" was acknowledged
the champion. She was allowed to retain
them only so long as her
record was unbeaten. The story about
the reindeer being mounted
on the Buckeye State's pilothouse
was a hard one for this historian
to track down. The tale first came to
him by letter, as an elderly
riverman recounted what he had heard as
a youth while living
around Wheeling. The Pittsburgh
Dispatch of May 6, 1850, how-
ever, proved the existence of the deer.
There a brief note reads:
"The Buckeye State went out
yesterday with the horns away forward
of the chimney derricks and the deer
still spread out on the pilot-
house." Shortly after locating the
Dispatch item, one day at the
offices of the Dravo Corporation,
Neville Island, Pennsylvania,
the author paused to gaze at an ancient
lithograph of Pittsburgh
made in 1851. There, steaming up the
Monongahela River, big
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as life, was the old side-wheeler Buckeye
State, and, on top of her
pilothouse, the deer! There surely was
a buck on the Buckeye State!
The second steamer on the Ohio River to
bear the name Buckeye
State was a stern-wheeler built in 1878. The hull was
constructed
at Freedom, Pennsylvania, not far below
little Shousetown where
the first old boat was put up. She was
launched on Saturday,
July 20, and was towed to Pittsburgh in
uncompleted shape by
the steamer Park Painter, which
had quite a time of it due to low
water. She stuck on a particularly
notorious riffle of the time
called "The Trap" and had to
ask the owners of the towboat
Kangaroo to come to her assistance. Finally, between the two of
them, they got the new hull around to
the shops of James Rees
& Sons Company, in the mouth of the
Allegheny River, where the
boat was completed. Like her
predecessor, she was entered in the
Cincinnati-Pittsburgh passenger and
freight trade. She was owned
by a stock concern: Capt. William M.
Rees of Pittsburgh, Capt.
Wash H. Kerr of Portsmouth, and Capt.
Wash Honshell of
Catlettsburg, Kentucky, each owned a
one-quarter interest, and
the remaining shares were owned by
Capt. T. T. Johnston and
Jacob Ensinger of Ironton, Ohio, and
Shadrick Ward of Ashland,
Kentucky. This boat was somewhat of an
innovation in the river
world inasmuch as she sported an iron
paddlewheel.
The new Buckeye State joined the
Pittsburgh & Cincinnati Packet
Line and ran in the trade along with
the steamers Emma Graham,
Katie Stockdale, and Scotia. The design of this packet was con-
sidered so successful from all
standpoints that several duplicates
were constructed for Volga River
service and another for traffic
on the Don. These vessels, although
somewhat shorter in length,
were equipped with identical engines
and similar cabin outfitting.
Steamboats sometimes have odd things
happen, and the second
Buckeye State nearly was struck by a meteor on July 30, 1879. She
was downbound at the time, in the first
bend below Ripley, Ohio,
and the pilot on watch was Eph Talbot.
He saw the night sky
illuminate to a brilliant purple and
chanced to look back to deter-
mine the cause, when a sizzling missile
from outer space whistled
on a long slant downriver, right by the
pilothouse, and landed in
River Namesakes of the State of
Ohio 289
the river ahead of the steamboat. The
captain emerged from his
texas room in his long underwear to see
what the commotion was,
and Eph pointed to an agitated place in
the river, now nearly
alongside, where the water was hissing
and boiling.
A lively packet traffic developed
between Pittsburgh and St.
Louis in the early 1880's and the Buckeye
State was entered in this
lengthy run. While so engaged and while
being piloted by Capt.
Henry Nye, she struck a pier at the
head of the Louisville Canal
and sank. The wrecked boat was bought
by a partnership, and much
of the equipment salvaged. A new and
larger hull was built at
Cincinnati in 1883, the new vessel
being named also Buckeye State.
She was jointly owned by Capts. Rees,
Honshell, and Thornburg,
the latter gentleman being a native of
Barboursville, West Vir-
ginia. This steamer spent most of her
career in the Cincinnati,
Memphis, and New Orleans trade, and
burned while so engaged
at Barfield Point, Arkansas. The pilot
on watch, William Stricker,
and also the engineer, Jack Robinson,
stuck to their posts, brought
the burning steamer to land, and got
the passengers safely ashore.
In early steamboat days there were two
packets named Buckeye
Belle, which, one may surmise, were named for the state of
Ohio.
The original one, built at Marietta in
1849, was designed for service
on the Muskingum River. While going
through the lock at Beverly,
Ohio, on November 12, 1852, both
boilers exploded and demolished
the boat. Twenty persons, including the
pilot, were killed and
fourteen others were injured. Thirteen
unidentified dead were
buried in the Beverly cemetery along
with a box containing frag-
ments of human flesh. A monument later
was erected there to
honor the pilot, Calvin R. Stull, by
his grandson Edward M. Ayres.
This was the worst river calamity to
happen along the Muskingum.
The second Buckeye Belle, perhaps
built on the hull of its ill-
starred predecessor, ran between
Pittsburgh and Portsmouth in
1854 and later went to the lower Ohio
and the Mississippi and
was running between Mound City,
Illinois, and Hickman, Ken-
tucky, as late as the fall of 1857.
The Buckeye Boy also was a
namesake, without doubt. She was
a smallish towboat built at Malta,
Ohio, by Capt. Diodate Morgan
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in 1886. She was used in towing salt
from Pomeroy Bend to
Cincinnati, and later she towed
crossties out of the Tennessee
River. Eventually she burned at South
Point, Ohio, about 1892.
There is a record of a boat which was
to have been named for
the state of Ohio, and never was! Capt.
M. W. Beltzhoover of
Pittsburgh, along with Capt. Richard C.
Gray and David Holmes
(the same gentleman who built the
first, fast Buckeye State) con-
structed a modest stern-wheel packet at
Brownsville, Pennsylvania,
in 1853. This team announced to the
newspapers it was going
to call the boat Young Buckeye. The
Young Buckeye was to run
between Cincinnati and Pittsburgh when
the water was too low
for the larger Buckeye State. However,
the officials of the Penn-
sylvania Railroad, seeking boats to
connect their line with the
Wellsville & Cleveland Railroad
from Pittsburgh, interfered with
the plans for the Young Buckeye. The
railroad acquired the boat
with two or three others and gave her
the name Latrobe. She sank
at Phillis Island in the Ohio River, in
severe ice, February 16, 1855.
The series of four packets named
successively Ohio, Ohio No. 2,
Ohio No. 3, and Ohio No. 4 rightfully claim some expansion
of
detail here, inasmuch as they were
operated by Ohio persons,
principally, and long played important
roles out of Ohio ports on
the Ohio River. The original was
constructed at Cincinnati in 1849
and apparently operated in long runs to
New Orleans. Lloyd's
Directory recounts a collision with the steamer W. B. Clifton
on the
Mississippi River, April 2, 1854,
wherein the latter was sunk and
seven deck passengers drowned. The Ohio
No. 2 was built at the
Knox yard, Harmar, in 1855. She ran
regularly between Marietta
and Cincinnati, commanded by Capt. J.
J. Blagg of Gallipolis,
Ohio, and later by Capt. Daniel F.
Sayre of Marietta. The Ohio
No. 3 was also built at the Knox yard in 1858. For a few
years
the Ohio No. 2 and Ohio No. 3
were both in operation. It was not
until September 6, 1860, that the older
boat struck a snag at the
head of Blennerhassett Island and sank.
The account of this sink-
ing reports the vessel a "total
loss," but the hull must have been
raised, for there is a record of her
charter to the United States as
a receiving ship for recruits at
Cincinnati on July 4, 1861. The
River Namesakes of the State of
Ohio 291
boys who signed up on board were being
instructed for gunboat
service.
Capt. J. J. Blagg came out master on
the Ohio No. 3 in the
Marietta-Cincinnati run. This boat was
elegantly furnished for her
day and boasted hot and cold running
water in some of the state-
rooms. She was a side-wheel vessel
which measured 218 feet in
length, was 35 feet wide of hull, and
was rated at 650 tons capacity.
There were thirty-two staterooms in the
forward cabin and twelve
in the ladies' cabin. She continued in
the trade until replaced by
the Ohio No. 4 in 1868. Colonel
Harry D. Knox of Marietta once
informed this writer that the old Ohio
No. 3 was dismantled at
the Knox yard in Harmar, and her old
hull soon afterward was
cut down by ice and stranded on the
riverbank. It lay there a long
time and finally during successive high
stages of water was covered
with sand.
The Ohio No. 4 was the most
pretentious of the series, being
242 feet long and 37 feet beam, and
boasted engines with a cylinder
diameter of 22 inches and a 7-foot
stroke. She also ran in the
Marietta-Cincinnati trade, remaining
there until at least 1875 or
1876. The White Collar Line of
Cincinnati purchased her, and
she then made the Cincinnati-Pomeroy
run until she literally died
of old age. It would appear her last
activity was in 1881. She
finally sank at Cincinnati and her
wreck was cleared out during
the low water of the summer of 1882.
The latter-day stern-wheel packet Ohio,
built from the steamer
Avalon, was also owned largely in Marietta and Gallipolis and
ran
between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. She
was entered in this trade in
1908 and continued through 1913. Capt.
Martin F. Noll of Marietta
was a stockholder, and Capt. Edwin F.
Maddy of Gallipolis long
commanded her.
This account is restricted to namesakes
which plied the Mis-
sissippi River system, and takes no
notice of some large lake and
ocean vessels which have honored the
state from time to time.