[Two Related Travel Manuscripts, circa 1865]: (MS 1.) Apple-royal to Pretendertown (Pomeroy to Charleston) being a trip up (not a fall) (in the Fall but not to the Falls) on the Ohio and Great Kanawha Rivers. Reported by the Recording Demon and Containing "Happy Thoughts" à la Sangaree (i.e. Punch and Water). Chapter 1: On the Ohio; Chapter II: On the Kanawha. (MS 2.) Boat Riding: How they travel on our Western Rivers
Author: STURGIS, William
Title: [Two Related Travel Manuscripts, circa 1865]: (MS 1.) Apple-royal to Pretendertown (Pomeroy to Charleston) being a trip up (not a fall) (in the Fall but not to the Falls) on the Ohio and Great Kanawha Rivers. Reported by the Recording Demon and Containing "Happy Thoughts" à la Sangaree (i.e. Punch and Water). Chapter 1: On the Ohio; Chapter II: On the Kanawha. (MS 2.) Boat Riding: How they travel on our Western Rivers
Publication: (West Virginia and Ohio: circa 1865)
Description: Unbound. Two two separate travel manuscripts of William Sturgis, written around 1865, giving narrative accounts of (1.) a steamboat trip from Pomeroy, Ohio to Charleston, West Virginia on the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers; and (2.) a more generalized description of steamboat travel on the Ohio River, including his reflections on what makes boating on Western Rivers, like the Ohio, so very different from River travel in the East (i.e., the Hudson River). Sturgis, a New York native and civil war veteran, first traveled to West Virginia in 1865 on a prospecting "exploring expedition" organized by the West Columbia Coal & Salt Company. He inspected the coal and associated salt mines in and around West Columbia, West Virginia, and returned to area on several times on Company business. He later became a prominent cattle baron in Wyoming in the 1870s, and was instrumental in the settlement of Cheyenne, Wyoming.
The first manuscript consists of 15 pages handwritten in ink. Quarto. pp. 1-7 (Chapter I); pp. [1-8] (Chapter II). Two horizontal folds, near fine; with an accompanying envelope: Steamboat Library Vol. 1 / á Sa Majesté la Reine des Pommes / Care of Miss S.W. Pomeroy / Pomeroy, Ohio / on board Str. Fleetwood. Written in poetic verse for the amusement his invalid sister, it is both a humorous, accurate, and detailed account of his nighttime steamboat trip from Pomeroy to Charleston on board the Steamer Fleetwood. He provides detailed descriptions of the boat itself and the landscape while en route, giving special attention to West Virginia's coal and salt mining industries:
"Our ‘bird of passage' the mail boat came along early ... and off we started ... suddenly a dazzling ray of light strikes upon our optic nerve from the right ... We are quite staggered for a moment, at seeing such an apparition in this peaceful region, but are told that they are symbolical of the blaze of glory, attaching to a certain gigantic salt furnace ... Next past Middleport [Ohio] we glide ... where the inhabitants peaceful sleep ‘their warfare over,' (and dream of Morgan raids no more). And soon from the left bank rises a shining mass of silvery light ... we are ... told that it is West Columbia, and that the effect we notice, is caused in part by the white buildings, but more by the extreme whiteness of the Salt produced there, which is said to be of such dazzling brilliancy, that it sometimes shines ..."
Sturgis often reflects on the Steamer as possessing feminine characteristics: "She showed her femininity ... not by keeping us waiting ... but by the exercise of ‘the Ladies' privilege.' She tried to back in, but ere reaching the wharf boat, changed her mind ... such an inanimate article as a boat, even tho' ‘she' walk the waters like a thing of life, is here considered subservient to the lonely public ..." whereas the "Poor unemancipated mortals at the East, are still in abject subjection to boats ... and if they wish to use them, must go to certain designated places at prescribed hours ..."
Upon entering the "broad mouth of the beautiful Kanawha," he writes: "However thick the ice may be in the Ohio, the Kanawha fed by its warm springs in far off Carolina is never troubled in that way but keeps clear all through the winter ..." For reason unknown to us, he signs his narrative: "Beelzebub Rec.y Demon."
The second manuscript "Boat Riding: How they travel on our Western Rivers" consists of 8 pages handwritten in ink. Octavo. pp. 1-8 (Signed "W. S."). Two horizontal folds, near fine. As noted above, it consists of a description of an unspecified steamboat trip on the Ohio River which serves as the basis for Sturgis's empirical and philosophical observations on what makes boating on Western Rivers, like the Ohio, different from River travel in the East. It too was written for the amusement his invalid sister:
"Friendly reader, did you ever enjoy the luxury of a Western boat ride - on the Ohio for instance? ... But first, I warn you, if you are travelling in a hurry, or are inclined to be nervous at delay, never be tempted by me or anybody to set foot on a River Steamer's deck ... She runs on no special time, she stops when, where, and as long as her captain pleases ... Our countrymen furnish us with lightning trains that whisk us from New York to Chicago in thirty hours ... but Western boats are always freight boats, and passengers count but second ... if ... you are not the nervous individual aforesaid, come ... as my Western friends have it, down one of fairest streams our fair country has produced. Muddy is the fast flowing current of the grand old Ohio, muddy it has been, and muddy I suppose it always will be, but it will require something more than mud, to make "La Belle Riviere" unworthy of its name ..."
He further compares river travel in the East and West, and explains why it remains the only reliable year-round mode of transportation in the West:
"You know the modus operandi of taking a boat on our own old Hudson ... but they manage these things differently in the great West. In the first place, the River, ‘uncertain, coy and hard to please,' rising and falling at will, renders wharves entirely useless, and except some few floating houses (Wharf boats) the article is unknown ... and now ... comes the boat we want. A large one she must needs be, for the small fry are simply an abomination ... being dirty, badly crowded ... It seems strange that this leviathan should stop just for two small people, but it must be remembered that the roads here are nearly impassable six months of the year, and the boats are the only other means of communication with the outside world, from the small settlements scattered along the banks, the River is the highway."
Two unusual early accounts of steamboat travel on the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers, also documenting the development of Ohio's and Virginia's salt and coal mining industries along their banks.
Seller ID: 407068
Subject: Americana, Travel Books
