------------------------------------------------------------------ FORWARDED MESSAGE - Orig: 1-Feb-99 16:05 Subject: Early Roads VIII ------------------------------------------------------------------ Roads Folder -to Ohio/Kentucky ============================================================ ORIGINALLY: THE RIVER The original migration by most of the Brethren settlers moving west was on the Ohio River. Brethren from Eastern Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Northern Virginia started on the old Braddock's Army Road from Cumberland MD, or Forbe's Road from Bedford County PA, going to the Forks of the Ohio at Pittsburg. Many went to Elder George Wolfe at Redstone, on the Monongahela River, where he built flatboats, good flatboats, that would take them safely down the river. The Redstone Settlement was just up the road from old Fort Necessity where our first President, George Washington, had saved soldiers, and Brethren teamsters, when General Braddock was killed. >From Southern Virginia and the Yadkin in North Carolina, most of the Brethren followed the Kanawha Trace, the old Shawnee Indian War Path, down the New River to below the Falls of the Kanawha where the Gauley River entered and it was now called the Kanawha. The River became safe to travel. There they built their flatboats and floated down the Kanawha to Point Pleasant, down the Ohio to the new lands west. What is a flatboat? It is whatever they could put together. Some were big and strong and might even carry several families. Some barely held together, or were small. Even if it was his best it might prove not adequate for the trip ahead. It was a flat bottom boat, mostly rectangular in shape, with high sides and possibly a flat roofed cabin toward the back. A sweep formed the rudder to the rear and one of the men travelled on the roof and used the sweep to guide the flatboat as it traveled down with the current. Everything went into the flatboat, the horses and wagons, all the family's goods, as it traveled to the new lands to the west. Maybe it was easier to travel down the river than to go on land, but it was not safe. There were dead-heads: fallen trees, tops gone, hung up in the river totally underwater, but the end pointing upstream would sometimes be raised by the current, till it would breach the surface and punch a hole in the coming flatboat. In low water there were rocks and even rapids in the river which had to be navigated correctly. There were the falls at Louisville, where the river drops 24 feet in 4 miles, most settlers stopped there. Many stopped at Maysville on the Kentucky shore, some stopped at Cincinnati in Ohio Territory. Some hardy travelers ran the Falls in their flatboats, and continued downstream to the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers, some went on to Illinois and Missouri. And always there were the Indians. The migration of the white man was invasion of Indian country. White man drove off the game animals. He destroyed the forest. He destroyed the Indian customs and life. He claimed a small section of the land, of the forest, for himself. He killed the trees and opened it to bare ground. The Indian knew that the land belonged to all people and was shared. No man had the right to destroy it. So from the start, each struggled to protect his own way of life. The flatboat had to tie up to the shore at night, it was too dangerous to travel in the dark, and the family liked to stretch its legs after the tiring day. A cooked meal tasted good, and fresh meat added to family provisions. The Indian was watching the passing flatboat, they could attack it where it stopped. A captive might be used to lure the boat close for attack and capture. An arrow might fall from the forest cover to stick in the wood or even injure or kill man or animal. Sometimes there would be a sneak attack with warriors suddenly coming over the sides of the boat, especially if it were too near the shore. There was Three Islands (Manchester OH), where the river narrowed as it passed between the islands, the Indians often caught the men working the sweeps too hard, intent on the passage between the islands, to watch for attacking Indians. These were hazards of the trip, known, faced and normally avoided or overcome. Some died, many arrived at Limestone, and Bullskin Landing, at Cincinnati and the Falls. Brethren settlements were made where good lands were found. There were no good farmlands above the hills on the Ohio, not till you came to the Great Sandy River in Kentucky. Just below that was Limestone (now Maysville KY), where the trace went south to Blue Lick Springs and the Brethren Settlements on the Kentucky River, and Zane's Trace came down from up at Fort Henry (Wheeling). The lands were rough, not suitable for farming on the Ohio side, even across from Limestone, good land could only be found far up the Zane's Trace, up near John Countryman's settlement. At Bullskin Landing, Bullskin Creek made a deep shelter cove up into the hills along the River. The Indians used it, to store their canoes, for crossing to the Kaintuck shore. It was used was so frequent, that a major Indian Road went from the Bullskin to Old Chillicothe (near Xenia OH) and on from there clear to the British Fort Detroit. This became a common goal for the Brethren migrant, since here, for the first time, was found good farmland within reasonable distance from the river, and Brethren Congregations were soon found here. Cincinnati was between the Little Miami River and the Great Miami River, both coming from far inland in Ohio Territory. Early settlements grew up on both Rivers, and the Brethren quickly came. Across the River was the mouth of the Licking River which went down into settled areas of Kaintuck. Brethren were found there, but no churches are known. Downstream from Cincinnati, the Kentucky River comes in from the south near Madison IN. The Brethren had settled upstream on it, where there was good farmland. Soon Brethren were across the river, the first Brethren Church in Indiana Territory. At the Falls, the Brethren found good farmland back from the River, Elk Creek and the branches of the Salt River. So many migrants stopped because of the Falls on the Ohio, a healthy church grew up here, and some moved across the river westward into Indiana Territory, to the Blue and Patoka River valleys. Some later Brethren moved up the Wabash River to Brethren settlement in the Ladoga congregation of western Indiana, but early migration went south up the Green River to the Rhodes Settlement in Muhlenberg Co KY and on up the Barren River to the Dutch Settlement near Bowling Green KY. Henry Rhodes of Brothers Valley PA (possibly a minister) and Elder John Hendricks of the Yadkin in NC, both led early settlements to this country. Famous here is Elder George Wolfe, son of the Flatboat Builder at Redstone PA, who led settlements of the Brethren into Illinois and Missouri, the Far Western Brethren. Most of the Brethren migration by flatboat ended with the opening of the Old National Road across Ohio (1827), then across Indiana and Illinois to St Louis, Missouri, by 1837. It had lasted about 50 years as a route of migration, and with the advent of the Steamboat, it continued to move Brethren on west, to the Mississippi and on to the Missouri. ============================================================ Merle Rummel Church Historian ==== BRETHREN Mailing List ==== !^NavFont02F180B0006NGHH_S6121 Maggie's World of Courthouse Dust & Genealogy Fever http://www.infinet.com/~dzimmerm/mindex.html *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* God Put Me On Earth to Accomplish a Certain Number of Things. Right Now I am so far behind, I will never die. --- Unknown *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*