Hi, Thought I remembered the EKEY name. New to the list and have not read mail about the steamboats. Looking for connections to HOLMES. Does this help anyone? Descendants of ANDREW EKEY 1 ANDREW EKEY b: 1791 in PENNSYLVANIA d: 1873 . +ANN HOWDEN b: 1799 d: February 05, 1890 ...... 2 ANDREW EKEY ...... 2 MARGARET EKEY ...... 2 MARY-ANN EKEY .......... +BENJAMIN BARKHURST ...... 2 PHOEBE ANN EKEY .......... +ABRAHAM HOLMES b: December 01, 1808 in SHORT CREEK TOWNSHIP d: May 03, 1880 m: 1856 .............. 3 ? HOLMES d: in INFANCY .............. 3 WESLEY-A. HOLMES b: August 19, 1859 in SHORT CREEK TOWNSHIP .................. +MINERVA CONWELL m: 1884 ...... 2 DAVID EKEY ...... 2 EDWARD EKEY ...... 2 JOHN-H. EKEY ...... 2 JAMES EKEY ...... 2 WESLEY EKEY Will share if I can help. Jan Schwerman jsch501@dataflo.net -----Original Message----- From: DEkey68402@aol.com <DEkey68402@aol.com> To: OHJEFFER-L@rootsweb.com <OHJEFFER-L@rootsweb.com> Date: Monday, January 18, 1999 10:51 PM Subject: Steamboats >Hello, > >We've been following the conversations with interest and thought we'd share >some things we've learned. The following is about my grandfather's cousin: > >Captain John Wesley Ekey (1869-1961), was born on a farm near Knoxville, >moved to what is now Stratton with his parents in 1877. His father, James J. >Ekey laid out streets and started building houses for the workers who were >moving to the area. It was called Ekeyville until the advent of the clay and >pottery interests of the Stratton family after the turn of the century. The >first houses in Ekeyville (Stratton) were made from lumber sawed in his saw >mill , the Ekey Mill from logs floated down the river from the Economights >forests in the Pennsylvania and Raccoon Creek area. > >John W. operated this saw mill after his retirement as a riverboat pilot. In a >January 25, 1952 article in The Steubenville Herald-Star it says that John W. >Ekey took to life on the Ohio River when he was 16. As a young man he floated >log rafts down the Allegheny and Ohio rivers. He was a versatile and skilled >carpenter and built steamboats in his father's sawmill and operated them >himself on the Ohio River. For years he operated the picturesque coal burning >sternwheelers between Pittsburgh and Ravenswood, WV his chief cargo being >bricks and coal. At the time of the article, at 82 he had a skiff under >construction. The skiffs, exceptionally sturdy and built with precise >dimensions, cost approximately $100 each. > >The article is quite lengthy but very interesting. It quotes him "In those >days we would haul one barge, 16 feet by 90 feet, with a five-foot draft, and >a load of 80 tons of coal. Today, the diesel operated boats tow as many as 12 >barges with many thousands of tons of coal on one trip." We got the article >from his daughter, who at 93 has many interesting stories to tell about her >father and grandfather and the history of the area. In notes from a visit >with her last August she said, "My Dad built the Erie without a blue print, >that it was steam powered with a boiler and they used coal for fuel.." She >has good memories of riding with him in the pilot house as a child and she and >her brother and sister all learned the lingo of the riverboats. She went on >to say her Dad had bought the Panama. Mary Ekey Robinson has written about >this and other boats in her book The Stratton Village Story, 1880-1976. It >gives a lot of other information about the early brick, sewer pipe and fire >clay industries there. About the Panama she writes that it was the first boat >that John Ekey owned and that it was bought in Pittsburgh and built by a >boat building company. She goes on to describe it and says that he sold it >after using it a year and a half. >The following winter construction was started on the hull of the Erie. The >lumber, all white oak, was sawed in the the old mill and construction was >started in the saw mill yard. When the hull, 60 ft. long by 14 ft. wide was >finished, it was put on rollers and rolled down the skidway into the river. >She gives a colorful description of the Erie. > >A book that tells about many of the towns in Jefferson County that either have >had name changes or just aren't there anymore is Jefferson County And Her >Townships by Cozart. It can be found in the Schiappa Library in Steubenville. >Ekeyville is mentioned in it. > >Doyle and Ruby Ekey > >