Lincoln's Funeral at the Ohio Statehouse: 150 Year Anniversary

On Wednesday this week the volunteer organization at the State House, which represents Battery A, 1st Ohio Light Artillery, put on an encampment and demonstrations to commemorate the 150 year anniversary of the visit to Columbus of President Lincoln's funeral train, and his lying-in-state under the Statehouse Rotunda.

The morning was lovely and warm, and I brought my son along--who is just up to toddling-- in a stroller. The Military Telegraph Corps station was particularly interesting. I learned that operators became skilled enough to pace around and listen to several different keys tapping at once, and decode the messages in their heads. Most operators developed recognizable "voices" and could be distinguished from each other at the other end of the line!

The centerpiece of the encampment was the section of two brass guns manned by the 1st Light Artillery. These guns were originally cast by a foundry in Cincinnati in 1864 and actually fired the original salute to President Lincoln, but in Cleveland.

A Map of the Village of Cleveland, Ohio

A map I stumbled upon showing the early historical sites and buildings around the town of Cleveland:

Shipbuilding on the Ohio River 1798-1816

Most people who live in the states bordering the Ohio River think of themselves as living in a landlocked part of the country. However, this isn't true. The industrial centers along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers have a tradition of shipbuilding going back as far as European settlement. Even as Lewis and Clark stopped at Fort Fayette in Pittsburgh to have a keel boat built in the boatyards there, the town was turning out a large number of seagoing craft. Here's a list from the endnotes to Leland D. Baldwin, The Keelboat Age on Western Waters (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1980) pp. 224-226 n. 11 and 18. 

As you can see, the numbers fell off sharply after 1807, when the Embargo Act was passed forbidding all exports of American goods. The Act was repealed in 1809, but the succeeding Non-Intercourse Act and the subsequent War of 1812-15 dealt harsh blows to the American merchant fleet. After 1816, shipbuilding resumed, but now the yards were busy turning out a new kind of craft, the river steamboat (the first of which plied the waters of the Ohio in 1811).

By comparison, the two war brigs built at Erie in 1813 were 300 tons each. East Indiamen, the "bulk carriers" of the time, were generally 1100-1400 tons. Most of these ships spent their careers on the high seas, since the shallow Falls of the Ohio at Louisville Kentucky made upstream traffic the domain of nimble keelboats and shallow drafted steamboats. However, the USS Senator Ross was a galley assigned to the rivers: her service history seems to have been forgotten.

Seagoing Vessels Built in Pittsburgh:

Name	Class	Tonnage	Date
President Adams	Gunboat		1798
Senator Ross	Ditto		1799
Dean	Brig		1803
Amity	Schooner	103-120	“
Pittsburgh	Ship	250-270	“
?	Schooner	120	“
?	Brig or Schooner	120	1804
Nanina	Brig	132-200	“
Louisiana	Brig or Ship	169-300	“
Conquest	Schooner	126	“
Allegheny	Schooner or Brig	150	“
General Butler	Ship or Brig	400	1805
Fayette	Brig		“
Western Trader	Ship	400	1806
Black Walnut	Brig		“
Betsy O’Hara	Brig		“
?	Brig	160	1810

Seagoing Vessels Built in Marietta, Ohio:

Name	Class	Tonnage	Year
St. Clair	Brig	110	1801
Muskingum	Ship	230	“
Eliza Green	Brig	126	“
Dominic	Brig	100-140	1802
Indiana	Schooner	75	“
Marietta	Brig	150	“
Mary Avery	Brig	150	“
Whitney	Schooner	75	1803
McGrath	Schooner	75	“
Orlando	Brig	150	“
Galett	Brig	185	“
Minerva	Brig		“
Temperance	Ship	230	1804
Ohio	Brig	150	“
Nonpareil	Schooner	70	“
Perseverance	Brig	160	1805
Rufus King	Ship	300	1806
John Atkinson	Ship	320	“
Tuscarora	Ship	320	“
Sophia Green	Brig	100-144	“
?	Gunboat		“
?	Gunboat		“
Francis	Ship	350	1807
Robert Hall	Ship	300	“
Rufus Putnam	Brig	300	“
Collatta	Brig	140	“
Belle	Schooner	100-144	1808
Adventurer	Schooner	60	1809
Maria	Schooner	75	1812
Maria	Schooner	50	1816

Lt. Colonel Robert Morrison, 27th United States Regiment of Infantry

Captain Robert Morrison of the Ohio Volunteer Militia marched in April 1812 with his company from Belmont County as part of Colonel Lewis Cass' 3rd Ohio Regiment. 

Morrison was elected as Major of the regiment when it rendezvoused.  On 9 August 1812 he volunteered to accompany Lt. Colonel James Miller's force when it marched from Detroit to fight at the Battle of Monguagon, and probably served as a volunteer Aide-de-Camp (Gilpin, 100.)

After the surrender of Detroit, as a result of which Morrison and all the officers and men of the Ohio Militia were paroled until they could be exchanged, Major Morrison returned home. He secured himself a commission as Major in the newly raised 12-month regular 27th Regiment of Infantry early in 1813, and was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel of that regiment in June. 

The 27th Regiment was part of Brigadier General Lewis Cass' regular infantry brigade and served as part of the garrison of Detroit after the Battle of the Thames. The Americans suffered greatly from outbreaks of disease during the winter of 1813, and Colonel Morrison was one of the casualties, dying on 12 December 1813.

Touring a 1911 Great Lakes Iron Ore Freighter

The centerpiece of the Toledo, Ohio waterfront is a 600-foot long retired iron ore freighter named the Colonel Schoonmaker (formerly the Willis Boyer). She (or he, as the ore boats are sometimes referred as) was commissioned the year before the Titanic, and sailed the lakes until 1980. This past year the venerable ship was moved from her old berth at International Park to a new one just upriver from the I-280 bridge in East Toledo. I was recently able to get a close-up look at the newly restored ship.

 My virtual tour will start from the stern, where the engine room, steering gear, mess rooms and the engineers and steward's departments lived.

The Wright Brothers Bicycle Shop

Last week my family and I visited the Dayton Aviation Heritage Park, an urban enclave of restored turn-of-the-century houses and shops near downtown Dayton, Ohio. It was here in the bicycle shop of the Wright brothers (Wilbur and Orville) that modern fixed-wing aviation was born. Unfortunately the shop itself was closed for lunch but we got a good look from the outside. The visitors center and museum was also well worth a visit, honoring not only the Wright brothers but the African American poet Paul Lawrence Dunbar. 

Apparently the Wright brothers ran a print shop before turning to bicycles and gliders, so part of the museum is done up to look like a print shop with a general store on the ground floor. In a typical Parks-service anxiety to please as many people as possible, they had museums-within-museums devoted to the poet Dunbar and parachutes. We evaded the rangers offer of a 30-minute interpretive film--why does every historical museum on the planet have one? If anyone in charge of a museum or historical site reads this, for God's sake upload your film to youtube and perhaps embed links to it in the physical exhibit space-- and shell out for a wireless router, so people can watch the relevant parts as they walk around or bookmark them for later. 

Mike Fink and Keel Boats in Ohio Waterways

Mike Fink was an American folk hero like Davy Crockett or Johnny Appleseed, a larger-than-life figure with a basis in a real man. However, although the other two personalities became permanent fixtures in the American folk pantheon, Fink has largely been forgotten. Perhaps that's because in many of his stories he's a mean, dangerous bully. The real life Fink went west as a trapper after the War of 1812, but his career ended sometime in the 1820s when he tried to shoot a tin cup off a companions head--he missed, shot the man instead and in turn was shot by the man's friends. The mountain man life was rough indeed. By the time Henry Howe was writing in the 1840s, the keel boats were already a distant memory, replaced by steam boats and the canals (Note, he refers to canal boats as "modern"). In their time, keel boats were the long distance haulers par excellence--like semi-trucks on water.

From Henry Howe's Historical Collections of Ohio:

(Discussing Captain John Fink of Belmont County, Ohio) Mike Fink, the last and most famous of the now long extinct race of Ohio and Mississippi River boatmen, was a relative, and he knew Mike..."When I was a lad," he told me,"about ten years of age, our family lived four miles above Wheeling, on the river. Mike laid up his boat near us, though he generally had two boats. This was his last trip, and he went away to the farther West; the country here was getting too civilized, and he was disgusted. This was about 1815.

Mike Fink--In the management of his business Mike was a rigid disciplinarian; woe to the man who shirked. He always had his woman along with him, and would allow no other man to converse with her. She was sometimes a subject for his wonderful skill in marksmanship with the rifle. He would compel her to hold on the top of her head a tin cup full of whiskey, when he would put a bullet through it. Another of his feats was to make her hold it between her knees, as in a vice, and then shoot.

Habits of Keel-Boatmen.

Claudius Cadot just after the War of 1812, went on the river to follow keel-boating to raise money to buy land. At that time keel-boating was about the only occupation at which money could be earned, and the wages were very low even there. Cadot hired himself to the celebrated Mike Fink, at fifty cents per day. The boats belonged to John Finch, one of a company that ran keel-boats from Pittsburgh to different points in the West. Cadot soon learned the art of keel-boating. It was the usual practice of boatmen at that time to get on a spree at each town, but Cadot did not choose to spend his money in that way, and soon saved a considerable sum. He asked Capt. Fink to put this money in his trunk for safe-keeping. Fink consented to do this, but insisted that Cadot should carry the key as he had the most money. Fink was a noted character in his day (see above), he placed great confidence in Cadot and at the end of his first year's service paid him at the rate of 62 1/2 cents per day, although the bargain only called for 50 cents per day.

How Keel-Boats were Manned.

The hull of a keel-boat was much like that of a modern canal boat, but lighter and generally smaller. The larger keel boats were manned by about twenty hands. It was the custom to make a trip from Pittsburgh to New Orleans each year. They went down "under oars" and with half dozen or so pairs worked by stout men they made good speed. They took down flour, pork, beef, beans, etc., and brought up cotton, hemp, tobacco, etc., to Pittsburgh. Many of these boats were manned by Canadians who seemed much to fancy their mode of life. As the boats went up they were pushed by poles on the shore side, while oars were worked on the outside. The average progress up stream was twelve miles per day--they lay up at night--but often when the wind was fair they would sail fifty miles.
It was the custom with the Canadians to sing hoosier songs and their yell was heard many miles. They also, since they were much exposed to the weather, made free use of liquors, the effect of which was plainly visible in their ruddy, full face. Much boating was also done from Charleston, VA, to Nashville and St. Louis.