By Terry Woods
Introduction- The Muskingum River system of dams, locks, and short canals has been in the news lately as the state looks at how or if, to rebuild the old dams and locks that make the river navigable. The system is claimed to be the oldest intact canal in the United States with it’s hand operated locks. Terry Woods had sent along an article about the river and then added this in his next email. By the way, the Valley Gem is still in operation.
Hi,
Glad you liked the article on the Muskingum. I think it was the “Case for the Muskingum”, the forerunner of which I presented in Rochester in 1992.
Here, I hope, is a different one, an account of a trip Rosanne and I took down the Muskingum in October of 2007.
Because of the long-range plan to rebuild a great deal of the structures along the Parkway, it may be a while before such a trip can again be taken.
I wonder if the improvement of the waterway might entice more commercial use of it.
MUSKINGUM RIVER TRIP 10/04/07
I had been anticipating this trip on a river boat replica on the Muskingum River for well over a year and a half. One of our local hospitals sponsors a Senior Citizen’s group called Prime Time and one of their activities is some very nice trips around the area. A year ago last February I received a flyer from them that, among other things, publicized a seven hour boat trip on the Muskingum River aboard the Valley Gem. We had a trip planned for Medgorija for that June, but as soon as we returned I called to reserve our spots on the Muskingum Trip. We also wanted to take a trip offered in November to Pittsburgh to do some Christmas Shopping. Both trips were full, but we were told there might be cancellations and that we would certainly be placed on next year’s mailing list.
There was one cancellation, but we both wanted to go so we decided to wait. This year’s flyer arrived in February. The Pittsburgh trip wasn’t being offered, but the Muskingum trip was. On Wednesday, October 3, the boat would travel from Marietta to Stockport and on Thursday, October 4 it would travel back to Marietta. So we had a choice of two days for the trip in two different directions – up or down river.
I thought going down river might be just a bit more interesting than going up river, so I promptly signed us both up for the Thursday trip. I believe I even paid our money, $96.00 each, right away, though it wasn’t due until August some time.
So, the day finally came. I had been talking about it for quite some time, but all of the kids were shocked to discover that we weren’t going to be home that day. The buses were to leave from the St. Michael’s Church Parking lot at 6:30am. That is the church that Rosanne and I go to, so we wouldn’t have any trouble finding it.
Rosanne can’t really start her day without coffee so we stopped at a Sheetz on the way in and she picked one up. While she was in the station, a woman came in asking for directions to St. Michael’s. Even though we were within three blocks of the church, the clerk had no idea where it was. Rosanne overheard the conversation and offered to lead the way so we had a two car caravan going from Sheetz, over a half block of Hills & Dales, a left turn onto Whipple, and a right turn onto Fulton and the church.
We got there about as planned, 6:15, but we were just about the last to arrive. We found we had been assigned to bus number 1 and found two seats together on the right side of the bus about four seats from the front. Coffee was available as well as water, Orange Juice and chocolate chip cookies. Rosanne already had her coffee and I got an Orange Juice and the cookies.
Bus no 2 left almost exactly at 6:30. Bus no 1 was missing a couple and we waited a standard ten minutes, but they never showed. We actually left about 6:45, but were soon on I-77, south. It was a rather uneventful bus trip. People chattered away. We heard the two ladies behind us discussing among themselves the route we were taking. They seemed confused about something. Finally, one of them asked our hostess when we would leave I-77 for Pennsylvania. When informed we were not going to Pennsylvania, they seemed surprised. Rosanne got out her puzzle book as soon as it got light and started in on it. I fell back on an old army custom and just leaned back, closed my eyes, and relaxed.
We stopped at the first rest stop past the I-70 exit. Bus no 2 had been there about ten minutes so the rest rooms were relatively clear. Both buses left the rest stop together with bus no 1 in the lead. Soon after we left the rest stop, we were given a general itinerary of meals on the boat for the rest of the day and assigned tables for dining. We were given table 15.
We took route 78 at Caldwell to the south-west to McConnellsville, then route 376 down the right bank of the Muskingum River to just across the river from Stockport.
Actually, our bus, in the lead, went across the river bridge on route 266 west into Stockport and bus no 2 followed. Then we both had to turn around and take a road a bit south of the bridge to where the Valley Gem waited for us just below the bridge and lock no 6 on the left bank of the river
We unloaded both buses quickly and went onto the Valley Gem then right to our assigned tables on the lower deck. There we had a light breakfast, a pastry of some kind, fruit (bananas and apples) and coffee and iced tea.
There were only four at our six person table as it seemed that the couple that didn’t show had been assigned to our table. The other couple that was at our table were the two ladies from the seat in the bus behind us who had thought they were going to Pennsylvania. I asked them about that. It seems friends of one of them couldn’t make it at the last minute so these two ladies took over the tickets, but didn’t know where they were going. Somehow, they got the Muskingum River confused with the Monongahela River and were fully expecting to end up somewhere around Pittsburgh.
We backed away from the shore, out into the river, before we were finished with breakfast. I had the video camera with me and I shot some of the old mill at Stockport, the dam and Lock No 6. I ended up with about a 50 minute (slightly edited) tape, but some of my extemporaneous comments were inaccurate.
Initially, I thought we were going to go through Lock no 6, then I realized we were heading away from the lock (which was to be expected since we were to go south to Marietta). I went to the upper deck to take video and made some comment on tape about the paddle wheel being fake. I had noticed when we came back over the bridge, that the wheel was revolving while the boat was nosed into the river bank along the dock, so I thought it was just for cosmetics. Actually, the wheel was revolving to keep the boat against the dock. It was what made the boat go.
The Captain (J.J. Sands) made an audio announcement while I was topside. He welcomed us all to the Valley Gem (our group of 106 had the boat all to ourselves) and gave us a bit of a history of the Valley Gem. There was a real Valley Gem that operated on the Muskingum, Ohio and Monongahela Rivers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This Valley Gem, though not a replica of the original, is sort of set up to look like an old time river boat. It was built in 1988-89 and had a new German Diesel engine and transmission put in about a year ago. It is 30 feet wide 120 feet long, has 2 ½ feet of draft and can carry up to 296 passengers. It has radar, depth finder, and all other kinds of electronic gadgets. It is pulled up out of the water every five years for a Coast Guard Inspection and this winter it will be inspected and the bottom painted. The boat is family owned and operated. The lower deck was enclosed and air-conditioned with two complete ‘heads’ (bathrooms). The upper deck was open, had a number of round tables and chairs strewn about and had an awning covering a bit more than half of the deck.
By the time all the talk was done, we were ready to enter Luke’s Chute Lock. I got a great, long, shot of the boat entering the lock. I also got an ‘extra’ when the boat struck the side of the lock. There is the great sound of us hitting, a shudder of the camera, and my three times exclamation of OOPS!
I videoed most of the locking-down operation and it provides a good idea of the length of time the operation takes. It also shows the physical effort required to open and close the gates and open and close the sluices to empty and fill the locks. We had the same two men operating each of the four locks during our trip down river. They were apparently volunteers and ‘ran’ ahead of us for each lock in a car.i
The locks apparently are all set for down-stream boats as we saw the lower lock gates closed as we left the lock. So we just entered each lock as we came to it and came to a controlled stop with our gang-plank out in front of the boat, just a few inches from the closed lower gates. The upper sluices were then closed (apparently they were left open to insure a full lock) by cranking a windless on the river side of the lock. Then the gates were closed by a man using a long lever to turn a gear on each side of the lock that rotated a pinion (spur gear) that moved a rack (gear) that was attached to each gate half. The man had to walk around the pinion in a circle with his lever, stepping over the rack on each rotation. The two men then moved to the lower end of the lock where the lower sluices were opened. Regulations call for a boat to be tied off when locking up and down and a line was looped over one of the ladder rungs in the lock’s side wall, but the Captain kept the boat sort of centered between the gates with the paddle wheel rotation.
Once the boat was lowered to the lower level of the river, the gates were opened. The captain had to move the gang plank from side to side by moving his gang plank windless from side to side to give each gate room to swing. Once the gates were closed into the gate recesses, we started out into the river again – always advancing steadily upon Marietta.
Shortly after leaving Luke’s Chute Lock, our entertainment came on deck. They were a husband and wife team, Chuck and Judith Craig, of Folk Singers – the Valley Singers. They were very good and often humorous. They sang for much of the seven hour trip down river.
About an hour after we left Stockport, a vegetable and dip snack was served in the snack bar on the lower deck. Most of the passengers chose to bring their snack to the upper deck to eat under the awning. It was sunny and warm (later getting into the 90s), but it had been cool in the morning, with a nice breeze on the bow, so most of us stayed top-side much of the time.
We soon passed a large power plant on the right side of the river. The “BIG MUSKIE” (a huge drag line) used to strip coal on the opposite side of the river and the coal was carried to the power plant on a high conveyor. The conveyor bridge is still in place, but the giant drag line has been dismantled with only the bucket on display. The Captain told us that the power plant pumps a lot of heat into the river and it very seldom freezes over during the winter any more. That day, the temperature of the river water above the power plant was 70 degrees F, and 81 degrees F, below.
We soon came to the Beverly Canal. There was a flood gate at the entrance – just a structure with a single wooden gate that would be closed in times of high water to keep that high water out of the canal channel.
The right side of this channel (our left side going down) was found to be very shallow on the previous day’s trip. The Valley Gem had become stuck and it took awhile to get her off the bottom. We slowed down to just a ‘crawl’ and the water in the hull usually kept for ‘ballast’ was pumped out a bit to lighten our load. A stern wheeler can lower its stern toward the bottom if the wheel isn’t handled correctly, so we slowed down to about the speed of an old time Ohio Canal freight boat (1 ½ to 2 miles per hour). It was great to get a feeling for the movement of an actual canal boat. We actually touched bottom on occasion and I got some great video of the mud being churned up and carried toward our stern.
This canal was a little less than a mile long and it took us quite a time to get to the Beverly Lock, but we finally did and found our ‘Volunteer Lock Tenders’ waiting for us. I had wanted to get some shots of them closing the upper gates, but I missed it, as the bright sun sometimes made it difficult for me to read the ‘record’ light in the screen. Our ‘Volunteers’ did as good a job here as they had at Luke’s Chute and we were soon on our way, south.
I wandered about the boat taking video and had just come out of the ‘head’ when the captain announced that soup was being served in the snack bar, so I was second in line and took two bowels to the upper deck. Rosanne was ‘gone for soup’ I was informed by one of the other people who were sitting with us up there. So I ate my soup – chock full of vegetables, and then used my bowl to cover Rosanne’s and went to take more videos.
I found her on the lower deck eating soup with our table mates. I told her I had a bowl on the upper deck for her. Apparently she and our table mates had gotten in the wrong line and their soup was good, but all broth.
We spent a lot of the next hour on deck listening to the music and just enjoying the perfect weather, the slight drum of the engine, the strong rhythm of the paddle wheel, and the sight of the countryside slowly slipping past us.
During one of their breaks, I talked with the female half of the Valley Singers and asked her if she were familiar with the folk singer, Pearl Nye. Surprisingly, she wasn’t, though she had heard of Pearl’s Mentor back in the 30’s, Allen Lomax. She also said she would try to find some of Pearl’s Canal Songs.
Our afternoon meal was announced and we all went to our assigned tables on the lower deck. The meal was great – rolls and butter, green beans, chicken, pasta, scalloped potatoes, and a terrific Prime Rib. There was also pumpkin pie and two kinds of cheese cake for desert. The meal was catered by a butcher shop in Marietta. Rosanne got the name and address of the firm for the next time we go to Marietta.
Shortly after the meal was over, we came down onto the Lowell Canal. Again we slowed away down, but this canal wasn’t quite as shallow as the one at Beverly. We did pump ballast, but never seemed to scoop up much mud. There was a structure on the river bank at the head of this canal, but it seemed to be the abutment for an old road rather than for a flood gate. This canal was a bit longer than the Beverly Canal and it seemed to take a very long time to get to the lock. When we finally did, though, it was negotiated with the usual dexterity and grace. Then we were once again into the river and on our way toward Marietta.
We had been told on the bus coming down that there would be a ‘surprise’ for us in the afternoon. The ‘surprise’ turned out to be a good one – wine and cheese! There was also beer for those who didn’t care for wine and some fruit juices for those whose medications couldn’t be mixed with alcohol (hey, this was an ‘Old Folks’ Tour).
Later, when I was sitting with Rosanne at a table on the upper deck, the singers mentioned that I was interested in the canals of Ohio and they were going to sing one they had written several years before for the Roscoe Old Canal Days Celebration when they were singing there. They then sang a very nice song, about the canal, in general. I didn’t think to turn on the video camera until the song had already begun, but I got the last portion of it. It was a very good song.
We then came to Lock no 2, Devola Lock, the last one we would negotiate until we docked at Marietta. The lock was similar to Luke’s Chute in that there was no canal involved, just the lock in the dam. We had the same two locktenders for this lock also. They both worked the upper gates then walked down to the lower gates. One man was wearing a blue shirt and one a green one. The fellow in the blue shirt opened the sluice gate to drain the water in the lock, then they both had a bit of a discussion and the fellow wearing the green shirt walked off and the other man had to open both lower lock gates. That meant that the boat sat there with one lower gate open while the single locktender now, after opening the river side gate, walked back to the upper end of the lock, across the two closed upper gates, then back down the shore side of the lock to that gate and open it. Finally with both gates opened, we entered the river again.
Now we began seeing other craft – a few small, gas powered craft and three or four ‘sculls’ from a local high school. Then we got very close to our final docking spot and saw a multitude of smaller craft docked on both sides of the river and, just at the highway bridge before we reached the dock area an historic craft was anchored, the towboat W.P. Snyder Jr., built in 1918, which had worked the river until 1955. The W.P. Snyder Jr. is scheduled to go into dry dock soon which may signal its refurbishment and return to active service on the river.
On the other shore, just a bit south of the bridge, was the Claire E, a ‘Make Up” boat, sort of a tug that pushed other boats into proper position for loading. She was built in 1926. In 1966 she was purchased by Gene and Clare Fitch of Hebron Ohio and renamed after Clare. The craft was rebuilt in 1967 and Gene, with his wife, lived on the boat, traveling all over the country for more than 30 years. A local business man, Harley Noland, purchased the Cassie and converted her into a “Bed & Breakfast” about ten years ago. In 2003 the boat was sold to Dr. Roger Anderson who will keep her in Marietta as a Bed and Breakfast and cruise the Ohio River.
The Valley Gem powered under the bridge, went into a swooping “U” turn and slid up to her dock just south of the W.P. Snyder. Our buses were waiting for us higher up on shore next to the Ohio River Museum. We disembarked from the water craft and quickly boarded the two buses. I would liked to have spent a half hour or so at the River Museum, but I think everybody else was happy to be heading home, and I didn’t really object. In fact, when they handed out critique sheets on the trip I didn’t even mention that I thought we should have toured the museum.
As it was just 5:00, the traffic was heavy in Marietta and it took us some 15 to 20 minutes to go the five or six blocks through town (a couple of blocks past the Ohio River I might add), to get onto I-77. Then it was a straight shot north.
We handed in our name tags as we boarded the bus and our hostess picked out two of them for “door prizes”. It turned out that the two older gentlemen in the double seats across from Rosanne and I got the two door prizes. Of course, there was a lot of good natured “razzing” about two men sitting next to each other winning the prizes.
We stopped at a Rest Stop just across I-77 from the one we had stopped at on the way down. As we boarded the buses, we were offered our choice of soft drinks or water. Then, when we were on our way again, little packets of salted peanuts were handed out. Our hostess made an announcement about “the little happy face on your peanut bags”. I looked at my bag and asked her what about the little happy face on it? It seems that meant I had won the third door prize. Of course the three door prizes being won by three men sitting next to each other drew a lot of “talk”, especially, when it turned out that the door prizes had apparently been put together for women – holiday napkins, table candles, etc. Still, I had won!
About two and a half hours after leaving Marietta, we arrived at the St. Michael’s parking lot. So, our outing was over. It was a very, very good trip and one that, with the help of these notes and the 55 minute video tape I made, will stay in my memory for a very, very long time.
i I found out later that they were not “volunteers”, but employees of the State whose job was to “fit” each lock the VALLEY GEM came to on its journey from Stockport to Marietta. They drove ahead of us on our journey.