CAPTION: The proper approach to a town like Pittsburgh is from the river, according to Russell L. Barnes, who did just that. [Sunday, October 6, 1974,
The Pittsburgh Press] . ©1974 Russ Barnes, all rights reserved.
If someone had told me a couple of years ago that I would sail down the Mon River alone in a motorboat, from Point Marion to The Point in Pittsburgh, I would have told him he was crazy.
I hadn't had much experience with boats. But I found myself making the trip this summer.
I went through 10 locks and saw amazing things which I never knew existed in Western Pennsylvania.
The idea occurred to me when I was far away--doing work in a foreign country.
"I'm From Pittsburgh Area"
I was having lunch with an Oxford professor of political science I chanced to meet at a pub called The Trout Inn. We sat out on a stone patio overlooking a tributary stream of the Thames which flows through Oxford, England, toward London.
After a meal of smoked trout, potato salad, and a pint of beer, the Englishman asked me the routine question, "Which part of the States do you come from?"
When you say you're from Pittsburgh, the polite response usually is, "Oh, that's sort of an industrial area, isn't it?" delivered with a tone that implies, "Oh, you poor soul."
I especially dreaded the question that time because I had guests with me from another part of America who delighted in pointing out the (to them) hideous fact that I am from Western Pennsylvania.
Anyway, the inevitable came and I had to say to the Englishman, "I am from the Pittsburgh area." My guests put their tongues in their cheeks, waiting for the response they knew was coming.
But amazingly, it didn't. Instead, Michael, The Englishman, said, " I've visited Pittsburgh many times and I think it's one of the most dynamic areas of the world. I hope to get back to Western Pennsylvania very soon. What's new in Pittsburgh?"
I couldn't believe my ears.
'Hicks' In The West
Michael stood up and proposed a walk down the river to Oxford. "You can't really appreciate Oxford unless you approach it by river," he said. I was eager to find out what attracted this foreigner in Western Pennsylvania so I quickly agreed.
As we walked along the narrow, sluggish river, Michael told me that he had gone to America several years ago to do research in American politics.
He said he was determined to limit his study to Eastern Pennsylvania politics because, as everyone told him, that's where the action really is. Nothing much really happened to those hicks on the other side of the mountains.
But, as he sat in Harrisburg, he said, he kept hearing rumblings from over the mountains.
To his surprise, the Pittsburgh area was much more active and interesting than Eastern Pennsylvania. The wheeling and dealings had much more suspense.
Michael had talked to Mayor Pete Flaherty, the county commissioners, Sheriff Eugene Coon, the late district attorney Robert A. Duggan, and many more. Even more amazing, Michael said, "I visited this extraordinary place just south of Pittsburgh. In Fayette County, I believe it was."
"Uniontown!" I yelled with un-English enthusiasm, "that's my hometown. I was definitely beginning to like this guy.
"A lot of characters up there, I must say," Michael kept saying.
Banks Like Long Gardens
We were approaching a lock on the Thames. The English Rivers seen from the perspective of someone born and raised in the Pittsburgh area, look very anemic.
They are tiny and inconsequential compared to any of our three rivers. But the English take excellent care of the land around them and make the river banks virtually a long garden.
The lock we approached looked like a toy. The chamber was about 50 feet long and 20 feet wide. The hydraulic controls for letting the water in and out were operated by hand. This is quite different from the Monongahela River locks as I was to find out when later I made my 90-mile trip down river from Point Marion to Pittsburgh.
As we walked past a few more locks, the spires of Oxford got larger and more imposing. When we arrived in the city, I actually had a sense of pride that I had approached it from the river rather than from the road.
It was then I determined that, when I got back to America, I would approach Pittsburgh not by the road, but by the river that I had grown up around.
Back home, I met many obstacles and perils, but saw marvels.
I moped around for a couple of weeks. No boat. Then one day, a friend, Francis Palumbo, called and asked me to go to Fairmont, V. Va. to help him with his rent-a-car business for the day. I was delighted to say, yes, because Francis is the sort of fellow who seems to know just about everybody, and who would think a sail down the uncharted parts of the Amazon just an everyday activity.
Boat Trip to Pittsburgh
As we crossed a bridge over the Tygart River in Fairmont, the headwaters of the Monongahela River, I said to Francis, "You know what I'd like to do? I'd like to take a boat trip down the Mon River into Pittsburgh."
"Oh yeah," said Francis, as if I had just suggested that I wanted to stop for a coffee break.
"But I don't have a boat," I said. "Do you know anyone who could loan me a boat for about a week.
"Oh Yeah," said Francis. "Tom Montel. He's got one. I'll work on him for ya."
A couple of days later I was in Tom's garage looking at his boat. It hadn't been run for a couple of years, and Tom was thankful to have someone get it back in the water.
He said, "You get a boat trailer and I'll help you shove it on. When do you think you can get one?"
Tomorrow at noon," I said rashly. I had no idea where to get a boat trailer, but I was ready to go.
"I'll be ready at noon, too, Tom said.
The next day, I drove to Point Marion, a pleasant little town on a triangle formed by the confluence of the Monongahela and Cheat rivers. Ninety miles up river from Pittsburgh just on the Pennsylvania side of the border between West Virginia and Pennsylvania, Point Marion is a town almost at the foot of the Allegheny Mountains with an excellent restaurant, a few old glass factories and Scott Boat Sales.
I'm Ready to Go
I went in and talked to the owner. I was talking fast, but he was reluctant to rent the trailer. But I must have looked desperate because Scott agreed to send a man to Uniontown to pick up the boat.
The boat was launched. My heart leapt. "I'm going to do it!" I thought. "Nothing can stop me now. I going to approach Pittsburgh by the river."
I had never driven a motor boat in my life. So I spent the rest of the day cruising carefully around Point Marion, teaching myself how to handle the boat.
That night I packed the things I thought I would need into a duffle bag. These included: two changes of clothes (one good change for when I landed in Pittsburgh), a 75-foot length of rope for getting through the locks, a knife, a Three Rivers Boating Guide (which contains information on locks, the elements of river piloting, and a series of river charts for the three rivers), a guide put out by the U.S. Corps of Engineers called "Locking through," an aerosol blast horn, and a windbreaker.
I also took a gallon can of emergency gas (which came in handy) and an ice chest well-stocked with beer.
The one thing I didn't pack was a pair of binoculars. I found that could have used them to see the lock signal lights on hazy days. Anyway, I was as prepared for my pilgrimage as I was ever going to be and I was ready to go.
Leaving Point Marion
I knew that experienced boaters can make the trip from Point Marion in one day. Given my inexperience, and desire to see as many things along the way as possible, I decided to try it in two, staying overnight in a hotel somewhere. As it turned out, the journey took three days.
On Wednesday, July 17, about 11 a.m., I pointed the bow of the boat down river and opened her up. Five minutes later the engine stalled.
I could see an empty barge, The Ireland, steaming toward me; so I quickly rowed to the right bank and tried to get the engine working. I was finally able to chug unevenly back up river to Scott's
Luckily, a mechanic named Raymond Golf diagnosed the problem. He was friendly and, as he worked on the boat, he told me that he had worked at the Houze Glass Factory which can be seen from the river at Point Marion.
These small, old glass factories were excellent, he said, but were struggling because of competition from factories using mass production techniques. The owner of Houze Glass was a Mr. Houze who had immigrated to Point Marion from Belgium.
Golf talked as he worked. At one point, he raised his head from the engine, held out his right hand, rubbed his thumbs gently over the tips of his fingers and said, "Those fellows had to have the feel right here to be able to make glass the way they did. When they die, the feel will die with them."
"Hmm," I thought, "That's it. I want to get the same kind of feel for the river."
Scared At Lock
I left Point Marion again about 4 p.m. I passed Maiden Mine Tipple and at 4:20 approached Lock 7, the first of my journey.
I was really frightened because the only locks I had ever seen before were the toy-like ones on English rivers.
This lock was huge. It looked as if it was doing serious business. It had a chamber 360 X 56 feet and would drop my boat 15 feet below were I was then sitting.
Over a million gallons of water would be drained from the chamber when the drain was released.
The Tom G. was first in line waiting with an enormous load of coal. I cruised over and called up to ask a deckhand when they were locking through, He said about 45 minutes. Then it took the Tom G. about 45 minutes to lock through--herself.
It was a pleasant wait, though. The banks just below Point Marion are high, tree-covered cliffs I saw a snake swim from the left bank to the right bank. I'm sure it didn't matter much to it that it had just traveled from Greene to Fayette County.
Advice From A Lockman
When the Tom G. was through, I cruised up to the entrance and gave one long and one short blast on my horn, the signal to request entry to the lock. Its light flashed red, After the lock filled up again, it flashed amber and I approached closer.
CAPTION:
From the water, the Mon's locks look awesome.
Lockmasters can be worse
Then the enormous doors of the lock began to open at the center revealing the inside chamber. The light flashed green and there was a single, long whistle blast. I idled into the swirling waters of the lock.
I think I must have made the day for the lockmen on duty at Lock 7. They laughed at my attempts as if they were watching a road runner cartoon. My knees were shaking as I approached a lockman along the wall. I told him, "This
[Cont'd on Page 10. This Section]
is the first time I have ever gone though a lock. How am I supposed to do this?"
"Oh no," he said, "Your line isn't ready." I had taken great pains to coil my line, but it was an inferior one and took a special technique to keep neat. One lockman asked me, "Were you in the Coast Guard?" I was sure that his question had to be some sort of insult both to me and the Coast Guard. But since I was scared and busy, I could only come up with a very serious, "No."
"Well," said the lockman, "I sure could tell you weren't in the Navy."
The lockman took the middle of my line, slipped it around a post. I was directed to tie one end to a cleat on the stern, hold the other end tight, and let it out as the boat sank in the lock in order to keep the boat fast to the wall. Otherwise, it would swirl round and round in the water and smash against the walls.
A 'Feel' For The Mon
The water began to swirl and I noticed that, as the lockmen gave instructions and called out genial witticisms about my incompetence, they began to get smaller and smaller till I could hardly hear them. The waters were sinking.
My line was finally thrown down to me and the doors on the other side of the lock slowly opened from the center.
The Vesta sat waiting to come in. As I idled out of the lock, one lockman pointed at the Vesta and scolded, "There's $1 million worth of freight being held up for you." He smiled. I didn't.
I was serious about piloting my boat in the swirling waters. That evening, however, I had time to laugh and think of the perfect retort for him. "Well, this boat is carrying $1 million worth of moxie."
At 6:20 p.m., I sailed past the Vesta and into the new waters.
It was almost like a new river: wider, less rural. I cruised past the new power plant at Masontown and 20 miles down river to Ten Mile Creek.
Just past Ten Mile Creek at Fredericktown, I saw a sign on the left bank which said, "Bartoletti's Hotel." I docked and tied up there at about 8 p.m.
I had just begun to get a "feel" for the river.
The Haunted River
The Bartoletti Hotel is a pleasant, clean place, and provides essentials. I was able to get a room with a good bed and TV (bathroom down the hall) for $10. I bathed and went downstairs to find a neighborhood bar and a dining room serving good Italian food. (The pasta was home-made.) After, I walked down to Bartoletti's dock.
At night the water seemed much more still. In the moonlight I could see the curved outline of the river and the green, red, and white lights marking the commercial dock on the opposite bank.
I couldn't see the water clearly, but I felt its presence everywhere. I got the strange feeling that the water was waiting for something.
Monongahela is an Indian word which apparently means, "Banks that cave in."
According to Bill Johnson, an anthropologist at the University of Pittsburgh and director of the Cambell archeological dig near Brownsville, a tribe of Indians, now called the Monongahela people, lived on the banks of the Mon.
They were wiped out less than a century before the white man came to the region.
Johnson told me that they could have been killed off by another tribe or by the white man's disease which spread west before the white man did.
They were a very tall people, and many of the men were over 7 feet tall. Even the women were over 6 feet tall. But we have no record of them except for archeological remains
I got ready for bed and at 12:55 a.m. I heard two long blasts, and three short blasts from the fog horn of a barge. That's the signal for danger. The first day of my pilgrimage was over.
[TOMORROW: Lunch In Charleroi raises difficulties.]
Go to Russ Barnes Biography
Go to Steamboats.com for much more on American river lore, culture, and interesting information about steamboats including the Delta Queen.
