(SUSQUEHANNA LUMBER RAFTING 1831)
Superb content A.D. (unsigned), 7pp., ca. 3000 words, folio, [Wilkes-Barre?] Pennsylvania, 1831, a "Narrative of my rafting expedition with Th. Stevens in Spring 1831". This document relates in great detail a for-profit lumber rafting project, for the purposes of a legal dispute [Cushman v Stephens], so docketed on verso. As a consequence, this trip from Pennsylvania down to Port Deposit, Maryland contains excellent insights into river travel, commerce, and the lumber business, all at their height. In part: "...The quantity manufactured by him amounted to about 40,000 feet, just enough, he added, to make one good river raft...young men only, half horse, half alligator, are employed for this business, since it is unavoidable to wade knee deep in the water until several courses of boards are placed on the squares...these youngsters are of opinion that whiskey alone can enable them to go through this work...owing to the powerful suction of the Canowega Falls, he was driven in the wrong channel & lost not only part of the raft, but damaged the rest more or less...here at Marietta it was that St. engaged a man by the name of Elliot to serve as pilot to tide. This fellow pretended to a perfect knowledge of this, the most dangerous part of the River, but it soon appeared that he was an imposter...all hands declared they would not go on with them, their lives being in imminent danger...At Deposit we stopped about a fortnight before we made a sale. At last however a bargain was made with Boyar in the following manner: Boyar walked to the raft in order to examine the quality of the lumber & to ascertain the quantity by counting the Courses. This being done, he offered $13, we asking $16, and at last a bargain was struck at $14...the payment to be made in Baltimore..." . Logging along the Susquehanna and rafting the load down to Port Deposit in Maryland was a thriving industry by 1790. Before the advent of railroads and during a period when the Cumberland Gap was one of the few major roads with the Erie Canal netting New York a fortune, water travel reigned supreme as the cheapest, lightest, and most effective way to transport goods. The actual trip, from origin to destination, was entirely another adventure, as this document relates. Minor folds, else fine.