Susquehanna NHA Haunted Heritage Bucket List

Explore our heritage area and immerse yourself in seasonal adventures with Susquehanna NHA’s Haunted Heritage Bucket List! From heart-pounding excitement to delightful family outings, there is truly something for everyone to enjoy. Visitors of all ages can experience the thrill of the season as they navigate through 13 tasks that celebrate the season at local businesses, events, and landmarks!

Fall is the perfect time to embrace a little spookiness. Get ready for frightfully fun experiences full of folklore, legends, haunted heritage, and spooky adventures.
 

If spooky season isn’t for you, choose from harvest-themed activities throughout our heritage area. Get outside for an autumn foliage hike, experience fall on the farm traditions, take the family apple and pumpkin picking, or enjoy the tastes of the season!
 

The Susquehanna NHA Haunted Heritage Bucket List is active from September 1, 2024, through November 30, 2024. Complete at least five items to receive a uniquely-designed Susquehanna National Heritage Area sticker! Share your Bucket List experience by snapping photos and posting them to social media. Be sure to tag @SusqNHA in your post. Download your Bucket List to get started! Pick up a paper copy at Columbia Crossing River Trails Center, 41 Walnut Street, Columbia, PA or Zimmerman Center for Heritage, 1706 Long Level Road, Wrightsville, PA. 

 

Susquehanna NHA’s Haunted Heritage map is great for those who want to learn more about things that go bump in the night in the Susquehanna National Heritage Area!

RIVERFEST
June 28, 29 & 30

Head to the Susquehanna for Riverfest on June 28-30, 2024! Susquehanna National Heritage Area (NHA) and Rivertownes PA, USA have partnered to commemorate the Civil War burning of the world’s longest covered bridge. In June 1863, Confederate forces marched into Pennsylvania and spread across south central counties, raiding, and sacking small towns. Columbia and Wrightsville joined together to protect Lancaster from the same fate. After a short battle, outnumbered Union troops and local volunteers set the wooden covered bridge that crossed the Susquehanna River ablaze. This act stopped the Confederates cold. They retreated west to a location in Adams County and, just two days later, that Army battled Union forces in the Battle of Gettysburg.

Conquer the Bridge Burner Challenge Run & Paddle Race, a multi-sport race tracing the paths of the 1863 bridge burners. Riverfest is a weekend-long celebration of our river towns’ heritage and recreation. Susquehanna NHA, Rivertownes PA USA, and our heritage partners have created a range of experiences that tell the amazing stories of our past. Learn about the burning of the bridge story through several different heritage walks, talks, and trolley tours! Thanks to our heritage partners. Check out all the recreational trails that meander through our historic industrial landscape at the River Expo. Looking to discover on your own? Discover self-guided adventure options from Columbia Crossing River Trails Center. There are over 100 miles of trails, 10 scenic overlooks, and over 2 dozen heritage sites in the Susquehanna National Heritage Area.

SNHA invites our community members to get involved with Riverfest now! Athletes are welcome to rise to the challenge and sign up for the Bridge Burner Challenge today. Racers receive a finishers medal and t-shirt to show off their win! Save big on race fee with early race registration before May 1, 2024. Race registration is available online. Volunteers are welcome to join us to help racers and provide other event support. Get involved in Riverfest Weekend! Visit riverfestpa.com to sign up to be a part of Riverfest Weekend.

There’s still an opportunity for our local businesses to be involved through sponsorship of this event. Sponsors have special access to event experiences and support all our heritage partners. Check out sponsor information below. Show your support for the amazing history of our river region!

Questions or press inquiries: Megan Salvatore 717-449-5607, msalvatore@susqnha.org

Susquehanna NHA Holiday Bucket List

Get ready for snow filled backgrounds, cozy nights inside, cold weather hikes, and more with SNHA’s Holiday Bucket List! whether you are a local resident or holiday visitor, we are inviting you to come explore Susquehanna National Heritage Area’s winter activities. With 25 ways to celebrate the holidays at local businesses, events, and landmarks, there is something fun for everyone!

Experience our winter wonderland with the Holiday Bucket List this holiday season. Conquer the cold! Let’s make it an outdoor holiday. Imagine taking in the beautiful winter landscape as you frolic and play all winter long on trails in the Susquehanna Riverlands! Go dashing through the snow at one of our local nature preserves!

If the cold weather isn’t for you, the holidays are a perfect opportunity to curl up in your favorite chair next to the fire and go on a literary journey of the Susquehanna River corridor.

East, drink and be merry! This festive period is a time for catching up with family and friends.  Enjoy your time off strolling through the Rivertowns and taking in the twinkling light displays with your loved ones.

 

The Susquehanna NHA Holiday Bucket list is active from November 1, 2023, through January 31, 2024. Complete at least five items to receive a uniquely designed Susquehanna National Heritage Area sticker!  Share your bucket list experience by snapping photos, posting them to social media, be sure to tag @SusqNHA in your post. Use the digital version. Download your Bucket List and get started! Pick up a paper copy at Columbia Crossing River Trails Center, 41 Walnut Street, Columbia, PA or Zimmerman Center for Heritage, 1706 Long Level Road, Wrightsville, PA.

 

Thank you Sticker Mule for making great weatherproof stickers!

 

 

 

  Happy Holidays from your friends at Susquehanna NHA!

RiverRoots: Stories of the Conestoga River

River Roots is Susquehanna NHA’s blog series featuring history from York and Lancaster Counties that showcases the Susquehanna River’s historic, cultural, and natural resource contributions to our nation’s heritage.

Susquehanna NHA is pleased to introduce guest blog writer, photographer and author of The Conestoga River: A History, Donald Kautz. This is the fourth and final blog post in a four-part series on the Conestoga River by Mr. Kautz.

RiverRoots Heritage Blog

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Lancaster’s Historic Waterway

This is the fourth and final article in the series covering a brief history of the Conestoga River. The first article described the conditions prior to European settlement. The second article covered the colonial period and the importance of the river for transportation. The third article covered the Victorian era and described how the river served the conflicting services of recreation and waste disposal. In this article we will look at the impacts of that use (or misuse) of the river’s resources and what is being done to mitigate those impacts.

Sewage Treatment

As we moved into the 20^th century, raw sewage was a major problem. Sewage entered the river at various points along the river, especially near the city of Lancaster. Lancaster City, like many older cities, has a combined sewer system where storm runoff and household sewage are mixed in the same system. This water was all returned to the river in three main sewer outfalls and two smaller ones. The dam at Levan’s Mill, about a mile below the city, prevented the sewage from flowing out of the city area.

Between Water Street and Levan’s Mill on low flow days, the river water contained about one-fifth raw sewage. The bottom of the stream was covered with a heavy deposit of sewage sludge. The river would be covered in foam on wash days. It was claimed that the area below the Rock Hill dam smelled like dirty wash water one hundred yards away from the river.

In the early twentieth century, pleas began to be heard to clean up the river. In 1906, the commissioner of health decreed that a dam be built below the intake of the city water works to prevent contaminated water from backing up into the water supply. WW1 intervened and no action was performed during the war years.

On January 3, 1920, an article in the Lancaster New Era, stated, “The stream with its possibilities for beauty, pleasure, usefulness, and healthfulness is now relatively unused, largely by reason of the discharge of the city’s raw sewage into it. Proper sewage treatment is urgently needed to remedy the present situation and is the first step toward making Conestoga Creek a valuable asset to the community.” The city put forward a plan to sell bonds in the amount of $825,000, approximately half of which was designated to build a sewage disposal system. The city held a special election on the referendum in May. The measure was voted down by a margin of three to one.

During the next decade and a half, there were many pleas and arguments on the urgent need for a solution to the city’s sewage problem. The February 1931 bulletin of the Lancaster Chamber included the headline, “What Shall It Be—Scenic Beauty or Open Sewer?”

Finally, in October 1932, plans for two sewage plants were presented to city council. The North Plant would be built on the Ranck farm east of the city and the South Plant on the site of the old power plant at Engleside. The North Plant began operating at the end of 1934, while the South Plant began operations in early 1935. At last, a major source of pollution in the river was mitigated.

Today, the system has the capacity to fully process the sewage load during normal water flow. But owing to the nature of Lancaster’s combined sewer system, the plants can become overwhelmed during periods of heavy rain, at which times raw sewage would still make its way into the river.

Dr. Ruth Patrick

In 1948, a team of scientists from the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, headed by botanist Dr. Ruth Patrick, spent the summer wading the Conestoga and its tributaries studying the plants, fish and exceptionally beautiful microscopic creatures with glass-like coatings called diatoms living in the river. Dr. Patrick developed the principle that the best way to determine the effects of man-made pollution in a stream was to study the organisms living in and near the water. The types of diatoms present in the water will identify the type of pollutants that are present. Dr. Patrick’s approach was to employ a team of scientists with expertise in various disciplines in biology, chemistry, and physics. She chose the Conestoga because it suffered from a variety of pollutants including sewage, fertilizer, and toxic substances from industry. Dr. Patrick invented a device called the “diatometer”, a plastic box containing microscope slides that could be placed in the water to collect algae samples. Her survey of the Conestoga was the first comprehensive water quality monitoring effort in North America. In 1949, she published a paper titled “A Proposed Biological Measure of Stream Conditions, Based on a Survey of the Conestoga Basin, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.”

Earl Rebman

Lancaster retailer, Earl F. Rebman, served as president of the Lancaster Salvage Committee during World War II and later became president of the Lancaster Chamber of Commerce. During a public meeting in Lancaster in 1946, Rebman proposed the concept of a public boulevard along the Conestoga with parks, open space, and a convention hall as a “veterans of all wars memorial”. Ira Landis, who owned the old Conestoga Park tract, offered that riverfront property to the city at no cost as a seed to start the Conestoga Boulevard project. Unfortunately, the city did not accept Landis’ generous offer and the property was sold to private developers.

Ten years later, at a meeting of the Millersville Men’s Club, Rebman again pitched the idea of the Conestoga Boulevard and asked if the club would support an association to begin work on such a project. The club approved the idea and on April 12, 1956, the Conestoga Valley Association (CVA) was formed. The CVA planned to build a scenic boulevard along the Conestoga from Brownstown to Safe Harbor. The CVA also planned to eliminate stream pollution, reduce soil erosion along the banks, restore fish and wildlife, preserve historical buildings, and provide recreational areas of great natural beauty.

On June 15, 1958, the CVA dedicated two recreational areas for public use along the Conestoga. The first was located at the confluence of the Little Conestoga Creek and the Conestoga River, and the second area was near Safe Harbor. The CVA was also instrumental in many other projects in the Conestoga watershed. The restoration of President James Buchanan’s tomb, Rock Ford, the Andrew Ellicott House, the Hans Herr House, markers for the Martin Meylin Gun shop and one for Robert Fulton were all projects made possible by the association. So far, the Conestoga Boulevard remains an illusive concept, however efforts to reserve the riverfront for public use continue. For example, the Conestoga Greenway trail opened in 1999 to provide a walking trail along the river on the south side of the city.

Trash and Runoff

All throughout history, people have viewed the river as a place to dispose of trash and unwanted items. The river is assumed to be an endless flow of water that washes away anything that is thrown or dumped into it. The local scuba clubs know that the best places to look for artifacts in the riverbed are under bridges and at the sites of old bridges. People had the habit of disposing of things by throwing them off the bridge as they traveled across. It is not wise to wade the Conestoga in bare feet because in some areas, the bottom is littered with broken glass.

Even today, people will dump piles of trash or building supplies on the banks of the river under the assumption that they will eventually get washed away. One of the most common items seen today in and along the river are tires. Tires do not float, and they do not degrade; they just sit there stuck in the mud, causing a hazard and an eyesore. While dumping is a serious problem, not all the trash found in the river was deliberately dumped there. Much of it comes from littering or garbage spillage on the land that is later swept into the river by runoff.

The Conestoga River Club

The Conestoga River Club formed in 2021 as a nonprofit dedicated to education, conservation and improvement, including litter cleanups, restoration work with volunteers, more river access and better launch and take-out points. Todd Roy is the club’s founder and president. The club seeks to foster a connection with the river by providing public access for fishing and boating and organizing frequent opportunities for the public to become involved in river cleanup events. To date, volunteers have collected almost three tons of trash in and along the Conestoga. The club’s website is at https://conestogariverclub.org/

Conclusion

I hope you have enjoyed this trek through the history of the Conestoga River. What will happen next has not been written yet. The decisions and actions we take today will affect the stories that follow. It is good to look at the past to understand how we got to where we are today and to, hopefully, learn from mistakes that were made in the past. We do not want to be too critical of the people who came before us. They were acting on the knowledge and goals that they had at the time. But we can look at our current practices with a critical eye to ensure that we are making the best use of the resources that we have and with an eye to the future so that our children and grandchildren will be able to enjoy these resources in the same or, perhaps, better condition than we inherited them.

“Not Turner’s noted crook of Lune,

Nor Byron’s wide and winding Rhine,

Nor Burns’ banks of Bonny Doon

Nor boasted Tweed, nor lauded Tyne,

Not Delaware nor Brandywine,

Nor Spey, nor Tay, nor Don nor Dee,

Nor Shakespeare’s Avon, still more

fine.

E’er seemed so beautiful to me—

As tranquil Conestoga!”

-James D Law

If you would like a copy of my book, you may order one on my website at www.donaldkautz.com.

Meet the Guest Writer Donald Kautz

I grew up and still live among the beautiful farmland and rolling hills of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. I have been interested in photography my entire life (starting with a Kodak Brownie box camera) but have gotten more serious with the hobby after my three children have become adults. I am a retired software engineer which probably explains why I enjoy the technical aspects of digital photography post processing as much as capturing the images in the first place. I enjoy landscape photography and love to photograph scenes around Lancaster County, focusing on the Conestoga River and the remaining water-powered grist mills that may still be found around the county. I am interested in the history of Lancaster County and have written a book about the Conestoga River.

RiverRoots: Stories of the Conestoga River

River Roots is Susquehanna NHA’s blog series featuring history from York and Lancaster Counties that showcases the Susquehanna River’s historic, cultural, and natural resource contributions to our nation’s heritage.

Susquehanna NHA is pleased to introduce guest blog writer, photographer and author of The Conestoga River: A History, Donald Kautz. This is the third blog post in a four part series on the Conestoga River by Mr. Kautz.

RiverRoots Heritage Blog

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Lancaster’s Historic Waterway

This is the third article in the series in which we are taking a journey through time on the historic waters of the Conestoga River. In the first article, I covered the conditions of the Conestoga prior to European settlement. We looked at how the Conestoga watershed looked very different than it does today. The second article covered the colonial settlement era. We saw how the river provided transportation for commercial endeavors from the fur trade to the slack-water canal.

In this installment, we will cover the Victorian era. During this time, the river ceased being a means of transportation, but recreation became the primary focus. And, as the population grew, the urban areas depended on the river as a source of water and as a means for waste disposal.

Ice

Ever since colonial times, the river was a source of ice for the city and surrounding area. In the winter, when the river was frozen, men would cut the ice into large blocks using iron saws made for the purpose. The ice blocks were stored in icehouses that lined the riverbank. These houses could be as much as three stories tall and were packed with ice from floor to ceiling. The ice blocks were covered in straw and sawdust to prevent melting. Throughout the year, but especially during the summer months, the ice man would make his way through the back alleys with his horse-drawn cart bringing ice to the people who had iceboxes in their homes. Sometimes the boxes were built into the wall with an outside opening so the ice man could refill the box without needing to enter the home. In other cases, the delivery man had to enter the kitchen with a block of ice in his tongs to be placed into the family’s icebox. When manufactured ice became available in 1895, the need to harvest ice from the river declined. Household refrigeration started to become available in 1925. Today, we simply need to push a button on the front of our refrigerator door to fill our cup with crushed ice.

Bringing Water to Lancaster City

For the first one hundred plus years after the founding of the town of Lancaster, its inhabitants had to rely on wells, pumps and springs for their water supply. But as the city grew, these became inadequate to serve the population. As early as 1789, General Hand, who was serving as burgess at the time, lamented about the millions of gallons of water going to “waste” in the Conestoga River every year. But the prospect of bringing water from the river up to the town was considered an impossibility at that time.

Thirty-six years later, the state legislature authorized the formation of the Lancaster Water Company and granted the company to sell stock. Not much happened until 1831 when the legislature also granted the city the right to levy taxes to support the water works. The city hired engineer W.B. Mitchell to survey the possible options, and finally in 1836, the city built its first water plant. The plant was located at the site of an existing grist mill and dam southeast of the city at the lower end of City Mill Road. A water wheel powered a series of pumps that carried water from the river up to a newly built reservoir on King Street next to the county jail. On Washington’s birthday, February 21, 1837, operations began, and water from the Conestoga began to flow through water plugs in the city. Wastewater returned through various conduits back into the Conestoga, including any materials that were added to the mix in the process.

The abundance of water inspired some of the more well-to-do citizens to install bathtubs in their homes. The first to do so was Jacob Demuth, who installed a tub in 1839. Soon after, there were found to be eight more tubs in city homes. At this, the city council assessed a bathtub tax of three dollars annually. Nine out of ten doctors of that time were unconvinced that such frequent bathing was healthy. The tenth doctor, Dr. John Light Atlee, begged to differ, and installed a tub in his home in 1849. Even though the cholera outbreaks of 1832 and 1854 were blamed on “misty clouds of putrefying organic matter decaying along the streams and canals,” Dr. Atlee believed the disease might be caused by some tiny organisms he could see in his microscope. He was proven correct thirty years later when germ theory became better understood.

In 1888, the old water plant at the city mill was replaced with a new pumping station along the Conestoga River near the railroad bridge on Grofftown Road. Two large steam pumps operated with a daily capacity of eleven million gallons. These were placed on a reserve basis in 1929, when eight electrically driven and three gasoline-powered pumps were installed. The current water-treatment plant located along the Susquehanna River in Columbia was constructed in the 1950s. The Grofftown Road plant was removed in 1976. A small reserve pumping station is located across the river next to Conestoga Pines Park.

Recreation

Following the Civil War into the beginning of the twentieth century, various kinds of recreation became popular. Lancaster City had parks on both sides of the city, Wabank, Gable’s Woods, and Maple Grove on the West side, and Conestoga Park, Williamson Park, Rocky Springs and Peoples’ Bathing Resort on the East.

In 1854, a group of investors from Lancaster purchased two tracts of land at lock #3 of the Conestoga Navigation Company, which included an old tavern, several mills and a miller’s house and approximately sixteen acres of land. They replaced the old tavern with a grand hotel that they named “The Wabank House”. The house measured 105 feet long and 45 feet wide and had four stories and an attic. It boasted one hundred rooms and a dining room that could seat three hundred persons. Forty “colored” waiters were employed to serve the many guests. The entire structure was surrounded with wide verandas on the first, second and third floors.

In spite of its great popularity among the Lancaster elite, the hotel was not profitable. The mill and other properties not related to the hotel were sold to the miller Daniel Overholtzer in 1855. The board listed the hotel property for sale in 1857, but there were no takers. The company went into foreclosure, and the hotel came into the possession of Mr. Overholtzer. Overholtzer sold the hotel building to Samuel Lichtenthaler of Lititz in 1863. Lichtenthaler was the owner of the Lititz Springs Hotel. He disassembled the Wabank House and transported it to Lititz. It took one hundred four-horse wagonloads to transport it. Lichtenthaler reconstructed the hotel on the square of Lititz adjacent to the Lititz Springs Hotel. The two buildings were connected by a corridor and were together known as the Lititz Springs Hotel. The new addition opened on July 4, 1864. The hotel operated at that location for a decade until it was destroyed by fire on July 31, 1873.

Not far from Wabank, on a hill above the Conestoga sat the hotel at Gable’s Woods Park. Built by Jacob Gable sometime in the late 19^th century, the park was a popular picnic spot into the early 20^th century. The old hotel was torn down in the 1970s. Aaron Summy opened West End Park on the Little Conestoga in 1899. The park earned the name “Maple Grove” because of the many Maple Trees on the property. In 1912, Ralph Coho converted the park into an amusement park including a roller rink,  a dance hall, a roller coaster, and a large swimming pool. The amusement park closed in the early 20^th century.

Conestoga Park was located on the west side of the river just below Witmer’s Bridge. In 1890, David Burkholder laid out a driveway along the Conestoga that was called the Conestoga Boulevard. The boulevard was a mile and a third in length and was designed for driving horses and carriages for pleasure rides. Racing and bicycles were prohibited. The park included a boat house along the riverbank and a large theatre at the top of the hill that was the site of many performances. Trolleys operated by the Pennsylvania Traction Company, as it was called at that time, provided transportation from the city to a loading platform near the theatre. The park was popular for picnics, and rowboats were available for boating on the Conestoga. Regattas were held regularly, for which boat owners would decorate their crafts and thousands of people lined both sides of the riverbank cheering for their favorite.

Rocky Springs began as a hotel in 1855. Samuel Demuth purchased the estate in 1882 and enlarged the park. Demuth Park became a popular picnicking destination.  John B. Peoples leased the park in 1890 and added various amusements including bath houses and a sandy beach.

In 1896, Peoples built his own resort across the river from Rocky Springs. Peoples Bathing Resort was a popular facility for swimming and boating. A large water slide located at the northern end of the park provided thrills for the more adventurous. The resort included a skating rink that was alleged to be the largest in the county. A miniature electric railway provided transportation between the resort and Conestoga Park.

Meanwhile, Rocky Springs came under new ownership and Herman Griffiths and Emma Wiener were installed as the managers. Griffiths and Wiener added a steam merry-go-round and a dance pavilion. They also built a theatre and a roller rink. The Jack Rabbit roller coaster was built in 1918 and a large swimming pool added in 1921. The park installed the famous Rocky Springs Dentzel carousel in 1924. The Wildcat roller coaster replaced the Jack Rabbit in 1928. The Conestoga Traction Company operated trolley service to the park on a two-line track that ran from the city down through the Sunnyside Peninsula.

Steamboats on the Conestoga

At the entrance to Conestoga Park, just below Witmer’s bridge were the riverboat landings for three paddlewheel steamboats. Rocky Springs operated the Emma Belle and the Evelyn B. The Emma Belle and Evelyn B. each sported a 50 HP steam engine powering stern paddle wheels. John Peoples owned and operated the Lady Gay. The Lady Gay had a 20HP engine. The three steamboats operated on the approximately one and a half mile stretch between Witmer’s Bridge and the City Mill dam just below Peoples’ Park. In fact, it was the City Mill dam that raised the water level high enough for the boats to navigate safely.

A roundtrip ticket from Conestoga Park to Rocky Springs on the Emma Belle or Evelyn B was 10 cents. Mr. Peoples charged only 5 cents on the Lady Gay for a round trip to his park and provided a free shuttle ride across the river to Rocky Springs. The proprietor of Rocky Springs sued Peoples claiming he was using the Rocky Springs dock without permission. The court ruled that since the dock was floating in the river, it was public property.

The Evelyn B. was destroyed in a flood in 1902. The Emma Belle was put into dry dock soon after. Peoples Resort had to close because raw sewage was making the river unfit for bathing. The Lady Gay made her last voyage in 1915.

Electric Power Generation

In 1897, the newly formed Lancaster Electric, Heat & Power Company purchased the water rights at the Wabank, Slackwater, and Rock Hill dams. These dams had previously served as locks for the Conestoga Navigation Company. The Wabank plant supplied electricity for Lancaster and Pequea Townships. Electricity generated at the Slackwater plant was transmitted to Engleside to provide power to Lancaster City. The Rock Hill plant provided power for Manor and Conestoga Townships. Electrical generation on the Conestoga River continued for about forty years, closing in 1946.

From the first European settlers until the first part of the twentieth century, the prevailing philosophy was to harness the rivers and other natural resources to produce profit and prosperity to the growing population. But after World War II, it became apparent that this philosophy was causing irreparable damage to those natural resources. In the next, and last, installment in this series of articles, we will look at those impacts and what is being done to mitigate them along Lancaster’s Historic Waterway.

The next article in this series will delve into 20th Century Struggles and 21st Century Dreams of the Conestoga River. If you would like a copy of my book, you may order one on my website at www.donaldkautz.com.

Meet the Guest Writer Donald Kautz

I grew up and still live among the beautiful farmland and rolling hills of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. I have been interested in photography my entire life (starting with a Kodak Brownie box camera) but have gotten more serious with the hobby after my three children have become adults. I am a retired software engineer which probably explains why I enjoy the technical aspects of digital photography post processing as much as capturing the images in the first place. I enjoy landscape photography and love to photograph scenes around Lancaster County, focusing on the Conestoga River and the remaining water-powered grist mills that may still be found around the county. I am interested in the history of Lancaster County and have written a book about the Conestoga River.

RiverRoots: Stories of the Conestoga River

River Roots is Susquehanna NHA’s blog series featuring history from York and Lancaster Counties that showcases the Susquehanna River’s historic, cultural, and natural resource contributions to our nation’s heritage.

Susquehanna NHA is pleased to introduce guest blog writer, photographer and author of The Conestoga River: A History, Donald Kautz. This is the second blog post in a four part series on the Conestoga River by Mr. Kautz.

RiverRoots Heritage Blog

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Lancaster’s Historic Waterway

This is the second article in the series in which we are taking a journey through time on the historic waters of the Conestoga River. In the first article, I covered the conditions of the Conestoga prior to European settlement. We looked at how the Conestoga watershed looked very different than it does today. And we looked briefly at some of the early inhabitants of the area and how the river provided their sustenance.

In this installment, we will cover the colonial settlement era. We will look at how those settlers utilized the resources of the river for their sustenance and how farming and industry developed along the waterway, providing great prosperity to its new inhabitants.

Fur Trade

During the seventeenth century continuing into the eighteenth, the fur trade was big business among the Swedish, Dutch, French, and English traders. Many people wanted to get in on the action. There was intense competition between the governors of New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, each wanting to keep their ports busy.

The fur traders were an adventurous lot, rugged outdoorsmen who spent half their time bartering with the Natives in the wilderness and the other half bartering with the European settlers who wanted their goods. In many cases, the first white people with whom the natives came into close contact were the fur traders. The natives’ impression of white people was often formed by these encounters, for better or worse. During their work, the traders often learned the native languages and, in some cases, married native women. This made the traders valuable as interpreters when the colonial governments needed to hold conferences with the native tribes.

Two of these early traders who set up shop along the Conestoga were the Quaker Brothers, Edmund and John Cartlidge. Their trading post was at the mouth of the Conestoga, near the Susquehanna. The brothers got into some trouble in 1722 when they murdered a Seneca Indian. They were arrested and jailed in Philadelphia until they were eventually released at the urging of the Iroquois leadership.

Some other prominent fur traders in the area were Martin Chartier, who had a trading post at the mouth of the Pequea Creek and Ann Letort with her son James. Anne’s name is preserved in the village of Letort in Manor Township. Another famous French trader was Peter Bezaillion. Peter and his brother Richard operated a trading post near the mouth of the Conoy creek in 1721. He built a wagon road from this trading post on the Susquehanna to his headquarters in Compass. This road, called “Peter’s Road”, formed the northern boundaries of Manheim and Upper Leacock Townships. The road forded the Conestoga at the point where those two townships meet, just below the conjunction with the Cocalico Creek.

The Indians supplied the traders with animal pelts of various kinds, deer pelts for leather, and the furred animals like mink, otter, and the highly coveted beaver. In exchange for these items, the traders provided articles like glass beads, small brass bells on chains, copper kettles, finger rings, clay tobacco pipes, tobacco boxes, vermillion, iron hatchets and hoes, knives, fishhooks, pewter spoons, thimbles, mirrors, sheet copper for making arrow tips. Some of the more expensive items were flintlock rifles, bullet molds and lead, clothing known as “match coats”, the heavy cloth called “duffel”, and, of course, Jamaican rum.

These goods were carried over paths formed from a combination of water and overland trails. One such trail was the “Conestoga Path” that ran from the Susquehanna, up the Conestoga to the east branch. Then a short portage brought them to the French Creek which in turn led to the Schuylkill River and down to Philadelphia on the Delaware.

Mills

William Penn invited members of his own religious affiliation, the Quakers, and others who were experiencing religious persecution in Europe to settle in his colony. Among those immigrants were a group of anabaptists from Germany called “Mennonists”.  Seven Mennonist families settled in the Pequea Valley just south of the Conestoga in 1711. Another larger group of Mennonite families arrived six years later and purchased land adjacent to the first group. The Germans cleared the land and added to their farms a little more acreage each year. As the new settlers arrived, built their homes and cleared land for their farms, sawmills were in great demand to turn the native timber into lumber for building. As the farms became established, it soon became necessary to build mills to process the grain. Until the first mill was built on the Mill Stream, it was necessary to make a long arduous trip by wagon to the nearest mills on the Brandywine. The Pennsylvania proprietors, to encourage someone to build a mill in the Susquehanna watershed, offered a grant of 1,000 acres at a reduced rate if a mill was built on the property before May 1, 1714.

The earliest record of a mill in what would later become Lancaster County was built by a native of Saxony, Germany named Christopher Schlegel (Schleagel), who built a mill on the Mill Creek in about 1714. Schlegel requested a land grant, taking advantage of the discount offer, and James Logan’s surveyor Isaac Taylor marked out 700 acres for him along a tributary of the Conestoga Creek (later named the Mill Stream) not far from the land granted to the recent Mennonist settlers. Apparently, Schlegel did not like the land that Taylor surveyed for him and built his mill on a site about two miles away. On November 15, 1716, Schlegel sent a letter to the proprietors, asking to take up 1,000 acres around his mill “when the Indians leave”.

The Pennsylvania proprietors were apparently unimpressed, because on October 1, 1717, Edmund Cartlidge, the fur trader, purchased the land that Schlegel had chosen for himself, and ejected Schlegel from the property. Cartlidge then built his own mill on the property. The site of this mill was two miles south of Lancaster, north-east of Willow Street at the spot where Golf Road comes nearest to the Mill Creek. This would place it near to where Evan’s Candy is located today.

Lancaster County’s mills were an extremely important part of the commerce of the county in the early days. An 1840 census showed 383 mills in the county, which amounts to one mill for every two and a half square miles. They were hubs of the local economy. Thirty-seven of those were situated on the Conestoga.

Iron Furnaces and Forges

During the 18^th and early 19^th centuries, southeastern Pennsylvania was a major center of American iron production. The first furnaces were situated along waterways because they needed the waterpower to drive the forges and hammers. The Hammer Creek in Lancaster County was so named because of the sound of the hammers operating in the valley.

Peter Grubb built Hopewell Forge on the Hammer Creek in 1740. He built Cornwall Furnace a few years later. Cornwall is in Lebanon County today, but it was part of Lancaster County then. Grubb also built the Mount Hope Furnace on the Chiques Creek around 1784. Martic Forge opened around 1751 on the Pequea Creek. James Old opened Poole Forge on the Conestoga and Speedwell Forge on the Hammer Creek. The Spring Grove and Windsor forges were also operating on the Conestoga by the end of the 18^th century. In fact, in the early 1800s, the upper Conestoga was providing power for three forges, three grist mills, and a hemp mill.

Rifle Manufacturing

Lancaster County was also known for its rifle makers. Martin Meylin manufactured the famous Pennsylvania Rifle near Willow Street in 1745. The barrels were sometimes bored by hand, a long and arduous process, but production could be significantly improved if you could utilize waterpower. James Bryson operated a boring mill on the Mill Stream, not far from Meylin’s gun shop. According to tradition, this mill produced barrels for the Lancaster gunmaker, William Henry. This site was later converted to a grist mill by John Eshleman. Andreas Kauffman operated a boring mill on the Little Conestoga downstream from the Abbeyville/Maple Grove mill around 1770. Henry Leman built his boring mill on the Conestoga near Pinetown in 1834.

Conestoga Navigation Company

By the beginning of the 19^th century, Baltimore had become a ready market for agricultural goods and could be reached by natural and modified waterways, thereby reducing the traffic from Lancaster to Philadelphia.  In 1817, the State of New York began a major project to connect its eastern ports with Lake Erie in the west. That caused a stir in Pennsylvania, which then began a major push to build canals across the state, fueled by fears that New York would threaten commerce in Philadelphia. On March 27, 1824, Governor Andrew Shulze appointed the first three Pennsylvania canal commissioners and charged them with the task of finding a viable canal route connecting Lancaster and Chester Counties to Pittsburgh. The “canal fever” ran high among Pennsylvania business leaders during this time.

Lancaster’s leaders were in search of ways to improve the local economy. As a result, on May 15, 1824, at a public meeting in Lancaster, a committee was formed to petition the state legislature to grant rights to incorporate a company to make the waters of the Conestoga navigable. The petition was granted on March 3, 1825. This act provided for the “erection of the Conestogo Navigation Company and the construction of its plant.” Adam Reigart and others should have the power to make a navigation canal or slack-water navigation and towpath on and along the Conestoga River and to set up locks and dams fit for navigation. Landowners should be compensated for any damages caused by erecting the dams or by the swelling water. The company would be able to sell or rent surplus water for works.

In a slack-water system, dams were constructed at intervals across the width of the river. This resulted in the water piling up behind the dams to form “ponds.” The dams were spaced such that the water behind one dam would back up all the way to the next dam upstream. This usually amounted to several miles of navigable water wide enough for animal-powered packet boats to be pulled along the side while steam-powered craft could navigate the center of the channel. Locks were constructed as an integral part of each dam.

The Conestoga Navigation Company initially built nine locks and dams between Lancaster City and Safe Harbor. The company opened for business in the spring of 1829. Goods shipped on the canal could reach Baltimore weeks ahead of the overland route and with less damages in transit. Business improved each year until an ice flood in the winter of 1832 damaged many of the dams. The business did not recover from the blow. Edward Coleman bought the company at sheriff’s sale in 1833. Coleman rebuilt the locks and reduced the number of dams from nine to seven. After the Susquehanna and Tidewater Canal opened in 1840, Coleman used a crib dam across the Susquehanna to produce enough draught such that canal boats could be towed from the mouth of the Conestoga to an entry port on the canal. The Conestoga Navigation operated until about 1856, when the railroads became the preferred method for transporting freight.

As we can see, Pennsylvania’s waterways served a prominent role in the development of the country. Such use of the waterways came with a cost, however. In the next article in this series, we will look at the Victorian Era, and how the rivers became centers of recreational activities.

The next article in this series will delve into Victorian Era progress of the Conestoga’s history. If you would like a copy of my book, you may order one on my website at www.donaldkautz.com.

Meet the Guest Writer Donald Kautz

I grew up and still live among the beautiful farmland and rolling hills of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. I have been interested in photography my entire life (starting with a Kodak Brownie box camera) but have gotten more serious with the hobby after my three children have become adults. I am a retired software engineer which probably explains why I enjoy the technical aspects of digital photography post processing as much as capturing the images in the first place. I enjoy landscape photography and love to photograph scenes around Lancaster County, focusing on the Conestoga River and the remaining water-powered grist mills that may still be found around the county. I am interested in the history of Lancaster County and have written a book about the Conestoga River.

RiverRoots: Stories of the Conestoga River

River Roots is Susquehanna NHA’s blog series featuring history from York and Lancaster Counties that showcases the Susquehanna River’s historic, cultural, and natural resource contributions to our nation’s heritage.

Susquehanna NHA is pleased to introduce guest blog writer, photographer and author of The Conestoga River: A History, Donald Kautz. This is the first blog post in a four part series on the Conestoga River by Mr. Kautz.

RiverRoots Heritage Blog

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Lancaster’s Historic Waterway

The Conestoga River meanders for sixty miles through the fertile farmlands of Lancaster County. From early Native American inhabitants to the European settlers who made the Conestoga Valley their home, the river has provided sustenance and transportation for generations. Victorian era resorts and hotels were built along the river, providing new recreational activities as steam power drove innovative forms of transportation and waterpower. As the region developed and the population grew, the river paid a heavy price in increased pollution from sewage runoff and industry. Conservation efforts toward the end of the twentieth century through the present day have restored the river’s beauty and recreational reputation.

This is the first article in a series of four which are taken from my book, “The Conestoga River: A History”. In these articles we will take a journey through time on the historic waters of the Conestoga River.

Conestoga Watershed

The Conestoga River is a 61.6-mile-long tributary of the Susquehanna River. It originates in Berks County but most of its length is in Lancaster County. It enters the Susquehanna at Safe Harbor just below the Safe Harbor dam. Originally known as the Conestogoe or Conestogo, its name is derived from the Iroquoian word “Kanastoge” meaning “place of the immersed pole”.

The Conestoga and its tributaries drain approximately 217 square miles. The principal tributaries of the Conestoga are Cedar Creek, Muddy Creek, Cocalico Creek, the Lititz Run, the Mill Creek, and the Little Conestoga. The Conestoga has an “inverted” profile, meaning that it starts out with a gentle slope and slope increases as it approaches its mouth. The Conestoga and its sister stream the Pequea Creek form a double watershed system. The Conestoga and Pequea with their tributaries drain most of Lancaster County.

The headwaters of the Conestoga are made up of two branches. The West branch begins in a pond on the edge of the Pennsylvania State Games Lands #52 north of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, north-east of Morgantown. The East Branch begins somewhere just north of Elverson. The two branches join at a point along Mill Road just south of Morgantown.

Creek or River?

Before we go any further, we must ask the question, “Is the Conestoga a creek or is it a river?” People who grew up along its banks and fished or swam in its waters often prefer to call it the Conestoga Creek. Or simply, the “crick”. However, the signs along the major highways that cross the Conestoga label it the “Conestoga River”. And recently, the Conestoga was nominated for 2023 River of the Year by The Pennsylvania Organization for Watersheds and Rivers. So, which is it? A creek or a river?

(The River of the Year designation for 2023 was awarded to the North Branch of the Susquehanna.)

In 1824, Captain Ephraim Beach surveyed the Conestoga from Lancaster to Safe Harbor for the purpose of making the Conestoga navigable. Beach produced a map indicating the plans for a system of locks and canals that would enable canal boats to make the trip from Lancaster to the Susquehanna. This map may be viewed at the Lancaster Historical Society. The legend on that map calls it the “Conestogo River”. Of course, Captain Beach was promoting the Conestoga as a commercial waterway, so the river designation seemed more appropriate for that purpose.

In 1912, Frank R. Diffenderfer, who was an associate editor of the Lancaster New Era newspaper and one of the founders of the Lancaster Historical Society, wrote an impassioned plea on behalf of the Conestoga River. Here is an excerpt from his “Plea for the Conestoga River” that was read before the Lancaster Historical Society:

“One of the most beautiful streams in the world flows quietly through the green meadows and along the sunny braes of Lancaster County for a distance of more than sixty miles, draining a territory 315 square miles in area, affording endless themes of beauty to the brush of the painter and the fancy of the poet.”

“It is the Conestoga ‘Creek’ to most of our people ‘and it is nothing more’; yet it is a river, just as truly as are some of the most noted streams of the world which have been called rivers for thousands of years.”

“Our Conestoga has borne its present misnomer long enough. Let no member of this Society ever again speak or write about it as a ‘creek.’ Call it what it really is, and what it deserves to be called – The CONESTOGA RIVER.”

 

Earl F. Rebman, founder of the Conestoga Valley Association, fought for 28 years to fulfill Diffenderfer’s plea. Finally, in April of 1974, Rebman’s dream was fulfilled when the United States Board of Geographic Names approved the name “Conestoga River” for federal use. The main branch of the Conestoga including the East and West branches at its source were included in the approval. The Little Conestoga, however, remains a creek. (Lancaster New Era, April 24, 1974)

Presettlement Conditions

Prior to the arrival of European settlers in the 17^th century, the Conestoga Valley was much different than it is today. The valley was more like a swamp than the single channel that we know today. The valley was made up of numerous, interconnected streams that flowed around islands of vegetation. The system was resistant to flooding because the flood plains were broad and marshy, and the underlying soil was porous. The historic floodplain was full of vegetation with root systems that held the soils in place even during high water flow.

The area is part of the Pennsylvania Piedmont lowlands. This area was once covered with a shallow sea. Various species of shellfish lived and died in the sea, their discarded shells building up to create great sheets of limestone. Eventually tectonic forces pushed up to form the Appalachian Mountains. Over time, these mountains eroded forming deep, rich soil in the alluvial valleys. This, in turn, enabled great forests to grow and the forests provided the habitat for abundant wildlife. Bear, deer, elk, foxes, otters, raccoons, wildcats, wolves, and the much-coveted beaver all made their home in the forests and wetlands of the Conestoga Valley.

The Conestogas

The Susquehannock Indians appeared along the Susquehanna c1550 at about the time that an earlier group who are known as the Shenk’s Ferry people disappeared. It is unknown whether the earlier group died of an illness or if the Susquehannocks conquered or assimilated them. The Susquehannocks were mostly nomadic hunters and fisherman who would stay in one area only so long as the game and fish remained plentiful. They were not very friendly to members of other tribes and would regularly send out war parties to attack the hunters from other tribes who happened into their territory. By 1608, the Susquehannocks had a town and stockade fort on the shore of the Susquehanna at the foot of Turkey Hill.

In the summer of 1608, Captain John Smith encountered a hunting party of Susquehannocks at the head of the Chesapeake Bay. Captain Smith described them as more muscular and larger in stature than other natives that he had seen. Smith said, “They seemed like giants, and were the strangest people in all these countries, both in language and attire; their language well becomes their proportions, sounding ‘from them as a voice in a vault. The Susquehannocks were called “Minquas” (treacherous) by the Delaware (Lenape).

In the mid-1600s, pressure from the Dutch Trading Company forced the Senecas south into Susquehannock territory. This resulted in violent inter-tribal conflicts. The Senecas fought the Susquehannocks as far south as the Chesepeake Bay. The Susquehannocks pleaded for assistance from the English colonial settlements but did not receive the level of aid that they needed to ward off the Seneca attacks. By the late 17^th century, the ranks of the Susquehannocks were severely decimated and they no longer held the importance that they once commanded. Soon after this, the remnant left their fort on the river shore and moved to their town on Turkey Hill about four miles further up the hill. Once established at this new location they became known as the Conestogoes. Here William Penn granted them 500 acres of land that became known as “the manor”, today it is Penn Manor Township.

Fast forward a hundred years or so into the mid-18^th century and you find the European settlers engaging in their own inter-tribal conflicts. The English went to war with the French over territorial disputes. A few of the native peoples joined up with the French under the vague promise that they might be able to recover their land if the English were defeated. The Conestogoes had become extremely destitute by this time, many of them had little clothes to wear. They went from farm to farm begging for food or bartering for it with reed baskets and brooms. Alcoholism was rampant. When the white inhabitants of the upper Susquehanna, having fled their homes, came into Lancaster County and Philadelphia, the suspicions against the Conestogos grew with each new story of the atrocities that were committed upriver. The Conestogos at this time were afraid to leave the manor even to hunt for food.

The French and Indian war ended in 1758 but an uprising by chief Pontiac in 1763 caused animosities to rise again against the small tribe. On December 13, 1763, a company of men from Paxtang, Hanover, and Donegal headed to Conestoga Indian Town to destroy the place and its people. Early the next morning they attacked the town, killed, and scalped four men and two women and burned the town. A boy escaped and alerted the manager of the tragedy. The Lancaster authorities gathered up the remaining Conestogos (fourteen in number) and housed them in the city workhouse for their protection. But then on December 27, about fifty or sixty men armed with rifles and tomahawks appeared suddenly in the town about 2:00 in the afternoon, broke into the workhouse and killed the fourteen Conestogos in the courtyard behind the jail. The Conestogos are no more, but their memory remains in the river that bears their name.

The next article in this series will delve into the colonial settlement period of the Conestoga’s history. If you would like a copy of my book, you may order one on my website at www.donaldkautz.com.

Meet the Guest Writer Donald Kautz

I grew up and still live among the beautiful farmland and rolling hills of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. I have been interested in photography my entire life (starting with a Kodak Brownie box camera) but have gotten more serious with the hobby after my three children have become adults. I am a retired software engineer which probably explains why I enjoy the technical aspects of digital photography post processing as much as capturing the images in the first place. I enjoy landscape photography and love to photograph scenes around Lancaster County, focusing on the Conestoga River and the remaining water-powered grist mills that may still be found around the county. I am interested in the history of Lancaster County and have written a book about the Conestoga River.

For Further Reading:

Brubaker, Jack, Massacre of the Conestogas, The History Press, 2010

Minderhout, David J., Native Americans in the Susquehanna River Valley, Past and Present, Bucknell University Press, 2013

Merrell, James H., Into the American Woods, W. W. Horton & Company, 1999

RiverRoots: Felling Penn’s Woods

River Roots is Susquehanna NHA’s blog series featuring history from York and Lancaster Counties that showcases the Susquehanna River’s historic, cultural, and natural resource contributions to our nation’s heritage.

RiverRoots Heritage Blog

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Long before canals or railroads, lumber rafts transported cut timber, coal, pig iron, and farm produce through Pennsylvania. The abundance of streams and rivers throughout the state brought the lumber industry to all regions of the Commonwealth. In the early 1800s, 2,500 to 3,000 arks and rafts traveled from upstate Pennsylvania from April through October. The Susquehanna River powered the lumber industry from the colonial era to the industrial revolution.

Felling Penn’s Woods

Trees covered more than 90% of Pennsylvania’s 28,692,480 acres when European settlers first laid eyes on Penn’s Woods. The white pines, oaks, and hemlocks were so tall and dense that Europeans thought that the forests were endless. The most sought-after timber was the Pennsylvania white pine. They were ideal for ships’ masts since those trees grew straight and resisted warping and wood rot. Nothing was more valuable than a blemish-free, 200-foot-tall white pine. They were so treasured that governments passed laws to protect them.

Pennsylvania provided the natural resources that fueled the country’s rapid expansion. In the 1680s, the sounds of axes and crosscut saws echoed across the forests of Pennsylvania as the colony’s first sawmills drove up the demand for lumber. Lumbermen felled trees along the Susquehanna River’s West and North Branches in the winter. The frozen ground provided a packed surface on which the logs could be more easily dragged by man or animal. Moving logs up and down mountains with primitive tools and methods was difficult and dangerous. It was not uncommon for heavy loads to skid out of control. Loggers made equipment like sleds and ox yokes onsite. The transport mode available to move the logs to market limited the amount of timber that lumbermen could harvest.

Once out of the woods, lumbermen hauled the logs to streams and rivers, where they stored the wood until the spring thaw. When the waterways flooded, the logs could float down to the sawmills. The same tributaries powered early sawmills by utilizing water wheels or elastic poles. When the water froze in winter, the sawmills couldn’t operate. Employment in the logging industry was as cyclical as the agricultural field. Winter was for felling trees, spring was for transporting logs, and summer and fall were for milling and finishing the lumber. This provided year-round employment for lumbermen.

White pine logs were very buoyant and, therefore, valued for rafts and boatmaking. They could float even while carrying a heavy load. Eastern hemlocks were also popular. Hemlock bark is rich in the tannic acid used in leather tanneries, and the wood was suitable lumber. Workers carefully bound white pine logs together with pliant hickory sticks, which left no marks or damage on the valuable wood. They squared off the timber with axes and fastened them together with oak or hickory pins into floating platforms. The log platforms ranged in length from 30-80 feet.

Most of the timber cut in Pennsylvania floated down waterways via rafts made of logs lashed together, with oars attached at either end. A crew used long oars, under the guidance of an experienced pilot, to maneuver down the winding tributaries that eventually flowed into the Susquehanna River.

Types of Rafts

Spar Raft: Made by lashing tall, straight tree trunks together. These rafts could be 80-100 feet long, and many still had bark attached.

Timber Raft: Made of squared or timbered logs that had been partially milled into square lumber, much the shape of a railroad tie.

Lumber Raft: This raft consisted of logs that had already been sawed into lumber at a sawmill and could be sold as ready-to-use lumber.

River Ark: These had flat bottoms and were constructed in such a manner as to allow the transport of cargo such as pig iron, coal, farm produce, and other commodities from northern Pennsylvania.

Running the River

The lumber industry depended on Pennsylvania’s three main river systems: the Delaware River in the east, the Susquehanna through the center, and the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers, which converge to form the Ohio River, in the west. The Susquehanna River became a highway for timber rafts. By 1796, rafts from both the north and west branch were heading downstream in droves. The west branch was often seen jammed with thousands of floating platforms in the spring. Wood arks transporting cargo downstream from New York were much more common on the north branch.

It was not uncommon for these rafts and their crews to float 300 or more miles downriver. Some rafts passed the river towns heading to Havre de Grace or Port Deposit, and from there on to southern markets. Locally, workers offloaded cargo and disassembled rafts, then sold the logs to one of the many sawmills. Marietta, Columbia, Wrightsville, and Washington Boro were popular places to off-load timber rafts, because the river was more treacherous below Turkey Hill. These river towns grew into industrial towns along the Susquehanna River.

One newspaper from the mid-1800s reported, “if a person were to stand on the banks of the Susquehanna at Washington Boro, look north to Columbia, then south to Turkey Hill, they would see a river clogged with arks and rafts anchored and ready to offload their cargo.”

The swift and dangerous waters below Turkey Hill kept many vessels from reaching the Chesapeake Bay. Local newspapers published a few accounts describing the beauty and the dangers of rafting down the Susquehanna. Daily Evening Express published, “On a Raft” on April 29, 1867. The Intelligencer Lancaster published a story called “Journey Down the Susquehanna.” on August 18, 1875. Lancaster New Era shared on April 21, 1887, “Down the River on a Raft.” Despite the dangerous last leg of the journey, some men rode logs downriver to sell them for shipbuilding in the Chesapeake Bay.

The men who journeyed downriver on the fresh freshets of spring knew they were in for a daring adventure. Pennsylvania raftsmen were cowboys of the river. The rafting was risky and, by nature, rivermen were reckless. Raftsmen needed an abundance of determination, brawn, and skill to deliver timber to market in the early 1800s.

It took thousands of men, braving the icy waters, to keep the millions of board feet moving downstream. The noise of raftsmen mixed with melodies from banjos, fiddles, and harmonicas and filled the air during their rough journey downriver. When they arrived in southern Pennsylvania towns, they engaged in rowdy behavior. Drinking, gambling, and fighting were commonplace, as lumber payouts meant the local taverns would be busy.

At the peak of the rafting days, several hotels opened in the river towns of Marietta, Columbia, and Washington Boro. Of course, there were “parlor houses,” “bed-houses,” and “disorderly hotels” where the ladies offered companionship. Raftsman spent a night or two, then returned home. Some raftsman brought their horse for the return trip, but most returned on foot, walking hundreds of miles back upriver.

The period of 1750-1850 was the most active time of travel on the Susquehanna River. In the early 1800s, from April through October, 2,500 to 3,000 arks and rafts traveled from upstate Pennsylvania. They brought coal, lumber, pig iron, and farm produce of all varieties. The rafting industry reached its peak by 1840. The ever-expanding railroad soon put the local canals out of business.

The advent of steam power in the early 1800s rapidly expanded Pennsylvania’s lumber industry. However, the Williamsport boom really powered the industry. In the fall of 1849, construction began on the massive Williamsport boom. The boom was a series of piers anchored into the riverbed that caught the floating timber. Its purpose was to bring the sawmills to the logs rather than the logs to the mills. Steam sawmills lined the riverbanks near the boom to process the hundreds of thousands of logs it held more efficiently. Williamsport became a boom town for lumber as men made their fortunes and workers flooded North and West to clear the hills.

By the 1850s, the boom’s capacity increased to 300 million board feet to keep up with Pennsylvania’s burgeoning iron furnace production. Come springtime, there were so many logs packed into the boom that you could walk on them from one side of the Susquehanna to the other. Within a short time, Williamsport became known as the “lumber capital of the world” because of its thriving lumber industry. After the Civil War broke out in 1861, the nation needed more lumber than ever. According to the Bureau of the Census, lumber production in the United States grew from 3 hundred million board feet in 1799 to 8 billion board feet in 1859, and to more than 12 billion by 1869.

The boom kept the timber industry thriving on the Susquehanna for almost 70 years. By the late 1880s, geared steam engines revolutionized the Pennsylvania timber industry by giving logging companies access to vast stands of previously inaccessible old-growth forests. It was cheaper to bring logs to Williamsport by rail than by river. Timber barons built railroads into Pennsylvania’s northern woods and used portable sawmills to cut wood on-site and haul it directly to the market. With the railroad, loggers no longer had to wait until the spring thaw.

No longer dependent upon streams and rivers to float the logs to towns with mills, logging became a year-round operation. The more intensive logging accelerated the cutting of trees, leaving behind a scarred and barren landscape. Soon, little remained of the great forests of northern Pennsylvania. A flood in 1889 broke the Williamsport boom and washed masses of lumber down the river.

Rise of the Conservation Era

As Pennsylvania’s forests faded, so did the importance of the lumber industry in Williamsport. The collapse of the boom cemented its decline. When the boom broke, it set hundreds of millions of board feet of lumber loose on the Susquehanna. Temporary sawmills were set up along the riverbanks and most of the logs were recovered. In May 1908, the Susquehanna Boom Company disbanded. The following year, the boom was dismantled, ending the era of rafting on the Susquehanna River. The last commercial raft floated down the Susquehanna in 1917 and was sold to a mill in Marietta.

Each year between 1850 and 1890, about 2,500–3,000 rafts containing 150–200 million board feet of white pine traveled the West Branch of the Susquehanna. The Intelligencer published the following on June 14, 1833: “The industry quickly escalated over the next decades until the river became a super-highway of rafts. Between the 18th and 23rd of May in 1833, 2,688 arks and 3,480 rafts floated past Danville. That averages out to over 1000 rafts and arks per day or between 1 and 2 rafts every minute of the day. Their cargo was mostly grain and lumber.”

By the 1870s, Pennsylvania’s forests were disappearing. In 1885, Nebraska created Arbor Day as a day to plant trees to celebrate and safeguard forests. Other states followed, and the federal government recognized the need to protect and replenish the country’s wooded regions by the 1890s. It created the Division of Forestry, which established forest reserves around the country. The father of Pennsylvania forestry, Joseph T. Rothrock, became the state’s first forestry commissioner in 1895. Leaders in conservation like Governor Gifford Pinchot, Mira Dock, and J. Horace McFarland worked diligently to educate the public about forests.

By the 1920s, only twenty-five thousand acres of original forest remained. Since a majority of the old-growth forests in Pennsylvania were gone, the Commonwealth purchased thousands of acres of land from lumber companies and began to regulate and reforest the landscape. This gave birth to the modern conservation movement that continues to influence modern-day forestation practices. The Pennsylvania lumber industry continues to exist, but it utilizes new and improved technologies aim to balance the need for wood products with ecological needs.

Learn More
In commemoration of historic log rafting on the Susquehanna River, a group of individuals built a raft and floated down the River. On March 14, 1938, the “Last Raft” set off from Clearfield County for a historical re-enactment down the Susquehanna River. Throngs of people lined the riverbanks along the 200-mile route downriver. As the 112-foot raft passed under a railroad bridge in Muncy, it struck a pier and sank. Seven passengers drowned in the frigid water. Despite the tragedy, the raft journeyed on to Harrisburg, where it was sawed into timber and sold. Learn more about the story of the “Last Raft”.

Learn more about Pennsylvania’s Lumber Industry.

Sources

Brubaker, J. H. (2002). Down the Susquehanna to the Chesapeake. Pennsylvania State University Press.

Lauver, F. (2017, July 11). The Pennsylvania Lumber Museum preserves an industrial history. Pennsylvania Heritage Magazine.

Magee, D. F. (1920). Rafting on the Susquehanna. Lancaster County Historical Society.

Stranahan, S. Q. (1995). Susquehanna, River of Dreams. Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.