Appalachian History

This is an excerpt from a 1949 letter written by Capt. Tom Greene, owner of Greene Line Steamers, to his friend Dan Heekin, a Cincinnati industrialist and river buff. The letter was discovered tucked in a copy of Steamboats & Steamboatmen by Ellis C. Mace. “I have about decided to put the CHRIS GREENE’S whistle [...]

He was the most famous of the keelboatmen, who plied the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers for two decades until they and their watercraft were displaced by steamboats. Born near Pittsburgh, PA (at the headwaters of the Ohio River), around 1770, Mike Fink —‘Miche Phinck,’ as he learned to spell it from his French Canadian parents—gained [...]

“Well I’ll tell you I came from up in Washington County. Washington County, Ohio. Lived up in the country there with my grandmother. My mother died when I was a little fellow and I lived with my grandmother. Lived up there in the country and all you could see was the steamboats. There was nothing [...]

Two other families came into the [Round Bottom, OH] neighborhood. One’s name was Ransom, the other Wilson. These men got into trouble with each other, some of the neighbors took part with one and some with the other. I have heard my mother, and her brother and sisters, talking about this trouble. They said there [...]

The Sistersville Ferry is the longest continuously working mode of transportation in Monroe County, OH, operating since 1815. It crosses the Ohio River between Fly, Ohio, and Sistersville, West Virginia, which is the apex of the longest straight stretch on the Ohio River. This section of the river is called the “Long Reach,” which runs [...]