...continuing with our October road trip. Leaving Maysville Kentucky in the morning, we crossed over the Ohio River on the Simon Kenton Memorial Bridge, then turned east on US Hwy 52. We followed this highway east and a bit north as it followed the course of the river as far as Sybene Ohio...across from Huntington West Virginia. From Sybene we followed OH Hwy 7 north. Our eventual goal for the night was Marietta Ohio, our 'home' for the next two days.
The Founders Cemetery is much much older than the church. The Manchester Founders Cemetery was founded in 1791 and it contains the gravesites of roughly 300 people, including many from the original families in the area. The cemetery no longer accepts burials...with the last interment taking place on December 22, 1888.
Manchester Ohio was originally founded in 1790. This was the first permanent settlement in the Virginia Military District. The town is named after Manchester England. It was the fourth permanent settlement that was established in the Northwest Territory...and by 1791 the town's residents had completely encircled the community with a stockade. With 1,839 residents as of the 2020 census, the population of Manchester is smaller than it was in 1890. Note: Jack Roush, the founder, CEO and co-owner of Roush Fenway Racing and Roush Performance Products, was raised in Manchester.
Next stop...Portsmouth Ohio.
This is the former Eli Kinney House in Portsmouth Ohio. This home was one of Portsmouth's showplace residences, built on a much grander scale than nearby properties.
The Kinney Family came to Portsmouth in 1804. Eli's parents arrived with 4 children but they weren't done with raising a large family. In all, 12 Kinney children lived into adulthood. One of them was Eli, who was born in Portsmouth in 1810. The family was very prominent and successful. Eli was the founder of the Portsmouth branch of the State Bank of Ohio. Later, he moved to Cincinnati and established the banking house of E. Kinney and Company.
At some much later point in time, this building was purchased by the B.P.O.E., aka the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. This home is attached at the back to a much newer Elks Club structure forming a complex of sorts.
This is the All Saints Episcopal Church in Portsmouth. This Gothic Revival style structure is located at 610 4th Street. The first portion of this church, the Samuel Gunn Parish Hall, was built in 1833, with most of the mass of the structure completed in 1850. In 1855, it was the first public building in Portsmouth that used gas lighting. Then it survived an interior fire in 1893 and suffered extensive flood damage in the Ohio River flood of 1937. The Parish itself dates back to June of 1819, well before construction began on the church. This structure may be the oldest public building in Portsmouth that has continuously been used for the same purpose since it was built.
The First Presbyterian Church congregation in Portsmouth Ohio first met in each others' homes beginning in 1803. By 1816 the congregation was sharing the first courthouse with early Methodists and Episcopalians for 'preaching services'. Construction of this handsome Greek Revival church building began in 1849. The congregation...with about 115 members at the time...first gathered here in April of 1851. According to church members' oral tradition, the storage areas under the church's stairs were used by African Americans who sought refuge as they transited the 'underground railway' to freedom.
This is the Labold House and Garden complex. Built in 1897, its primary architectural significance stems from a major Colonial Revival renovation of the home in the late 1910s and early 1920s. Gardens, a natatorium, greenhouse and a garage were all added to the property during this period.
Simon Labold quit high school at the age of 14 when his family encountered financial troubles. He started buying wool, hides, produce and more and then reselling his purchases. At the age of 17, he clerked for a year in Vincennes Indiana. Then he returned to Portsmouth, carrying on the business of S. Labold and Company. Then he became a Director and Cashier in the First National Bank of Portsmouth. He was also the President of the Chicago Fire Brick Company, a Director of 2 other fire brick companies, a drug store, a shoe company and another bank. He also served as a member of Portsmouth's City Council. Not bad for not having finished high school!
This is the George Henry Gharky House in Portsmouth. He was born in nearby Alexandria Ohio in 1813 and he lived in Portsmouth until he passed at the age of 80. He started out as a carpenter building river and canal boats. By the mid-1800s he was involved in Portsmouth city government. He apparently did rather well as he had 2 brick homes built on Fourth Street (this one is at 638 Fourth Street). I also found a reference that referred to Ohio River steamboat captain and Wharf Master G.H. Gharky. Note: I did find a connection with 'airbnb' listing showing that at least part of this home is a vacation rental.
Continuing about 30 miles further south and east along US Hwy 52, we came to Ironton Ohio. This large Neoclassical style structure is the former Ironton Norfolk and Western Railway depot. The railroad finished construction on this depot in 1907. Trains ceased using this impressive station in 1969 when it closed. The city of Ironton purchased the depot and it has been leased for a number of purposes, including a number of restaurants.
So why such a large railway station in Ironton Ohio? Basically, at the time this depot was built, Ironton was experienced major growth. By 1890, more people lived in Ironton than there are now. In the 20 years between 1890 and 1910, the population had jumped by more than 20%. The reasons were the extensive deposits of iron ore that was being processed in the area's many charcoal-fired blast furnaces. The transition to more modern methods of steel manufacturing required improved trackage and rail facilities in Ironton. As the steel industry consolidated and new sources for ore became available, the industry move north. The local population has been in decline since 1960.
Between Ironton and our next stop in Gallipolis Ohio we stopped and took a couple of photos of the scenic Ohio River and its river traffic. The towboat, A.B. York is part of the fleet owned by Florida Marine Transporters, which is based in Mandeville Louisiana. The A.B. York was built in 2016 by Horizon Shipbuilding in Bayou La Batre Alabama. She is 120 feet long and develops 4,00o H.P. This was the 19th towboat/pusher that Horizon has delivered to FMT.
The A.B. York was built to operate in areas that are restricted due to overhead clearances and limitations on draft/depth. She only has a 10 foot draft and although she has four decks, the pilothouse itself is retractable. I'll have to check and see just how the latter feature works.
While the Ohio River looks wide and it is navigable from its juncture with the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illinois all the way upriver to Pittsburgh and beyond, it is because of massive modification by the US Army Corps of Engineers. There are 20 dams and lock combinations from Cairo Illinois upriver to Pittsburgh. The Ohio River and its 7 navigable tributaries total more than 2,500 miles of waterways. More than 270,000,000 tons of coal, aggregates, chemicals, agricultural products, plus a variety of industrial and petroleum products move up and down the system every year.
In Gallipolis Ohio, I struck railroad paydirt! This is the Gallipolis Railway Freight Stations Museum. It's located at 918 Third Avenue and it was built by the Hocking Valley Railroad in 1901. It's the only remaining wooden railroad freight station remaining along the former routes of the Hocking Valley Railroad. It remained a bustling freight depot through changing ownership...Chesapeake and Ohio, Baltimore and Ohio and the Chessie System, until it was closed by CSX in late 1981.
The railcar next to the freight depot is a coach built for the Pennsylvania Railroad in the 1940s. At one point it was purchased by the Ringling Brother's Circus to serve as quarters for their trapeze artists as the circus moved from town to town.
Ownership passed to the local park district and the City of Gallipolis. Then in 2015, a group of concerned citizens became involved in the effort to save this 26 foot by 80 foot station. The Gallipolis R.R. Freight Stations Museum LLC was formed in 2016.
Almost every railroad museum and many old repurposed depots display an old caboose along side. Cabooses were used on every freight train in the USA and Canada until the1980s when technology and safety laws requiring their presences with full crews were relaxed. Thousands of them were then abandoned on siding or repurposed for non-railroad ventures. The Southern Railway Bay Window style caboose shown above was built in 1969.
The caboose at the far right of the photo is relatively rare. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's classic wagontop caboose was a custom design that the railroad manufacture itself during the height of hte Great Depression. The design was developed to reduce expenses but also to increase the car's strength via it's "U" shaped design. These cabooses were a high quality product and many of them remained in regular service through the Chessie System era. This is the first one I've ever seen...
I'll end this post with this photo of the Gallipolis Railway Freight Station's 1945 Fireless H.K. Porter Cooker switching locomotive. The H.K. Porter Company built several different types of locomotives but in 1915 the company built their first fireless locomotive. These locomotives are equipped with a large pressure vessel designed to hold steam and hot water in place of the usual boiler.
Fireless locomotives had several advantages over conventional steam locomotives. They cost less to build, they were much cleaner and there was a significantly lowered risk of fire or boiler explosion. Disadvantages were much like those experienced by electric vehicles today...limited range and a need for a source to recharge or refill the locomotive. Typical usage was in a mine, a food or chemical plant...for a U.S. Army munitions depot.
The Gallipolis Hocking Valley Railway Freight Station preservation group made a video that will walk you through their efforts and plants to date. Your guide is one of the founding members of the group. Check out the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJZZdZvaEBw. The Museum's website is at https://gallipolisrailroad.org/.
Gallipolis Factoids:
- A group of Welsh immigrants settled in the Gallipolis area in 1818. Welsh remained Gallia County's most common second language until 1970.
- Gallipolis is the home of restauranteur Bob Evans. He opened the Bob Evans Diner here in 1948. Today the company has 436 locations in 18 states.
Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them...
Thanks for coming along on our road trip!
Take Care, Big Daddy Dave
