Trinity Navigation - A Century Old Dream
Will the boats come to Trinidad again?
by ANN ROUNSAVALL
Navigation on the Trinity River is not a new idea. History
shows that navigation of the mighty old river goes back more than
100 years, to a voyage by the vessel "Scioto Belle" in
1836, the year Texas won its independence from Mexico.
As early as 1813 Trinidad was a "port town" according
to information from Mrs. Opal Lewis, Bryan Johnston and Mrs.
Lottie Bradley, long time residents of the city. Mrs. Lewis, a
member of the Henderson County Historical Society and a strong
supporter of the Trinity River program, has one of the most
complete files available on the history of the river, Mr.
Johnston came to Trinidad at the age of five with his family. He
has fished, fenced and built bridges in, alongside of and over
the Trinity for 72 years. Mrs. Bradley, who first crossed the
Trinity River in 1907, has lived along its banks for many years.
In the book "East Texas Riverboat Era and Its Decline"
by E. M. White, a picture of river ports along the Trinity for
500 miles shows in our area the R & Z Smith Ferry, Cedar
Landing, Victory, Hydes Ferry which was on the site of Trinidad
in 1813, and Johnstons Bluff, earlier called Airheart's Ferry.
In 1841 the author of "Prairiedom" wrote, "we
crossed the Trinity (or Rio Trinidad) at Robbins Ferry. The
Trinity affords the best steam boat navigation in Texas. Boats
ascend as high as Elkhart, and in good stages(river rises) go on
to "Two Forks" and at some stages 500 miles with few
impediments. Small iron steamers pass to within 50 miles of the
"Red River."
It was estimated that between 1852 and 1871 as many as 50 boats
ran continuously as far up river as Trinidad and Porters Bluff at
the edge of Henderson and Navarro counties.
The "Bessie Mae" carried mail up and down during this
period.
The first recorded Trinity River improvement meeting was held at
Huntsville in 1840. Listed as representatives of this far-sighted
group were John Reagan and Col. Porter.
In 1867 Dallas built adam, with steamboat locks, on the Trinity
one mile from the city limits to allow shallow drift boats the
necessary depth to navigate and dock. A prize of $500 was offered
to the first boat that reached the city from the Gulf. "Job
Boat No. 1", captained by J.H. McGarvey's won the prize.
McGarvey's boat left Galveston Sept. 1867, a 26-ton boat, and
arrived at the Commerge Street landing in Dallas in May, 1868
It is estimated that some 15,425 bales of cotton were carried to
Galveston by Trinity River boats during the 1868-69 season.
The climax of early day steamboat navigation enthusiasm was
reached in 1893 when the sternwheeler steamer "H. A. Harvey,
Jr.," reached Dallas after leaving Galveston.
In February of 1899 Congress included in its rivers and harbors
bill funds for a preliminary survey of the Trinity from its mouth
to Dallas. The report made by the engineers was favorable and the
government made plans to construct a system of slackwater dams
and locks which would permit year round navigation.
The government approved $750,000 for Trinity River improvements
in a bill signed in Jan., 1902, by President Theodore Roosevelt.
World War I put an end to funds available for the Trinity
project. In a clipping from the Oct. 25, 1905 Dallas News,
Commodore S.W.S. Duncan declares, "We hope to have boats
running on theTrinity River between Dallas and Galveston within
eighteen months." The article followed an announcement that
all the right of way deeds for Lock and Dam No. 6 had been
secured, and bids for the work would be advertised as soon as
plans were completed and approved.
The Trinity River, with or without navigation, makes an
interesting story. Fascinating tales (some factual, some fables)
can be heard from any old timer.
If the Trinity program is approved and work begins, many of the
oldsters are anxious to see if silver, buried while Texas still
belonged to Mexico, is uncovered. In 1835 four Mexicans were sent
by Mexican administration headquartered at Nacogdoches, to
Saltillo, Mexico, for silver to pay off Mexican officials in this
part of Texas. They started back a few months later with silver.
As they crossed the Trinity, some say near the present site of
Trinidad, they realized they were going to be attacked by
Indians, hurriedly unloaded the silver and buried it on the east
bank. They were attacked just as they reached the west bank of
Cedar Creek.
Three of the Mexicans and the mules were killed, but one,
seriously injured, made it back to Nacogdoches. He told of the
buried silver, four feet west of a Post Oak tree that was 18
inches in diameter. He said it was close to four or five pits,
and near a boggy marsh. He intended to return with a party of men
to get the silver, but his wounds became infected and he died.
Later a group of Mexicans did go back to the place, said to be
where the river is five miles from the creek, but the silver was
never uncovered. The bodies of the other three men and mules were
found where the man said they would be.
Many parties have attempted over the years to find the buried
silver, but that secret still belongs to the Trinity.
Mrs. Bradley lived along the banks of the Trinity as a young
bride with her husband who worked in gins and sawmills. In 1907
they lived in Porter's Bluff, where John Wesley Bradley worked at
a gin and did some farming. They left in March of 1908, leaving
her sister and his brother, the late Mr. and Mrs. Marvin Bradley,
living there. When the "big flood" of 1908 came in May
the Johnny Bradley's were living in Trinidad, and the Marvin
Bradley's were still in Porter's Bluff, located about 20 miles
north of Trinidad. Marvin and Pearl were brought across the river
on a flat bed boat at the beginning of the flood and sought
refuge in Trinidad. The flood swept down on Porter's Bluff
leaving it in ruins, a devastation from which it never recovered.
It continued to deterioriate until the only activity there was a
small ferry which operated sporadically. Now all that remains of
the town is scattered blocks and chunks of concrete with weeds.
"The water came fast, rolling like barrels," Mrs.
Bradley said, " and the waves rose and didn't go down.
Standing on the banks in Trinidad you could actually see the
water rising," she said. Her wedding rings were lost during
a Trinity flood.
The floodwaters were rising rapidly in their house and the rings
were left lying on a table when the family fled.
"We had to leave the river many times because of high
water," she said, "but the worst time was in 1908.
There never was a flood like that." Mr. Bradley helped feed
his family with fish he caught in the Trinity. He and his wife
knitted barrel nets, and one memorable catch yielded a 30 pound
and a 35 pound catfish.
Mrs. Lewis, who was born in Trinidad in 1905, is a staunch
supporter of Trinity River development, and hopes to see Trinidad
become a port town. She recalls playing on board the last river
boat to make the trip from Galveston to Dallas the summer of
1916. The boat carried a load of bananas and sugar to Dallas and
was stuck on the return trip. When the fall rains began the boata
took on a load of shingles consigned by a local resident to
Galveston. Mrs. Lewis feels that one overflow of the Trinity
creates more ecological damage than canalization of the river can
ever cause. Having owned property along the banks at one time,
and still owning property in the Trinity flood plain, she says,
"the Trinity is now polluted to the extent that people are
afraid to eat fish that are caught in the river."
Instead of losing trees and productive land, residents of the
river basin will be able to use the many acres now in the flood
plain, she says.
In 1901 when the James Harvey Johnston family came to Trinidad
they acquired 640 acres of land running beside the river. Mr.
Johnston ranched, farmed and cut timber from his Trinity acreage.
Part of their original land is now known to area residents as the
Airtaker, and the land now belongs to Texas Power and Light Co.
Mr. Bryan Johnston was 12 years old when the Trinity went on the
rampage on 1908. He remembers that his family marooned and no
mail was delivered to Trinidad for three weeks. When the flood
waters receded there was a mile long reef which dammed the river.
"The government sent a boat with 40 men down here to
dynamite it out," he recalls. "They tied up at our
place and were there for some time. When they got ready to
dynamite they would come and tell us and we had to stop
work."
Mr. Johnston never saw any Indians around Trinidad, but horses
that had been included in the purchase of their land had been
trained in such a way as to prevent theft by Indians. "The
Indians always roped the horses they stole, so the old man had
trained them to go wild at the sight of a rope," Mr.
Johnston said. "You could call them by name and they would
come, or walk up to them with a bridle and they would come put
their heads in, but let them see a rope and they went wild."
The Johnstons had hogs which they allowed to run loose in the
river bottom to fatten on acorns. A few days before they were to
be sold the hogs were penned up and fed corn. Then two, three or
four hundred at a time would be driven to Malakoff to be sold.
They walked the hogs, but would carry a wagon along in case any
of the fat ones couldn't make the trip afoot.
Two years after the 1908 flood a sever drought hit the area. A
dam was built on the Trinity near the present Highway 31 bridge
to hold enough water for trains to fill up at the crossing. At
the time the Johnstons were living on the river a Mrs. Waggoner,
mother of the late Pete Airheart, was operating the ferry on the
river. The biggest business for the ferry were the men crossing
the river to come to the saloons in Trinidad. Mrs. Waggoner had a
rifle set up on the front of the boat and "always got her
money." according to Mr. Johnston. The old ferry road is
still in Trinidad, cut deep over the years by wagons going back
and forth with heavy loads of wood.
Mrs. Vera Johnston remembers the summer the "Commodore
Duncan" was stranded in Trinidad. Several men that were on
the boat, and a dog, died and was buried in Trinidad.
"Walking down to the river was our Sunday afternoon
pasttime", she said.
Mr. Johnston has fished by boat in the Trinity many times, and
hunted in the bottoms for years. He can tell where the bends and
curves are, and give accurate "Trinity mileage". He
feels that since the building of Cedar Creek Lake the Trinity is
in better shape than it has been in a long time.
Will boats once again sail up the Trinity to Trinidad docks? To
younger residents of Trinidad the idea seems incredible, but not
to those who remember the days when Trinidad was a busy port
town. They remember with nostalgia the Trinity when it was an
unpolluted river which provided those who lived along its banks
with food, water and recreation. They remember when the river
turned aggesive to them and became a rampant destroyer of
property and goods.
Voters will go to the polls Tuesday to decide what future holds
for the Trinity River. Long time residents of Trinidad are
anxious to know the result. The Trinity has an important part in
Texas history and those who love the river know that it always
will.
Source: Malakoff newspaper Mar 9, 1973
Submitted and transcribed by Mike Coleman
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