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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