Evening star., 1915-08-15

ut was recently published in the news
that one of the steamboat COM
panies operating on the Potomac river
q would erect wharf at point
on the river called Philpots. about
mile and half below Glymont, and
that steamboat company having OBJ
tanned the exclusive right of landing
at Grinders wharf on Mattawoman
creek, the other company had extended
its route to Proctor's and Mattinglys
wharves further UP the creek. The in
ference to be drawn from the news was
that there is to be trade war between
the wharves at Philpots and Glymont
and that the wharves named as being
further up Mattawoman creek than
Grinders are old wharves that have
had a new birth into the trade of this
region.
No man can count the wharves that
have come and gone on the great river
that flows by Washington. The Potomac
and it's creeks. many Of them broad
enough rightfully to be called rivers,
many wharves. The shores of the
streams are dotted with numerous
wharves. and almost strewn with
new wharves. many old wharyes, a
great number of very old wharves
and hundreds of places where wharves
once StOOQ.
Steamboats, have been navigating the
Potomac river for at least 100 years.
The first record of Potomac steam
boat which the Rambler has been able
to find was that of the steamboat
Washington. which was running on the
Potomac river in 1915. 1t was the Gus
tom of the river boats, during the
first half of the nineteenth century.
to advertise that they would land any
where on the river where a landing
was practicable to take on or put off
passengers and freight.
AA
You may find reference to wharves
the names of which have been forgot
ten by man. Nearly every mans farm
fronting on the river or on creek
navigable for light-draught craft had
a landing place and this almost in
variably took the name of the owner
OF the land or the name of his farm
Many of these became from time TO
time the fixed landing places or the
route landing places OF steamooats run
ming on schedule. Some would be i'm
portant for time. Perhaps a steam
boat management or a steamboat COM
pany believing that wharf at Ger,
build wharf there. Perhaps while a
rival steamboat would be doing a fair
trade at one wharf a competing steam
boat company would build wharf
II
the plan of diverting the trade.
Steamboats, have come and gone and
many. steamboat companies on the Po-
tomac river have passed away. Wharves
have been carried away by ice, food
and fire and have not been rebuilt.
Wharves have rotted away because
trade shifted to other wharves or so
languished for other reasons that boats
found no profit in stopping. Wharves
perished because river channels shifted.
There are many other reasons why
wharves have come into being, flourish
ed for little time and then decayed
The names of hundreds Of the wharves
of fifty or seventy-hve years ago would
not mean anything to people who are
acquainted with the river today.
On a recent trip down the Potomac
the Rambler asked half a dozen steam
boat men. most of whom had been on
the river q number OF years, the loca-
tion of Chatterton's landing. Not one
of them had ever heard of such a land
ing on the river. Yet 1t was the name
Of that landing which was associated
with the greatest passenger boat dis
ing of the Wahwasset. She had just
left Chatterton's landing when the fire
broke out. and she was run ashore be-
low the landing. but her stern was in
driven to the rear of the boat by the
flames and forced overheard with the
result that most of them drowned.
Chatterton's landing was on the Nir-
county. near either Matthias point or
Persimmon point. The Rambler has
previously written all the terror de-
tails of the burning of the Wahwasset
and some time he is going to the site
of the old landing and that stretch OF
woods along the shore where so many
of the unidentified victims of the trag-
edy were laid away.
In making a trip on the Potomac on
one of the freight and passenger steam
ers the number of old wharves at which
the boat stops is large. but the number
of older. ruined and abandoned wharves
at which the boat does not stop. but
which the passenger sees. is much
larger One seems scarcely ever out OF
sight of a row or a double row or
ouadruple row of old piles jutting out
from the shore and marking where
some old landing place was. Long ago
the Rambler wrote: Wharf mortality
ia high on the Potomac and its tribu-
taries. because of ice and food, prin-
eipally ice. Moving ice grinds on the