Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1918-02-25
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the Susquehanna river gives those
who live along its banks, especially
below Northumberland, reason to sit
UP and observe the stream and the
dwellers on the numerous islands
| which split up the waters furnish ex-
periences that read like those under
gone by pioneers IN the western
states instead IN a long settled coun-
try. Perhaps a score of islands ly-
| ing between the junction of the
branches and the gorge like lower
reaches of the river are farmed,
some of the islands being of great
fertility, n few noted for tobacco and
others for the choice varieties of
melons raised on the river mud of by
gone days. These islands range in
appearance from the altitudinous
Hill island, near Middletown, to the
broad and fiat Duncan's island.
which was such a fine possession that
| the Indians used to fight over it.
The people living on these islands
are used to floods and when the
river gets to showing peculiarities in
spring they prepare to move upstairs
and to get their stock to safe places.
Occasionally they begin their tricks"
| too late and some of them have un-
dergone anxious days and nights and
been rescued in the most hair rails
ing manner. The great flood of 1889
was marked by saving of people and
stock from more than one island
when the boom logs were battering
at farmhouses and barns, while the
ice flood" of 1904 will not be for
| gotten by the people on the islands
near Middletown any more than it
II be by the people living in the
section of the town swept by the
l n
| Pennypacker tells in his memoirs of
the rescue of people from islands
near Goldsboro in time of flood and
| the stories of the last quarter CEN
tury of rescues from Clemson's, Dun
cans, McCormick's, Shelley's, Duff
| fy's, and other islands come so close
to the traditions of saving people in
years back that they must be true.
This year, with its unusual condi-
| tions, will probably bring many new
tales of hairbreadth escapes.
One of the most interested of the
observers of the river is Edmund
Mather, who served for many years
as a member of the old board or
Water commissioners. Mr.. Mather
looked after affairs at the water
house" in the days of 1889 Hood and
has observed the Susquehanna Tor
more than half a century. Many
other people living along the banks
of the stream are watching to see
how it will behave in this worst OF
recent winters and there will be
some interesting data to scan in the
spring.
Four women, a man and a boy,
comprising the family that rents
from the city, the farm on McCor-
mick's island, made the venturesome
trip over the ice from the island to
the city shore. They dared death
at every step, for nobody knew when
the great ice cakes piled up there
might break, but they laughed and
ioked az they climbed over the foes
and thought nothing of their jour
ney.
II brought one of the girls over
in the basket we have rigged to the
ferry cable. q sort of aerial railway"
said the farmer, but the ice looked
good to me and when L went back
| found the rest of the family want
ed to go to- church convention in
Harrisburg, so we set out and here
we are"
The girls and the mother laugh
ed over their experience and
young boy in the party said 1T was
good sport"
shore settled down to-day with the
falling of the river and it now looks
as though it might remain there for
weeks, slowly melting with the COM
ing warm weather. The condition
is peculiar, all the river, for miles
being clear except this one stretch
of a mile. Some of the pieces are
fifteen to eighteen inches thick, and
they are badly clogged and jammed.
They have caught coal fleet be-
longing to the Harrisburg Light and
Power Company and another the
property of a coal dredger named
Weiner, badly damaging both. The
boats have been pinched or tossed
up on the banks on the tops of the
heavy ice blocks and will require
weeks of repair before being fit for
service.
Old rivermen are confident that
the efforts of the river coal men will
be amply rewarded the coming sea-
SON. Last year little coal was
brought down, and some of the beds
were we'll nigh exhausted at the
end of the season, but the exception
ally high water of the past week
has loosened up the deposits in the
streams about the anthracite wash
cries and in the Susquehanna
above Millersburg and 1t is be-
liieved that thousands of tons
have been deposited in the beds
about Harrisburg. Some of the
fleets will be slow in getting into
operation, due to the loss of flats in
the ice and the damage to boats that
were not carried off. The floods this
spring brought down little driftwood
and not a single boom log. Old
rivermen say this is because the
lumber operations along the Sus-
auehanna and its tributaries are few
and unimportant. A few years back
every freshet deposited thousands of
logs and millions of feet of smaller
timber all along the stream in this
section and the islands were almost
covered after every period of high
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