William and Fannie Knauss McWilliams - Chapter 1

William McWilliams and Fannie Knauss were my maternal great-great-grandparents. William was the son and grandson of John and William McWilliams whose family histories are also posted here. William and Fannie spent most of their lives in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, but traveled west a few times. Their oldest son, Benjamin, wrote a memoir in his eighties and left behind many stories about his family and his imprisonment in Confederate prison camps, including Andersonville, during the Civil War. 

(Note - Click on the photos to open them in a new larger window.)

William and Fannie McWilliams' Headstone in Barton City Cemetery 
Barton County, Missouri

WESTWARD HO!

In the spring of 1852, William and Fannie McWilliams loaded a horse-drawn wagon with all their worldly goods and joined tens of thousands of other pioneers heading westward to Iowa. It was highly unlikely that either of them had been more than a few miles from their birthplace in Pennsylvania when they began their trek toward the prairies of the Midwest. Their destination was Dubuque, located on the Mississippi River in northeast Iowa at the juncture of three states; Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois. The lure of cheap, fertile farmland tempted them to venture forth halfway across the continent from their Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, home with their four young children. The trip would be long, difficult and dangerous for Ben aged 8½, John 4½, Francis Marion 2½, and James, only four months old. 

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania’s Golden Triangle in 1850

Their wagon carried them over land for the first 200 miles to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where they continued their journey by river.  Entering the huge, bustling Ohio River port was likely a bewildering experience for them as they boarded a steamboat bound for Dubuque. Over 46,000 people lived in the city, and steamboat trade and travel on the river was at its peak.  Pittsburgh was located at the magnificent source of the Ohio River, formed by the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers, known as the Golden Triangle.  They probably left the harbor as the rising sun erased the usual light, morning fog enveloping the river.

Morning Fog Over the Ohio River on the Pennsylvania and Ohio Border on July 19, 2018

The McWilliams family traveled a distance of 981 miles westward down the broad, blue waters of the Ohio River to reach the Mississippi River at Cairo, Illinois. There the Ohio River was wider than the Mississippi and its clear water gradually mingled with the muddy-brown color of the Mississippi. They turned upstream and traveled an additional 581 miles to reach Dubuque around June 15.  Their steamboat floated past the cities of Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis, and scores of smaller towns on the riverbanks of nine states. The trip must have been an epic experience for the family!

Ohio River at Cincinnati in 1848

There is no record of how long it took their vessel to travel from Pittsburgh to Dubuque. Steamboats typically averaged a speed of about five miles per hour and might cover twenty-five to fifty miles in a day. Factors such as weather, the craft’s size, cargo weight, river current and depth affected its rate of speed. The frequency of stops for passengers and fuel (coal or wood) added unpredictable amounts of time to the journey.

St. Louis Levee 1852

It was likely the McWilliams traveled “economy class” as deck passengers. Wealthy patrons’ more expensive cabin fares provided a berth and meals, but deck passengers paid one-sixth to one-quarter cent per mile and made their own beds on the lower cargo deck of the boat. These accommodations offered little protection from the elements. Deck passengers usually brought their own food on board and could cook on community stoves available for passengers’ use. They slept in their clothes and used toilet facilities which emptied into the river. Both rich and poor steamboat travelers faced potential danger and disaster as they floated to their destination.

Steamboat Deck Passengers 

“Deck passengers usually outnumbered cabin passengers three or four to one. The fares were cheap but the comforts few: without beds or shelter, they found room among the cargo crates. Diseases spread in such close quarters. The deck passengers in this image are suffering from cholera.”

From John M. Woodworth, The Cholera Epidemic of 1873 in the United States, 1875. - Courtesy of Smithsonian Institution Libraries

Louisville, Kentucky Wharf

Boiler explosions, grounding on sand bars, collisions with floating tree trunks or other debris, thieves on board, and epidemics of diseases such as cholera were common on the crowded waterways. 

Keokuk, Iowa Landing 1853

At long last the weary family reached their destination when the boat docked in Dubuque, Iowa. Their first impression may have been similar to this 1849 account by another traveler.

“Creeping into the crooked harbor of Dubuque like a burster going late to bed. Sun-rise. Dubuque is washing her face for Sunday. She is a fair town, and in our opinion will never be less. The buildings are generally brick, the streets are regular and dry. Dubuque, we must say, looks slightly slack about the feet and ancles [sic]. There is about many of the houses a margin of “clutter” where all should be clear. One street, well built for a new town, extends, apparently, three-fourths of a mile, leaving room for an extension on the same level beyond. We saw no hogs about town. The houses are underpinned, so we infer, the hogs are kept for service and not for society."

Map of the Ohio and Mississippi River route traveled by the McWilliams family in 1852

ABOUT-FACE

Apparently, something went awry almost as soon as they arrived in Dubuque. After completing the perilous voyage to Iowa, the McWilliams stayed there for only two weeks before they again loaded their wagon to return to Pennsylvania! For some unknown reason they reversed their decision to relocate on the Midwest prairie.  

Perhaps William was discouraged from settling in the area simply because it was so crowded and expensive, with too many other folks seeking to relocate there at the same time. Dubuque grew very rapidly in 1852; thousands of homeseekers and capitalists landed from the steamers.  The city had a population of over 5000 in February 1852 and one hundred new buildings were erected in the town during that year. 414 boats arrived in the Dubuque harbor in 1852 and 351 docked the year before. The boats not only carried passengers and cargo, but also a dreaded outbreak of cholera in the summer of 1852. Other factors which may have contributed to the family’s quick departure were described in the town’s newspaper, “Daily Miners’ Express.”

“Why is it that property has advanced some 30 or 50 per cent in the last year in this city and that so many married men are flocking to the place anxious to invest their means among us? (May 20, 1852) Never did a spring open in Dubuque with more flattering prospects of a healthy and lucrative trade. Our hotels are crowded beyond their capacity to accommodate; our merchants, builders and mechanics are active; our smelting mills and foundries, etc., are enjoying a season of the highest prosperity; our streets are crowded with immigrant wagons; the demand for dwellings and business houses is beyond the capacity of our property holders to meet; the best and fastest steam ferry boat on the Mississippi is actively engaged; the harbor improvement is progressing rapidly; and everywhere is seen growth and prosperity.” (April 9, 1852) 

The family may have suddenly been overwhelmed by their lack of financial resources and manpower, as they faced the reality of life on an isolated homestead. William’s father died in 1849 and his estate was settled in 1852, so perhaps he hoped to use inherited money to purchase land in Iowa. Life was primitive on the recently opened territory in the Midwest, however, and he may have had second thoughts upon arrival. Establishing a home on the available land required building a shelter and breaking the prairie soil to plant crops. They may have brought little food or equipment with them and supplies were scarce in the remote areas where families were settling. The tasks may have been too daunting for 31-year-old William without the support of his extended family, especially in a region with vastly different resources from the mountains and valleys of Pennsylvania. 

It is likely that William spent most of his inheritance and savings on his ill-fated trip west. He was paid $77.83 for services rendered to his father and $1184.31 as an heir in the account of administrators in his father’s probate file documents.  The journey to Iowa and back probably depleted those funds. There is no record of him owning land during the remainder of his lifetime.

The McWilliams’ journey back to Northumberland County was a leisurely trip including stops to visit with relatives. They traveled overland about one hundred miles and stayed three days in Dixon, Illinois, with friends who had moved west the year before. From there they boarded a train bound for Detroit, by way of Chicago. After the four-hundred-mile trip to Detroit, they once again boarded a boat, which crossed Lake Erie and docked in Sandusky, Ohio. Back on land, they travelled about fifteen miles to the home of Fannie’s uncle, Solomon Knauss.  

Solomon owned a large farm two miles north of Bellevue, Ohio, where they stayed for nine weeks before covering the last four hundred miles to their old home by wagon. It was probably late summer by the time the McWilliams arrived in Bellevue.  Perhaps William decided to help Solomon with his farm chores and harvest before returning to Pennsylvania. In 1850, Solomon and his elder sons had raised 1400 bushels of wheat, 1200 bushels of Indian corn, 500 bushels of oats, 200 bushels of potatoes, 24 bushels of clover seed, and 56 tons of hay. He owned eight horses, seven milch cows, ten other cattle, thirty-three sheep and forty swine. Their sheep yielded 50 pounds of wool and the women of the household churned 626 pounds of butter.  There was surely plenty of work to occupy both families. 

Sandusky Docks on Lake Erie 1854

The McWilliams may have taken the Chicago and Fulton Railroad and the Michigan Central Railroad, shown on this 1855 map, on their return trip to Pennsylvania.  The route from Dubuque to Sandusky is marked by dots and shading on the map. Their path down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers is also traced. 

The family faced many challenges in the years following their return to Pennsylvania. Sickness, the Civil War and dreary work in coal mines would challenge the McWilliams family's future destiny.  

Sources: 

  McWilliams, Benjamin Cruiser, B.C. McWilliams Prison Diary, Copied from the original by Georgia Mathews Wood and Walter H. Wood, Son of Lena Query Wood, Granddaughter of B.C. McWilliams, Distributed at the Annual Reunion at the Buck Run Community Center, Ft. Scott, Bourbon County, Kansas, August 1995, War History, page 1; accessed copy owned by Cynthia L. Cruz

  Image from Brookline PA website, Brookline Connection, Historical Facts and Photos, Brookline and Pittsburgh – The First 260 Years and Counting (1754 – present), Pittsburg History, The Golden Triangle, The Point – 1850, no documentation of image;  www.brooklineconnection.com/history/Facts/Point1850.html

  Ripley, George and Dana Charles A., The New American Cyclopaedia: A Popular Dictionary of General Knowledge, volume 13, New York, D. Appleton and Company, 1879, page 554; accessed https://archive.org 

  Cruz, Cynthia, personal photograph, Ohio River at Wheeling, West Virginia/Ohio state line, July 19, 2018

  Ohio and Mississippi River Maps; accessed https://www.riverlorian.com/rivermaps.htm  

  Fontayne, Charles and Porter, William, Daguerreotype View of Cincinnati, Taken from Newport, KY, September 24, 1848, housed in the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County; https://1848.cincinnatilibrary.org/;

accessed https://www.wired.com/2010/07/ff_daguerrotype_panorama/2/

 

  Easterly, Thomas, Daguerreotype, St. Louis Levee, 1852, St. Louis MO; accessed stlouis_levee1852thomas_easterly1600x1224; accessed https://steamboattimes.com/levee_scenes.html

  Explorations in Iowa History Project, Frontier Life in Iowa (1833-1870), Transportation in Frontier Iowa, Helpful Hints for Steamboat Passengers, PDF, accessed https://iowahist.uni.ed 

  Billings, John S., Woodworth, John M., The Cholera Epidemic of 1873 in the United States, 1875, Washington D.C., Government Printing Office, 1875, page 52A, Smithsonian Institution Libraries; accessed https://archive.org

  Tim Talbott, “Louisville’s Steamboat Era,” ExploreKYHistory; accessed https://explorekyhistory.ky.gov/items/show/461

  Easterly, Thomas, Daguerreotype, Keokuk Landing, Iowa, 1852, Keokuk, Iowa; keokuk_landing1853thomas_easterly1600x1002; accessed https://steamboattimes.com/levee_scenes.html 

  Babcock, Willoughby M., Steamboat Travel on the Upper Mississippi in 1849, Minnesota History Magazine, Volume 7, Issue 1, March 1926, page 57-58, Minnesota Historical Society; accessed collections.mnhs.org/MNHistoryMagazine/articles/7/v07i01p054-061.pdf  

  Map of Ohio and Mississippi Rivers; accessed www.captainjohn.org/River_MissUP.html

  Oldt, Franklin T. and Quigley, P.J., History of Dubuque County Iowa; being a general survey of Dubuque County history, including a history of the city of Dubuque and special accounts of districts throughout the county, from the earliest settlement to the present time, Chicago, Goodspeed Historical Association, 1911, page 211, Library of Congress; accessed https://archive.org

 Oldt, page 94-95

  Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, Orphan’s Court Docket, Administrators Accounts, Volume 1, p. 184-185, John McWilliams (1852), Account, 3 August 1852, Register and Recorder’s Office, Northumberland County Courthouse, Sunbury

  McWilliams, page 1

  King, Wilbur Lewis, Knauss Genealogy, Lukas Knauss (1633-1713), of Dudelsheim, Germany and his American Descendants, Bethlehem, PA, Privately Printed, 1930, page 68-69; accessed https://archive.org  

  1850 U.S. Census, Erie County, Ohio, Groton Township, Agriculture Schedule, page 101B, William McWilliams; NARA microfilm publication T1159, Roll 3, line 27; U.S., Selected Federal Census Non-Population Schedules, 1850-1880; accessed www.ancestry.com, image 1

  Sachse, E. and Company, View of the City of Sandusky, O, Baltimore, Maryland, 1854, Sandusky Library Archives Research Center; Ohio History Connection, Ohio Memory Collection; accessed https://ohiomemory.org  

  Bradford, L.H. & Co., Railway Map Shewing the Connections Between Muscatine, Iowa and Eastern Cities, Boston, 1857; Railroad Maps, 1828 to 1900, Library of Congress; accessed https://www.loc.gov

Next Time - THE FIRSTBORN SON