June 7, 1844, Friday.

Early on this June morning, Hannibal and Jim set out in the direction of the river at the behest of their employers: every able-bodied man and boy in Brookville was needed to help with the timber rafting, except the few who needed to stay behind to tend to travellers and make sure the woodsies didn't make off with half the town. The rivers were at flood, which meant the June run was imminent. The timbermen had to get their rafts down to the Allegheny for the expert pilots to take them on to Pittsburgh.

Cherry packed Hannibal a lunch, but she was mad at them both. Cherry wanted to go, too.

'First, you can't,' said Hannibal. 'It would be okay with us, but somebody else would complain about girls. Second, you're only fifteen. You gotta be strong to handle the rafts.' Cherry wasn't satisfied, and said something about how she bet Lucretia Mott¹ would go rafting if she wanted to. Hannibal doubted loudly whether anybody in Philadelphia did that much work. They managed to escape this progressive lecture, and ran into Doctor Gara Bishop, who was also on his way to the rafting.

'Morning, Dr Bishop,' said Hannibal. 'What brings you out for a ride on the river?'

'Oh, you know nobody ever gets sick around here,' was the reply. 'The climate is too healthy. It's breathing in all that fresh pine air. And there's no preaching to do on a Friday.' Dr Bishop was also the Presbyterian minister. In the pulpit, he was extremely dignified. (Jim, who had heard him speak, found him less entertaining than the Baptist preacher, but would never have said so out loud.) Out of the pulpit, though, Dr Bishop was what they called 'genial'. He liked people. At six feet tall, he was muscular enough to manage a timber raft.

'Besides,' he said, 'somebody might hurt himself out there. Might as well have a doctor handy.' To be honest, Dr Bishop wasn't all that interested in medicine: he'd studied it in Philadelphia, but he never practised until he came out to Brookville. Mostly, he just liked the science of things. Still, Jim would be glad to have him around in case of injury. Rafting could get rough.

Just about the entire male population of Jefferson County were assembled near the sawmill by Redbank Creek. There was a lot of activity and shouting. Dr Bishop wished them a good journey and went off to join his friends. Hannibal and Jim ran down the steep path to the river and looked around for an assignment. They didn't have to look far.

Lined up along the creek bank were long rafts. A raft started with platforms of about 30 layers of 16-foot-long pine boards, laid crosswise and held together by 'grubs' – oak saplings lashed together, root and all. About ten of these platforms went together to make a raft about 170 feet long, with an oar at each end. Jim and Hannibal found a raft, picked up their friend Dan Craig as a helper, and waited for the signal to start.

'You row in back!' shouted Hannibal. 'I'll go in front and watch for snags.' Jim gave him a thumbs-up signal.

Northwestern Pennsylvania led the nation in lumber production. These timber rafts were going all the way to Pittsburgh, to be used in shipbuilding. Pittsburgh made a lot of boats and ships. Down there, where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers met to form the Ohio, were some master shipwrights, and four rope walks. Brookville and other upriver settlements provided the raw materials.

When everybody was ready, they started floating the rafts downriver. Fortunately, Redbank Creek was up, and there were few snags to catch their raft on, thought Jim. He thought wrong: about a mile down, they passed the McClure brothers, stuck fast on a sand bank. They waved in sympathy. Don and Zeke waved back, but they could hear the cursing over the water. They couldn't stop, and Hannibal steered them around the obstruction.

'42 miles of fast water,' thought Jim. 'What a ride.' He spotted a family of river otters, who paused in their play on a homemade mud slide to gape at the strange humans and their craft. Birds and squirrels fussed in the tall trees. Overhead, Jim spied the occasional eagle or buzzard, soaring above the timber flotilla.

The day passed pleasantly enough. Jim sang to himself:

As I went down in the river to pray,

Studying about that good old way,

When you shall wear the starry crown,

Good Lord, show me the way…

Hannibal, Jim, and Dan nourished themselves along the journey with crusts and dried apples and raisins from their pockets, and drank from the river, which unsurprisingly had a bit of a piney taste to it. Occasionally, people from the settlements along the river came out to wave at the water parade. The day passed peacefully, but it was late afternoon before they reached the end of Redbank Creek. They didn't see any more 'jams' until they got to where the creek emptied into the Allegheny. Then, it was chaos.

'Over here! Over here!' The shout was urgent, from half a dozen of the river workers. They waved Hannibal over to the bank, away from what looked like the biggest wood-jam in the world.

At least five rafts were involved, stuck up against each other. One had somehow raised up in the water and was lying halfway atop another. There was running around and shouting and contradictory advice.

'They'll sort it,' laughed Hannibal, who had tied up their raft and joined Jim and Dan on the bank. 'Let's go and get supper. We'll need the food: we've got a lot of walking to do.'

Very kind people from the East Brady Methodists had laid out food for the river travellers. There was roast venison and hot griddle cakes, and Indian pudding, with cider and small beer to wash it down. (They were Methodists, after all.) Jim and the others loaded up on comestibles, and took the opportunity to visit while they rested.

After all, Hannibal was right: it was going to be a long walk back to Brookville.

Dmitri Gheorgheni