Courier Boats

In the year of 1878 ... was at a time when our only means of transportation was by water. That, the beautiful Ohio River. We had a line of steamboats, the steamer side-wheel Courier and the side-wheel Express. We called them the U. S. Mail boats. Running from Wheeling, W.Va. to Parkersburg, W. Va., one up and one down every day, if fog and low water did not hinder them. Where they landed most all the town would congregate on the bank till the one John Ferrier and the other mail clerk would deliver the mail to the postoffice and return with Newport mail. That was one of the big times of the town.