EARLY PLANS FOR LUMBER RIVER
History reveals that for more than one hundred years, the Lumber River held an important place in the economy of the area through which it flows. Unfortunately, no one has left a complete account of how the river was used, but there is enough in old records to show that it was a major path of transportation for goods and people and that there were dreams of even greater use for it.
A description of Lumberton which appeared in a Wilmington newspaper in 1798 is the best existing account of what the new town, then only eleven years old, was like, as well as of the ambitious hopes for its future.
The article, from Hall's Wilmington Gazette of August 30, 1798, reads
LUMBERTON IN 1798 From Historical Notes Edited By D.L. Corbitt
A short account of Lumberton, in the State.
"The Town of Lumberton is situated in the County of Robeson, which can boast of as many natural advantages as any county in the state; the land in point of fertility and richness of soil, is equal to any, the water excellent, the air salubrious. The improvement of Lumberton, the general increase of property therein, and its growing value, have heretofore exceeded the most sanguine expectations of its inhabitants. The situation is eligible for trade, and there is a number of stores in it, where large quantities of merchandize is annually vended in exchange for the staple commodities of the country, which consists of such articles as are best suited to the European and West-India markets - it not only commands the produce of an extensive back country, but its vicinity abounds with Lumber and Naval Sores, which are carried by water to George-Town and Charleston; but this navigation is long, and sufficient encouragement is not to be expected at George-Town market.
"And as it should be the policy of the state, for all its citizens, as much as may be, to confine their dealings within its limits, it is intended to open a navigable Canal from Lumberton to Cape Fear River, which distance is not more than 15 miles; the land is a perfect level, free from rocks, and the object could be effected with as little expense as any work of the same distance on the continent - the cheapness of provisions, the number of labourers always to be had in this part of the country, and the public spirited exertions of every class of citizens, would tend greatly to encourage and facilitate an object, which must ultimately be of the greatest public utility - it would not only increase the quantity of produce in the county of Robeson, which is capable of great improvement, but it would command that of most of the back counties in the state, and a large proportion of that of South Carolina; the whole of which would center at Wilmington.
"By opening this canal of 15 miles only, it would extend an Inland Navigation of two hundred miles, thro' the counties of Bladen, Robeson and Richmond; the inhabitants of which might enjoy the immediate benefits of the Wilmington market, and participate in the trade of Elizabeth-Town and Lumberton, with a prospect of still greater advantages at the head of Navigation."
The idea for a canal connecting the Cape Fear River with the Lumber River, then Drowning Creek, may have originated with William Tatham, one of the founders of Lumberton, who for a brief period of two years appeared in Robeson County's history like a meteor and then moved on. Tatham, a native of England, was a brilliant but tragic figure whose career included being a merchant, explorer, map maker, lawyer, soldier and dabbler in government affairs at all levels, from attempting to form a new colony in what later became Tennessee to international intrigues with England and Spain. While in Robeson County from 1787 to 1789 he became one of Lumberton's Lottery Managers, one of Robeson's first members of the North Carolina House, and a lieutenant-colonel of the local militia. He apparently left, never to return, in early 1789.
In writings later in his life William Tatham told of a plan which he developed in cooperation with Robert Fulton, the inventor of the steamboat, which envisioned a canal from the Cape Fear to Drowning Creek, and then the opening of Drowning Creek, the Little Peedee and the Waccamaw Rivers to large vessels. Tatham would have bypassed the unappreciative merchants and exporters at Georgetown by cutting a canal from the Waccamaw River to the sea at Little River, South Carolina, and establishing a seaport there, competing both with Georgetown and with Wilmington. As with most of Tatham's dreams, this never materialized, and he later accused Robert Fulton of stealing his ideas. It could be that Fulton was involved in the plans for Lumberton reported in this newspaper story.
Although we know that these ambitious plans of 1798 never came to be, they did not die with this story. In 1816 the legislature chartered the Lumber River Canal Company for the purpose of connecting the Lumber River with the Cape Fear, and routes for such a canal were still under consideration by the legislative in 1819. Undoubtedly, the appearance on the horizon in the 1820's of the first railroads changed plans and dreams for transportation and doomed the ideas for inland canals. Still, it is fascinating to image what differences there might have been in Robeson County's history and in its geographical features if either of these schemes had been carried through. (Submitted by: Henry A. McKinnon, Jr.)
RIVER'S IMPORTANCE TO EARLY SETTLERS - THE LUMBER COMMERCE
Even though Lumberton never became the great inland seaport and the Lumber River never the major channel of commerce that dreamers envisioned, the use of the river for navigation is very much a part of the history of Robeson County. From the time of the earliest settlement of this region, it was apparent that if there was to be anything more than bare subsistence for the settlers, there had to be some way of creating a money-economy by exporting the products of the land and acquiring the goods and supplies needed to exist. The principal natural resource of eastern North Carolina for which there was demand in the outside world was in its great pine forests, valuable for timber but even more so for the naval stores they could produce - the tar, pitch and turpentine needed to build and maintain the fleets of the great European shipping nations of the period. North Carolina's economy for its first hundred years as a colony and a new state was built around the naval stores industry.
Marketing these products meant getting them to the seacoast where there were buyers, or with the size and weight of the logs for timber and the tar, pitch and turpentine in barrels or hogsheads, overland transportation was imposible. Therefore, the rivers and streams, no matter how small or crooked, offered the only way of realizing any income to the remote inland areas. The difficulties that must have been presented are almost beyond imaginatio but it appears that those early settlers we equal to the task.
There is evidence to suggest that the immediate Lumberton area was chosen first for settlement and later for the county seat because the accessibility to the river that existed here from the high Red Bluff. It was, and is, one of the few places where the river can be reached from immediately adjacent high land, and it made natural place for loading and unloading produce.
It is also one of the deepest spots along the river. Some old records refer to present Fourth Street as "Wharf Street" and suggest that at end was the major landing place.
John Willis had a sawmill on Raft Swamp just above its mouth on Lumber River about two miles above the Red Bluff-at the same time I owned the plantation there. He may have floated logs from his mill to an assembly point at the Red Bluff for shipment. Because of the narrow and crooked state of the river above the mill of Raft Swamp, this is almost certainly the head of navigation for any sizable boat or raft.
Probably, the method of downstream shipping was to assemble a number of rafts of tied together, with a rude hut or tent for the crew, and possibly with hogsheads of the stores and other produce loaded on them. Then with the current and with poles to guide, would make the long and difficult trip down Drowning Creek to the Little Pee Dee and on it to Winyah Bay, where the Pee Dee and Camaw Rivers join to enter the sea at George town, the coastal market.
No one has record the time this trip would have taken, but it might have been many weeks of hardship for those who made the trip, and at the end there would still be the prospect of a long walk home.
There are no real records of what the profit and rewards of such a trip would be. One piece of evidence suggests how hard timber were and to what length those early residents had to go to exist. A receipt found in the papers of Jacob Rhodes, one of Lumberton's entrepreneurs, reads: "Received Georgetown — July 1812 from Jacob Rhodes, Esq., by hand of Pennywell Lamb two rafts of lumber in the water. Four dollars cash and 2 qts. of rum for the hands, (signed) John Arch Taylor. Whether that was the total compensation owner and crew we will never know.
Even more impossible to imagine than difficulties of a trip downstream on Lumer River to the sea is the fact that vessels with goods made their way upstream as far as Lumberton. The low, swampy banks made towpaths impracticable for horses, oxen or men, and help from sails seems unlikely. Constant poling against the notoriously swift current must have been the only way to make the trip, and many have expressed the belief that this was imposible. Yet there is evidence that it did happen The Wilmington newspaper account indicates there were stores in Lumberton, "where large quantities of merchandise is vended annually and there are other reports which make almost certain that at least some products arrived here from the coast by way of the river. Some type of small barge must have been used, and one fascinating document record in Robeson County records describes at least one more substantial vessel.
