It couldn't be easier. Young Matt wanted to begin immediately.
*This aqueduct is illustrated two boats wide. Many (most of the long aqueducts) allowed only single boat passage.
The Great Juniata River Aqueduct
Aqueducts continued canals across rivers and large streams. Most were built on stone piers (pilings) that could resist high water, ice floes, uprooted trees, and fires. The canal boats floated onto the aqueducts, which were canals made of wood. Most aqueducts, including ours a mile and a half upriver from Clark's Ferry Bridge, were covered as if they were road bridges. During the winter the canals were drained and the aqueducts were caulked and made watertight as if they were boats.
Chapter 7
Matt Miller, the younger, examined his domain with satisfaction. With China and his father gone far up the Juniata and not due back for days, he, the Boss's Boy, ruled the vast Miller empire.
On a whim he could send men scurrying. He could launch cargoes, he could command teams of workers, he . . . Lukey Bates' firm tones interrupted his gratifying contemplations.
"You going to the milling tonight, Matt?"
Matt shook his mind into the real world. "Milling? Where? I hadn't heard about it."
It was Bates' turn to enjoy a headshake. "The fights have been the talk for nearly a week, and you hadn't heard?"
Matt had a valid excuse. He had been up the Susquehanna most of the week smoothing out the river coal mining, which had somehow become his alone to deal with.
Just because he presented an idea did not mean that he should be stuck with the day-to-day details of the scheme, but big Matt had said, "It's your plan, son. Make it work," and that had been that.
And it was working. Matt had found his older men and put them into flat-bottomed work boats that tonged and shoveled aboard the coal bars before poling ashore to unload onto piles that grew astonishingly high.
Even before he had enough coal to ship, a buyer arrived at the Miller headquarters. The man had a coal-fired iron foundry well downriver from Columbia, and the cost of coal coming in from the fields via the Delaware and across land to his workings was devouring his profit.
River coal was trash compared to the graded tonnage from the usual sources, but it should be cheap, and it would burn—if Mister Miller could provide enough of it on schedule and for a tolerable price.
It happened that, among other products, the ironmaster was a maker of round saw blades—of a temper not to be found elsewhere, he claimed. The iron man called his blades circular saws. The younger Mister Miller agreed to barter payment— coal to blades for a sawmill. Less money changing hands—good business.
The Boss was away, but young Matt guaranteed delivery, closed the deal, and immediately headed north to the best coal bars at Liverpool. The Susquehanna branch of the canal passed the small town, and Matt needed not only more coal but also a dock and hoist to transfer his cargo into their canal boats—as soon as he could get a canal boat.
Passing through the Irish workers' camp on Duncan's Island, he had arranged for three more two-man crews to obtain boats and tools from the turning basin boatyard to join the miners already at work.
As he had before, Matt hired older men who needed work badly but who could no longer manage the usual ten-hour days. Working at his own pace, a worn-down laborer still produced steadily, and he worked for less money.
The miners moved to Liverpool vicinity and lived together in a single barrack kind of housing. When he had time, Matt intended looking into that end of things. There could be a dollar in providing living places for workmen—Millerstown, two dozen miles up the Juniata, had twenty-nine so-called hotels for just that purpose. A perfect arrangement, Matt believed. Everybody was satisfied, and everybody got ahead.
Of course, it was not quite that easy. Before he had been able to provide flat boats, logs salvaged from the river had to be sawed into boards, and the sawmill itself had to be built.
An Irish sawyer had been found among the Miller Men, and using John McFee's crew, they had constructed a decent round-saw mill. Overseen by China Smith, the sawyer now ruled a burgeoning boat building and repair yard that was paying handsomely. Lumber sales were also growing as towns along the canals rapidly developed.
From the Maryland Iron Works, big Matt had received a pair of three foot in diameter saw blades that ate through any wood fed into them like hot knives through lard. The coal-buying ironmaster had not exaggerated. His saw blades held their edge.
Even saw-milling became more complicated as other opportunists sought the suddenly valuable floating logs, and Matt made arrangements to buy as well as salvage the formerly free floaters, but business expanded, and the Miller companies were getting their share.
China Smith designed and oversaw the Miller Company's boat building. The first canal boat had been built from green lumber because the craft was needed immediately. That boat was not expected to endure lengthy service, but China had built before, and he planned on shrinkages and warpings that few freshwater builders anticipated. From the first to their current offerings, Miller boats gained sterling reputations.
Young Matt's flat-bottom workboats could be turned out virtually overnight. China had insisted on creating full-size wooden patterns of various shapes of small boats—the way it was done in New England where boat building was a major occupation.
Lumber was laid against the pattern of the boat piece wanted, drawn around, and sawed out. Flat boats were nailed together, often coated with boiled pine pitch, and launched.
Matt considered the savings possible if there was a Miller nail factory in operation, and with iron on the hill, that might be practical.
Still, they might do best by dealing with one of the local furnaces that could easily produce nails and spikes. Until then, he swapped coal for nails from the Maryland works. Return cargo for the empty coal boat was always difficult.
For working the coal bars, Matt insisted on doubled bottoms and extra thick gunneled boats. The boats were often run aground or scraped over rock ledges, and digging tools knocked regularly against the gunnels—the top edges of the boat sides. When the boats were new, a bailing bucket was provided until the wood swelled and the flat bottomed crafts became watertight. Those boats also sold well along the rivers.
As the coal business developed, large flat boats were towed into position against profitable coal bars and coal was piled on. When loaded, the flats were towed ashore, attached to lifting booms that swung the load over a canal boat, and dumped into the cargo hold. China Smith knew how to rig those kind of contraptions, and once seen, everybody else knew as well.
Inevitably, but astonishingly fast to Matt's eyes, other men got into the river coal business, but none of the others had Miller outlets to canal boats or distant iron works. Their profit came from selling cheaply to young Matt Miller's operation. Big Matt liked that kind of moneymaking.
+++
So, there were to be fights. Was he going? Matt could not have considered otherwise.
Matt asked, "Who's milling?"
Lukey Bates was not a genuine fight fan, but the clerk had the contacts to know about nearly everything going on.
"The big fight is between someone called Frederick The Great and our man Mickey McFee, the Irish Hurricane."
Matt's interest leaped. "Are the Irish fighting the Germans?"
"That's the idea, as I understand it. Some other mills are to be fought, but I do not know the names."
Bates frowned to himself, "Why do they call it milling, Matt? Why not stick to fighting or boxing? Milling sounds as if they were going to grind flour or something."
"Milling comes from England, Lukey. The great champions like Tom Cribb or Tom Spring, Harry "Kid" Furness, and Jem Ward, the current champion, are all known as millers. Sounds more civilized than fist fighters for the ladies and the gentle folk, maybe."
"There is nothing gentle about any of it, to my mind. Fist fighters are identifiable as soon as you see them. Most can't breathe through t
heir noses, and they have face scars that are painful to look at."
"Yeah." Matt's voice sounded distant. His thoughts were on the evening's battles. He wanted to see Mickey McFee in action again. The man was becoming a ferocious hitter, but, to Matt's eyes, he lacked almost all of the skills China taught. Who else would square off against the Germans?
Actually, some of the German workers were as much Miller Men as the Irish. Except for their native language differences, they were all much alike, anyway. They were young men who worked almost until they dropped, who believed they were tougher than anyone else around, and who were ready to prove it almost any time and any place.
The millings provided outlets for men to escape the mind-numbing drudgery of day in and day out work. The fights raised a battler above the common mob, and men admired and respected their fighters. A little money could even be made—if a fighter won.
China said the fights pulled the different groups together and gave the men something to belong to.
If Miller Men were battling, Matt wanted to be there to lend support. Maybe . . .? Young Matt Miller let that thought run.
Chapter 8
China and the Captain reached the new canal-side village of Newport late in the afternoon. Beyond the canal docks and convenient river crossings, the town had little to offer, but Big Matt had been lacking vigor in recent weeks and chose to call it a day. They checked into lodging a half block from the canal bank. While the boss rested before supper, China drifted about the docks arranging for a morning boat ride to Petersburg and picking up bits and pieces of information that might prove of later interest.
Word of the Saturday evening fights scheduled for their destination grabbed China's attention. Many Newporters were German, and their hopes lay with a battler known as Frederick the Great. Another recognized German combatant was called The Baron, and Smith gathered that the workman—whose full title included Von und Zu Dieter Haas of Haasburg in Bavaria—actually was of noble lineage.
The Irish Hurricane would meet Frederick. Other Irish fighters? To their knowledge, no one had stepped forward—but some would! They always did, and the talkers and spitters wished they could get downriver to enjoy the milling.
China checked the sun and considered that he and the Boss could rent a carriage and easily make the fights. Both would like to attend, but . . . big Matt was sort of worn out, and China began to weigh just who else might plan on stepping into the square while the big dogs were away.
Young Matt was aching to try organized fist fighting. Big Matt's wishes had squelched the hungers so far, but with neither father nor China about, little Matt really might seize the chance to test his skills.
China let time run while he thought about it. The truth was, he also wondered how Matt would do if squared off against a tough and determined opponent.
Big Matt, on the other hand, might plow on in and order his pugnacious son out of the square. That would prove mortifying to the youth, and it would weaken him in many eyes and minds.
Of course, the Boss might stay quiet and in the background waiting to applaud his boy and perhaps, secretly, as interested in the outcome as anyone.
It could go either way. China suspected it would be safest to let the milling go by undiscovered and to arrive about noon to determine if little Matt had been involved.
Damn, the Boss's Boy would get into it as sure as he, China Smith, sat on his duffle ten miles away. The old fighter wished he could be there to wrap his protégé's fists, to whisper advice in his ear, and to make sure that he fought smart and damn sure won without getting his head knocked out of shape.
Although the law claimed a boy was not a man until his twenty-first birthday, young Matt was almost twenty, and that was old enough to take his chances in life. Most youths were married, working, and raising children well before that magic birth date.
Big Matt was aware of his son's coming of age, and he was making moves toward that time.
He had said, "I am separating all of our western businesses from those in the east, China. Everything will eventually come to Matt, but I think it would be wise to divorce what we have out here from Brascomb's projects. My brother has a jealous streak and it surfaces often enough for me to wish to make sure that Matt has a solid grip on things in case Brascomb outlives me."
Smith nodded understanding, and the Captain continued. "As you know, I have sent to Philadelphia for the biggest safe we can get. I won't announce it to Brascomb, but we will begin salting cash away in quantities large enough to be meaningful but small enough not to make our books look bad. It will take a year, but thereafter, if anything goes wrong in the east, we will be able to function out here without interruption."
China believed that move to be wise, although it was unlikely that the father would ever willingly hand over all of the reins to his son. A man like big Matt Miller thrived on power and control of successful business. As long as he breathed, he would want the final word on important decisions.
Even if he wished, big Matt could not endow his son with ownership until he was twenty-one, but he could surrender some control and decision making to young Matt. If little Matt hungered for ultimate authority, he would have to wait a few more decades. His father was still increasing his workforce and expanding his influence.
Young Matt had projects of his own, and the boss tolerated and approved of his son's varied operations. River coal mining was turning out well, and the circular sawmill became busier each month. Although boat building was steady, lumber for house building promised to become the mill's most important product.
With cold weather again approaching, Young Matt was storing every river log he could acquire. When the earth froze, the canals would be drained for the winter, canal construction would stall, and workmen of all skills would be idle. Matt had not announced his plans for the burgeoning log piles, but China and the Captain expected he would keep the mill working as long as the wheel had water to turn it.
Over the cold months, the mill could convert mountains of logs into salable boards and planks. Until the stream froze, the mill would keep some of the men working, and in the spring, their seasoned lumber would be barged downstream and sell for high prices.
Young Matt's interest extended beyond coal and milled lumber. He had noted that the shingles roofing the almost new Susquehanna River Bridge were already failing. Instead of good split red cedar shingles, the bridge contractor had slapped on pine shingling that could not last. At young Matt's insistence, Lukey Bates was already in contact with a Commonwealth purchasing agent. When the bridge needed reroofing, the name Miller would be high on the agent's list.
Which meant that Matt had to create a shingle factory. China was not sure just how a shingle- works operated, but the Boss's Boy had been making drawings.
Big Matt approved that direction as well. Houses also needed good roofs, and there might be a market for shingles downstream—or even along the canals where towns were sprouting like mushrooms.
Within a year or two, canal building would be finished, and although there could be profit in maintaining the waterways and their boats, other businesses would be needed. The Millers thought of bricks and iron and, of all things—stump-pullers.
Young Matt was responsible for that interest as well. Everywhere he looked, Matt saw stump-dotted fields. Immense stumps loomed in the middle of roads and made meadows discouraging to scythe. Men ripped their plows apart on giant roots, and they labored endlessly chopping and hauling the stumps of trees their fathers had felled half a lifetime before.
An influential man back of Bloomfield had an iron screw machine that sucked out stumps using a single ox. Matt intended to contact the stump man during the colder months when they would both have time to discuss the machine and how the Millers might come onto one or more.
The fights were being staged at the German camp almost alongside the Little Juniata Creek. Irish Miller Men had hiked en masse from their encampment north of the town, and more than a few spectators were from Pe
tersburg itself.
Unlike some millings, this was an almost friendly gathering. There were no bitter emotions threatening to boil over into general brawling. Both German and Irish contingents described themselves as Miller Men, and increasingly often they worked together.
Their champions would hammer at each other, and challenges from the crowd might induce others to step into the square to advance their personal standing or support their never deeply- buried national traditions as mighty warriors prepared to take on all-comers.
Men fought. It was as simple as that. Men longed to prove who packed the hardest punch or had the strongest chin. To be knocked flat held no disgrace. That too was part of being a Donnybrook Irishman or a battling Bavarian.
Men judged other men by how well they handled themselves, and more than a few placed great value on another's willingness to square off against anyone challenging. Fortunately, for this night's activities, there was no money available for hard liquor, and the scheduled bouts had no serious money bet either way. Although voices would be loud and the cheering and jeering confrontational, a good time for all was expected.
Matt and Lukey Bates had brought a tall bench for sitting on during the melees. They wanted to be high enough to see over heads in front of them, but standing could grow wearisome, and the gathering could be lengthy.
Where to sit required a bit of thought as Matt wished to appear neutral without leaning toward either side. The Germans had claimed the best rising ground for seats. Lukey placed their bench almost between the battling contingents. Matt figured no one could fairly claim the Boss's Boy and his clerk were choosing sides.
The Boss's Boy Page 7