Countless stories have been written about the Susquehanna River, the largest on the east coast, and 16^th largest in the United States. Each has its own unique perspective, focusing on such topics as its history, fishing, rafting, Indians, scenery, etc.

In 1853, American landscape artist T. Addison Richards, a native of London, traveled the entire length of the Susquehanna River. The story of his journey, and the sketches he made along the way, were featured in Volume Seven of Harper’s weekly magazine of 1853.

Notice the writing style and terminology of that period. I’ve edited the author’s story because of its length and focused on a few areas of the mid Susquehanna Valley.

The Susquehanna

by T. Addison Richards

The great State of Pennsylvania is drained by the Susquehanna, the Delaware, and the Ohio rivers. More than one-half of its wide area of forty-seven thousand square miles is tributary to the first and noblest of these grand conduits. From its sources among the western outposts of the Catskills, the Susquehanna makes a devious journey of five hundred miles (444) through the southern counties of New York, the entire breadth of Pennsylvania, and a portion of Maryland, when it is lost in the waters of the Chesapeake.

 The Susquehanna is generally broad and shallow, and is broken by bars and rapids, which, but for artificial aid, would prevent all navigation. The floods in spring and autumn time swell the waters sometimes to an extra elevation of twenty feet or more. It is at these seasons that the great rafts of lumber which the intervals have accumulated, are floated off to market.

The passage of these rafts down the angry stream, and their brave battles with the opposing shoals is a gallant and stirring sight. The lifting of the waters is a gala event with the hardy dwellers "on Susquehanna's side;" but the joke is sometimes — as the best of jokes may be — carried too far. Now and then, not the rafts only, but the unfelled forests, the inhabitants, houses, farms', and shores, are swept away. In the spring of 1784, a terrible disaster of this kind nearly filled the adventurous settlers' cup of misfortune, already deeply mixed with the miseries of civil and foreign war. The horrors of these scenes are not unfrequently relieved by the most ludicrous incidents and positions. On one such occasion, an entire family of several generations, with the whole stock of cattle, horses, pigs, dogs, cats, and rats were found huddled together on the extreme point of a small island elevation.

The West Branch and the Juniata are richly-laden portfolios, crowded with novel and varied pictures; but above all, the Susquehanna is the Alpha and the Omega of Nature's gifts to the Keystone State — the first and noblest in beauty, as it is in extent and position.

For some miles hence, old Susquehanna may be said (in contrast with his late wakeful mood) to nod a little: doubtless, however, only in wise preparation for the watch and vigil he always keeps down among the mountains and cliffs of Cattawissa.

Cattawissa unfolds well at all points. The white spires of the little town, buried in the hills, seem to give you a hospitable beckon onward, as on your departure they suggest moistened cambrics, waving a last, distant, and loving adieu. The evening occupation which we found in the society of the few dainty books, which female taste had collected in the parlor of our inn at Cattawissa, no doubt heightened the pleasure of our strolls on the river banks, and of our long days in the woods and on the hill tops. A genial book, with your evening cigar, is a piquant sauce to a rough day's adventures. We usually endeavor to insure ourself this sine qua non (without which not" or "without (something), (something else) won't be possible) comfort, by carrying plentiful stores with us; but though our trunks are ponderous enough to be had in everlasting remembrance by all porters, we often, on extended tours, find our supply inadequate. In such dilemmas it is pleasant to be greeted in strange lands by the welcoming pages either of old favorites, or to meet the proffered friendship of new volumes.

Some admirable rocky bluffs and well-wooded hillsides, and much good material for the study of the artist in the nature of loose, moss-grown stone and tree-trunks, is to be found about Cattawissa. On the road and on the towpath, above and below the village, many nicely composed pictures may be got, as also from all the panoramic sites. In our sketch down the river, overlooking the village, the waters sweep away in exceedingly graceful outlines.

From Cattawissa down to Northumberland, we meet with no points claiming extraordinary attention. The road here drops off from the water; occasionally, however, touching or nearly approaching it, and everywhere traversing an agreeably diversified country of intermingled forest and meadow land — well besprinkled throughout with villages and farms. The canal still accompanies the river; and the tow-path — as also the shores — often present graceful scenes, with an occasional vista of marked beauty. Fine groups of trees abound everywhere.

Northumberland, if it had fulfilled its ancient promise, and made good use of its eligible business position, and whilome (former, or one time) prestige of success, would now be one of the most thriving towns in the State. But when called to account for its " time misspent and its fair occasions gone forever by," like the idle steward, it brings back only its one buried talent. Here the great West Branch of the Susquehanna joins the parent river; and here, too, the western division of the canal unites with the main route. Eighty miles up the west branch, the scenery is scarcely less attractive than that which we have passed in the vicinage of Nanticoke; yet being more out of the way of general travel, is much less visited by the hunter of the picturesque.

Northumberland is as much favored pictorially as geographically. Its position, in the apex formed by the two great arms of the Susquehanna, is admirably seen in the noble view up the river from the bold hills on the opposite side. Upon the summit of these bluffs a grotesque fancy has perched certain ungainly looking wooden summerhouses, which lean over the precipice, a la Pisa and Saragossa.

Several immense bridges connect the cape of Northumberland with the opposite shores. The Susquehanna bridges are, from the usual great width of the river, always of such leviathan length, as to compel especial notice.

In the present culinary condition of the land, we cannot conscientiously advise our dainty readers to tarry long anywhere in the next forty miles, between Northumberland and the meeting of the river with the Juniata. The artist, however, and all others who look up to the bright sky and abroad upon the smiling face of Nature, before they poke their noses into the kitchens, may halt here and there with advantage.

The last picture of this series is a peep up the Susquehanna, from the towpath near the mouth of the Juniata. The great width of the waters here and onwards produces that high delight in the contemplation of Nature — the grateful sensation of distance and space — the secret of the universal pleasure afforded in the wide-reaching views commanded by mountain-tops. To many hearts the thousand variations in the picturesque, yet more confined, defiles and passes presented in the upper waters of the river offer no compensation for the absence of this quality of expanse and freedom. The waters here are so shallow as to expose long capes of sand bar, often covered with cattle ; and indeed the cows, in their search for relief from the summer heat, wander far out into the river, where they seem like little groups of islands ; a singular appearance, which would be odd enough in a picture, which is never received with that unquestioning faith given to Nature herself, however surprising her eccentricities.

We ought not, perhaps, to omit cautioning the tourist against certain dregs which may lie at the bottom of the cup of pleasure he may dip from the waters of the Susquehanna. While inhaling the soft airs of brightening morn, or the zephyrs of gloaming eve, he must have a care of the miasmas with which they are mingled — the dews and fogs, so productive of the much-feared agues and fevers. This ill is one to which all the river shores of Pennsylvania are more or less exposed. Few of the inhabitants but have experiences to relate thereof, and the stranger must maintain a proper vigilance, or he will certainly come away a wiser if not a better man.

At the junction of the Juniata with the Susquehanna, we touch the grand lines of railway and canal from the Atlantic to the far West. One hour's journey will transport us, if we please, to the State capital, from whence we may readily plunge again into the stream of busy life.