The 1882 drydock work journal

At 23 years of age in 1882, Wilson Rickenbach kept a pocket work journal documenting daily tasks and at the drydock. In addition to describing the work done on different boats, he included a brief description of weather conditions, visitors, personal expenditures, and leisure activities. It offers a unique window into the daily activities at a working drydock in the waning years of the Schuylkill Navigation, as well as a peek into the culture of Pennsylvania Germans toward the end of the 19th century. The journal is in the private collection of a descendant of Wilson's brother Adam. Let's explore a sample of it!

Unfortunately the author of the journal was not identified. Undaunted, I dug into the daily entries for clues, and the following entries in the journal pages sealed the deal. On the entry for Wednesday, 18 January 1882, the author refers to the birth of the author's child.

His child's death is mentioned on 1 June 1882 (below), which preceded a very matter-of-fact accounting of paying $3.50 for the coffin on the same day, and $4 for the burial lot at Hinnershitz Cemetery the next day. There was no work at the yard on June 2, the day Wilson and his wife Susanna buried their child. But the next day it was back to a full day of putting planking on a tugboat.

Below is Charles C. Rickenbach's gravestone at Hinnershitz Cemetery in Tuckerton. The inscription identifies the six-month old baby as the son of Wilson and Susanna Rickenbach. The dates align with those mentioned in the journal.

A Word About Time in the 1880s

Until 1883, there were no time zones in the United States or anywhere else in the world. The idea of establishing 24 time zones in the world every 15 degrees of longitude was first proposed by a Canadian in 1878. It was the great westward expansion of railroads in the United States that gave that idea some urgency, since it became difficult to coordinate schedules when the local time in a town 100 miles westward was different by a few minutes. And so in 1883, it was the US railroad companies who agreed on four time zones across the country, very similar to what still exists today. These would not be officially adopted by the states and federal government until many years later, but the seed was sown. A year later, in 1884, an international conference extended the idea around the world, and though it took some time, it ultimately resulted in the world’s time zones that we now have.

1882, the year this journal was written, was the last year before the idea of time zones first took hold. Prior to 1883, time was structured around the railroads in the United States, one of the only practical interests in unifying time across the country. The journal contains a table of US cities, with the title “Distance, Time, and Difference of Time”. It was for railroad schedulers, and showed the distance of cities across the country to New York City, but more more importantly, the difference in local time. For example, noon in Baltimore came 10 minutes and 22 seconds later than in New York. These differences had to be factored into the 5-hour and 188-mile journey between these cities. The establishment of time zones a year later ended the last vestiges of the slower pace and local basis of time prior to the modern era of rapid travel by rail and later by air. That change is symbolized by the submission of the slow pace of canal travel and commerce to the steel highways of the railroads.

The "Greatest Show on Earth" comes to town

A month before the death of his young son, Wilson noted in the journal that Barnum's traveling circus arrived to Reading on Sunday May 7. Work at the drydock was suspended on Tuesday May 9 so that he, and presumably his family and drydock workers, could experience 'Barnum's show' which was open in Reading that day.

In March 1882, Barnum's circus had a one month run at Madison Square Garden in New York City, followed by shorter runs in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and D.C. The "Greatest Show on Earth" featured a new attraction on the 1882 tour: Jumbo the elephant.

Image from archive.org

A work week and weekend

Let's look more closely at a typical summer work schedule from the above entries. On Thursday July 6, Wilson put in 10 hours at the drydock, building the canal boat "Preston". On that day they put in the cabin and the 'knees', which are curved pieces of wood which might have been for the support ribs under the deck. The next day, Friday July 7, he lays planking in over the ribs, probably on the underside of the boat. They 'corked' the planks, which was a mid-Atlantic regional pronunciation of 'caulking', to waterproof the gaps in the planks probably with a rope-like material called oakum and hot pitch. On Saturday they continued caulking the "Preston". He logs store bills of 36 cents on two days, and accounts for two dozen eggs (40 cents) and a quart of milk (6 cents). Like most Sundays, July 9 was a rest day often with some leisure activity. On that day, Adam Krick, a colleague of Wilson's father James, was visiting and picking 'jerys', a phonetic spelling of 'cherries' in the Pennsylvania German accent. The dialect, derived from the Swiss-German language common to many people in that region, was spoken widely across Berks County in the late 1800s, in fact, 'Pennsylvania Deitsch' was likely Wilson's primary spoken language.

Heading out on the canal..

In addition to building boats, Wilson and his brothers and father transported freight (coal, lumber) on the Schuylkill Navigation. In a series of brief entries, Wilson lists the stopovers on a loaded canal boat from west of Philadelphia to New York during a nearly two-week period in mid-September 1882. These give an idea on the timing of a canal boat venture. On Sept.11 he sets out from Conshohocken, reaches Fairmount on Sept.12, then lays over at Chester for a couple of days to unload the boat on Sept.15. On Sunday Sept. 17 he stops at Fairmount Park on the western outskirts of Philadelphia to spend the day at the zoological gardens. Then on toward New York City: Bordentown New Jersey on Sept.18, Millstone on the 19th, New Brunswick on the Raritan Canal on the 20th, and New York City by the 21st. The maps below give some context for this route.

Map from Schuylkill Navigation: A Photographic History by Harry L. Rinker (1991, Canal Captain's Press)

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