Nancy E Buell shared this story with us about her family:
Lewis Harrison Ashworth and wife Georgetta sold their farm in West Virginia and bought a houseboat.  It was tied up near Charleston [West Virginia on the Kanawha River].  They waited for the spring floods to come and floated downriver to near Point Pleasant [at the confluence of the Kanawha and Ohio Rivers]. There they hired a horse to tow them to Pittsburgh where they had relatives [a total of 716 river miles].  The shanty boat was moored at the foot of Mulberry Street.  The picture shows visiting relatives.  Mr Harrison died April 23, 1900 in Pittsburgh on the houseboat.  He was buried in Union Dale Cemetery.  There is no  marker as the family had no money for a monument.  His wife returned to West Verginia to live another 24 yrs with her children.  One son became a marine engineer on the paddlewheeler IRON CITY out of Pittsburgh.
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