Story #13
Russell Clarence "Chick" Lucas
A writer for a regional magazine described Captain R. C. Lucas, of Manchester, as an astute businessman, a person of strong personality and someone who was fearless in action. He worked to develop those traits while on The Ohio River as a steamboat deckhand and then at the age of eighteen, began his career as a river boat pilot. He had quickly developed into a dependable and strongly respected leader.
Lucas worked up and down the Ohio River for 42 years. According to a newspaper article, he built an enviable reputation as one of the best ship-masters in the business and was a commercial pilot who had earned the respect of bargemen everywhere. Over the years, he owned five boats and piloted many, many more. Also during that time he started his own company, purchasing and modifying boats to meet his needs. He was one of the very few who could say they had piloted both steam powered and diesel powered boats up and down the Ohio River. The last was a specially built diesel powered vessel named after his mother, “The Lucy Jane Lucas.”
According to Lucas, he had a strong interest in the river at a very young age. He admitted that day or night, the sound of the boat whistle would draw him to the river. He related that he would listen to the boat, then try to make the same sound on his mother's old-fashioned pump organ. He was one of the local boys that would hitch a ride on a boat, going downstream for a few miles to help load freight along the way in exchange for candy or an ice cream cone. During the trip, the other boys would ride along on the lower deck, but Lucas would venture up to the second deck to watch the pilot. He spoke of how he was was invited into the pilothouse to observe the procedures and was eventually given the opportunity to steer the boat. In a filmed interview he said, “I wanted to steer that boat. That was my ambition. That's what I wanted to do. It didn't make any difference about money, this or that. I wanted to steer that boat and be a pilot.”
His wife, Doris, also took to life on the river. She became a river boat cook and traveled up and down the river from 1944-1954. But the job was more than having food prepared twenty-four hours a day. She related, “We had good food and treated the men right, by then their morale was high too. We listened to all their stories about the sick children at home and doctored them when they were sick. And it was just a lot, but it was interesting, because nothing looks the same as it does out in the middle of the river.” Cap was born in 1903, at Rome, Greene Township in Adams County. He chose to invest in his home area and became a major land owner there. Near the end of his time carrying supplies from place to place on the river, he also was operating his very successful farm and contributing his skills to the local banking industry. On May 15, 1959, he was named president of Farmers National Bank of Manchester at a meeting of the bank Board of Directors. In December, 1967, the Farmers Bank and Savings Company of Peebles merged with the Manchester bank under the name of The Farmers Bank. Plans were announced to build a new office in West Union. One of the aims of the new company was to join banking services for people and businesses in the north and south of Adams County with those in the middle.
The West Union Farmers Bank branch opened in September, 1968, and featured the first drive-through banking window in Adams County. Lucas remained on as vice president at the Manchester branch for several years after the merger and stopped working there on a daily basis in 1979, the year the business was sold to the Fifth-Third Bank of Cincinnati. The Peebles Branch of Fifth-Third was closed in early 2024.
The Ohio Humanities Council video featuring the Lucases can be found on YouTube: Flatboat to Towboat: Ohio River Tradition
More stories of the people and places of Adams County can be found at The Adams County Community Foundation website www.accfo.org and on its Facebook page.