Hooked on History: Three Strasburg men find adventure on canoe trip to New Orleans in 1964

In the summer of 1964, three young men from Strasburg went on the adventure of a lifetime, taking a 2,000-mile canoe trip from Dover to New Orleans.

Along the way, they sparked an intensive search in Missouri when authorities thought they had drowned in the Mississippi River; were treated royally by tugboat captains; and got a frosty reception in one Southern town when residents thought they were civil rights workers.

The three ‒ Terry Spidell and Bill Malcuit, then age 17; and Jim Ecenbarger, then age 20 ‒ left Dover on June 14, 1964.

"Bill Malcuit and I hung out together," said Spidell, who still lives in Strasburg. "We were talking about things to do during the summer between our junior and senior year in school. We really didn't come up with anything. His dad (contractor William 'Red' Malcuit) was the one that came up going to New Orleans with the canoe."

The elder Malcuit outfitted them with a 20-foot aluminum canoe that weighed 117 pounds and would float in 4 inches of water.

Mishap on the Muskingum

They canoed down the Tuscarawas River to Coshocton, where they purchased a 6 horsepower motor that had a 360 swivel on it. It fit right on the side of the canoe. "We got to Coshocton and realized after the blisters on our hands, we weren't going to make it 2,000 miles," Spidell said.

From there, they traveled down the Muskingum River to Marietta. They portaged around most the dams on the river, but at one, they decided to go over the dam, recalled Ecenbarger, who now lives at Atwood Lake. The canoe crashed on the lip of the dam, buckling the watercraft.

"We had to pound out the sides of the canoe to keep going. We took stones and pounded it straight again and then took off," he said.

At Marietta, they entered the Ohio River, traveling down until it joined the Mississippi. They reached the Mississippi on July 4.

Authorities fear they had drowned

The trio created quite a stir during a stop outside Caruthersville, in what is known as the bootheel of southern Missouri.

It was rough and windy on the Mississippi, so the three young men decided to stay there all day, Spidell recalled. They unloaded the canoe, leaving their equipment on the riverbank, and headed back to Caruthersville to watch a movie, taking the canoe with them. Then they stayed all night at a motel in town. When they came back in the morning, all of their stuff was gone, including a .22 caliber pistol and sawed-off shotgun Ecenbarger had brought along.

"A guy had a fish line down through that area, and he found our stuff on the bank. He picked it up and took it to the police station," Spidell said.

The Pemiscot County sheriff and the Coast Guard launched a search for the three, fearing that they had drowned. They also notified the Tuscarawas County Sheriff's Office on July 6. Later, the owner of the motel told authorities of their whereabouts after hearing about the searching.

The three continued their journey down the Mississippi, unaware of what was going on. "When we got to the next town, Malcuit was supposed to call his mom every so often. So, he called her, and she was in tears because the Missouri sheriff said we had drowned," Ecenbarger said.

He never got his weapons back.

Because the canoe was so small, they weren't allowed to travel through locks on the river by themselves. They had to wait for larger boats to show up. The tugboat captains would welcome them aboard and feed them.

They had some unusual occurrences along the way. "One night, we were camped in this field," Ecenbarger said. "It was pretty dark out. We slept close together. Malcuit reached over and tapped me, and said, 'There's something breathing on my face.' I got out the flashlight, and here it was a big old Brahma bull standing over top of him. We got out of that field and camped in another spot."

Stop in a Southern town

They stopped in one Southern community where they did not receive a warm welcome initially.

"We stopped in this town, and walked up into the town and went to a restaurant to eatWe went in and sat down," Ecenbarger recalled. "We sat there and sat there, never got waited on. People would come in. They would wait on them. They would eat and leave. We got up and left.

"Then there was an Army surplus store. We went into it. We walked around and looked at stuff. We saw that the guy who owned the place kept following us. So, when we went to leave, we decided we'd ask him what the problem was. He said, we don't like civil rights people. We didn't dress up. We had raggedy shorts on. After they found out what we were really doing, they were real happy."

Shortly before this incident, three civil rights workers had been tortured and murdered in Mississippi by the Ku Klux Klan on June 21, 1964.

Arrival in New Orleans

Eventually, the three travelers arrived safely in New Orleans after a 31-day journey.

While they were making the trip, Malcuit's father, Red Malcuit, asked Chuck and Shirley Garber of Strasburg to drive to Louisiana to pick them up. The Garbers left their four children with Chuck's mother and headed south in their station wagon on July 16.

When the Garbers got to New Orleans, they went to the police station to ask about the trio. The police had no information on them. They then checked with the Coast Guard and found out the three had gone to a motel.

"So I go up to the front desk," Chuck Garber recalled. "I saw these two guys sitting on the floor, and I didn't think anything of it. I went over and I asked if they had Billy Malcuit, Terry Spidell and Jim Ecenbarger. And Billy said, 'Hey Chuck, who are you looking for?' I looked around, and it was Billy. He was sunburned, really bad. His hair was a different color because of being out in the sun all the time, and he had a beard. I didn't know him."

Traveling back to Ohio with a monkey

The drive back home also was an adventure, because the young men decided to buy a monkey while they were in New Orleans. They paid $19 for it. "He was wild. He'd bite the heck out of you," Spidell said. The monkey would get on the steering wheel of the car and look out the window while they were driving.

"They left it loose in the car and it would crawl over my shoulders, and I would sit there with goose pimples. Get the monkey away from me," Shirley Garber recalled.

The group decided to stop at Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky for a tour. They cracked the windows on the car for the monkey, but they neglected to remove its collar and leash. When they got back, they found that the monkey's leash got tangled up under the steering wheel and the monkey hung itself. They buried the animal somewhere in Kentucky.

A hero's welcome

When the trio got back to Tuscarawas County on July 21, they received a hero's welcome. They were met at Harry Clever Field in New Philadelphia and joined a caravan headed back to Strasburg. The caravan was made up of Strasburg's fire engine, sheriff's cruisers and around 50 cars.

At the Strasburg fire station ‒ which was decorated with a 50-foot sign prepared by several young people in the community ‒ they received the key to the village from Mayor John Studer and an achievement plaque from William Dreher, president of the booster club.

Spidell said he no longer has the key to the village, and the canoe was stolen after their return.

Bill Malcuit died Dec. 28, 2019, at age 72.

"Looking back at that time, it didn't seem that daring," Spidell said. "But looking at it now, I'd never let my kid do that. It was Red Malcuit's idea, and I'm so glad we did it. I learned a lot."

Jon Baker is a reporter for The Times-Reporter and can be reached at jon.baker@timesreporter.com.

This article originally appeared on The Times-Reporter: 1964 canoe trip from Dover to New Orleans was filled with adventures