Historic Highways of America/Volume 9/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV
THE EVOLUTION OF RIVER CRAFT
THE evolution of craft on the Ohio River portrays in a remarkable manner the economic development of the Central West. Being the one practicable artery in the empire between the Appalachian uplift and the Mississippi, and the Blue Ridge and the Great Lakes, this river was, from the beginning of the eighteenth century onward, the main route of immigration and commerce, and the story of those years is contained in the story of these craft which carried the freight and fortune of the millions who came and built homes and labored here.
The greater the detail with which this study is examined the more interesting and enlightening it becomes. Of the score and more of distinctive craft which regularly plied this waterway not one but is significant of some change in the social order of things, indicative of some open or secret development which, unnoticed at the time perhaps, marked a new forward movement in our social evolution. Such an indication may be thought slight but it was a straw which marked the direction of the sweeping current of advance, and the swiftness of it. Compared with the evolution of methods of travel by land, the evolution on our rivers was rapid and spectacular. The "freighter" or "Conestoga" of 1790 was practically the same as that of 1840: a half century had witnessed little change in wagons and stages, save minor improvements. But compare the craft of 1790 on the Ohio with that of 1840. The canoe, pirogue, keel-boat, "bark," barge, brig, schooner, galley-boat, batteau, and dug-out were forgotten—a consequence of the early application of steam-power to boats rather than to vehicles. When, in 1811, "The Orleans" went steaming down the Ohio from Pittsburg, and when, six years later, the "Washington" convinced a desparing public that steamboat navigation would succeed on "western waters" the new era in western history dawned.
In the earliest days the primitive light canoe, the unwieldy pirogue, and the heavy batteau were the common means of navigation on the Ohio. The canoe was made from the bark of trees; quickly made and quickly worn out, if the water was low, by continually coming in contact with the bottom. The pirogue was likewise quickly made; the canoe was paddled, the pirogue pushed by oars or setting-poles. The canoe easily glided up stream; the pirogue ran easily with the current but could not ascend the stream without the expenditure of much labor. Often the words canoe and pirogue were used interchangeably of the same craft; in George Rogers Clark's famous march to Vincennes in 1779, the army, upon arriving at the Little Wabash, February 13, built a boat which in Bowman's Journal is called a "canoe," and in Clark's Memoir, a "pirogue." The batteau, better known in the West as the barge, was a square box of any length, width, and depth. It was distinctively a downstream craft, and in the early days rarely ascended with a load any river of current. The canoe and pirogue, compared with the barge, were craft of little burden though those of generous size would carry the loads of a score of men. The barge or batteau was the freight craft and could be loaded with any burden the stage of water permitted.
These three craft reigned supreme on the Ohio and its tributaries probably until the close of the Revolutionary War, or about 1785. The canoe never abdicated and never can so long as man loves the water; at numerous points along the Ohio today many a tourist may be seen enjoying the exquisite delight of "paddling his own canoe." The batteau or barge has its direct descendant in the wooden and magnificent steel barges in which thousands of tons of coal and ore are transported yearly up and down the Ohio. The pirogue has been forgotten. But in the era of exploration and conquest these boats had a story which disproves the adage that history repeats itself. The history of that last half of the eighteenth century cannot be repeated here or elsewhere. There is no other valley in the world that is to be found, explored, conquered, reconquered and settled like the Ohio Basin. What a line of daring voyageurs that was from La Salle to Céloron and Washington, who feasted their eyes upon the virgin beauty of La Belle Rivière, from their heavily-loaded, long canoes; in these craft came the explorers of Ohio and Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois; they ploughed the waters of the Muskingum far back in the distant day when those waters were, as the name implies, clear as an elk's eye; they forged slowly up the Licking and Scioto, the Beaver and the Kanawhas. In the early days the canoe was the customary bearer of two significant kinds of freight: wampum and Indian goods and presents, and packs of peltry. The history of the canoe cannot be repeated, for the Indians are vanished who loved the bright presents brought to them from the East; and the fur bearing animals which once supplied the eastern markets are gone. We speak of the value of our cargoes on the Ohio today; it is great, truly; but what would be the value today of the furs brought in one season down the Wabash, Licking, Miami, Scioto, Kanawha, Muskingum, and Beaver and up the Ohio to Pittsburg, in those days when canoes bore their precious tons of freight? Compared to the number of persons engaged in it, the old trade (in today's markets) would be considered a hundred per cent more remunerative.
The burdens those long canoes could bear should not be underestimated. When Washington made his journey down the Ohio in 1770 he "embarked in a large canoe," October 20, at Pittsburg, "with sufficient store of provisions and necessaries, and the following persons, besides Dr. Craik and myself, to wit: Capt. Crawford, Joseph Nicholson, Robert Bell, William Harrison, Charles Morgan and Daniel Rendon, a boy of Capt. Crawford's. . ."
In the era of conquest the canoe played an important part in transporting small bodies of men swiftly and, which was frequently not less important, silently, to their destinations. But now it was that the heavy barge acquired importance as a factor in the making of the West. It was the quarter-master's and commissariat's sole reliance, and in these great clumsy hulks which floated with the current, sometimes with the aid of sails, were transported the armament and stores which made possible the forts that at once came into existence in the valley—Forts McIntosh, Henry, Harmar, Finney, Washington, and others. These boats were huge boxes, covered and uncovered, square at each end, and flat-bottomed. A batteau, in distinction from a barge, was widest in the middle and tapered to a point at each end, of about fifteen hundred-weight burden and could be managed by two men with oars and setting-poles.[1]
The batteau form was more or less adopted by later barges; but the ordinary early barge was much the shape of the present-day coal barge. The "canal boat" form, or batteau, was a later development.
American expansion westward, as elsewhere suggested, was favored more by the Ohio River than by any and all others: it ran the right way. Throughout the earlier decades of the pioneer era the greater portion of traffic was down stream. Even in the later days of steamboating the downstream traffic was ever heaviest. In 1835 the total tonnage received and entered at the port of Pittsburg was 63,221 tons; of this, 41,533 tons was export. In 1837 the total number of boats arriving at Pittsburg from February 10 to July 1 was five hundred and ninety-three; the total number departing was five hundred and eighty-two.[2] If the upstream trade did not equal the downstream trade in the days of steamboats, it can be readily imagined how great was the difference in the days of rowed and pushed craft. Upstream traffic began to thrive with the founding of Pittsburg and other cities in the upper Ohio Valley. A market was then created, and the product of the lower valley began to ascend.
Thus dawned the era of the famous keel-boat, the first craft of burden that plied to and fro on western waters. True, the name was applied to craft that came earlier. Colonel Burd, the English officer who led one of the marauding expeditions from Detroit into Kentucky in the Revolutionary War, came from the lakes and ascended the Licking in keel-boats. It is given on good authority that Tarascon, Berthoud and Company of Pittsburg introduced the use of keel-boats on the Ohio in 1792.[3]
The keel-boat heralded a new era in internal development, an era of internal communication never known before in the Central West. As a craft it is almost forgotten today. Our oldest citizens can barely remember the last years of its reign; but the cry of the steersman to "lift" and "set" that once rang in our river valleys, is still one of the undying memories of their childhood days. It was a long, narrow craft perhaps averaging twelve to fifteen feet by fifty, and pointed at both prow and stern. On either side were provided what were known as "running boards," extending from end to end. The space between, the body of the boat, was enclosed and roofed over with boards or shingles. A keel-boat would carry from twenty to forty tons of freight well protected from the weather; it required from six to ten men, in addition to the captain, who was usually the steersman, to propel it upstream. Each man was provided with a pole to which was affixed a heavy socket. The crew, being divided equally on each side of the boat, "set" their poles at the head of the boat; then bringing the end of the pole to the shoulder, with bodies bent, they walked slowly along the running boards to the stern—returning quickly, at the command of the captain, to the head for a new "set." "In ascending rapids, the greatest effort of the whole crew was required, so that only one at a time could 'shift' his pole. This ascending of rapids was attended with great danger, especially if the channel was rocky. The slightest error in pushing or steering the boat exposed her to be thrown across the current, and to be brought sideways in contact with rocks which would mean her destruction. Or, if she escaped injury, a crew who had let their boat swing in the rapids would have lost caste. A boatman who could not boast that he had never swung or backed in a chute was regarded with contempt, and never trusted with the head pole, the place of honor among the keel-boat men. It required much practice to become a first rate boatman, and none would be taken, even on trial, who did not possess great muscular power."[4] Under certain circumstances it was serviceable to catch hold of the bushes and trees on a river's bank and pull a keel-boat upstream; this was commonly known as "bushwhacking" and was particularly useful in times of high water. The number of keel-boats on the Ohio was not as large, probably, as would be supposed. It is on record that from November 24, 1810 to January 24, 1811—two winter months—twenty-four of these craft descended the "falls" of the Ohio at Louisville. It is probable that at this time there were not over three or four hundred keel-boats regularly plying the Ohio and its tributaries.
The narrowness of the keel-boat, it will be noted, permitted it to ply far up the larger tributaries of the Ohio and to a considerable way up its smaller tributaries—territory which the barge and flat-boat could never reach. It is probable, therefore, that the keel-boat brought much territory into touch with the world that otherwise was never reached save by the heavy freighter and the pack-saddle; indeed it is probable that this was the greatest service of the keel-boat—to reach the rich interior settlements and carry their imports and exports. The place of the keel-boat is now taken by such packets as the Greenwood and Lorena which bring to Pittsburg the produce of such valleys as the Kanawha and the Muskingum. In this connection it is proper to emphasize a fact suggested elsewhere: that the inhabitants of the Central West, from the earliest times until today, have found the favorite sites of occupation to be in the interior of the country, beside the lesser tributaries of the Ohio.[5] Thus as the pioneer settlements spread up on the Licking, Muskingum, Hockhocking, Scioto, and Miami, a boat like the keel-boat, which could ply in any season of the year and on the narrow creeks and "runs," was an inestimable boon. Again, take for instance the salt industry, which in the day of the keel-boat was one of the most important, if not the most important, in the Central West; as values were a century ago the best of men did well to "earn his salt." These salt springs and licks were found at some distance from the main artery of travel, the Ohio, and it was the keel-boat, more enduring than the canoe, and of lighter weight and draught and of lesser width than the barge, which did the greater part of the salt distribution, returning usually with loads of flour. The heyday of the keel-boat was also the day of the portage path—which played a most important part in the development of the land. These portages or carries were mostly located far in the interior where rivers flowing in opposite directions took their rise. The keel-boat was the only craft of burden that could ascend many of our streams to the carrying-place; they were also less unwieldy to carry than the old batteau which was used also in the portage carrying-trade.[6] Mention has been made of Burd's invasion of Kentucky during the Revolutionary War, in keel-boats. If this was not a misnomer it is probable that they were brought from the lakes and carried across the portage, as was done in the case of Hamilton's capture of Vincennes.
The keel-boat may be considered, therefore, the first upstream boat of burden which plied the Ohio and its tributaries; its special functions: first, the upstream trade, second, to touch and connect interior settlements and do the carrying-trade of the portages.
The great craft of burden on the Ohio and its larger tributaries were the barges and the flat-boats, the latter commonly known as the Kentucky "broad-horns" or Kentucky boats, and New Orleans boats. The Ohio and Mississippi barge resembled the "West Country" barges of England and the "wherries" of London. They were great, pointed, covered hulks carrying forty or fifty tons of freight and manned by almost as many men. They were the great freighters of the larger rivers, descending with the current and ascending by means of oars, poles, sails and cordelles—ropes by which the craft was often towed from the shore. The following description of a barge journey, from the pen of the famous naturalist Audubon, is perhaps one of the most accurate left to us:
"We shall suppose one of these boats under way, and, having passed Natchez, entering upon what were called the difficulties of their ascent. Wherever a point projected so as to render the course or bend below it of some magnitude, there was an eddy, the returning current of which was sometimes as strong as that of the middle of the great stream. The bargemen, therefore, rowed up pretty close under the bank, and had merely to keep watch in the bow lest the boat should run against a planter or sawyer. But the boat has reached the point, and there the current is to all appearance of double strength and right against it. The men, who have rested a few minutes, are ordered to take their stations and lay hold of their oars, for the river must be crossed, it being seldom possible to double such a point and proceed along the same shore. The boat is crossing, its head slanting to the current, which is, however, too strong for the rowers, and when the other side of the river has been reached, it has drifted perhaps a quarter of a mile. The men are by this time exhausted, and, as we shall suppose it to be 12 o'clock, fasten the boat to a tree on the shore. A small glass of whiskey is given to each, when they cook and eat their dinner, and after resting from their fatigue for an hour, recommence their labors. The boat is again seen slowly advancing against the stream. It has reached the lower end of a sandbar, along the edge of which it is propelled by means of long poles, if the bottom be hard. Two men, called bowsmen, remain at the prow to assist, in concert with the steersman, in managing the boat and keeping its head right against the current. The rest place themselves on the land side of the footway of the vessel, put one end of their poles on the ground and the other against their shoulders and push with all their might. As each of the men reaches the stern, he crosses to the other side, runs along it and comes again to the landward side of the bow, when he recommences operations. The barge in the meantime is ascending at a rate not exceeding one mile in the hour.
"The bar is at length passed, and as the shore in sight is straight on both sides and the current uniformly strong, the poles are laid aside, and the men being equally divided, those on the river side take to their oars, while those on the land-side lay hold of the branches of willows or other trees, and thus slowly propel the boat. Here and there, however, the trunk of a fallen tree, partly lying on the bank and partly projecting beyond it, impedes their progress and requires to be doubled. This is performed by striking into it the iron points of the poles and gaff-hooks, and so pulling around it. The sun is now quite low, and the barge is again secured in the best harbor within reach for the night, after having accomplished a distance of perhaps fifteen miles. The next day the wind proves favorable, the sail is set, the boat takes all advantages, and meeting with no accident, has ascended thirty miles—perhaps double that distance. The next day comes with a very different aspect. The wind is right ahead, the shores are without trees of any kind, and the canes on the bank are so thick and stout that not even the cordelles can be used. This occasions a halt. The time is not altogether lost, as most of the men, being provided with rifles, betake themselves to the woods and search for the deer, the hares or the turkeys that are generally abundant there. Three days may pass before the wind changes, and the advantages gained on the previous five days are forgotten. Again the boat proceeds, but in passing over a shallow place, runs on a log, swings with the current, but hangs fast with her lee-side almost under water. Now for the poles! All hands are on deck, bustling and pushing. At length, towards sunset, the boat is once more afloat, and is again taken to the shore where the wearied crew pass another night.
"I could tell you of the crew abandoning the boat and cargo and of numberless accidents and perils, but be it enough to say, that advancing in this tardy manner, the boat that left New Orleans on the 1st of March, often did not reach the Falls of Ohio [Louisville] until the month of July, sometimes not until October; and after all this immense trouble, it brought only a few bags of coffee and at most one hundred hogsheads of sugar. Such was the state of things as late as 1808. The number of barges at that period did not amount to more than 25 or 30, and the largest probably did not exceed one hundred tons burden. To make the best of this fatiguing navigation, I may conclude by saying that a barge which came up in three months, had done wonders, for I believe few voyages were performed in that time."[7]
This is the story of an Orleans boat in distinction from a Kentucky boat which was smaller and not so well finished.[8] The heavy up-river loads of the Orleans boats—sugar and molasses—were very important cargoes and illustrate the place the barge took in pioneer history; they were the freighters which carried on the larger rivers the heavy cargoes of a country fast filling with a new population. They plied, like the keel-boat, up and down stream but could not ascend the smaller rivers or reach portages of the larger streams because of their draught and size. There were, of course, small barges that could go wherever a keel-boat went; it was these that were common on certain portage path trades.[9] The small barge was practically a keel-boat (without running boards) save only in shape.
The flat-boat was the important craft of the era of immigration, the friend of the pioneer. It was the boat that never came back, a downstream craft solely. The flat-boat of average size was a roofed craft about forty feet long, twelve feet wide and eight feet deep. It was square and flat-bottomed and was managed by six oars; two of these, about thirty feet long, on each side, were known as "sweeps" and were manned by two men each; one at the stern, forty or fifty feet long including its big blade, was called the "steering oar;" a small oar was located at the prow, known as the "gouger," which aided in steering the boat in swift water. One man only was needed at the steering oar and at the gouger.
"Kentucky" and "New Orleans" were the significant names for the old-time flat-boats, for Kentucky and New Orleans were the destinations of the large majority. The nominal difference between a Kentucky and New Orleans boat was that the former was commonly roofed only half over while the latter was stronger and was entirely covered with a roof. How to buy or build a "flat" was the first query of the pioneer father as he finally arrived at one of the ports on the upper Ohio. Often several families joined together and came down the river on one flat-boat, a motley congregation of men, women, children and domestic animals surrounded by the few crude, housekeeping utensils which had been brought over the mountains or purchased at the port of embarkation. Perhaps all of the details which engrossed a prospective pioneer's attention are suggested in the previous quotations from The Navigator.
These Kentucky "broadhorns," or "broadhorn flatboats" as they were also called, almost invariably carried a tin horn by means of which some one on board would announce their arrival or make known their whereabouts in a fog. This weird music, reverberating from hill to hill, was heard far and wide and was welcomed by the country people.
The history of the flat-boat comes down within the present generation, for as late as the beginning of the Civil War flat-boating was common on the Ohio River. In the early day the flat-boat was the sign of immigration; not so in the later day. The flat-boats of the fifties bore cargoes to the southern ports, or cargoes to be retailed along the Mississippi River plantations. Any enterprising man who owned or could build a "flat," bought up the crops of his neighborhood, put them aboard, and was ready to start on the "fall rise." Flat-boats were loaded at the bow—sometimes through trapdoors in the roof—the cargo stored away in the hold. For through freight, apples and potatoes were the staples. If it was intended to "coast" (peddle the cargo to the plantations) the freight also included cider, cheese, pork, bacon, and even cabbage. Apple and peach brandy was a most profitable investment; especially if apple brandy, with a few peaches in it, could be palmed off on the thirsty darkies as peach brandy.
A yellow page of an old account-book of 1858 leaves record that the proprietor of one "flat" purchased the entire product of a neighboring farm and took it south that fall. The items and their cost price on shore is interesting:
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A yearly cash income of $1,230.79 would make many a farmer of our day contented.
The proprietor of the flat-boat left on his three thousand mile trip taking only a couple of farm hands with him as crew. They lived in the stern of the boat under the same roof that sheltered the cargo, but separated by a partition. It was all clear sailing, night and day. Almost the only work was to keep the craft in the current. Several miles above the "falls" at Louisville, pilots would be found in skiffs ready to climb aboard and steer the "flat" down the rapids for ten dollars or less. If the cargo was intended for the coasting trade, business began at the first large plantations. This was in the day of overseers who liberally patronized these "coasters," giving in payment drafts on New Orleans. The darkies were, in some cases, allowed to make their own purchases; they did not neglect the liquor, often exchanging molasses for brandy even, gallon for gallon.
Upon arriving at his destination, the proprietor sold his remaining stock and boat, invested his money in sugar and molasses, and embarked with his freight on a packet for home. Thus two profits were cleared.
The advent of the Civil War was evident to these latter day boatmen; watches were always kept on the outlook lest the "lines" be cut. At the opening of the war flat-boats were frequently fired upon. When the business was again revived in 1866 it was a new, sad South the flat-boat men found. The negroes were "free," the overseers gone, the coasting trade ruined; through freights were found to be the only ones that paid after 1865.
Collins asserts that Captain Jacob Yoder took the first flat-boat down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans in 1782; "the late Capt. Jos. Pierce of Cincinnati, Ohio, had erected over the remains of his old friend Capt. Jacob Yoder, an iron tablet (the first cast west of the Alleghanies) thus inscribed:
'JACOB YODER
Was born at Reading, Pennsylvania, August 11, 1758; and was | a soldier of the Revolutionary army in 1777 and 1778. | He emigrated to the West in 1780; and in May, 1782, from Fort Redstone, | on the Monongahela river, in the | First Flat Boat. | That ever descended the Mississippi river, he landed in | New Orleans, with a cargoe of produce. | He died April 7, 1832, at his farm in Spencer County, Kentucky, and lies | here interred beneath this tablet.'"
Flat-boats were, both in early and modern times, always used or sold at their destination for lumber. Thus the early bargemen and flat-boat men who made down river trips returned largely on foot, until the era of steamboats. The long journey across country from New Orleans through the low fever-infested country and into Kentucky was a dangerous and arduous experience.[10] "A large number of these boatmen were brought together at New Orleans. Their journey home could not be made in small parties, as they carried large quantities of specie, and the road was infested by robbers. The outlaws and fugitives from justice from the states resorted to this road. Some precautionary arrangements were necessary. The boatmen who preferred returning through the wilderness organized and selected their officers. These companies sometimes numbered several hundred, and a greater proportion of them were armed. They were provided with mules to carry the specie and provisions, and some spare ones for the sick. Those who were able purchased mules, or Indian ponies, for their use, but few could afford to ride. As the journey was usually performed after the sickly season commenced, and the first six or seven hundred miles was through a flat, unhealthy country, with bad water, the spare mules were early loaded with the sick. There was a general anxiety to hasten through this region of malaria. Officers would give up their horses to the sick, companions would carry them forward as long as their strength enabled; but although everything was done for their relief which could be done without retarding the progress of their journey, many died on the way or were left to the care of the Indian or hunter who settled on the road. Many who survived an attack of fever, and reached the healthy country of Tennessee, were long recovering sufficient strength to resume their journey home. One would suppose that men would have been reluctant to engage in a service which exposed them to such great suffering and mortality without extraordinary compensation; but such was the love of adventure and recklessness of danger which characterized the young men of the West, that there was no lack of hands to man the boats, although their number increased from twenty-five to fifty per cent yearly. The fact that some of these boatmen would return with fifty Spanish dollars, which was a large sum at that day, was no small incentive to others, who perhaps never had a dollar of their own."[11]
The "ark" of pioneer days was, as the name implies, the earliest type of house-boat. "These boats," Mr. Harris records, "are generally called 'Arks;' and are said to have been invented by Mr. Krudger, on the Juniata, about ten years ago [1795]. They are square, and flat-bottomed; about forty feet by fifteen, with sides six feet deep; covered with a roof of thin boards; and accommodated with a fire-place. They require but four hands to navigate them, carry no sail, and are wafted down by the current."[12]
Rafting logs down the Ohio was one of the great employments of the men of three-quarters of a century ago. "Our raft," testified an old voyageur who went down the Allegheny and Ohio from Olean, New York in 1821, "was one hundred and twenty feet long and sixty wide and about two feet deep. It had eight oars. In the center was our cabin, which was twenty by sixteen, and contained, of course, our provisions and valuables, . . and our stove. This was a patent range peculiar to those days and quite wonderful in its way. It was made of a wooden box lined with clay. It had a hole in the top for a kettle, and another through which the smoke passed to an aperture in the roof of our cabin, left for that purpose. . . Our crew consisted of ten persons, including a man and his wife and one child, who were going to migrate. . . There are many eddies along the river and at them we tried to tie up at night in order to be out of the current. . . From Pittsburg to Cincinnati, five hundred miles, the river being broad and deep and free from snags, we could travel night and day. . . At one point in our trip we saw a raft stranded on an island; but the Captain did not seem to take the matter very seriously to heart, and answered our salutations by singing and dancing and lustily waving his hat as we passed by. . . At Limestone, [Maysville] Ky., seventy miles east of Cincinnati, I stopped and sold some shingles, the raft and the rest of the crew going on. After I had transacted my business, I took passage on another going to C. [Cincinnati]. At L. [Limestone] I remember seeing a bell on a tavern for the first time. This raft had the misfortune to run into a flatboat loaded with coal, and also the audacity to sneak off before the damage was discovered to avoid both delay and expense. . . Once there [at Cincinnati] we hired a gang of men to wash the lumber, which was covered with dirt and weeds; they then drew it to the lumber yard, where we sold it. . . I was not sorry when I reached my home . . on the evening of the 10th of June. I had been away since the middle of February."[13]
The galley—a model boat with covered deck impelled by oarsmen—was not an unfamiliar craft in the early river days. It was such a boat as this that General George Rogers Clark armed as a gunboat on the lower Ohio and used as a patrolling gunboat during the Revolutionary War. The famed "Adventure Galley," of the New England pilgrims to Marietta, was a craft of this pattern. It was forty-five feet long and twelve feet wide, with an estimated burden of fifty tons. Her bows were raking or curved, strongly built with heavy timbers and covered with a deck roof.[14] It is probable that the first mail boats which ran on the Ohio in 1793 were of similar design. This service, established by Jacob Myers between Cincinnati and Pittsburg, was advertised on November 16 as leaving Cincinnati at 8 A. M. every alternate Saturday, requiring one month for the round trip. The proprietor took great credit to himself, "claiming to be 'influenced by love of philanthropy and desire of being serviceable to the public.' He further stated: 'No danger need be apprehended from the [Indian] enemy, as every person on board will be under cover, made proof against rifle or musquet balls, and port holes for firing out of. Each boat is armed with six pieces carrying a pound ball; also a number of good musquets, and amply supplied with ammunition, strongly manned with choice hands, and the masters of approved knowledge. A separate cabin is partitioned off for accommodating ladies on their passage; conveniences are constructed so as to render landing unnecessary, as it might, at times, be attended with danger. Rules and regulations for maintaining order and for the good management of the boats, and tables of the rates of freightage, passage, and carrying of letters; also, of the exact time of arrival and departure at all way places, may be seen on the boat and at the printing office in Cincinnati. Passengers supplied with provisions and liquors, of first quality, at most reasonable rates possible. Persons may work their passage. An office for insuring at moderate rates the property carried, will be kept at Cincinnati, Limestone, (i. e. Maysville) and Pittsburgh.' Packet-boat promises then, like steamboat promises nowadays, were not always kept; instead of on November 30th, the second boat did not leave until December 10th, 'precisely at 10 o'clock in the morning.'"[15]
In the days before steamboats, sails were greatly used on almost every manner of craft, and were made of every conceivable material. The great barges of early days were moved by sails when the wind was favorable.[16] Both barges and keel-boats were "provided with a mast, a square sail. . ."[17] Canoes were frequently provided with sails and their progress was more or less dependent on the winds.[18]
The story of the building of the first brigs and schooners on the Ohio and its tributaries, the dreams of their proprietors and masters, and the experiences of their crews, is a subject worthy of a volume. The building of these larger craft for the Mississippi and ocean trade suggests at the outset the long, conflicting story of Mississippi control which can only be hinted at here.
This business of building sailing vessels in the Ohio Basin began the decade before the nineteenth century opened, and grew more and more important until steam navigation revolutionized the river trade. These brigs and schooners were, without doubt, distinctively down river craft, which never returned; they were therefore the export carriers, and the importance of their place in history may be found in the fact that their appearance marks the rise of the export business to a position of prominence, as the use of the keel-boat marked the rise of what may be called interstate commerce.
In the year 1792 the company of ship-builders previously mentioned, Tarascon, Berthoud, and Company, who put the first keel-boats into business on the Ohio, built the schooner "Amity" of one hundred and twenty tons, and the "Pittsburgh," a ship of two hundred and fifty tons. In 1793 the schooner "was sent to St. Thomas, and the ship to Philadelphia, both laden with Flour. The second summer, they built the brig 'Nanina,' of two hundred, and the ship 'Louisiana,' of 350 tons. The brig was sent direct to Marseilles; the ship was sent out ballasted with our stone coal, which was sold at Philadelphia, for 37 1-2 cents per bushel. The year after they built the ship 'Western Trader' of 400 tons."[19] By 1800, therefore, cargoes of flour, iron, beef, pork, glass-ware, furniture of black walnut, wild cherry, and yellow birch, and beverages of varying character were awaiting the great hulls of these new ships of several hundred tons. In 1803 Thaddeus Harris found several of these ships on the stocks at Pittsburg; three had been launched before April, "from 160 to 275 tons burden."[20] On May 4 he wrote at Marietta: "the schooner 'Dorcas and Sally,' of 70 tons, built at Wheeling and rigged at Marietta, dropped down the river. The following day there there passed down the schooner 'Amity,' of 103 tons, from Pittsburg, and the ship 'Pittsburg,' of 275 tons burden, from the same place, laden with seventeen hundred barrels of flour, with the rest of her cargo in flat-bottomed boats. In the evening the brig 'Mary Avery,' of 130 tons, built at Marietta, set sail. These afforded an interesting spectacle to the inhabitants of this place, who saluted the vessels as they passed with three cheers, and by firing a small piece of ordnance from the banks."[21] "The building and lading of ships is now considered as an enterprize of the greatest importance in this part of the country. The last (1802) there were launched from the ship-yard of Captain Devol, on the Muskingum river, five miles above its mouth, the ship 'Muskingum,' of 204 tons, owned by Benjamin Ives Gilman, Esq. and the brigantine 'Eliza Greene,' of 115 tons, owned by Charles Greene, Esq. merchants at Marietta. At the spring flood of the present year, the schooner 'Indiana,' of 100 tons, the brig 'Marietta,' of 130 tons, and another of 150 tons, also built here, were launched and descended the river for New Orleans and the trade to the West Indies. Good judges of naval architecture have pronounced these vessels equal, in point of workmanship and materials, to the best that have been built in America. The firmness and great length of their planks, and the excellency of their timbers, (their frames being almost wholly composed of black walnut, a wood which, if properly selected, has nearly the strength of white oak, and the durability of the live oak of the south without its weight) it is believed will give these vessels the preference over any built of the timber commonly made use of, in any market where there are competent judges. This part of the country owes much to those gentlemen, who, in a new and experimental line, have set this example of enterprize and perseverance."[22] One ship from Marietta is said to have had the existence of her port of clearance questioned in Italy.
In 1811 we learn that ship-building was not prospering as might be supposed; misfortunes and accidents "have given a damp to ships building at present."[23] On an inland river, where the winds and the amount of rainfall at any time were very uncertain, it must have been a most difficult thing to cope successfully with low water and shifting sand bars and other innumerable obstacles to navigation in the Ohio. The times were ripe for another power, one which did not require that the vessels have deep draught, as was the case with sailing vessels.
The dawning of the new era of steam navigation cannot be introduced better than by quoting a unique paragraph from The Navigator of 1811:
"There is now on foot a new mode of navigating our western waters, particularly the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. This is with boats propelled by the power of steam. This plan has been carried into successful operation on the Hudson river at New York, and on the Delaware between New Castle and Burlington.—It has been stated that the one on the Hudson goes at the rate of four miles an hour against wind and tide on her route between New York and Albany, and frequently with 500 passengers on board. From these successful experiments there can be but little doubt of the plan succeeding on our western waters, and proving of immense advantage to the commerce of our country. A Mr. Rosewalt, a gentleman of enterprise, and who is acting it is said in conjunction with Messrs. Fulton and Livingston of New York, has a boat of this kind now on the stocks at Pittsburgh, of 138 feet keel, calculated for 300 or 400 tons burden. And there is one building at Frankfort, Kentucky, by citizens who no doubt will push the enterprise. It will be a novel sight, and as pleasing as novel to see a huge boat working her way up the windings of the Ohio, without the appearance of sail, oar, pole, or any manual labour about her—moving within the secrets of her own wonderful mechanism, and propelled by power undiscoverable!—This plan if it succeeds, must open to view flattering prospects to an immense country, an interior of not less than two thousand miles of as fine a soil and climate, as the world can produce, and to a people worthy of all the advantages that nature and art can give them, a people the more meritorious because they know how to sustain peace and live independent, among the crushing of empires, the falling of kings, the slaughter and bloodshed of millions, and the tumult, corruption and tyranny of all the world beside. The immensity of country we have yet to settle, the vast riches of the bowels of the earth, the unexampled advantages of our water courses, which wind without interruption for thousands of miles, the numerous sources of trade and wealth opening to the enterprising and industrious citizens, are reflections that must rouse the most dull and stupid. . . From the canoe, we now see ships of two or three hundred tons burden, masted and rigged, descending the same Ohio, laden with the products of the country, bound to New Orleans,—thence to any part of the world.—Thus the rise and progress of the trade and the trader on the western waters, thus the progress of our country from infancy to manhood, and thus the flattering prospects of its future greatness through the channels of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers."[24]
These words came true in a miraculously short space of time. Previous to the adoption of the steamboat navigation, say in 1817, the whole commerce from New Orleans to the upper country was carried in about twenty barges, averaging one hundred tons each, and making but one trip a year. The number of keel-boats employed on the Upper Ohio could not have exceeded one hundred and fifty, carrying thirty tons each, and making one trip from Pittsburg to Louisville and back in two months, or about three voyages in the season. The tonnage of all the boats ascending the Ohio and Lower Mississippi was then about sixty-five hundred.
In 1811 the first steamboat was constructed at Brownsville, Pennsylvania, on the Monongahela. Several others were built soon after, but it was probably fifteen years before steamboats came into such general use as to cause any diminution in the flat- and keel-boat navigation. These first boats were built after models of ships, with deep holds. They also were constructed with low pressure engines and heavy machinery. Hence they were useless in low water, very hard to propel against the current, and their carrying capacity was greatly reduced. In order to attain greater speed, the builders soon made the boats long and narrow but it was not until they came to the decision that boats would run faster on the water than in it, and began making them flat and broad, that they finally got a boat capable of carrying a thousand tons, when drawing only four feet, and when empty only two and one-half feet. Then with a high pressure engine at each wheel they could make unprecedented speed; and these boats afforded traveling and freight accommodations equal to any. Although the prices of passages did not exceed hotel rates, yet more bountifully filled tables were not to be found on land and the boats were marvels of splendor in their appointments. The chief improvement made in the river steamboats was placing one large wheel at the stern of the boat entirely behind the hulk and with long paddles the full length of the beam, operated by double engines and quartering cranks. This had the advantage of allowing the wheel to fly in the eddy water of the boat, while it cleared the boat of the afterdraft. With these improvements rapid currents and shallow waters could be conquered.
In 1832 it was calculated that the whole number of persons deriving subsistence on the Ohio, including the crews of steam- and flat-boats, mechanics and laborers employed in building and repairing boats, woodcutters, and persons employed in furnishing, supplying, loading and unloading these boats, was ninety thousand. At this time, 1832, the boats numbered four hundred and fifty and their burden ninety thousand tons. In 1843 the whole number of steamboats constructed at Cincinnati alone was forty-five; the aggregate amount of their tonnage was twelve thousand and thirty-five tons, and their cost $705,000. This gives an average of two hundred and sixty-seven tons for each boat and about $16,000 for the cost of each.
The models of these 1843 boats, as well as their finish and accommodations, evinced a progressive improvement upon earlier boats. They had more length and less draught, and were faster than those of the last generation, while the hulls were more staunch, though they contained less weight of timber. The cabins were not so gaudy and expensive as those of former years but were greatly superior in comfort and convenience.
In 1844 the number of steamboats employed in navigating the Mississippi and its tributaries was four hundred and fifty. The average burden of these boats was 200 tons each, making an aggregate of 90,000 tons and their aggregate value, at $80 per ton, was $7,200,000. Many of these were fine vessels, affording most comfortable accommodations for passengers, and compared favorably in all particulars with the best packets in any part of the world. The number of persons engaged in navigating the steam-boats at this time varied from twenty-five to fifty for each boat, or an average of about thirty-five persons, which gives a total of 15,750 persons employed.
It appears from the reports of the Louisville and Portland Canal at this time that more than seven hundred flat-boats passed that canal in one year. There were, therefore, probably four thousand descending the Mississippi, and counting five men to a boat there were 20,000 persons employed in flat-boating. The cost of these boats was in the neighborhood of $400,000, which, as they did not return, was an annual expense; the cost of loading, navigating, and unloading them approximated $900,000, making a total annual expenditure upon this class of boats $1,300,000.
If, in 1834, the number of steamboats on western waters was two hundred and thirty, and they carried 39,000 tons, the expense of running them could be estimated as follows:[25]
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In 1844 the calculation was:
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This sum, reduced to the different items producing it, would be apportioned as follows:
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To this should be added:
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There were steadily employed at the Cincinnati shipyards, during the year 1843, in the heavier portions of the work, 320 hands at the boatyards, 200 joiners, 200 engine- and foundry-men, 50 painters, making the total number of persons employed 770.
Within the same year, there were built at Louisville, New Albany, and Jeffersonville, 35 boats, of 7,406 tons, which cost $700,000. These boats cost $20,000 each, averaged 211 tons, and cost about $95 per ton.
At Pittsburg, the same year, there were built 25 boats, of 4347 tons; the average tonnage of these boats was about 173 tons.
The aggregate number of boats built in 1843, is about as follows:
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The whole tonnage of western boats previous to 1843, being 90,000 tons, and the annual loss by destruction and superannuation being twenty per cent, the decrease by the latter cause for 1843, was 18,000 tons, and the increase 26,788 tons, making a net increase of 8,788 tons.
By the official returns in 1842 it appears that the whole steamboat tonnage of the United States was 218,994 tons; this was divided as follows:
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At this time the steamboat tonnage belonged to the internal commerce of the country, as, with the exception of two or three in the Gulf of Mexico, we had no steam vessels engaged in foreign commerce. Of the whole 218,994 tons, it appears that two-thirds belonged to the West; and as a portion of the other tonnage was employed on routes leading to the West and connecting with our highways, the commerce of the West no doubt amounted to more than two-thirds of the commerce of the Union And, estimating the number of steamboats from their average tonnage, there must have been in 1842, one thousand in the United States, of which six hundred belonged to the West.
The table of tonnage above given, shows where this vast commercial marine was employed; first, in the Mississippi Basin; next, in the city of New York; and then on the Lakes. From the port of New York there were some seventy or eighty steamboats constantly running—on the Lakes there were hundreds. In the valley of the Mississippi the number of steamboats they employed was equal to the whole number of those employed in England. This will appear from the following statement from McCullough's gazetteer of the steamboat tonnage of Great Britain in 1834:
| Steam ShipsTonnage | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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It appears then that the steamboat tonnage of the Mississippi Valley (1842) exceeded by forty thousand tons the entire steamboat tonnage of Great Britain (1834). In other words, the steamboat tonnage of Great Britain was only two-thirds that of the Mississippi Valley. The magnitude of this fact will be best appreciated by considering that the entire tonnage of the United States was but two-thirds that of Great Britain, showing that this proportion is exactly reversed in western steamboat trade. The influence of the West in pushing the steamboat to its ultimate use as a common carrier has been most remarkable.
- ↑ Harris's Tour (1805), p. 38.
- ↑ Harris's Pittsburgh Business Directory for the year 1837, pp. 178, 287.
- ↑ Id., p. 277.
- ↑ The American Pioneer, vol. ii, p. 271.
- ↑ Historic Highways of America, vol. i, p. 57.
- ↑ See note 55.
- ↑ Cassedy's History of Louisville, pp. 64–67.
- ↑ American Pioneer, vol. ii, p. 63.
- ↑ Wisconsin Historical Collections, vol. iv, p. 183; xii, p. 400; vii, p. 371.
- ↑ An itinerary of the route from New Orleans northward is given in The Navigator (1817), p. 306. For a description of the journey see American Pioneer, March, 1842.
- ↑ American Pioneer, vol. ii, pp. 163–164.
- ↑ Harris: Tour, pp. 30–31; cf. p. 139 where the author states the historical succession of river craft as: canoe, pirogue, keel-boat, barge, and ark.
- ↑ Interview with William DeForest published in the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, May, 1883.
- ↑ Dr. S. P. Hildreth's Pioneer History, p. 205.
- ↑ Collins's History of Kentucky, vol. ii, pp. 113–114.
- ↑ Burnet's Notes, p. 400.
- ↑ Cassedy's History of Louisville, p. 64.
- ↑ Butler's Journal for October 9, 1785, The Olden Time, vol. ii, p. 442. Cf. Wisconsin Historical Collections, vol. xi, p. 13, note.
- ↑ Harris's Pittsburgh Business Directory (1837), pp. 276–277.
- ↑ Harris: Tour, p. 43.
- ↑ Id., pp. 52–53.
- ↑ Id., pp. 140–141.
- ↑ The Navigator (1811), p. 69.
- ↑ The Navigator, (1811), pp. 31–33.
- ↑ The authority for these and many of the following facts is derived from a Memorial of the Citizens of Cincinnati to the Congress of the United States Relative to the Navigation of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, Cincinnati, 1844.