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The flooded areas were described as extending for 20 leagues on each side of the river. One hundred and twenty years later, Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet began exploring the river, traveling from its upper reaches to a point near present-day Arkansas City, Arkansas. A short time later, the French built the small fort of La Balise there to control passage. Within a few years, French traders had settled along the Mississippi River and had penetrated the territory of the Natchez Indians.

In , the first cargo was floated down the river from the Indian country around the Wabash River in the present-day states of Indiana and Ohio. This was a load of 15, bear and deer hides brought downstream and out through Bayou Manchac, just below Baton Rouge, and Amite River, then through Lake Maurepas and Lake Pontchartrain to Biloxi, with final destination in France. This route is not now open, Bayou Manchac having been closed with construction of the Mississippi River levee system. Fort Rosalie, the first permanent white settlement on the Mississippi River and now called Natchez, was built by the French in Bienville founded New Orleans in , and four years later this city was made the capital of the region known as Louisiana.

The rapid growth of New Orleans was due principally to its position near the mouth of the river.

Navigation grew and developed with the settlement of the Lower Mississippi Valley. The Treaty of Paris in In , the U. The flat-boats and rafts which succeeded them were one-way craft only. Loaded at an upstream point, they were floated downriver and their cargoes were unloaded, then they were dismantled and sold for lumber. Built for one trip only, they were cheap and often poorly constructed, but carried large quantities of merchandise at a time when transportation was vital to the growing valley. The keelboat was the first queen of the river trade. A two-way traveler, it was long and narrow with graceful lines, built to survive many trips.

A keelboat could carry as much as 80 tons of freight. This called for a crew of tough and hardy men, for cordelling was a process by which a crew on the bank towed the keelboat along against the current.

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The invention of the steamboat in the early 19th century brought about a revolution in river commerce. The first steamboat to travel the Mississippi was the New Orleans. You sure have a lot of information here and a nice layout. I may use a few of your ideas. How long have you been collecting and posting this information? We just started a site on USA-eVote.

Waterways of Westward Expansion: The Ohio River and Its Tributaries 1903 [Hardcover]

We want to concentrate on issues in history that are more or less warning signs of what may be coming. Your email address will not be published. Primary Menu Skip to content. 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. The number of keel-boats on the Ohio was not as large, probably, as would be supposed. 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 con- siderable way up its smaller tributaries — territory which the barge and flat-boat could never reach. 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 Cen- tral West, from the earliest times until today, have found the favorite sites of occupation to be in the interior of the coun- try, beside the lesser tributaries of the Ohio.

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 im- portant, in the Central West; as values were a century ago the best of men did well to ' ' earn his salt. 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.

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, there- " See note 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.

Full text of "Waterways of Westward Expansion: The Ohio River and Its Tributaries"

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, there- fore, 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 ap- pearance of double strength and right against it.

The men, who have rested a few minutes, are ordered to take their sta- tions and lay hold of their oars, for the river must be crossed, it being seldom pos- sible to double such a point and proceed along the same shore. The boat is cross- ing, 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 ex- hausted, and, as we shall suppose it to be 12 o'clock, fasten the boat to a tree on the shore.

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 bows- men, remain at the prow to assist, in con- cert with the steersman, in managing the boat and keeping its head right against the current.

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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 stem, he crosses to the other side, runs along it and comes again to the landward side of the bow, when he recom- mences operations. The barge in the mean- time is ascending at a rate not exceeding one mile in the hour.

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 occa- sions a halt. 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!

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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. Such was the state of things as late as 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 voy- ages were performed in that time. 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.

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.


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The flat- boat of average size was a roofed craft about forty feet long, twelve feet wide and eight feet deep. One man only was needed at the steering oar and at the gouger. Often several families joined together and came down the river on one flat-boat, a motley congre- gation of men, women, children and domes- tic 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 pros- pective pioneer's attention are suggested in the previous quotations from The Nam- gator.

This weird music, reverberating from hill to hill, was heard far and wide and was welcomed by the country people. 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. For through freight, apples and potatoes were the staples.

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. The items and their cost price on shore is interesting: bu. 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 stem 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. The darkies were, in some cases, allowed to make their own purchases; they did not neglect the liquor, often exchanging mo- lasses for brandy even, gallon for gallon.