“We shall endeavor to instruct the unexperienced navigator how to avoid them. The instability of the banks proceeds from their being composed of a loose sandy soil, and the impetuosity of the current against their prominent parts, which, by undermining them unceasingly, causes them to tumble into the river, taking with them everything that may be above. And if when the event happens boats should be moored there, they must necessarily be buried in the common ruin, which unfortunately has been sometimes the case. For which reason, navigators have made it an invariable rule never to land at or near a point, but always in the sinuosity or cove below it, which is generally lined with small willows of the weeping kind, whence some call them although improperly, willow points, and which being generally clear of logs and planters, the landing is easily effected, by running directly into them, the resistance of the willows destroying a part of the boat’s velosity, and the rest is overcome without much exertion by holding fast to the limbs which surround you.—In those places the river generally deposits the surplus of soil, with which it is charged from the continual cavings of the points, and so forms new land on one side by destroying some on the other.
“The banks of this river from where it receives the Missouri to its mouth, being with a few exceptions below high water mark, an immense country is inundated, when the river is in its highest state, by which those extensive swamps are formed and supplied, which prove the nurseries of myriades of musquitoes and other insects (to the no small inconvenience of the traveller) and the never failing source of grievous diseases to the inhabitants. There are also streams, which at all times sally forth from the main river with astonishing rapidity, and whose vortex extends some distance into the stream. Boats once sucked into such bayous are next to lost, it being almost impossible to force so unwieldy a machine as a flat bottomed boat against so powerful a current. It will therefore be safest for boats, never to keep too close to shore, but to keep some distance out in the river. To avoid planters and sawyers requires nothing more but attention, for they always occasion a small breaker whereever they are, and if your boat seems to be hurried towards them row the boat from them, else if you are dilatory you must abide by the consequence.
“Wooden-Islands are more dangerous than real ones the former being an obstacle lately thrown in the way of the current, and the bed of the river not having had sufficient time to form that bar or gradual ascent from the bottom of the river to the island, which divides the current at some distance from the point of the island above water, the current will hurry you against them, unless you use timely exertion. From all this it must be evident how imprudent it is attempting to go after night, even when assisted by a clear moon; but after you are once arrived at Natchez, you may safely proceed day and night, the river from that place to its mouth being clear, and opposing nothing to your progress but a few eddies into which you may occasionally be drawn and detained for a short time.”
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.