History of Early Steamboat Navigation on the Missouri River, Volume 1 (of 2) / Life and Adventures of Joseph La Barge

by Hiram Martin Chittenden

RIVER BOATS.

The swift and turbulent character of the Missouri River led to exaggerated accounts by the early explorers of the difficulty of navigating it. Such navigation was at first considered wholly out of the question except in the simplest craft. Tradition says that Gregoire Zerald Sarpy was the first to introduce keelboats on the river, but the date of this essay is not very definitely fixed. It would seem that the French must have used large boats at the time they were established at Fort Orleans. In any event the advent of the keelboat on the Missouri in connection with the fur trade could not have been long after the founding of St. Louis, and probably antedated it. Gradually these boats made their way to points farther and farther up the river, until in 1805 they were taken by Lewis and Clark to the head of navigation. A similar experience was gone through with in the case of the steamboat. It was at first thought impossible for such boats to navigate the river at all, but in 1819 the attempt was made, and the Independence entered the Missouri on either the 16th or 17th of May, and ascended the river two hundred miles. The Western Engineer, a government boat, went as far as the old Council Bluffs in the same year. From that time on steamboats remained on the river, making farther and farther advances toward the head of navigation, which was finally reached forty years after the first boat entered the river.

The principal craft which have been used on the Missouri and its tributaries are the canoe, mackinaw, bullboat, keelboat, and steamboat. The yawl, a very important boat, was not much used for independent navigation, but rather as an appurtenance to the steamboats.

* * * * *

THE CANOE.

The canoe was the simplest and most generally used of all the river craft. It was the wooden canoe, or “dugout,” and not the bark canoe which was so much used where the proper material could be found. The Missouri River canoe was generally made from the logs of the cottonwood, though frequently from the walnut, and occasionally from cedar. The cottonwood in the river bottoms attained immense size, ample for the largest canoes, for these boats rarely exceeded thirty feet in length and three and one-half in width. The ordinary length was between fifteen and twenty feet. A suitable tree having been found, it was felled and a proper length of the trunk was cut out. The exterior was straightened with the broad-ax, and reduced to a round log shorn of all roughness and irregularity. The top was then hewn off, so as to leave about two-thirds of the log. The ends were given a regular canoe model, and were sometimes turned up on bow and stern with extra pieces for purpose of ornament. The log was then carefully scooped out from the flat surface so as to leave a thin shell about two inches thick at the bottom and one at the rim. To support the sides and give strength to the craft the timber was left in place at points from four to six feet apart, making solid partitions or bulkheads. A good-sized canoe was easily built by four men in as many days. They had tools especially adapted to the work, the most important being the tille ronde, or the round adz.

These log canoes made excellent craft, strong, light, and easily managed. A full crew generally consisted of three men, two to propel and one to steer. The paddle (French aviron) was always used. A mast was occasionally placed in the center and rigged with a square sail, but this could be used only with an aft wind, for fear of capsizing the canoe.

Sometimes these boats were made with a square stern, and were then called pirogues; but this name was more frequently used where two such boats were rigidly united in parallel positions a few feet apart and completely floored over. On the floor was placed the cargo, which was protected from the weather by the use of skins. Oars were provided in the bow for rowing and a single oar in the stern between the boats for steering. Sails could be used with a quartering wind on these boats without danger of upsetting. Dubé’s ferry, on the Mississippi, one of the earliest ferries of St. Louis, used a boat of this kind.

BEAR’S OIL AND HONEY.

The principal use of the canoe was for the local business of the larger river posts. Often, however, they were used in making trips to St. Louis, even from the remotest navigable points of the main stream or its tributaries. Many such a journey has been made with a single voyageur running the gantlet of hostile tribes all the way from the mountains to the Mississippi. A common use of the canoe was for sending express messages down the river, and there are several records of their having been used to transport freight. An example of this last use was the shipment of bear’s oil, which was extensively used in St. Louis as a substitute for lard in the early days when swine were scarce and black bears plentiful. The oil was extremely penetrating, and would rapidly filter through skin receptacles. Barrels or casks not being available, the center apartment of the canoe was filled with the oil and tightly covered with a skin fastened to the sides of the boat. Honey was also transported in this way. In those days bee trees were exceedingly plentiful in the Missouri bottoms, and large quantities of honey were taken from them.