|    Not all of the people who traveled west went entirely by land; the rivers were also used. Many of the pioneers, on reaching the Ohio River, would build boats, pile their goods upon them and said down to the Mississippi River. In this way some moved as far as New Orleans.
If the pioneers were taking only short trips on the rivers, they might use flatboats. These boats could carry heavy loads, but they were hard to manage.
Small flatboats could be as little as twenty feet long and ten feet wide, but the large ones were sometimes sixty feet long and twenty feet wide. On such boats the pioneers put everything they had with them, plus their horses and wagons; so the boats had to be large.
Flatboats could be used only in going down the river. Sometimes, if the pioneers decided to settle on the banks, they tore the flatboats apart and used the lumber to build their homes.
Two other types of river boats were the barge and the packet. They were like the flatboats in shape except that they had masts, sails, and rudders. The barge and the packet moved about four miles an hour down the river and two miles an hour up, depending on the wind.
The packet boats, carrying passengers and freight, made regular trips; but travel on them was so slow that it often took a month to make the round trip from Pittsburgh to Cincinnati, a distance of about 500 miles. Flatboats on the Ohio River carried thousands of immigrants to new settlements in the Midwest during the early 1800's.
Flatboats are large, raftlike barges used to haul freight and passengers. A flatboat has a flat bottom and square ends. A keelboat, sometimes called a flatboat, was a long narrow craft, sharp at both ends. It was built on a keel and ribs. These boats were carriers of goods during the westward movement in the United States. Pioneer families put their furniture and livestock on flatboats and floated to new settlements. The boats were moved by the current, and by one or two long oars which were also used for steering. A vast flatboat freight business grew up on the Mississippi River during the 1800's. Photo courtesy & Property of:
Bela Berty at Pioneer Adventures
and is used with permission.
The information was also supplied
by Bela Berty.
This set is NOT public domain and
is NOT to leave this site at all. It is for
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Thanks.....Fiddlinsue Pages last update was:
February 23, 2003 |
