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June 2006: Away You Rollin' River
In these pages we’ve often related tales of the early riverboating on the Mississippi. How the first boats to travel the river (other than canoes) were flatboats and keel boats. It was relatively easy for a farmer or fur trader to build a flatboat from the trees thereabouts and float it down stream to New Orleans. After all, a flatboat was hardly more than a raft with sides. This was easier to say than do because the river was treacherous, the current swift, and control of the flatboat difficult. When he got to New Orleans he could sell his cargo and perhaps pick up a few bucks for the lumber that made up his flatboat. Then the problem became: How do I get home? Most likely on foot, over what was called the Natchez Trace. The flatboaters tried to travel together as the Natchez Trace was notorious for the highwaymen and cutthroats that made a living from robbing travelers without caring whether they killed them or not. If a person could afford it, it was better to purchase a ride on a keelboat. We will consider what it was like on a keelboat, most of this information coming from an interesting book called “Steamboats on the Mississippi” by Ralph K Andrist.
A keelboat could travel upstream as well as downstream. They were 60-70 feet long, 15-18 feet wide, and 3-4 feet deep. We mentioned keelboats in a recent column about Zebulon Pike. These long slim boats were pointed at the bow and stern. They were quite efficient when going downstream but going upstream was a different story. Going upstream was the hardest work one can imagine and called for men with muscle and endurance. You may remember that Abraham Lincoln worked on a keelboat as a young man, until his keel got hung up on a dam on the Sangamon River. He walked up the hill to a new little town called New Salem and never returned to keelboating. A wise decision. But getting back to the job of keelboating: if the water was not too deep, the boat was poled. Four or five men with long poles took places near the bow but facing the stern. At a command, each man thrust the end of his pole against the river bottom, and leaning against the other end with his shoulder, walked toward the stern, propelling the boat ahead. Then they would rapidly walk back to the prow and repeat the motion.
When the water was too deep or the current too swift for poling, a tow rope called a cordelle was used. This was tied to the top of the boats 30 foot mast (that high to help clear it from brush on the bank). The cordelle was about 1000 feet long to reduce the tendency for the boat to be pulled towards the shore. The cordelle was attached to a tree up ahead (often it was necessary to clear brush to even attach it to a tree) and the crew would pull the keelboat forward, a process called warping. Does this sound back-breaking enough for you?
When the current was slight the boatmen got out oars and rowed. Usually the boats carried a square sail, but on the winding Mississippi the wind seldom came from the right direction for long.
This Spring Jamin’ With Jane and I went down to Memphis along with daughter Mindy, Son-in-law Myron, and grand-daughter Linley. Object of the trip was to see Elvis Presley’s Graceland. Linley is a great Presley fan. While in Memphis we visited a place called Mud Island, There they have a full scale model of the Mississippi River. The thing is about a half mile long and is built to the scale of 30 inches to the mile. This scale is used, not only for the length of the river but the width and depth. The model Mississippi starts at about the confluence of the Missouri River. The watershed to the north is a large map over which the water pours showing what the big river drains. You can follow the river with all its twists and turns, different widths, and varying depth all the way to the Gulf of Mexico (actually, in this case the Mississippi itself). The significant towns are laid out (flat) in their places, and plaques point out historical and other features along the way. The model makes very evident the twisty turny river. Some people try to wade the length of the river. Not so easy with all the twists and turns. I tried walking (not wading) the length of the river and Linley tried wading it. Linley soon gave up and I got to within sight of the mouth but the river is even twistier as it approaches New Orleans. In many places that river actually runs north. This gives an appreciation to the efforts of the old keelboaters we mentioned in the first part of this column. About half way down I encountered a young couple in the process of wading the river. After I had gone almost to the mouth I met them again and cheerily told them “You’ve got a long way to go to the mouth”. Later, on the monorail you take to get there I met them again. They acknowledged that it was truly a long way to the mouth and they hadn’t made it. The upshot of all this is we need to remember those people who established traffic on our river. They didn’t have it easy.