THE OHIO RIVER TRADE

1788-1830

BY

Hazel Yearsley Shaw, A.B., 1907

THESIS

SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE

DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS

IN

HISTORY

IN THE

GRADUATE SCHOOL

OF THE

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

1908

THE OHIO RIVER TRADE
1788-1830

CHAPTER I.
BOATS AND BOATMEN.

With the opening of the great West, the Ohio River became the main route of immigration and commerce, and it is in a careful study of the various forms of craft which floated upon "La Belle Riviere" that we catch a glimpse of the rapid and almost marvelous economic development of the Ohio Valley.

The Indian canoe, though sometimes used by travelers, was entirely inadequate for the purpose of commerce, and was never used, in any regular branch of trade.[1] The earliest improvement upon the canoe was the pirogue, an invention of the whites. Like the canoe this boat was hewn out of the solid log, the difference being that the pirogue had greater width and capacity, and was composed of several pieces—as if the canoe had been sawed into two equal sections, and a broad, flat piece of timber inserted in the middle, so as to give greater breadth of beam to the vessel.[2] These boats were occasionally used by the immigrants for the transportation of their goods and furniture.[3]

The canoe and pirogue were succeeded by the barge, the keel, and the flat-boat. Of the first two, the barge was the largest, had the greatest breadth, and the best accomodation for passengers; the keel was longer, had less depth, and was better fitted for the navigation of narrow and shallow channels. "They were navigated by a rude and lawless class of men, who became distinguished as well for their drolleries, as for their predatory and ferocious habits. In the thinly scattered state of the population, their numbers rendered them formidable, as there were few villages on the rivers, and still fewer settlements, which contained a sufficient number of able bodied men to cope with the crew of a barge, consisting usually of thirty or forty hands; while the arrival of several of these boats together made them completely masters of the place. The large rivers whose meanders they pursued formed the boundaries of States, so that living continually on the lines which divided different civil jurisdictions, they could pass with ease from one to the other, and never be made responsible to any. It is a singular fact, that lawless and wild as these men were, the valuable cargoes of merchandise committed to their care, and secured by no other bond than their integrity, were always carried safely to their destination, and the traveler, however weak, or however richly freighted, relied securely on their protection."[4] Navigating long rivers, whose shores were still infested by hostile savages, the boatmen were armed, and depended for safety upon their caution and their manhood.[5]

The barges, but rarely using sails, and receiving only an occasional impulse from their oars, descended the stream with a speed but little superior to that of the current. About the year 1795, seventy or eighty days were consumed in making the long and monotonous voyage from Pittsburg to New Orleans,[6] while in 1802, Michaux says that "the barges, in the Spring, usually take forty or fifty days to make the passage, which two or three persons in a pirogue make in twenty-five days."[7] The return voyage was not effected in less than four months.[8]