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Updated: June 26, 2025
After crossing the river at Field's Mill, the infantry by Hooker's foot-bridge and the artillery by the flat-boat ferry, I marched at ten o'clock in the evening and reached Big Spring Creek at two o'clock in the morning of the 18th.
"Did you come for me?" cried Mr. Chipperton. "No," said the man who had spoken. "We came for this other party, but I reckon you can come along." "For me?" said I. "Who sent you?" "Your pardner," said the man. "He came over in a flat-boat, and he said you was stuck here, for somebody had stole your boat, and so he sent us for you." "And he's over there, is he?" said I.
"But I've lost two days already, and I'm taking that bunch of sightseers out for a lump sum, guaranteeing 'em so many days on the trail. This ain't what you might call on the trail. They don't expect to pay for this delay, and that outfit back in the bush is costing me thirty dollars a day. We can get the dunnage and ourselves over in the flat-boat. It'll make our arms crack but we can do it.
I followed the two feet depth for about a rod, and then came to three feet, and soon after to "no bottom." I shouted to the pilot the result of my examination of the stream, and Buck pulled back to the steamer. We got on board and made fast the painter of the flat-boat, letting it tow astern, for we might soon need it again.
At Cincinnati I saw one of those persons arrested, on the wharf, for debt. He seemed little inclined to submit; as, could he contrive to escape to the opposite shore, he was safe. He called upon his companions in the flat-boat, who came instantly to his assistance, and were apparently ready to rescue him from the clutches of this trans-Atlantic bum-bailiff.
Landing at the ferry where a small scow or flat-boat was resting upon the firm land, the ferryman, Mr. Daniel Dunkin, would not permit me to camp out of doors while his log-cabin was only one mile away on the pine-covered uplands.
I went north while he bore off in a northeasterly direction, and after traveling for three days came to the river at a point above where we lost our flat-boat. He struggled on up the river without road or trail, and nothing to guide him except the little compass which he still carried in his pocket.
As the white population increased in that part of the country, a man of the name of Gibson erected a hut on the southern bank of the stream, constructed a flat-boat, and began ferrying over at the rate of three dollars a head. As the immigration was very extensive, Gibson soon grew independent, and he entered into a kind of partnership with the free bands which were already organised.
Inland by canoe from Montreal, overland by flat-boat and pack-horse from the Missouri, across the continent from Hudson Bay, round the world by the Cape and the Horn, across the ocean from China it now became a race to the Pacific. Greater wealth seemed there in furs than had been found in gold in the temples of Peru, or in silver in the mines of Mexico.
Our ferry this time was not the back of a Chinese coolie nor a jolting ox-cart, but a spacious flat-boat made to accommodate one or two vehicles at a time. This was rowed at the stern, like the gondolas of Venice. The mob of hundreds that had been dogging our foot-steps and making life miserable, during our brief stop for food, watched our embarkation.
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