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Updated: June 22, 2025
The settlers who went to this region for the most part followed two routes, either descending the Tennessee and ascending the Cumberland in flotillas of flat-boats and canoes, or else striking out in large bodies through the wilderness, following the trails that led westward from the settlements on the Holston.
He saw a good many Mexicans, who, of course, were hand and glove with Bland. Also he saw enormous flat-boats, crude of structure, moored along the banks of the river. The Rio Grande rolled away between high bluffs. A cable, sagging deep in the middle, was stretched over the wide yellow stream, and an old scow, evidently used as a ferry, lay anchored on the far shore.
Between October, 1786, and May, 1787 the frozen season when boats were necessarily infrequent the adjutant at Fort Harmer counted one hundred and seventy-seven flat-boats, and estimated they carried twenty-seven hundred settlers. A shabby and clumsy fleet it was, indeed, with only enough seamanship involved to push off a sand-bar, but it was a great factor in the upbuilding of the nation.
Various embellishments have been added to the original narratives by recent writers, such as an imaginary hand-to-hand fight of Iberville and several Englishmen in the blockhouse of Fort Hayes. A host of flat-boats filled with soldiers, and a host of Indian canoes, struggled against the rapids of the St. Lawrence, and slowly made their way to Fort Frontenac. Among the troops was La Hontan.
Another, the Tennessee Company, received a grant of what is now most of northern Alabama, and organized a body of men under the leadership of an adventurer named Zachariah Cox, who drifted down the Tennessee in flat-boats to take possession, and repeated the attempt more than once. They were, however, stopped, partly by Blount, and partly by the Indians.
"It is the better chance," he explained, grimly, "for my getting a face-to-face look at the old, gray wolf." Fortunately, the question of transportation for the river party was quickly settled. One of Messer Hugolin's flat-boats, coming down from the upper river with a cargo of hides, had anchored for the night a half-mile up-stream; it was an easy matter to impress crew and vessel into service.
Whilst the Indians were sleeping away the effects of one of those mystic feasts, at which they invariably stuffed themselves to repletion, the Frenchmen escaped at night and reached the Oswego River, which they successfully descended by the aid of flat-boats which they had secretly constructed after the discovery of the plot.
This was enough to intimidate a man less in earnest than Garfield. He did not hesitate, but gathering together ten days' rations, he chartered two small steamers, and seizing all the flat-boats he could lay hands on, took his army wagons apart, and loaded them, with his forage and provisions, upon the flat-boats. Just as he was ready to start he received an unexpected reinforcement.
After a vain attempt to find some flat-boats where there were lodgings and meals to be had, I struck out for general head-quarters, and, undergoing repeated snubbings from pert members of staff, fell in at length, with a very tall, spare, and angular young officer, who spoke broken English, and who heard my inquiries, courteously; he stepped into General Marcy's tent, but the Chief of Staff did not know the direction of Smith's division; he then repaired to Gen.
Donelson's flotilla, after being joined by a number of other boats, especially at the mouth of the Clinch, consisted of some thirty craft, all told flat-boats, dug-outs, and canoes. There were probably two or three hundred people, perhaps many more, in the company; among them, as the journal records, "James Robertson's lady and children," the latter to the number of five.
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