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Updated: May 22, 2025
He soon knew that he was right, as the rifle fire remained at long range with little damage to either side, while the flatboat was steadily drawing nearer, and the cannon were beginning to do damage. One man was killed and another wounded. Several houses were struck, and here and there stakes in the palisade were knocked away. Major Braithwaite, despite his courage, showed alarm.
The first was the slender, fair-haired Ann Rutledge, whom he very likely saw for the first time as she stood with the group of mocking people on the river-bank, near her father's mill, the day Lincoln's flatboat stuck on the dam at New Salem.
The flatboat has probably but ten minutes to live. We must take the women and children ashore. And please, signorina," to my sister, "call M. and Mme. Carpentier." But Joseph had heard all, and showed himself at the door of our room. "Ashore? At such a time?" "We have no choice. We must go or perish." "But where?" "To the hut. We have no time to talk. My family is ready"....
We git plenty of cat-fish, buffalo-fish, yellow perch, and bass, and sell them at the little towns along the river. Then in summer we hire a high flat ashore, not a flatboat, I mean a bit of land along the river, and raise a crop of corn, 'taters, and cabbage. We have plenty of shooting, and don't git much fever 'n ager."
The shanty-boatman looks to the river not only for his life, but also for the means of making that life pleasant; so he fishes in the stream for floating lumber in the form of boards, planks, and scantling for framing to build his home. It is soon ready. A scow, or flatboat, about twenty feet long by ten or twelve wide, is roughly constructed. It is made of two-inch planks spiked together.
Sometimes the little towns we see occupy a narrow and more or less rocky bench upon the hill side of the stream, but settlement is chiefly found upon the bottoms. While I was on shore, negotiating with the sleepy storekeeper, Pilgrim and her crew waited alongside the flatboat which serves as the town ferry.
But after the Revolution the needs of an awakening empire led to the introduction of new types of craft, built to afford a maximum of capacity and safety on a downward voyage, without regard for the demands of a round trip. The most common of these one-way vessels was the flatboat. A flatboat trip down the great river was likely to be filled with excitement.
The canoe and pirogue could handle the packs and kegs brought westward by the files of Indian ponies; but the heavy loads of the Conestoga wagons demanded stancher craft. The flatboat and barge therefore served the West and its commerce as the Conestoga and turnpike served the East. In the early twenties of the last century one of the popular songs of the day was "The Hunters of Kentucky."
Here in the primeval forest, far from "Merrie England," Baily spent the Christmas of 1796 in building a new flatboat. This task completed, he resumed his journey. Passing Marietta, where the bad condition of the winter roads prevented a visit to a famous Indian mound, he reached Limestone. In due time he sighted Columbia, the metropolis of the Miami country.
The ferry-boat was a large bateau, or flatboat, the slope at the ends being so gradual that a wagon could pass down over it to the bottom of the boat. This inclined plane was extended by a movable platform about six feet wide, which swung horizontally up and down, like a great trap-door.
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