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River Men

During the summer and fall of 1804, Lewis and Clark ascended the Missouri in a "22-oar bateau" and two pirogues, they wintered in the Mandan villages at the river's great bend. Here they set their men to work cutting down trees for the construction of six canoes. With these and the two pirogues the expedition continued upriver in the spring, for the big bateau had been sent back to the States with specimens and reports.

A detailed description of these boats has not been preserved, but in all probability the bateau was a keelboat of the type in common use on the Mississippi and Ohio. These craft were even suitable for moving freight on the "Harlot" herself, the turbulent and muddy Missouri. Literally a flatboat with a keel to increase stability, it was about fifty-five feet long, decked over fore and aft with walkways along each side. Midships was a cabin and, in the Lewis and Clark version at least, the boat was rigged with a square sail.

The crew would walk the length of the boat thrusting long poles against the bottom of the river to propel the craft. As an alternative, long ropes were available, and in places where the nature of the river banks permitted it, either man or horse power could be used. At rare intervals, perhaps, the wind would be favorable and the sail could take over the work.

Whatever the motive power, however, upstream progress was slow; a good day might log eighteen miles while the average was closer to twelve or fifteen. The swift and treacherous Missouri had shoals and sand bars to trap the unwary boatman, and, in addition, the river bed was ever changing. At the best, keelboating the Missouri was a task that separated the men from the boys, and it was probably with no regrets that the river men said good-by to the keelboat when steam power arrived in the West. Until that day, however, the scowlike craft provided the chief means of transportation between St. Louis and the trading posts of the upper Missouri and its tributaries.

Keelboats, however, were not the only form of river transport. Some traders used the Mackinaw, a flat-bottomed boat with pointed bow and square stern that could carry about fifteen tons. The Mackinaw had decided advantages over the keelboat in that, being propelled by oarsmen and guided by a steersman, it could move more swiftly and be controlled more easily in the shifting currents of the Missouri River.

The pirogue, still another type of river boat made by fastening two canoes together with top flooring, found widespread use by the fur traders. While the Lewis and Clark records do not describe their pirogues as this particular type, the chances are that they were the same light vessels. They were usually about thirty feet long and from six to twelve feet wide with pointed bows and square sterns. (However, the term pirogue was used rather loosely and is known to have been applied to what were simply extra large canoes; this may have been the case with Lewis and Clark.) Oars were generally used as motive power, making them useful and high manuverable.

In the Southwest, where smallish navigable streams were rare, it was the prevailing practice for the fur traders to pack their catch as far as the nearest protecting "fort," which was usually located on a large navigable river, and transship it from that point by boat.

One of the more grotesque, and widely used, contraptions for moving cargo downstream was the bullboat. Known in Europe as the Welsh corwgl, or carcass boat, it was also used by Tibetans in Asia. Whatever the name, it was about the same and about as predictable as a tub in a whirlpool. The bullboat was simply a round dome-shaped framework made of willow or cottonwood shoots or anything else that was pliable and handy. These ribs were arranged in a spokelike fashion, all crossing at the center, then bowed into a cup shape and secured with a circular wooden ring. Over this basket-like framework, freshly skinned and sewn buffalo hides were placed and secured. Then the whole contraption was inverted over a slow-burning fire to be cooked until done. The heat would shrink and harden the green hide until it fit tightly and was almost inflexible. During the process, melted buffalo tallow was applied to the seams as caulking.

If all the work was done properly, the bullboat was ready for its two or two and a half tons of freight and, so loaded, had a draft of only a few inches when dry. There was one disadvantage. During the course of a day the bullboat became increasing waterlogged and consequently less maneuverable. It was therefore necessary to drag the craft from the water at night, unload it, and redry it over the campfire. But there was an advantage to offset this problem. The bullboat was easily made.

Another form of transportation used by fur traders in the north woods was the birchbark canoe employed extensively by the Hudson's Bay and North West companies. These graceful craft with their elliptical upturned ends were so efficient that the design is still used for canoes made of modern materials. Eight or nine skilled voyageurs could carry three or more tons in their canoes and do it swiftly. It was in this way that Canadian traders carried goods and supplies across the wide stretches of Canada to exchange them for furs in the Oregon country.

The total distance from Montreal to the mouth of the Columbia River was about fortyeight hundred miles; the trip was made in a little over three months. When the difficulty of the trip is considered, with its maze of rivers and network of portages, it is no wonder that the movement of goods over this route was referred to, in a complimentary way, as "The Hundred Day Express."

It would be impossible to name the one man who was responsible for introducing the steamboat to America, for there were many. History, however, does record that steam navigation was successful in France twenty-four years before the August day in 1807 when Robert Fulton's Clermont made her much-heralded trip from New York to Albany. (The Marquis de Jouffroy is the true inventor due to his having built a steamboat which operated on the River Saone for sixteen months during i783-84.)

While several Americans had built steamboats before Fulton, he was a competent engineer, and he had the good fortune to be backed by Robert Livingston, late minister to France, who in turn had secured from the New York state legislature exclusive rights to navigate the Hudson with a vessel propelled by steam. The success of this monopoly immortalized Fulton and resulted in the use of steamboats for general commercial traffic. Even fur companies in the far West began to use them.

The British North West and Hudson's Bay companies and the American Pacific Fur Company operators in the Oregon country needed access to the sea. Large quantities of supplies were imported in ocean-going ships, and in turn much of the annual fur catch was taken aboard windjammers for delivery, to London, Canton, New York and other ports. The steamboat promised a faster, more dependable way of handling this commerce.

As early as 1817, St. Louis was visited by the Pike - the first steamboat to moor at the levee, and two years later another steamer, the Independence, became the first vessel of its kind to make the trip from St. Louis up the river to Franklin, Missouri, the starting place where wagons were loaded for the Santa Fe Trail.

By 1818, the Western Engineer had reached Council Bluffs, and it was not long before Kenneth McKenzie of the American Fur Company adopted the steamboat for upriver fur trade. This became practical in 1831 when the Louisville-built steamer Yellowstone reached Fort Tecumseh. A year later this same steamer reached Fort Union, three miles above the mouth of the Yellowstone River and 1,760 miles above St. Louis. The pattern was then established, and trips were made regularly between St. Louis and Fort Union.

In 1859 an old stern-wheeler reached the head of navigation on the Missouri River at Fort Benton, putting the steamboat within reach of the Continental Divide. But by this time the fur trade had passed its zenith and had no need of such expansion.

By this time, too, other tributaries of the Mississippi had long since been opened to navigation. As early as 1814 a steamboat ventured into the Red River, and six years later another reached Fort Smith, on the Arkansas, an outfitting point for the West. Eventually the Mississippi boasted 16,000 miles of navigable waterways.

Two types of river steamboats were in use: side-wheelers and stern-wheelers, both of which permitted the use of a hull with very shallow draft. Side-wheelers were generally preferred by operators on the lower Missouri and Mississippi rivers, while stern-wheelers were favored in more shallow waters. The boat with the paddle wheel at the rear, however, had the advantage of being more maneuverable in landings at the river bank or at jerry-built wharves.

Although St. Louis remained the great center of western steamboating during the big rush of settlers to Oregon and miners to California, other river towns were also coming into their own as important ports. On the Missouri River, Atchison, St. Joseph, Independence, Fort Leavenworth, Nebraska City and Council Bluffs were all developing as outfitting places from which emigrants, miners and teamsters made their treks to Oregon, California and the Rocky Mountain region. At the beginning of the Civil War, about sixty steamers were making some three hundred calls a year to outfitting points, and, after the war, a fleet of stern-wheelers was used by the army to carry men and supplies to Fort Benton during the high-water season.

The Missouri River, however, had no monopoly on steamboats. The first such craft to sail Pacific waters was the Hudson's Bay Company's SS Beaver. Built by Blackwall on the Thames, this sturdy ro9-ton steamer was taken to the Columbia District in 1836, and for several years after that she was used in the conduct of the Honourable Company's coastal trade. Since she was armed with four brass cannon, she aided in the defense of the company posts against Indian attacks, at the same time facilitating the movement of men and goods.

The story of the Beaver is important because it marks the beginning of steamboat transportation in the Oregon country. Fifteen years after the Beaver's trip up the Columbia, steamboats were common on such rivers as the Sacramento, San Joaquin and Colorado in California; on portions of the Columbia and its tributaries as well as Puget Sound in the Pacific Northwest; and in and out of Pacific coastal waters. By r88o, more than three hundred steamboats served the Pacific watershed and were the chief means of transportation.

Except for differences in roominess and luxuriousness, all river steamboats, generally speaking, followed the same pattern. They had shallow hulls and were wider than ocean going vessels. They usually had three decks, with the freight deck nearest the water.

Next would come the passenger deck, a light hurricane deck and a pilot house, above all of which would tower the belching stacks. Most river boats were about one hundred feet in length, while the luxury boats had a two-hundred-foot expanse. The river boats were designated for profitable freight hauling rather than for the less rewarding passenger service, and for this reason their accommodations were something less than plushy.

Steamboaters had their problems. There were always collisions with other boats, the danger of crashing winter ice, the constant battle with shifting sand bars, hidden rocks and logs to make the life of a river pilot interesting, and sometimes short. Add to these perils the ever-present danger of a boiler explosion and fire, and the total was an uncertain future. Despite these things, the steamboat won public approval and patronage and so contributed to the great movement West.

Jay Monaghan, (Editor). The Book of the American West. Simon & Schuster. 1963.

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