Flatboat

on the Ohio River. A flatboat (or broadboat) was a rectangular flat-bottomed boat with square ends used to transport freight and passengers on inland waterways in the United States. The flatboat could be any size, but essentially it was a large, sturdy tub with a hull. A flatboat was almost always a one-way (downstream) vessel, and was usually dismantled for lumber when it reached its destination. , Jolly Flatboatmen in Port, (1857, St. Louis Art Museum)

on the Ohio River.]] A flatboat (or broadboat) was a rectangular flat-bottomed boat with square ends used to transport freight and passengers on inland waterways in the United States. The flatboat could be any size, but essentially it was a large, sturdy tub with a hull. A flatboat was almost always a one-way (downstream) vessel, and was usually dismantled for lumber when it reached its destination. , Jolly Flatboatmen in Port, (1857, St. Louis Art Museum)]] ==Early history== engraving showing persons traveling down a river by flatboat in the late 1800s.]] The flatboat trade first began in 1781, with Pennsylvania farmer Jacob Yoder building the first flatboat at Old Redstone Fort on the Monongahela River. Yoder's ancestors immigrated from Switzerland, where small barges called weidlings are still common today, having been used for hundreds of years to transport goods downriver. Yoder shipped flour down the Ohio River and Mississippi River to the port of New Orleans. Other flatboats would follow this model, using the current of the river to propel them to New Orleans where their final product could be shipped overseas. Through the antebellum era, flatboats were one of the most important modes of shipping in the United States. The flatboat trade before the War of 1812 was less organized and less professional than during later times. Flatboats were generally built and piloted by the farmers whose crops they carried. They were limited to 20 feet (or approximately 6 meters) in width in order to successfully navigate the river, but could range from 20 to 100 feet (or approximately 6 to 30 meters) in length. Flatboats could be built by unskilled farmers with limited tools and training, which made them an ideal mode of transport for isolated farmers living in the Old Northwest and the Upper South. Farmers could make the journey down the river after the harvest. The boats themselves were usually salvaged for lumber at New Orleans, because they could not easily make the journey upriver. A boatman's return journey up the river was long and usually arduous. Passage on a (human-powered) keelboat was expensive and took weeks to make the journey up the Mississippi. Returning to the northern reaches on foot required about three months. A flatboat itself was a serious investment for a Midwestern farmer. One generally cost about $75 to construct in 1800 (which was ), but could carry up to $3,000 worth of goods. These flatboats could typically be salvaged for around $16 in New Orleans, recouping some of the initial investment. Flatboats carried a variety of goods to New Orleans, including agricultural products like corn, wheat, potatoes, flour, hay, tobacco, cotton, and whiskey. Livestock such as chickens, cows, and pigs also made their way down the Mississippi in flatboats. Indiana native May Espey Warren recalled that as a young girl she saw a flatboat loaded with thousands of chickens headed down the Mississippi. Other raw materials from the Old Northwest, like lumber and iron, were also sent down the Mississippi to be sold in New Orleans. Many American cities along the river network of the Mississippi boomed due to the opportunities that the flatboat trade presented. New Orleans was the final destination for most flatboats headed down the Mississippi, and it was from there that most of the goods were shipped on the oceans. Cincinnati, another major American trading city, first built itself on the flatboat trade. Its large sawmills produced most of the heavy lumber sent downriver on flatboats, and it also became a large hub for the pork trade. Other cities, like Memphis, Tennessee and Brownsville, Pennsylvania became hubs for outfitting and supplying flatboat traders. The flatboat trade also led to a series of cultural and regional exchanges between the North and the South. Many Northern flatboatmen had not seen the Deep South before, and rural farmers of the time generally did not travel. Flatboatmen brought tales of antebellum mansions lining the Mississippi and of the Cajun culture of lower Louisiana. They also brought back exotic foods such as bananas, and animals such as parrots. Abraham Lincoln served as a flatboatman twice, in 1828 and 1831. It was on these journeys that he first witnessed slavery, and in New Orleans he also saw a slave auction firsthand. Lincoln would later recall these journeys as essential in shaping his personal views on slavery and the slave trade. ==Decline== The flatboat trade stayed vigorous and lucrative throughout the antebellum period, aided by steamboats (and later by railroads) in returning crews upriver. However, these same technologies, which earlier had made the flatboat trade significantly more efficient, would eventually overtake the flatboat trade along the Mississippi and render flatboats obsolete. Steamboats and railroads simply carried freight much more quickly than flatboats, and could bring cargo upriver as well as downriver. By 1857, only 541 flatboats reached New Orleans, down from 2,792 in 1847, and also fewer than the 598 flatboats that had traveled down the Mississippi in 1814. ==See also== Barge Boat Galiot Narrow boat Punt Pünte Redstone Old Fort Mississippi River Squadron, where flat bottom vessels were extensively used during the American Civil War. ==References== ==Footnotes== ==External links== George Caleb Bingham "Jolly Flatboatmen" c. 1857

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