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EARLY FLAT
BOATING ON THE MISSOURI
Collected and Researched by
Sue Rekkas
The Saturday Evening Post, June
5, 1915, page 3.
THE FRONTIER
SKETCHES
_________
EARLY FLAT
BOATING ON THE MISSOURI.
_________
Towing
Supplies to Fort Benton
_________
Those who toil and
grieve over the rough time they are having in working eight hours a
day and watching the clock ought to read the story of the mackinaw
boat men. Along the early fifties before navigation had opened up
to Fort Benton on the Upper Missouri, the Joe LaBarge line of
steamboats consisting of the stern wheelers, Antelope, Emile, Sainte
Marie and the Spread Eagle, which brought the supplies up from St.
Louis for the American Fur Company were unable to proceed farther
than Wolf River which is now known as Coal Harbor. The boats always
went as far as they could before turning back. Then after tying up
and unloading, the mate placed a shingle on a tree to mark the
turning point. There was naturally a good deal of rivalry as to
which of the boats could climb the farthest up the stream and get
back again with a whole skin.
Sometimes they
could go farther on a June rise but there was danger that the water
might go down and leave them stranded high and dry so that Wolf
River came to recognized as the uppermost point of navigation by
steam. The cargoes however were consigned to five trading posts
farther up so that the transportation company decided to build flat
boats for portage and go on. The lumber for the mackinaw boats was
brought along and the carpenters built them in a few days. Each of
the three boats was ninety feet long, fourteen feet wide and three
feet deep, capable of carrying ninety tons of freight. Each was
manned by twenty big husky fellows who had to tow the thing
practically all the way to Benton, 700 miles farther up the river.
The deck hands had a long rope and with this over their shoulders,
the trudged along on the bank, working like gallery slaves and it
required forty-five days to get through.
Sometimes when the
wind was right they could put up a square sail on the thirty-foot
mast and tack along fairly well and in this way they could make
thirty miles a day. There was a helmsman at the rudder and a pole
man in front to keep the craft off shore while a husky boy was
perched on the dash-board to prevent the cordell from catching under
the snags. Two professional hunters--Jim Rouche and Paul Longtramp--while
not fighting Indians, went ashore and killed game for their fresh
meat and thus the days passed by like a shadow o’er the heart but no
one complained.
The
patient brother of the ox, the men bent on their work and their
wearied bodies groaned like a door on a rusty hinge but never once
did they grumble over the strenuous task. Their greatest trouble
came at the rapids. Here the line boss took the cordell and went
ahead to snub onto a tree above the rapids. Then the crews trebled
up with up with sixty men on a mackinaw and with the 500 foot tow
line pulled the load over the dalles. The line came in over the
prow to a pulley on top of the guyed spar, thence downward thru
another pulley at the foot. Hand over hand they coaxed the boat up
over the rapids and there were a dozen or more of them. When Fort
Benton was finally reached and the cargoes discharged, the boats
reloaded with buffalo hides, robes and furs for the down trip which
was made clear through to St. Louis where the outfits were sold.
One of the boatmen
was Francis Dauphin, a big strapping giant, who made a bet of a $100
that he could take on alpine staff and ford the raging river at the
worst of the falls. He loaded himself down with a heavy log chain
swung in a coil over his shoulder, took the stick and actually waded
the stream at its most dangerous place, which in honor of the man’s
deed was called Dauphin’s rapids and so it is marked on the maps
today. He demonstrated that “by toil the flaccid nerves grow
firm.” In June 1853, Joe LaBarge took the Key West thru to Fort
Benton and it was the first steamboat to reach that place, but on
returning it went to pieces on the rocks in Dauphin’s rapids and
everything was a total loss. Afterwards, the government cleaned out
the big boulders that impeded the way and the wet tail steamboats
made regular trips up to Benton while the water was high enough, so
that the work of the plodding cordelleros with their taut towlines
over their aching backs was done for evermore.
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