Nautical Research Journal 155
6. “Genl. W. Barge” U.S. Legion Order Book, Mss 952, Cincinnati History Library and Archives.
the Tennessee River. Indians ambushed his boat, killing fi ve men. T e mission was aborted. (Storm 1945)
• In 1793, General James Wilkinson, a luxury- loving and somewhat corrupt man, had a barge at Fort Hamilton (Cincinnati). It is designed more for accommodation than for speed. T e extant sketch is not dimensioned, but if one assumes that the pitch of the rowing thwarts is three feet, the boat can be estimated to be fi ſt y-two feet long by ten feet beam. (Figure 6) T e boat was used for banquets and for parties with music. (Hay 1941)
• In 1793, General Anthony Wayne used his barge as the fl agship for a fl otilla for a fl eet of thirty boats. T ey transported his army of two thousand men from Pittsburgh to a camp near Cincinnati. (Graff 2004)
• In 1795, Lieutenant William Clark used a barge with a crew of seventeen to take dispatches to a Spanish governor in Upper Louisiana, Gayoso de Lemas. (Clark 1795)
• In 1806, General Wilkinson lent Aaron Burr, a former United States vice president, “an elegant barge, sails, colors, ten oars with a sergeant and ten able, faithful hands” for a trip from Fort Massac on
7. William Clark’s drawings of the keelboat. From T e Field Notes of Captain William Clark 1803-1806 (Yale University Press, 1964).
the Ohio River to New Orleans. (Linder 2001)
T e best known Mississippi River barge was the boat used by the Lewis and Clark expedition. It was built in 1803 to Meriwether Lewis’s specifi cation and under his supervision. It sailed from Pittsburgh to a camp near Saint Louis in the fall. During the winter it was hauled out and modifi ed by William Clark. In the summer of 1804 it was the fl agship of the expedition as it went up the Missouri to the Mandan Indian towns in present day North Dakota. It was again hauled out for the winter and went back to Saint Louis the next summer while the expedition headed farther west. It rowed with twenty oars. It was fi ſt y-fi ve feet long with an eight-foot beam. T e mast bore a sail. (Moulton 2004)
Clark developed a freehand, but apparently accurate, sketch. (Figure 7) It shows that this boat is generally similar to the Whitehall Plantation boat, but larger. One diff erence is that the tiller is inside the cabin, rather than on top of it. Also, the mast of the Lewis & Clark boat folds down. T e Lewis & Clark boat has a swivel gun on the foredeck. T is sketch and other information has been used to make at least two models of the boat. (Boss 1993, Smith 2005) T ere is also a replica of the boat located in Saint Charles, Missouri. (Figure 8)
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