ighty feet in length and
from seven to nine feet in width. The largest required one man to steer
and two to row in descending the Ohio, and would carry about one hundred
barrels of salt; but to ascend the stream, at least six or eight men were
required to make any considerable progress. A barge would carry from four
thousand to sixty thousand pounds, and required four men, besides the
helmsman, to descend the river, while to return with a load from eight to
twelve men were required.(212)

Shipments of produce from Illinois were usually made in flat-bottomed
boats of fifteen tons burden. Such a boat cost about one hundred dollars,
the crew of five men was paid one hundred dollars each, the support of the
crew was reckoned at one hundred dollars, and insurance at one hundred
dollars, thus making a freightage cost of eight hundred dollars for
fifteen tons. The boat was either set adrift or sold for the price of
firewood at New Orleans. It was estimated that the use of boats of four
hundred and fifty tons burden would save four dollars per barrel on
shipping flour to New Orleans, where flour had often sold at less than
three dollars per barrel, but such boats were not yet used in the
West.(213) Canoes cost an emigrant from one to three dollars; pirogues,
five to twenty dollars; small skiffs, five to ten dollars; large skiffs or
batteaux, twenty to fifty dollars; Kentucky and New Orleans boats, one
dollar to one and one-half dollars per foot; keel boats, two dollars and a
half to three dollars per foot; and barges, four to five dollars per
foot.(214)

Horses, cattle, and household goods were carried on boats. Travel by
either land or water was beset with difficulties. The river, without pilot
or dredge, had dangers peculiar to itself. Sometimes, when traveling
overland, a broken wheel or axle, or a horse lost or stolen by Indians,
caused protracted and vexatious delays. It is well to notice, also, that
to travel a given distance into the wilderness was more than twice as
difficult as to travel one-half that distance, because of the constantly
increasing separation between the traveler and what had previously been
his base of supplies.(215)

Sometimes immigrants debarked at Fort Massac and completed their journey
by land. Two roads led from Fort Massac, one called the lower road and the
other the upper road, the former, practicable only in the dry season and
then only for travel on foot or on horseback, was some eighty mile