Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 9.djvu/19

Rh the sides were level on top and about three feet deep at mid-length, they were only a foot or less in depth at either end. A load of about twenty tons would make the boat draw two feet or more, near the middle, while the bottom would be out of water at each end. When the river was low in mid-summer, only about half a full load could be carried to Concord.

The boats were built of two-inch pine plank, spiked on small oak cross-joists and side-knees, and had heavy oak horizontal timbers at either end. The sides were vertical and without cross thwarts, except what was called the mast-board; a thick oak plank, securely fastened across on top, from side to side, a little forward of the centre of the boat. The seams between planks were calked with oakum and pitched. The mast was a spar about twenty-five feet long and six inches in its largest diameter. A foothold or step was fixed in the bottom of the boat under the cross-plank to receive it, and it was further steadied by the cross-plank, which was slotted to admit it when set up, and had a wedge and staple arrangement to hold it in place. A cross yard, with a square sail attached, which could be hoisted or lowered at pleasure by a rope working over a single block in the top of the mast, completed the sailing outfit. It was only used upon the river, the mast being struck and stowed in the boat

when passing the larger canals. The rudder was a long steering oar, pivoted on the centre of the cross-frame of the stern, the blade, about eighteen inches wide and ten feet long, trailing in the water behind the boat, and the handle or tiller extending about the same distance over the boat, so as to afford a good leverage for guiding the unwieldy craft. Three large scull oars, about sixteen feet long with six-inch blades, and three setting poles, or pike poles as they were sometimes called, stout, straight, round poles, wrought out of tough and springy ash, about fifteen feet long, nearly two inches in diameter and shod at one end with a long iron point, completed the propelling outfit. The crew consisted of a skipper and two bowmen.

In going down the river between canals the usual mode of propulsion was by use of the scull-oars. The