Early Transportation On The North Branch of the Susquehanna River

Between October 1933 and April 1935, the Berwick Enterprise newspaper published a series of 78 articles focusing on a wide area of historical subjects. One article in February of 1935 discussed early transportation in the Susquehanna. A portion of that article is included in this posting on Susquehanna Footprints.

From 1762 to 1825, most of the conveyance of goods or persons was carried on the Susquehanna River. There were few if any roads, and what trails there were along the river and through the wilderness were but paths.

River transportation depended much on the seasons. In the winter the frozen streams made travel comparatively easy but always hazardous. The earliest method of transportation on the Susquehanna River was the Indian birch bark canoe. The Native Americans also used a skin boat which was a craft as large as a bathtub with a frame of poles and covered with the skin of an animal with the skin still on it. It was too frail for long river journeys. The Indians also had a dugout canoe which was nothing more than a long hollowed-out log shaped into a boat.

When the white man came to the North Branch Valley after 1762, he fashioned boats for his own needs. Traffic was carried on with nearby neighbors who lived up or down the river. Sometimes when families were moving, they lashed boats together and loaded them with their household goods. In this way, the traveling merchant carried his goods. A Mr. Weitzel, from Sunbury, often sent such boats up the North Branch, stopping at leading places, and doing business with isolated settlers. This saved the people from going down the stream for supplies.

The batteau was a much larger boat and was used to convey large cargoes of merchandise up and down the river. It carried usually as much as two tons of goods and it required three men to manage it. It was made of sawed lumber and its materials were prepared at a sawmill (such as one at Fort Augusta at Sunbury. When Fort Augusta was built, the Government used Batteaux to transport the materials for its erection. There were 48 men engaged in this work and were called batteau men.

The boat that seemed to be in popular demand on the North Branch was the Durham boat. The ordinary Durham boat was 49 feet long, had an 8-foot beam, and was two feet deep. It could operate in relatively shallow water. The boat was sharply pointed both at the stern and the bow and at each end was erected small decks to shelter the boatsmen.

On each side of the Durham boat, along the entire length, inside were running boats as paths for men using poles. Places were built where the sails could be attached in case a wind would come along to help the boatmen propel the craft. Up to the time the canals were built in 1825, the Durham boats carried much of the merchandise and other river traffic. They were large enough to carry twenty tons of freight and drew twenty inches of water.

Around 1800, lumbering became an important business in this section. In 1849, 2,243 rafts and 268 arks passed Wilkes-Barre on the way south. These crafts bore 100,000,000 square feet of lumber valued at $600,000 to their destination. About 1850, this business decreased gradually because of the scarcity of timber.

Roads were eventually opened up in northeastern Pennsylvania. About the year 1800, stages were in use over these newly built roads. Along the road at convenient intervals were stage taverns where the occupants of the stagecoaches were fed and housed.

Sketch of a Durham Boat with Sails on the Mohawk River