During the last twenty years before 1800, or while Washington was President, a wealthy merchant of Philadelphia took up traffic on the Ohio. He sent dry goods and other merchandise overland to Pittsburg, thence down the Ohio in a barge, and up the Mississippi to Kaskaskia in Illinois, which was at that time an important town. Here the cargo was exchanged for skins of bear, deer, buffalo, and other animals, to be taken up the Ohio and sent from Pittsburg to Philadelphia. It took time to trade in this way. A summer was needed to go down to New Orleans and back again with a keel boat or a barge. When a boat came up “with furs from St. Louis; cotton from Natchez; hemp, tobacco, and saltpeter from Maysville; or sugar and cotton from New Orleans and Natchez, it was a wonder to the many, and drew vast crowds to see and rejoice over it.” One of the river men. Captain Shreve, once took his boat from New Orleans up to Louisville in twenty-five days. The people celebrated this remarkable achievement and gave the captain a public dinner. No doubt they made as much ado as we should now make if a ship should go from New York to Liverpool in three days. They were quite right to make a feast in honor of the occasion, for the time commonly allowed for the journey had been three months. The flatboat, which for years was used in river traffic, was about forty feet long, twelve feet wide, and eight feet deep. It had a flat bottom and was handled by means of three oars on each side. Two of these were called sweeps, and were almost as long as the boat itself. At the stern was a still longer steering oar. When the water rose in the autumn these boats carried loads of produce and bore thousands of families who were seeking homes farther west. Old and young with their household treasures, which often included the cow, sailed down in these rude house boats to some chosen spot in the distant wilderness. It was in a boat like these that the tall and awkward young man, Abraham Lincoln, made a voyage to New Orleans and first saw something of the outside world. Redstone was an old name for Brownsville, where the National Road crossed the Monongahela, and many boats started from here in early days. It is said that an old boatman was once hailed by a seeker after information. “Where are you from?” was the first question. “Redstone,” was the answer. “What is your lading?” “Millstones.” “What is your captain’s name?” “Whetstone.” “Where are you bound?” “For Limestone.” The interesting part of the story is that these answers were all true. Large as the traffic was by the flatboats, it was greatly increased when steamboats began to run on the rivers. No other craft could hope to compete with these.