CANALS
Canals were used primarily
to transport goods. Not just foodstuffs, manufacturing goods, and basic
supplies, but luxuries like glassware could be sent along the smooth ride
of the towboats. Passenger travel by canal became popular, reaching its
luxurious peak just as steamboats and railroads made the slow "packet boat"
obsolete. "Packet boats" were refined over the decades between the 1820's
and the 1850's to create the precursor to the floating palace of the steamboat
era. When the option was jarring, dusty and muddy travel by stage, the
silent, brightly painted and comfortable packet boats were a thrilling
option. However, all is relative. During the summer, the crowded boats
became attractive to mosquitos and flies; escaping to the less crowded
roof of the boat, which served as the upper deck, put one in danger of
low bridges. Passengers often had to prostrate themselves to avoid injury;
the proud or unmindful could suffer broken limbs. A young New Jersey man
traveling on the Erie Canal to Ohio wrote that "if we get our eyes fixed
and gazing with delight on anything perhaps at that moment we are loudly
called to beware, the bridge, which fright scatters all our pleasures far
and wide." Still, the packet boats offered a modicum of luxury to the nineteenth
century traveler at an egalitarian price. "Everything on the Canal is life
and motion," wrote a Boston man in 1846. "A packet has just passed filled
with passengers and a man playing the viola and Gentlemen and Ladies dancing."
As the roof was used as a deck, the inside of the packet boats was lined
with cushioned benches. Eating tables stood in the center. At night, the
boat was divided into men's and women's sides by a screen or drop curtain;
the benches became beds and overhead hammocks could be pulled down for
braver passengers. The canal boats were soon overtaken by steamboats, and
steamboats by railroads. Americans had been primed for a comfortable traveling
experience.
Take
me to Book One
Take
me to Book Two
Take
me to Canals in Early Ohio
Take
me to the Early Days Index
