When the flatboat reached its destination, it might find service
as a floating store, or even as a schoolhouse. But it was likely
to be broken up, so that the materials in it could be used for
building purposes. Before sawmills became common, lumber was a
precious commodity, and hundreds of pioneer cabins in the Ohio
Valley were built partly or wholly of the boards and timbers
taken from the flatboats of their owners. Even the "gunnels" were
sometimes used in Cincinnati as foundations for houses. In later
days the flatboat, if in reasonably good condition, was not
unlikely to be sold to persons engaged in trading down the
Mississippi. Loaded with grain, flour, meats, and other backwoods
products, it would descend to Natchez or New Orleans, where its
cargo could be transferred to ocean-going craft. But in any case
its end was the same; for it would not have been profitable, even
had it been physically possible, to move the heavy, ungainly
craft upstream over long distances, in order to keep it
continuously in service.
Chapter VII. Pioneer Days And Ways
Arrived on the lower Ohio, or one of its tributaries, the pioneer
looked out upon a land of remarkable riches.
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