May 17, 2012

Keelboat Landing

Located on the north shore of the Chadakoin River on South Main Street

In the late years of the eighteenth century, and through the first quarter of the nineteenth century, a distinct class of men known as "Western Boatmen", with long, piked "setting poles", drove long, narrow shallow draft boats called keelboats up the shallow streams to the westward creeping vanguard of civilization. These boats, having a capacity of several tons, brought products from the manufacturing East and food-growing South to the wilderness dwellers. Returning, they carried the products of the forest which they had obtained in trade or for cash to recargo their boats. They were a hardy and picturesque set of men and upon them the isolated settlements were vitally dependent for various necessities.

The Keelboat Landing in pioneer Jamestown was located on the banks of the "Outlet" or "Rapids", now the Chadakoin River, just east of the Main Street Bridge. Even before Jamestown was settled, keelboats from Pittsburgh, New Orleans, and other towns along the Allegheny, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers had journeyed up the Outlet carrying supplies to the settlers on Chautauqua Lake.

KEELBOAT LANDING
HERE ON THE BANKS OF THE OUTLET IN PIONEER DAYS WAS THE KEELBOAT LANDING. LONG, SHALLOW DRAFT BOATS, PROPELLED BY POLES BROUGHT CARGOES FROM PITTSBURGH AND FARTHER SOUTH UP THE ALLEGHENY RIVER TO THIS FOREST-BOUND VILLAGE.