men took position close to either side of the boat, facing the bow and about six feet from it, and each worked his oar against a thole-pin placed in the opposite gunwale, the oar handles crossing, so that they were necessarily worked simultaneously. The skipper also had his oar, which he worked in a similar manner when his attention was not wholly taken up in steering. When there was a fair wind the sail would be hoisted. The current also materially assisted on the downward trip, and sometimes the poles would be used. On the return trip against the current, the setting poles were the chief reliance, but sometimes aided by the sail. The cargo was so piled in the boat as to leave a narrow passage next each sunwale from the bow to the mast-board. There was also a clear space of six to ten feet left at the bow, and enough at the stern to allow the tiller to be moved freely across the boat. To propel the boat by poling, a bowman stood on either side of the bow, with his face towards the stern, and thrusting the pike end of his pole down beside the boat in a slanting direction towards the stern until it struck the bottom of the river, he placed his shoulder against the top of the pole, and, with his feet firmly braced against the cross-timbers in the bottom of the boat, he exerted the strength of his body and legs to push the boat forward. As it moved, he stepped along the bottom of the boat still bracing his shoulder firmly against the pole until he had walked in this manner to the mast-board,—or, rather, until the movement of the boat had brought the mast-board to him. He then turned round and walked to the bow, trailing his pole in the water, thrust it again to the bottom of the river, and repeated
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THE TOW-PATH ON THE CANAL.
the pushing movement. The skipper also had his pole, but having very limited space to work in, and being obliged to mind the helm pretty closely in moving against the current, he could do comparatively little to aid the progress. These modes of propulsion applied only to the river and the river canals. The boats were towed through the Middlesex canal by horses. A trip from Concord to Boston and return usually took from seven to ten days.
Concord, Piscataquog, Litchfield, and and Nashua each had its lines of boats, making in the aggregate quite a little fleet. The broad reaches of the river below Nashua were at times rendered especially picturesque by the bellying
