WHAT BECAME OF THE RAFT-BOATS 185 



packet trade between LaCrosse and Saint Paul when 

 rafting played out, but she was expensive on fuel and 

 was too heavy draft for that part of the river. She was 

 sold south and rendered good service towing logs and 

 lumber in barges in the Cairo and Memphis district 

 under another name. 



The "Abner Gile," built in LeClaire in 1872, was 

 used dropping logs from Saint Paul to Prescott after 

 rafting ceased at other points; she was almost forty 

 years old when she gave out like the "one boss shay" 

 and her remaining good parts used in some other boat. 



In the late sixties and early seventies when the use of 

 a steamboat in shoving and handling rafts had been 

 successfully demonstrated, every pilot wanted one and 

 nearly every little boat on the Upper Mississippi and 

 its tributaries was tried out and many of them continued 

 in this new occupation as long as they lasted. 



Many of them were small side-wheelers about seven- 

 t>'-five feet long with one boiler and one small, slide- 

 valve engine geared to the stifif shaft running across 

 decks to which both wheels were attached. They could 

 back or work ahead both wheels together and had good 

 steering power when working ahead but no rudder 

 power while backing; consequently they were very de- 

 ficient in "flanking" compared with a stern-wheeler. 

 They were slow and noisy going back up-river. 



Jo Perrot, "Big Jo," tried the "Moonstone" but aban- 

 doned her because it took her eighteen days to return 

 from Saint Louis to Stillwater when they had taken the 

 raft down in fifteen days. 



She and several others like the "Alice Wild," "Al- 

 vira," "Union," "Active," "Wm. Hyde Clarke," "Lone 

 Star," "Johnny Schmoker," "Monitor," and "Iowa 

 City" were of this class, just a little better than a stern 



