Complete List of Raft Pilots, 1 840-191 3 



The following facts about raftmen and rafting and 

 the complete list of all pilots engaged in the work in 

 any part of the period from 1840 to 191 3, are taken 

 from an article in the Davenport Democrat and repub- 

 lished in the Waterways Journal, December, 191 3. 

 [The list was very carefully made up and I had many to 

 help me. If we have missed any one, we have not been 

 reminded of it since. In January, 1928, 1 only can count 

 thirty of the list above.] 



The towboats are sunken and disintegrated hulks, the 

 bones of many being the relics of an almost forgotten 

 industry are strewn along the shores of the river. A few 

 - and what a few they are- are working as sand-boats 

 and towboats and general river craft. 



The great rafting traffic on the big river, in its in- 

 fancy in 1 841, slowly matured year by year, growing 

 larger with each succeeding yearly cycle until in the 

 year 1880, the river traffic of rafts was reckoned one of 

 the largest and most profitable industries in the United 

 States. 



Then came the decline. Late in the eighties the rafts 

 coming down the Mississippi began to fall ofif in num- 

 bers, the towboats plying up and down the river to be 

 fewer and fewer and gradually but surely the business 

 dwindled. The falling off of the river traffic has con- 

 tinued until the present year when during the entire 

 season, but three rafts went down. 



