Abstract
Boxy and with ‘unseaworthy form’, the sailing scow was not the most aesthetically pleasing of watercraft. Yet the durable hull design based upon European predecessors found a new home in North America where it proliferated on the Atlantic, Gulf, Pacific and Great Lakes coasts because of its practicality for largely unimproved waterways. Scows were widely used on the Great Lakes in the nineteenth century, moving beyond shallow waters and gaining a reputation for reliability in long-distance trade. Late in the century, the technology arrived in New Zealand, where it prospered in a niche market that combined open water voyages and shallow river, port, or beach loading and unloading. The Great Lakes scows presented an alternative for entry into ship ownership on the North American frontier. The development of the New Zealand scow confirmed these findings comparatively in an international context during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Over the centuries, one of the most significant and sustained challenges for those engaged in maritime commerce was in developing hulls that could carry the maximum cargo with the greatest balance in efficiency of speed, reliability, and durability. From the economic perspective, the optimal paradigm for ship owners combined a hull that could reliably deliver a unit of cargo at the lowest per unit cost with the greatest efficiency of speed. Improving loading and unloading techniques would cut time in port and therefore improve productivity by the end of the nineteenth century. But in the seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when unloading was still a slow and laborious process, the challenge of maximizing profit in bulk cargoes (lumber, grain, stone, etc.) lay in getting the most cargo moved per voyage, rather than in moving vessels more quickly between ports. In this context, sail-powered craft moved between ports at a pedestrian rate until the combination of competition from reliable steamships and high-value perishable cargoes pushed speed past cargo capacity as the critical determinant of competitive ship design to serve world markets. Still, in the bulk trades the choice of high capacity hulls of modest speed remained the most significant factor.
One hull type that provided the critical elements of success was the ‘scow’, a very high-capacity hull that was applied in transportation of bulk products in the nineteenth century. This hull form found a unique niche in coastal and inland areas, with some deep-water incursions. By the twentieth century, it had been combined with mechanized tugs or towboats to become the predominant model for the unpowered barges used to obtain peak efficiency in the inland bulk products trade.
Though the technology was applied in various forms in many parts of the maritime world, the sailing scow has historically received little attention from maritime scholars, and even less respect from the non-maritime world. Boxy and ungainly in appearance, few saw in it the fine lines of more elegant designs. There were exceptions, and in some localities the sailing scow earned respect, and even admiration, for the qualities that proved it a rugged performer in an unforgiving world. 1
Worldwide, the economic imperative placed function over form. The availability of capital led to the selection of the more efficient design, as illustrated in the comparison between indicators of the available capital versus the number and tonnage of sailing scows built over time. The design of the scow ultimately used in the United States and Canada and later in New Zealand originated in the Western world, among the shallow inland rivers of northern Europe. The design moved generally westward from Europe through North America and into the Pacific, becoming the low-capital alternative that suited localized needs as people of European/American origins reached new lands and sought to make them economically productive.
The design was an excellent fit in frontier societies. In terms widely understood by most Americans, the scow was the Conestoga wagon of the water, used as long as the imperative for inexpensive, rugged transportation was necessary. Like the Conestoga wagon shown in Figure 1, the sailing scow was a travelling box that could be rough-hewn or elaborated into a variety of forms with more amenities or finer lines, dependent upon the desires of its owner and its intended use. Wagons frequently forded streams and rivers and had the flat bottom and hard chines characteristic of scows. With their canvas tops comparable to the sails of a scow, Conestoga wagons were popularly known as ‘prairie schooners’, in part because of their likeness to the scows that sailed the Atlantic Coast, inland rivers, and Great Lakes.
The Conestoga wagon and the sailing scow were both products of nineteenth century life in North America. The boxy shape and flat bottom with substantial sheer worked for wagons fording shallow rivers just as it worked for vessels entering and leaving shallow rivers and bays.
The scow found its niche in trades where its high cargo capacity, shallow draft, and ability to remain upright when grounded made it most efficient and therefore desirable. But ultimately the scow was a frontier anomaly as a self-propelled machine. The emergence of the scow as an unpowered barge – the way most of us know it today – is an adaptation of the type that proves the frontier theory presented here. In other words, that the sailing scow fit a relatively narrow niche described by regional maritime conditions where the availability of capital was low and harbors poorly improved. Yet the hull type was so well fitted to common global conditions that variants were created worldwide and continued, in modified barge model, as one of the most important and prolific parts of the inland and near-coastal maritime economy.
The scow defined
The term ‘scow’ is poorly defined among maritime historians, just as it was among contemporaries for whom the finer points of maritime technology lay within the eye of the beholder. Those who built, owned, inspected, or insured such vessels are the best authorities and it is to them that we turn for the most definitive description. The most thorough descriptors come from the Board of Lake Underwriters, a primary Great Lake insurance conglomerate that, like Lloyds of London and later the American Bureau of Shipping, provided inspection services for those that underwrote marine insurance. Their 1876 Rules for the Construction, Inspection, and Characterization of Sail and Steam Vessels was specific to the Great Lakes: Scows, and barges, or other vessels of box model, characterized by straightness and squareness of body,–by corners at the bilges and ends; or, of extraordinary fullness of bottom, the radius of the moulding of the bilge … or, the internal admeasurement under the main or upper-deck exceeding seventy eight per cent. Of the capacity given by a square figure of the same principle dimensions, (length, breadth, and depth), if framed, not cross-planked, and otherwise built by standards, may be classed up to, but not above B1, on account of unseaworthy form.
2
A simpler definition of the scow was provided in Merchant Vessels of the United States (1885) and is illustrated in Figure 2: The scow is a vessel used in the shoal waters of nearly all the States, but principally on the [Great] Lakes. Scows are built with flat bottoms and square bilges, but some of them have the ordinary schooner bow. They are fitted with one, two, and three masts, and are called scow-sloop or scow-schooner, according to the rig they carry. Some of them carry bowsprits. … The distinctive line between the scow and regular-built schooner is, in the case of some large vessels, quite obscure, but would seem to be determined by the shape of the bilge, the scow having in all cases the angular bilge instead of the curve (futtock) bilge of the ordinary vessel.
3
The United States government provided plates illustrating vessel types and rigs in its annual Merchant Vessels of the United States (Washington, 1889, Figures 16 and 17). The scow sloop and schooner were considered broadly distributed nationwide, but especially concentrated on the Great Lakes.
Part of the definitional confusion in America is due to the fact that the enrollment documents were compiled by customs officials who were, until the establishment of a strong, independent professional civil service in 1883, appointed by each successive federal administration. Appointed customs officials in each port might or might not retain the clerks of a prior administration and so the consistent use of specialized maritime definitions is sometimes weak. 4 Hence, some vessels identified as a scow in one record could – upon reenrollment for change of home port, owner, or significant rebuild – be listed as regular-built (meaning a vessel with no hard chine or square bilge). This inconsistency is made clear when virtually identical sister ships from the same builder, enrolled at the same port were variously classified as scows or regular-built vessels.
The term ‘scow’ only describes a hull type, and rigs varied. Hence, there were scow sloops, scow schooners, scow barques, and scow barquentines. Steam and motor scows also developed in the nineteenth century and became common by 1900. Versions of the hard-chined or square-bilged watercraft were developed and known by many different names among cultures worldwide.
Based on contemporary definitions, it is safe to identify three primary variations of the scow hull design: firstly, the ‘full scow’, a vessel that had the angular bilge along the entire length of its sides; secondly, the ‘half scow’, that had the angular bilge along only part of its sides, the bow or stern being similar to that of the ‘regular-built schooner’ hull; and thirdly, those hulls that, although not clearly exhibiting the angular bilge, where so flat-floored that they were considered to be scows by contemporary observers. The first of these two classifications can be confirmed by an examination of the descriptive segments of the Inland Lloyds and Lake Underwriters insurance registers. The terms ‘scow’ and ‘half scow’ appear there, as do indications that a particular vessel had a ‘scow stern’ or ‘scow bottom’. 5 Additionally, some unusual rounding in the bow led to the descriptive ‘barrel bow’ or ‘spoon bow’ scow which preceded the Great Lakes ‘whaleback’ design of Alexander McDougal nearly a half century later. 6
The complexity of scow construction varied greatly. But from personal examination of existing examples of scows or their remains in the United States and New Zealand, it is clear that relative to the construction techniques applied to regular-built vessels, scows as a class exhibit fewer compound curves and therefore can justifiably be described as less complex to build than a regular-built or V-bottom vessel. This is the origin of the folklore that any barn builder could construct a sailing scow over the winter and sail it over the summer, creating an opportunity for those with very limited capital to enter the shipping business. Since the same folklore held that few Great Lakes shipbuilders built from plans, this perception popularized the idea of vertical integration in Great Lakes agriculture, mining, and forest products trades. In other words, a farmer with some carpentry skills could build a scow over the winter, thus allowing him to take the products of his winter logging operations to a major market port come spring and then repeat the process with his farm produce in the late summer and autumn. Some evidence of enrolled vessels fitting this description – i.e. one-time builds by those naïve of marine architecture and navigation – have been identified on the Great Lakes. Researching the careers of the 621 sailing scows for which a builder could be substantiated through enrollment, registration, or insurance documents, 22 per cent list builders that produced only one vessel.
More convincing evidence supports those with considerable maritime knowledge – mariners working ashore during the winter, but with limited capital – striking out on their own by building scows for specific trades, then reinvesting the earned profits in other vessels, including larger regular-built vessels, able to undertake longer trips with more valuable cargoes and generating significantly increased revenue. The oft-repeated pattern was for a mariner to build a scow as their first vessel, then use the profits generated by this vessel to build a small fortune when economic conditions favored expansion in maritime trade. There are a number of references to capital-poor nineteenth century entrepreneurs on the Great Lakes frontier using the scow to start shipping companies, some of whom later achieved prominence as ship owners. 7 Researching the 621 individual Great Lakes sailing scows for which a builder’s name was established, 25 per cent of them had both an ownership stake and mastered the vessels they built. Another 17 per cent built and had either an ownership or master’s role in the vessels they built. There is clearly a strong correlation between mariners building scows during the frontier and early market economy periods, particularly in the booming decades of the 1840s through the 1860s when harbor improvements were still in their infancy.
In this context, the relatively low capital needed to build a scow made it a reasonable investment for the enterprising individual, even if he had only rudimentary experience in shipbuilding. Basically, if good timber stock was available locally at little or no cost, the primary expenses in constructing the scow would come from the cost of sails and equipment, iron for key fasteners, and any of the supplies and amenities needed for the comfort and safety of the crew on their first few trips. If the owner were to hire the scow built, the cost of labor and timber would increase costs substantially.
The primary design difference between scows and regular-built vessels was in the shape of their bottoms. Scows had flat, square bottoms, regular-built hulls had fairer lines with a V-shaped entry, bottom, and run that made them more weatherly. Scows were reputed to have had a fair turn of speed with wind from behind or on the quarter, but were less handy and capable of pointing up toward the wind than their more graceful counterparts with a deeper ‘V’ hull. By the mid-nineteenth century both types in North America and New Zealand used centerboards to increase their ability to sail into the wind. 8
The most important factors that influenced a contemporary investor to construct a scow rather than a regular-built vessel were fourfold. Firstly, the flat-bottomed scows were easier to manoeuvre in shallow and largely unimproved lakes, bays, and harbors. Secondly, the flat bottoms allowed these vessels to safely ground upon shores, shoals, sand bars, beaches, and mud banks with considerably less potential for damage than the V-shaped bottom would afford. Thirdly, the square holds allowed them to carry the largest possible cargo with the maximum of available space for their tonnage, thereby also decreasing the amount of customs duties paid on the cargo in comparison to other vessel types. Fourthly, they could be quickly and relatively inexpensively constructed using materials available locally. 9
Origins
Where the first sailing scow in Europe was built and operated is unclear. Boats with fundamentally square bilges and flat bottoms were built in variants spread across the world and appear to have been developed independently by different cultures. The larger European scows might carry cargo on deck, in the holds, or both, but in all cases they were flat bottomed to deal with shallow, unimproved rivers, harbors, and bays.
There is little surprise in finding that vessels combining squared ends and bilges with little dead rise would come from an area where shallow waters predominated. ‘Scow’ is a derivation of the Dutch term schouw, a type of squarish, shallow-draft sailing craft fitted with leeboards and used in the waters of the Netherlands. There is no definitive date for the construction of the first Dutch schouw, but the first cited use of the term in the Netherlands was in 1585. 10 The term was common enough to make its first appearance in a dictionary in 1669. 11 By 1717 the word had transitioned into the English ‘scow’ and appeared in reference to watercraft in the laws of the colony of New York, indicating that the hull form was common on the East Coast of North American by that time. 12 The first identified use of the term ‘scow’ on the Gulf Coast was in an investigative report purportedly from the Spanish West Florida Archives dated 1784. 13
The first vessel characterized as a scow on the Great Lakes of North America was the British snow Ottawa built at Detroit, Michigan, in 1778–1779. 14 The first with a description that illustrated the shape of the hull was the Commodore Perry, a ‘square-built’ sloop constructed in Erie County, Pennsylvania, in 1814. 15 A close examination of Great Lakes vessel enrollments shows that the Commodore Perry was built by Isaac Riefs in ‘the months of May, June, July and August in the year one thousand eight hundred and fourteen in the City of Presque Isle, in the County of Erie and State of Pennsylvania’. 16 The 40 40/95-ton sloop was described as 51' long, 16'2'' abeam, and with a 5'10'' depth of hold with no scroll head and no gallery. Horatio Johnson was listed as sole owner. 17 Although only 51 feet in length, she was comparable in size to other small Great Lakes sailing craft of the day.
The existence of the Commodore Perry on the lakes in 1814 runs contrary to the theory that early scows were imported from Lake Champlain. The enrollment for the 30-ton scow sloop Repulse shows that this did occur, stating that the vessel ‘was built somewhere on Lake Champlain in 1827 and used as a scow; was brought here [the Great Lakes] this spring on the Erie Canal and [had] one mast built upon her by the present owner’. 18 By that time, the scow schooner Bolivar, built at Erie, Pennsylvania in 1825, was already in service. 19
By 1830 Friend Palmer indicated that the ‘square-toed packet’ was widely used on the Great Lakes, because there were so few improved channels and harbors at the time. 20 By the time of the American Civil War (1861–1865), the scow had spread through all the Great Lakes and into the connected waterways to the west, appearing on Lake Winnebago and Fox River system as early as 1857 with the scow sloop Star of Oshkosh. 21
When scows began to be built with centerboards rather than leeboards is not known, but the combination made them popular on the Great Lakes. The first positive evidence that scows used centerboards on Lake Ontario was published in 1848 and indicated that some at the time still used leeboards. 22 The Star of Oshkosh was still operating with leeboards and steering oar on Lake Winnebago as late as the 1850s. 23 Many small scows were used to carry cargo between ports within a single lake, frequenting ports where bars at the river mouth created difficulty for deeper-draft watercraft. Others were used for local trades, including stone hooking (literally snagging and picking up large rocks off the bottom of the lake to use as building materials) on Lake Ontario. 24
Scows constructed on the Great Lakes model began to appear on the Pacific Coast by the 1840s. The shallow bays and estuaries of California combined with the occasional need to travel off shore made the scow perfect for navigating the tidal mud flats. The name and date of the first scow built in the San Francisco Bay area is unclear, but there is evidence that the type appeared about 1848. The largest known San Francisco Bay scow was the 148-ton Truckee, built in 1867. 25 The 80-foot scow schooner Alma, built at Hunters Point, California in 1891, still exists as part of the collection of the San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park. These versions were similar to Great Lakes scows, but showed significant modifications in the design to meet local conditions. Bluffer of bow and stern and often with less sheer, they fit the coastal and inland trade well. 26
The Great Lakes influence is a documented fact in the western Pacific. The first New Zealand scow appeared in 1873 when ship owner Captain I. R. Spencer had the scow Lake Erie built at Big Omaha by shipwright Septimus Meiklejohn. Previously from Chicago, Illinois, Meiklejohn based his design on similar vessels built on the Great Lakes. The first five scows built in New Zealand were named Lake Erie (1873), Lake Superior (1875), and in 1876, Lady of the Lake, Lake Michigan, and Lake St. Clair. 27 Ironically, this connection is little known on the Great Lakes, but is remembered and celebrated in New Zealand where sailing scows were pioneering coastal watercraft, trading among settlements or individual properties. Several sailing scows in New Zealand have been preserved, while none have been preserved in the Great Lakes region where they reached their peak in size. However, the cold fresh waters of the lakes preserve many examples either lost or abandoned there, representing a great potential for further research.
Figure 3 illustrates that scow construction tonnage around the Great Lakes showed some very well defined directions. During the strongest period of frontier settlement (1815–1860) the trend was sharply up, with particularly robust construction in the states of Ohio and Michigan and what is now the Province of Ontario, where the adjacent waters or primary trading ports required navigation of shallow water or loading from finger piers stretched out into the lake or small bays. In the decades following the American Civil War (1870s–1890s) scow construction began a steep trend downward, declining to obsolescence by the 1890s. The largest known Great Lakes sailing scow was the 144-foot, 298-gross-ton Charlie Crawford built by Saul McLane at Caseville, Michigan, in 1873. 28
Sailing scows appeared on the Great Lakes before they appeared in New Zealand. The graph profile of the period of time when ship owners chose to build scows (shown by dates of construction) is similar for both localities. The percentage of scows to the total merchant vessel types built for both localities ranged between 2.5% and 3.8% when scows were at their peak.
Lake Erie is clearly the leader in scow production because the shallow waters and narrow harbors constituted an ideal environment. Also, with the steady concentration of population on the south shore of Lake Erie in the mid-1800s, and the resultant increase in trade, it is not surprising that there was considerable expansion in scow production. While the fact that Lake Erie led in the construction of scows throughout the period is not surprising, what is surprising is the extent of this expansion. The ports of Lake Erie (the shallowest of the five Great Lakes) accounted for 60 per cent of the total sailing scow tonnage produced on the Great Lakes through the 1860s.
The number and tonnage of Great Lakes scows were compared with the number of other vessel types constructed between 1825 and 1860 based upon data published in the 1868 Report on Commerce and Navigation. At the height of early nineteenth century scow production, the number of scows built comprised about 2.5% of all Great Lakes vessels launched in 1853, and 3.8% of the sloops and schooners built. The sailing scow was then a numerically minor player in regional economics. 29 However, their ability to transport cargo from small ports to ports that served as commercial hubs makes their existence an important indicator of this niche trade.
In New Zealand, the trend is similar. Research identified a total of 144 registered New Zealand sailing scows built between 1873 and 1924, for which available data supported inclusion of 139 in this study. These scows represent about five per cent of the total tonnage registered in New Zealand during the same period, making them a segment of maritime commerce very much tied to very specific uses and markets. Transportation of cattle, timber, agricultural products, and mixed cargoes accounted for much of their productivity, although anything that needed to go into the small shallow coastal ports of New Zealand during the colonial and early settlement periods travelled aboard a scow.
Scows were built when the available capital was relatively low and harbors remained largely unimproved or unreached by other means of transportation (railroad and overland highway). The steady increase in the amount of tonnage constructed over six decades coincides with the increasing availability of capital, triggering a decline in construction in 1910–1919 as the economy of New Zealand matured, harbor improvements became common, and small trading ports were superseded by larger port cities and other means of commodity transportation.
With over 23,489 gross tons built on the Great Lakes, New Zealand’s 9002 gross tons clearly show that the inland lakes of North America experienced the most impressive proliferation of sailing scows (see Table 1).
Gross tonnage of scows constructed in New Zealand by decade, 1873–1920.
In terms of maximum size of sailing scows, Table 2 shows that the Great Lakes were clearly the leader, with New Zealand second, and the West Coast of the United States a clear third. Sailing scows built on the American Atlantic and Gulf Coast tended to be smaller craft. The Great Lakes also boasted the largest sailing scow schooner. The three-masted Charlie Crawford built in Caseville, Michigan, in 1873 was 144 feet long and displaced 298 gross tons, substantially larger than the biggest New Zealand scow, the 128-foot, 210.7-gross-ton, three-masted bark Zingara built at Auckland in 1906. 30
The largest known sailing scows (length in feet).
Figure 4 demonstrates that Zingara, though built half a world apart from the Great Lakes, had many similarities in rig and design to scows built in North America.
This line drawing of the New Zealand bark Zingara illustrates the adaptation of scows to the open ocean with a sharper bow and three centerboards.
Capital available in shipbuilding areas
To compare the amount of tonnage constructed with the amount of locally available capital for shipbuilding, import and export data were used as an indicator of available capital based upon John McCusker’s article entitled ‘Sources of Investment Capital in the Colonial Philadelphia Shipping Industry’ and Erie Sager and Gerald Panting’s Maritime Capital: The Shipping Industry in Atlantic Canada, 1820–1914. 31
Table 3 shows the raw import/export data (in dollar values) collected from the Report of Navigation and Commerce for the Great Lakes between 1840 and 1860. The raw dollar value given for Buffalo and Oswego, New York, during this period was compiled by combining the total dollar value of exports with the total value of imports for these ports for each year. The relative value of imports and exports was created by dividing the total raw dollar value of combined imports and exports of 1850 into each year’s total. The result was a percentage of increase or decrease in value from 1850, a year randomly selected as a value of 1.00.
Imports and exports from two Great Lakes ports, 1836–1860.
Sources: Report of the Secretary of the Treasury on Commerce and Navigation (Washington: GPO, 1861). Report on Harbor and River Improvements, House Report #741, 13th Congress, 1st Session, 23 June 1848.
Buffalo and Oswego were chosen for comparative purposes because: 1) the total yearly import and export values 1840 through 1860 were readily available; 2) one port (Oswego) is on Lake Ontario and the other (Buffalo) is on Lake Erie, and both showed the earliest persistent use of scows; 3) they were significant ports with similar trade (foreign, coastwise, and canal); and 4) both are located in the same state and therefore unlikely to provide abnormally large discrepancies in accounting due to state or local rules regarding compilation of import/export statistics. Analysis shows a clear correlation between available capital and the geographic proliferation of scows. 32
In New Zealand, the annual statements of returns for Waitemata Harbour (Auckland) were used to illustrate capital available to support maritime activities, including shipbuilding. The result was a percentage of increase or decrease in value from 1898, a year randomly selected as a value of 1.00. Despite slight and statistically unimportant reversals lasting only one to two years, the general trend is clearly for a rapid increase in the availability of capital (see Table 4).
Annual returns for Auckland, 1872–1924.
Source: Auckland Harbour, Auckland, New Zealand, Annual Reports. Statement of Accounts and Returns for the Year Ended, 31st December 1924. In AHB Statement of Accounts, 1923–1932 (Auckland, 1925).
Note: Shillings and pence were dropped as their existence in the New Zealand records do not materially impact the findings of this study.
When comparing the availability of capital in the Great Lakes region to capital available in New Zealand, the curves depicted graphically are remarkably similar. As Figure 5 clearly shows, the primary difference is related to the time period during which scows were being used in these two regions.
Available capital to the maritime trades was demonstrated through port records, using the key cities of Auckland in New Zealand and Buffalo in the United States.
Longevity
The longevity of scows is an important factor in attempting to understand the relationship between the selection of a simple hull form with the relative investment return expected from that type of vessel. To assess vessel longevity, it was necessary to research the career of individual vessels, establishing the year of construction and year of loss/departure from service. Any vessel for which this data could not be collected was eliminated from the study. For the Great Lakes, this represented an estimated sample of 53 per cent of the scows built between 1815 and 1899, while for New Zealand this represented an estimated sample of 96 per cent of the scows of that country, built between 1873 and 1924.
Based upon the sample in the author’s database, the Great Lakes scows had an average longevity of 21 years. For New Zealand, the average was 32 years. 33 There are several factors that should be acknowledged as having an important impact on the longevity of scows. The first of these is the state of navigation on the frontier. As commerce developed in the frontier region of North America after the War of 1812, there came the realization that rivers and harbors would need to be improved to provide some reasonable semblance of safety. Most lake harbors consisted of shallow rivers and harbors with few, if any, navigational aids such as buoys, lighthouses, and dredged channels. Although some improvements were funded by territorial or municipal governments, few systematic government expenditures occurred until the 1840s, and most harbors remained largely unimproved until the 1860s. 34 The conditions in colonial New Zealand were very similar, but occurred somewhat later.
The lack of navigational aids and improved harbors naturally led to a higher incidence of vessel destruction through shipwreck than would otherwise have been the case. Despite this, it is interesting to note that the major building period in which most Great Lakes scows were constructed was the 1850s and 1860s, a time when only the major harbors had been improved. The smaller harbors which shipped cargoes to ports like Buffalo and Oswego were still unimproved at this time. In this situation the use of scows made good economic sense, since with their high cargo capacity and shallow drafts the vessels were much better suited to entering small, silt-clogged harbors. Also, if necessary, these vessels could be beached or pulled across sand or mud bars to be loaded and unloaded.
The second factor that impacted the longevity of scows was the intention of their owners. These vessels were, as a type, considered to be an ‘unseaworthy form’ by insurance underwriters, who would not insure certain perishable cargoes including grain when carried in these craft. 35 However, the vessel owners and their clients apparently did not see this as a deterrent from using the vessels for just such cargoes, although perishable cargoes tended to be the exception, rather than the rule. 36 Most scows were used to carry stone, lumber, coal, and other rough bulk cargoes. These cargoes took their toll on scows by inflicting plenty of wear and tear on their hulls.
Despite the fact that scows endured the reputation of being less seaworthy than other designs, owners clearly did not see them as disposable vessels. Owners updated them with new and expensive technology and kept them in service or sold them to others to operate with no recognizable difference in business dealings than for any other floating asset. 37
The third factor is the unrestrained search for profits. In the early nineteenth century shipping business, there were few practical restraints placed on the ship owner except his own discretion. The more cargo a boat could transport from one place to another, the more profit that could be made per voyage. Overloading became common, and translated into a dangerous series of gambles in which the vessel was loaded to the very limits of its stability and sent out with decks virtually awash. Some vessels never made it to their destination, and their crews were lost for the sake of higher profits. This continued unabated until the British Government (under which the merchant marines of Canada and New Zealand were regulated) instituted load lines in 1876. Although the debate about the dangers of overloading raged on the Great Lakes from the 1870s onward, the United States did not follow until 1935 with the Coastwise Load Line Act which regulated vessels of over 150 gross tons on the lakes. 38
Presuming that construction techniques and quality were the same, this substantial contrast illustrates the difference between technology operating in the nineteenth century on the Great Lakes as opposed to straddling the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries in New Zealand. Despite the harsher impact of saltwater, the closer presence of a lee shore at all times accounts for the shorter life span of Great Lakes scows. A contributing factor was the decades-long gap between load lines being implemented in New Zealand and when they went into effect for small Great Lakes vessels. Great Lakes vessels were therefore subject to the strain of overloading and sailing in busy, confined waters where congestion led to the last quarter of the nineteenth century being marked by an ever-increasing number of collisions and groundings.
Herein lies an interesting opportunity for comparison between the longevity of V-bottom sailing craft and scows. The rigors of research necessary to establish and compare the longevity of the sailing scows of New Zealand and the Great Lakes to regular-built sailing vessels in those regions will require a further study. However, an informed prediction is that far from being throw-away vessels that were abandoned as soon as harbors were improved, sailing scows in both regions had a similar longevity to their more conventional counterparts, probably because their operating cost per ton carried was so low that they remained profitable in bulk product trades until competition from steamers, railroads, and roads made their economic position untenable, thereby erasing the niche that sustained them.
Conclusion
The relatively low percentage of sailing scows to regular-built vessels in every area in which they served illustrates their relative impact on regional maritime macro-economics. But their service to small local markets was disproportionally important for those localities, particularly in the days before harbor improvements made even small ports safely assessable. Since these small ports were feeders for the major ports, the use of the scow is relevant to the broader picture.
The fact that shallow-draft scows could haul a disproportionately high tonnage of bulk cargo relative to their size did not go unnoticed. As the sail- and steam-powered scows were passing from the scene, the features that characterized them as great cargo carriers were being borrowed by a new breed of designers focused upon efficiency and the elimination of labor costs. First applying the tandem tow of regular-built and scow-hulled vessels as part of the tow barge system, eventually the design of steel vessels with flat floors and very abrupt turn of the bilge became common. 39 During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries dozens of patents perfecting certain aspects of scow barge technology were filed in the United States. Eventually, these homely craft became the mainstay of many maritime economies, dominating inland and coastal bulk product trades in the United States and beyond.
The 1876 Board of Lake Underwriters rules for radius of bilge – if applied to the modern Great Lakes river-class or 1000-foot bulk carrier – would indicate that they do/are close to meeting the definition of a scow. Many flat-bottomed ocean-going vessels would likely also fit this model. The sailing scow proved equally adapted for work as an unpowered barge. Before long it was used beyond inland waters, becoming the ocean-going barge that is the backbone of the nearshore (coasting) maritime industry. Today, the American inland river system uses scow barges as the dominant type of cargo carrier and work barge.
Footnotes
1.
New Zealand is one of the areas where the scow has earned notoriety and is celebrated with rebuilt historic craft, at least one reproduction, and a variety of exhibits, heritage signage and iconography.
2.
Rules for the Construction, Inspection, and Characterization of Sail and Steam Vessels (Buffalo, 1876), 74.
3.
Merchant Vessels of the United States (Washington, 1885), xxx.
4.
This change resulted from the Pendleton Act of 1883. For information see http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=48 [accessed 13 June 2016].
5.
Board of Lake Underwriters Register (Buffalo, 1866).
6.
Richard J. Wright, Freshwater Whales: A History of the American Ship Building Company (Kent, OH, 1969), 6.
7.
J. B. Mansfield, History of the Great Lakes (Chicago, 1899), II, 162–3, 174, 467 and 543.
8.
H. C. Inches and Chester J. Partlow, ‘Great Lakes Driftwood: Schooner-Scows’, Inland Seas 20 (Winter 1964), 289–94; Detroit Free Press, 29 September 1860.
9.
Inches and Partlow, ‘Great Lakes Driftwood’, 289–94.
10.
Alexander Young, A Short History of the Netherlands (Holland and Belgium) (London, 1886), 322.
11.
Nicoline Van Ders Sijs, Cookies, Coleslaw, and Stoops: The Influence of Dutch on the North American Languages (Amsterdam, 2009), 258–9.
12.
An Act to Prohibit the Exportation of Raw Hides from this Colony, passed on 23 December 1717. The Colonial Laws of New York from the Year 1664 to the Revolution (Albany, 1894), I, 991.
13.
‘Investigation by Don Rivas into the loss of a scow loaded with tobacco …’, transcribed in Donna Burge Adams, Schooners and Scows in the Florida Parishes of Louisiana (Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1988), I, 2.
14.
Reuben G. Thwaites, ed., ‘Papers from the Canadian Archives,’ Collections of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin (Madison, 1888), XI, 199.
15.
Vessel Enrollment for the Sloop Commodore Perry, Presque Isle, Pennsylvania, 10 April 1815.
16.
Vessel Enrollment for the Sloop Commodore Perry.
17.
Vessel Enrollment for the Sloop Commodore Perry.
18.
Vessel Enrollment for the Sloop Repulse, Buffalo, New York, 5 August 1830.
19.
Vessel Enrollment for the Schooner Bolivar, Buffalo, New York, 2 August 1826; Bradley Rodgers and Annalies Corbin, ‘Mud Box—Filled with Stone: The Wreck of the Scow Schooner DAN HAYES’, Wisconsin’s Underwater Heritage, March (2005), 1; Jay C. Martin, ‘Not For Shallow Water Only: Scow Construction Along the Maumee River, 1825–1859’, Marine History Lines (Winter 1990–1991), 4.
20.
Friend Palmer, Early Days in Detroit (Detroit, 1906), 41–2.
21.
Wisconsin Maritime Museum, Manitowoc, Wisconsin, Neff Collection (P95-10-91).
22.
John R. Bartlett, Dictionary of Americanisms: A Glossary of Words and Phrases (New York, 1848), 286.
23.
Neff Collection.
24.
Richard Palmer, ‘Men Who Sought Stone for their Daily Bread’, Inland Seas, 47, No. 4 (1991), 251–2.
25.
Roger R. Olmsted, Scow Schooners of San Francisco Bay (Cupertino, CA, 1988), 2–32.
26.
Olmsted, Scow Schooners, 10 and 16–7.
27.
David Langdon, A History of New Zealand Scows and Their Trades (Auckland, 2009), 14 and 22; Carol and James Ramage, The Ships of Omaha, New Zealand, 1858–1921 (Auckland, 2008), 42–5.
28.
The 142-foot, 244-gross-ton Green Bay built at Fish Creek, Wisconsin, in 1867 is a close second in size. The 134-foot, 371-gross-ton (old style) Waurecan, built at Buffalo, New York, in 1857, is third. When her tonnage was recalculated to fit the new measuring system introduced in 1865, it dropped to 294.
29.
Jay C. Martin, ‘Scows on the Great Lakes, 1825–1865: The Relationship Between Capital and Geographic Distribution in Vessel Construction’, Paper Presented at the Annual Conference of the Association for Great Lakes Maritime History, Tobermory, Ontario, 14 September 1991, 15.
30.
Databases of Great Lakes and New Zealand Sailing Scows, 2017.
31.
John McCusker, ‘Sources of Investment Capital in the Colonial Philadelphia Shipping Industry’, Journal of Economic History, 32 (1972), 146–57; Erie Sager and Gerald Panting, Maritime Capital: The Shipping Industry in Atlantic Canada, 1820–1914 (Kingston, Ontario, 1990).
32.
Martin, ‘Scows on the Great Lakes’.
33.
Databases of Great Lakes and New Zealand Sailing Scows.
34.
Jerome K. Laurent, ‘The Development of Harbors, Waterborne Shipping and Commerce at Six Wisconsin Ports on Lake Michigan Through 1910’ (Unpublished PhD thesis, Indiana University, 1973), 460.
35.
Rules for the Construction, 74.
36.
Isaac Stephenson, Reflections of a Long Life, 1829–1915 (Chicago, 1915), 152.
37.
Jay C. Martin, ‘The Development of Wire Rope: An Innovation in Marine Technology Reaches the Great Lakes’, International Journal of Maritime History, 4, June (1992), 101–20.
38.
Jay C. Martin, ‘Sailing the Freshwater Seas: A Social History of Life Aboard the Commercial Sailing Vessels of the United States and Canada on the Great Lakes, 1815–1930’ (Unpublished Dissertation, Bowling Green State University, 1995), 166–9.
39.
Martin, ‘Sailing the Freshwater Seas’, 161–4.