Team boat

The first documented horse-powered boat in the United States was built on the Delaware River in 1791 by John Fitch. There are three types of team boats. In one, four or five horses are placed in each side of the boat in a circular treadwheel, and the paddle wheels, arranged like the side wheel steamboat of later days were turned by means of cogs and gearing connected with other cogs on the shaft of the paddle wheels. The horses were hitched to strong timbers and by a forward movement of the feet caused the treadwheel upon which they stood to revolve and thus operate the gear wheels. One description of a turntable type team boat using six horses says, "The treadmills, on either side, were each trod by three horses always facing in the same direction. To reverse the paddlewheels it was only necessary to stop the horses a minute, and withdraw a drop pin that would reverse the gearing." == The Experiment ==

'', 1808 horse paddle-boat The Experiment, built sometime around 1807–1810, was an early horse-powered ferry boat. It was a twelve-ton three-mast boat drawing a few feet of water, about 100 feet long by 20 feet beam. Its driving mechanism, an in-water screw, was invented by David Grieve in 1801. The boat was constructed by David Wilkinson (some sources give his name as Varnum) in 1807 to 1810, depending on the source. It was propelled by a "goose-foot paddle" large mechanical screw propeller in the water (instead of a paddle wheel at water surface). The novel idea of propelling vessels upstream by the use of a large mechanical screw in the water is now referred to as Ericsson’s propeller. == Commercial service and ferries ==

One of the first documented team boats in commercial service in the United States began running a Manhattan-Brooklyn route in 1814. Carrying vehicles, horses, and two hundred humans on a typical run, it could take anywhere from eight to eighteen minutes to finish the East River crossing. Team boat ferries were very popular. First, they were thought to be cheaper to operate than any other type of ferry boat, and second, they did not incur fees under the Fulton-Livingston patents monopoly. In 1816, a steamboat company running ferry service between Halifax, Nova Scotia and Dartmouth had the law amended to permit the use of team boats instead. In August 1816, the team boat Moses Rogers in Newburgh, New York began service to Fishkill, New York, carrying wagons, coaches, carriages, horses, and passengers. In 1817, the Union Team Boat ran between Long Bridge at Georgetown and Alexandria, Virginia. In 1821, William Dyer built a team boat serving Portsmouth, Virginia on the Elizabeth River. In 1838, ''Tremaine's Team Boat'', using three horses, operated a ferry service at Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. Team boats with eight horses operated on the Ohio River at Cincinnati in 1819, and at Charleston, South Carolina, on the Ashley River in 1818 and 1827. The team boat crossing the Ohio could accommodate a stagecoach driving aboard. Attempts were made with moderate success to ascend the Ohio and Mississippi with teams of horses on board. In 1824 the team boat Genius of Georgia operated on the Savannah River, under Captain William Bird, carrying a cargo of sundries. An 1820 report by the South Carolina Department of Public Works described a five-man boat powered by eight mules; it carried 300 bales of cotton 250 miles in fifteen days at a cost of just $116.25. However, for through traffic, the team boats never passed the experimental stage. The team boats on the Delaware River serving Camden, New Jersey stopped for an hour at lunch time to feed the horses. The Ridgeway was a double team boat, propelled by nine horses walking around a circle. She ran from the foot of Cooper Street. There was also a team boat named the Washington; she ran from Market Street, Camden, to Market Street, Philadelphia. Other team boats followed in succession, namely the Phoenix, Constitution, Moses Lancaster, and Independence. ''The Cooper's Ferry Daybook, 1819-1824'', documenting Camden's Point Pleasant Teamboat, survives to this day. Horse powered ferries have also been documented in Wisconsin and New Hampshire. A shipwreck discovered in 1983 in Lake Champlain, the Burlington Bay Horse Ferry, is an example of a turntable team-boat. It served on one of approximately five horse ferry crossings operating on Lake Champlain from about 1820 to 1850. In the 1880s, in New Haven, Missouri and Waverly, Missouri, the Tilda Clara and General Harrison ferries across the Missouri River were powered by four horse teams. A ferry powered by horses and mules operated on the Mississippi River at St. Mary, Missouri as recently as 1910. == See also ==