Publisher's Synopsis
Flatboats were the most prolific type of vessel on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers during the early 1800s. By the late 1800s, however, flatboats had completely dis-appeared, and no intact examples were known to exist. Our knowledge of these historic vessels had been limited to illustra-tions, memoirs, and traveler accounts. That changed in 2000 after local residents found a wreck on the Ohio River shoreline in Il-linois. Archaeologist Mark J. Wagner and colleagues investigated extensively and established that the wreck was a pre-Civil War flatboat, which they named America, after a nearby town.
In The Wreck of the "America" in Southern Illinois: A Flatboat on the Ohio River, Wagner provides a brief description and general history of flatboats and the various reasons they wrecked. He also de-scribes the remains of the America, how it was constructed, the artifacts found nearby and inside, and the probable cause of its sinking. The book concludes with a history of the America since its discovery in 2000 and a plea that the boat be removed from the riverbank and preserved before the Ohio washes it away.
