Zadok Cramer (1773-1814), the great grandson of Edward Andrews (who established the Little Egg Harbor (LEH) Friends' Meeting in Tuckerton in 1704 ¹) had a historically significant influence on the settlement of the West beginning in 1801.

The West at the time largely meant land west of the Allegheny Mountains. The confluence of the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio Rivers, the site of Pittsburgh, was at the frontier. This point where the three rivers meet was the site of no less than five forts built between 1754 and 1792 ² as it changed hands during initial exploration, trading posts, settlement, and warfare (Indian skirmishes, the French and Indian War, the Revolution). It changed from an outpost for trade with Native Americans, to an ideal location for fortification to protect encroaching nation's interests as colonists headed west in increasing numbers. That is a fascinating and complex story on its own.

Zadok's roots were Quaker, but it is reported that he did not stay devout, yet did retain simplicity in clothing, including the "high-crowned, wide-brimmed hat." After boyhood in New Jersey, he relocated to Washington, Pennsylvania, where he learned the bookbinding trade. March 30, 1800, in the Pittsburgh Gazette he announced that he was opening a bookbindery. He then purchased a little bookstore. Zadok led quite a publishing history which included various almanacs, but the one of particular interest here is The Navigator ³ started in 1801, and updated yearly through 1814. ⁴

The Navigator contained explicit navigation directions for the Monongahela, Allegheny, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers. The Ohio River begins at Pittsburgh, flows west through Ohio, along the borders of Indiana, Kentucky and Illinois, and reaches the Mississippi at Missouri. The Mississippi then flows all the way south to New Orleans, a busy international port even then, and out into the Gulf of Mexico. The Navigator was a very popular publication, (copies are available here), useful not only to the many settlers heading west, but also to those establishing mercantile routes to markets that were easier to reach than by wagons and packtrains over poor roads, and over mountainous regions, as reaching the Philadelphia market from the West then required.

The era of flatboats came in after the Revolution and continued to the Civil War, and beyond. Some say this was the first American industrial revolution. ⁵ A flatboat of that era was rectangular, with square ends, and used to transport freight and people on shallow waterways, but only down river. Little Egg Harbor residents will no doubt point out the local development of the garvey by Gervais Pharo (1675-1756), a flat bottomed boat used in the shallow waters for the shellfishing industry and general use. Its use no doubt influenced the construction of larger river versions of it. The river flatboats were up to 20 feet in width (so they could navigate the rivers), and 20 to 100 feet in length. ⁶.

Flatboats enabled many different goals for different folks. Early flatboat trips were one way, down river trips. They were usually dismantled at the end site and the lumber sold or used to build something at the new site. Housing, buildings, furniture, etc., whatever the specific needs were.

Families could settle anywhere along the way. Merchandise could be sold or traded along the way to needed markets, reached cheaply and easily. International markets could be reached by going the full distance. Goods purchased with the earned money could be shipped back home. They would return home by walking or riding overland after what could be a profitable journey.

With the advent of steamboats on the rivers in 1811 ⁷, travel was much faster, and trips back up the rivers were now possible. But they did not end the era of the personal flatboat for families and traders because of their economies of scale.

A contemporary, first hand, tale of a keelboat ⁸ journey down the Ohio and Mississippi by Maj. Samuel S. Forman, originally from Monmouth County, New Jersey, is found in Narrative of a Journey Down the Ohio and Mississippi in 1789-90. ^{9, 10}

Rinker Buck recently built a flat bottomed boat and made the trip from near Pittsburgh to New Orleans. He documented it in his book Life on the Mississippi ¹¹ and reading that book not only opened my eyes to the history of flatboating, but of the importance of LEH's Zadok Cramer's contribution.

Zadok Cramer ^{12, 13} wore a very important hat in the development of early America.