RHB123 referred to the book Life On the Mississippi by Rinker Buck. ¹ In it he tells how he had a flatboat built just a few years ago, and the story of spending four months on it traveling down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers from Pittsburgh to New Orleans. It is a very interesting read, and gives a lot of background history of flatboats in the 1800s and their importance in moving Americans west as well as on commerce and trade. It also covers how he managed the dangers of navigating such a crude vessel, sharing the rivers with today's many commercial tugboats pushing long strings of barge traffic, particularly around the twists and turns of the rivers, and the insightful pros and cons of the handful of rotating crew members that assisted him in the voyage and adventure.

A few weeks ago, the book Four Months In a Sneakbox by Nathaniel Holmes Bishop (1837-1902), ² was brought to my attention. This book describes Bishop's adventure, in 1875-76, of living in and navigating, by rowing and river currents, a Barnegat sneakbox from Pittsburgh to Cedar Key, Florida (2600 miles) on the Gulf of Mexico. A photograph of Nathaniel Holmes Bishop can be found here. And the text of Four Months In A Sneakbox can be found online at this link, with Maps & Illustrations. Printed copies may be ordered online.

Bishop describes the history of the Barnegat sneakbox, and lists its advantages, particularly compared to a paper canoe trip which he made in 1874-75, a year prior, from Quebec, Canada to Cedar Key, Florida. (2500 miles). (actually two canoes, he replaced a heavier one for a lighter one in New York). That trip is described in his book Voyage of the Paper Canoe, ³ also by Nathaniel Holmes Bishop, can also be ordered online.

Chapter I. The Boat for the Voyage discusses the sneakbox history that he was able to learn, and the specifics of the one he had built for his trip. The reader is encouraged to read this chapter, only a few salient points are reproduced here: Captain Hazelton Seaman of West Creek, about 1836, designed and constructed the first sneakbox. It was designed to be a practical one-man craft, maneuverable by one person in shallow water and able to be pulled over marshes by one person, and able to be camouflaged with marsh grasses and to secret a hunter to not alert waterfowl to the presence of a hunter. It was designed to be rowed, have an optional sail, a canvas apron splash guard, a hull bottom shaped like a spoon, (later in the book folks referred to it as a "pumpkin seed" shape), and a waterproof hatch that a person can close to seal themselves in out of the weather, and ample storage inside the hull for provisions, guns, etc., the lockable hatch sealing them inside like in a chest. Seaman named his boat a "Devil's Coffin", and the baymen named it a "sneak box", and that name stuck. Design improvements followed. John Crammer, Jr. improved the canvas apron design, and then Samuel Perine designed a third version. Bishop tried out five versions of the sneakbox in Barnegat Bay and Little Egg Harbor bay. In 1875, Bishop contracted with Captain George Bogart of Manahawkin to build him one for twenty-five dollars, with the future owner supplying all the materials. All told, Bishop says it cost him no more than seventy-five dollars. Bishop says: "I adopted a very home-like boat, which, though only twelve feet long, four feet wide, and thirteen inches deep, was strong, stiff, dry, and safe; a craft that could be sailed or rowed, as wind, weather, or inclination might dictate,--the weight of which hardly exceeded two hundred pounds,--and could be conveniently transported from one stream to another in an ordinary wagon." ⁴

Bishop was born in Massachusetts, moved to Ocean County before 1864, and became a cranberry grower. By 1872 he had moved to Manahawkin, and became a canoe enthusiast. He became very successful, and in his 1902 will, he funded a public library for the Township of Dover (became Toms River Township in 2006) in Toms River. ⁵ See Bishop Hall and Bishop Memorial Library (click on: Branch History). It is part of the Ocean County Library system. Nathaniel Holmes Bishop's FindAGrave memorial is found here.

It is left as an exercise for the interested reader to read more about the adventures and the cast of characters he encountered along the way of these excursions.

Small Boats Magazine has a three article series of a 1985-86 sneakbox trip from Pittsburgh, PA to Cedar Key, FL by Christopher Cunningham who followed Nathaniel Holmes Bishop's route. The articles are available: "A Sneakbox On the Ohio" (Jan 2023). "A Sneakbox On the Mississippi" (Feb 2023). "A Sneakbox On the Gulf Coast" (Mar 2023). ⁶