Inland Shipping
The sloop Halifax also referred to as the Earl of Halifax, was built at Lake George in August 1758. The Earl of Halifax, 51 Feet Keel, about 100 Ton Burthen …to carry 18 six and 4-pounders, 20 swivels, 50 sailors, and a Company of Marines. A witness at the time stated she carried ten 4-pound cannon.
In the summer of 1758 a soldier reported "They have two small Sloops of about Twenty Tons each, have four Swivels mounted on each, one Sloop of 30 Tons launched the 23rd Instant, another of the same size to be launched in a few days, they propose having in each of these Vessels, four small Cannon or Royals -- Two large Scows and one a Building, a good many whale boats, and more a building." The first sloop, was named the Earl of Loudon." The second sloop was apparently called the George.
The Duke of Cumberland was a 155 ton brig rigged with two masts and carried 20 cannon consisting of both 6-pounders and 4-pounders and 20 small swivel cannon. She was manned by a crew of 70 seamen and 60 troops as marines.
A new sloop, the Boscawen mounting 6-pounders,and 22 swivels and carried a crew of 60 seamen and 50 marines. The 155 ton Boscawen was built of oak with a length of 80 feet and a 24 foot width.
In the Autumn of 1758, the British and provincials at Lake George sank for winter storage, 260 bateaux, two redeaux, the sloop Halifax, and at least two row gallery. (Bradstreet, 1758)
One of the biggest tasks for the army was retrieving their sunken vessels from 1758 and building new ones. By June, Captain Joshua Loring, the commander of the navel forces, was busy trying to bring the sloop Halifax to the surface. It would be 10 days before the Halifax was brought slightly above the surface and hauled to one of the docks on the southern shore of Lake George. It took several more days before the water could be drained out so repairs be made and a new mast cut. The cannon that been on board when the vessel was sunk, were also all salvaged.
Also recovered was "a row galley that had been sunk Last fall was found and got up to shoer" It was recorded at the time that the vessels had been recovered from a depth of "40 feet water." How this was done remains unclear, but there are records of the use of "free divers" retrieving items from the bottom.
Sir William Johnson ordered two heavily armed snows be built on Lake Ontario on July 29, 1759. Work began almost immediately on the first of the 18-gun vessels at Niagara. The first snow, christened the Mohawk ( also called the Mohawk's Revenge), was launched in early October. The ship was 95 feet long overall, with a deck of 77 feet. Though designed for 18 guns, she was mounted with only 16 six-pounders.
The second snow was built during the winter and launched on July 6, 1760. Named the Onondaga, she was pierced for 22 guns but armed with four 9-pounders and 14 six-pounders.
The Colonial Bateau
The bateau was a popular class of colonial vessel. Though the word bateau is French for boat and was spelled numerous ways in colonial times, the model for the English bateau probably came from the Dutch. By Queen Ann's War, 1702-1713, the English were constructing bateaux in the Mohawk Valley of New York.
Colonial bateaux were shallow-draft, flat-bottomed vessels with plank-on-frame construction and fuller at the bow that at the stern. Colonial bateaux generally averaged 30 to 32 feet long, though some were as small as 18 feet and others 50 feet long. Their width varied from vessel to vessel, but those bateaux 30 to 32 feet long were about six to six and a half feet wide. Bateaux were rowed, poled, and in some cases, sailed. They were equipped with four to six oars. Oars were set inside a pair of thole pins which acted as an oarlock and which were set into thole pin pads attached to the sides.
Swedish naturalist Peter Kalm, while traveling in North America in 1749, provided a description of bateaux:
"Battoe…are made of boards of white pine; the bottom is flat, that they may row the better in shallow water; they are sharp at both ends, and somewhat higher towards the end that in the middle. They have seats in them, and are rowed as common boats. They are long, yet not all alike, commonly three, and sometimes four fathoms long ( 18 to 24 feet). The height from the bottom to the top of the board…. is from 20 inches to two feet, and the breadth in the middle about a yard and six inches."
Eli Forbush described the British vessels on Lake Champlain just prior to the departure for Crown Point: "We have two rydaus (radeaux) that carry six 12-pounders in yr sides and one 24 inch in yr bowes. Four roe (row) galleys yt carry one 18-inch each of yr bowes one flat boat and a brig in great forwardness."
Bateaux and the French and Indian War
British bateaux during the French and Indian War reportedly could carry 23 men with a month's provisions. French bateaux during this same period reportedly carried up to three tons of cargo.
During conflict, bateaux became the primary mode of transporting British and provincial troops with their provisions throughout the Northeast interior. The Albany aria was a major bateaux building center, supplying the British. One or two "steersmen" would control direction from the stern by use of a long sweep ( oar ). Ranger Captain James Tutis' method of rigging blanket sail, which had been tested earlier, was adopted and each bateau was rigged with two blankets. The British and provincial expeditions on Lake George would mark each bateau with a regimental number.
When in 1758, General James Abercromby sailed up Lake George to attack Fort Carillon, the army traveled in 900 bateaux, 135 whaleboats, several rafts, and three small radeau.
The Colonial Radeau:
The word radeau or raddow is French for raft. Variations of this type of vessel would later be called a Radeau or Floating Battery. The radeau was a wide, partially enclosed floating barge with both sails and oars, mounting heavy guns which were used in defense of a fleet of bateaux.
The design for the gunboats or radeau built at Fort Lyman in 1755, probably came from John Dies, a ship outfitter from New York City. In 1755, Dies sent plans to General William Johnson, leader of the provincial army at Lake George, proposing "a flat-bottomed vessel equipped with field pieces. " a vessel with a bottom of "squared loggs 8 or 9 inches thick….trunnel'd together, the side of the flat should be Raised, high Enough for a Breast work to Cover the Men with portholes cut…Mount Some of your Field Pieces, Man'd with 40 of 50 men." Private James Hill from Newbury, Massachusetts was assigned to cut lumber for "Flatboats" that were "about 40 feet long and to ro With 20 oars, to caire the artllere."
On September 18, 1758, a 39-year-old Marine shipwright named Captain Samuel Cobb, who had helped build the sloop Halifax at Lake George, was assigned to the construction of a large radeau under the direction of a British artillery officer named Captain Thomas Ord.
October, 1758, Colonel Henry Champion, a provincial officer from Colchester, Connecticut, drew a sketch of the larger radeau and noted that: "it is 51 feet in length, about 16 to 18 feet wide, straight flat bottom, flaring waist about 5 feet high, then turns with an elbow…and covers ye top all but a streak about 8 or 9 feet wide…The name of this creature is Tail and End, or Land Tortoise."
On October 29, 1758, Cobb wrote in his journal that "we launched two Raddows one 50 feet long by 19 feet wide and 6 feet deep, and the other 30 feet long, 7 feet wide, and 3½ feet deep. "We tried the Raddows and Rowed well they went with 26 oars."
The Land Tortoise
The Land Tortoise was a 52-foot-long and 18-foot-wide seven-sided wooden vessel built to carry seven cannon. The radeau had a wooden bulwarks or upper canopy-type structure which exhibits exaggerated tumble-home, probably designed to protect interior gunners from hillside enemy fire. The warship had 26 oar sweeps, 13 port side and 13 starboard side, and four mooring rings, two in the bow and the other two aft. It may had had two masts. The Land Tortoise probably would have been square rigged to sail with the wind. The seven-sided and possibly keeless radeau would have been a poor sailing vessel upon waters like Lake George, and this most likely contributed to the radeau class's demise.
The Ligonier
The radeaux Ligonier was launched on September 29, 1759 at Crown
Point. She was 84 feet long and 20 feet broad on the platform where the guns run out she
was 23 feet, and designed to carry six 24-pounders. She had two masts with the lower hull
angling outward and the upper sides angling inward with gun ports, according to s
contemporary sketch (1759). When Major Ord tried the Ligonier against the wind in early
October, the vessel apparently did not do well.
At the end of the 1760 military operations, most of the vessels were sailed to the King's shipyard at Ticonderoga and remained there under the direction of Lieutenant Alexander Grant through 1763. The "King's Shipyard" was located just north of the grenadiers battery.
