Fort Amanda's Boat Building Camp

The Auglaize Armada

Where Was The Boat Builders Camp?

(and the downside of "over analyzing")

First a confession. First of all, I've been researching the history of Fort Amanda for over 40 years. What I've learned during that time is that by trying to create a holistic picture of something, its easy to overlook minor details, that only the most inquisitive individuals would care about much less pursue.
That said, every once in a while, I'll set back and think to myself, "How did they do that?", or, "Why did they do that, and even such bizarre the topics as "where were the toilets?" (which I covered in an earlier blog - no pun intended).

Another of those questions arose a few days ago when I began to wonder, "there were a lot of people building boats across the river from the fort and they were there for several weeks; where was their camp?" Before I challenge a reader to pursue this, lets first look at what was going on in that camp.

First of all it appears as though most of the boat construction was done by hired contractors; probably civilian craftsmen from the Piqua or nearby. When work was light at the fort, the some of the men were sent across the river to help with the construction.

The Boat Construction Site. One question that has plagued Ft. Amanda lovers for years has been, "What kind of boats did they build at Fort Amanda, and how big were they?" Before we can answer that question, we need to consider the type of river the boats would be navigating.

The Auglaize River was the interstate of it's day. It was used for centuries before the War of 1812 by Indians, trappers and armies going into Kentucky. The site at Fort Amanda was the perfect debarkation point for moving men and materials northeast cross country from the post at St. Marys to the Auglaize.
General Anthony Wayne referred to river at the Ft. Amanda area as “head of Auglaize,” or “head of navigable waters” because the water at that spot is deep enough there to support watercraft carrying heavy loads.

Another consideration is that fact that the Auglaize River is a very winding river with a large number of hairpin turns and narrowing river widths. It can also be a treacherous river to navigate at certain times of the year, particularly in the spring. It was not uncommon for boats to overturn in the currents and their lading lost.

One long held tradition states that some of the watercraft, particularly rafts, were large enough for Commodore Perry to pull his ships up onto rafts and float his ships over a sandbar on Lake Erie on his way to fight the British. Calculating the weight of wood and the approximating the size of rafts, even small rafts could have weighed up to 2 or 3 tons. Did Perry use them to get his ships over sandbars? That has never been proven, but it does give a relative idea of how large the rafts may have been.

River Rafts

River Raft

Logs have been lashed together for the bottom and some added a wall on the sides to protect the men from sniper fire from the riverbank. I used the following dimensions to calculate the weight of a raft using 6” diameter oak logs 20 feet long, and 18 logs lashed side by side. This would create a craft 20 feet long and approx. 9 feet wide. Using oak as the wood, the weight of such a craft would be 6,300 pounds. I would argue that with men using push poles, they could navigate a river like the Auglaize, however it would be, in my opinion very difficult..

What Kinds of Boats Did They Build At Ft. Amanda?

River Pirogues We know that they used canoes/pirogues to travel back and forth between forts and for transporting small quantities of materials, however, Ft. Amanda was being used to ship large quantities on a regular basis to the forts to the north. They needed something much larger than canoes for that purpose. To accomplish that the army contracted with a civilian company to have their men help in building the boats. Perhaps one clue as to size and type can be found in Ensign Schillinger’s journal on April 27, 1813.

“ The boats 7 in number pushed of a 9 A.M. commanded by Capt Price of the regulars.”

The number of men in a company varied throughout the war but the average seems to have been between 70 and 100 privates. Using an average of 85 plus 5 officers, means we’ll assume Price left Amanda with 90 men. Schillinger tells us they used 7 boats. They didn’t need to carry food as they’d be stopping at forts along the way, (Jennings and Brown) before they got to Defiance, so they probably only needed 1 for other supplies. This leaves 6 boats to transport 90 men or 15 men per boat.

It's very possible the boats built at Fort Amanda for troop transport looked like the colonial military bateau (shown below).

Schillinger also tells us on several occasions that they had to “turn” the boat. The practice was once a boat was finished, it was literally sunk in the river for a few days then raised and “turned over’ emptying the water. This caused the wood to shrink thus sealing the space between planks and making the craft more leak proof.

What Kinds of Tools Did They Use? Perhaps that question is best answered using the information found in the letter below describing the types of tools a group of boat builders were instructed to take with them on their next construction job.

December 19th, 1812

By your request I send you the following men and tools attached to my company agreeable to your orders on the 10th Instant

Robert S. More & Ely Edmonson & William Whiteman and John Forquer

Men you will proceed early on the morning of the 11th Instant with the United States waggon with _________ tools and other United States property to General Perkins Camp at Saint Duskey (Sandusky) and when you arrive there, you will report yourselves and tools to General Perkens or officer commanding. At said camp, the following is the number of tools delivered by me for said party out of the stock of the United States tools that is under my care and ________.

List of tools and names as follows;

2 Broad axes 2 Whip saws

1 Falling ax 3 files, one flat, one half round and one square

1 Top maul 1 Bevel wooden

2 Four planes 1 Inch and a half auger

2 Smoothing planes 4 Chisels of different sizes

1 Jack plane 2 Iron wedges

2 Spike gumblets 1 Close tent

1 Roll 1 Hollow plane

1 Iron square 2 Camp Kettles

2 Caulking irons and mallets 1 Hammer

2 Hand saws 1 Drawing house (Shaving horse?)

2 Auger screws and pod, ¼ 1 Solel (?)

1.Shaving horse: Similar to a saw horse.

T

he Auglaize Armada In April 1813, General William Henry Harrison arrived at Fort Amanda with 300 troops on his way to the besieged fort near Perrysburg, Oh.; Fort Meigs.
The journalist at Fort Amanda (Ensign William Schillinger) wrote in his journal on April 9th;

 All hand busyly employ,d preparing to Desend the River, Making oars, etc. at half past 11 A.M., all Embark,d. on one company of Regulars

The significance of this entry is it gives us some clue as to the size of the boats leaving Amanda that day. We know that Captain Price, in addition to the 7 boats he needed to transport his 85 men, he also needed boats to carry supplies, ammunition, baggage, etc. In his case he had 2 or 1 for every 7 boats.

Using the figure 15 men per boat and 1 supply boat for every 7, means that for Harrison to transport 300 men, he would have needed between 23 – 25 boats. Regardless of whatever the final number was, it was without a doubt the largest armada of watercraft ever to navigate the Auglaize River before or since.

As I pointed out in a previous blog the boat building area was on the east side of the river a short distance south of the fort in the area of the present day canoe livery. Mounds used for constructing boats were still visible into the 1970s, but nearly all traces of them are now gone. The boat builders consisted of soldiers from Amanda along with private contractors hired for that purpose. A man named Captain Perry oversaw the operations.

The "Mounds"

This of course leads to the question, how did they cut the wood into planks. Two possibilities. The first is that they created a saw pit. A saw pit is exactly that, a pit. One man stands at the bottom of the pit and another at the top and they use a large two handled saw to saw up and down, cutting the wood into planks. There is nothing to indicate that such a pit was used at Amanda so another possibility is that the planks were cut elsewhere and shipped to Amanda where the men assembled the boats.

Saw Pit

Where Was the Boat Builders Camp?

We know from Schillingers journal that they were building boats at this site from March 28 to May 16. During that time the weather was:

17-Apr	Clear and pleasant
18-Apr	Pleasant
19-Apr	Warm and rainy
20-Apr	Thunderstorms and lightening
21-Apr	Cold and rainy
22-Apr	Cold and light showers
23-Apr	Heavy showers
24-Apr	Clear and pleasant
25-Apr	Clear and pleasant
26-Apr
27-Apr	Showers in morning
28-Apr	Heavy rain and thunder
29-Apr	Heavy showers
30-Apr	Clear and cool
1-May	Clear and pleasant
2-May	Pleasant
3-May	Cloudy
4-May	Light showers
5-May	Drizzly weather
6-May	Clear
7-May	Clear and cool
8-May	Cloudy drizzley
9-May	Rainy
10-May	Clear and pleasant
11-May	Clear and pleasant
12-May	Rain
13-May	Clear and pleasant
14-May	Clear and cool
15-May	Clear and cool with frost
16-May	Clear and pleasant	No. of Days
4	Unrecorded	4
13	Clear and pleasant	13
18	Rain	18
5	Stormy	5
8	Cool or cold	8
2	Other	2
		50

Overthinking vs Analyzing - a very thin line

As I was analyzed the weather information, I thought to myself, "if it rained, 36% of the days, was cold and stormy almost 20% of the time did the boat builders across the river stay in tents or did they build some type of log structures to keep them out of the rain.

I turned to my wife and explained what I was doing and asked what she thought and she said something that almost caused me to delete this whole posting. She said, "Maybe they didn't have a camp, maybe they stayed in the fort."

MYSTERY SOLVED