Packet Boat Travel

Published in The Tiller: Volume 22, Issue 4 - Winter 2022

M. W. Early in his Packet Boat Days expressed the prevailing feelings on canal travel:

“This mode of travel, which now seems so antiquated, so slow and tedious, was in harmony with the spirit and customs of old Virginia. We were a leisurely people, eminently social in our instincts and habits, and we did not care to rush through life, whether travelling or at home.”

...Packets would stop at every boat landing to receive and discharge passengers and deliver mail. Legend has it that the packets really provided better mail service to those living near the canal than we enjoy today. It was possible to receive mail twice a day, one from Richmond and the other from points west.

...The trip from Richmond to Lynchburg took 33 hours, quite an improvement over the ten days taken by batteaux. James Kirkwood wrote, “While the freight boats gave the canal its economic value, the packet boats gave it its romance.”

Packets were 75 to 80 feet long and about 11 feet wide. The main cabin was 36 to 45 feet long... At 9:00 P.M. the cabin was [prepared for the night]; a heavy baize curtain divided the front section for women and children, the rest for men. Berths were hung in rows, three deep from the ceiling, and were closely packed to accommodate 40 or more people. The berths were very narrow and short and were furnished with a pillow and lumpy mattress. The romance of the trip must have waned a bit on a hot summer night!

After a somewhat sleepless night of being roused by the horn near each lock, plus accompanying noise on the deck overhead, passengers were awakened early. “Washing up” was performed in a primitive fashion. Everyone stood on deck with a towel over his arm, waiting his turn at a big tin bowl. A tin dipper with a very long handle was dipped into the canal for a generous scoop of slightly muddy water.

While passengers were busy outside, the crew was turning the sleeping space back into saloon and setting the table for breakfast. One anonymous traveler wrote humorously:

“This table... is a mystery of itself. During the night it has been a very placid and unobtrusive article offering space only for a lantern and half a dozen hats, while at breakfast time it has expanded to a most aggressive and amazing degree, taking up the entire length and half the breadth of the cabin, and I am fain to suspect that it is no table at all, but simply the sleeping shelves in a new and startling character.”

The travelers remembered that in the stern, near the crew’s quarters, the cook in his tiny kitchen somehow managed to turn out elegant fare, equaling that of the finest Richmond hotels. The best that the market afforded was served: ham, fish, oysters, turkey, and always a plentiful supply of treats such as almonds and raisins. Fresh butter and eggs were bought along the line. All this was included in the fare, which in the 1850s was $5.27 from Richmond to Lynchburg.

Packet boats hummed with activity. Children ran about playing, sometimes watched over by nursemaids. Mr. Early wrote that the passengers

...“would while away the time with conversation (which was the chief delight of old Virginians), or the gentlemen would play backgammon a great deal... whilst the ladies often carried a little fancy work along with them. ...Sometimes one of the passengers would have a violin or guitar along and would favor the rest of the company with some music.”

Aboard the packet boats a warning cry of “low bridge!” would cause everyone to bend down or even lie prone to avoid being struck as they passed under innumerable farm bridges. Perhaps it was a low bridge that “did in” poor Ellen Killey. In 1851, she was traveling all the way from the Isle of Man to Lynchburg with her two small sons. She fell from the packet boat Link and drowned in the canal. Captain Yateman retrieved her body and arranged to put it off at Mosby’s Lock (Lock 21). For some reason, she was buried near Lock19 in the Martin Tutwiler family-burying place.

Fifty-eight years later, in 1910, her son, Dr. Phillip Killey, came searching for her grave. He went first to Mt. Airy, near where his mother drowned, and was directed to the Tutwiler farm, then owned by Cranshaw Bugg. Within a few days, Dr. Killey and A. J. Seay moved her remains to the cemetery at Seay’s Chapel near Shores in Fluvanna:

Sometimes a group of people would get off the packet and walk from one lock to the next when the distance was not too great. This little diversion was especially popular with the young people who were courting, or just merely flirting. The daily arrival of the packets at boat landings was a social event, when the local folk would gather to visit, see and be seen, and catch up on the news of the day.

Miss Fannie Wilkerson of Spring Garden near Bremo Bluff told about the excitement when all of Bremo, including her Aunt Julia, would converge upon the landing to await the packet boat. One day Miss Julia was introduced to a passenger, an attractive young man, “of good family and good character.”

They became so engrossed in conversation that they didn’t realize the boat was pulling away from the landing. The young man looked around and made a quick dash and a jump, but unfortunately missed the boat and landed in the mud of the canal. A few days later when he went to Spring Garden to call upon Miss Julia, she refused to receive him because she had seen him in “such an embarrassing situation.”

Old woodcuts show sleepy views of the canal, usually picturing a single boat and a towpath empty of all but the horses and their driver, the “hoggee.” But, on the contrary, the canal was often crowded with freight boats, packets and smaller boats, sometimes lined up waiting to get through a lock. The fact that no toll was charged on trips of less than a mile encouraged local use of the canal.

The towpath was bustling with horses, mules, buggies, strollers, and the “towpath walker.” This walker, a key man in maintaining the canal, had to check for leaks or cracks and could repair minor damage. Then, too, there were the bridges, boat landings, horse stables, lock houses, barns, etc., all requiring maintenance and teeming with workmen. An exciting era.