Your first stop would be to visit the Virginia Canals and Navigations Society Website. In it you will find information on riverine traffic modes in the Shenandoah Valley. Bill Trout's wonderful River Atlas series has one on the Shenandoah that will give you a tremendous amount of information.

As for craft, these would primarily have been batteaux or the Shenandoah River variant called a Gundalow that had flattish ends, some of which were dismantled for use as housing boards upon completion of their one-way voyage.

Lyle Browning


On Mar 9, 2011, at 5:05 PM, Bill Crews wrote:

> does anyone know the extent to which any of the rivers in the Shenandoah Valley 
> were used for travel or commerce in the Colonial era? Relatedly is anyone 
> familiar with a source -- ideally a primary one -- for what kinds of craft were 
> used on these rivers?
> 
> Bill
> 
> 
> 
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