Before the construction of America’s vast highways and railroads, water was perhaps the most formidable obstacle in the march of Manifest Destiny. Horses had long been used worldwide for drawing plows and carriages, but it wasn’t until the early 19th century that Yankee ingenuity invented the horse-powered ferry, making the first move away from wind-driven ships.
Archaeologists Kevin Crisman and Arthur Cohn have opened up a little-known chapter of American history by exploring horse-powered “steamboats,” as they were called, which deliberately contrasted themselves to the noisier, more powerful, and ultimately triumphant steamboat. Their book takes what could have been a dry technical topic and instead weaves an exciting tale that tackles the phenomenon through archaeological and historical studies, as well as lots of drawings and photographs.
Between 1807 and 1840, houseboats often proved themselves the more cost-effective and safer (no threat of explosions) means of ferrying people and cargo across the waterways around New York City, upstate New York, and Vermont. By the end of the 1840s, though, steamboats had replaced steamboats on U.S. waterways.
Much of the book details the 1989-92 investigation of a horse ferry wreck near Burlington, Vermont. As director of the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, Cohn recently made national news for his discovery of the last of the gunboats from Benedict Arnold’s Revolutionary War flotilla on Lake Champlain. Here he provides the reader with a good introduction to underwater archaeology.
When Horses Walked on Water is a singular and altogether satisfying look at a forgotten segment of American society, chronicling a special moment in archaeological history-the first underwater excavation of a horse-powered ferry. -Rob Crisell
