The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 52, July 1948 - April, 1949 Page: 414
512 p. : ill., maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
measured with a chain, may possibly differ a little, but the depth
of the water is right, or Gunter's scale is wrong.5
This uncertainty as to the correctness of the distance along
the stream was well founded. McKinstry showed the river dis-
tance from Austin to Matagorda Bay to be 4721 miles while
United States Geological Survey reports list the distance as be-
ing only 280.9 miles.0
One of the earliest descriptions of the raft is given by McKins-
try. He tells of the last part of his trip in these words:
Twenty four and a half miles of beautiful river to Robinson's
Ferry.
Eight miles to Cane Island, at the head of which commences the
upper Raft, there are four separate Rafts within the distance of three
miles, and are considered the greatest obstructions to navigation of
the Colorado. The dimension of these rafts together with the dif-
ficulties and expense attending their removal from the river have been
much exaggerated, as can be satisfactorily proven by reference to a
correct survey of them made by W. D. Wallach, Esq., Civil Engineer,
for the Colorado Navigation Company in the year 1839.
Twelve miles from the foot of the lower raft to the landing at
Matagorda, thence three miles to the mouth of the river where it
empties into the Bay at Matagorda.7
The raft prevented steamboats from going up the Colorado,
though keelboats were already in use on the river.
Frank Brown records in his "Annals of Travis County and of
the City of Austin" that
late in 1839, a public meeting was held in Austin to discuss steam
boat navigation of the river:
Thomas W. Grayson was merchandising at Austin this winter and
for some time following. He advertised in the Gazette that he was
running two keel boats on the Colorado for the transportation of
freight. These were small flat boats that went down stream with the
current, guided by a rudder and poles. They came upstream assisted
by sails, when the wind was favorable, but principally by poling.8
5William C. McKinstry, The Colorado Navigator (Matagorda, 184o), i-ii.
ASeth D. Breeding and Tate Dalrymple, Texas Floods of x938 and 1939, Water-
Supply Paper 914 (Washington, 1944), 48.
?McKinstry, The Colorado Navigator, 21-22.
8Frank Brown, "Annals of Travis County and of the City of Austin (From the
Earliest Times to the Close of 1875) ," chap. 6, p. 41. Brown went to Austin in
1846 and lived there until his death in 1913. He was county clerk and later district
clerk of Travis County. A typewritten copy and the original manuscript are in the
Texas State Archives in the Capitol.414
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 52, July 1948 - April, 1949, periodical, 1949; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101121/m1/423/: accessed May 7, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.