Wanted: Illinois & Michigan Canal Workers
Information for Packet
Boat Crew
Canal boats. Although many of the commercial boats using the canal were dissimilar in appearance, their dimensions were more uniformly standardized. All were no larger than 105 feet long by 17½ feet wide, and had a hull 6½ feet high, drawing a fully laden draft of four feet eight inches. All were also built close to the water with mostly straight lines from bow to stern. The deckhouses and hatches were suppressed in height, for easy passage under low bridges, and the boat's rails were of row of elongate freeing-ports along each gunwale. These size restrictions, of course, limited any boat's cargo capacity to a little over 100 tons. Although packets were built higher, they too were limited in height by the overhead obstructions. (Some of the steamboats had retractable smokestacks for passing under low bridges.)
The crew of the freight boats included the captain, a steersman and a bowsman; while on most packets there was the captain, two helmsmen and a cook. Freight boats also had only one driver (to drive the animals along the towpath) the while the packets had two.
The packet boats were 60 to 80 feet long, ten to fifteen feet wide, and eight to fifteen feet high (from keel to deckhouse overhead) The cabin was about 50 feet long, nine feet wide, and seven feet high. It held about 90 passengers. There was only the one room for sitting, eating, and sleeping. At night a curtain partitioned that room into separate quarters for the men and women. About 50 berths were hung from the walls and ceiling in tiers of three (like library shelves) and the remaining passengers slept in berths on the floor. (During the daylight hours those berths were replaced by tables for the serving of meals.)
(Vierling 1986, 48, 50-52)
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