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Show Record August, 1898, in a flat bottom boat, 24 feet long and about 5 feet 5181 wide, of light draft. We put the boat in the river at Moab about where the bridge is now. We loaded it about 500 pounds. we went 5182 up stream about 22 miles. I know where Castle Creek empties into the Colorado and we landed right at the foot of Castle Creek and camped there that night. The next day we took our boat and went up about two miles further. On that trip we used man power, oars. We did not do any towing at all. In going up past Nigger Bill we rowed right through that stretch of water. There is some rapid water there at Castle Creek, but we made it very nicely right up 5183 the stream. We had two sets of oars. We came back down the stream with a raft of lumber. There were about 6000 feet in it. We took the raft to Moab. We trailed our boat behind the raft. We guided the raft with very large oars that we made, one at the rear end and one at the front. We hung up on a rock about fifteen minutes in the swift water where Castle Creek empties into the river, but we soon got off of that 5184 rock and went on our way down the river. We had no difficulties on our up or down journey other than this occasion when the raft came in contact with that rock. As to shallow water there was one place down at Nigger Bill where there is a shelf of rock that the water runs over and our raft struck a little bump on that shelf. I stepped off of the raft into the water and took a two by four and raised it. The raft then went right on over it. I do not know whether there was any deeper section of the channel at that point. I owned a farm down below Moab and I used a boat there. 5185 I continued to operate my blacksmith shop at Moab. I did not spend my time on the farm. Our supplies for the farm we hauled from Moab to the river and then put them into a boat and would go down about two miles to the farm. We had the boat to go up an down the river. The farm was in the opposite side of the river from Moab. The boat was used in crossing over to the farm. I remember a period of time when lumber for Moab was hauled |