Desirous of perfecting his medical education in Europe, after a few years' further practice in Lexington he descended the Ohio River on a flatboat to New Orleans in 1810, just one year before the first experimental steamboat was launched upon those waters.
"The History of the Medical Department of Transylvania University"
Robert Peter
"They sent the big flatboat, or bateau, down the river, and thirteen men went with it.
"The Young Alaskans on the Missouri"
Emerson Hough
Streams that have long since ceased to be thought navigable for a boy's canoe were made to carry the settlers' few household goods heaped on a flatboat.
"American Merchant Ships and Sailors"
Willis J. Abbot