Flatboating 
This article is about the mystery of Duke Swearingen's disappearance. I found this story in the book "Life of James "Jim" Emmitt - 1888.
About 1820 - Robert Lucas (who became State Legislator, Senator, Ohio Governor and Iowa Governor; sold his general store in Piketon to Duke Swearingen. Around 1823, Duke started for New Orleans with a flatboat load of flour and meat. After he passed out of the Ohio River into the Mississippi, he was never heard of again. He had left his store in charge of his little brother, Andy, and a clerk. When the time had passed when he was due at home, his friends at Piketon became uneasy about him. Weeks and then months passed, and no word was received from him. A search was made for him up and down the river and at new Orleans, and he was advertised for, but Duke was never heard from.
His friends were forced to the conclusion that he was murdered while tramping back to Ohio following the river and robbed of his proceeds from his cargo; or else that he died of yellow fever at New Orleans and was hustled off to an unmarked grave. Duke was not the only one from Piketon to meet this fate. Shortly after Duke's disappearance, another merchant of Piketon, a Mr. Willard, forever disappeared in circumstances identical to Duke's. Note: many merchants took meat and grain in trade for their merchandise as money was scarce on the frontier especially before the canal came through and provided a market by shipping merchants who bought from the farmers and resold in the larger cities.
If the Ohio & Erie Canal had been built on their original surveyed route, Piketon would have been a canal port but since Robert Lucas owned much of the property in Jasper and he was powerful in state politics, the has circulated for all these years that he influenced another survey which route was followed along the west side of the Scioto River and through Jasper.
Waverly became an important port on the canal because first, industry, was provided water power leased from the state before steam was available and second - shipping merchants were located here. Jim Emmitt made much of his fortune in both areas.
Copyright © 2007
Pike Co. Genealogy Society & Historical Society
P. O. Box 224, Waverly, Ohio 45690