Subject: Diaries or Journals of Ohio River Flatboat Migrants Subtitle: "Where is Abigail?" List Members: For more than 28 years I have been on a genealogical quest "to find" Abigail BURR m. John COWAN who possibly died while on the way to Ohio. Members of the COWAN family, and their neighbors (SEWELL, TULLIS, BURR, RUSSELL and HENDRICKS) migrated to what are now Warren and Clinton Counties in OH in 1800 and 1799, respectively. At least two sources tell those of us researching these families that they left their farms in what is now Jefferson Co VA, traveling by wagon on the Braddock Road to Pittsburgh, thence by flatboat down the Ohio River to Columbia at the mouth of the Little Miami River. Then they went to Beedle's Station. Not surprisingly, they left no records of their migration in the form of daily journals or diaries that we have ever discovered. We have documented many facts about the families at both ends of their journey. (Land records, burial, and church records, etc.) We have a pretty good understanding of why and how they migrated. But we have little (really nothing) about their actual migration. Through the years I have become more and more interested in trying "to breathe some life" into my undertstanding of their journey. I have collected many pictures and sketches of flatboats, have visited several riverboat museums along the Ohio, have searched early Pittsburgh newspapers, and have read and re-read a few books and several published articles about Ohio River flatboat travelers. I have copies of only two published diaries that provide some detailed insight into the daily lives of people making this trek. I keep wanting more. Since there were thousands of Ohio and Kentucky bound families that made the journey down the Ohio River in the period from the 1780s to the 1840s, I assume that there are probably many persons on this list who would have an interest in what the trek was like for their ancestors. Perhaps, you know this already because some of your ancestors wrote down their experiences. I keep hoping that I might find more diaries or journals or bits and pieces of notes written by those early pioneers. Perhaps some of your ancestors drew pcitures of what they saw along the river. If you share this interest or have notes or any other information in your files that would help me learn more, please let me know. There is only a very, very slim chance that we will ever know what happened to Abigail, but we can learn more about possible circumstances that may have surrounded her disappearance. John Cowan of Baltimore, MD johncowan@aol.com