Rafting Cotton from Bastrop to Matagorda. (original) (raw)

Hard to imagine Bastrop as an inland port, but during the 1840s and continuing through the Civil War, Central Texans saw the Colorado River not so much as a source of drinking water or place to fish as a transportation artery connecting them with the Gulf of Mexico.

That never happened in a big way, but for a couple of decades people and commodities did travel downstream from Bastropto Matagorda, the coastal town at the mouth of the river.

Years after the last vessel carried freight on the Colorado, a German immigrant named Cayton Erhard wrote a letter to the Bastrop Advertiser recalling his experiences in a rafting enterprise that once operated there.

Cotton reigned as the primary commodity shipped by river from Bastrop. But while Bastrop had its beginning in the 1830s, Erhard said settlers in the county didn�t start growing cottonin any quantity until 1841. Once area landowners finally got serious about that crop, by the fall of 1842, they had produced enough fiber to keep three gins busy.

The other commodity particular to Bastropwas loblolly pine, a fast-growing evergreen that could reach 90 feet. The only such tall timber found in the central part of the state, lumber from Bastropbuilt many a house or commercial establishment.

The problem was getting the cotton and timber to market. Roads amounted to nothing more than wagon ruts and travel was both slow and dangerous. On the other hand, except during extreme dry spells, the Colorado flowed from the new capital city of Austin all the way to the Gulf � nearly 300 winding miles.

At some point, an innovative thinker whose name has been lost to history came up with a very good idea: Use Bastrop�s timber to get its cotton to the buyer. As Erhard explained in his letter, by 1843, planters had begun sending their crop to Matagordaon large rafts made of pine logs tied together. When these rafts made it downstream to Matagorda, growers or their representatives exchanged the cottonfor sugar processed from sugarcane common in the area. And once the cottonhad been off-loaded, the timber used for the rafts got bartered for other goods.

Erhard wrote from experience.

�In the summer of 1843,� he said in his letter, �I was employed in one of those raft-cotton exportation enterprises. That is, I drove the horses belonging to the men managing the raft, so that they could return after arriving at Matagorda.�

Since Republic of Texas money had little value, his compensation would be sugar, literally a sweet deal.

�I went certain distances, as far as the manager thought the raft would reach by river,� Erhard explained. �There I had to camp, cook my supplies and feed or stake out the men�s horses on the grass overnight, and next morning start on again.�

Erhard made it about 20 miles below La Grange before learning from the manager that the raft had become grounded in too-shallow water and that they would have to wait for a rise in the river before proceeding. Before that happened, he ended up getting sick and had to return to Bastrop. That concluded his short venture into river commerce, even though he had been on the dry side of the business.

In addition to the pine log rafts, some shallow-draft steamboats did navigate the river. However, flatboats and rafts were more common. One vessel, the Kate Ward, even made it as far upstream as Austin, but that city fell far short of St. Louis or New Orleans when it came to riverboat traffic.

Ironically, the biggest impediment to navigation of the Colorado was another form of raft � one built by nature, not man. A mass of submerged and floating timber, washed downstream over the decades, had choked off the river for up to 25 miles upstream. When cotton rafts or other vessels reached the beginning of the huge raft, cargoes had to be loaded onto wagons for the rest of the trip to Matagorda.

The Republic of Texas government chartered two companies to break up the giant barrier on the river, and later, the state government sought to have a new channel dug around the bottleneck. None of these efforts proved successful, however.

Despite the massive logjam, commerce from Bastropand other towns along the Colorado continued through the Civil War. By then it had become obvious that rail transportation trumped the river in reliability.

As for Erhard, also noted in Texas history for the two years he spent in a Mexican prison after his capture during the ill-fated 1841 Santa Fe Expedition, he moved from Bastropto San Marcosin 1847. There, in addition to playing a role in organizing Hays County, he opened a drug and notions store considered the first such business in Texas.

Moving back to Bastrop in 1865, he reopened the drug store there and it remained in operation well into the 20th century. Erhard died on July 21, 1884 a few days short of his 62nd birthday and lies buried in Bastrop�s Fairview Cemetery.

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