“Jabe Knuckles!” shouted Mike*, “one of them Philadelphy noospapers you've got sorted away, tells about a York feller that's got a steam fixin' to take boats up rivers without hand, hoss, or hawser! I reckon he'll never try 'ginst this water, eh?””
[Field, Last of the Boatmen, Half Horse Half Alligator: The Growth of the Mike Fink Legend, Blair, Meine eds., 1956]
Published in serial form by Field's own St. Louis Reveille c.1842

The old Mississippi is long time gone. It has been civil engineered from end-to-end. Back in the day…

Much of the upper river turned into an ice road in the winter. By late fall it was drying out. You'd be walking alongside if there was enough draft to float your hull at all.

The lower river meandered all over the place every spring flood. Once it calmed down a tad one could actually drift upstream on the back eddies by crossing from bank-to-bank to keep on the inside of the 'ox bows.' Regardless, that was where all the upstream bushwhacking, cordelling, poling, rowing, sailing &c&c happened. Not head-on against the mainstream.

*Fwiw: Mike Fink has been dubbed king of the keelboaters.