Here sit I at the headwaters of the Ohio, the gateway to the west, and the world's second largest inland port.
Keelboat men played an important part in the history of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. They took settlers west to Ohio, and Illinois. They brought goods south to New Orleans.
They were notorious brawlers, and drinkers. The infamous Mike Fink being a well known example.
Pittsburgh's West End, which was a regular stop for the keelboatmen was known as Temperenceville, because they banned the sale of liquor. It was safer that way.
Zayduck Cramer's Navigator was the keelboatman's guide. You could, apparently, take a boat down the Ohio and the Mississippi with the tiller in one hand and Cramer's Navigator in the other.
Abraham Lincoln took a keelboat down to New Orleans as a young man.

On the boatmen's food, it's interesting to note that the boats that sailed from Pittsburgh always had a cook, generally a woman, who prepared very large, very good meals for the crew.