Packet boats were small boats designed for domestic mail, passenger and freight transportation in Europe and its colonies, including North American rivers and canals. They were extensively used for much of the 18th century and in the 19th century, and featured regularly scheduled service.
When ships were put into such service in the 18th century across the Atlantic Ocean between Great Britain and the colonies, services were called the packet trade.
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Packet craft were used so extensively in European coastal mail services since the 17th century, such as the Dutch service to Batavia in 1670s,[1] that by the second decade they are even found to be a subject of Daniel Defoe's story Sail in packet-boat to Rotterdam. In England the King maintained a weekly packet service with the continent and Ireland using 15 packet vessels.[2] Their importance was evident in the Rose Hill Packet becoming the first craft built in the colony of New South Wales in 1789. In North America, when the Erie Canal opened in New York state in 1825 along the Mohawk River, demand quickly rose for travelers to be accommodated.
Over the two centuries of the sailing packet craft development, they came in various rig configurations which included: schooners, sloops, cutters, brigs, brigantines, luggers, feluccas, galleys, xebecs, barques and their ultimate development in the clipper ships. Earlier they were also known as dispatch boats, but the service was also provided by privateers during time of war, and on occasion chartered private yachts. News of "record passages" was eagerly awaited by the public, and the craft's captain and crew were often celebrated in the press. Behind this search for sailing faster than the wind however lay the foundations for a development in naval architecture and its science which would serve until the appearance of the steam vessels.
The American canal packet boats were typically narrow (about 14 feet) to accommodate canals, but might be 70–90 feet long. In the cabin space they could carry up to 60 passengers. Unlike sailing European and American that sought to attain greater speed under sail, the canal packet boats were drawn through the Erie Canal by teams of two or three horses or mules. Compared to overland travel, the boats cut journey time in half and were much more comfortable. Travelers could get from New York City to Buffalo in ten days, with a combination of sailing and packet boats. Some passengers took the boats to see both the Erie Canal and the natural landscapes. Significantly, thousands of others used packet boats to emigrate to Ohio and other parts of the Midwest. These boats were also instrumental in the settling of and travel within Upstate New York through the branch canals such as the Chenango Canal. Packet boats were also popular along the James River and Kanawha Canal in Virginia, allowing travel beyond the falls upriver.
In 1863, during the Civil War, the packet boat Marshall carried the body of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson from Lynchburg to his home in Lexington, Virginia for burial.[3]
