It worked, but still required a herculean effort—and meant once again every one of us spent the entire day soaking wet. It was mid-afternoon by the time we had all the batteaux through the five-mile-long “Ripples.” Once we arrived at the top, the Kennebec was like a broad, smooth lake. For the first time since leaving Fort Halifax, the batteaux moved in the autumn splendor faster than the “walkers.”

We poled and paddled for several miles, past two small settlements and some single structure farms until we could hear water roaring over the rocks of our next major obstacle—Skowhegan Falls. We pulled off for the night and set up a bivouac next to the river.

Anticipating the challenge tomorrow would bring, Captain Morgan ordered the three companies to break out their tents and use batteaux hauling lines strung among the trees to dry our wet clothing. It was good he did because as the sun was going down, the air temperature dropped with it. By 9:00 p.m., when 1st Lt. Humphrey returned from a walk around the perimeter to check on security, the water bucket outside our tent was frozen solid.

Skowhegan Falls, Maine, on the Kennebec River

Saturday, September 30th, 1775

If anything, this second portage is even worse than our first.

The “walkers” were up and moving in early twilight, aided by a one-eighth waxing moon and a cloudless sky. Captain Morgan held the thirty-one batteaux with five crewmen apiece downstream of the narrow defile churning with white water until thirty “walkers”­—now designated “haulers”—fifteen on each side of the narrow gorge—are in position, ready to toss forty-foot long lines down to the boatmen as they enter the raging torrent below.

On each batteau, the lines are quickly cleated to the rails of the vessel so it can be held in place while the boatmen enter the icy, chest-deep water to push and pull the vessel close to shore where the cargo is off-loaded and carried up above the falls by a working party of fifty Riflemen and two women.

As soon as each 400-pound boat is emptied, the “haulers” drag it up the rocks for the hard part: hoisting it twenty feet straight up the falls to an island along the western shore of the Kennebec.

It took us more than an hour to get the first batteau up to the island. But as my mother taught my brothers and me: Uses promptos facit.2 By noon we were moving four of our boats an hour through the Skowhegan gauntlet.

Because it was nearly dark and bitter cold by the time the last of our thirty-one batteaux arrived at our encampment, Capt. Morgan decided to send our reconnaissance canoe forward in the morning. Once again, we built huge bonfires to dry our clothing, set up our tents, and huddle close to share body heat as the temperature dropped so low, ice formed on the soaking wet cargoes in our batteaux.

Norridgewock Falls, Maine