According to most dictionaries, “bateau” and the plural “bateaux” are the French words for a type of boat. …Some dictionaries show “batteau” as an alternate [spelling]. The Oxford English Dictionary, 1961 Edition, lists this latter as “less correctly.” It also lists other derivations from the Italian “batello” and “batto;” from Medieval Latin “battelus,” “battus,” and from Old English as “bat” boat. It lists examples from America of the alternate “batteau” as early as 1759. James Fenimore Cooper used this spelling in 1823 and Thoreau in 1848. The Century Magazine in 1884 listed the French spelling “bateau.” The World Book Encyclopedia, 1977 Edition, lists “bateau,” but shows “batteau” as the (American and English) form taken from the French “bateau.”

The James River Batteau originated with Anthony [and Benjamin] Rucker of Amherst County, Virginia, about 1771. … Thomas Jefferson, no mean scholar, vouched for the Rucker claim to developing this type of boat. His only published book, Notes on the State of Virginia, was done in 1781, and first privately printed in France in 1785 with a public printing in 1787, two years after he became minister to France. In spite of his residence in France and familiarity with the French language, he lists these boats as “batteaux.”

In 1785 the state organized the James River Company. Edmund Randolph was acting –president of the company, and he was followed by Dr. William Foushee, both scholarly, well-educated men. The official company records are clear and explicit and consistently use the term “batteaux.” The great majority of the boats in use were “batteaux,” and are recorded in several sources as numbering 1,000 or more.

In 1835 the James River and Kanawha Company was formed as a canal company to replace the old river navigation company with Joseph C. Cabell as the first president. An extremely able and well-educated man, he traveled widely in Europe and visited canals in France and England. The extensive and detailed annual reports and minutes to the directors’ meetings of the Company, both during his tenure as president and later, refer to the riverboats still in use as “batteaux.”

Edited by Minnie Lee McGehee for River Boat Echoes