Jane Young looks through storage cabinets that might have been used to store items like dishes. (Photo by Madeline Scarborough)

MARIETTA — According to the Ohio River Museum, eight thousand families lived in shanty boats along the Ohio River, floating from town to town.

However according to museum historian Bill Reynolds, the restored Schoonover Shanty Boat at the Ohio River Museum, which was open for tours Saturday, might be the oldest and possible only surviving shanty boat on the Muskingum River.

Although the boat is always at the museum, it is only open once a year for people to walk around and really see what life in the boat would have been like.

According to the museum, the Schoonover family acquired the shanty boat from a family in Lowell, Ohio in 1968 and used it as a family cottage until it was donated to the Sons and Daughters of Pioneer Rivermen in 2010.

Local residents believe the boat was left high and dry during the 1936 flood and served as a home and fishing cottage until placed at the Ohio River Museum in 2012.

“When we (Reynolds and Jeff Spear, the president of the Sons and Daughters of Pioneer Rivermen) found the shanty, it wasn’t in good shape and looked to be an abandoned fishing shack,” said Reynolds.

Spear then hunted down information on who owned it and reached out about acquiring the shanty.

“We learned that the owner was planning to have it demolished, and was a little surprised we wanted it,” he said.

After stripping it down to the bare shell, saving as many original pieces as possible, the boat was brought to the area for an authentic restoration.

“Things like the hatches, although new, are in the exact placement as before. We didn’t change the layout at all,” he said.

Reynolds said the graceful lines and attention to detail indicate it may have originally been built by someone who had experience in the building of steamboats.

“The construction is very similar to the cabin deck construction of the W.P. Snyder Jr. and indicates that it may have been built in the 1920s,” he said.

Jane Young, who conducted tours Saturday, said she met a lot of people Saturday who asked a lot of great questions.

“Everyone seemed very interesting and it made for a wonderful and informative day,” she said.

Inside the boat there was a small “kitchen” area, some storage, a bunk bed and other items for the era.

“Out back is where they might have hung clothes to dry, housed chickens and even a garden,” said Young.

The Ohio River Museum is now open for visitors Monday to Saturday 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday Noon to 5 p.m. through Labor Day.

After Labor Day the Museum is only open Saturday and Sunday until closing their doors for the season at the conclusion of October.

Madeline Scarborough can be reached at mscarborough@newsandsentinel.com

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What is a shanty boat?

* The boats vary surprisingly in size and architecture. However, most boats averaged thirty feet in length and ten to twelve feet in width. Their light weight construction made them easy to pull with a skiff or drift with the current.

* Many served as homes, housing large families; fishing boats; vacation getaways or a place to escape the summer heat. At one time there were thousands of these small boats on the inland river system, but shanty boat life wasn’t easy and the boats were left high and dry. Often families would find work in town and move away from the river life never returning to their river home. Today they are but a memory.

Source: The Ohio River Museum.