Hi Jo Ellen,
If you have learned anything, I am very interested also. This could use a study group. So far, I have never seen passenger lists. I had looked at this before due to an ancestor working on a boat. Don't know which kind though, my time period takes it into steamboats. I have seen captains list for some of those-available online.

I recently purchased a book Afloat on the Ohio by Reuben Gold Thwaites. It is a reprint of an 1897 edition -6 week float by skiff from Redstone, Penn. to Cairo, IL. His appendix lists many journals from trips dated from 1750-1876. Some of the names in the Appendix are :
Christopher Gist
George Washington*best on subject in author's estimation
Harry Gordon
T. Pownall
Thomas Hutchins
Thaddeus Mason Harris*trip by flatboat
and much more.

I will be checking to see if any of these published journals are still available.

I have a google search running - I used flat boat ohio river migration. There is a lot to read with 17,900 links.

On the following website:

http://www.eswp.com/PDF/PEfall05_13-15.pdf

I learned the following:
"The pioneers
gained access to the Allegheny
River at Olean, the Conemaugh
River at Johnstown, the
Youghiogheny River at West Newton,
the Monongahela River at
Brownsville or the Ohio River at
Pittsburgh, Wellsburg or Wheeling.
In 1788, 323 boats passed down the
Ohio, carrying 5,885 people, 2,714
horses, 937 cattle, 245 sheep, 24
hogs and 267 wagons."

This is a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers-Pittsburgh article. Records must have been kept somwhere for them to have the #s anyway.

Finding your posting was of great help to me.
Thank you very much!
Deb