DCHP-1 Online

setting-pole † Hist.

• n. a long pole, often tipped with iron or steel, used for pushing or guiding a canoe or other boat in narrow or shallow streams.

  See also: canoe pole  pole ((n.))  push-pole (def. 2)  

  • 1768-82  (1791)  Where the water is shallow, the canoes must be forced upward with long setting poles. . . .
  • 1798  (1918)  Each canoe was provided with a mast and lug-sail, and also each man had a ten-foot setting pole, of good ash, shod with an iron ferrule at each end. . . .
  • 1853  . . . for, although the spring floods were considerably abated, the water ran with great rapidity, and in some places was up to our middles; but with the help of a strong setting-pole, we got over with safety.
  • 1933  The setting poles were thrown away at the height of land since they were not necessary on the journey downstream.