SOLVED. Children's book - old-timey setting, abandoned riverboat, intrigue. [s]

[Elise]

My fourth grade teacher read this to my class in the mid-1990s.

It was historical children's fiction, and it involved a family (?) with kids who were traveling or moving through the Mississippi or Missouri river area (?) and uncover some kind of abandoned riverboat in the woods. Possibly it's grounded, or cut off from the main river somehow. There are possibly bad guys on the boat, and the point of the story may be to get the boat running again. Also, I vaguely recall a plot point about the characters needing to get the boat across state lines, or needing to do something before the territory they're in achieves official statehood. State stuff was involved somehow. Maybe county stuff.

Vague enough? If anyone recognizes this, I will be forever grateful.

[Kathryn]

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Just a guess. I believe that there is a grounded river boat at one point and they are running away across state lines. Also, I think I read this quite young.

[Elise]

Kathryn wrote: "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Just a guess. I believe that there is a grounded river boat at one point and they are running away across state lines. Also, I think I read this qu..."

No, thanks for the guess, but I've read Huckleberry Finn, and it's definitely not the book I'm thinking of, though they did have their similarities.

[Rowan]

i can't remember if the plot matches up but its worth suggesting it, the thing i immediately thought of was 'journey to the river sea' by eva ibbotson

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Journey to the River Sea for Rosanna's link.

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Elise, are you still looking for this or did you find it?

[Angela]

Humbug Mountain by Sid Fleischman?

From Kirkus:

"Sid Fleischman's zest for frontier foolishment and humbug is at full steam in this story of an itinerant newspaperman's family heading for their own six lots in the new city of Sunshine, planned and executed by their steamboat-captain grandfather. But instead of the fancy hotel and opera house pictured on the Sunshine litho, the Flints find only an abandoned riverboat , stranded when the Missouri River jumped its banks, moved over, and made Sunshine a premature ghost town by landing it in the dry state of Nevada where taverns aren't allowed. A summary would be unfair as Fleischman's lively incidentals dovetail too neatly to be abstracted--but the family does settle down on the riverboat , and at the end the digging gold miners that young Wiley Flint has inadvertently attracted to Sunshine cause the Missouri to shift back--with the following results: Sunshine is back in wet Dakota Territory and thus back in business; shifty Mr. Chitwood with his Nebraska claim to Sunshine property is drummed out of town; and rapscallious Shagnasty John and his sidekick the Fool Killer are foiled in their scheme to ambush Grandfather's new boat and its cargo of gold. Tarnatious fun all the way. (Kirkus Reviews, October 1, 1978)"

[Elise]

Angela wrote: " Humbug Mountain by Sid Fleischman?

From Kirkus:

"Sid Fleischman's zest for frontier foolishment and humbug is at full steam in this..."

I haven't been back to GoodReads in ages, so I'm just seeing this, but that's it! Thank you!