bowsmen

Two men, called bowsmen, remain at the prow to assist, in concert with the steersman, in managing the boat and keeping its head right against the current.

The Paths of Inland Commerce; a chronicle of trail, road, and waterway Archer Butler Hulbert 1903

New leggings, of holiday pattern, were intermittently visible on the bowsmen and steersmen as they half rose to give added force to their efforts.

The Call of the North Stewart Edward White 1909

New leggings, of holiday pattern, were intermittently visible on the bowsmen and steersmen as they half rose to give added force to their efforts.

Conjuror's House A Romance of the Free Forest Stewart Edward White 1909

On board were one steersman, two bowsmen, two cooks, and one hunter, who had two men with him and three horses.

Forty years a fur trader on the upper Missouri: the personal narrative of Charles Larpenteur, 1833-1872 1898

Masses of ice, impelled by the current and blast, were only kept from colliding with the boat by the artillerymen, who, with the rammers and sponges of the guns, thrust them back, while the bowsmen in the tractive boats had much ado to keep a space clear for the oars to swing.

Janice Meredith Paul Leicester Ford 1883

The bowsmen pushed the boat a sufficient distance for the oars to be lengthwise dropped.

The Piazza Tales Herman Melville 1855

(bowsmen and steersmen) determined on wading down with the canoes, the water being shallow, until they should come close to the fall; where, by lifting them across a narrow point, they could place them in the smooth water beneath.

Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory Volume I. John M'lean

" I supposed that many of the bowsmen on the wall, from the safety of the crenelation, were continuing tenaciously, following their original orders, to seal off, as they could, the walkway, keeping the pen closed, so to speak.

Renegades Of Gor Norman, John 1986