May 24, 2021 By Keith Norrington
With the spotlight on St. Louis for this week’s eighth annual Inland Marine Expo, the Old Boat Column presents a riverboat that was a favorite of the host city.
Never in a class with the palatial sidewheelers such as the J.M. White and Grand Republic, the Golden Eagle was, nevertheless, one of the best-known riverboats of all time. The sprightly sternwheeler made national news when it sank, 74 years ago this month, on May 18, 1947. With Capt. Nathan Smith at the wheel, the Golden Eagle struck a riprap revetment at the head of Grand Tower Island, 80 miles south of St. Louis, tearing a 6-foot gash in the hull. The accident was attributed to failure of the steering gear, which caused the rudders to jam.
May 7, 2021 By Keith Norrington
Built at Marietta, Ohio, in 1896, the first steam towboat Catharine Davis had a hull constructed of Oregon fir that was 135 feet long and 26.5 feet wide. The engines, built by the Marietta Manufacturing Company, had cylinders of 10 and 17.5 inches, with a stroke of six feet.
Owned by Capt. Steve Davis, of Marietta, the vessel was named for his mother. Capt. Davis did job towing and had also owned the towboats J.H. McConnell, Jim McConnell and John Mills. The boat arrived at Pittsburgh on its first trip on June 12, 1896.
The Davis was sold to the Smiley Towboat Company, of Catlettsburg, Ky., on March 15, 1901, and was used to tow timber out of the Big Sandy until the sternwheeler was purchased by the Island Creek Coal Company at Huntington, W.Va. The firm operated the vessel between Huntington and Cincinnati, rebuilding the boat in 1916. Capt. James Rose was an early master of the Davis
April 5, 2021 By Keith Norrington
In previous Old Boat Columns throughout the past 10 years, we have presented various large and notably palatial cotton packets, such as the Belle of the Bends that ran on the Lower Mississippi mainly in the Vicksburg region. Today we focus upon several of the smaller steamboats that faithfully served the Yazoo River trade.
On the left in the main image is the Alice Miller, built at the Howard Shipyard in Jeffersonville, Ind., in 1904 for a cost of $9,000. Constructed on a wood hull measuring 130 feet in length by 27 feet in width, the sternwheeler, originally named Frank B. Hayne, was built for John P. Parker, of Monroe, La., to run on the Ouachita as well as the Boeuf River, a tributary of the Ouachita that flows for 216 miles through Louisiana and Arkansas.
Portrait (artist unknown) of James Howard, 1814-1876. (Courtesy of the Howard Steamboat Museum)
On October 14, 1876, James Howard was aboard the Louisville-Jeffersonville ferry John Shallcross. Headed home after a day of tending to business on the Kentucky side of the Ohio, James remained seated in his carriage during the crossing. Allegedly, the whistle of the ferry startled the horse, which backed the carriage forcefully against a gate that had not been properly latched, sending the buggy, horse and passenger into the river. Witnesses said that they saw Howard surface one time as he attempted to release the harness of the horse before sinking from sight.
Long before bridges connected Jeffersonville and Louisville, steamboats played a key role in the local economy, and Howard Steamboat Museum education assistant Kadie Engstrom is determined to preserve its history and teach people both locals and visitors alike about the Howard family.
When one visits the museum, she says, “you get a sense that this was a massive part of American history in its time. The use of steamboats, the building of steamboats, and the building of the economy of the country through waterways is all part of this story.”
Bringing the boats inside
James Howard founded the family shipyard in 1834, Engstrom said. When he passed away, his son Edmonds took over and it was Edmonds and his wife, Laura, who built the gargantuan Richardsonian Romanesque Victorian mansion in Jeffersonville right on the Ohio River.