Chapter XXI
Steamboat Bonanzas
How it was possible to derive any profit from an investment of from $20,000 to $40,000, the principal of which had an average tenure of life of but five years, has puzzled a great many conservative business men from "down east", where "plants" lasted a lifetime, and the profits from which may have been sure, but were certain to be small. A man educated in such an atmosphere would hesitate long, before investing $25,000 in a steamboat that was foreordained to the scrap pile at the end of five summers; or where one out of every two was as certainly predestined to go up in smoke or down into the mud of the river bottom at the end of four years—these periods representing the ordinary life of a Mississippi River steamboat.
From 1849 to 1862 the shipyards of the Ohio, where nine out of ten Western boats were built, could not keep up with the orders. Every available shipwright was employed, and on some boats gangs worked at night by the light of torches at double wages, so great was the demand. Every iron foundry was likewise driven to the limit to turn out engines, boilers, and other machinery with which to give life to the hulls that were growing as if by magic in every shipyard.
If there had not been profit in the business, the captains and other river men who gave orders for these craft would not have given them. By far the greater number of boats were built for individual owners—practical river men who navigated the boats, and who knew just what they were about. Many of the orders were given to replace vessels that had been snagged or burned within the past twenty-four hours—for time was money, and a man could not afford to be without a steamboat many weeks, when twenty weeks or less represented a new boat in net earnings. These men knew from actual experience that if they could keep their craft afloat for two years they could build a new boat from the profits made with her, even if she sank or burned at the end of that time. If she kept afloat for four years, they could buy or build two or three new ones from the profits, even without the aid of insurance. As a matter of fact the boats carrying insurance in those days were the exceptions. It came high, and owners preferred to take their own chances rather than indulge to any great extent in that luxury. How such profits were earned and such results obtained, it will be the object of this chapter to disclose.
In those days every boat made money. A big and fast one made a great deal; those small and slow made little as compared with their larger rivals, but plenty as compared with their own cost. Perhaps most vessel owners began on a small scale. A little boat might cost $5,000. She would run on some tributary of the Great River, and in the absence of any railroads might control all the traffic she was capable of handling, and at her own rates. In the course of two or three years her owner was able to build a bigger and a better boat. By combining with some other river man, the two might build one costing $25,000, and carrying from a hundred and fifty to two hundred tons of freight, and passengers in proportion. With such an equipment there was a fortune in sight at any time between 1849 and 1862, provided always that the boat was not snagged or burned on her first trip.
The doctrine (or science) of averages, is peculiar. In order to get an average of four years for a steamboat's life, it is necessary to keep some of them afloat for nine or ten; while on the other hand you are certain to "kill" a lot of them within a year after they touch water. When the latter happens, the investment is lost and the owner is probably ruined.
For purposes of illustration we will take as a sample one from the best class of money-makers on the upper river, in the flush times of 1857. Minnesota was organized as a territory in 1849, and admitted as a state in 1858. From 1852 to 1857 there were not boats enough to carry the people who were flocking into this newly-opened farmers' and lumbermen's paradise. There were over a hundred and twenty-five different steamboats registered at St. Paul in the latter year. The boats carrying good cargoes all through the season were the money-makers. Some of the larger ones were unable to get over the sand-bars after the midsummer droughts began. The stern-wheel boat of two hundred to three hundred tons was the one that could handle a good cargo on little water, and represented the highest type of profit-earning craft.
Such a boat would be about 200 feet long, 30 feet beam, and five feet depth of hold. She would have three large iron boilers (steel not having entered largely into boiler construction at that time), and fairly large engines, giving her good speed without an excessive expenditure for fuel. She would cost from $25,000 to $30,000, and accommodate two hundred cabin passengers comfortably, with a hundred second-class people on deck.
With such a boat furnished and ready for business, it is the duty of the captain to go out and hire his crew, and fit her out for a month's work. Such an investment in 1857, on the upper river, would approximate the following figures:
| Per month | |
| Captain | $ 300.00 |
| Chief clerk | 200.00 |
| Second clerk | 100.00 |
| Chief mate | 200.00 |
| Second mate | 100.00 |
| Pilots (2 at $500.00) | 1,000.0 |
| Chief engineer | 200.00 |
| Second engineer | 150.00 |
| Firemen (8 at $50.00) | 400.00 |
| Steward | 200.00 |
| Carpenter | 150.00 |
| Watchman | 50.00 |
| Deck hands (40 at $50.00) | 2,000.00 |
| Cabin crew | 800.00 |
| Food supplies ($75.00 per day, 30 days) | 2,250.00 |
| Wood (25 cords per day, 30 days, at $2.50) | 2,000.00 |
| Sundries | 1,400.00 |
| ———— | |
| $11,500.00 |