Old Times on the Upper Mississippi / The Recollections of a Steamboat Pilot from 1854 to 1863

by George Byron Merrick

"Most of the river pilots are possessed of but little knowledge beyond that required in turning the wheel; and their obstinacy in refusing to recognize and take advantage of good channels cut for them has been the experience of more than one engineer engaged in improving rivers. The rapids pilots in particular, who may lose employment, seemed to be the most hostile."

The last-named class were certainly sound in their conclusions that the deepening, straightening and lighting of the rapids would take away their business. There is, therefore, little wonder that they were not enthusiastic in their support of the proposed improvements, which were, if successful, to deprive them of the means of livelihood. Perhaps the gentlemen of the engineer corps would not be enthusiastic over a proposition to disband the United States army, and muster out all its officers. The results justified the fears of the rapids pilots. Any pilot could take his boat over, after the improvements were completed, and rapids piloting, as a distinctive business, was very nearly wiped out.

The slur of the West Pointer loses its point, however, with any one who has known many Mississippi River pilots. They knew a great many things besides "turning the wheel." Even had they known only that, they carried around under their hats special knowledge not to be sneezed at, even by a West Pointer. Later, all the men on the river came to recognize the benefits accruing from the work of the Mississippi River Commission, and none more heartily testified to the success of the work than the pilots and masters of the river craft. There were, indeed, none so well qualified to judge of results as they.

The work once begun was prosecuted with vigor. The voice of the great Northwest was potent in Washington, and in the ten years from 1866 to 1876 more than five millions of dollars were expended between Minneapolis and the mouth of the Missouri.[9]

The first thought of the government engineers to whom was entrusted the duty of improving the river, was naturally in the direction of securing and maintaining a greater depth of water. This was to be accomplished by so curbing and controlling the flow that it would follow the channel decided upon, at all times and under all conditions. The dikes and wing dams, which were built by the hundred, served this purpose in a degree, and the flow of water was controlled to a fairly satisfactory extent.

Then the menaces to navigation were considered, and measures taken for their elimination. Of the two hundred and ninety-five recorded steamboat wrecks on the Missouri River between 1842 and 1895, a hundred and ninety-three, or about two-thirds of all, were by snagging. I presume this proportion would be maintained on the upper Mississippi, if a similar compilation were at hand to decide the point. The problem was to get rid of this greatest of all dangers to steamboats. There was but one way, and that was to pull them out and carry them away, or cut them up and so dispose of them that the same snag would not have to be pulled out at each recurring rise of water, from other parts of the river.

Having no steamboats fitted for the business in that early day (1866), the contract system was resorted to. This was found to be costly and unsatisfactory. Contractors agreed to remove snags at so much per snag, within certain lengths and estimated weights, they furnishing the steamboats and machinery necessary for the work. In order to make the business pay, they had to find snags, somewhere. When they were not to be found in or near the channel, they were obtained in any place—chutes, bayous, and sloughs where no steamboat ever ran, or ever would run. After a trip or two up and down the river, there were not enough snags left to make the pulling profitable, and of course the work was given over. But the first rise brought down a new supply of snags to lodge in the channel of the falling river, and pilots set to dodging them, just as they had done before the pulling began. To be of the highest efficiency, the work must be continuous. This was deemed impossible under the contract system, and the engineers in charge recommended the purchase of two suitable steamboats for the upper river, to be fitted with improved machinery for lifting and disposing of the snags fished out of the river. These boats were to be manned and officered by the government, and placed in charge of an engineer detailed by the War Department. They were continuously to patrol the river during the season of navigation, removing every snag as soon as located, assisting steamboats in distress, cutting overhanging trees, placing guide-boards and crossing lights where needed, maintaining the same after being established, and giving their whole time and attention to the work of river improvement. This suggestion was carried into effect, and two steamboats purchased and fitted for the work.

In 1866 Colonel Dodge, of the Corps of Engineers, who had had large experience in the work of river improvement, realizing the necessity for dredging the shoalest places, in addition to directing the water by dikes and dams, invented a dredge to be attached to a steamboat, and operated by steam machinery, for the purpose of plowing out and scraping away the sand as it accumulated on the worst bars and reefs. Two or three experimental machines were built by a St. Paul mechanic upon the order of the United States officials, and under their supervision. These were attached to derricks, placed on the bows of the steamboats secured for the work, suspended by stout chains, and operated by steam. The boat, headed up river, was run to the head of the reef; the dredge was then lowered, and the boat backed downstream in the line of the channel. The dredge, twenty feet wide, stirred up the sand, and the scraper attachment drew it down to the foot of the reef, where the dredge was hoisted up and the current carried away the released sand into deep water. The boat was again run to the head of the reef and the operation repeated, each "scrape" being about the width of the dredge, the pilot so placing his boat each time as exactly to match the last preceding draft, without going over the same ground a second time.

The machine was found to work to perfection, and to be of even greater practical utility in keeping open a navigable channel than the dikes and wing dams, as there is a constant filling in of sand at the foot of every channel artificially formed by contracting the flow of water. The dredge hauls this sand away as it accumulates, and by deepening the water in the channel does much toward attracting the steady flow of water to the particular lines so dredged.