Chapter XXIX
Killing Steamboats
The upper Mississippi has always been, comparatively, a remarkably healthy stream for steamboats. A great proportion of the craft ending their days there, have died of old age, and have been decorously consigned to the scrap pile instead of meeting the tragic end usually assigned them by writers. In many cases where it is supposed or known that a steamboat of a certain name met destruction by fire or snag, the historian who attempts to verify such statement will have great difficulty in deciding just which boat bearing the name was the victim of that particular casualty. The fact is, that the same name was conferred, time after time, on boats built to take the place of those sunk, burned, or otherwise put out of commission. As early as 1840 there was the "Pike No. 8" on the lower river, indicating that there had been a procession of "Pikes." There was also, at the same time, the "Ben Franklin No. 7." Boats thus named were called simply "Pike" or "Ben Franklin", the number not appearing on the wheelhouses, save in rare cases. All the other "Pikes" having gone to the bottom, there was but one "Pike" afloat. When reference was ordinarily made to the boat by that name, the auditors knew at once that the speaker referred to the boat then in commission. But should you mention that "When the "Pike" or the "Ben Franklin" was snagged, or burned, or blew up", in order fully to be understood you must designate the particular "Pike", and add such other details, as would leave no room for doubt which boat by that name you referred to, thus: "Pike No. 6 snagged at such a tow-head, or on such a bend; or burned in the year 1839 at Hannibal."
Steamboat owners and captains seem to have had no superstitious objections to thus naming or commanding a successor to the unfortunate one gone before. Before the first was comfortably settled in the mud of the Mississippi, an order had gone on to the shipyard, and in less than a week the keel was on the stocks for its successor. If the first was a "Galena", or a "War Eagle", the second also was a "Galena" or a "War Eagle". This was before the fashion came into vogue of naming boats after persons, instead of impersonal objects. There were not names enough to go around, and thus it came about that the "Warriors", "Post Boys", "Telegraphs", and "War Eagles" were worked overtime, to the great confusion of any one attempting to localize a disaster that had happened to one of that name in times past. It was possible to read to-day of the total loss of the "War Eagle", for instance; yet a month or more hence you might hear of the arrival of the "War Eagle" at St. Paul with a full cargo and passenger list. The boats might go to the bottom, but the names went on forever. "Post Boy" was another favorite name handed down from boat to boat, until seven or eight "Post Boys" had been launched, run their appointed courses, and met their fate, all within the span of less than forty years—an average of about five years to the boat—which was a good average for old-time steamers. On the upper river there were, among others, three "Burlingtons", two "Chippewas", two "Danubes", two "Denmarks", two "Dr. Franklins", three "Dubuques", two "Galenas", three "St. Pauls", three "War Eagles", and many others, doublets and triplets. All of which tends much to confuse one who is attempting to run down and locate the history and final disposition of boats bearing those names.
So far as I can learn, there is no reliable record of all the losses on the upper river, giving the name of the boat, where, when, and how lost. It is possible that the final disposition of boats lost above St. Louis, is as fully covered in the list appended to the end of this book, as anywhere else extant. Such a record has been made for the Missouri River by Captain M. H. Chittenden, of the United States Engineers—a very complete and historically valuable statement of the losses on that stream. Other records are too comprehensive, attempting to give all the losses through the entire length of the river, from New Orleans to St. Paul. While covering so much more, territorially, they lack in the detail that makes the compilation of real worth.
Most writers attach particular stress to boiler explosions, probably from the fact that they are more spectacular, and the consequent loss of life usually greater. When a boat is snagged, it is generally possible to run her ashore in time to save the passengers and crew, although the vessel itself may prove a total loss. When a boiler explodes, the boat becomes immediately helpless, so that it cannot be run ashore, which occasions the considerable loss of life. In cases of explosion, also, the boat almost invariably burns in the middle of the river, and there is little chance for escape; for it is next to impossible to reach the lifeboats carried on the roof, and if reached it is seldom found possible to launch them.
Before considering the reported losses on all the Western waters it will be interesting to locate, as far as possible, the casualties on the Mississippi between St. Louis and St. Paul, the division or section of the river usually denominated as "upper". In my list of upper-river boats,[10] there are noted all losses of which I have found any record. The list comprises about three hundred and sixty steamers that have made one or more trips above Rock Island. The boats plying above St. Louis, but not going above the upper rapids, have not been included in this list, thus excluding all the Alton Line vessels, and the Illinois River craft. Of the three hundred and sixty boats so listed, there are to be found records of seventy-three losses between St. Louis and St. Paul, including the port of St. Louis, which has been a veritable graveyard for steamboats. About a dozen other boats were lost after going into the Missouri River trade, but these are not included in the number stated. The record extends over the period between 1823 and 1863, inclusive. An analysis of the causes of such losses shows that thirty-two boats were snagged and sunk (total losses only are included; those raised, are not counted as losses); sixteen were burned; ten were sunk by ice; five were stove in by hitting rocks, and sank; three sank by striking bridges; three were sunk by Confederate batteries during the war; two were lost from boiler explosions; one was torn to pieces by a tornado, and one struck a wreck of another boat and sank on top of the first wreck.
What became of the other boats included in the list, I am unable to learn. The United States government appears never to have printed a report (or reports) showing the fate of the hundreds of steamboats over which it maintained an official watch-care while they were in active service. It would seem to have paid more attention to boiler explosions than to any other cause of disaster; for the reason, possibly, that it is supposed to have held itself, through its inspectors, more or less responsible for the condition of steam boilers. Still, as it also, through another set of inspectors, looks after the hulls of all steamboats, there would seem to be no reason why the loss of boats by snagging, or other similar causes affecting the hulls, should not also have been reported.
It will be observed that nearly one-half the known losses on the upper river between 1823 and 1863 were the result of snagging. Captain Chittenden, in his report on steamboat losses on the Missouri from 1842 to 1897, gives the snags credit for catching 193 boats out of a total loss of 295, or two-thirds of all known losses. Owing to its alluvial banks, and the consequent eating away of wooded points and islands by the ever changing current of that most erratic of rivers, the bed of the stream was literally sown with snags. The wonder of it is, that a pilot was able ever to take a boat up and back a thousand miles, without hitting a snag and losing his boat. They did it, however, although the record of losses from that cause serves to show how imminent the danger was at all times, and how many came to grief, however sharp the eyes of the pilot, or however skilled in reading the surface of the water and locating the danger.
The upper Mississippi has more miles of rock bluffs—in fact, is lined with such bluffs from Keokuk to St. Paul; thus the wear and tear of its banks is not so great as on the Missouri. Still, the great number of islands, heavily wooded, furnish many sunken trees, and one-half of the steamboat loss on this river is also directly traceable to snags.
Next to the snags, which are forever reaching out their gnarled arms to impale the unfortunate, fire is the greatest enemy of steamboat property on Western waters. Built of the lightest and most combustible pine, soaked with oil paint, the upper works are like tinder when once alight, and danger of this is ever present in a hundred different forms. A little explosion in the furnaces, throwing live coals over the deck; over-heated smokestacks, communicating a blaze to the roof; careless passengers or crew, throwing half-burned matches on deck or into inflammable merchandise in the freight; or the mass of sparks, cinders, and live coals continuously falling from the stacks, especially when burning wood in the furnaces: all these are a constant menace, and with a blaze once started the chances are a hundred to one that the boat is lost. A lighted match thrown into a haymow can scarcely bring quicker results than a little blaze in the upper works of a steamboat. It flashes up in an instant, and the draft generated by the progress of the boat instantly carries it the length of the cabin. In fifteen minutes the upper works are gone. Sixteen Mississippi boats out of seventy were burned; twenty-five of 295, on the Missouri. As in losses from ice, so also by fire, St. Louis has been the storm centre, and for the same reason namely, the great number of boats there, both summer and winter. Several visitations from this most dreaded and dreadful enemy of steamboats are recorded in the history of river navigation, in which two or more boats were lost while at the St. Louis landing. But the one which is known far and wide on Western waters was of such magnitude, and the property loss so great, as to earn for it the title of the "Great Fire".