History of Early Steamboat Navigation on the Missouri River, Volume 1 (of 2) / Life and Adventures of Joseph La Barge

by Hiram Martin Chittenden

In case no channel was found by direct trial with the boat, the pilot sent the mate out in a yawl, or more generally went himself, and carefully sounded the entire river over the shallow portion. Having determined where the deepest water lay, he returned to the boat, and if the obstacle were not too great, at once proceeded to move the boat over it. Steaming in the proper direction, as determined from the sounding, he would run the boat as far as she would go. The crew then lowered the huge spars on either side, set them in the sand with the lower ends pointing downstream so that a pull on the lines would both lift the boat and crowd it ahead; then hauled taut the lines, threw them around the capstans, and proceeded to “walk” the boat over the bar. The process was often long and laborious, and instances were not uncommon where one or two days were consumed in this way. An occasional resource, which always puzzled the uninitiated, was to set the wheel going with a reverse motion, as if trying to back the boat. The object of this was to dam the river up slightly and relieve as much as possible the pressure on the bar. The water was sometimes backed in this way up to a height of four inches, and this meant a great deal. The backward power of the wheel was so much less than the forward power of the spars that it was not considered at all. This was one of the scientific aspects of Missouri River navigation.

WARPING OVER RAPIDS.

The few rapids on the river which were too steep for the boat to stem unaided were usually passed by the method of warping. As soon as the boat reached the foot of a rapid she made for the shore. The moment her prow touched the bank a dozen men leaped out and started on the run up along the water’s edge. The foremost carried a pick and spade and a few stakes, the second a stick of timber a little smaller than a railroad tie, and the rest at proper intervals a strong line which was rapidly uncoiled from the boat. Having arrived well beyond the head of the rapid the men proceeded to plant a “dead man”: that is, they dug a trench three or four feet deep in the hard prairie soil, large enough to receive the stick of timber, and with the long dimension at right angles to the river. The timber was then buried and firmly staked down, and the line fastened to it at its middle, while the crew on the boat threw their end of the line around the capstan, which was then slowly wound in under the power of steam. The operation was a very slow one, though less so as a general thing than sparring over sandbars.

Occasionally the pilots encountered genuine whirlpools of such magnitude that steamboats could not cross them. In 1867 the Bishop was swamped in an eddy caused by a new cut-off on the river. The boat was caught at the point where the swift current of the cut-off entered the old channel. At about the same time the Miner narrowly escaped disaster in a violent eddy not far below Sioux City, Ia. The whirl of the water was so swift that the center of the eddy was nearly twelve feet below its circumference. The boat was trying to pull itself by with a line when it was caught by the eddy, swung out into the stream, whirled violently around and careened over until the river flowed right across the lower deck. Wood and all other movable material were swept off, and two men were drowned. Only the mate’s presence of mind in slacking off the line saved the boat.

DANGER FROM INDIANS.

One of the most formidable perils of Missouri navigation during the period from 1860 to 1876 was the hostility of the Indians. The Sioux tribes in particular terrorized the boatmen all along the valley from the Niobrara to Milk River. Many were their actual attacks and many were the lives lost. It became necessary on some voyages to barricade the decks and staterooms, and the most careful vigilance night and day was required in order to avoid disaster.

STEAMBOAT EXPLOSIONS.

An exciting and often dangerous pastime indulged in by the river boats was racing. This was particularly true of the period about 1858, when the boating business was rather overdone and there was great competition in the trade. Racing on the Missouri was very risky in any case, owing to the uncertainty of the channel and the abundance of shags; but the chief danger arose from the temptation to raise the steam pressure above a safe limit. Of all classes of steamboat disasters, the most dreadful were those caused by boiler explosions. There were six of these wrecks in the history of the river, although it is not known that they were all caused by racing. In 1842 the Edna was destroyed at the mouth of the Missouri, and forty-two German emigrants were killed. The most terrible accident was that of the Saluda, April 9, 1852, at Lexington, Mo. The boat was a sidewheeler, with two large boilers, and was on her way up the river with a load of merchandise and many Mormon passengers. The river was very high and the current so strong that the boat could not round the point just above town. After waiting several days without any improvement of the situation, the captain, Francis F. Belt, ordered another trial. Going into the engine room, he inquired how much steam was being carried. The engineer replied that he was carrying every pound that the boilers could stand. The captain recklessly ordered more steam to be made, and declared with an oath that he would round the bend or blow the boat to pieces. He then went above, rang the bell, and ordered the lines cast off. The boat swung into the stream; the engines made but one or two revolutions when the boilers burst with a terrific explosion that blew the boat into splinters and scattered them far and wide. Nearly all the officers were killed, among them the pilot, Charles La Barge, Captain La Barge’s brother, and the second pilot, Louis Guerette, Mrs. La Barge’s brother. It is said that over one hundred bodies were found. Several children who escaped, but had lost their parents, were adopted by the people of Lexington and grew up to be citizens of Missouri instead of Mormon residents of the future State of Utah. The bell of this boat was blown out on the bank while yet it was ringing under the hand of Captain Belt. It was purchased with other wreckage by a resident of Lexington, who sold it to the Christian Church in Savannah, Mo., where it has done duty for the past fifty years.

HUNTERS FOR THE BOATS.

After the time when the boats began to carry passengers in considerable numbers, much more attention was paid to the table fare than in the days when the passenger list was made up almost entirely of men going to service with the fur companies. In those days pork, lyed corn, and navy beans made up the substance of the bill of fare. It was always a rule, when in the Indian country, to rely on game for meat. For this purpose hunters were regularly employed on the various boats, selected for their skill, and never called upon for any other work. The hunter’s custom was to leave the boat about midnight, some three or four hours before she was to start, and to scour the bank of the river, keeping well ahead. Whenever any animal was killed it was hung up in some conspicuous place, and was brought in by the steamboat yawl as the boat came along.