A SERVICE REWARDED.
On the way up the river this season two Catholic Sisters came on board on a begging visit in the interest of the Chicopee Mission in Minnesota. The Captain gave them passage to Benton and back. They visited Helena and Virginia City, and were very successful. They came back from Helena with the Sanders family and returned to Sioux City. About a month later Captain La Barge received by express a beautiful specimen of needlework handsomely framed, representing St. Joseph. It is still in the possession of the La Barge family.
LA BARGE SELLS HIS BOAT.
After Captain La Barge’s return to St. Louis he entered the Alton trade, and made daily trips in opposition to the Eagle Packet Company. He entered the same trade again in 1874 under an arrangement with John S. McCune, who had long controlled the trade on this part of the river. But in March of this year, while Mr. McCune was in Jefferson City to settle some details in regard to the sale of lands constituting the present Forest Park of the City of St. Louis, he was taken sick with pneumonia and died one day after his return to St. Louis. This broke up all the Captain’s plans, and as he was not able, unaided, to compete with the Eagle Packet Company, he sold his boat to them.
Captain La Barge spent the remainder of the season in St. Louis, and in the fall commenced building a new boat, which he christened the John M. Chambers, in honor of the infant son of B. M. Chambers, President of the Butchers’ and Drovers’ Bank. The boat was ready for use in the spring of 1877. Captain La Barge made a trip as far as to Fort Rice, loaded mainly with quartermaster stores. He then entered the Yankton trade, that being at the time an important terminus for the declining river business. Certain defects in the boat’s machinery, which could not be remedied at Yankton, compelled an early return to St. Louis and the loss of some important work. Captain La Barge remained in St. Louis until the following spring. He then returned to Yankton under a government contract to transport goods from that point. He finished this work early, but had scarcely returned to St. Louis when he was called upon to go up the river again, as we have elsewhere related, for service in the Custer campaign.
LAST COMMERCIAL VOYAGE.
In 1877 La Barge took the Chambers as far up the Missouri as to the mouth of the Yellowstone, and up the latter stream to the mouth of Tongue River. In the following year he made a trip to Benton, arriving there on the 4th day of June. This is believed to have been the last commercial trip from St. Louis to Fort Benton. Upon his return to St. Louis he sold his boat and retired permanently from the business of boat owner and builder. He served as pilot on the lower river during the summer of 1879, and then finally withdrew from connection with commercial boating on the Missouri.
LA BARGE RETIRES FROM THE RIVER.
From 1880 to 1885 Captain La Barge was in the service of the government as pilot of the steamer Missouri, which was then engaged in making a survey of the river valley. This duty was little enough like the active business of his better days. It was filled with reminiscences of his past career which could not but bring regretful reflections. His intimate knowledge of the river was of great help in recovering the proper geographical nomenclature of the valley, and might have been of far greater value had the surveyor under whose charge he worked possessed an ordinary appreciation of the mine of knowledge which lay at his disposal. In 1885 the boat was taken from St. Louis to Fort Benton, this being the very last through trip ever made. The year 1885 closed Captain La Barge’s career on the Missouri River, and he took his hand from the wheel after a record of service unequaled by any other pilot in its history. Three years more than half a century had elapsed since he made his first voyage up the river.