‘The Treacherous Missouri’ - part 2

(Cont. from last week)

by Dan R. Conway

(First appeared in the Hysham Echo on April 7, 1927)

The Bend

The bends always proved the most dangerous localities and it was at these points that most of the accidents that are recorded in the river’s history, took place. These bends, according to Chappell were formed in the following manner: “The main channel of the river is disposed to follow the bluff shore, and does so until it meets some obstruction. A trifling object, such as a wrack heap or an old steamboat wreck, will sometimes deflect the current and send it off obliquely to the opposite shore. As the land where it strikes is underlaid with a stratum of white sand, it melts before the strong current as a snowbank before a noonday’s sun. This undermining process goes on at every rise, until in the course of a few years a great bend is formed, thousands of acres of land are swept away, and the channel of the river is a mile or more from where it formerly ran.”
It is for this reason that the site of several of the early-day trading posts have never been located by interested historians. For example, old Fort Manuel, which was erected by Manuel Lisa on the Missouri river in northern South Dakota, stood on a site that no more exists. The waters of the Missouri have completely washed away the entire ground that marked the location of this historical landmark, where Charbonneau and Sacajawea lived for several months, and which was abandoned and finally burned by hostile Indians. These bends of the Missouri vary in size, some of them being as much as twenty miles long. The banks were originally covered with trees, and these (some of them immense in size) as erosion progresses, tumble into the water, float along with the current for a short distance, and their roots become anchored in the river bed. Here they remain for years. Sometimes these roots project above the water’s surface; other times, they remain just covered and out of sight.

Crossings

At the points where the current changed from one side of the river to the other, these reactions were called “crossings.” Here it was that the greatest difficulty was encountered by the navigator of sizeable boats. It has been described by old experienced pilots, that at these places, instead of there being one main channel there were many chutes, and frequently in times of low water none of these were deep enough to float a boat that was heavily loaded.

These were the conditions which caused the boats to so often “run aground” from which predicament they often remained several days before they were extricated. In such cases the spars were resorted to. Spars were two long poles, one on each side of the bow of the boat, attached to the capstan by tackle. These were thrown overboard and by means of pushing on them the vessel was virtually lifted over the bar as if on a pair of stilts. Frequently as many as five large boats were to be seen aground at a crossing within a short distance of each other. Good judgement, a keen eye and a nerve of iron were prerequisites in a successful Missouri river pilot during the palmy days; for these were times in the experience of every one of these men when a slight miscalculation of the force of a cross-current or even the wrong turn of the wheel would have sent his boat to the river’s bottom.

There were other difficulties to be overcome by navigators of the upper Missouri. The more important of these was the shortness of the season. In ascending the river, the quantity of water naturally diminished, and the narrowing of the channel in the “Up Country” made it absolutely essential that the trip should be made in ordinary seasons on the June rise. This rise, which is caused by the melting of snows in the Rocky mountains, usually begins in May and continues until the latter part of July. Needless to explain, it required quick work and skillful navigation to take a boat from St. Louis to Fort Benton, a distance of more than 2,500 miles, and return before the subsidence of the annual rise.

298 Boats Wrecked

Thus it follows that today, at the bottom of the Missouri river and in the old channels of that treacherous stream lie cargoes and steamboats valued at millions of dollars. How great the losses resulting from river wrecks covering the period since 1819, when the first ill-fated steamboat went to the bottom of the river, will never be known; but an estimate based on government reports of the sunken steamers would indicate that $50,000,000 might be a conservative approximate.

Cargoes that were variously comprised, from peltries of inestimable value on the markets of present times, merchandise, and fine liquors to gold dust from the Montana placer mines, lie buried beneath the shifting silt of the river’s bed, or in the old courses that the turgid currents have long since abandoned for new channels in their snake-like course to the Gulf of Mexico.
According to governmental reports, from 1819 to 1898 no less than 298 Missouri river steamboats found their graves in the sands of that river’s course. Three others were abandoned along the shores of the Yellowstone. Of this number, 193 met fate by striking snags, 25 by fire and the remainder by explosions, fouling in rapids, rocks, bridges, storms, ice and falling river banks, and one of the boats lost on the Yellowstone was the “Osceola,” a government improvement boat, wrecked by a cyclone in 1877.

Steamboat traffic on the Missouri began 108 years ago (in 1819) when a fleet of six steamers were built under government contract for use in the ill-fated Yellowstone military expedition, the object of which was primarily the establishment of a military post at the mouth of the Yellowstone river. This undertaking proved a costly failure, and one of the six boats was sunk not far from the mouth of the Missouri. This, the Thomas Jefferson, was the first Missouri river steamboat wreck.

The “George Washington”

There were a few other wrecks in the period which intervened between that early date and the beginning of steamboat navigation by the American Fur company in 1831. One of these disaster resulted in the loss of the “George Washington,” which hit a snag at a point below Council Bluffs, Iowa.

The American Fur company lost a number of boats and cargoes. Among these was the “Assiniboine,” which grounded in 1835 near the site of the present city of Bismarck, N.D., at the head of Sibley Island. The “Assiniboine” was a single-engine side-wheeler. Side-wheelers were the favorites then, and remained such throughout navigation on the Missouri, as they were more easily handled in a swift, crooked channel among snags. These early-day boats were a heavy, clumsy craft constructed of very strong timbers. They were usually from 100 to 130 feet in length, twenty to thirty feet in beam and six to seven feet in hold. They carried a single engine with one or two boilers, using wood for fuel. When the “Assiniboine” went down she carried 1,185 packs of furs and robes. After the boat became stranded, a fire which broke out completely destroyed the craft. Three live buffalo which were being taken to St. Louis, were run into the river and they escaped.

The “Pontiac”

In 1852, the “Pontiac,” bound for the Upper Missouri, went down at Dauphin’s Bend, below St. Joseph. She carried with her to her watery grave, 500 barrels of whiskey, 500 casks of wine and 500 casks of brandy. None of this cargo was salvaged. (Such news in these post-prohibition days might cause a young stampede to the vicinity of Dauphin’s Bend.)

The “Louisville”

The “Louisville,” carrying a cargo of quicksilver, liquor and general stores consigned to dealers at Virginia City, MT., sank at what is know now as Louisville Bend, about 40 miles below Sioux City. At this same point eight other steamers lie buried. Since the early sixties when this wreck took place the channel of the river shifted, cutting off the bend entirely, so that these wrecks now are buried beneath a great depth of silt about four miles from the river’s channel.

The “Kate Swinney”

What was considered one of the most costly wrecks of the earlier days was when the American Fur company’s boat, the “Kate Swinney,” was sunk some fifty miles above Sioux City. This boat was downward bound and was loaded with an enormously rich cargo of fine furs - the trade of two winters. The value of this cargo was estimated at several hundred thousand dollars. In this case too, today, the channel of the river has at this point shifted, leaving the hulk of the ill-fated steamboat buried some distance from the river’s present course. And it is said that now the ground that marks the “Kate Swinney’s” grave is covered with grove of trees which measure from six to twenty inches in diameter. (Cont. next week) Print this post