‘The Treacherous Missouri’ - part 3

(Cont. from last week)

by Dan R. Conway

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

The “Chippewa”

Another great loss suffered by the American Fur company resulted from the blowing up of the “Chippewa” at Disaster Bend, June 23, 1861. The “Chippewa,” as already pointed out in previous articles, was the first steamboat to pass the mouth of the Marias river to Fort Brule, and was one of the first to dock at Fort Benton. This boat was a side-wheeler of 160 by 32 feet, and she was burned and blown up at a point about fifteen miles below the mouth of the Poplar river in what is now Roosevelt county, Montana. The boat was fired by one of the roustabouts in the employ of the transportation company. The man had gone down into the hold to steal liquor. While he was drawing the whiskey from the cask, some of it spilled onto his clothing, which became ignited from a candle he was carrying. The man was badly burned and the boat set on fire. Immediately the boat was beached and all passengers put ashore. The fact that the cargo included 25 cases of gunpowder made it impossible to salvage any of the ship’s load. Parts of the boat and fragments of the merchandise she carried were later found a mile or so from the scene of the disaster. The liquor she carried was being smuggled to Fort Union for trade purposes.

The “Red Cloud”

A point on the Missouri, about eight miles above old Fort Peck, marks the grave of the “Red Cloud,” which sank in 1882. The “Red Cloud” was a later day boat and was built after the river traffic had taken upon itself more assuming propositions. She was 225 feet long with a 30-foot beam and carried a valuable 600-ton cargo, consisting in part of flour.

The “Red Cloud” was typical of the palmy days of steam-boat traffic on the Upper Missouri. The fully equipped steamer in the heyday of steam-boating on the Missouri river was a magnificent specimen of marine architecture. She was generally about 250 feet long, 40 feet beam, and had a full-length cabin, capable of accommodating from 300 to 400 people. The texas, occupied solely by the officers, was on the hurricane roof. In addition to her passenger accommodation, she had a freight capacity of from 500 to 700 tons. She was well proportioned, symmetrical, trim, fast, and sat on the water like a thing of life. Her two tall smoke-stacks, with ornamental tops, between which was usually suspended some gilt letter or device, added much to her beauty. The pilot-house, on top of the texas, was highly ornamented with glass windows on every side; a fancy railing of scrollwork surrounded the guards of the boiler desk and texas. The entire boat, except the smoke-stacks, was painted a dazzling white.

The cabin of the boat, a long, narrow saloon, was a marvel of beauty in its snow-white splendor. The floors of the cabin were covered with the softest Brussels carpets, and the staterooms were supplied with every convenience. Indeed, the bridal chambers were perfect gems of elegance and luxury. The table was elegantly furnished, and the menu unsurpassed by that of any first-class hotel. Each boat had, in the ladies’ cabin, a piano, and generally a brass band, and always a string band was carried. After the table was cleared away at night a dance was always in order, the old Virginia reel being the favorite dance. The social feature of a trip on one of these elegant boats was most charming.

Causes of Wrecks

The machinery and boilers of the boat were on the main deck. The latter, consisting of a battery of six or eight cylinders, was placed over a huge furnace. The machinery, consisting of two ponderous engines, ran as smoothly as the movements of a watch, and furnished the motive power to turn the two immense wheels, one on either side of the boat. The cost of such a boat as has been described was, during the period between 1850 and 1860, from $50,000 to $75,000.

The next most common cause of accidents on the Missouri, after snags and sunken wrecks, was fire. The cabins of the boats were constructed of white pine, as light as they could be built, and were thoroughly saturated with lead and oil. Constructed of such combustible material, when once on fire the flames could not be extinguished, and the vessel burned with such rapidity as often to cause the loss of life.

Accidents from explosions of boilers were frequent in the early days of steam-boating on the river, and the fatality in some cases was appalling. The boat always caught fire after the explosion, and those who escaped immediate death were confronted by the flames. The improvement in the material and construction of the boiler, however, and the most rigid enforcement of the inspection laws by the government tended materially to decrease the number of disasters from this cause in the last years of steam-boating.

The “Saluda” Explosion

“The most terrible disaster that ever occurred on the Missouri river,” says Phil Chappell in his “History of the Missouri River,” “was that of the explosion of the Saluda, at Lexington, Mo., in 1852. The Saluda was a side-wheel steamer, with a battery of two boilers, and was on her way up the river, with her cabin and lower deck crowded with passengers, the most of whom were Mormons. The river was unusually high and the current at that place exceedingly swift. Capt. Francis T. Belt, the commander of the boat, had made repeated efforts to stem the current, but, having failed, fell back to the levee. At last, on the morning of April 9, after waiting several days for the flood to subside, he again ordered steam raised for a final effort. He went to the engine-room, and, looking up at the steam-gauge, asked the engineer how much more pressure she could stand. On being answered that she had already every pound of steam that it was safe to carry, he said: ‘Fill her up; put on more steam,’ and remarked to the engineer that he would ‘round the point or blow her to h--l.’ He then returned to the hurricane roof, rang the bell, and gave the order to ‘cast loose the line.’

“The bow of the boat swung gently out into the stream and was caught by the current. The engine made but one revolution; then came a terrific crash, and all was chaos, darkness, and death! The number of those who lost their lives was never known. About 100 bodies were recovered, and it was supposed that there were as many more victims whose bodies were blown into the river and never recovered. Nearly all the officers of the boat were killed, among them Captain Belt. He was at his post on the hurricane roof, standing with his arm resting on the bell, when the explosion occurred, and was blown high up on the bank. His boyd when found was mangled mass of flesh and bones. The bell which had just sounded the death-knell of so many souls was sold with the wreckage to an old German, who afterward sold it to the Christian church at Savannah, Mo., where it was hung in the belfry for more than a century. On any Sabbath morning its clear, silvery peals can be heard, but it is doubtful if there is one among all those who are called to the house of God who knows anything of its tragic history.”

Fort Benton

A very large percentage of boats engaged in the Missouri river trade were sunk sooner or later, and while this entailed a heavy loss ranging in each instance from $50,000 to $400,000 for boat and cargo, nevertheless the profits were so great as to make the speculation a good one on an average. For some years after 1866 the overland route to the Montana gold fields was virtually abandoned, leaving the Missouri river as the only highway to the mining regions from the east. Parties following this route took steamboats at St. Louis or some other point on the lower river and traveled to Fort Benton, 2,300 miles above the mouth of the Missouri, from which point an overland journey of some 200 miles took them to the heart of the gold fields. Fort Benton, which for many years had been an obscure trading post of the American Fur company, and later of the Northwestern Fur company, thus became a rendezvous and outfitting point for the whole mining region and immediately leaped to a position of great commercial importance. Where previously to 1866, only about half a dozen steamers had arrived at Fort Benton levee annually, carrying freight to a total of perhaps 1,500 tons, in 1866 there were thirty-one arrivals and in 1867 thirty-nine. In the latter year these boats transported 8,061 tons of freight to Fort Benton, and carried more than 10,000 passengers to and from that point. The average fare of these passengers was $150, or $1,500,000 total receipts for passengers along. On the long stretch of 1,306 miles between Forts Benton and Fort Randall, the latter a short distance above Yankton, S. D., the only ports in 1867 were the fur trading and military posts of Fort Thompson (Crow Creek), Fort Sully, Fort Rice, Fort Stevenson, Fort Berthold, Fort Buford, Fort Hawley and Camp Cooke, the latter at the mouth of the Judith river.

From the above figures it may readily be imagined that the upper river presented an animated appearance during these prosperous years, the route was none the less beset with many perils. Rocks and snags, especially the latter, were scattered all along the channel, and the steamboat pilot was obliged to be ever on the alert to guard his vessel against injury or destruction by these menacing obstacles. The numberless sandbars, constantly being shifted in form and location by the restless current, offered obstructions less dangerous, it is true, but often extremely annoying, for often hours and even days were consumer in forcing a boat across them.

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