‘Thunder Canoe’ - part 2

by Dan R. Conway

(First appeared in the Hysham Echo on March 31, 1927)

(Cont. from last week)

The “Clermont”

It was in August, 1807, that the “Clermont,” the steamboat perfected by Robert Fulton, a young mechanical genius of Philadelphia, made her first successful trip on the Hudson, and from the day of that trip, steamboat navigation became an assured fact and the trade and travel of the world entered upon a new era.

The success attending steamboat navigation on the Hudson immediately turned the attention of the principal projectors and others to its application on western rivers.

The first steamboat to navigate the Ohio river was built by John Fitch in 1798. This, however, was not a success, because he and his coworkers lacked the necessary capital to perfect their experiment. The first boat to steam down the Mississippi to New Orleans was the Comet, 25 tons, built by Daniel D. Smith in 1809. In 1809 Nicholas J. Roosevelt, a relative of the late Theodore Roosevelt, who had become associated with Robert Fulton and Chancellor Livingston, went to Pittsburgh and there built a boat, called the New Orleans.

Other boats of crude and imperfect construction followed the New Orleans on the Mississippi, but such was the velocity of the current of the river that it was impossible for them to overcome this obstruction until 1815, when improved machinery brought the speed up to a point where the upstream trip was possible. The Enterprise made the first successful trip up the Mississippi in 1815.

Pushing Westward

Up to 1817 there were only 12 boats on the rivers west of the Alleghenies, but traffic and facilities increased rapidly thenceforth. On August 2, 1817, the steamer Zebulon M. Pike, a side-wheeler, steamed up the river to St. Louis, being the first steamboat to land at that place.

On down through the decades the flow of Mississippi river traffic grew and swelled in great volume. By 1830, 296 steamboats had been built; and in 1834, the number of steamboat arrivals in New Orleans was 2,300, indicative of that port’s trade. Great throngs of argonauts and pioneers came west from New York by the Erie canal and by stages to Pittsburgh, there to take the steamboat to their destination. In the two decades, 1840 to 1860, 2,500 steamboats were constructed on the western rivers.

Mississippi Traffic

In the heyday of steam-boating on the Mississippi, palatial boats plied the waters of the Father of Rivers. Some of these were from 300 to 400 feet in length. Fred Erving Dayton, in “Steamboat Days,” very ably describes incidents akin to river transportation in the palmy days. He says:

“Latterly the river steamboats were free from reckless races which endangered life, when the safety valve was fastened down, the furnace stuffed with tar and pitch, and the captain, rifle in hand, ready to shoot down the pilot of an opposing steamer at the critical moment when the last deviation in the steering would lose a race. The barbarous times passed with the frontier manners of passengers. Sporting, drinking, gambling and fighting gave place to refinements and wealth rolled up as a result of speedy and cheapened steamboat transportation.”

Racing on the Mississippi

Races on the great river have their outstanding place in the epic of the Mississippi. The greatest of all these races is thus described by Dayton:

“The long distance race between two favorite packets, the Robert E. Lee, running out of St. Louis, and the Natchez, a mail boat running between Vicksburg, Natchez and New Orleans, stirred the country. Both boats were fast, capable of 18 miles’ speed against the current and commonly exceeding 25 miles an hour down-stream. Big money was wagered on the result. Captain John W. Connon commanded the Robert E. Lee and Captain Leathers was master of the Natchez.

Robert E. Lee Wins Race

“The two fliers pulled away from New Orleans at 4:55 in the afternoon of June 30, 1870, and hung together hour after hour through the days and nights until fog shut in at Devil’s Island. The Robert E. Lee kept on, but the lower river liner tied up for six hours until the fog cleared. The Robert E. Lee was first to arrive at St. Louis, July 4, 11:25 a.m., while the Natchez finished at 4:55 in the afternoon. Elapsed time for the Robert E. Lee was 3 days, 18 hours and 30 minutes, beating the Natchez 6 hours and 33 minutes. The distance traveled was 1,210 miles.

“Considering the time the Natchez lost in the stop for fog, and the long distance traveled, the speed of both boats was remarkable and the result was so close as to be indecisive for the friends of the Natchez. Much of the course was in strange waters for Captain Leathers’ ship. The great river race was told in colored lithographs, hurriedly distributed, and became famous in song and story, a part of the river tradition.

“Other contests, as that between the Eclipse and the Shotwell and the speed trials of the Grand Turk, were discounted. The romance of a half-century of steam-boating was centered in the favorites Robert E. Lee and Natchez, and while big boats continued to be built after their time, the sentimental curtain really fell with their passing. Piloting became an ordinary occupation, no longer magnificently rewarded, when the federal government began to remove bars and snags and cut out trees, thousands of obstructions in a single season. The gambling gentry, long picturesque figures of the boats, went ashore when rich travelers favored the quicker railroads, and river transportation lost much of its glamour when the railroads divided patronage. With lessened income the type of river steamboats changed to stern wheelers and barges towed by stern-wheel and propeller tugs.”

Up the Missouri

It was not until 1819 that any attempt was made to navigate the Missouri with steamboats. The tales brought down to St. Louis by the voyageurs and traders was to the effect that the tortuous channel, the strong current and innumerable snags and sandbars would render steam navigation impossible. Such, however, were the increasing demands of commerce that enterprising promoters undertook the task. The Independence solved the problem by making a trip from St. Louis to Chariton and return.

Major Long’s Enterprise

This same year (1819) Major Long made his famous attempt to reach the Yellowstone river via steamboat up the Missouri. This effort is explained by Phil E. Chappel in his “History of the Missouri River”; Kansas Historical Collections, Vol, IX; page 27; as follows:

“The names of the four steamboats which constituted the fleet were Thomas Jefferson, R. M. Johnson, Expedition, and Western Engineer, the latter being in charge of Jamor Long. The Jefferson struck a snag in Osage chute, at the mouth of the Osage, and sank, being the first steamboat of the many wrecked on the Missouri river. The Western Engineer had been built expressly for this expedition, and from her unique construction is worthy of description. She was a small stern-wheeler, seventy-five feet long, thirteen feet beam, and drew nineteen inches light. She was intended to impress the Indians with awe, and there is no doubt she did so. On her bow, running from her keelson forward, was the escape pipe, made in imitation of a huge serpent, painted black, and its mouth and tongue painted a fiery red. The steam escaped from the mouth of the serpent, and we can readily imagine that the Indian who saw this wonderful piece of marine mechanism recognized in it the power of the Great Manitou.

“There is a difference of statement among the various writers as to the movements of the boats of this expedition. James’ account of Long’s expedition may be relied upon for those of the Western Engineer, which left St. Louis June 21, reached Cow Island or Cantonment Martin August 18, and finally arrived at Council Bluffs on the 17th of September. The Thomas Jefferson, R. M. Johnson and Expedition left St. Louis July 5, and the last two seem to have reached Cow Island in the latter part of August.

“On their arrival at Cow Island the Expedition and Johnson tied up, and the troops went into winter quarters. As these boats were found to be entirely unfit for the river they returned to St. Louis in the spring. The Western Engineer, which proved to be the only boat of the fleet at all adapted to the navigation of the river, although she could make only three miles an hour upstream, proceeded up the river, and on the 17th of September arrived at Fort Lisa, a trading post established by Manuel Lisa in 1812, about five miles below Council Bluffs. Here she also went into winter quarters, and returned to St. Louis in the following spring. It having become apparent that the marine part of the expedition was an unqualified failure, the river was abandoned, the Major Long with his company of scientists, went overland to the Platte.”

From the earliest period in the history of the St. Louis fur-traders, the river was navigated by cordelles, the last of which were in use up to 1864. The commerce of the region in 1805-12 was limited to the products of the chase. Lewis and Clark, in their report, state that “the products which were drawn from the Missouri are obtained from the Indians and hunters in exchange for merchandise. They may be classed according to the subjoined list: Castor, otters, foxes, Ponha foxes, tigercats, raccoons, black bears, gray and yellow bears, puces, buffalo, dressed cowhides, shorn deer skins, deer skins with hair, tallow and fat, bear’s oil, muskrats and martins. Those products brought to the Indians and hunters the sum of $77,971 per year; but of that amount about $61,250 were only returned annually to the district in peltries, cloths and provisions.” The voyageur and trader were the principal characters in the western life of those times, and to them the rivers of the northwest were well known.

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