BELLE OF CALHOUN Built: 1895, St. Louis, Missouri. Built at the Carondelet Marine Ways, Carondelet, Missouri, and completed at the St. Louis wharf. Type: Sternwheel, wooden hull packet. Size: 180′ 9″ x 36′ 4″ x 4′ 7″. Engines: 15’s – 6 ft. Boilers: Two boilers, each 44″ by 26 ft. The BELLE OF CALHOUN was named for Miss … Read more
PHIL SHERIDAN Built: 1866, Cincinnati, Ohio Type: Sidewheel, wooden hull packet. Size: 227′ x 35′ 6″ x 6′, 728 tons. Engines: 22’s – 7 ft. Boilers: 4 boilers, each 40″ x 26 ft. with five 9″ flues. Operating on the Upper Mississippi River, the PHIL SHERIDAN was owned first by the Cincinnati and Wheeling Line before being sold … Read more
‘BIG’ MISSOURI Built: 1845, Cincinnati, Ohio. Type: Sidewheel, wooden hull packet. Size: 304 feet, 886 tons. This is a 1850 lithograph of the MISSOURI, also called the BIG MISSOURI because it was the largest steamboat on the river below Louisville before the launch of the SULTANA in 1848. It operated mainly between St. Louis and New Orleans and was … Read more
ITASCA Built:1857, Cincinnati, Ohio. Type:Sidewheel, wooden hull packet. Size: 230′ x 35′ x 5′ 6″, 340 tons. Engines: 20’s x 7 ft. Boilers:Four boilers. Paddlewheels:28 ft. diameter with 10 ft. buckets. The ITASCA ran in the Upper Mississippi trade between St. Louis and St. Paul, and was operated by the Northwestern Union Packet Company from 1864. She … Read more
NEW ORLEANS Built: 1811, Pittsburgh, Ohio. Type: Sidewheel, wooden hull. Size: 116 ft long, 20 ft beam, 371 tons Engine: Cylinder 34 inch diameter Cost: $38,000 The beginning of steamboating on the Western rivers dates to 1811 when Nicholas Roosevelt, great granduncle of Theodore Roosevelt, piloted a Fulton built steamboat, the NEW ORLEANS from Pittsburgh to New Orleans. … Read more
YELLOW STONE Built: 1830-31, Louisville, Kentucky (order placed November 24, 1830). Type: Sidewheel, wooden hull packet. Size: 130′ x 19′ x 5′ 5″, 144 tons. Engine: Single cylinder. Boilers: Three boilers. Paddlewheels: 18′ diameter. Cost: $8,950 ($4,000 contracted for the boat, $4,950 for the steam engine). The little YELLOW STONE earned a notable place in American history. She … Read more
WAR EAGLE Built: 1854, Fulton, Cincinnati, Ohio. Type: Sidewheel, wooden hull packet. Size: 225′ x 27′, 296 tons. Boilers: Three boilers. Built by the Minnesota Packet Company, the WAR EAGLE operated mostly between Galena & St.Paul, and Dunleith & St.Paul. During a trip on the Tennessee River for the Union in 1862, she was attacked while wooding up … Read more
When the Civil War broke out, neither side were prepared for naval battles on the western rivers. The inevitable result was an urgent and innovative period of warship experimentation. Before the war, James Buchanan Eads (1820-1887), an inventive self-taught engineer living in St. Louis and familiar with the Mississippi River, proposed that the U.S. government … Read more
In the early 1890s the financial situation was becoming serious. The Paige compositor, Webster & Company, and the cost of maintaining the Nook Farm lifestyle at the Hartford House, brought Sam to the brink of personal bankruptcy. To reduce their living costs, Sam closed down the Hartford House in June of 1891 and … Read more
Rev. Joseph Twichell ~ 1888 Quote: ~ Reverend Joseph Hopkins Twichell (November 30, 1838 – December 20, 1918), writer and pastor, was Mark Twain’s closest friend for over forty years, and appears in A Tramp Abroad as “Harris”. They met at a church social after the Civil War when Hopkins was pastor of Asylum … Read more