Credit: Artist, J.R. Hamilton,
Harper's Weekly, 1863.
Enlargement: 939 x 702px.
On a trip down the Missouri in 1867, she left Cow Island in September, 198 miles below Ft. Benton, with 275 passengers aboard at $130 per head. Suffering unseasonably low water, she grounded repeatedly on sandbars (132 of them) until 2 months later and 1000 miles above St Louis, all the passengers had deserted her. She was later sold at public auction.
Built: circa 1855.
Type: Sidewheel, wooden hull packet.
Size: Unknown except for Harpers Weekly illustration.
On July 16, 1863, the steamboat Imperial arrived in New Orleans from St. Louis, marking the opening of the Mississippi River in the closing stages of the Civil War, following the cessation of river traffic in 1861. She had left St. Louis on July 8, four days after the surrender of Vicksburg to General Grant.
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The whole town was thrown into a state of pleasing excitement on Thursday last, just after the Creole sailed, by the sudden appearance at the levee of the large steamboat Imperial, just in from St. Louis. She came down freighted with some 600 head of cattle, part of a large haul that was made at Natchez a short time ago. She had a pleasant, unmolested trip all the way down, and reported the river perfectly quiet between this and St. Louis.
The Imperial is an immense, showy vessel, one of the first-class river steamers, which completely dwarfs the Laurel Hill, Empire Parish, and others that we have been long accustomed to look upon as leviathans. But it was not her size nor fine equipments which impressed the eager multitudes who thronged to see her; it was the fact that she was the first freight boat which had ventured down the Mississippi since the fall of Vicksburg and Port Hudson; and every one who gazed upon her proud form saw in her the embodiment of reawakened commerce with the Mississippi Valley. She staid in New Orleans just long enough to receive the greetings of hundreds, and then went on to Carrollton, near the city, where she unloaded her living freight.
Credit:~ Harpers Weekly, August 8, 1863.
Credit: Photographer, unknown.
Enlargement: 1800 x 1182px.
Built: 1854, Fulton, Cincinnati, Ohio.
Type: Sidewheel, wooden hull packet.
Size: 225' x 27', 296 tons, 3 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 at the riverbank, taking a shot in one of her stacks. She had a most ornate cupola on her pilot-house with an eagle over the wheel.
The Northwestern Union Packet Company acquired her when taking over the Minnesota Packet Company circa 1864.
She was destroyed by fire on May 15, 1870, at La Crosse, Wisconsin, with the loss of six lives.
Credit: Photographer, unknown.
Enlargement: 575 x 395px.
Built: circa 1860's.
Type: Sidewheel, wooden hull packet.
Size: Engines 32'~7'.
The Frank Pargoud operated on the Mississippi River, for a time under Captain J.M.White. Few records remain of this splendid packet, despite the fact that she survived the war and had a long service, with her engines being used in the Rosa Lee in 1887.
Credit: Photographer, unknown.
Enlargement: 640 x 430px.
Built: 1863, Californis, Pennsylvania, Ohio.
Type: Sidewheel, wooden hull packet.
Size: 203' x 34.3', 340 tons.
The Northern Packet Line Company operated the Davenport on the Upper Mississippi River. She ran trips to Cincinnati in the winter. She was destroyed in an ice-jam at St.Louis on December 13, 1876, and later dismantled.
Credit: Photographer, unknown.
Enlargement: 640 x 453px.
Built: circa early 1860's.
Type: Sidewheel, wooden hull packet.
Size: Unknown.
Operating on the Upper Mississippi River, the Phil Sheridan was owned initially by the Cincinnati and Wheeling Line and was sold in 1864 to the Northwestern Union Packet Company to become one of their sixteen or so packets that would dominate the upper river trade until 1874. She had an impressive pilot-house cupola and a painting of General Sheridan on horse-back on her paddle-boxes.
The Northwestern Union Packet Company absorbed a number of packet companies in the 1860's. Their packets included: Moses McLellan, Ocean Wave, Itasca, Key City, Milwaukee, City Belle, War Eagle, S.S. Merill, Alex. Mitchell, City of St.Paul, Diamond Jo, Tom Jasper, Belle of La Crosse, City of Quincy, and John Kyle.
Credit: Photographer, unknown.
Enlargement: 1000 x 666px.
Content to be added soon ...Quote:~
Credit: Photographer, unknown.
Enlargement: 640 x 432px.
Built:
Type: Sidewheel, wooden hull packet.
Size:
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Credit: Artist, Robert E. Sticker.
Enlargement: 600 x 375px.
Built: 1870, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.
Type: Sternwheel wooden hull packet.
Size: 190' x 33' x 6' . Could carry 200 tons and 30 cabin passengers, drawing only 20 inches, un-ladened. Powered by three boilers, 15's - 5'.
Operating on the Missouri, Yellowstone and Osage Rivers, the Far West earned a place in history in 1876, under the able command of Captain Grant Marsh. He had taken General Alfred H. Terry and Custer's columns to the Little Big Horn and while waiting with supplies, the Far West crew received the news that Custer and his command had been wiped out two days before.
Later, on June 30, the wounded of Major Reno's 7th Cavalry detachment were loaded onto the Far West, and Marsh traveled all day and night carrying the wounded to the hospital at Fort Lincoln, making the run from Fort Pease, Montana, to Fort Abraham Lincoln, Dakota Territory, 710 miles in 54 hours ~ the fastest trip ever made by a steamboat on the Missouri, despite the ever-shifting sandbars and the numerous snags that made navigation on the Missouri River extremely hazardous.
On July 5, the Far West reached Bismarck, and four days later, Captain Marsh headed the Far West back up the Missouri to the Little Big Horn with supplies and horses for the soldiers left there.
In this scene, the Far West is pictured in the early morning at the mouth of the Rosebud, as George Armstrong Custer's 7th Cavalry breaks camp before the campaign.The Far West was snagged and lost on the Missouri River at Mullanthy Bend, seven miles below St. Charles, on October 30, 1883.
Credit: Photographer, unknown.
Enlargement: 536 x 312px.
Built: 1878, by Howard & Company, Jeffersonville, Indiana.
Type: Sidewheel, wooden hull packet.
Size: 309' x 70' (including guards), beam 49', depth of hold 12', average draft 4' 10''. Tonnage 2,048.
Engines: Two high pressure lever (from steamer Katie), built by John Davies, Louisville.
Boilers: Nine, iron, built by Jos. Mitchell, Louisville. Diameter 42", length 32', pressure 160lbs.
Paddlewheels: Diameter 41' 2", buckets per wheel 21, length 18', width 23".
Built for the New Orleans & Memphis Packet Company to take passengers and freight , the Ed Richardson was capable of carrying 9,000 bales of cotton. She had a large and handsome saloon decorated in white and gold, and many comfortable and spacious staterooms.
Often described as one the great steamers of the riverboat era, the Ed Richardson was dismantled in 1888, and her hull burned to recover iron.
Credit: Photographer, unknown.
Enlargement: 681 x445px.
Built: 1878, by Howard & Company, Jeffersonville, Indiana.
Type: Sidewheel, wooden hull packet.
Size: 320' x 91' (including guards), 2,027 tons, 10 boilers, wheels 44', average draft 7' 6", saloon passenger capactity 350, cotton capacity 7000 bales.
Cost: $300,000
Three boats carried the name J.M. White during the steamboating era. The final one reached the peak of riverboat design in her architecture, engineering and furnishings. Built for Captain John William Tobin, the successful owner of sixty-three Mississippi packets, construction began at the Howard Shipyards in Jeffersonville, Indiana, on September 15th, 1877. No expense was spared and she was launched on June 3rd, 1878.
Considered the grandest steamboat on the Mississippi in the years after the Civil War, she was ornate, commodious and luxurious, with saloon accommodations for 350 passengers. She was also fast. Although Captain Tobin never used a full head of steam for fear of damaging her powerful engines, she easily broke the New Orleans to Vicksburg speed record.
She ran between New Orleans and Vicksburg teamed up with the Robert E. Lee (2nd) nick-named "Hoppin' Bob" and the Natchez (7th). Due to hard times and yellow fever, she never carried her cotton capacity (7000 bales), and high running costs and insurance demands further reduced her viability.
Unfortuantely, on December 13, 1886, she was destroyed by fire while moored at Blue Store Landing, St. Maurice Plantation, Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana. Several lives were lost, and casualties would have been higher but for the determination of her clerk G. Wash Floyd, who lost his life saving others. Gunpowder stowed in the boat's magazine in the hold ignited, sending blazing timbers skyward during the spectacular and tragic demise of one of the greatest cotton queens of the Mississippi.
Credit: Photographer, unknown.
Enlargement: 595 x 441px.
Built: 1881
Type: Sidewheel, wooden hull packet.
Size:
Credit: Photographer, unknown.
Enlargement: 654 x 522px.
Built: 1881
Type: Sidewheel, wooden hull packet.
Size:
The Edward J. Gay was known as 'mocking bird' due to her melodious whistle.
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