Upper Missouri River.

RPPC Ft Benton (F Nash Collection)

In the spring of 1860, the head of navigation on the upper Missouri River was Ft Benton in the Montana Territory.  Ft Benton was 2,385 muddy, treacherous, watery miles from St Louis.   A fleet of three steamers  pushed away from the landing at St Louis for their historic voyage to Ft Benton.  The str Chippewa was the first boat to reach the Ft Benton on 2 Jul 1860. [1]

 

From 1860 through 1887 when the railroad arrived in Ft Benton, steamboats transported passengers and freight on the upper Missouri.  That time period can be divided into four distinct periods:

 

(1)  Fur trade.      Before 1862

(2)  Gold rush.     1862 – 1869

(3)  Whiskey.        1869 – 1874

(4)  Indian wars.  1830-1881

 

During those twenty-seven years, 148 different boats made 600 landings at Ft Benton, Cow Island, or somewhere in between. [2]   The last commercial boat arrived in 1890. [3]

The dangerous Missouri River was affectionately known by pilots as “the Misery – a river like no other”.  Artist George Catlin summarized his impressions of the river as a mixture “too thick to drink, too thin to plow”. [4]   It was more like watery mud than muddy water.  The current was fast and the channel shifted.  Bad storms made steamboat travel on the river slow in the summer.  Dead trees, called snags, fell into the river and stuck to the bottom.  Snags sometimes stuck out of the water.  Steamboat pilots could steer around these snags.  But sometimes the snags were hidden under the river surface.  Jagged tree limbs could tear open the bottom of a wooden hulled steamboat.  Hundreds of steamboats were wrecked on the Missouri in those 27 years.

But the lure of huge profits in trade on the upper Missouri was great as was the danger.  There is a fine balance between crazy and almost crazy.  Compensation for steamboat officers was very rewarding.  In 1866 on the Ohio a river boat pilot could earn $175 per month, a captain $150, and a first clerk $150; on the upper Missouri, their counterparts received $725, $400, and $250. [5]  In 1869, the rate for cabin passage from St Louis to Ft Benton was $150 – $200.  According to John G Lepley a new boat could be constructed for less than one-fourth the freight charges resulting from one trip to Ft Benton.  In 1867, the str Ida Stockdale profits were $42,594 — the greatest of any of the forty boats on the river that season. [6]  That amount in 2007 dollars is between $596,379 and $950,979 depending on the inflation calculator used.  Either number is prodigious.

Missouri River packets were special boats designed to survive the furious river.  Called “mountain boats” they were a special breed of medium sized, mostly sternwheel packets.  And the men who operated them were fearless.  The danger of Indian attack in the Dakota and Montana Territories was always real.  High winds of hurricane force often battered the steamboats and forced them to tie off along the bank for days at a time.  Montana’s steamboat years was one of the most exciting chapters in American history.

 

Str Amelia Poe wreckage on Upper Missouri River (The Montana Standard 09 Nov 2002)

The following table lists the packets and the officers from Georgetown, PA who ventured to Ft Benton on the Golden Highway.  In 1866, the str Amelia Poe commanded by Capt Thomas W Poe was the first boat from Georgetown, PA  to land at the levee in Ft Benton.   Arriving on 11 Jun 1866, the  str Amelia Poe  delivered 200 tons of freight and 40 passengers.  Downward gold and passengers was not recorded. [7]  After two profitable years docking at Ft Benton landing on May 24, 1868, the str Amelia Poe  with 100 tons of freight sunk at Oswego MT attracting 1500 swarming Indians in a riotous salvage operation. Profits from these ventures were sometimes fabulous, but fortunes were also lost.   The location where the packet snagged is now known as Amelia Poe Bend. [8]

 

 

Year Steamboat Owner Captain Clerk Landing
1866 Amelia Poe Thomas W Poe Thomas W Poe TS Calhoon Ft Benton
1867 Amelia Poe Thomas W Poe Thomas W Poe Ft Benton
Ida Stockdale JT Stockdale Grant Marsh TS Calhoon Ft Benton
Yorktown George W Ebert George W Ebert S Peppard Ft Benton
1868 Amelia Poe Thomas W Poe Thomas Townsend Sunk Oswego, MT
Ida Stockdale JT StockdaleTS Calhoon Ft Benton
Sallie TS CalhoonJT Stockdale Thomas S Calhoon Ft Benton
Yorktown George W Ebert George W Ebert S Peppard Ft Benton
1869 Ida Stockdale JT StockdaleTS Calhoon Ft Benton
Mollie Ebert George W Ebert George W Ebert S Peppard Cow Island
Nick Wall T StockdaleThomas W Poe Thomas W Poe Cow Island
Sallie TS CalhoonJT Stockdale Thomas S Calhoon JQA Parr Ft Benton
1870 Ida Stockdale JT StockdaleTS Calhoon Ft Benton
Nick Wall T StockdaleThomas W Poe Thomas W Poe Cow Island
Sallie TS CalhoonJT Stockdale Thomas S Calhoon Ft Benton
1871 Ida Stockdale JT StockdaleTS Calhoon Ft Benton

 

 

 

Each boat and each captain, pilot, and first clerk have their stories.  These Georgetown men were full of swash and buckle!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References.

 


[1]  John G Lepley, Packets to Paradise Steamboating to Fort Benton, (River & Plains Society, 2001), p 17.

[2]  John G Lepley, Packets to Paradise Steamboating to Fort Benton, (River & Plains Society, 2001), p 18.

[3]  John G Lepley, Packets to Paradise Steamboating to Fort Benton, (River & Plains Society, 2001), p 19.

[4]  John G Lepley, Packets to Paradise Steamboating to Fort Benton, (River & Plains Society, 2001), p 10.

[5]  William E Lass, Navigating the Missouri/ Steamboating on Nature’s Highway, 1819-1935, (University of Oklahome Press,2007), p 234.

[6]  Joel Overholser, Fort Benton World’s Innermost Port, (River & Plains Society, 1987), p. 62.

[7] Joel Overholser, Fort Benton World’s Innermost Port, (River & Plains Society, 1987), p 54.

[8]  Joel Overholser, Fort Benton World’s Innermost Port, (River & Plains Society, 1987), p. 68-69.

 

 

Copyright © 2012 Francis W Nash
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