Georgetown Steamboats

Steamboat captains and pilots were seasoned gamblers and practical businessmen.  Their skills were pitted against the river’s surprises.  High risks and high rewards awaited the rivermen, and peak excitement was never ruled out for the passengers.  Old time steamboaters were also superstitious.  Old steamboaters believed that birds emboddied the souls of river pilots; for who knew the chutes, shoals, and channels better than a leggy heron?  Mark Twain said you should never have a preacher and a white horse on the same boat.  You had to throw one or the other overboard, and he preferred riddance of the preacher. 

 

 

Officers and Their Duties.

 

Captain.  The captain often came through the ranks with a record as a mate, clerk, and pilot.  Although the captain was first in command, under some conditions, he was subordinate by law to the pilot.  The captain’s attention was directed to the overall management of the boat as a business enterprise.     He watched the work of the engineer in the care of the machinery; he checked with his steward in the matter of food, tableware, etc for the operation of a passenger boat; under his eye, the mate directed loading, stowing, unloading of freight; and with the clerk he managed the boat’s accounts.   He was the legal authority on the boat after leaving port with dominion over both the passengers and crew.  Generally, the captain was an investor or owner of the vessel.

 

 

 

 

Pilot.  Pilots were the princes of the river.  The most skilled and according the best compensated of the officers.  As a cub, the pilot had to learn the name of every town, point, bend, island, sandbar, snag, and wreck on the river.  There was no external aid to navigation; it was all in their mind.  Without pilots, a tall stack packet could not move.  Not all captains were qualified pilots, and not all pilots aspired to be captains.  Even when serving a captain who himself was a qualified pilot, the pilot at the wheel reigned supreme during his allotted watch.  The actual navigation of the boat was the responsibility of the pilot on duty.

 

Clerk.  The first or chief clerk was a human calculator in charge of the financial management of the steamer.  The second clerk, or “Mud Clerk”, in the absence of the chief clerk, issued tickets for passage and staterooms, made himself agreeable to the comforts of the passengers, and received and delivered freight on unpaved levees which were usually muddy.  The reputation of the packet depended greatly upon the esteem in which the captain, clerks and pilots were held by the traveling public.  

 

Mate.  The mate directed the work of the deck hands often by dominating the men with curses and brute intimidation.  It was commonly said that a good mate could curse the black off a crow.  His vocabulary was enriched with blue-streaked deliveries from all the ports between Pittsburgh and New Orleans.

 

Engineer.  The engineer was responsible for the operation and safety of the steam engines.  His job was as important as any aboard although he worked in grease and sweat and obscurity while the captain played host and the pilot played lord.  When the pilot rang the signals, the engineer had to respond, and if the engineer was not top class the pilot’s skills were wasted.

 

The crew.  Steamboat crews on a moderate sized, first class sternwheeler numbered numbered from 75-90 persons.  The officers were: one captain, two clerks, two pilots, four engineers, two mates (boatswains), and one steward.  The crew included one head cook and two assistants, one hostellier (barkeep), seven cabin boys or 6 chambermaids and one laundress, one porter, one barber, four firemen, one watchman, one lamplighter, one carpenter, one painter, and forty plus deckhands.[1] 

 

 

License Certification.

 

The issuance and revocation of captain’s and pilot’s licenses controlled by the Steamboat-Inspection Service was established by the steamboat act of Aug 30, 1852.  On Aug 30 1852, licenses were required for all pilots and engineers and the steam vessels were required to post a certificate of inspection valid for 12 months.  The 1871 Act added masters and chief mates to the list of steam vessel officer’s licenses.  After an amendment in 1891, the licenses were issued for five years and renewal was at any time before expiration. 

 

The purpose of the steamboat act was to reduce the number passenger deaths due to steamboat disasters often caused by boiler explosions.  The steamboat act indirectly provided an organized campaign to curb riverboat racing.  Boat inspections and the licensing process did improve safety, but the act did not eliminate steamboat racing.  Not directly advertised, racing events were well known to the public.  Often races were falsely claimed to be the accidental departure of two packets from the same city at the same time with the same destination and no intermediate stops except for wooding (refueling).

 

Steamboat racing was a popular activity of the day.  The term “fighting pilot” was used to describe a pilot who took great pleasure in racing.  For a fighting pilot, the balance between speed and safety tilted toward speed.  Speed equaled dollars.  Fast boats attracted more passengers and better rates for cargo.  Americans of the time were obsessed with speed, as they are today.  A boat that held the honor of fastest time on any trade route was awarded a mount of gilded antlers which were proudly strung between the high stacks of the boat or mounted in the pilot house.  Its officers were rewarded with greater pay even if they moved on to another steamer.

 

 

Prominent Packet Speed Records[2]

Trade route                             Date                        Packet

New Orleans – St Louis            4 Jul 1870                Robert E. Lee

 

Cincinnati – New Orleans            3 Feb 1893               Louisville

New Orleans – Cincinnati            15 Jun 1887             Chas Morgan

 

Cincinnati – Pittsburgh                 1 May 1850             Buckeye State

Pittsburgh – Cincinnati                 6 Mar 1944              JM White I

 

Louisville – Cincinnati                  1 Mar 1894              Louisville 

Cincinnati – Louisville                  4 Apr 1896              Louisville

 

St Louis – Ft Benton                    26 May 1868           Sallie

                                                         20 Jun 1867           Octavia 

The Sallie was owned and operated by Thomas S Calhoon of Georgetown, PA and was the firs to arrive at the Ft Benton Levee in 1868.  It was unclear whether the Octavia trip in 1867 was timed from St Louis or a port further up the Missouri.  Whether the speed record of the Sallie was ever broken is unknown.  Capt Standish Peppard was first clerk aboard the Buckeye State when she made her famous run.

 

 

 

 

 

Superstitions.

 All sailors are superstitious, so it stands to reason that steamboat captains, pilots, and crew would also be superstitious.  Like hotels and public buildings, there was never a stateroom 13.  To use that unlucky number would put a “hoodoo”, the old riverman’s word for a curse, on the boat.

 

Capt Frederick Way Jr said that there was a hoodoo against naming a boat with the letter “M”.  Not only is the letter “M” the thirteenth letter in the alphabet, but according to a Civil War Captain every boat whose name started with “M” burnt, sunk, exploded”.  The Maria and the Moselle are good examples of the “M” hoodoo.

 

Different captains had superstitions about different colors.  White cats are trouble.  Rats were good luck.   Never throw anything off the head of the boat because it is bad luck to pass over your own waste.  And never let the calliope play “Home Sweet Home”.[3]

 

 

Georgetown Steamboat Families.

 

The following list of packet captains and pilots and crew is the combination of two lists compiled by:

 

    (1)  Dr John C Ewing, the grandson of Capt Thomas Stevenson Calhoon [4] 

    (2)  TS Laughlin (taken from the Beaver County Times dated 14 Sep 1973)

  

Although there was considerable overlap, the two lists differed.  My list was alphabetized for your convenience.  Dates of birth and death have been added to identify men with the same name.  Honor be to their memories.

 

Masters and Pilots                               DoB        Death

Calhoon, Richard                              1795       1873

Calhoon, John                                  1809       1846

Calhoon, James Hutchinson                1813       1849

Calhoon, Richard                              1814       1895

Calhoon, Millton                               1817       1889

Calhoon, George Groshorn                  1820       1850

Calhoon, Thomas Dawson                  1822       1860

Calhoon, Joseph MC                          1823       1855

Calhoon, Thomas Stevenson               1834       1910

Calhoon, Thomas Poe                        1843       1883

Calhoon, WIlliam

Dawson, Amos                                  18??        1852

Dawson, George W

Dawson, RD

Ebert, George Washington                  1814       1879

Ebert ,Theodore                                  

Ebert, Harrison                                  1818       1898

Kinsey, Harry                                    1811       1899

Kinsey, Henry                                     1812

Kinsey, Jesse                                      1813      1848

Kinsey, Jonathon                              1822

Kinsey, Thomas                                  1826

Kinsey, Zebulon                                  1792

Laughlin, BM                                        1827

Laughlin, George D                            1828

Laughlin, RD

McCurdy, John Newton

McMillen, John S

Mackall, John

Parr, Andrew Hague                           1839       1902

Parr, William J                                   1826       1898

Parr, Jesse S                                    1836       1881

Peppard, Standish                             1813       1874

Poe, Andrew                                    1809       1887

Poe, Jacob                                       1813       1889

Poe, Adam                                       1816       1895

Poe, Andrew                                     1809     1887

Poe, Thomas                                    1783       1859

Poe, Thomas Washington                    1819       1881

Poe, George W                                  1830       1884

Poe, George Washington Ebert             1844       1943

Potts, Thomas

Stockdale, Jackman Taylor                  1828       1887

Trimble, James Hervey                       1829

Trimble, Samuel C                              1830       1892

Trimble, John A                                 1833       1912

Wilkins, James

Wood, Jonathan

 

Clerks.

Calhoon, Thomas Stevenson              1834     1910   

Laughlin John E

Parr, Jesse                                                    1836     1939

Parr, John Quincy Adams                     1837       1885

Peppard, Richard

Peppard, Standish                                    1813     1874

Poe, John W                                                 1849     1888

Poe, TC                                                          1861     1950

Trimble , Samuel C                                    1830  1892

 

Engineers.

Ewing, George W                                       

Ewing, Jacob

Kinsey, B D

Kinsey, James M                                      1841  1905

Kinsey, Quigley

Lyons, George D                                        1865  1942

Lyons, Samuel Sr

Lyons, Samuel Jr

McCurdy, Newton

McMillen, Steel

Smith, John E

 

Mates.

Conkle, Ben

Conkle, Sam

Dawson, Benoni

Dawson, Fred

Dawson, Harrison

Heckathorn, Charles

Laughlin, Thomas

Mackall, GW

Mackall, James

Mackall, John D

Thompson, Montgomery

Poe, Andrew

 

Ship Carpenters.

Lake, Cluet

McHaffie, W G

Nash, George

Sutherland, Ayers

 

Stewards.

Calhoon George W

Calhoon, Thomas K

Conkle, James

Conkle, John

Conkle, Thomas

Ewing, Malin E

Dawson, GW

Kinsey, Hamilton

Laughlin, Charles B

Laughlin, Robert D

Laughlin, TG

Laughlin, TS

McHaffie, Hyram

Mchaffie, James C

Parr, Jesse

Porter, JH

 

 

References.

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright © 2013 Francis W Nash
All Rights Reserved

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