Str Big Foot

 
The Big Foot, a sternwheel wooden hull packet built in Pittsburgh, PA in 1875, was owned by Adam W Poe and others from Georgetown, PA.  Soon after its completion, Capt Adam Poe sold a fifty percent interest for $5,000 to a man in Florida.  As part of the deal, Capt Adam Poe was contracted to deliver the steamer.  Loaded with freight for New Orleans, Capt Adam Poe delivered his cargo, and then made preparations for sea.  Six pairs of ropes were lashed around the hull and roof with “Kanawha” twisters.  The boilers were similarly protected and the smokestacks were cut at roof level.  Sternwheel packets with their low draft were not designed for big water adventures.[i]

  

Str Big Foot (Photo courtesy of Murphy Library, University of Wisconsin - La Crosse)

Str Big Foot (Photo courtesy of Murphy Library, University of Wisconsin - La Crosse)

At daybreak from New Orleans, the Gulf pilot took charge.  The trip went wrong from that point.  The Big Foot steamed down the pass toward the Chandeleur Islands some eighty miles away.  An approaching storm changed calculations.  About seven miles short of the islands the anchor was heaved in Mississippi Sound.  With its anchor dragging, the Big Foot wallowed for sixty hours.  But the Big Foot lived to complete her voyage.  Sustaining serious damage, the cost of repair was considerable.  Capt Adam Poe calculated he “was $10,000 less in pocket” when the adventure was over.  “Went home in very low spirits.” he concluded in his account.  [ii]

 

One year later on Saturday night Dec 9, 1876 as reported in the Memphis Daily Appeal, the Big Foot sank ten miles above Eufaula, AL.  She sank to her boiler deck and her cargo of cotton floated off.  The Big Foot was a total loss.  At this time, the owners were Capt Adam Poe and the Central Railroad of Georgia.  A photo survived according to Capt Frederick Way showing a large Indian atop the pilot house sticking out of the water.  This Indian represented the Wyandot Indian chief killed in the 1781 battle with the Poe brothers on the Ohio River near New Cumberland, WV and opposite the mouth of the Yellow Creek.  [iii]

 

Str Big Foot cabin deck (Photo courtesy of Murphy Library, University of Wisconsin - La Crosse)

Str Big Foot cabin deck (Photo courtesy of Murphy Library, University of Wisconsin - La Crosse)

Adam W Poe had a long career on the river.  After piloting troop and supply transports during the Civil War he quit the river business for a time.  He built a house on a large farm just east of Georgetown where he described the gentle art of farming as an uphill endeavor.  In the 1870’s he returned to work on the river.  The Big Foot was one of his final river adventures. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References. 


[i]  Capt Frederick Way, Jr., The Steamboating Poe Family, (S&D Reflector (Dec 1965)).
[ii]  Ibid.
[iii]  Ibid.

Copyright © Francis W Nash
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