Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1901-03-14
old Il TINE RlVERMEN R n
F: Higbee Of the Surveyor Gen
eral's Office Adds Some + acts About
Old Time Missouri Boats, d
a Number Of Additions Made to the
II List Of Steamers and Captains
c55 Formerly Published. ,.:fs h

interest the article published il the
Sioux City Tribune Of March 4, relative
to ttold times on the Missouri and the
list Of old time steamboat captains and
boats that have bucked the big Muddy
since the early SOS. . = r..
I also notice that my old friend and
neighbor, Capt. w. FL. Gould, has become
reminiscent, and as Foley says, the only
way to wake, the boys up is to about half
print something and then chuck in a
few errors, 50 have become a little
reminiscent myself. .-%
I began what little steamboat career
have had as third or mud clerk on the
old fast packet, War Eagle, running be-
tween Dubuque and st. Paul in 1866,
but quit and came to Yankton in August
OF the same year, staging it from Cedar
Falls TO- Sioux City and Yankton over a
country then unsettled, now a network
Of railroads. I returned to Dubuque in
November and again reached Sioux City
in March 1867. I stopped at the old
Northwestern hotel and for portion of
the time my roommate was the late John
w. Power Of Montana, who was awaiting
the arrival of his brother, ex-senator
Tom G. Power, to take passage for Fort
Benton. Nj. + s, & '.sGs .,.s
! Early one morning in April loud
voice was heard calling steamboat, It
was Charley ;Howards, then in the drug
business Later of Sioux Falls and now
one, Of the cattle kings Of South Dakota.
Around the bend came two steamboats,,
the Walter 3. Dahce and the Waverly.
{ Tie Wayerly left irst ana T. g. Power,
J: w.: Power and myself took passage on
the Dance. It took four days Of hard
pushing to reach Yankton, at which point,
I left the boat. Capt. Bob Sousley was
master of the boat, Jake, his brother, was
one pilot and Happy-go-lucky Bob
Wright was cub X pilot. Speaking of
quick changes in the channel Of the
Missouri, / call to mind that it took us
all day to 60 around the Sioux Point
bend, and the same bend cut through in
the next tweinty-four hours and the
steamer Deer Lodge came through the
cutoff and nearly caught us before we
reached Yankton. That part Of Dakota
was suddenly transferred to Nebraska
and is there yet.
Early in thesspring of 1872 DR.. w. A..
Burleigh bought the steamer Miner, then
on the ways at Sioux City, and James
j.. Kelly, his brother-in-law, and an old
steamboat man from the Allegheny
river was made master, and myself clerk.
The boat was blocked UP high on the.
ways, and the ferryboat Undine lay be
low5o the same ways. The Undine had
to be launched before the Miner could
be gotten into the river. The storyis
told that John H. Charles sent up to
his store for a few tubs Of spoiled butter
which was in the cellar to grease the
ways with, the men got hold Of some
tubs Of strained honey, the ways were
creased with that and the Undine quit
before she reached the water and had to
be showed of the ways.
made three trips on the Miner and
was succeeded by Billy Gould who
acted as pilot and clerk In those days
all we'll regulated boats had store and
bar, and in this case the store was
stocked BY Hornick and Walls Of Sioux
City and presided over by our old friend
Captain Jimmy Emmons, but Jimmy
quit soon after, that is after a quiet wed
ding ID pr. Wixons' parlors in Z Yankton,
in which the writer was. left hand man,
and started in businessfo himself in
what is now the capitol Of North Dakota.
Ny next experience in the steam boating
line was as clerk for q few trips il 1873
and s7e on the Black Hills and in 1880
] was On her the whole season. During
the winter Of l880:8l, Captain Burleigh
sold the Black Hills to the Benton
Transpo portation company, and during the
season Of 1881 and 1882 7 served asclerk
of the steamer Rosebud Of what was
then known as the old reliable Coulson
Line with D. W. Maratta tSlippery
Dan, with apologies to Grant Marsh) as
general superint ntendent at Bismarck.
have put my thinking cap On and
with the assistance of Captain john M.
Belks distant memory 4 would like to
add q few Steamboats, and captains TO
the list already complied BY Capt
Gould
n the first place we must not forget
that old veteran Capt. Throck ckmorton
whose last trip to the mountains was or
the steamer Columbia, and whose habit 81
laying DIP Sundays cost him 50 many
days that be- was frozen UP and lay 81