The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-10-04
STEAMBOAT DAYS ON MISSOURI
First Boat to Ascend the River-An Ill
 Fated Fur Trader.

First Boat to Ascend the River-An Ill
 Fated Fur Trader.
 The first Steamboat to ascend the Missouri river was the Independence, John Nelson. masctr, says Phil Chap pell in the Kansas City Star. She came up as far as the mouth of the Charlton, just above Glasgow, in May 1919. A town had been laid out. at that place, which # was then supposed by the boe n1ers would become the metropolis Of Missouri. and it is a historical fact that lots there were exchanged foot for 1 foot, for ground in St. Louis, on Fourth street, where the Planters Hotel now stands. Fut like many another Mis- souri river town. old Charlton lias ''cS177's' 7's since disanreared froyS the map.
 There was n6 Kansas City here then, bus only a steamboat landing, called Westp1rt Landing. Old Man Kelser, captain of the St. Peter, was one of the best known steamboat commanders on the river i'll the '40s. He came to Mis- souH at an early day and located at Hcchercrt. in Boone county Mo. He was a sFillful mechanic and built the first mnIl in Boone countyT-McCona- Ilny's mill Recognizing his skill Pierre Chouteau, then at the head of the American Fur company, induced him to remove to St. Louis and em- ployed him to superlntend the building of his boats. which were engaged in the mountain trade He afterward went on the river as a captain and com | tu a bnfc the Satan, Trapper and St. Peter.
 ID recu- to the St. Peter. The terri bls results that attended the las voy- age of this i'll lated boat is one of the saddest pages in the annals of steam boating on the Missouri river The St. Peter was single engine, sidewheel boat. with cabin in the hold, built on the same lines as were all other Mis- souri river steamboats of that early period. She was built for the upper river fur trade in 1886 and Kelser was her commander She left St. Louis on this unfortunate voyage in the spring of 1887, bound for the mouth of the Yellowstone She was loaded with a cargo of Indian goods for the different trading ports. Her deck crew was com posed of negroes, and before she ar- rived at St, Joseph then called the Black Snake Hills. the smallpox broke out among them and one, who had died was buried there,
 The contagion immediately extended to other members of the crew, and the danger of communicating the disease to the Indians, who were then numer- ous along the upper river, became ap- parent. Runners were sent forward to give the alarm and warn them to keep back from the river banks; but not withstanding this precaution the terri ble contagion spread ana was commu- nicated to every tribe east of the Rocky Mountains.
 The fatality, as the Indians knew no way to treat the disease, was appall- ing and among some tribes amounted to annihilation, Tn the case of the Mandans, tribe then seated near where Bismarck, N. D., is now located, population of seventeen hundred was reduced to thirty-one. Among the Pawnees, who were then on the Platte, the death rate was so great that, ac- cording to the official report made to- the government, they were reduced within year from ten thousand to forty-five hundred-more than half the tribe had died.
 Colonel John Daugherty of Liberty, Mo-, at that time an Indian agent for the western tribes, wrote of the Paw nees during this epidemic: Judging from what l saw during the four days I spent with these Indians, I am fully persuaded that one-half the whole number of this unfortunate tribe have been and will be carried off by this cruel and frightful distemper. They told me that not one under thirty-three years of age had escaped the mon strous disease-it having been that length of time since it visited them be- fore. They were dying so fast that they ceased to bury their dead"
 Utter dismay pervaded all the tribes, and they fled from the pestilence in every direction, leaving the bodies of their dead to be deyoured by the