Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1913-11-18
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RIVER TRAVEL WAS DANGEROUS
Many Accidents on Water Made Pio-
neers Welcome Advent Of the
Railroad.

The explosion Of steamboat boil
er on the Ohio river near Pittsburgh
some time ago would have attracted
more comment, we suspect, but for
the fact that the wreck on the New
Haven railroad overshadowed 1t. Be-
sides, people do not have to travel
by steamboat on our rivers nowadays
as they once did, therefore few per-
sons were concerned in the disaster,
| which exacted a toll Of nine lives.
However, the incident served to re-
mind some Of us Of the halcyon days
of steamboating on the Ohio and the
Mississippi and their tributaries. And
1t renewed interest in the old volume
by James Hall, published in Cincin-
natl in 1s4S, entitled, 1.-THE West, its
Commerce and Navigation" One
would scarcely look for so much In
formation that is of enduring inter-
est on that subject in book, but
Halls volume is remarkable one In
many respects.
The American flag was first raised
on Lake Erie in 1895 over schooner
of 20 tons, and the government
launched it's first vessel in 1902. the
first steamboat on the lake was buht
in 1918. The first steamboat at Chi
cago was built in 1882 and SO RAPID
was this development, that the tom
| mage at Chicago in IL years was H.
600 tons.
Hall gives list of about $50 steam
boats known to have engaged In the
river trade, beginning with the Or
Eeans, built by Fulton at Pittsburgh
lin 1911, a vessel Of 400 tons which
was destroyed by a snag at Baton
| Rouge In 1918. down to the year
1855. Though steamboat travel nao
| its perils, II was preferred to the SLOW
and tiresome stage coach or morse
back, during the first quarter OF the
nineteenth century, when the tide Oh
emigration set in toward the Valieys
| of the Ohio, the Mississippi and the
Wabash. This peril was due to the
| hidden distractions in the rivers
which were changed in location by
| every flood, and new ones added. He
recounts the fact that between the
| 1th of September and October 10,
1871. the losses on the MISSISSIPPI
between st. Louis and Carlo, q dis
tance of 1S0 miles, amounted 10
s284,0O0. Within the succeeding
4 seventeen mOnInS, z Slcduipodeo "SAS
lost, worth $1,20O,000, with their car
goes, of great value. In the five years
between 1887 and 1912, the insurance
offices in Cincinnati alone paid Tor
steamboats, lost because Of obstruc-
tions in the river the sum OF s442,-
| 930.S9:
Because Of the numerous accidents
on the rivers, with their large loss OF
life, the travelling public welcomed
the advent Of the railroad. Hall IN
cludes in his book a list Of explosions
alone between 1917 and 1881. The
number is 81, in which 256 persons
were killed and 104 injured. The
largest loss of life was the explosion
of the boilers Of the Helen McGregor
on the Mississippi in 1880. In this
disaster 80 lives were lost, and IA
persons were injured. However,
some of the explosions recorded oc-
Cured in New York Bay and on Long
Island Sound. -
Hall has few brief pages on the
invention of the steamboat, or boat
| that PEELED by steam. The first one
was that Of John Fitch, an illiterat
matchmaker Of Philadelphia, who