Death of a Steamboat

 As I look across the massive Missouri River I admire its intimidating power, so silently easing past.

I appreciate its ability to reflect a sunrise as inspiring, and its sunsets so relaxing. It is a beautiful giant in our midst. The river and its environs are home to fish and fishermen, birds and mammals and hunters and paddlers. And sometimes I wonder if other unseen inhabitants reside there as well.

 My mind wanders to other contents of the waterway as I think of the wrecks of hundreds of riverboats and the ghosts of their passengers and crews. And I sometimes wonder if the river is a haunted place or just haunting.

 The boats found many ways to die on this river. But explosion and fire was what truly terrified the early travelers.

 Sometimes silt from the river clogged the boilers. Or captains and crews distracted by current or maybe the wind and weather they faced would overlook the pressure gages for a moment too long.

 The ensuing explosions were deadly on the huge wooden boats. The design of the boats normally had those boilers beneath and very near the pilot house. This tended to insure the loss of a crew’s most experienced members and leave those surviving the initial blast without guidance or instruction as the shattered hulk drifted and burned and sank beneath them.

The concussion of the explosion tearing apart the superstructure, flying flaming splinters and metal shrapnel would be what assailed those not already blown away. But even if one were lucky enough to survive the blast he wouldn’t be likely to see what happened as clouds of smoke and scalding steam enveloped what remained of the vessel.

 For many of those blown clear or forced to abandon the wreck, a cold wet trial might still await as they fought for life in the powerful current. And a swim across a wide wild river may be the only escape.

 It was a lucky soul indeed that survived the death of a steamboat. But even for those fortunate enough to gain the shore they sometimes found themselves stranded in an isolated wilderness. Maybe burned or bleeding, likely cold and alone, almost certainly in shock and confused.

 Between 1819 and 1890 the official tally of sunken boats on the Missouri is placed by some at 289 boats lost to all causes. But other estimates run as high as 400. At best it seems that on average maybe four or five boats a year would succumb to the river’s power.  

 One of those unfortunate vessels met its fate only some 30 feet from the wharf at Lexington, Missouri on April 9, 1852. This boat, the Saluda, has the dubious distinction of being perhaps the most deadly of all such incidents on the Missouri.

 As steamers went she was an older boat, but only by a few years, having been built in 1846. She was a mid sized packet at 179 feet long by 26 feet wide. Plus another ten feet on each side for her 20 foot diameter side wheels. She carried 10 officers and approximately a dozen crew members and on that fateful day about 150 to 175 passengers. By mid morning even though she had just cast off the wharf more than half of that compliment would be dead or dying.

 The Saluda had left St. Louis on March 30, enroute to Kanesville (today known as Council Bluffs), Iowa. Her primary cargo was a large group of Mormon pioneers hoping to travel from Kanesville to Utah by wagon caravans that summer. She arrived at Lexington, at the time the third largest city in the state (after St. Louis and Hannibal), and laid over to allow the passengers to collect additional supplies.

On April 7th she attempted to battle her way around a sharp bend just above the town but high water and heavy ice descending the the river did severe damage to her paddlewheels. Returning to the Lexington dock she spent that day and the next repairing her damage and preparing to resume her assault on the icy river.

   On the morning of the 9th the Saluda left the dock for the last time. Capt. Francis Belt, her Master, was a 35 year old half owner of the boat and had spent his entire adult life on the river. He was considered by his peers an experienced and capable Master. On this morning he and both of the ship’s Pilots Charles LaBarge and Louis Guerrette were in the pilot house. The Engineers, Josiah Clancy and John Evans were on duty near the engines and boilers.

 Of the ten officers on board only the 1st clerk, F.C. Brockman and half owner Peter Conrad were to survive.

 Capt. Belt ordered maximum steam and then gave the signal to cast off and the Saluda drifted into the current. Witnesses agree that before the huge paddlewheels had made two revolutions the blast occurred.

 The entire superstructure of the boat, from the wheels forward disintegrated in a cloud of steam and fire, and witnesses in the town claimed the pilothouse was blown as high as the bluff top.

 Debris from the boilers and the ships bell were later found nearly a quarter of a mile away. The wharf and surrounding area was covered with parts of the boat and numerous bodies and two men who had been watching from shore were killed as well. Just as many were thrown into the icy river and the bow of the now drifting hulk began to settle into the water.

 The ship’s stern grounded on shore as the shattered front half sank, anchoring her in place. This allowed those lucky enough to have been at the rear of the boat to begin to exit onto land.

  The citizens of Lexington sprang to work to save as many of the injured as they could. But the toll was high even with help readily available. Throughout the morning the injured were moved to makeshift wards wherever available. Though many of the buildings in town had been damaged as well.

 Before he died of his wounds one of the Engineers took responsibility saying he had let the boilers run dry in response to the Captains orders for maximum steam. When the engines were engaged and cold water was pumped into the now red hot boilers the explosion ensued.

 The Mormon contingent had been hardest hit and many of those who survived were forced into long stays in Lexington to convalesce before continuing their journey. Many orphaned children from the wreck were adopted by local families and a cemetery was established in Lexington for those lost in the blast.

 No accurate count was possible but best estimates were that 90 to 100 lives were lost. Whether consumed in the explosion or lost to the river some bodies were never accounted for. Had the blast not occurred so near the town the casualties would most certainly have much higher.

 The vision of a classic white steamboat trailing plumes of smoke and churning the river’s surface as it

grandly paraded upstream is an accurate one.

 But so too is a vision of a flaming shattered wreck drifting downstream surrounded in the water by litter and debris and bodies.

 Life in the golden age of the riverboats could be every bit as harsh as it also was grand.