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where the Neches River is
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Confererate Gunboat
UNCLE BEN
About Boats On The Sabine River
JOSIAH H. BELL
This article is borrowed from the website
of W.T. Block, Jr.
Please
take a look at it
I borrowed this page to make
linking to boat and captain listings possible and because
in the past I have merely linked to pages like these only
to find they later disappear from the web, thus loosing that
information to all of us.
THE NECHES RIVER COTTON STEAMBOATS:
A ROMANTIC INTERLUDE OF FRONTIER DAYS
By
W. T. Block
Reprinted from Beaumont SUNDAY ENTERPRISE-JOURNAL, November
26, 1878, p. 13-E.
Sources: two published, sister volumes entitled
W. T. Block, COTTON BALES, KEELBOATS, AND STERNWHEELERS, one
a history of the Trinity River cotton trade, 1838-1900, and
the other a history of the Sabine River cotton trade, 1837-1900,
have now been published as one book by Dogwood Press, entitled
Cotton Bales, Keelboats and Sternwheelers: A History of the
Sabine River and Trinity River Cotton Trades, 1837-1900.
Most of us never think of an old Neches River
cotton boat as being the equivalent of television's "Love
Boat," the proprieties of the Victorian Age being then
in vogue and tough, old river skippers and chaperones what
they once were. But the truth is, 'Fulton's Folly' came to
mean a great deal more to early East Texans than just a freight
carrier. Youth being what youth has always been, oftentimes
romances were sparked aboard and marriages were consummated.
And the fondest memories of early Beaumonters were of those
moments spent on moonlight excursions aboard the "Laura"
or "Neches Belle."
During the 1870's, Captain
Andrew Smyth of Bevilport, Jasper County, became the symbol
of the hard-nose Neches River skipper's search for financial
stability, but I'd wager that even old "Cap'n Andy' winked
his eye more than once when romance blossomed in some remote
and moonlit corner of the steamer "Laura."
Between 1850 and 1900, cotton-freighting on
the Neches River was largely limited to the months between
December and May, a period when upstream water levels usually
were high and cotton bales awaited transportation at the landings.
During the 'off-season,' beginning in June, steamboats were
usually tied up at Beaumont or elsewhere in the tidewater
region, or else engaged in excursion trips or hauling freight
or lumber to Galveston.
Excursion voyages became a boon to steamer owners,
crews, and Beaumonters alike. They provided some employment
for the sternwheeler crews after the cotton-freighting season
ended. The East Texas frontiersmen worked hard and played
hard, and no other facility offered better accommodations
for relaxation, dining, and dancing than did the steamboat,
which usually had several staterooms, a bar, one or more musicians,
and space for dancing.
Of dozens of surviving accounts, perhaps no
other news brief so adequately portrays the joys of excursioning
as the following quote from the Galveston "News"
of May 15, 1892:
"The First Regiment band gave a moonlight
excursion on the steamer "Neches
Belle" Thursday night. The music, moonlight, and
cool breeze were enjoyed by about 125 people who were loathe
to leave the boat when shores were reached."
Similar accounts exist as far back as 1859,
when an early school teacher, Henry R. Green, and a party
of Beaumonters rode the steamboat "Florilda"
to Sabine Pass. (The 2,500-bale boat was the largest sternwheeler
ever to ply Texas' inland waters.) Green recounted that he
had:
" . . . attended a party last evening,
given on board the 'Florilda,' whose use was cleverly tendered
to the citizens of the Pass by her gentlemanly commander and
where there was a great deal of beautiful women, funny dancing,
a few ugly men, much pleasure, exchanges of friendly feelings,
and the most stupendously-accursed wine ever administered
to saint or sinner."
The 'golden age' of steamboating lasted only
until the Civil War on the Brazos River and until 1873 on
the Trinity River. Thanks to the lumber industry and the relative
late arrival of the railroads, however, steamboating on the
Neches and Sabine Rivers lasted until 1900. And a few excursion
boats lingered on until a decade later.
There was a great variety
of sternwheelers in existence. Many, such as the "Camargo,"
were little more than river scows equipped with engines, whereas
some Mississippi River packets were sumptiously-appointed,
even by today's standards, with well-furnished staterooms,
electric lighting, mahogany interiors, and inlaid marble floors.
The Texas steamers were usually much less elegant than those
on the Mississippi, but even the "Neches
Belle" had electric lighting by 1893.
During that ox-cart age before passenger trains,
the river boat provided the best accommodations and least
hardships to the traveling public. Packets frequently traveled
as far inland as Belzora (near Tyler, Smith County) on the
Sabine River and to Pattonia, 12 miles south of Nacogdoches,
on the Angelina-Neches watercourse. Although a few voyages
traveled the Trinity all the way to Dallas, Navarro County
was usually considered to be the head of navigation on that
stream.
The size of some steamers and the distances
they traveled inland during the flood season is amazing too.
When one looks at the Sabine River in the vicinity of Longview,
Texas, today and realizes that 135-foot steamers once traveled
that far inland, it defies belief, but there are too many,
well-documented accounts of such voyages. Oldtimers often
stated that some flat-bottomed sternwheelers "could navigate
in heavy dew." In March, 1851, the 200-foot, iron steamship
"Liberty," both square-rigged and side-wheeled,
navigated the Sabine all the way to Fredonia, Upshur County
(near Gladewater), and brought out a load of cotton without
mishap, a fact documented in two accounts in the Marshall
(Tx.) "Republican." However, it is also known that
between 1849-1851, the upper Sabine River was at flood stage
almost continuously because of monsoon rains in Northeast
Texas.
Although steamers plied both the Sabine and
Trinity rivers by 1838, the first record of a Neches River
voyage appeared in 1846, when the "Angelina"
built at Pattonia, began its cotton-freighting voyages to
Sabine Pass. Robert Patton,
its owner and builder, was East Texas' largest cotton factor
during the 1840's, shipping from both Nacogdoches County on
the Angelina and Smith County on the Sabine River. As early
as 1840, Patton began shipping cotton from Nacogdoches to
Sabine Lake on the keelboat "T. J. Rusk." The steamer
"Angelina" carried cotton until Feb., 1850, when
it sank a few miles south of Evadale, Jasper County.
During the 1850s, Nacogdoches County produced
and shipped about 12,000 bales annually, an amount equal to
all of the lower Neches River counties combined. And the Neches
River route reduced shipping costs to $3.50 a bale, less than
half of the overland wagon route to the Red River at Natchitoches,
La.
The "Kate,"
the second packet on the river, arrived in 1849 and was also
based at Pattonia. For the next 4 years, it carried 1,000-bale
loads to Sabine Pass for its owners, Bondies-Roehte and Co.,
who trans-shipped their commodities by schooner to New Orleans.
The "Kate" was then transferred to the Trinity River
where it sank at Wheeler's Landing with 1,000 bales aboard
in 1856.
Between 1840-1853, there were a number of cotton
factors or commission merchants at Sabine Pass, including
A. Hotchkiss, (Sen.) Stephen Everett, M. H. Nicholson, Otis
McGaffey, Bondies-Roehte, and Hutchings and Sealy. So shrewd
were the trading practices of John H. Hutchings and John Sealy
that in seven years time, they virtually eliminated all competition
at Sabine Pass. However, they moved their business to Galveston
in 1854. Today there are indeed few people aware that two
of Galveston's great institutions, the Hutchings-Sealy National
Bank and the John Sealy Medical Complex (which includes the
Medical School), are end results of the $50,000 profit in
gold that the two cotton entrepreneurs earned in Jefferson
County.
The leading Neches steamboatman of the 1850s
was Capt.
John Clements, who had earned his river spurs as a keelboatman
on the Sabine. He operated cotton warehouses at both Bevilport
and Sabine, and between 1852-1857, brought five new packets
to the Neches, the first being the "Pearl
Plant," and later, the "Doctor
Massie," "Mary
Falvey," "Juanita,"
and "Sunflower."
Gradually, he disposed of his cotton-trading assets, and in
1860, he bought the Sour Lake Hotel and retired from maritime
pursuits.
Although the Neches River packets usually belonged
to their skippers or to cotton brokers, it was not unusual
for a leading cotton planter to double as a steamboat owner
and captain in order to insure dependable transportation for
his own and his neighbors' cotton. In 1860, Captain
William Neyland bought the "Sunflower"
from Clements and based it at Bevilport, where he also owned
a cotton warehouse. In 1860 Neyland grew 225 bales of cotton
on his Jasper County plantation and was also one of the county's
largest slaveholders. After an eventful career as both Confederate
tender and blockade-runner at Sabine Pass, the "Sunflower"
was transferred by its new owner, Capt.
D. E. Connor, to the Trinity in 1867, where it sank at
Patrick's Landing, north of Swarthout, with 553 bales aboard.
According to Henry R. Green, the "Falvey"
and "Doctor Massie"
were well-equipped for the passenger trade and made scheduled
weekly voyages between such points as Sabine, Beaumont, Concord
(on Pine Island Bayou), Wiess Bluff and Bevilport (both in
Jasper County), and Pattonia for many years. After the Civil
War began, both packets disappeared from the river, and most
likely went to sea as blockade-runners.
A leading Jefferson County steamer captain and
pilot of that era was Peter
D. Stockholm, whose long career on the Neches and Sabine
Rivers spanned almost 40 years. He was closely associated
with Clements and at various times captained the "Juanita,"
the "Bertha Roebuck,"
and other steamers. He died at Beaumont in 1901.
In 1857, Henry Force and Henry
Clay Smith of Orange built the "T.
J. Smith" at Town Bluff, Tyler County, to serve as
a mail packet between Beaumont, Orange, and Sabine Pass. Upon
booking passage from Beaumont to Sabine in 1858, Green recorded
that the "Smith" ran "like lightning with a
thunderbolt after it, (was) neatly finished, comfortably arranged,
and well worthy of the patronage of shippers and the traveling
public." When its owner and skipper, Capt. H. C. Smith,
defected to the Union Navy in 1862, the packet was confiscated
by the Confederate States government. When last reported,
the "Smith" was inoperative and docked for repairs
at Lake Charles, La., in 1863.
Two of the largest Texas steamers, the 1,800-bale
"Josiah H. Bell"
and the 220-foot "Florilda,"
arrived at Beaumont in 1859, but not for the cotton trade.
The tracks of the Texas and New Orleans Railroad were then
being built across Jefferson and Orange counties, and the
steamboats ferried iron rails, crossties, locomotives, box
cars, and construction materials to sites along the rivers.
The "Florilda" came from the Mississippi trade,
but the "Bell" first arrived on the Trinity River
in 1855, from where it ferried many loads of cotton to Galveston.
The "Bell," with a V-bottom, deepsea hull, built
of staunch white oak timbers, was well-known for its plowing
of new channels and clearing out of logjams in the serene
Trinity.
Both vessels served the
Confederacy with distinction. The "Florilda" was
a transport and tender, generally maintaining the railroad
connection from Beaumont to Niblett's Bluff (north of Orange),
La., a quartermaster depot and supply line feeding Gen. Richard
Taylor's army in central Louisiana. When a disastrous hurricane
destroyed Orange on Sept. 13, 1865, the "Florilda"
capsized and sank in the Sabine and was never refloated. The
"Bell" served the Confederacy well as a cottonclad
gunboat with one 64-pound rifled cannon mounted on it. On
Jan. 21, 1863, the "Bell" and another steamer, the
"Uncle Ben," broke the blockade at Sabine and captured
the "Morning Light" and "Velocity" following
a 30-mile chase at sea. In April, 1865, both steamers were
at Orange being converted to blockade-runners when news of
defeat reached Texas. In May, 1865, the "Bell" was
scuttled in the Sabine, 4 miles south of Orange, to prevent
its capture by Federal troops, but its boilers and engines
were removed and for years used by the Orange sawmills.
During the war, several Neches steamers, including
the "Roebuck,"
"Grand Bay,"
"Dime,"
"Jeff
Davis," and "Sunflower,"
served the Rebel cause with distinction as transports, tenders,
and blockade-runners, but only the latter was still around
in 1865 to re-enter the cotton trade, eventually sinking in
the Trinity, "a total loss," in 1867. The others
probably went to sea as blockade-runners near the end of the
war and never returned.
The fact that Sabine Pass cotton shipments dropped
from 20,000 bales in 1860 to 6,000 bales in 1866 reflects
the adverse effect of the war on East Texas' major industry.
But the Neches River cotton trade revived rapidly nevertheless,
if the number of new boats on the river by 1867 is any indicator.
Between 1866 and 1872, two Neches River skippers,
Captains William and
Napoleon Wiess brought three new packets, the "Alamo,"
the "Adrianne,"
the "James
L. Graham, to the Neches River, and built a fourth boat,
the "Albert
Gallatin," on the banks of Brake's Bayou at Beaumont.
The "Graham" was probably the river's
fastest packet of the post-bellum era and soon established
a new 4 1/2 hour record between Beaumont and Sabine Pass.
Soon after, the Sabine Pass "Beacon" ran an editorial
lamenting the fact that Jefferson County had to tolerate "a
contemptible pony mail to Beaumont" when much better
service by water was available.
During the 1870s, an arch rivalry developed
between Capt. Napoleon
Wiess of the "Graham"
and Capt.
G. B. Burr of the Sabine River cotton boat, the
"Era No. 8."
{Note: there were thirteen steamboats named "Era"
built at Shreveport, La., with only the number in back being
different.} In May, 1873, the Beaumont "News-Beacon"
carried a long account of the racing sternwheelers, and event
won handily by the "Graham," which ended as follows:
"The black smoke rose in perfect clouds,
indicating an unrestricted use of pine knots. In the race
from Sabine Pass, the "Era" left 56 minutes ahead
of the "Graham," but as they passed up the reach
below town, the "Era" was only one or 200 yards
ahead. We suppose the "Era" will not give up yet,
and we will have the pleasure of seeing a little more of the
fun ourselves."
Racing, a favorite sport of Texas steamer owners,
was then an extremely dangerous practice due to a lack of
steam control devices and gauges. In 1841, the first
"Albert Gallatin"
in Texas, while racing, blew up in Galveston Bay with 15 people
killed and injured. In 1853, while the packets "Farmer"
and "Neptune" were racing in Galveston Bay, firemen
fed pine knots and barrels of fat bacon into the furnace of
the boilers until the "Farmer" finally exploded,
killing 30 persons.
The sidewheeler "Uncle
Ben" was principally a Sabine River cotton boat in
peacetime, but served in the Neches River during the Civil
War when it was a cottonclad gunboat. In 1857 the 135-foot
boat made five round trips to Belzora, near Tyler, Texas,
carrying out 1,000-bale loads to Sabine Lake on each trip.
The "Ben" belonged to Robert Patton before the Civil
War, to the Confederate States government during the war,
and was probably sold at auction in 1865. It was snagged and
sank in the Sabine River at East Hamilton in 1867.
In 1869 Capt.
Andrew Smyth and his partners brought the squarenose scow
steamer "Camargo"
to the Neches, but Smyth soon tired of the packet's steerage
problems during the river freshets. When he decided to buy
a new vessel, he sold the "Camargo" to C. H. Alexander
and Co., cotton factor of Sabine Pass. In January, 1874, the
sternwheeler, by then captained by Sherwood
Burch of Sabine, sank at Townsend's Ferry on the Angelina
River with 202 bales aboard.
The 'golden age' of Neches River steamboating,
the 1870s witnessed many new cotton boats on the river. Beginning
in 1869, Capt. Charles Hausinger's propeller-driven steamboat
"Kate" was based at Smith's Bluff near Port Neches
while shipping Neches River cotton. The "Kate" was
so small it would have been economically unprofitable to operate
except that it towed a wooden barge which increased its bale
capacity to 400. In 1873, the "Kate" became the
second Neches vessel with that name to founder in the Trinity,
where it struck sunken logs at Moore's Bluff. It was raised
and repaired in 1874.
During 1873-1874, the iron-hulled steamer "Stonewall"
made weekly voyages hauling cotton between Bunn's Bluff, north
of Beaumont, and Galveston. Beginning in 1877, Captain
Burr kept the sternwheeler "Flora"
principally in the Neches River trade until it capsized and
sank during the hurricane of Aug., 1879.
Starting in 1869, Capt.
Lewis King's cotton boat, the "Orleans,"
was intermittently in the Neches and Trinity trade until it
sank at Sabine Pass during the hurricane of Sept., 1871. In
Aug., 1879, Captain
W. E. Rogers' packet, the "Pelican
State," was equally unfortunate, plying the Neches
until it was irretrievably driven into the marshes at Sabine
by a storm. During the 1870s, a Trinity River plantation owner,
Capt.
Jules Poitevent, brought the "J.
J. Warren," "Early
Bird," and "Pearl
Rivers" to the Sabine River, but only the latter
remained on Sabine-Neches waters, the other two returning
to the Trinity. Under Capt.
Wilson Junker, the "Rivers" hauled down large
loads of cotton, but perhaps it greatest achievement was the
building of the Sabine jetties. On one occasion, the "Rivers"
sank in the Neches River north of Beaumont, but it was quickly
raised and repaired.
In Jan., 1872, a Galveston
editor announced that "the Neches now has a new steamboat
called the 'Laura.'" For the next decade the new packet
became the most remunerative steamer in Neches River history,
amassing sizeable profits for Capt. Smyth and his partners.
A former Beaumonter, Dr. William Seale, has chronicled the
career of Smyth and the "Laura" in a classic of
steamboat history entitled "Texas Riverman." In
1879, while docked at Beaumont, Capt. Smyth died of a stroke
and is buried in the Magnolia Cemetery in that city. The writer
does not know who replaced Smyth as captain. The "Laura"remained
on the Neches for two more years, but sank one night while
at anchorage in Beaumont; it was never raised.
Early in 1881, another fast packet, the "D.
van Buskirk," arrived on the Neches River under
Captain A. A. Neyland,
and it was to render the "Laura" it stiffest competition
for the remainder of that year. It was replaced in 1881 by
the sternwheeler "Colonel
Hooker," an old Calcasieu River snag boat, which
also remained for a single shipping season.
Around 1885, Captain
Bill Loving transferred the old steamer "Vicksburg"
from the Sabine trade to the Neches. By 1888, its hull had
grown leaky and unseaworthy, and its owners, Loving and
Capt. Pearl Bunn, decided
to scrap it and reinstall its engines in a new hull to be
built on the banks of Brake's Bayou, near the Reliance Sawmill,
at Beaumont. In 1889 they completed and launched the
"Neches Belle"
at a total cost, excluding the machinery, of $3,000.
The "Belle" was to become the most
elegant and luxurious Neches River packet of its day, and
it afforded many Orange and Beaumont residents with memories
of pleasant excursions afloat. The partners later sold the
sternwheeler to Capt.
S. C. Allardyce, and the "Neches Belle" remained
in the Sabine River thereafter until it sank at Logansport,
La., in 1897.
With the advent of large scale lumbering and
river logging in 1876, a new type of steamer, the log tug,
appeared on the Neches, and steamboating there soon entered
a state of decline beyond all possible recovery. Beginning
in 1880, the building of the East Texas Railroad was to divert
the shipment of much Southeast Texas cotton to market via
a new and alternative method. During the river freshets of
the last quarter of the century, the stream was filled with
floating logs, and it became increasingly difficult for the
sternwheelers to break through the log jams while sailing
north in search of cotton. And as the plantation owners on
both sides of the Neches-Angelina watercourse became accustomed
to shipping cotton to market on iron wheels, the old steamboat
became a less dependable and unwanted transportation facility.
Nevertheless, the lumber steamers lingered on
the Neches River for many more years. The "W. P. Rabb,"
named for its captain, was perhaps the best known of these,
and it plied the river for a decade until the Texas Tram and
Lumber Company sold it in 1895 to the new Port Arthur Land
Company for use on Sabine Lake as a tow boat. In 1893, the
lumber steamer "Charles Lee" came to the river,
where it towed log rafts downstream and carried freight and
supplies to the Yellow Bluff Tram Company near Buna. Between
1895 and 1910, there were several other lumber boats on the
river, including the "H. A. Harvey" in 1898, the
"Caprice," the "Henrietta," and the "John
Henry Kirby." But the more efficient steam or naphtha-burning
tug boat had already made its debut on the stream, and the
old sternwheelers gradually bowed to the march of progress,
especially the rails that they had helped to construct.
With the passing of the cotton boat, a delightful
and nostalgic epoch of river history came to an end. For decades,
the steamer's arrival upstream had meant mail and newspapers
from the outside world, honeymooners returning from Galveston,
new merchandise in the market place, or a year's cotton crop
returning in the form of gold coins. Altogether more than
eighty packets had sailed the river at one time or another,
but most of them, because of its proximity, had plied on the
Sabine as well.
In a sense, the Neches River steamboat trade
did not disappear; it simply evolved, becoming first the long
tows of lumber barges which traveled south to Sabine Pass,
and later, the diesel tows of petroleum products which still
navigate the river. But for the oldster and frontiersman,
the passing of the sternwheeler meant the passing of the quieter,
simpler, and friendlier days when life was less complicated
than today and cotton was king. And a few of them missed the
excitement spawned when the steamboat's shrill whistle shattered
the ominous silence below the bend in the river.
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