Joseph B. Williams

Hartford, John

picture

Joseph B. Williams (Steamboat)
Towboats
Steamboats
River steamers

The Joseph B. Williams was built at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1876 and was 210 x 40 x 6.5 feet. She had Hartipoe engines which were 20's by 45's with a nine-foot stroke. The boat had six boilers. Her tonnage was 802, net and gross. The Williams was built for one of the Pittsburgh \"coal barons\" after whom she was named. She was not the largest towboat ever built but she was the most powerful of the old time wooden hull \"pushers\". However, up until the Sprague was constructed in 1902 she was the largest towboat on inland rivers from the time of her building. She performed prodigious feats in handling immense fleets of barges laden with Monongahela River coal, on one occasion having taken 62 pieces to New Orleans at one time without a mishap... She was adorned with elk horns mounted atop the pilot house and a double star between her chimneys. Captain Gus Jutte was long her master...

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