Josh Cook

Hartford, John

picture

Josh Cook (Steamboat)
Towboats
Steamboat lines\n
River steamers
Coal

The Josh Cook was built at Pittsburgh, Pa., in 1876. Her dimensions were:- 165 x 30 x 5 feet. Tonnage, gross and net, 384 tons. Originally she was a Pittsburgh - New Orleans coal towboat. On August 14, 1898 while ascending the Ohio River with a tow of empty barges she collided with the ferry boat New Richmond descending in a heavy fog near Foster, Kentucky. The cabin of the Richmond and one barge in tow of the Cook were both slightly damaged. On March 23, 1904 with a tow on the Ohio River she struck a pier of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad bridge at Bellaire, Ohio. During the excitement one deckhand was drowned. Later she was owned by the Atlas Cement Company of Hannibal, Missouri and was used to tow the products of that great plant to lower river ports. Captain Floyd Burris was master of the Cook for many years. The Cook was entirely rebuilt on the Canulete Brothers Ways at Slidell, Louisiana in 1914. In 1914 she brought 2 barges of freight amounting to 1000 tons, from New Orleans to La Salle, Illinois, direct - the first through shipment between these points in 25 years. Captain W. C. Calvin took her from St. Louis to La Salle as pilot on this trip. In 1916 she was still towing for Atlas Cement Company. She was sunk by ice on January 29, 1918 at Joppa, Illinois on the Ohio River.

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