Betsy Ann

Hartford, John

picture

Betsy Ann (Steamboat)
Steamboats

The Betsy Ann was built in 1899 at Dubuque, Iowa. The dimensions of her steel hull were:- 165 x 39 x 5.5 feet. Tonnage, gross and net, 295 tons. She was originally built for and ran in Natchez-Bayou Sara trade on the lower Mississippi River. About 8:30 A.M. on April 5, 1907, while enroute from Bayou Sara to Natchez, she was struck by a heavy wind near Fordoche Landing, which carried away her chimneys, stage and derricks, damaging her cabin and steam pipe. The boat was landed at the bank when the captain saw the storm approaching. Alex McDowell, rouster, was blown overboard and drowned. Frank Weir, another rouster, had his foot injured. In the early 1920's she was purchased by Captain Fred Way, Jr., of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and ran between that place and Cincinnati on the Ohio River. In her latter days as a packet she had but one swinging stage and carried a gold anchor between her smoke stacks. Later she was sold back down to the lower Mississippi River. Still later, she appeared as a towboat, greatly changed, around Paducah and St. Louis, much to the chagrin of Captain Way. Her last owner was the John I. Hay Company, Incorporated of Chicago, Illinois. She was finally dismantled in 1940 and her hull now serves as a barge at Wood River, Illinois, for the Standard Oil Company near their refinery.

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Herman T. Pott National Inland Waterways Library