Loading stores at Nashville, Tennessee, December, 1863. Left to right: Rob Roy, Belle Peoria, Irene, Revelice, Palestine, Lizzie Martin, Mercury. Note: Hard tack in boxes on levee. It is reported that this photograph was taken by a Confederate spy and turned up after the Civil War.
175 x 50 x 6; 512 tons. Casemate 150' x 50' - 21/4\" plating. Torpedoed Yazoo River 1863. Sides 8' high - single wheel. 9 miles per hour. 13 guns mostly 6\" rifles.
The Virginia operated in the Pittsburgh-Cincinnatti trade along with the Keystone State, the Iron Queen, the Scotia, the Carrollton, the Hudson and the Queen City. She was owned by the Pittsburgh and Cincinnatti Packet Company. Her career seemed to have been a hectic one. In 1910 high water from the Kanawha River left her stranded up in a field a hundred yards from the river, high and dry in
Stories are legion concerning the large bell in the center of the hurricane forward deck of the pilot house. The pealing and ringing of these bells, particularly packets, connote richness of tone, clarity of sound, lavishness of unstinted expenditure, silver used in their casting, and combined melody with harmony. Steamboatmen attached a great deal of sentiment with these bells and they were passed on from one boat to another at the end of a steamer's carreer. The bell of the Valley Belle came from the Science. That of the Fannie Dugan went to the City of Jacksonville... Great expense was involved in the casting of many of these roof bells and many were ornate in design. There was a lot of silver mixed in the metal of the big bell on the Chalmette to enhance it's tonal qualities. It was highly finished and an artistic decorative ornamentation extended entirely around it near the bottom. It is said that the silver toned qualities of the Hudson's bell was ruined after she was destroyed by fire at Cincinnati. Tapping the roof bell by the captain or mate as a packet approached a landing gradually fell into disuse. But the use of the roof bell at the time of departure still continues. Tapping the roof bell often caused the packet's cabin to even vibrate. Captain William Loyd had a unique system in ringing out the Columbia on the Upper Ohio...
The Frank Gilmore was an old time Pittsburgh towboat of the pool boat type or with the pilot house set down on her boiler deck ahead of the cabin. She was built at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1883. Her dimensions were:- 135 x 24.3 x 4.3 feet. Tonnage: 243 gross; 160, net tons. She collided with the Andrew Axton on the Monongahela River above Elizabeth, Pennsylvania on November 23, 1903. A flat in
The Dave Wood was built in 1874 as the Joseph Warne at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Later when taken into the Wood fleet she was renamed the Dave Wood. Her dimensions were:- 130.8 x 22.4 x 4.0 feet. Tonnage: gross and net, 144 tons. In the 1890s she was operating as a Pittsburgh pool boat. On January 19th, 1909, she was stranded at Dam No. 4 on the Ohio River.
at Clifton, Tennessee, on the Tennessee River, she was totally destroyed by fire on February 20, 1903. The fire started near the forward main stairway from some unknown cause. She was valued at $30,000. Ascending the Mississippi River she struck a hidden obstruction on September 23, 1901, and sunk in 9 feet of water. She was raised and repaired; cost, $3,500. Damage to cargo, $4,000.