2013the western river steamboat heroine, 1832-1838, oklahoma, usa: excavations, summary of finds,...

The Western River Steamboat Heroine, 1832–1838, Oklahoma,USA: excavations, summary of finds, and history

Kevin CrismanInstitute of Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M University, P.O. Drawer HG, College Station, TX 77841 USA

William B. LeesFlorida Public Archaeology Network, University of West Florida, 207 East Main Street, Pensacola, FL 32502USA

John DavisOklahoma Historical Society, Fort Towson Historic Site, Fort Towson, OK 74735 USA

This paper describes the excavation, discoveries relating to the hull, machinery, and artefacts, and the history of an earlysteamboat wreck discovered in the Red River between Oklahoma and Texas. The wreck has been identified as the side-wheelsteamer Heroine, a vessel in service on the Mississippi, Ohio, and other western rivers of North America during the 1830s. It isthe earliest example of this famous type of vessel yet studied.

© 2013 The Authors

Key words: Red River, Mississippi River, inland navigation, steam power, North American river boats.

Apreliminary report on an unidentifiedsteamboat wreck in the Red River ofOklahoma, USA was published in IJNA 29.1

(Lees and Arnold, 2000). Extensive archaeologicaland historical research has since been conducted bythe Oklahoma Historical Society (OHS), the Centerfor Maritime Archaeology and Conservation(CMAC) at Texas A&M University (TAMU), andthe Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA). Thewreck is now identified as the Heroine, a single-engine, side-wheel steamboat launched in NewAlbany, Indiana in 1832. Heroine had a five-and-a-half-year career hauling cargo and passengersbetween ports on the Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri, andRed Rivers (then the western frontier of the UnitedStates). In May 1838 the vessel was transporting pro-visions to the US Army garrison at Fort Towson inthe Choctaw Nation (now south-eastern Oklahoma)when its hull was torn open by a submerged log andsunk. The wreck is the earliest example of a NorthAmerican western river steamboat to undergo system-atic archaeological study.

Surveys and test excavations, 1999–2002In 1990 the Red River experienced one of its periodicfloods. Among the affected areas was a stretch of riverin Choctaw County, Oklahoma, which shifted about0.4 km (1⁄4 mile) to the north of its previous channel(Fig. 1). When the flood waters subsided the remains ofa wooden-hulled vessel were discovered eroding fromthe northern bank of the river. In September 1999 alocal resident brought the wreck’s existence to theattention of the OHS. Archaeologists William Leesand John Davis, together with INA archaeologistJ. Barto Arnold III, undertook a preliminary evalua-tion of the site. A 15.24 m, (50 ft) portion of the vessel’sstern was exposed above the river-bottom sands, butthe overall length of the hull could not be determinedsince the forward end was still buried. Machinery ele-ments on the wreck, including the portside paddlewheel, the port and starboard main shafts, and a pairof centre-mounted flywheels, indicated that the vesselwas a western river-type steamboat that likely dated tothe late 1830s or early 1840s (Lees and Arnold, 2000).

bs_bs_banner

The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology (2013) 42.2: 365–381doi: 10.1111/1095-9270.12021

© 2013 The Authors. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology © 2013 The Nautical Archaeology Society.Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

The site was designated ‘34Ch280’ in the Oklahomaarchaeological inventory.

Discussions between the OHS, the US Army Corpsof Engineers (Tulsa District), and the OklahomaAttorney General’s Office in 2000 concluded thatneither federal nor state governments had jurisdictionover the wreck. Negotiations were therefore conductedwith Mr Ricky Martin, the owner of property contain-ing the site. In 2001 Mr Martin generously donated thewreck to the OHS, enabling further archaeologicalresearch.

Panamerican Consultants, Inc. was contracted bythe OHS in 2000 to carry out remote sensing and testtrenching, but unusually high waters during thesummer and fall permitted only a magnetometersurvey. Undertaken in November 2000, this operationdocumented a number of anomalies downstream fromthe wreck, but there were no substantial hits to suggestthe presence of boilers or the engine cylinder (Krivor,2001).

Funding to conduct archaeological and historicalresearch and artefact conservation was secured inearly 2001 as part of a larger grant to the OHS todevelop transportation exhibits for the new OklahomaHistory Center in Oklahoma City. This grant was pro-vided by the Oklahoma Department of Transporta-tion through the transportation enhancementsprogramme of the federal Transportation EfficiencyAct for the 21st Century (TEA-21); it has funded boththe excavation and the conservation of recoveredmaterials. Artefacts from the wreck have been treatedby the CMAC’s Conservation Research Laboratoryat TAMU.

Major fieldwork began in 2001 with a three-weekOHS field school led by Sheli Smith and AnnaliesCorbin, with overall project direction by William Lees.The partially exposed structure in the stern underwentpreliminary mapping, and test excavations in this areayielded several wooden barrels, one of which wasrecovered. The selected barrel contained a saponifiedmass of pork flesh and bones. After conservation thebones were analysed by Elizabeth Reitz and Gregory S.Lucas at the Zooarchaeology Laboratory, GeorgiaMuseum of Natural History, University of Georgia(Lucas, 2005).

In 2002 Kevin Crisman joined the project as theprincipal investigator for TAMU and INA, andfurther surveys were completed. A 50 x 300 m (165 x985 ft) swath of river surrounding the wreck was exam-ined by sidescan sonar which clearly revealed exposedportions of the wreck, the sculpting of river-bottomsediments by the current passing around the hull, andconfirmed the lack of exposed wreckage other than thestern (Fig. 2). The buried forward portion of the hullwas subsequently delineated by a combination ofprobing and test pitting. The results indicated thatmost of the hull was preserved to the level of the sheer,that portions of the main deck were preserved at thestern, amidships, and at the bow, and that the overalllength of the wreck was about 42.5 m (140 ft) (Crismanand Lees, 2003).

2003 excavationsIntensive excavation began in 2003 as a combinedINA-TAMU-OHS project (additional technical assis-tance was provided in 2003 by the Lake Champlain

Figure 1. Map showing the location of the wreck of Heroine, near Fort Towson in south-eastern Oklahoma. (Drawing: KevinCrisman, INA/TAMU)

NAUTICAL ARCHAEOLOGY, 42.2

366 © 2013 The Authors. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology © 2013 The Nautical Archaeology Society

Maritime Museum). Over the course of five weeks inthe summer and two weeks in the fall the interior of thestern’s starboard side was uncovered and two trencheswere excavated across the more deeply buried port side(Fig. 3). A total of 23 starboard frames were docu-mented, and nine frame sections were taken. The port-side trenching allowed recording of two completeframe sections (Fig. 4), and exposed the remains of anon-watertight plank bulkhead that separated thestern compartment from the main hold. Excavatorsalso discovered intact main-deck planking on the portside of the stern and a small companionway into theafter compartment. Artefacts recovered from withinthe stern compartment and adjacent hold area includeda barrel containing pork bones, a wooden soap-box,two hand-trucks, rope, one pair of wrought-iron barrelhooks, shoes, machinery parts, an iron stove grating,various tools, and many smaller finds. Elements fromthe steamer’s steering system (the tiller, starboardwheel-rope block, and complete rudder), were recov-ered for conservation and study (Crisman, 2005).

2004 excavationsIn 2004 the INA-TAMU-OHS group undertook eightweeks of field work, five in the summer and three in thefall. The summer work was slowed by unusually highriver levels that swept the wreck with a powerfulcurrent and caused overnight backfilling of each day’sdigging. Excavation of the port side of the stern andrecording of five frame sections were nevertheless com-pleted. Artefact finds included six sections of sheet-ironstove pipe, a tin basin, three pork barrels (one of whichretained a hardened block of its original contents), alarge wooden double block and associated iron hook,the port wheel-rope block, and smaller items. TheOctober project focused on the documentation of theexposed side-wheel machinery, allowing TAMUresearch modeller Glenn Grieco to reconstruct theengine and side-wheel assembly and build a 1/10 scalemodel for display in the Oklahoma History Center(Fig. 5) (Grieco, 2005).

Figure 2. Sonar image of the wreck in the Red River in2002, showing the exposed stern structure. (Sonar image byBrett Phaneuf, INA/TAMU)

Figure 3. Diagram of the wreck, showing the progress ofexcavations between 2003 and 2008. (Drawing by KevinCrisman, INA/TAMU)

K. CRISMAN ET AL.: WESTERN RIVER STEAMBOAT HEROINE, 1832–1838

367© 2013 The Authors. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology © 2013 The Nautical Archaeology Society

2005 excavationsIn 2005, the INA-TAMU-OHS team returned to thewreck for a third season of intensive excavation andrecording. That year’s focus was on the approximately29 m (95 ft) length of hull forward of the side-wheelmachinery (the part of the wreck entirely covered bysand). In contrast to 2004, the 2005 season was char-acterized by dry summer conditions and uncommonlylow river levels, enabling the excavators to accomplishmuch over the course of nine weeks in the summer andearly fall. During four weeks in June the portside guard(the portion of the main deck that overhangs the side ofthe hull), port paddle wheel, and a 12 m (40 ft) length

of the main deck and its engine-supporting cylindertimbers were exposed and documented. A 1.5 m (5 ft)wide trench was opened across the hull forward of theflywheels, and a complete frame section was recordedat this location.

Divers excavating amidships, beneath intact main-deck structure, encountered a cache of both crushedand intact pork and flour barrels; examples of bothtypes were recovered for study. Other June 2005 mid-ships finds included two cast-iron rim sections from theflywheels; large sheet-iron plates with riveted edges andnumerous brick fragments, most or all of them pre-sumed to be from the boiler firebox and casing; and a

Figure 4. Section of the hull aft of the cylinder timbers recorded in 2003. (Drawing by Kevin Crisman, INA/TAMU)

Figure 5. A scale reconstruction prepared by CMAC modeller Glenn Grieco of Heroine’s central hull and propulsionmachinery. The pair of large flywheels in the centre is typical of pre-1840s single-engine western steamboats. (Photo by WayneSmith, TAMU)



small sheet-metal box painted black and decoratedwith painted flowers (a style known as tole) (Brownand Crisman, 2005).

Five weeks of excavation on the wreck in early fall2005 concentrated on the forward-most 7.6 m (25 ft) ofthe bow. This part of the severely hogged hull wasburied by up to 4.6 m (15 ft) of sand, but exceptionallywell preserved, with the stem, frames, main deck, andport guard in good condition; some wood surfaceseven retained their original paint. Openings throughthe fore deck included a large cargo hatch and twosmall, side-by-side companion hatches (Fig. 6). Thecompanions provided access to a bow compartmentseparated from the forward hold by a watertight plankbulkhead that extended to the underside of the maindeck. Known as a snag chamber bulkhead or collisionbulkhead, this feature was employed on western steam-boats during the 1820s and 1830s to prevent the entirevessel from flooding if the bow was pierced by a sub-merged log or similar hazard (Hunter, 1969: 80; Kane,2004: 54, 90). This is the only example of a westernsteamboat snag chamber bulkhead ever seen byarchaeologists.

Eight bent or broken iron castings were neatlystacked beside the keelson in the bow compartment: twofire gratings that had sagged from over-heating, fiveheavy bars that may have supported firebox gratings,and half of a cracked-and-splinted cam frame (part ofthe reciprocating mechanism that opened and closedthe cylinder valves). These materials were probably

destined for recycling at a foundry; a contemporaryaccount book shows that broken or damaged cast ironhad a scrap value of 1¢ per pound (0.45 kg) (JeffersonFoundry Journal, 1837). Other bow-compartment findsincluded two iron hammers and a wooden mallet, threeblock sheaves, and an intact glass medicine bottle. Fourframe sections were recorded in the bow, and offsetswere taken to record the curvature of the apron andupper stem (Crisman, 2007).

2006 excavationsThe fourth and final season of full-scale excavation, in2006, was divided into two campaigns: five weeks inMay and June, and four weeks in September. The workwas again aided by drought conditions that signifi-cantly lowered the river’s depth and current. The May–June work involved uncovering the 7.6 m (25 ft)section of hull between the bow and the cylindertimbers (the boiler and firebox assembly was originallymounted here on the main deck). The wreck wasseverely damaged at this location, with the port sidebroken and collapsed outward, the starboard framesmissing above the turn of the bilge, and main deckgone. Much of the damage to the port side, we discov-ered, was caused by the ‘snag’ that sank the steamboat,a 3.76 m (12 ft, 4 in) softwood log that penetrated thehull at the turn of the bilge, adjacent to the forward endof the cylinder timbers. Judging by the shattered stateof the frames and planking around the snag, thedamage to Heroine was profound, causing the steamer

Figure 6. Plan view of the bow of Heroine as uncovered by excavators in the autumn of 2005. (Drawing: Kevin Crisman,INA/TAMU)



to fill and sink very quickly. The keel and keelson of thesteamer were also broken directly beneath the forwardend of the cylinder timbers, a break that marked thebeginning of the severe hogging at the forward end ofthe hull. These features were recorded in detail, alongwith the hull’s general assembly pattern and threeframe sections.

The excavation turned up four cast-iron elementsfrom the boiler’s mounting framework and the frontface of the firebox. Also found were numerous bricksused to line the boiler firebox and large and smallpieces of thin sheet-iron that were riveted together toform the boiler casing. Related finds in 2006 includedanother cast-iron fire grating, a section of cast-ironpipe with a flange at one end and a 45° bend at theother, and a T-shaped assembly of cast-iron pipes witha check valve that supplied water to the boilers. Cargo-related remains consisted of a broken but unusedgrindstone, and the oaken staves and wooden hoopsfrom two provision barrels. The excavations alsoyielded miscellaneous finds such as a cast-metal USArmy uniform button, a narrow-bladed caulking iron,a cold chisel, and a small collection of plain andtransfer-decorated whiteware ceramic fragments.

The objective for the September 2006 project was torecover the steamboat’s paddle-wheel components;these included the port and starboard main shafts andtheir attached flywheels, the port paddle wheel’s shaft,flanges, arms and buckets, and five pillow blocks thatsupported the shafts. Conservation and analysis ofthese unique examples of early steam technology hadlong been contemplated by the project partners, sinceexamples of early steamboat machinery are extremelyrare (Krueger, 2012: 3, 194–242). The machinery datacollected by Grieco in 2004 proved useful to the dis-

assembly and lifting operations. Pneumatic andhydraulic tools were prepared for the work, but crewmembers found that even after 168 years in the riverthe majority of the bolts and nuts securing themachinery to the support timbers could simply beunscrewed with large adjustable and socket wrenches.Bottle jacks were then used to lift shafts and pillowblocks off the timbers. The three shafts with theirflanges, each weighing between 1179 and 1542 kg(2600 and 3400 lbs), were blocked in place to awaittransport off the wreck-site by helicopter. The intactlower halves of the two flywheels were taken apart byseparating the oaken arms from the flywheel flangesand unscrewing bolts that held the cast-iron rim sec-tions together. The resulting 159 kg (350 lbs) rim-and-arm sections were then lifted out of the hull andtransported to the conservation laboratory.

The starboard guard was missing from the wreck,and we believed it likely that the starboardpaddle-wheel assembly fell alongside the hull whenthe guard collapsed. A test trench dug outboard ofthe main shaft in June 2006 proved that this was thecase, for it revealed one half of the inboard paddleflange with six wooden paddle arms (Fig. 7). Furtherdigging in September uncovered the starboardpaddle shaft with the complete outboard flange stillattached.

The three heaviest pieces of the side-wheel machin-ery (the port and starboard main shafts and theirflanges), as well as the port paddle shaft and its twoflanges, were fitted with slings and lifted off the wreckby the St Louis Helicopter Company in November2006. Placed on the north (Oklahoma) side of the river,they were subsequently transported to the conserva-tion laboratory at Texas A&M.

Figure 7. Part of the starboard paddle wheel recovered in 2006. Note the reinforcing struts, called blocking, that were toenailedbetween the wooden paddle arms. (Photo: Rebecca Sager, INA/TAMU)



2008 excavationsThe starboard paddle shaft and attached outboardpaddle flange, as well as two pillow blocks remained onthe wreck after 2006. A two-week project to recoverthese elements and to conduct a further search forboiler elements off the wreck’s port side was thereforeundertaken in September 2008. During the first weekthe machinery pieces were excavated and lifted using apair of rafts and a chain hoist. The test excavations andmetal-detector survey off the port side during thesecond week yielded no additional boiler parts, but didreveal more of the port guard assembly and previouslyunknown details of the main deck’s construction. Thecompletion of this work marked the end of the field-work portion of the steamboat study.

Summary of findsContemporary newspapers and correspondence tell usthat Heroine was partially salvaged at the time of itssinking and was periodically exposed for about fiveyears afterwards; not surprisingly, the wreck wasneither as intact nor as heavily laden with goods as thespectacularly complete lower hulls and cargoes foundon the later western steamboats Arabia (1856) andBertrand (1865) (Petsch, 1974; Hawley, 2005). Never-theless, substantial portions of Heroine have survivedalong with associated artefacts. For the purposes ofresearch and analysis the finds have been sorted intofour broad functional categories: 1) the hull, detachedtimbers and fasteners, as well as the equipment used forthe boat’s daily operations and maintenance; 2) thepropulsion system, including machinery and pieces ofthe boiler assembly, and the tools used to maintain orrepair the engine; 3) cargo and cargo-handling equip-ment; and 4) the miscellaneous possessions, tools, foot-wear, and diet-related items left by the crew andpassengers. The following is a brief summary of dis-coveries in each of the four categories (more detailedreports are currently in preparation).

The hull of Heroine was extensively recordedthroughout the excavation campaigns to permit ananalysis of its design and assembly, and to prepare aset of lines and construction plans. Overall, the steam-boat’s hull was in good condition, with intact struc-ture preserved up to the level of the main deck at thebow, amidships, and at the stern. The two sections ofhull between these areas, the forward hold and theafter hold, were in rougher condition, with much ofthe main deck gone between midships and the stern,and the entire deck and part of the sides missingbetween midships and the bow. Not surprisingly, verylittle was left of the steamboat’s lightly built super-structure, but the lower ends of support posts pro-vided some evidence of its dimensions and assembly.Notwithstanding the good state of preservation, thehigh costs and logistical complexity of recovery, con-servation, and display ruled out salvage of the entirevessel (Crisman, 2011).

Several patterns were evident in the shipwright’sselection of building materials. First, nearly all of thehull and main-deck timbers sampled for tree specieswere fashioned from white oak (Quercus alba); theexceptions to this were the pine (genus Pinus) deckplanking and black locust (Robinea pseudoacacia L.)bitt posts. The quality of the oak timber appeared to beuniformly good, which we might expect in light of theimmense timber resources available to mid-continentshipwrights in the 1830s.

Second, almost no compass timber was employed inthe construction of the vessel. For the greater part of itslength the hull had near-flat floors and vertical sides, aform well suited to the use of straight-grained pieces ofwood. The turn of the bilge was created by cutting thefirst and second futtocks from straight-grained piecesof oak to match the required curve (it is probably not acoincidence that many of the frames were cracked orbroken at this location). The beams of the main decklacked lodging, hanging, or dagger knees. The bowassembly featured naturally curved stem, apron, andbreast hooks, the stern assembly had a large stern knee,and the frames at the extreme ends contained somenaturally curved pieces, but that was the extent of thecompass timber used in the vessel.

The third pattern evident in the hull’s materials wasthe builder’s reliance on square-sectioned chisel-pointiron spikes and round-sectioned through or clenchbolts to fasten all of the timbers together. No othertypes of wood or metal fasteners were observed on thewreck. The extensive iron industry that existed in theOhio River Valley by the 1830s made such fastenersboth widely available and inexpensive.

It is clear that when Heroine was assembled in 1832,western river steamboat builders were taking everymeasure possible to keep the hull’s draft to a minimum.They did this by employing a full design, with a grace-fully swept but short entrance, a short, relatively fullrun aft, and a boxy section with a shallow hold overmost of the vessel’s length (the depth of hold was only6 ft (1.82 m). The builders further minimized the draftof the hull by incorporating a shallow keel with amoulded height of only 4 inches (10.16 cm). Finally,weight was minimized by reducing the quantity anddimensions of timbers in the hull. The frames and deckbeams were considerably smaller and more widelyspaced than similar elements in contemporary lake-going steamships of this length (Robinson, 1999;Schwarz, 2012). A draft mark carved into the star-board of Heroine’s stem, ‘V’ for 5 ft (1.52 m), showedwhat the steamboat was expected to draw when fullyladen.

Steamboats on the western rivers were rarely sub-jected to the stresses caused by high waves, but thecombination of shallow draft, light construction, ahigh length-to-beam ratio, and uneven loading of theboilers, machinery and cargo meant that their hullswere prone to hogging and sagging. This problemwas partly rectified by the 1840s with the widespread



adoption of truss systems employing wrought-ironrods, turnbuckles, and sampson posts. The longitudi-nal supports were known as ‘hog chains’ and the trans-verse systems as ‘cross chains’ (Hunter, 1969: 94–100;Custer, 1991; Kane, 2004: 63–64, 94–96). Heroine hadat least one cross chain immediately forward of thepaddle wheels to support the main deck guards andside wheels. That was it, however: the well-preservedbow and stern showed absolutely no evidence of lon-gitudinal hog chains. Instead, the wreck revealed anearlier and heretofore unknown approach to thehogging problem on western steamboats: the principallongitudinal members were notched down over theframes and secured with heavy bolts that were headedover clinch rings. Timbers fitted in this mannerincluded the keelson, bilge keelsons (the stringers at theturn of the bilge on each side of the vessel), and upperand lower clamps (Fig. 8). Interlocking the frames andlongitudinal members in this manner undoubtedlystiffened the hull, but measuring, sawing, and chiselling500 or more notches also added greatly to the labourand time required to complete a new steamboat.Notched longitudinal timbers have not been observedin the hulls of later steamboat wrecks, suggesting thatthis practice was abandoned once hog chains came intouse (Kane, 2004: 105–107).

Despite the extensive hogging and twisting of thehull and loss of the sides and main deck at certainlocations, enough of the structure has survived topermit reconstructions of Heroine’s lines and assembly.Lines prepared from the archaeological data show thatHeroine had an overall length of 136 ft, 8 in (41.65 m)between perpendiculars, a moulded breadth of 20 ft, 4

in (6.19 m), a maximum breadth across the main deckof 36 ft (10.97 m), and a depth of hold of 6 ft (1.82 m).Heroine’s registered tonnage was variously listed as146 tons (Lyford, 1837), 150 tons (Collins, 1836: 62)and 160 tons (Hall, 1836). Comparison of thesetonnage figures with a listing of tonnages for 183 of the220 steamboats operating on the western rivers in 1832show that Heroine fits into the medium-to-small rangeof contemporary river steamers (Otis, 1832: 127–130;Chevalier, 1961: 209). All lines of evidence, archaeo-logical and historical, suggest that in terms of its designand construction Heroine was probably a very typicalwestern steamboat of the 1830s.

Plans, specifications, or preserved examples of earlywestern river steamboat propulsions systems (theboilers, pistons, and side-wheel machinery) are all rela-tively rare; the earliest set of detailed plans we havefor this style of equipment dates to 1840, nearly threedecades after the introduction of steamboats onwestern rivers (Hodge, 1840). Recovery and study ofsurviving boiler and machinery elements and thoroughdocumentation of their supporting structure was there-fore a high priority of the excavation project. Heroine’spropulsion system was in much the same condition asthe hull: although not complete, more than enough waspreserved to provide us with a good idea of its dimen-sions, layout, and operational parameters. We knowthat the single-cylinder engine was salvaged immedi-ately after the sinking (New Orleans Daily Picayune, 23May 1838). The boilers, chimneys, and wood-and-ironconnecting rod (or ‘pitman’) may have been recoveredaround this time as well, since they were not found onthe site. Aside from these items, tangible evidence ofthe remaining elements of the propulsion system wasencountered on the wreck.

Heroine had a direct-acting high-pressure steamengine, as did most 19th-century western rivers steam-boats. This type of engine was relatively easy to make,cheap to purchase, simple to operate and maintain,and for its size and weight had a greater horsepowerthan the low-pressure engines that were widely used oncontemporary European and eastern North Americansteamboats. They were well suited to meet the rigoursof river navigation. The big drawback of high-pressuresystems of the era was safety: they had a tendency toblow up or unexpectedly release steam, killing or injur-ing nearby crew and passengers. Heroine’s propulsionsystem consisted of three elements: the boilers thatgenerated the steam, the piston engine that used thesteam to produce reciprocal motion (converted intorotary motion by the crank), and the drive train assem-blies made up of fly wheels, shafts, and paddle wheels.

Surviving elements from Heroine’s boiler assemblyincluded a feedwater pipe fitted with a one-way valveand four pieces of the cast-iron mounting frame andfirebox front, which together indicated the height ofthe boilers above the deck, their diameters, and thegeneral appearance and assembly of the firebox. Alsofound were three whole and many pieces of cast-iron

Figure 8. Perspective view of Heroine’s hull construction,showing how the keelson, bilge stringers, and clamps werenotched down over the frames and secured with bolts headedover clinch rings. (Drawing: Kevin Crisman, INA/TAMU)



firebox grate bars, whole and fragmentary fire bricksthat lined the interior of the firebox, and large andsmall sections of the sheet-iron cowling that coveredthe lower halves of the boilers and contained the heatand smoke of the fires. The cast-iron pipe with theflange at one end and 45-degree elbow at the other waslikely used to vent excess steam from the boilers to oneof the chimneys (Hodge, 1840: Plates XXXII andXXXIII).

The engine cylinder was missing, but there werenumerous clues to its location on the vessel and to itsgeneral size and configuration. The heavy woodensupport structure for the engine and flywheels on themain deck, the cylinder timbers, was nearly complete;an arrangement of bolt holes and notches near theforward end of the cylinder timbers showed where theengine was seated. Also found here was one of a pair ofrectangular cast-iron bed plates that provided a solidmounting for the cylinder. The length of the cylinder’sstroke (and thus the approximate length of the cylinderitself) could be determined from the turning radius ofthe crank pin on the flywheels, 57 in (1.44 m).

The third element in Heroine’s propulsion system,the flywheel-and-paddle-wheel drive train, was themost complete of the three sub-systems (Fig. 9).Mounted at the after end of the cylinder timbers on thecentreline of the boat were two 14 ft (4.26 m) diameterflywheels that smoothed the motion of the crank andreduced jarring or vibration on the moving boat. Eachconsisted of a large cast-iron flange, eight oaken arms,and a cast-iron rim made up of 16 overlapping sec-tions; the wheel assemblies weighed about a ton apiece.Both flywheels were in damaged condition on thewreck, with the central flanges cracked in several placesand the top half of each rim broken off; whether thisdamage occurred at the time of the wrecking or there-after was not certain, but most of the detached rim

sections were recovered during the excavations. Themain shafts, bolted to the centres of the flywheels,extended outboard to the sides of the hull, and eachwas supported by a pair of heavy cast-iron pillowblocks fitted with copper-alloy liners to reduce friction.Both main shafts and all four of their pillow blockswere found on the wreck.

The port drive train was nearly complete, with all ofits elements mounted on their support timbers(Fig. 10). The cast-iron coupling that connected theoutboard end of the main shaft with inboard end ofthe paddle shaft was still in place, along with theY-yoke and lever that allowed the crew to disconnectthe paddle wheel when required. Heroine’s port

Figure 9. Heroine’s surviving cast-iron drive-train elements, including flywheel and paddle flanges, shafts, and bearings.(CAD drawing by Glenn Grieco, CMAC)

Figure 10. View of the surviving portside propulsionmachinery on the wreck of Heroine, as re-created by CMACmodeller Glenn Grieco. (Photo: Wayne Smith, INA/TAMU)



paddle-wheel assembly consisted of the paddle shaftmounted on two pillow blocks, with a pair of flangeswedged in place on the shaft. The flanges were missingpart or all of their arm pockets and were clearly in needof replacement at the time of the boat’s sinking. Mostof the port wheel’s 12 pairs of oaken arms and abouthalf of the paddle blades (‘buckets’) were also in place.The starboard paddle wheel may have been partly sal-vaged in 1838, for we found only the shaft and out-board flange, and one half of the inboard flange andwooden arm assembly. Missing from the starboardassembly were the two pillow blocks that supported thepaddle shaft, as well as the coupling that engaged ordisengaged the paddle and main shafts.

Cargo-related finds from Heroine’s hold includedtools for loading and unloading cargoes, shippingcontainers (barrels and boxes), and remnants of thecommodities themselves. The after hold yielded twohand-trucks used to lift and roll heavy items on and offthe deck. The trucks were composed of wooden handlesand cross pieces, cast-iron wheels, and wrought-ironaxles and noses. One truck was nearly complete, andhad the maker’s name, ‘J. Walter’ branded into one ofits cross pieces and stamped on a small copper-alloyplate tacked on to another cross piece. This truck wasprobably made by the same J. Walter who operated afoundry and machine shop near the riverfront inLouisville, Kentucky (Collins, 1838: 110). The secondtruck was missing the upper handle ends. Both had seenhard use, for the complete truck had a cracked handlerepaired with a splint, and the second had a brokenwheel that was made whole (though wobbly) by heat-shrinking a wrought-iron rim around its circumference.Other cargo-loading tools included a pair of broad-bladed can hooks for lifting barrels (found with theirconnecting rope and a pair of thimbles in the sterncompartment), and a pair of two-pronged bale tongs forlifting bales of cotton or hay (found in the forwardhold). Spare or discarded block sheaves, a half-dozeniron hooks of various sizes, several fragments of rope,

and an intact double block found on the after deck mayall have been used for shifting cargoes during Heroine’scareer.

Historical records tell us that on its final voyageHeroine was transporting the annual supply of provi-sions to a US Army cantonment on the upper RedRiver, and that part of the cargo was salvaged after thesinking. Evidence of the cargo was found in abundance,however, principally in the form of whole barrels andparts of barrels. A total of 170 individual oaken staveswere recovered, along with 13 heads representing atleast ten complete barrels, and ten half heads. Threeintact barrels were recovered, complete with theirpickled-pork contents. Researcher Nina Chick identi-fied three types of barrels in the cargo, based on thelength and thickness of the individual pieces, theirassembly, and markings on the barrel heads: 1) thicklystaved and heavily hooped tight barrels intended forpickled pork, 2) medium-staved semi-tight barrels thatheld flour, and 3) light-staved and minimally hoopedslack barrels that probably held dried beans. Pork andflour barrel heads had stencils or brands that identifiedcontents, packers, or inspectors. Some flour barrelheads were stencilled ‘USA’ (then an acronym for theUS Army) (Fig. 11a), branded ‘S. Fine’ (for super-fineflour), and stencilled with the name ‘Armstrong’, indi-cating that the contents had been inspected by Cincin-nati Flour Inspector James Armstrong (Deming, 1834:11). One intact pork barrel recovered in 2005 from themidships pork-and-flour-barrel feature was stencilled‘A. S. Reeder Packer Cin’t’ identifying the meat as theproduct of Cincinnati packer Alfred S. Reeder(Fig. 11b) (Woodruff, 1836: 142). A complete woodenbox found in the stern compartment was stencilled‘No. 1 SOAP’ and labelled with the painted script‘Vicksburg’; this may have belonged to the boat or thecrew, rather than the cargo (Chick, 2011).

Personal possessions or artefacts related to foodstorage or preparation were present on the wreck, butin relatively modest quantities, which is perhaps not

Figure 11. a) Barrel head stencilling provided evidence for the destination of Heroine’s final cargo, the US Army garrison atFort Towson in the ‘Indian Territory’. (Photo: Rebecca Sager, INA/TAMU) b) Barrel head stencilling provided evidence forthe origin of the pickled pork in Heroine’s final cargo: ‘A. S. Reeder Packer Cin’t’. (Photo: Wayne Smith, INA/TAMU)



surprising when we consider that nearly all of the spacebelow Heroine’s main deck was given over to stowageof cargo (Jones, 2011). On western river steamboats ofthe 1830s and later, all passengers and crew typicallyslept, ate, worked, and socialized on the main or upperdecks, not in the hold. The majority of the personalpossessions were found in the stern compartment orscattered inside the hold. The bow compartment heldthe cast-iron pieces awaiting recycling, a few tools andodds and ends, but the only obvious personal item herewas an octagonal light-green glass bottle embossedwith the words ‘Millers Tonic’.

The stern compartment apparently served as acatch-all for spare, worn, or broken ship’s equipment;a considerable quantity of wood shavings and spilledpine tar suggest that wood-working or other types ofrepairs took place there as well. The run contained acurious selection of personal effects: a complete thoughworn leather boot and several discarded shoes, astirrup, half of a crystalline geode, the clasp to a coinpurse, and the silver handle of a fork or spoon withpossible owner’s marks scratched on one surface.There was not much of use or value, suggesting that thecrew normally did not stow their personal possessionsin this space, or that they were able to salvage theinterior of the run after Heroine sank.

The steamboat HeroineHistorical research on the Red River wreck initiallyfocused on identifying the steamboat and determiningthe date of its loss. When the wreck was first examinedby INA and OHS in 1999, two features helped tonarrow down the likely time of the sinking. The firstwas the relatively large dimensions of the hull. Until1838 steam navigation on the upper Red River wasobstructed by a 257 km (160 mile) logjam in north-western Louisiana known as the Great Raft (Bagur,2001: 60–116); a handful of small steamers slippedthrough the bayous around the raft prior to 1838, butit is unlikely that a vessel of this size could haveascended to Fort Towson until a channel was openedthrough the logjam. The second datable feature wasthe flywheels, which indicated that this vessel had thesingle-piston configuration of the earliest westernsteamers; most boats after 1840 were equipped withtwin pistons, which did not require flywheels (Norman,1942: 403–404). Researchers thus began to search his-torical records for boats sunk in the upper Red Riverduring the late 1830s or early 1840s.

Evidence soon pointed to one likely candidate forwreck 34Ch280. Correspondence from the US Armycommander at Fort Towson reported the snagging of asteamboat laden with supplies for the fort in early May1838 (Vose, 1838; Foreman, 1968: 89). Unfortunately,he did not name the boat. The memoirs of a Red Riversteamboat captain, written in the 1870s, recounted thesinking of a steamer not far from Fort Towson in thelate 1830s, but misidentified the boat as the New York

(Wittenbury, 1871). The 23 May 1838 edition of theNew Orleans Daily Picayune ultimately provided thecorrect name in a brief note: ‘The steamboat Heroine,laden with stores for U.S. troops, struck a snag abouttwo weeks since while ascending Red River, two milesabove Jonesborough, and sunk. Her cargo was saved’.Jonesborough, Texas was abandoned not long afterHeroine sank, but its location is well-known today, andthe town was indeed about 3.21 km (2 miles) downriverof the wreck.

Finding this name raised a new complication, forresearchers soon discovered that there were two steam-boats named Heroine operating on the Mississippi andOhio Rivers at the same time. The only 1830s-eraHeroine on the Lytle-Holdcamper List (1975) (a stan-dard reference of documented early American steam-boats) was a 97-ton vessel built at Bridgeport,Pennsylvania in 1832 and reported sunk in the upperMississippi River in 1837. Neither the tonnage or dateand place of loss matched the Red River steamboatwreck. A contemporary steamboat inventory solvedthe mystery, for it listed a second, 146-ton Heroine,also built in 1832 but at New Albany, Indiana (Lyford,1837: 464); this was the steamboat sunk near FortTowson in 1838.

Copies of government enrolment papers for the RedRiver Heroine cannot be found in the US NationalArchives (many enrolments from this period are unfor-tunately missing), but details of the vessel’s five-and-a-half-year career have been culled from other sources,principally newspapers. The historical evidence sug-gests that throughout most of its career Heroine wasowned, either entirely or in part, by Jeremiah Diller ofLouisville, Kentucky. A cabinetmaker who changedcareer in his early 40s to become the owner and captainof a series of steamboats, Diller exhibited many of thetraits described as typical of river captains of his era:

These . . . boats were often commanded by men of markedindividuality, great force of character and courage,though as a rule, they were men without cultivation orearly education. Such men were best adapted to the busi-ness, as it was a wild and hazardous life in those days, theyhaving to deal often with desperate characters, both onboard of their boats and on shore (Fulkerson, 1885: 18).

A good example of Diller’s single-mindedness was hisdecision to proceed with Heroine’s maiden voyage of1832 at the height of the Mississippi Valley’s first out-break of Asiatic cholera, an epidemic that resulted in ahorrific death toll at New Orleans (Fig. 12) (Clapp,1863: 115–141). Diller was surely aware of the severityof the sickness at his destination, but continuedHeroine’s passage from St Louis to New Orleans none-theless (New Orleans Bee, 26 November 1832).

What do we know about the design and appearanceof Captain Diller’s steamboat from historical sources?Newspaper advertisements for Heroine described itwith the usual steamboat superlatives of the day(‘staunch’, ‘for accommodation and speed . . . not



surpassed’, ‘new and fast running’, ‘substantial’), butalso revealed some of the vessel’s characteristics.During July and August 1834, a time when low waterlevels obstructed the lower Ohio River, New OrleansBee advertisements reassured potential passengers thatHeroine was a ‘light draught’ boat and therefore likelyto reach Louisville without running aground. Heroinewas promoted as an ‘upper cabin’ steamboat inanother newspaper, a reference to the late 1820s andearly 1830s trend of shifting the living quarters ofhigher-fare cabin passengers from the main deck orhold to the upper deck (Missouri Republican, 14 April1835; White, 2009: 62–63). The upper deck was foundto be an altogether quieter and more comfortable placeto reside on a steamboat, and was also safer in theevent of catastrophic boiler failure.

Documentary and pictorial evidence suggests thatHeroine and most other western rivers steamers of thetime were built and outfitted with a standardized

arrangement of hold, decks, interior spaces, andpropulsion system (Fig. 13). The shallow draftimposed by the rivers and the long, narrow designfavoured for speed meant that hulls had limited inter-nal capacity; the hold was reserved for cargo, withspaces at the ends for ship stores and the crew’s per-sonal effects. The broad main deck with its overhang-ing ‘guards’, on the other hand, served multiplefunctions. The boilers, engine, and side wheels allresided here, spread out over the middle of the boatto distribute their weight (side wheels were standardat this time, only later in the 19th century would thestern wheel become commonplace). The main deckwas often used for carrying cargoes, especially bulkyitems such as cotton bales and livestock. Also occu-pying this deck were a capstan at the bow, stacks offirewood for the boilers, sleeping quarters for thecrew, the galley, crew and passenger toilets, storagelockers, and stairs for ascending to the upper deck.Finally, but hardly least, the main deck was occupiedby second-class or ‘deck’ passengers, who generallyconstituted the majority of the fare-paying travellerson board. These people, often the poorer classes ofworkers, immigrants, or blacks (both slave and free)slept in hammocks, wooden bunks, or on the deck,and cooked on a communal stove in the midst of themain deck’s noise and crowding. All accounts agree itwas a hard way to travel, but deck passage had theadvantage of being only one third the cost of cabinpassage (Logan, 1838: 112–115).

Figure 12. An advertisement for Heroine’s inauguralvoyage, which was begun during the height of the choleraepidemic in the American west. (Louisville Public Advertiser,October 26, 1832)

Figure 13. A watercolour painting of steamboat Ouishita c.1836, showing the general appearance and layout of vessels likeHeroine. (Painting by Richard G. A. Levinge, courtesy of the Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, TX, cat. no. 1968–271)



Upper-cabin steamboats such as Heroine reservedthe upper deck for the first-class or ‘cabin’ passengers.Although three or four times the cost of deck passage($25 versus $6 for a Louisville-New Orleans passage inthe early 1830s), a cabin passage meant that the trav-eller was provided with a heated internal space in coldweather, tables and chairs for dining and relaxing, car-peted floors, three meals per day, and a bed to sleep onat night (steamboats commonly over-booked theirbeds, so cabin passengers could find themselves sleep-ing on a mattress on the cabin floor instead) (Haiteset al., 1975: 31–32). The largest class of steamboatsfeatured individual staterooms, but a second-class boatsuch as Heroine likely offered only gender-segregatedcommon spaces for men and women, called the gentle-men’s and ladies’ cabins, each with a row of bunk beds(curtained for privacy) extending along either side ofthe compartment. At the forward end of the gentle-men’s cabin was a separate smaller public space witha bar, the men’s washroom, the clerk’s office, andsleeping quarters for the captain and other officers(Maximillian, 2008: 199).

Western steamboats of Heroine’s time had only amain and upper deck (a third deck with enclosed crewquarters, the ‘Texas’, appeared later in the century).The top of the superstructure had a canvas-and-tar-covered roof that was crowned to shed water. This‘hurricane deck’ had a number of protruding features:at the forward end was the pilot house, a roofed butwindowless structure that contained the wheel; raised,box-like skylights over the men’s and women’s cabinsallowed natural light to enter during daylight hours;and spread along the length of the roof were the sheet-metal chimneys for cabin and cook stoves, as well as aheavier ‘scape pipe’ that vented the engine’s usedsteam. The hurricane deck was the favourite locationfor cabin passengers on fair-weather days, when itoffered cooling breezes, vistas of passing scenery, andopportunities for sportsmen to take pot-shots at alli-gators, birds, turtles, and other unfortunate wildlife(Levinge, 1836; Martineau, 1838: 8; Levinge, 1846: 34).

Contemporary travel accounts and steamboatrecords tell us about the different crew occupations ona western steamboat. The number of people employedin each category depended on the size of the boat, thepreferences and resources of the captain and owners,and probably fluctuated from passage to passage. Atthe top of the chain of command was the captain, thedecision maker whose role in the day-to-day opera-tions of the boat was largely supervisory. The positionwas a revolving one: Jeremiah Diller was captain forsubstantial part of every year between 1832 and 1837,but every few weeks or months he left the boat andturned command over to another. Heroine steamedunder at least 12 captains over the course of its career,one of whom was Diller’s son-in-law ChristopherCastleman. Execution of the captain’s commands andresponsibility for the ‘hands-on’ management of theboat and crew fell to the steamboat’s mate. Other offi-

cers included a clerk who kept the financial records,pilots who navigated the winding and hazardous riverchannels, and engineers who kept the boilers, engine,and wheels in operation. Any or all of these individualsmight have assistants or apprentices. Also labouringon the boat were several deck-hands and the firemenwho stoked the boilers; the latter job was oftendescribed as the most physically demanding work to befound on a steamboat (Gerstäcker, 1854: 95–96). Staffattending to the care and feeding of the crew and pas-sengers included the cook and his assistants, the cabinsteward, steward’s assistants, and a chamber maid whoattended to passengers in the ladies’ cabin. Altogether,Heroine likely had a crew of about 20–25 when steam-ing up and down the rivers (Hunter, 1969: 442–451).

The various captains of Heroine were listed in thenewspapers, but the names of other crew members arethus far unknown. We can get a glimpse of them,however, through the eyes of Virginia businessmanWilliam Fairfax Gray, who took passage on boardfrom Vicksburg, Mississippi to Louisville in June,1836. Gray found the officers ‘very attentive’, but wasparticularly impressed with the supervisor of Heroine’supper cabin: ‘The steward, an old black man, is thebest steward I have seen on the western waters’ (Gray,1965: 186–187).

It is clear from the newspaper ‘marine news’columns that Heroine was one of the commonplace‘transient boats’ of its day, steamers defined by a 20th-century historian as ‘free lances roving from trade totrade wherever business beckoned, without any fixedfield of operations and without schedule or regularity’(Hunter, 1969: 317). The vessel mostly ran between thelower Ohio and Mississippi River ports of Louisville,St Louis, and New Orleans, although it made occa-sional runs into the Missouri, Red, and Yazoo Rivers.Trade tended to follow seasonal patterns that corre-sponded to the harvest and shipment of bulk and pro-cessed agricultural commodities, although livestockand finished goods (both domestic and imported) werealso part of the cargoes. The transportation of cottonfrom southern river landings to New Orleans was prof-itable business during the late fall and early wintermonths; the ability of steamboats to load great stacksof cotton bales never failed to astonish visitors to thewest (Power, 1836: 100–103, Maximillian, 2008: 297–298). We know that on one occasion Heroine hauled970 bales of cotton down from the Yazoo River (NewOrleans Bee, 4 February 1833). The boat was part ofboth the mundane and the unusual events of its decade.Heroine played a contributing role in the Texas Revo-lution of 1836 by carrying volunteer troops and sup-plies to Red River ports and to New Orleans (LouisvilleDaily Journal, 12 May 1836; New Orleans Bee, 6 July1836). Heroine and the hundreds of other steamboatsoperating on the western rivers in the 1830s were atthe vanguard of a transportation revolution thatwas utterly transforming US society and the NorthAmerican landscape, and they were widely celebrated



for their many contributions to the economicdevelopment and population growth of the frontierstates and territories (Hunter, 1969: 27–60; Howe,2007: 203–242).

The social and economic benefits came at a highprice, however. The 1830s western river steamboatshad a justifiably bad reputation, as evidenced by theirlongevity and safety record. Lightweight constructionand the rigours of river navigation resulted in mostboats wearing out within five years of launching, butonly if they first survived a gamut of man-made andnatural hazards (US Treasury Department, 1838: 309–311). The greatest threat was posed by semi-submergedlogs, called ‘snags’; these lurked like giant spears, withone end on the bottom of the river and the other at orjust below the surface, waiting to tear open the bottomof a steamboat as it ascended against the current.Narrow river channels and lack of fixed rules regardingright-of-way and navigation lights meant that colli-sions between boats were frequent. The frail, heavilypainted and tarred wooden superstructures of steam-boats easily caught fire and then burned with incrediblerapidity; two boats commanded by Diller’s son-in-lawChristopher Castleman, New Brunswick and BenSherrod, burned in 1833 and 1837, the latter with theloss of an estimated 60–70 lives, mostly passengers(New Orleans Bee, 28 October 1833; Louisville DailyJournal, 8 May 1837; Lloyd, 1856: 95–101).

Most frightening of all to the travelling public was ahazard both new and unique to steam navigation: cata-strophic failure of the boiler system. This took twoprincipal forms. The more common was a sudden andunexpected release of steam, caused by the collapse of

a boiler tube or ‘flue’, the breaking of a cast-iron steampipe, or the cracking of a cylinder head. The resultingrelease of high-pressure steam could fatally scald crewand passengers caught in the vicinity of the leak. Morerare, but generally more horrific was a full boiler explo-sion, when one or more boilers over-pressurized andblew up. The effect was that of a giant bombshell: theblast and steam killed, cooked and maimed people, andleft boats mangled or sunk (Hunter, 1969: 282–304).One of the most infamous explosions of the decade wasthat of Moselle at Cincinnati in April 1838, a disasterthat killed an estimated 150 people, scattered bodiesand limbs along the city waterfront, and sank the vessel(Fig. 14) (Fox et al., 1838). Moselle was but one of aseries of dreadful steamboat accidents in early 1838that spurred the passage by the US Government of thefirst federal transportation safety legislation later thatsummer (Brockmann, 2002).

Despite its ‘very attentive’ officers Heroine was notimmune to the dangers of boiler failure. On 4 October1835, while the boat was working up the MississippiRiver between Cairo, Illinois and St Louis, one of theflues collapsed, killing the engineer instantly, blastingthree deck-hands overboard, and badly scalding threeother people (at least one of whom later died). Amongthe dead was the captain’s nephew, who was alsonamed Jeremiah Diller (Daily Evening Herald, 6October 1835; Ringwalt, 1877: 44). Damage to Heroineappears to have been minor, for the boat was back inoperation before the end of the month (Daily EveningHerald, 29 October 1835).

By 1837 Heroine had been in service for five years,and was no doubt showing its advanced age (in June

Figure 14. The explosion of the Moselle at Cincinnati, Ohio on April 25, 1838, one of many steamboat boiler disasters of the1830s. (Print courtesy of the Ohio Historical Society)



1836 William Fairfax Gray already thought it ‘a sorryold boat’) (Gray, 1965: 186). Captain Diller waspreparing his new boat Worden Pope for service andapparently sold Heroine to a man named J. R. Hord inlate 1837 or early 1838. Hord specialized in the lowerMississippi River trade, and in January began runningthe steamboat on a schedule between Vicksburg andNatchez, Mississippi and Natchitoches, Louisiana,advertising Heroine as a ‘Red River Packet’ in the localnewspapers (Natchez Daily Journal, 12 January 1838;Rodney Standard, 20 February 1838; Nardini, 1963:155).

Heroine had not been in Hord’s employ for very longbefore it was hired by the agent working for Columbus,Ohio businessmen-turned-government-contractorsJames Nisewanger and William Sullivant. The boat wasto carry the annual supply of provisions to the USArmy’s Fort Towson in the ‘Indian Territory’ (present-day Oklahoma). The supplies included 240 barrels ofsalt pork, 500 barrels of flour, dried beans, salt, candlesand soap (Nisewanger & Sullivant Contract, 1838). TheGreat Raft logjam had blocked the upper Red Riverprior to 1838, but that spring, after five years of steadyclearing, Captain Henry Shreve finally opened achannel that allowed steamboats to proceed up theriver as far as Fort Towson on the Kiamichi River(McCall, 1984). Heroine was one of the first boats topass through the former barrier, and the boat success-fully made a lengthy passage up the unknown andhazard-filled river as far as Jonesborough, Texas. Fromhere the vessel attempted to navigate the last four miles(6.43 km) to the Fort Towson landing, but ran afoul ofa snag on 6 May, sinking in shallow water until themain deck was awash (Nisewanger, 14 June 1838).After the sinking the crew and a detachment of soldiersfrom the fort were able to salvage the candles, soap, andsome of the pork, but Nisewanger and Sullivant’s unin-sured cargo was largely ruined (Chick, 2011: 13). Thecrew also took off Heroine’s engine and someoneremoved the boilers, but the hull was simply abandonedin the channel. It remained visible during low water forseveral more years, until a flood in 1843 shifted thecourse of the river and buried the hull under 7.62 m(25 ft) of sediment (Wittenbury, 9 January 1871;Stroud, 1997: 31–33). There it would lie forgotten untilre-exposed by another flood in 1990 (Fig. 15).

SummaryMarine steam technology radically accelerated the paceof early 19th-century trade and communication and

marked the beginning of a worldwide transportationrevolution that continues to this day. Steamboats werefound to be particularly useful on the vast MississippiRiver system that drains the interior of North America.The shallow, fast-moving nature of western riversforced steamboat inventors and builders to rapidlydevelop lightweight, shallow hulls and high-pressuresteam propulsion systems capable of meeting the rigor-ous navigational demands of these waterways. Theexpanding fleet of cheap, fast, capacious steamers con-tributed greatly to the profound cultural and environ-mental transformations that took place in the mid-continent region.

The earliest years of steam on North America’swestern rivers are poorly documented in manyrespects, particularly as they pertain to the evolution ofdesigns, material selections, assembly techniques, andoperational parameters of both the hulls and the pro-pulsions systems. The fortuitous circumstances thatburied and subsequently re-exposed Heroine providedus with a rare example—the earliest thus far examinedby archaeologists—of a western river steamboat. Thewreck of Heroine constitutes a new benchmark forunderstanding what boat builders and engine makersaccomplished during the first quarter-century of hulland machinery development. The wreck also providesus with a look at the human aspects of river travel bysteamboat in the 1830s, at its living and working con-ditions, its advantages, and for many, its attendantdangers.

AcknowledgementsHeroine’s excavation was supported by the OHS, INA, and TAMU, with particular thanks due to Dr Robert Blackburn andDan Provo (OHS) and Dr Donny Hamilton (TAMU/INA). The excavation was carried out by TAMU students, OHS staff, andvolunteers. Ricky Martin, owner of the land on which Heroine was buried, generously provided the wreck to the people ofOklahoma. Kevin Crisman wishes to thank the University of Maine’s Darling Marine Center for providing an ideal location forcompleting this article.

Figure 15. The wreck of the Heroine, re-exposed by the RedRiver after being buried for 147 years under a cattle pasture.(Photo by Carrie Sowden, INA/TAMU)



ReferencesBagur, J., 2001, A History of Navigation on Cypress Bayou and the Lakes. Denton, TX.Brockmann, R., 2002, Exploding Steamboats, Senate Debates, and Technical Reports: The Convergence of Technology, Politics,

and Rhetoric in the Steamboat Bill of 1838. Amityville, NY.Brown, H. and Crisman, K., 2005, News from the Red River: A Mid-Season Update on the Steamboat Heroine. The INA

Quarterly 32.4, 3–6.Chevalier, M., 1961, Society, Manners, and Politics in the United States. Ithaca, NY.Chick, N., 2011, The Cargo of the Steamboat Heroine and the Army of the Frontier, Indian Territory, 1838. CMAC News &

Reports 3.1, 10–13.Clapp, T., 1863, Autobiographical Sketches and Recollections during a Thirty-Five Years’ Residence in New Orleans. Boston.Collins, G., 1836, The Louisville Directory for the Year 1836. Louisville, KY.Collins, G., 1838, The Louisville Directory for the Year 1838–9. Louisville, KY.Crisman, K., 2005, The Heroine of the Red River. The INA Quarterly 32.2, 3–10.Crisman, K., 2007, Easy as One-Two-Three: Completing the Steamboat Heroine Excavation, 2005–2006. The INA Quarterly

34.2, 3–12.Crisman, K., 2011, Steaming Along: Research and Reconstruction of the Steamboat Heroine. CMAC News & Reports 3.1, 7–9.Crisman, K. and Lees, W., 2003, Beneath the Red River’s Waters: The Oklahoma Steamboat Project, Part I. The INA Quarterly

30.2, 3–8.Custer, J., 1991, Hogchains: Their Whys and Wherefores. The Egregious Steamboat Journal 15.2, 10–15.Daily Evening Herald, 1835. St Louis.Deming, E., 1834. The Cincinnati Directory Advertiser for 1834. Cincinnati.Foreman, G., 1968, Advancing the Frontier, 1830–1860. Norman, OK.Fox, C., Locke, J., Matthews, T. J., Pierce, J. and Strader, J., 1838, Report of the Committee Appointed by the Citizens of

Cincinnati, April 26, 1838, to Enquire into the Causes of the Explosion of the Moselle. Cincinnati.Fulkerson, H. S., 1885, Random Recollections: Early Days in Mississippi. Vicksburg, MS.Gerstäcker, F., 1854, Wild Sports in the Far West. New York.Gray, W. F., 1965, From Virginia to Texas, 1835: Diary of Col. Wm F. Gray. Houston, TX.Grieco, G., 2005, Modeling an Early Western River Steamboat Engine. The INA Quarterly 32.4, 7–11.Haites, E. F., Mak, J., and Walton, G. M., 1975, Western River Transportation: The Era of Early Internal Development,

1810–1860. Baltimore.Hall, J., 1836, Statistics of the West, at the Close of the Year 1836. Cincinnati.Hawley, G., 2005, Treasure in a Cornfield: The Discovery and Excavation of the Steamboat Arabia. Kansas City, MO.Hodge, P., 1840, The Steam Engine, Its Origin and Gradual Improvement, from the Time of Hero to the Present Day. New York.Howe, D. W., 2007, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848. Oxford and New York.Hunter, L. C., 1969, Steamboats on the Western Rivers: An Economic and Social History. Cambridge, MA.Jefferson Foundry Journal, 1837–1839. Mss. BB.J45, Filson Historical Society, Louisville, KY.Jones, H., 2011, Challenges to interpreting Life on Board the Steamboat Heroine. CMAC News & Reports 3.1, 14–15.Kane, A., 2004, The Western River Steamboat. College Station, TX.Krivor, M., 2001, Archaeological Evaluation of a Wreck (34CH280) in the Red River, Choctaw County, Oklahoma. Report

prepared by Panamerican Consultants, Inc. for the Oklahoma Historical Society.Krueger, B. A., 2012, Anthony Wayne: The History and Archaeology of an Early Great Lakes Steamboat. Thesis in Anthro-

pology, Texas A&M University. College Station, TX.Lees, W. B., and Arnold J. B. III, 2000, Preliminary assessment of a wreck in the Red River, Choctaw County, Oklahoma, USA.

IJNA 29.1, 120–5.Levinge, R. G. A., 1836, The Paddle Steamer Ouishita on the Red River, Louisiana Territory. Watercolor painting 1968.271,

Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, TX.Levinge, R. G. A., 1846, Echoes from the Backwoods; Or, Sketches of Transatlantic Life, V. II. London.Lloyd, J. T., 1856, Lloyd’s Steamboat Directory, and Disasters on the Western Waters. Cincinnati.Logan, J., 1838, Notes of a Journey Through Canada, the United States of America, and the West Indies. Edinburgh.Louisville Daily Journal, 1836–1837. Louisville, KY.Lucas, G. S., 2005, Zooarchaeological analysis of the contents of the Heroine pork barrel. Contract report prepared at the

Georgia Museum of Natural History. Athens, GA.Lyford, W. G., 1837, The Western Address Directory. Baltimore.Lytle, W. M. and Holdcamper, F. R., 1975, Merchant Steam Vessels of the United States, 1790–1868, ‘The Lytle-Holdcamper

List’. Staten Island, NY.Martineau, H., 1838, Retrospect of Western Travel, V. II. London and New York.Maximillian of Wied, 2008, The North American Journals of Prince Maximillian of Weid, V. I, S. Witte and M. Gallagher (eds).

Norman, OK.McCall, E. S., 1984, Conquering the Rivers: Henry Miller Shreve and the Navigation of America’s Inland Waterways. Baton

Rouge, LA.Missouri Republican, 1835. St Louis.Nardini, L. R., Sr., 1963, My Historic Natchitoches, Louisiana and its Environment. Natchitoches, LA.Natchez Daily Journal, 1838. Natchez, MS.



New Orleans Bee, 1832–1838.New Orleans Daily Picayune, 1838.Nisewanger, C., February–June, 1838. Entry 10 (US Army Commissary General Correspondence), Box 46, Record Group 192,

National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC.Nisewanger & Sullivant Contract, 1838. Entry 218 (Army Contracts), Record Group 217, National Archives and Records

Administration, Washington, DC.Norman, N. P., 1942, The Red River of the South. Louisiana Historical Quarterly 25, 397–527.Otis, R. W., 1832, The Louisville Directory for the Year 1832. Louisville, KY.Petsch, J. E., 1974, The Steamboat Bertrand: History, Excavation, and Architecture. Washington, DC.Power, T., 1836, Impressions of America During the Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. Philadelphia.Ringwalt, J. L., 1877, The Diller Family. Philadelphia.Robinson, D. S., 1999, Indiana: The History and Archaeology of an Early Great Lakes Propeller. M.A. Thesis in Anthropology,

Texas A&M University. College Station, TX.Rodney Standard, 1838. Rodney, MS.Schwarz, G. R., 2012, The Passenger Steamboat Phoenix: An Archaeological Study of Early Steam Propulsion in North America.

Dissertation in Anthropology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX.Stroud, M. S., 1997, Gateway to Texas: History of Red River County. Austin, TX.US Treasury Department, 1838, Steam Engines: Letter from the Secretary of the Treasury, Document 21, December 13, 1838.

Washington, DC.Vose, J., 14 May 1838, letter to G. Gibson. Entry 225, Box 1145, Record Group 92, US Archives, Washington, DC.White, J. H., 2009, A Portrait of the 1826 Steamboat Tecumseh. Ohio Valley History 10.3, 59–66.Wittenbury, W., 9 January 1871, Red River Reminiscences. Cincinnati Commercial.Woodruff, J. H., 1836. The Cincinnati Directory for the Years 1836–7. Cincinnati.



2013the western river steamboat heroine, 1832-1838, oklahoma, usa: excavations, summary of finds,...

Documents