Natchez (Packet, 1869-1879)

Summary

• BOAT DESCRIPTION: Sidewheel
• BOAT TYPE: Packet
• BUILT: 1869 at Cincinnati, Ohio
• FINAL DISPOSITION: Stranded at Rising Sun, Indiana on June 6, 1879 and finally ended up at the foot of Ludlow Street in Cincinnati on July 13, 1879 minus her chimneys, wheels and machinery. Her hull eventually became a wharfboat at the Refuge Oil Mill below Vicksburg
• OWNERS: Captain T.P. Leathers; Captain B.D. Wood (1880)
• OFFICERS & CREW: Archie Frame (pilot); Joe McCamment (pilot); Pink Varble (pilot); Samuel Ayles (head clerk); Charles Grice (clerk); Frank Clayton (pilot, 1870); Mort Burnham (pilot, 1870); Andy Pauley (chief engineer, 1870); John Farwell (engine room, 1870); Pat Nolan (engine room, 1870); John Montreville (engine room, 1870); John Montague (engine room, 1870); Alexander Meeha (engine room, 1870); Ovid Bell (assistant clerk, 1870); Fred Kentham (clerk, 1870); E. Cummings (mate, 1870); James Dillon (mate, 1870); Captain T.P. Leathers (master, 1870); John E. Hukill (steward, 1870); Peter Peppers (mate, 1874); Captain Harry Stein (1879)
• RIVERS: Mississippi River
• OTHER INFORMATION: Ways - 4109; Construction of the Natchez was superintended by O. Perry Tharp of the Cincinnati Marine Ways. Elias Ealer built the cabin. Cost was $200,000. She was built for the New Orleans-Vicksburg trade and departed Cincinnati on her maiden voyage on December 6, 1869. An editor of the "New South" was disappointed on seeing her, feeling that while she was a fast boat she was very plain and ungainly. During off seasons from hauling cotton the Natchez made trips to St. Louis. In a June 1870 trip to St. Louis, she broke the record set by the J.M. White by 1 hour and 12 minutes. In honor of that, St. Louis businessmen presented a set of deer horns to Captain Leathers. Several weeks later, the Natchez raced against the Rob't E. Lee going from New Orleans to St. Louis which she lost. She was said to have gone through the water like a swan. When under full headway a half-round groove in her stemband spurted up water like a fountain-jet. Her smokestacks were red with the cotton bale symbol between them. Her whistle was described by Captain Leathers, "for awakening persons on shore, not on the steamboat". On another trip in 1870 she ran from New Orleans to Natchez in 17 hours and 11 minutes. She was known as the "racer" Natchez. She never flew the American flag. In October 1871 Captain Leathers refused to allow refuge to the dispossessed residents of the great fire in Chicago. Captain Leathers made this decision on seeing that the passes were signed by General Phil Sheridan who, according to Leathers, was responsible for burning out more Southern families during the Civil War than were made homeless in Chicago in the 1871 fire. On a trip to New Orleans in 1874, the Natchez brought 5,511 cotton bales which was her record. On June 6, 1879 she was bound for Cincinnati to become dismantled when she became stranded at Rising Sun, Indiana. She was eventually moved to the Cincinnati marine ways and remained there until 1881when the R.R. Springer towed her to the Howard Boat Yard at Jeffersonville, Indiana. Later on, her hull became a wharfboat at the Refuge Oil Mill
• PHOTO DESCRIPTION: At the dock in New Orleans