Bostona (Packet, 1879-1899)

Summary

• BOAT DESCRIPTION: Sidewheel
• BOAT TYPE: Packet
• BUILT: At Cincinnati in 1879
• BECAME: Machinery went to the Indiana; the hull was remodeled into a wharfboat for Vevay, Indiana
• FINAL DISPOSITION: Dismantled about 1899 at Jeffersonville, Indiana
• OWNERS: Cincinnati, Portsmouth, Big Sandy and Pomeroy Packet Company, 1879
• OFFICERS & CREW: First crew: Captain Isaac Bryson (master), Gus Honshell and Samuel Hawke (clerks), Peter Boughner and Jim Mace (pilots), John Perry (steward), Owen Jolly (mate), Mrs. Mary Nelson (stewardess); 1882-1891: Captain John Holloway; Fall 1896: Captain Charles B. Church, E.H. (Lige) Matheus (clerk)
• RIVERS: Ohio River
• OTHER INFORMATION: Ways - 0693; This packet carried her fuel (coal) in the hold and had double railroad tracks with 24 coal cars, each with 50 bu. capacity in the hold. Admiral David Gibson , president of the White Collar Line, rode the trial trip, along with Commodore Wash Honshell, Captain E.B. Moore and C.T. Dumont. Her maiden trip leaving Cincinnati on December 9, 1879 was a marked event due to the marriage of clerk Gus Honshell to a niece of Collis P. Huntington. The bride and groom took their wedding trip on the new boat. Bostona ran the "railroad trade" Cincinnati-Huntington until 1883 when the C and O arrived at Cincinnati; then ran Cincinnati-Pomeroy. In latter years she made frequent trips from Cincinnati-Memphis under Captain Church
• PHOTO DESCRIPTION: Main cabin set as dining room with passengers seated and waitstaff standing