Ruth (Packet, 1893-1918)

Summary

• BOAT DESCRIPTION: Sternwheel
• BOAT TYPE: Packet
• BUILT: 1893 at Marietta, Ohio at the Knox Yard
• FINAL DISPOSITION: Lost in ice at Dam 13 on the Ohio River at McMechan, West Virginia in January 1918
• OWNERS: Bay Line; Captain J. Mack Gamble (1906); Captain Fred Hornbrook, Captain Fred Kimpel, Rose L. Williamson, and Harry C. Donnally (1910)
• OFFICERS & CREW: Captain Ira B. Huntington (1896); Ralph Emerson Gaches (clerk, 1896); Captain Mike Davis (master/pilot, 1896); Silas Wood (chief engineer, 1896)
• RIVERS: Ohio River
• OTHER INFORMATION: Ways - 4881; Began her career running local trades in the Ironton, Ohio area. She soon had a cabin added and ran Pittsburgh-Charleston from January through September 1896. On October 21, 1896 she entered the Wheeling-Sistersville trade, competing with the Jewel, Leroy and the T.N. Barnsdall. Her new owners lengthened her at Point Pleasant in 1910. In 1912 she went into the Evansville-Paducah and a texas was added. She went to Pittsburgh in 1916 and ran Pittsburgh-Parkersburg and then Pittsburgh-Charleston. While in the Evansville-Paducah trade she began using the whistle from the Joe Fowler; she kept it until the end