Chapter XXI
_Steamboat Bonanzas_
How it was possible to derive any profit from an investment of from
$20,000 to $40,000, the principal of which had an average tenure
of life of but five years, has puzzled a great many conservative
business men from "down east", where "plants" lasted a lifetime,
and the profits from which may have been sure, but were certain to
be small. A man educated in such an atmosphere would hesitate long,
before investing $25,000 in a steamboat that was foreordained to the
scrap pile at the end of five summers; or where one out of every
two was as certainly predestined to go up in smoke or down into the
mud of the river bottom at the end of four years--these periods
representing the ordinary life of a Mississippi River steamboat.
From 1849 to 1862 the shipyards of the Ohio, where nine out of ten
Western boats were built, could not keep up with the orders. Every
available shipwright was employed, and on some boats gangs worked
at night by the light of torches at double wages, so great was the
demand. Every iron foundry was likewise driven to the limit to turn
out engines, boilers, and other machinery with which to give life to
the hulls that were growing as if by magic in every shipyard.
If there had not been profit in the business, the captains and other
river men who gave orders for these craft would not have given
them. By far the greater number of boats were built for individual
owners--practical river men who navigated the boats, and who knew
just what they were about. Many of the orders were given to replace
vessels that had been snagged or burned within the past twenty-four
hours--for time was money, and a man could not afford to be without
a steamboat many weeks, when twenty weeks or less represented a new
boat in net earnings. These men knew from actual experience that if
they could keep their craft afloat for two years they could build a
new boat from the profits made with her, even if she sank or burned
at the end of that time. If she kept afloat for four years, they
could buy or build two or three new ones from the profits, even
without the aid of insurance. As a matter of fact the boats carrying
insurance in those days were the exceptions. It came high, and owners
preferred to take their own chances rather than indulge to any great
extent in that luxury. How such profits were earned and such results
obtained, it will be the object of this chapter to disclose.
In those days every boat made money. A big and fast one made a
great deal; those small and slow made little as compared with their
larger rivals, but plenty as compared with their own cost. Perhaps
most vessel owners began on a small scale. A little boat might cost
$5,000. She would run on some tributary of the Great River, and in
the absence of any railroads might control all the traffic she was
capable of handling, and at her own rates. In the course of two or
three years her owner was able to build a bigger and a better boat.
By combining with some other river man, the two might build one
costing $25,000, and carrying from a hundred and fifty to two hundred
tons of freight, and passengers in proportion. With such an equipment
there was a fortune in sight at any time between 1849 and 1862,
provided always that the boat was not snagged or burned on her first
trip.
The doctrine (or science) of averages, is peculiar. In order to get
an average of four years for a steamboat's life, it is necessary to
keep some of them afloat for nine or ten; while on the other hand you
are certain to "kill" a lot of them within a year after they touch
water. When the latter happens, the investment is lost and the owner
is probably ruined.
For purposes of illustration we will take as a sample one from the
best class of money-makers on the upper river, in the flush times of
1857. Minnesota was organized as a territory in 1849, and admitted
as a state in 1858. From 1852 to 1857 there were not boats enough to
carry the people who were flocking into this newly-opened farmers'
and lumbermen's paradise. There were over a hundred and twenty-five
different steamboats registered at St. Paul in the latter year.
The boats carrying good cargoes all through the season were the
money-makers. Some of the larger ones were unable to get over the
sand-bars after the midsummer droughts began. The stern-wheel boat
of two hundred to three hundred tons was the one that could handle
a good cargo on little water, and represented the highest type of
profit-earning craft.
Such a boat would be about 200 feet long, 30 feet beam, and five
feet depth of hold. She would have three large iron boilers (steel
not having entered largely into boiler construction at that time),
and fairly large engines, giving her good speed without an excessive
expenditure for fuel. She would cost from $25,000 to $30,000, and
accommodate two hundred cabin passengers comfortably, with a hundred
second-class people on deck.
With such a boat furnished and ready for business, it is the duty
of the captain to go out and hire his crew, and fit her out for a
month's work. Such an investment in 1857, on the upper river, would
approximate the following figures:
_Per month_
Captain $ 300.00
Chief clerk 200.00
Second clerk 100.00
Chief mate 200.00
Second mate 100.00
Pilots (2 at $500.00) 1,000.00
Chief engineer 200.00
Second engineer 150.00
Firemen (8 at $50.00) 400.00
Steward 200.00
Carpenter 150.00
Watchman 50.00
Deck hands (40 at $50.00) 2,000.00
Cabin crew 800.00
Food supplies ($75.00 per day, 30 days) 2,250.00
Wood (25 cords per day, 30 days, at $2.50) 2,000.00
Sundries 1,400.00
---------
$11,500.00
With this wage-list and expense-account before them, the captain and
his chief clerk, who may also be a part owner in the boat, are face
to face with the problem of meeting such expenses from passenger
and cargo lists, and at the same time providing a sinking fund with
which to build another craft within four years. To the uninitiated
this would seem a somewhat appalling problem; with these old hands,
the question would no doubt resolve itself down to the number of
round trips that they would have to make to pay for their boat. The
question of years never enters their heads.
In 1857 there were three principal points of departure on the upper
river, above St. Louis. At that time St. Louis itself was the great
wholesale centre, but it was not so important as an initial point for
passengers for the upper Mississippi. The flood of immigration from
St. Louis was for many reasons up the Missouri: furs and gold could
be found in the mountains; there was a possible slave state in the
farming regions below the mountains. The people who settled Minnesota
and northern Wisconsin came from the East, and reached the river
at three points--Rock Island, Dunleith (or Galena), and Prairie du
Chien. Taking the point with which I am most familiar, we will start
the new boat from Galena.
At that time Galena was, next to St. Louis, the principal wholesale
_entrepôt_ in the West. It was a poor trip for the boat which I have
taken as a model, when she did not get a hundred tons of freight at
Galena from the wholesale houses there. The balance was found at
Dunleith, the terminus of what is now the Illinois Central Railway
(then the Galena & Western Union); at Dubuque, which was also a
big wholesale town; and at Prairie du Chien, the terminus of the
Milwaukee & Mississippi Railway.
The freight rates on the river ran from 25 cents per hundred for
short distances, to $1.50 per hundred from Galena to Stillwater, or
St. Paul. No package was taken at less than 25 cents, however small
it was, or how short the distance. In order not to overstate, we will
take fifty cents per hundred as the average, and three hundred tons
of cargo as the capacity of the two hundred-ton boat.[F] This is
relatively the capacity of a vessel of that tonnage after deducting
for passengers and fuel, and the space occupied by deck passengers.
This latter item did not seriously count, for the freight was usually
taken first and the deck passengers were then piled on top of it.
Their comfort or convenience was never taken into consideration.
[F] A boat _measuring_ 200 tons would carry from 300 to 350
tons weight in cargo. The tonnage of all boats is given by
measurement, while the cargo is always in hundredweights.
The boat can carry two hundred cabin passengers, and a hundred on
deck. We will assume that there is another boat competing for this
trip, and we do not fill up to the capacity. The clerk studies the
rate sheets in vogue in 1857, and finds the following:
UP-STREAM RATES
30 miles or under (no charge less than 25c) 6c per mile
30 to 60 miles 5c per mile
Over 60 miles 4c per mile
GALENA OR DUNLEITH TO-- Miles Cabin passage Deck passage
Cassville 30 $2.00 $1.25
Prairie du Chien 66 3.50 2.00
La Crosse 150 6.00 3.25
Red Wing 256 10.00 3.50
Stillwater and St. Paul 321 12.00 6.00
Galena or Dunleith to St. Paul 321 $12.00 $6.00
Prairie du Chien to St. Paul 255 10.00 5.00
La Crosse to St. Paul 175 7.00 4.00
In 1904, the cabin passage on the Diamond Jo Line boats from Dunleith
to St. Paul, was $8.00; from Prairie du Chien, $6.75; from La
Crosse, $4.75. This is in competition with six railroads practically
paralleling the river. In 1857 there was no railroad competition,
and practically none from steamboats. Every boat attained a full
passenger list, and was at liberty to charge whatever the conscience
of the captain dictated--assuming a conscience. I have known a
boat to fill up at Dunleith at the rate of $16.00 to St. Paul, and
contract that all the men should sleep on the cabin floor, leaving
staterooms for the women. And the passengers were glad enough to
accept such conditions, for a detention of two days at Dunleith would
cost a far greater sum than the overcharge exacted by the steamboat
officers.
In the foregoing table I have included La Crosse, which, however,
was not an active factor in river rates until 1859. Before then,
hundreds of passengers were landed there from Rock Island, Dunleith,
and Prairie du Chien; but as the railroad had not yet reached the
river at that point, there were but few passengers from La Crosse for
landings farther up the river. When our boat leaves Prairie du Chien,
then, the following business is in sight:
150 passengers from Dunleith or Galena, at an average
of $8.00 $1,200.00
50 deck passengers at an average of $5.00 250.00
300 tons freight, 6,000 cwts. at an average of 50c 3,000.00
--------
$4,450.00
A boat leaving Galena on Friday evening usually arrived at St. Paul
in time to have her cargo all ashore and ready to start on the return
trip sometime on Tuesday--usually about noon. At that time we shall
find the chief clerk studying the downstream rate sheets. These
differ somewhat from the upstream and are like this, a few principal
points being taken to illustrate:
DOWN-STREAM RATES
30 miles or under (no charge less than 25c.) 5c per mile
30 to 60 miles 4c per mile
Over 60 miles 3c per mile
ST. PAUL OR STILLWATER TO-- Miles Cabin passage Deck passage
Hastings 32 $1.50 $1.00
Red Wing 65 2.50 2.00
Winona 146 4.50 2.50
La Crosse 175 5.00 3.00
Prairie du Chien 255 7.00 3.50
Dunleith or Galena 321 8.00 4.00
Downstream rates are somewhat less than the upstream, because, for
one reason, it costs less to get a boat downstream. There is a
four-mile current pushing the boat along, in addition to the applied
power. Going upstream the boat had had this current to overcome
before she gained an inch. A four-mile current is one-third of an
average steamboat's progress. Again, the passengers do not get a
chance to eat as much, and very often they were not served as well,
on the down trip. Then, there were fewer people who wished to go
down river, with the result that there were many boats bidding for
the patronage of those who did make the trip. All these elements,
with possibly others, entered into the cutting of the rates by about
one-third on the down trip.
The only item besides passengers to be depended upon on the return
trip, was wheat. There may have been some potatoes or barley, or, if
fortune favored, some tons of furs and buffalo robes from the "Red
River train", or some flour from the one mill at St. Anthony (now
Minneapolis), or perhaps woodenware from the same point. There was
always a more or less assorted cargo, but the mainstay was wheat. We
will assume, in order to simplify this illustration, that there was
nothing but wheat in sight at the time. There was no question about
getting it. Every boat got all the wheat it could carry, and the
shippers begged, almost on bended knees, for a chance to ship five
hundred sacks, or a hundred, or fifty--any amount would be considered
a great favor. Wheat was shipped at that time in two-bushel sacks,
each weighing a hundred and twenty pounds. Three hundred tons, dead
weight, is a pretty good cargo for a two-hundred ton boat. Wheat is
dead weight, and a boat goes down into the water fast, when that is
the sole cargo. We get five thousand sacks, all of which is unloaded
at Prairie du Chien. The down trip foots up somewhat like this:
80 passengers at $8.00 $ 640.00
5,000 sacks of wheat at 12c 600.00
--------
$1,240.00
Arriving in Galena Friday morning, the clerk figures up his receipts
with the following result:
Up trip $4,450.00
Down trip 1,240.00
--------
$5,690.00
The boat makes four trips during the month, leaving out the extra two
or three days, which may have been spent on some sand-bar. At the
end of the month the clerk again does some figuring, with this result:
Income from four trips, at $5,690.00 $22,760.00
Less wages, fuel, provisions, etc. 11,500.00
---------
Net profit for month $11,260.00
A stern-wheel, light-draught boat such as we have taken for this
illustration, was quite certain to get five months' service--between
the middle of April and the middle of October. In order not to put
too great tension upon the credulity of modern readers, we will
assume that she gets only five months of navigation. At the close
of the season the captain and his clerk figure up the receipts and
expenses, and strike a balance like this:
Receipts, 5 months, at $22,760.00 $113,800.00
Expenses, 5 months, at $11,500.00 57,500.00
----------
Net earnings for the season $ 56,300.00
This is enough to buy a new boat, and have something over for pin
money. No one knows better than the writer the elusiveness, not to
say the mendacity, of figures. He has often figured out greater
profits than this in the nebulous schemes which have from time to
time seduced him from the straight and narrow path of six per cent
investment--and had them come out the other way. In steamboating in
the fifties, this occurred very often. The most careful captain,
employing the highest-priced pilots and engineers, would often lose
his boat the first season; a snag or a lighted match, or a little too
much steam, dissipating the best-laid plans in a few minutes of time.
But the figures given above are conservative--made so purposely. The
truth lies at the opposite extreme.
If the books of some of the boats of the old Minnesota Packet Company
could be resurrected, they would show earnings and profits far
greater than I have ventured to claim in my illustration. The "Fanny
Harris", for instance, was a boat of 279 tons. Her wage-list and
expense-account have been taken as a basis of the illustration above
given, partly from recollection, and partly from figures which I made
when I was second clerk, and which I have had before me in writing
this chapter. We used to tow one barge all the time--most of the
time two barges, and both boat and barges loaded to the water line,
both ways, nearly every trip.
Of course we sometimes missed it. We landed ten thousand sacks of
wheat at Prairie du Chien on one trip. Instead of a hundred and
fifty cabin passengers, she often carried three hundred, "sleeping
them" on the cabin floor three deep--at stateroom rates; and under
such conditions the fortunate winners of such a chance to get into
the promised land have risen up and called the whole outfit blessed,
when in fact it was the other thing. I have heard of other boats
claiming that they had to tow an extra barge to carry the money which
they took in on the trip. I have always thought that these men were
slightly overstating the case--but maybe not.
An item in one of the St. Paul papers of the time, states that the
"Excelsior" arrived from St. Louis November 20, 1852, with two
hundred and fifty cabin passengers, one hundred and fifty deck
passengers, and three hundred tons of freight. For which freight
she received "one dollar per hundred for any distance"; and the net
profits of the up trip on freight alone were over $8,000. For two
hundred and fifty cabin passengers she would receive $16 each, or
$4,000; for the deck passengers, $8 each, or $1,200. These sums added
to the $8,000 received for freight, would aggregate $13,200. The
"Excelsior" cost not to exceed $20,000--probably not over $16,000.
Two trips like this would build a better boat. As this was the last
trip of the season, she probably did not get such another. Under that
freight rate--"one dollar per hundred for any distance"--a shipment
of a hundred pounds from Prescott to Point Douglass, one mile,
would cost the shipper a dollar. There were possibilities in such
conditions.
Another item, also from a St. Paul paper, states that the "Lady
Franklin" arrived May 8, 1855, from Galena, with five hundred
passengers. She would accommodate a hundred and fifty cabin people,
ordinarily. Figure this trip down to the probabilities, and the net
result would be about as follows:
300 cabin passengers at $12 $3,600
200 deck passengers at $6 1,200
------
$4,800
Or, reversing it:
200 cabin passengers at $12 $2,400
300 deck passengers at $6 1,800
------
$4,200
The "Lady Franklin" cost about $20,000. Two months' work at this rate
would buy a new and better boat. If I remember aright, the "Lady
Franklin" was sunk in 1856 or 1857, but not until she had earned
money enough to buy two new boats, each costing twice as much as she
did. At the time she carried five hundred passengers she undoubtedly
carried a full cargo of freight, worth at least two thousand dollars
more to the boat.
An item in a St. Louis paper of that date, announces the departure of
the side-wheel steamer "Tishomingo" (Jenks, master), for St. Paul on
April 14, 1857, with 465 cabin passengers, 93 deck passengers and 400
tons of assorted freight. This trip would figure somewhat like this:
465 cabin passengers at an average of $16 $ 7,440.00
93 deck passengers at an average of $8 744.00
400 tons freight at 75c per hundred 6,000.00
---------
$14,184.00
These rates are estimated at a very low figure. The regular cabin
rate at that time, St. Louis to St. Paul, was, for cabin, $24; deck,
$12; freight, $1.50 per hundredweight. It is not necessary to amplify
at all. The "Tishomingo" had been bought in the spring of 1857,
within a month, for $25,000. She paid one-half her purchase price on
her first trip that season.
I would not have it understood that all boats made these phenomenal
earnings; but many boats did, and all those of the Minnesota Packet
Company were in this favored class. There were several conditions
precedent, which made these results possible with the boats of
this line. It controlled, absolutely, the freighting from the
Galena and Dubuque jobbing houses; it controlled, absolutely, the
freight business of the Dunleith and Prairie du Chien railroads,
and practically all the passenger business of the two roads, as
steamboat tickets were sold on the train, good only on the boats of
the Minnesota Packet Company. These conditions insured a full cargo
for every boat, and a full passenger list every trip. Outside boats
did not have such a "cinch", but each had a source of revenue of its
own, equally satisfactory. Even the "wild" boats had no difficulty
in getting cargoes, and every vessel in that busy era had all the
business it could handle.
The term "Company" was something of a misnomer. It was not at first
a stock company, in the modern sense of the word. Each boat was
owned by its captain, or a number of persons acting individually. In
organizing the company, instead of capitalizing it with a certain
amount of stock, the controlling parties simply put in their
steamboats and pooled their earnings. Each boat had an equal chance
with all the others for a cargo; and when the dividends were declared
each one shared according to the earnings of his boat. A big boat
could earn more than a smaller or slower one, and such a boat got a
larger percentage than the latter. The particular advantage, in fact
the only advantage, in pooling lay in securing a monopoly of the
railroad and jobbing business. In order to do this it was necessary
to have boats enough to handle the business at all times, and to have
a general manager who would place the craft so as to give the most
effective service.
One of the beauties of the pooling system was, that if a captain or
owner became dissatisfied and desired to pull out, he could take his
boat and the share of profits due him, and leave at any time. A few
years later the company was reorganized as a joint stock company.
After that, if one wished to get out he was lucky if he could get
clear with the clothes on his back. The financiers who controlled
fifty-one per cent of the stock retained all the steamboats and all
the profits.
[Illustration: FACSIMILES OF EARLY TICKETS AND BUSINESS CARD.]