The River: Whistles have a special place on boats and there are so many stories to tell about them

The riverboat captain is a storyteller, and Captain Don Sanders shares the stories of his long association with the river — from discovery to a way of love and life. This a part of a long and continuing story. This story was first told in December 2018.

By Capt. Don Sanders
Special to NKyTribune

In 1971, when the DELTA QUEEN lay moored below the BECKY THATCHER, formerly the U. S. Army Corps of Engineer’s Inspection Boat MISSISSIPPI, I asked the owner of the converted steamboat restaurant moored on the Mississippi River in front of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis for the bedraggled whistle with vestiges of bird nests hanging from the bottom. Much to my surprise and delight, he graciously said I could have it if I took it down, myself.

Without wasting a minute, I rounded a crew together, including Capt. Greg Menke, and armed with a variety of tools, including a hacksaw, a pinch bar, and a long, sisal rope “handyline,” we quickly dismantled the whistle from between the BECKY’s smokestacks and ceremoniously carried the relic across the cobblestone landing to the DELTA QUEEN.

The BECKY THATCHER, formerly the U. S. Army Corps of Engineer’s Inspection Boat MISSISSIPPI.

With the assistance of Chief Engineer Kenny Howe, I stripped the brass whistle of its ugly Corps of Engineer’s red paint while Kenny replaced the bent, rusted, threaded adjustment rod with a new one. Once the whistle was looking almost like new, it slept under my bunk in the Officers’ Quarters on the Sun Deck. After I left the payroll of the QUEEN, the heavy tooter reposed beneath the bed at my imposing Victorian home in Covington, Kentucky.

In 1976, when I became the first Captain of the excursion boat P. A. DENNY, in Charleston, WV, leaving Covington, I tossed the whistle into the trunk of my car where it stayed. Because of an unusual type of flange, no attempts had been made to blow the whistle since removing it from between the stacks of the BECKY THATCHER. That same year, I made a pitch to our company to sponsor John Hartford to perform at the annual Charleston Sternwheel Regatta. I also made a vow to myself and the DENNY Crew to give John the whistle if, and when, he came. The sensational Bluegrass musician, then at the height of his fame as the composer of the tune, “Gentle on My Mind,” agreed to attend, but with all the confusion associated with the excitement of the regatta, John departed for Marietta, Ohio before I could give him the prize.

That weekend, the Sons & Daughters of Pioneer Rivermen, an association of steamboat fans, was meeting at the Lafayette Hotel in Marietta, Ohio, some two hours drive from the DENNY. So, early on Sunday morning, I drove to the hotel where John and I had breakfast together. As I had to be back in Charleston for a one-pm excursion, I asked John to follow me to the parking lot where I “had something” for him. Ironically, beneath the shadow of the BECKY THATCHER moored in the Muskingum River next to the hotel, the same boat the whistle came from, and now a theater/dinner boat, I presented the MISSISSIPPI Whistle to Cap’n Hartford.

I asked the owner of the converted steamboat restaurant moored on the Mississippi River in front of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis for the bedraggled whistle with vestiges of bird nests hanging from the bottom.

John eventually carried the whistle aboard the JULIA BELLE SWAIN where he and Captain Dennis Trone rigged a flange and blew the tall, brass hooter for the first time since the U. S. Army Engineers blew it on the Steamer MISSISSIPPI. When Hartford sent a recording of the whistle blow, Captain Dennis Trone was heard exclaiming in the background:

“WOW! Sounds like the SPRAGUE!”

In 1978, John brought the whistle with him on the DELTA QUEEN where I had just returned after a sabbatical of a few years. Captain Ernest Wagner took me aboard, in Cincinnati, as a “Sailorman” for the trip to New Orleans where Pat Wingerter, the Director of Personnel, rehired me as a Mate. While John Hartford watched from outside the aft pilothouse door, I removed the DELTA QUEEN’s famous gold-plated three-chime Lunkenheimer and put the MISSISSIPPI whistle in its place. We blew it for a few days until it warbled terribly out of tune, and then the signature whistle returned into place on the bonnet of the QUEEN’s stack.

A couple, or so, years later, the U. S. MISSISSIPPI screecher found its way to Miss Ruth Farris’s river museum in St. Louis as a gift from John. Miss Ferris, who had been John’s fourth-grade teacher, was famous around the St. Louis school district for acquiring the pilothouse of the steam packetboat, the GOLDEN EAGLE, after it sank at Grand Tower, Illinois, and had the wheelhouse moved to the schoolhouse yard where Miss Ferris taught, and John Hartford got his first taste for steamboatin’ keeping the pilothouse clean and in repair.
  

I made a pitch to our company to sponsor John Hartford to perform at the annual Charleston Sternwheel Regatta. John Hartford and Capt. Don Sanders at the Charleston, WV Civic Center. (Photo by Bela Berty, 1976.)

One day, nearly ten years after the whistle blew on the DELTA QUEEN, my musical friend called to inform me that Miss Farris had recently talked to him. She said that Captain Wilbur Dow, owner of the Lake George Steamboat Company in New York State, asked her if she would donate the slender brass whistle for a new boat he was building for service on the lake. Miss Ferris was excited to hear Captain Dow’s proposal, but, she told him the whistle was a gift from John Hartford, and she felt it only right to get his approval before committing. John said it was fine with him, too, but informed Miss Ferris:

“I was given the whistle by Captain Don Sanders, and I should get his okay, first.”

Of course, I gave my blessing after hearing John Hartford’s account. The U. S. Inspection Boat MISSISSIPPI whistle, with the history as duly noted here, is the same whistle worn and blown, approaching the second decade of the 21st Century, on the Lake George Steamboat Company Steamer, the LAC du SAINT SACREMENT, a 189.5 X 40-foot replica of the celebrated Hudson River Dayliner, the PETER STUYVESANT. Completed in May 1989, the “Saint” remains in service ever since.

While steamboat whistles are fresh on our minds, let’s talk more about the three-chime Lunkenheimer on the DELTA QUEEN:

While John Hartford watched from outside the aft pilothouse door, I removed the DELTA QUEEN’s famous gold-plated three-chime Lunkenheimer and put the MISSISSIPPI whistle in its place. (Pic by Keith Norrington, 1978.)

When Captain Tom Greene bought the DELTA QUEEN in 1947 and had her brought around from California by way of the Panama Canal, the Lunkenheimer with “three-chimes,” or sounding chambers; each sounding a different note of a chord, was in place aboard the QUEEN as it had been since the steamboat was built. Or as steam whistle-builder Aaron Richardson replied when asked:

“Yep, I believe both the DELTA KING and DELTA QUEEN whistles were bought new from Lunkenheimer when they were putting the boats back together at Stockton…”

Oddly, although many steamboat fans now consider the DELTA QUEEN’s thunder-maker one of the most beautifully-sounding whistles ever blown on the rivers, Captain Greene had reservations about keeping it aboard. In a letter to his friend, Cincinnati industrialist, steamboat fan, and whistle collector, Dan Heekin of the Heekin Can Company, Cap’n Tom wrote:

“I have taken the two whistles off the boats (TOM GREENE & CHRIS GREENE which had buyers’ options for their sales) and have them here in the wharfboat at Cincinnati where I also have the SPRAGUE’S whistle… Should we take the DELTA’S whistle off, leave it on, put on the SPRAGUE’S, TOM’S, or CHRIS’?”

The U. S. MISSISSIPPI screecher found its way to Miss Ruth Farris’s river museum in St. Louis as a gift from John. Miss Ferris, who had been John’s fourth-grade teacher, was famous around the St. Louis school district for acquiring the pilothouse of the steam packetboat, the GOLDEN EAGLE, after it sank at Grand Tower, Illinois.

Why Captain Greene was in such a dilemma was possible because he wanted a whistle familiar to those working and living along the Ohio River, and he had his doubts about the untested warbler, an unfamiliar newcomer from far-off California. Cap’n Tom also had his stockholders to contend with who had their own opinions about what whistle the newly purchased steamboat should wear. As he told Dan Heekin:

“There are two different lines of thought and whistle ideology in the G.L. stockholders. You’d think this whistle question was a U.N. problem.”

The CHRIS GREENE whistle that saw service on the HOMER SMITH replaced the original Lunk for a time for these reasons outlined in the historic letter:

“First of all, I like it as it is of low mellow ‘big boat’ quality. I don’t believe it will annoy the passengers’ sleep and it comes from the HOMER SMITH.”

The HOMER SMITH, an excursion boat built at the Howard Shipyard in Jeffersonville, Indiana in 1914, was partially owned by Capt. C. C. Bowyer, a friend of Cap’n Tom’s father, Captain Gordon C. Greene. Captain Bowyer, also a banker, went to great lengths to help the elder Captain Greene “when the going was rough for my Dad and he went all out financially to help Dad,” according to the letter. Cap’n Tom concluded his thoughts about replacing the original QUEEN whistle with these words:

The U. S. Inspection Boat MISSISSIPPI whistle, with the history as duly noted here, is the same whistle worn and blown, approaching the second decade of the 21st Century, on the Lake George Steamboat Company Steamer, the LAC du SAINT SACREMENT.

“Besides a good whistle, I feel that it would be sort of a tribute to Capt. Bowyer from a sentimental standpoint to use this HOMER-SMITH-CHRIS GREENE whistle.”

The DELTA QUEEN sported the sentimental choice for a time, but happily, somewhere along the line, the original, three-chimer Lunkenheimer returned to its rightful domain atop the bonnet on the smokestack.

Only recently this month, following a long hiatus, the DELTA QUEEN received another exemption from the so-called “Safety-at-Sea Law.” After many hoops yet to be jumped through, the QUEEN will be returning to the overnight passenger trade if all goes as planned. In celebration of this joyful news, the principal owners of the venerable Steamboat celebrated by taking the Lunkenheimer from its secure resting place to the Steamer NATCHEZ in New Orleans. There, under the supervision of Phillip Johnson, an owner and the DELTA’s Vice President of Marine Operations, it was connected to a pressurized steam line and blown in commemoration of the jubilant occasion.

Before the big blow, DQ owners, Leah Ann and Randy Ingram, and Cornel Martin lugged the massive whistle to the roof of the NATCHEZ in a wheelchair. After securing all the nuts and bolts to the steam source, and with numerous cell phones recording the momentous occasion, the honor of blowing the first salute went to my old friend, boss, and mentor, Captain Clarke C. “Doc” Hawley. Once Captain Doc let the steam fly, several others took their turns at pulling the whistle cord.

The HOMER SMITH, an excursion boat built at the Howard Shipyard in Jeffersonville, Indiana in 1914, was partially owned by Capt. C. C. Bowyer, a friend of Cap’n Tom’s father, Captain Gordon C. Greene.

But, 47 years earlier, there was a near-disaster involving the Lunkenheimer whistle that well-nigh changed the course of both the whistle’s future and mine. The DELTA QUEEN was in the Avondale Shipyard, upstream on the Mississippi River from New Orleans after the legendary “Save the DELTA QUEEN Year of 1970” when the QUEEN narrowly, and only at the very last moment, received an exception from the same law as happened this month. With the immediate future of the steamboat resolved until the next battle for another exemption, Overseas National Airways, the owners of the QUEEN at that time, invested a million dollars (over $6,153,072.20 in 2017 dollars) into upgrading the boat. Though most of the expenses were for structural and mechanical replacements and improvements, some of the money went for “fun stuff.” I was allowed to add a row of flagpoles down each side of the roof and a white collar around the top of the stack which transformed the utilitarian fixture into a regal, white crown that defined the royal appearance of the DELTA QUEEN.

But, when William “Bill” Muster, president of the line, announced he was having the thirty-two brass whistles of the steam calliope gilded in 24-carat gold, Captain Wagner spoke up and demanded:

“Bill, if you’re platin’ those calliope whistles, yer gonna haf’ta gold plate mine, too.”

So it fell to me to climb onto the bonnet and detach the hefty steam whistle and have it sent to the plating shop with the others. As I did, I noticed where, some years earlier, a thick, steel, wire cable, hanging low beneath a bridge, snagged the whistle. When the cable let loose, it left images of the cable strands indelibly incised into the brass casing that will forever identify the whistle as the original DELTA QUEEN Lunkenheimer.

Before the big blow, DQ owners, Leah Ann Ingram, Phillip Johnson, and Cornel Martin lugged the massive whistle to the roof of the NATCHEZ in a wheelchair. (Photo by Matt Dow, Dec. 2018.)

That following Sunday, after the shipyard closed for the Sabbath and nearly all our people went ashore for the only off-day of the week, I was one of the few remaining aboard. It happened that I was alone in the pilothouse, and as there was steam pressure in the boilers, I wondered what it would sound like if I pulled the whistle cord with 225 pounds of live steam coursing out around the naked flanged “cup,” or “bowl” which attached the whistle to the line connected directly to the boilers. Instead of unbolting the flange from the steam line, the three-chime whistle was unscrewed, leaving the cup behind; consequently, it was never gold-plated with the rest of the appliance.

With a sharp tug on the round, brass whistle handle, the full force of the escaping steam roared like a jet plane passing close overhead. Quickly, I eased off the cord before anyone wondered what was happening, and all was suddenly quiet.

Until….

“WHAM !! BAM!!”

With numerous cell phones recording the momentous occasion, the honor of blowing the first salute went to my old friend, boss, and mentor, Captain Clarke C. “Doc” Hawley. (Photo by Dow)

“What the hell was that!?” I wondered in amazement as something big, heavy, and moving fast hit the roof behind the smokestack.

When my knees stopped knocking, I ducked out the low door and onto the roof to find the source of what sounded like a cannonball slamming into the boat. What I found sent a shock of terror so deep within me that I have never revealed the source of my anguish until now, almost half-a-century later.

On the roof, just aft of the opening that led directly to the fires of the boilers four decks below, lay the brass languid plate that diffused the volume of steam entering the whistle assembly and directed it over the lip of the bell making the loud, thundering noise the mechanism was designed to do. Somehow, the massive plate blew over-top the stack and fell behind it instead of falling into the furnace. Without the heavy plate, the whistle was useless other than as a mute, speechless ornament. Had the plate plunged into the fires, and not onto the roof, well…. I still cringe thinking about it.

But, whatever you do, please don’t tell a soul I let you in on a long-hidden secret…

Captain Don Sanders is a river man. He has been a riverboat captain with the Delta Queen Steamboat Company and with Rising Star Casino. He learned to fly an airplane before he learned to drive a “machine” and became a captain in the USAF. He is an adventurer, a historian, and a storyteller. Now, he is a columnist for the NKyTribune and will share his stories of growing up in Covington and his stories of the river. Hang on for the ride — the river never looked so good.

Some years earlier, a thick, steel, wire cable, hanging low beneath a bridge, snagged the whistle. When the cable let loose, it left images of the cable strands indelibly incised into the brass casing that will forever identify the whistle as the original DELTA QUEEN Lunkenheimer.

The DELTA QUEEN Whistle after if was gold-plated.

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