The riverboat captain is a storyteller. 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.
By Capt. Don Sanders
Special to NKyTribune
What can I write about today? I was at a complete loss until I closed my eyes and randomly picked a steamboat from Way’s Packet Directory and mindlessly chose the G. W. HILL. The name of the boat didn’t stir me with imagined adventures like the ROBT. E. LEE or the J.M. WHITE would. However, it was the boat chosen, and it didn’t take long to pique my interest as I learned more about the steamer.
According to Captain Frederick Way, Jr., the G. W. HILL (2188) was a sternwheeler built by the Howard Shipyard, Jeffersonville, IN, in 1909. Overall, the HILL was 190 x 36 x 6.5 feet, with steam engines featuring 25″ cylinders and a seven-foot piston stroke. Her three boilers measured 42″ by 24 feet.
For $28,850, the Howards built the wooden-hulled packetboat for Captain Granderson Winfrey Hill just two years before he died in 1911 at age 86. Captain Hill’s death coincided nearly exactly with the 100th anniversary of the first steamboat, NEW ORLEANS, to operate on the Western Rivers of North America.
Capt. Hill, though born in Chesterfield County, Virginia, on June 29, 1824, began steamboating on the river as a young man. By 1860, Hill was one of the four founders and directors of the Eagle Packet Company, where he served as Secretary and Treasurer until 1903.
After Granderson Winfrey Hill’s demise in 1911, Captain D. W. Wisherd and Sam Gregory bought the G. W. HILL. They converted it into an excursion boat running on the Upper Mississippi River between Davenport, Iowa, and St. Paul, Minnesota.
In 1912, it began excursions at La Crosse, Wisconsin, where it proved immensely popular due to its spacious accommodations and dance floor. The HILL’s steam calliope was a special attraction for steamboat fans of all ages. The steamboat inspection office certified the boat to carry 1500 passengers, plus the crew.
As a July 20, 1915, article in the La Crosse Tribune boasted, “The G.W. HILL is one of the commodious excursion steamers on this part of the river; she carries an orchestra that is famous for its dance music, and the dance floor is one of the largest and best on the river.”
An August 9, 1917, advertisement promoted a moonlight excursion, “Fare: Gentlemen 50 cents; Ladies 25 cents – Hill’s Concert Orchestra. Make one of these trips and enjoy the cool breezes on the river.”
The G. W. HILL flourished as a LaCrosse excursion steamer through the 1921 season. Then, Captain Wisherd tramped the HILL to New Orleans and as far as Pittsburgh until he and his partner sold the steamboat to the Cincinnati Coney Island Amusement Company in 1923.
The Coney Island company renamed the stern paddlewheeler the ISLAND MAID, a boat my grandmother, Edith Sanders, remembered and often talked about taking to Coney Island.
On November 22, 1922, a hapless Watchman aboard the Coney Island excursion boat, MORNING STAR, moored at the Cincinnati Public Landing, allowed a pot of roofing tar to boil over on the cook stove. The resulting fire quickly spread to neighboring boats at the Public Landing, resulting in the “Great Steamboat Conflagration of 1922,” where flames consumed the steamboats ISLAND QUEEN, TACOMA, CHRIS GREENE, and, of course, the MORNING STAR.
The ISLAND MAID, nee G. W. HILL, replaced the Coney Island steamboats until the 2nd ISLAND QUEEN began operating between the Cincinnati Public Landing and “Coney” in 1925.
Together, the ISLAND MAID and QUEEN provided steamboat transportation to and from the Coney Island Amusement Park until the early spring of 1929, when the ISLAND MAID became ablaze at Cincinnati, which burned off most of the excursion vessel’s upper works.
Promptly, the company sent the MAID to the marine ways at Madison, Indiana, for repairs. Instead, the hapless steamboat caught fire again while on the way, and the blaze consumed both the ISLAND MAID and the steam towboat FRED HALL.
Coney Island had, until the destruction of the ISLAND MAID, two steamboats servicing the amusement park. However, after the loss of the MAID, the sidewheeler ISLAND QUEEN #2 provided the only river service to and from the park.
The QUEEN continued doing so until September 1947, when she exploded and burned at the Foot of Wood Street in downtown Pittsburgh, when I was in the second grade. But that’s another story for another time.
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, sharing his stories of growing up in Covington and his stories of the river. Hang on for the ride — the river never looked so good.
Purchase Captain Don Sanders’ The River book
Capt. Don Sanders The River: River Rat to steamboatman, riding ‘magic river spell’ to 65-year adventure is now available for $29.95 plus handling and applicable taxes. This beautiful, hardback, published by the Northern Kentucky Tribune, is 264-pages of riveting storytelling, replete with hundreds of pictures from Capt. Don’s collection — and reflects his meticulous journaling, unmatched storytelling, and his appreciation for detail. This historically significant book is perfect for the collections of every devotee of the river.
You may purchase your book by mail from the Northern Kentucky Tribune — or you may find the book for sale at all Roebling Books locations and at the Behringer Crawford Museum and the St. Elizabeth Healthcare gift shops.
Click here to order your Captain Don Sanders’ ‘The River’ now.