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
Today, Sunday, December 14, is the 285th new column I’ve written for the NKyTribune. On Sunday, December 10, 2017, my first story began, appropriately enough, with “Where do I start?” Since then, a story a week followed, except for a two-year interlude while my wife and I recovered from serious health issues plaguing us both simultaneously.
During that respite, my editor, Judy Clabes, graciously continued posting previous columns until the beginning of this year, when she suggested it was time for new material. During my recovery period, Ms. Clabes pulled 67 stories from the 235-some stories already written, and she made them into my first book — with copies still available. It’s been a good trip.
A few nights ago, Steve Montgomery, a new Facebook friend, and I exchanged a few text messages to get to know each other better. Steve is a model steamboat builder and helps restore and maintain model trains. He belongs to a Cincinnati group called the Queen City Scale Model Boaters. “We’re on Facebook,” he said.
Back in the 1980s, I helped my wife, Peggy, organize and get started a model boat builders’ club at the Monkey Wrench Corner Cafe, our bar in Covington. I was not much of a model boat builder myself, but I enjoyed listening to others talk about boats during my hiatus from the river.
The primary force behind the Covington model boat club, which met monthly at the Monkey Wrench, was the late Jack Berger, a professional model builder with a model/hobby shop on Main Street in Covington’s Mainstrasse. Jack built custom orders for clients who could afford his services. After the long-standing United Fruit Company became Chiquita Brands International under the Cincinnati Lindner family, who moved the corporate headquarters to the Queen City, all the company’s huge “banana boat” models ended up at Jack Berger’s shop for restoration.
My favorite model of Berger’s was a Japanese kit of the DELTA QUEEN, displayed, for several years, in a case in the Forward Cabin Lounge of the QUEEN. Someone mentioned that this model still exists somewhere in St. Louis, on display in the lobby of a restaurant with a steamboat theme. Sadly, my friend Jack Berger, the talented model maker, died several years ago, but his memory lingers in the models he brought to life.
During our chat, I asked Steve if he knew John Fryant, a celebrated model builder who professionally modeled numerous ships and riverboats for the U.S. Government. Many of John’s models grace the hallowed halls of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Rarely did the S&D Reflector, a quarterly river history magazine, appear under Captain Frederick Way, Jr’s editorship without the mention of Mr. Fryant’s latest project. Even the illustrious riverboat balladeer, John Hartford, mentioned John Fryant in one of his steamboat-themed tunes.
Of all the many models John Fryant built, my favorite is the SUSIE, a sweetie modeled on the St. JACOBS OIL, a twin-decked sternwheeler built in 1880 at Middleport, Ohio, for the owners of a patent medicine of that same name. According to Captain Fred Way, Jr., the ST. JACOBS OIL “toured the rivers touting St. Jacob’s Oil with signs painted on prominent rocks, etc.”
Eventually, the feisty little steamboat was sold to the New Orleans Times-Democrat newspaper and renamed SUSIE B. The newspaper used her to meet ships bearing the latest news from overseas. In 1888, she was rebuilt in Florida and renamed SUWANEE, and she ran from Ft. Myers to Lake Okeechobee, where she caught the attention of none other than Thomas Edison. After Edison told Henry Ford about her, she was bought, rebuilt, and ended up at Greenfield Village in Michigan as part of the Henry Ford Museum.
Another model boat builder I have long admired was the late Carl Mulligan of Covington. Carl and I first met when Peggy and I were operating Can-Do Recycling, and he came to us with a few bags of aluminum cans to sell. Our barroom, which also doubled as our cashier’s cage for recycling customers, was decorated with all the steamboat paraphernalia I could hang. Carl’s eyes immediately lit up as he found another customer for his unusual artistry. His specialty was the construction of miniature steamboats from whatever materials he had on hand or could scrounge — old orange crates, discarded screen, baling wire, copper tubing, and so forth. From these crude materials, Mr. Mulligan crafted what are now museum-quality steamboat models.
Besides myself, Carl Mulligan’s customers for his riverboat models included the founder of Barlycorn’s Restaurants, Captain Alan Bernstein of BB Riverboats, and Randy Cochran, the former photo editor of the Kentucky Post newspaper. Three of my Mulligan models are presently on loan to the Ohio County Historical Society Museum in Rising Sun, Indiana.
Another celebrated riverboat model builder is “Cappy” Bob O’Neill from South Charleston, West “By God” Virginia. Bob gained the title “Cappy” as an honored contributor to the river-related community of the Great Kanawha River Valley. In September 2018, he and his pal, author Todd Hanson, and I enjoyed hearing Captain Clarke C. “Doc” Hawley play the steam calliope during his last visit to Marietta, Ohio, as the guest speaker at the annual gathering of the Sons & Daughters of Pioneer Rivermen.
Perhaps the greatest treasure Bob O’Neill ever bestowed on me, besides the monogrammed cap from the towboat M/V LAWSON W. HAMILTON, JR., named for my former boss and owner of the paddlewheeler, P. A. DENNY, was, of course, Bob’s hand-built model of my sternwheeler, the Rafter CLYDE.
No sooner had the precious miniature arrived than I sent for a protective case to display and protect Bob’s artistry. Bob’s made dozens of model riverboats. Many are representations of the various diesel-powered towboats that carry countless tons of commerce unnoticed along the waterways of the Mississippi, Ohio, Kanawha, and other rivers of America. His models represent the full range of riverboat ages.
Bob O’Neill ranks among the best at his craft.
Steve Montgomery asked if I was a model builder, and I told him what I told others who asked the same question back in the days when the model club met at our cafe, named for the corner of Canal and Royal Street in New Orleans — commonly called “Monkey Wrench Corner”.
“My work is on a one-to-one scale.”
Meaning, of course, I work on full-sized boats. But when I am away from the water and those one-to-one-sized vessels, miniature models of them ease the pain of my absence and help me deal with the distance separating us.
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.