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
So this is the “Semiquincentennial” weekend celebration of the United States of America. That’s a mouthful. It’s no wonder no one ever calls this grand and glorious anniversary by that tongue-twister. Happy 250th Birthday, USA. It seems like only yesterday you were 200.
The 200th fais dodo of the country, the 4th of July 1976, the “Bicentennial,” was easier on the lips, so everyone called it by its name. Just about every community in the country had some special event planned. Some were beneficial, some weren’t, although practically every city, town, and berg enjoyed tapping into special federal funds allocated for the hallowed occasion.
What amazes me most, though, is how quickly five decades have rolled by between the Bicentennial and the Semiquincentennial. John Hartford was right, “It’s all been but a moment in time.”
Bicentennial Day, 1976, was also the first time the brand-new Charleston, WV, excursion paddlewheeler, the P. A. DENNY Sternwheeler, carried passengers. That day, the DENNY disembarked a charter group of excited revelers alongside the lower wall of the community park, opposite the lock and dam at Marmet, several miles upstream above Charleston.
According to a TRIBUNE column I wrote in April 2019:
“Sandy Passmore Tuckwiller, business manager Ross Tuckwiller’s charming wife, and the P. A. DENNY Sternwheeler Company’s secretary, made sure that more-than-enough boxes of fried chicken lunches for all were packed aboard. When the clock struck noon on that momentous date, I was seated at a picnic table in the park, enjoying lunch with a Revolutionary War reenactor dressed as a red-coated Colonel in the British Army.”
Later, I wondered what my fourth Great-grandfather, Nathaniel Sanders (1741-1826) — a veteran of the Revolutionary War who witnessed the surrender of the British Army by General Charles Cornwallis at Yorktown, thereby effectively ending the war in favor of the American patriots — would have thought of my collaboration with the Brits over a boxed lunch of fried chicken.
“Cappy,” (a West “By God” Virginia title of endearment for river folk) Lawson W. Hamilton, Jr., hired me to command the P. A. DENNY, his new stern paddlewheel, which he named for his friend, Cappy Peter Anthony Denny — who unexpectedly died before he completed his dream sternwheeler he envisioned naming the ROBIN D TOO.
A few years earlier, his first ROBIN D became the COTTON BLOSSOM of New Orleans. Cap’n Pete began his paddlewheeler upon the hull of a U. S. Army Corps of Engineers’ towboat, SCOTT, built at Ward Engineering Works, Charleston, in 1930. When Lawson hired me beneath the coal tipple at Port Amherst, the DENNY was there in its final throes of construction.
Lawson Hamilton’s right-hand man overseeing the DENNY project was a tall, thin, hyper-energetic fellow from South Charleston named Ross Tuckwiller. It turned out that Ross was a natural public relations genius and also served as a select lieutenant for Mr. Hamilton, a coal operator who owned and oversaw some nineteen mines, countless acres in West Virginia, and the equipment and personnel to keep things humming at an industrial pace.
Everything Lawson owned that he could get a coat of paint to cover was a patriotic red, white, and blue — especially suitable for that 1976 bicentennial year of the nation. The majestic color scheme swathed not only the freshly minted P. A. DENNY, but also Lawson’s trucks, fuel storage tanks, dozers, and even his Jet Ranger helicopter, which he used to quickly move about high above the craggy terrain of the Mountain State, whisking him from one distant property to another.
As soon as the DENNY began its first year of operating as the Capital City’s only commercial playtime boat on the Great Kanawha River, it became an instant success. My time commanding the DENNY spanned the bicentennial year and the following 1977 season. By then, I’d grown antsy and was ready to move on to a project I had in mind back in my hometown of Covington, Kentucky, a city with many historical ties to Charleston.
Actually, however, I hadn’t informed Ross or Cappy Hamilton of my intention to leave the DENNY at the end of the ’77 season. I did, as I usually would, retire to my Covington home and apply for unemployment over the winter interlude, and return the next spring in time to prepare the boat for the upcoming new cruise year.
While at home during the 1977 Christmas holiday, my P. A. DENNY family invited me back for an onboard party at the Charleston Levee following a boat ride to the West Virginia State Capitol. Interestingly enough, Ross and special guest Captain Clarke C. “Doc” Hawley, a Charleston native and master of the newly-built New Orleans excursion steamboat NATCHEZ, played Christmas carols on the air-powered Frisbie calliope.
Once back at the Charleston Levee, I distributed the gifts I’d brought for crew and friends. Everyone received something except my former mate on the DENNY, who recently tested for and was awarded his 100-Ton Master’s Certificate for passenger-carrying vessels, the newly-minted captain, Tony Harrison.
As everyone watched attentively, I stood with Tony in the center of the room, and with a great flair, announced in a loud, clear voice:
“Cap’n Tony, I didn’t bring you a gift from home,” as I paused a moment while Tony seemed a bit bewildered. “I never brought you anything, because you are standing on the gift I have for you. You are now the Captain of the P. A. DENNY, not me, for I will not be returning to the boat next year.”
This Semiquincentennial Year, 2026, is not only the 250th anniversary of our great nation but also the 50th birthday of the P. A. DENNY sternwheeler. Although the DENNY no longer carries boatloads of revelers, the DENNY’s still remembered in the hearts of a dwindling multitude who once enjoyed the balmy river breezes across her decks, and thrilled to the beat of her big, red paddlewheel on the Great Kanawha and Ohio Rivers over the course of the last half-century.
Although I may not be around, I do wonder what the Tricentennial on July 4th, 2076, will have in store. For you younger folks, I’m sorry, but it won’t be “a long time from now.”
Rather, it will all be but a moment in time. When you get there, you’ll agree — wait and see.
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.
Click here to read all of Capt. Don Sanders’ stories of The River.
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.