In The Flow of Time – May 19, 2025
I’m researching early Mississippi River steamboats. We are circa 1820. They have been around for less than 10 years, but they are way better. So already there are dozens landing in New Orleans, probably about one hundred or so.
The photo of the ramshackle steamboat is a sternwheeler from about 1899. Early on, sidewheelers were more common – more maneuverable. Good ones had a transmission, make one wheel go faster than the other, even go backwards.
Note the drawbridge – that’s called a stage. Back in the day a boat would carry its own dock with it. A tramp packet boat might stop at any plantation along the way to drop off mail, pick someone up. It was the random bus of its time. A potential passenger would hail the boat, and when seen the boat would toot once. A “trade packet” would have a regular route and schedule. The whistle has a treadle, with different levels of steam depending on how hard you press, kind of like a throttle. “Flooring the treadle brought out the full-throated chord that shook the pilothouse and left the blower a bit deaf. It was a thrill to those on shore to hear the whistle of a steamboat, but the thrill was even greater when experienced in the pilothouse.”
There’s a tall pole at the front, called a jackstaff. In theory it’s a flagpole. Reality, the pilot up on the roof used it as a sight to line up the boat with something on the bank. There’s one in the back too, double duty as flagpole and sight. That’s called the verge.
I learned that in 1820 “roustabout” meant deckhand, but only if you were Black. A white deck hand was called–get this–a deckhand. The word has morphed, but at the time it meant “colored deck help.”
On larger boats, from the bottom up, you have: the main deck (cargo and boiler); the boiler deck (no boiler, passengers); and the roof deck, aka the hurricane deck. Crew slept up there on the fancier boats. The fancier image is from ~1852.
All so that a few words get used correctly. 🙂 But this is my real fun, learning stuff.
