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Steamboat
Posted 04.17.06 at 1:16 PMI’ve followed the steamboat excavation near Fort Towson with interest for several years. On March 31, 2006, I found an interesting article and update in the Dallas Morning News. Oklahoma historians and Texas A&M researchers are trying to bring up what they can of the 140-ft. long Heroine, which sank in the Red River in 1838. It will be the oldest steamboat ever recovered in this country. The article contains an excellent diagram of the ship, including a list of her cargo.
It was bound for Fort Towson with a year’s supplies, but like many a victim of the Red River, it struck a submerged log and sank near its destination According to the article, “A Race Against Time and the Red,” by Arnold Hamilton, five years later a flood rerouted the channel, leaving the big boat buried in someone’s pasture. In 1990, another flood rerouted the channel and exposed part of the wreckage, which was spotted by a local landowner. Imagine going about your daily chores and making such a discovery.
Recovered wreckage is on display in the Oklahoma History Center near Oklahoma City, but plans are underway to create a 2000-sq. ft. visitors center and museum near the River and Fort Towson to celebrate Oklahoma’s 2007 centennial.
Reader comments
Red River has been a place of discovery for me since I was a child.
The recovery of the Herione will go far in reviving interest in Red River’s history. The Red River story has remained a best kept secret, largely in part due to President Jefferson’s embarrassment over the 1806 Freeman-Custis Expedition’s failure at the hands of the Spanish; brought about by the, “Aaron Burr/Wilkinson conspiracy.”
Before and since the Red River Project I have traveled her and studied her. In 2002 I spent 16 days traveling her and studying her people; from Telephone, TX to Fulton, Arkansas. She and her history I am obsessed with; which led me to write, “Treasure River” a novel about her history, scheduled to publish in July.
I anxiously await the Ft. Towson exhibit as well as the, “FREEMAN & CUSTIS RED RIVER EXPEDITION Of 1806: Two Hundred Years Later-A Symposium-June 14-17 at LSU in Shreveport, Louisiana.
My spare time, at best, is static; at worst, it shrinks. But my reading list never stops growing. Now I’ve added your “Treasure River” to my list.
I believe Dwight Chaney, either in a casual discussion or on his blog, mentioned another locally situated novel, a mystery set in Delta County, if I recall correctly. I’ll have to ask him again about that and make sure it’s on my list as well.
(Both are fitting topics for the forum’s “Literature” area. A brief report on Freeman & Custis symposium would be appreciated, too, if you can spare the time.)
The Freeman & Custis Symposium will take place June 14-17, 2006. The list of speakers is too extensive to cover here. I am going to attend three sessions. 1. The First people of the Red River: The Caddo Before and After Freeman & Custis, Dr. Robert Cast (Caddo Nation) Caddo Tribal Elders. 2. Cartography of the Red River, 1806 to present, Dr. Gary Joiner (LSUS) and 3. A special excursion along Red River provided by the Vicksburg District of the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers. The trip will progress down river from Shreveport, through the lock system, to an area below lock and dam number five. The Symposium is conducted by LSUS-Museum of Life Sciences and Noel Memorial Library. For more information click on my name and send me an e-mail.
After reading Diann Mason’s comments about “The Ordways,” posted April 18, 2006, I reread the episode and learned again that the “barrels,” described in the book as “kegs,” were snagged on a trotline and securely retrieved. There was one keg missing, but it was found a week later. Therefore all the ancestral remains were successfully relocated on new burial grounds in Texas. Submitted by David Clarkson
Have you seen the children’s book “The Great Red River Raft” by Peter Zachary Cohen?
Publisher: Albert Whitman & Co (May 1984) ISBN: 0807530395
Describes how in the 1830’s riverman Henry Shreve cleared the Red River of a centuries-old, 200 mile logjam with his iron snagboat, thus opening the way for steamboats to Texas.
I came across it in my school library this past week, but haven’t had a chance to read it,yet.
Vicki
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I, too, have been following this discovery! Can’t wait for the visitors center to open; we will be planning a trip.
The Red River has always been a place of mystery to me…I just can’t imagine the early settlers making their way over that river to Texas. One of my favorite Red River stories is in Humphrey’s The Ordways. The family is moving to Texas in covered wagons and they have brought the remains of their ancestors with them in barrels to be interred on their new land in Texas…the river gets wild and the wagons start bouncing and the barrels are set free and a few generations of Ordways go floating down the river. It is heartbreaking, yet I have always wondered what happened when those barrels washed up on shore and some unsuspecting farmer thought he had found some treasure. I hope he gave those folks a final resting place.