In his report to the Missouri River Commission for the fiscal year ending on June 30, 1897, Captain Hiram Chittenden published a list of the loss of 295 steamboats on the Missouri River from the beginning of steam navigation to the date of his report.  Twenty of those disasters occurred in South Dakota and four along the eastern border of Gregory County.

The first wreck which occurred in South Dakota happened on August 1, 1855, at what has since been known as “Kate Sweeny Bend,” between Vermillion and Elkpoint, where the line dividing Union and Clay counties meets the river.  The boat, “Kate Swinney,” was engaged in carrying soldiers and military supplies from St. Louis to Fort Pierre.  It was a side wheeler of 328 tons and was returning to St. Louis empty.     Named for the daughter of Captain W. D. Swinney of Glasgow, MO, it was owned by Captain Pierre M. Chouteau.

By 1927, the river channel had shifted significantly and left the hulk of the ill-fated steamboat buried some distance from the river’s course at the time of the accident.  It was said that in 1927, seventy-two years after the accident, “Kate Swinney’s grave is covered with a grove of trees which measure from six to twenty inches in diameter.”

A St. Louis newspaper of early August in 1855 describing the accident contains the following:  “Fetcoe, the pilot, and Black, the carpenter, got away in a lifeboat, and reached St. Joseph in safety.  Before leaving the wreck, the captain sold the salvage to some settlers for $300.”

Locating sunken steamboats and retrieving their cargo has always been a fascinating if rather precarious business even on the Missouri River which came to be known as the “graveyard of steamboats.”  Some of those steamboats which had sunk were raised, repaired, and wrecked again, often two or three times.

Cargoes that variously contained pelts and skins of priceless worth today, gold dust from the Montana and Idaho mines, quicksilver, whisky and merchandise of every description from jewelry to mining machinery, lie buried beneath the shifting sands of the river.  Many of the old channels have been long abandoned for new channels in their journey to the Gulf of Mexico.

The most common cause of steamboat wrecks on the Missouri was the ever present snags.  The shifting channel seemed to be loaded with them and much to the embarrassment of the river pilots, snags encountered on one trip could not be depended upon to be in the same place on the next trip.  The most difficulty was always experienced around the bends in the river where some object in the channel deflected the current from one side of the river to the other.

Next among the causes of steamboat fatalities were fire and ice.  Fire all too frequently was caused by carelessness, such as the carrying of candles into the hull, and the overturning of lamps or lanterns.  Boiler explosions were frequent in the early days, but as construction improved, accidents from this cause lessened.

One of the most ambitious and persistent salvage projects which took place in the South Dakota waters of the Missouri occurred near Elk Point in 1911.  What was the cargo that they were seeking to salvage which had been buried in the Missouri River for forty-five years?  Your guess was correct if you answered “whiskey.”

The Omaha Daily Bee of October 22, 1911 reported:  “A dispatch from Elk Point, S. D., says that much interest is being manifested in the recovery of the cargo of the old steamer “Leadora,” which in 1866 sank in the Missouri, near that place, with 100 barrels of good whisky on board.  It adds that several gentlemen have associated themselves and raised funds for the purpose of exploring the wreck and rescuing the imprisoned whisky.  If they are successful, they count on making a small fortune out of the enterprise, as the whisky has been valued by some as high as $45,000.”

The “Leadora” got into shallow water near Elk Point and a fire was discovered in the hull.  To protect the whiskey, large holes were cut in the sides of the boat so that it would sink and the cargo could be saved.

By 1911, a good share of the boat had been uncovered and with specially designed pumps, the hull was finally free of water at a cost of thousands of dollars and many hours of hard manual labor.  The 100 barrels were now visible and the rescuers wondered if they contained whiskey, dark thick sticky syrup, or muddy Missouri River water?

The possibility of a disappointment and failure was certainly enough to make men hesitate before undertaking such an enterprise.  It is, no doubt, this possibility that accounts for the fact that the 100 barrels had so long lain neglected at the bottom of an old channel of the Missouri River – that successive generations have passed the great opportunity by and devoted their attention to other and more ordinary enterprises.

However, it seems that at Elk Point in 1911, there were men who were explorers, adventurers, and gamblers.  They were willing to run the risk of receiving an unfortunate result in pursuit of an enterprise that appealed to them.

A thorough search of digitized newspapers in South Dakota, Nebraska, and Iowa has revealed no indication that their rescue attempt was successful.

 

Author Clarence Shoemaker, originally published in the Gregory Times-Advocate on May 8, 2024