Old Times on the Upper Mississippi

Watchman 50.00 Deck hands (40 at $50.00) 2,000.00 Cabin crew 800.00 Food supplies ($75.00 per day, 30 days) 2,250.00 Wood (25 cords per day, 30 days, at $2.50) 2,000.00 Sundries 1,400.00 --------- $11,500.00 With this wage-list and expense-account before them, the captain and his chief clerk, who may also be a part owner in the boat, are face to face with the problem of meeting such expenses from passenger and cargo lists, and at the same time providing a sinking fund with which to build another craft within four years. To the uninitiated this would seem a somewhat appalling problem; with these old hands, the question would no doubt resolve itself down to the number of round trips that they would have to make to pay for their boat. The question of years never enters their heads. In 1857 there were three principal points of departure on the upper river, above St. Louis. At that time St. Louis itself was the great wholesale centre, but it was not so important as an initial point for passengers for the upper Mississippi. The flood of immigration from St. Louis was for many reasons up the Missouri: furs and gold could be found in the mountains; there was a possible slave state in the farming regions below the mountains. The people who settled Minnesota and northern Wisconsin came from the East, and reached the river at three points--Rock Island, Dunleith (or Galena), and Prairie du Chien. Taking the point with which I am most familiar, we will start the new boat from Galena. At that time Galena was, next to St. Louis, the principal wholesale _entrepôt_ in the West. It was a poor trip for the boat which I have taken as a model, when she did not get a hundred tons of freight at Galena from the wholesale houses there. The balance was found at Dunleith, the terminus of what is now the Illinois Central Railway (then the Galena & Western Union); at Dubuque, which was also a big wholesale town; and at Prairie du Chien, the terminus of the Milwaukee & Mississippi Railway. The freight rates on the river ran from 25 cents per hundred for short distances, to $1.50 per hundred from Galena to Stillwater, or St. Paul. No package was taken at less than 25 cents, however small it was, or how short the distance. In order not to overstate, we will take fifty cents per hundred as the average, and three hundred tons of cargo as the capacity of the two hundred-ton boat.[F] This is relatively the capacity of a vessel of that tonnage after deducting for passengers and fuel, and the space occupied by deck passengers. This latter item did not seriously count, for the freight was usually taken first and the deck passengers were then piled on top of it. Their comfort or convenience was never taken into consideration. [F] A boat _measuring_ 200 tons would carry from 300 to 350 tons weight in cargo. The tonnage of all boats is given by measurement, while the cargo is always in hundredweights. The boat can carry two hundred cabin passengers, and a hundred on deck. We will assume that there is another boat competing for this trip, and we do not fill up to the capacity. The clerk studies the rate sheets in vogue in 1857, and finds the following: UP-STREAM RATES 30 miles or under (no charge less than 25c) 6c per mile 30 to 60 miles 5c per mile Over 60 miles 4c per mile GALENA OR DUNLEITH TO-- Miles Cabin passage Deck passage Cassville 30 $2.00 $1.25 Prairie du Chien 66 3.50 2.00 La Crosse 150 6.00 3.25 Red Wing 256 10.00 3.50 Stillwater and St. Paul 321 12.00 6.00 Galena or Dunleith to St. Paul 321 $12.00 $6.00 Prairie du Chien to St. Paul 255 10.00 5.00 La Crosse to St. Paul 175 7.00 4.00 In 1904, the cabin passage on the Diamond Jo Line boats from Dunleith to St. Paul, was $8.00; from Prairie du Chien, $6.75; from La Crosse, $4.75. This is in competition with six railroads practically paralleling the river. In 1857 there was no railroad competition, and practically none from steamboats. Every boat attained a full passenger list, and was at liberty to charge whatever the conscience of the captain dictated--assuming a conscience. I have known a boat to fill up at Dunleith at the rate of $16.00 to St. Paul, and contract that all the men should sleep on the cabin floor, leaving staterooms for the women. And the passengers were glad enough to accept such conditions, for a detention of two days at Dunleith would cost a far greater sum than the overcharge exacted by the steamboat officers. In the foregoing table I have included La Crosse, which, however, was not an active factor in river rates until 1859. Before then, hundreds of passengers were landed there from Rock Island, Dunleith, and Prairie du Chien; but as the railroad had not yet reached the river at that point, there were but few passengers from La Crosse for landings farther up the river. When our boat leaves Prairie du Chien, then, the following business is in sight: 150 passengers from Dunleith or Galena, at an average of $8.00 $1,200.00 50 deck passengers at an average of $5.00 250.00 300 tons freight, 6,000 cwts. at an average of 50c 3,000.00 -------- $4,450.00 A boat leaving Galena on Friday evening usually arrived at St. Paul in time to have her cargo all ashore and ready to start on the return trip sometime on Tuesday--usually about noon. At that time we shall find the chief clerk studying the downstream rate sheets. These differ somewhat from the upstream and are like this, a few principal points being taken to illustrate: DOWN-STREAM RATES 30 miles or under (no charge less than 25c.) 5c per mile 30 to 60 miles 4c per mile Over 60 miles 3c per mile ST. PAUL OR STILLWATER TO-- Miles Cabin passage Deck passage Hastings 32 $1.50 $1.00 Red Wing 65 2.50 2.00 Winona 146 4.50 2.50 La Crosse 175 5.00 3.00 Prairie du Chien 255 7.00 3.50 Dunleith or Galena 321 8.00 4.00 Downstream rates are somewhat less than the upstream, because, for one reason, it costs less to get a boat downstream. There is a four-mile current pushing the boat along, in addition to the applied power. Going upstream the boat had had this current to overcome before she gained an inch. A four-mile current is one-third of an average steamboat's progress. Again, the passengers do not get a chance to eat as much, and very often they were not served as well, on the down trip. Then, there were fewer people who wished to go down river, with the result that there were many boats bidding for the patronage of those who did make the trip. All these elements, with possibly others, entered into the cutting of the rates by about one-third on the down trip. The only item besides passengers to be depended upon on the return trip, was wheat. There may have been some potatoes or barley, or, if fortune favored, some tons of furs and buffalo robes from the "Red River train", or some flour from the one mill at St. Anthony (now Minneapolis), or perhaps woodenware from the same point. There was always a more or less assorted cargo, but the mainstay was wheat. We will assume, in order to simplify this illustration, that there was nothing but wheat in sight at the time. There was no question about getting it. Every boat got all the wheat it could carry, and the shippers begged, almost on bended knees, for a chance to ship five hundred sacks, or a hundred, or fifty--any amount would be considered a great favor. Wheat was shipped at that time in two-bushel sacks, each weighing a hundred and twenty pounds. Three hundred tons, dead weight, is a pretty good cargo for a two-hundred ton boat. Wheat is dead weight, and a boat goes down into the water fast, when that is the sole cargo. We get five thousand sacks, all of which is unloaded at Prairie du Chien. The down trip foots up somewhat like this: 80 passengers at $8.00 $ 640.00 5,000 sacks of wheat at 12c 600.00 -------- $1,240.00 Arriving in Galena Friday morning, the clerk figures up his receipts with the following result: Up trip $4,450.00 Down trip 1,240.00 -------- $5,690.00 The boat makes four trips during the month, leaving out the extra two or three days, which may have been spent on some sand-bar. At the end of the month the clerk again does some figuring, with this result: Income from four trips, at $5,690.00 $22,760.00 Less wages, fuel, provisions, etc. 11,500.00 --------- Net profit for month $11,260.00 A stern-wheel, light-draught boat such as we have taken for this illustration, was quite certain to get five months' service--between the middle of April and the middle of October. In order not to put too great tension upon the credulity of modern readers, we will assume that she gets only five months of navigation. At the close of the season the captain and his clerk figure up the receipts and expenses, and strike a balance like this: Receipts, 5 months, at $22,760.00 $113,800.00 Expenses, 5 months, at $11,500.00 57,500.00 ---------- Net earnings for the season $ 56,300.00 This is enough to buy a new boat, and have something over for pin money. No one knows better than the writer the elusiveness, not to say the mendacity, of figures. He has often figured out greater profits than this in the nebulous schemes which have from time to time seduced him from the straight and narrow path of six per cent investment--and had them come out the other way. In steamboating in the fifties, this occurred very often. The most careful captain, employing the highest-priced pilots and engineers, would often lose his boat the first season; a snag or a lighted match, or a little too much steam, dissipating the best-laid plans in a few minutes of time. But the figures given above are conservative--made so purposely. The truth lies at the opposite extreme. If the books of some of the boats of the old Minnesota Packet Company could be resurrected, they would show earnings and profits far greater than I have ventured to claim in my illustration. The "Fanny Harris", for instance, was a boat of 279 tons. Her wage-list and expense-account have been taken as a basis of the illustration above given, partly from recollection, and partly from figures which I made