Full Steamboat Ahead by Patricia Benoit

Milam County Historical Commission
Milam County, Texas

All credit for this article goes to
Patricia Benoit
and the
Temple Daily Telegram

BACKROADS HERITAGE MUSEUM

Full steamboat ahead

by Patricia Benoit

Temple Daily Telegram - 2015-09-21

Cameron, a port city?

The arrival of the paddle steamer Washington excited Milam County residents in early

1851. With easy access to the port cities of Houston and Galveston, inland boat traffic

meant farmers could sell their crops more easily and maybe at higher prices. Dollar signs

danced through their heads like sugarplums on Christmas Eve.

The advent of rail traffic eventually supplanted water travel as the best boost to trade

and commerce. Until then, steamboats ruled.

The lore and majesty of steamboats on much wider, deeper waterways are featured at the

Temple Railroad and Heritage Museum on view now until Oct. 31.

The new traveling photography exhibit, “Kings of the River: Steamboat Transportation in

the American South,” celebrates the grandeur of the great steamboats that moved

passengers and goods on American rivers in the late 19th century, said museum director

Stephanie Long.

On loan from the Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at

Austin, the collection showcases images of historic riverboats by Henry Norman, a

photographer who worked in Natchez, Miss., from 1870 until his death in 1913. His

photographs provide a remarkable record of the great paddlewheel steamboats, including

images of their crews, passengers and luxurious interiors.

Although considered romantic today, steamboat travel was essential to life in the 19th

century, long before rails became ubiquitous.

That’s why the Cameron venture stood out as Central Texas settlers attempted to broaden

their horizons before the War Between the States.

Not until the arrival of steel rails and locomotives in the late 1870s did commercial

expansion really become successful.

The Milam County scheme was the brainchild of Joshua Wilson McCown (1830-1894), a Cameron

merchant, and Basil Muse Hatfield (1811-1863), a Washington-on-the-Brazos businessman and

buddy of Sam Houston. Always looking to expand their enterprises, McCown and Hatfield had

a brilliant idea — or so they thought.

McCown’s daughter-in-law, Susan Turnham McCown, (1835-1919) recounted the story in her

memoirs, reprinted in a 1947 issue of the Southwestern Historical Quarterly.

When the courthouse at Cameron was completed in 1846, the fledgling town struggled

because of its isolation on the far edges of the Texas frontier. The nearest railroad was

more than 50 miles away.

Cameron had one advantage: The Little River and its tributaries meandered throughout

Central Texas, draining 7,560 square miles of flat farmland. Formed by the confluence of

the Leon and Lampasas rivers near the town of Little River, south of Temple, the Little

River runs southeast for 75 miles to its mouth on the Brazos River, just south of Port

Sullivan in Milam County.

Several hearty sailors by the mid-1840s unsuccessfully attempted to navigate the Little

River to open Cameron to lucrative trade routes leading to the Gulf Coast. In late 1850

just as winter approached, McCown had a brighter idea: Demonstrate a passable route to

Washington- on-the-Brazos and points below by chartering a steamboat to ply the Little

River.

Texas vessels at that time were designed smaller than those gliding along the major

waterways found along the Mississippi. The average 30-by-90 feet steamboat drew only 3 to

4 feet of water, mostly above the surface to accommodate the shallower Texas streams.

Crewmen stoked boilers with mainly cottonwood and willow, harvested abundantly along the

streams. With good weather, a steamboat could average 75 miles across the state in a day.

McCown persuaded Hatfield to load his steamboat Washington with provisions and whiskey

and pilot through the upper Brazos and up the Little River to Cameron. Both their markets

could expand.

The deal done, ever the promoter McCown saturated Milam County with the news of the

approaching steamer. “Mr. McCown even at that early day was keenly alive to the value of

advertising, and the people came for miles and miles and lined the river to watch the

boat as it slowly puffed up the swollen stream,” Susan Mc- Cown said.

The Washington faced many hazards along the route. In 1893, McCown related to a newspaper

reporter one frigid mishap along their journey: “While in Little River, we run under a

long limb that reached out over the water. I was standing on the hurricane deck with

Aquilla Jones. I saw the limb and jumped over it, but Jones jumped on it and as the boat

passed, he was left on the swinging limb 40 feet above the rushing waters. He could not

get to the tree, so he was compelled to fall into the water, and we picked him up.”

Curious passengers boarded each stop along the way. Where the boat didn’t stop, men on

horseback swam in chilly waters to the deck. The ship chugged along the shallow stream

until shoals stopped the journey abruptly about 2½ miles east of Cameron.

“There was plenty of water, the river being high, but it took a good deal of wiggling to

get the steamer up the crooked, narrow stream where in place the overhanging bough almost

touched across the river,” Susan McCown recalled.

Hindered from landing directly in Cameron, Hatfield anchored the vessel to a tree

downriver. After crewmen unloaded its freight, Hatfield welcomed guests aboard “and for

two days there was continuous feasting and dancing,” she added. “Then as the river was

falling, the captain took command and the boat silently and swiftly glided down the muddy

waters into the Brazos.”

Among the celebrants was Buckholts youngster John Hobson (1846-1939), who could hardly

believe his eyes. McCown and Hatfield’s marvelous sailing adventure came to naught,

however. Later ventures proved that navigation of the Little River was impractical on a

regular basis. Other Milam County towns prospered in the 1850s and 1860s as dominant

business centers because the river was better suited to vessels.

Even the wider, deeper Brazos River proved inadequate for heavy ship traffic. Although a

tremendous volume of water at times flowed along, the Brazos’ course was so uncertain and

erratic that regular navigation proved to be impossible.

In 1936, as part of the Texas Centennial, the state erected a pink granite monument to

commemorate Hatfield and McCown’s failed attempt to make navigation history in 1851.

The young boy, John Hobson, lived long enough to get the last laugh. Invited as a guest

of honor at the marker’s dedication ceremonies, Hobson was the last eyewitness to tell

the story of the first, last and only paddle steamer chugging up the Little River and the

port city that could never be.

pbenoit@tdtnews.com