Steamin' on the Grand.
For several decades, shoreline shouts of "Here she comes," along with the powerful pulsing of steam-driven engines and haunting blasts of riverboat whistles, added a dash of excitement to the gentle flow of Michigan's longest river, the Grand. It all started on the Fourth of July in 1837 when the Governor Mason, with steam-powered side-wheels, chugged downriver from Grand Rapids to Grandville on a trial run.The river had been a major thoroughfare for watercraft long before the Governor Mason steamed down to Grandville. For centuries, Native Americans had traversed the stream in canoes. Then when European immigrants arrived, they cruised the Grand in similar small craft and, when carrying heavy loads, pole boats.
During winters, when ice halted boat traffic, the Grand provided a trail for those willing to travel without a boat. One of them was Nathan White, a Grand Haven pioneer who came to West Michigan in the early 1830s with his brother-in-law, Reverend William Ferry. When supplies were lost in a shipwreck and starvation threatened the early settlers during the winter of 1835-36, White ventured through forests to Battle Creek where he bought 200 bushels of wheat and a hundred hogs. He hired men to transport his purchases to Grandville and then down the frozen river to Grand Haven.
The icy banks of the Grand sloped down to the river, so the pigs' only option was to precede the herdsmen west toward Grand Haven. When they left, White fashioned a harness for his horse, hitched it to a canoe, and tossed his saddle into the stern. Seated on it, he raced down the river past the herders and hogs and triumphantly announced his success to the citizens at Grand Haven.
Steamboat Traffic Begins
The first steam engine on the river had previously been used on the Don Quixote, which was wrecked in Lake Huron in 1836. Richard Godfroy reportedly borrowed $2,000 from two Indian chiefs to purchase the Don Quixote's power-generating equipment and employed James Short to build a new boat around it. Short used lumber from the property of the Campaus--the first permanent settlers of Grand Rapids--to create the craft, called the Governor Mason.
The Mason had no whistle, so a bugler signaled its arrivals and departures. The boat also made a trip upriver to Lyons in Ionia County in December 1837. Generally, it would not have been possible for the 84-foot steamer to get through the rapids of the Grand, but the water had overflowed the river's banks and was exceptionally high when the passage was made. Even so, horses, oxen, and 20 men were needed to pull the boat through the rough stretch.
Though that flooding proved beneficial, more high water soon forced the boat to take an unscheduled and unfortunate cruise. A February 1838 freshet tore the Governor Mason from its midtown mooring and carried it several blocks beyond the east bank of the river, where it was left aground when the water receded. At considerable expense, the boat was returned to the river. Later, a May 1840 storm blew it ashore at the mouth of the Muskegon River and wrecked it.
The river's second steamer also began service in 1837. Called the Owashtanong--the name given the river by the area's Native Americans--the 140-foot-long, flat-bottomed stern-wheeler was built at Grand Haven by the Robinson, White and Williams Company. Though the boat was not particularly impressive, it did have a whistle. Demetrius Turner, who made it, claimed it was the first steam whistle to be manufactured in Michigan west of Detroit. "I waited until we got well out of town before I tried it," he wrote. "We were down near the log school house a short distance downstream, and the children heard it and were afraid to go to school because they thought it was a panther howling in the woods."
Though the Owashtanong was used principally for hauling freight, Indian Agent Henry Schoolcraft was aboard for a June 1838 trip from Grand Haven to Grand Rapids. He reported that he had gone by steamer to Chicago and then Grand Haven:
"I had to wait here some days, for a conveyance to Grand Rapids, which gave me time to ramble with my little son about the sandy eminences of the neighborhood and to pluck the early spring flowers in the valley. The Owashtanong, a small steamer with a stern-wheel, in due time carried us up. Among the passengers was an emigrant English family from Canada, who landed at a log house in the woods. I was invited at the rapids to take lodgings with Mr. Louis Campau, the proprietor of the village."
The Owashtanong operated at a loss and was commonly known as the "Poor House." Area historians fail to agree on its eventual fate. Of six who mention the boat's demise, three say it was destroyed in a fire that also leveled a mill adjacent to its dock and three claim it was stripped and left to decay in a Grand Haven marsh, where it eventually sank.
Landings Along the River
These boats and others that followed them during the Grand's steamboat days made frequent stops at landings scattered along the shoreline. Though there undoubtedly were stops on the upriver run between Grand Rapids and Lyons, mention of them isn't found in early records. Downriver, however, about 50 landings between the rapids and Grand Haven are noted by early historians. Most were merely level clearings where boats could nose up to the shore and lower a gangplank. There were few actual docks.
Blendon Landing, a village perched on a riverside bluff with 200 residents involved principally in lumbering operations, was one of the busiest stopping points. The site, with no obvious trace of its past, is at the southeast corner of Grand Valley State University's Allendale campus. In the mid-1800s, it boasted a general store, blacksmith shop, schoolhouse, ice house, boarding house, saloon, and several cabins. One of at least five schooners built there was the Major Anderson, which on one occasion carried a load of lumber from the landing through the Great Lakes and up the St. Lawrence River. The cargo was destined for Liverpool, England, but the boat may have stopped at Boston and transferred it to another vessel for the ocean voyage.
Built downstream at Eastmanville during the 1860s and '70s were four schooners and a screw-propelled ship that towed barges to Chicago.
One noteworthy boat was constructed even farther up the Grand River than Lyons. At Portland in 1849, Abram Wadsworth persuaded investors to join him in mine speculation in the Upper Peninsula. They would furnish funds to build a vessel and obtain supplies, he would direct the boat's operations, and they would all become rich. The sloop North Star was built at Portland and departed amid enthusiastic shouts of the villagers. But neither Wadsworth, the boat, nor its crew ever returned to the community. Wadsworth apparently sold the sloop to the first person to make an offer, pocketed the money, and lived in shady seclusion.
Shipbuilding on the Grand
Most boat-building activity along the river took place in the Grand Rapids and Grand Haven areas. Several shipyards at Grand Haven, Spring Lake, and Ferrysburg built vessels for service on the Great Lakes as well as the river. Grand Haven also provided steamship connections to Milwaukee, Chicago, and other Great Lakes ports.
Among the steamers constructed at Grand Rapids for Grand River service were the Patronage and the John Almy, both built in 1838. The Patronage, with an engine made in Grandville, steamed up and down Grand River for about 10 years, but the John A/my had a difficult birth and an exceptionally short life. After a crowd gathered for its launching, the blocking was knocked out and the craft began to move down the slipway. It then stopped just before reaching the water. Men in the group lifted and pushed, but nothing happened until Samuel Baker came along. Known in the community as "Big Baker," he was said to be 7 feet tall and weigh 300 pounds. With his help, the John Almy was soon in the river, but it sank on its maiden voyage at the mouth of Flat River in what is now the city of Lowell.
Intending to provide waterpower and navigation around the rapids, Grand Rapids businessmen began digging a canal in 1835 and finished it in 1842. But it had no locks to raise and lower boats. In 1847, the state legislature stepped in with an appropriation to both enhance the canal and install the locks. The canal project was completed, but the locks still weren't built. Though some transportation developed upriver, the rapids remained a barrier to navigation between Lyons and Grand Haven without transferring passengers or cargo at Grand Rapids. Very few boats were used for both downstream and upstream service.
Side-Wheelers Sail On
During the eight decades from 1837 to 1917, more than 40 steamboats operated on the river, most of them on the downriver route between the rapids and Grand Haven. The majority were side-wheelers that burned cordwood to generate steam. Their flat bottoms and shallow drafts enabled them to sail through sections of the river that would not have accommodated boats requiring deep water. Ice on the river generally halted steamboat operations from December through February, but warmer weather sometimes extended the shipping season. The length of boats on the Grand ranged from 49 to 146 feet.
One of the more noteworthy was the Humming Bird, built at Lamont in Ottawa County by Henry Steele in 1847. Early Grand Rapids historian Albert Baxter described it as being "on two canoes with a single paddle wheel in the middle." An engine that had been used at the State Salt Works in Grand Rapids propelled the boat up and down the river from the rapids until August 30, 1854, when it exploded, killing a boy.
John Muir, an engineer and pilot of riverboats on the Grand for many years, told a Grand Rapids Herald reporter in 1912 about his memories of the Humming Bird's demise. "My brother James was aboard when the explosion occurred," he said. "He was blown into the river and, although he was rescued, his spine had been injured by the explosion and he died not long afterwards."
Two boats named Olive Branch cruised the Grand. The first ran aground at Grand Haven in 1854 and was wrecked. The second was launched in October of that year at the Ferry & Sons Shipyard. Resembling an Ohio River steamer with luxurious staterooms and a large dining hall, it was 146 feet long with a breadth of 28 feet and could run in water just 14 inches deep. Its stern wheel was powered by two engines.
The William H. Barrett, which operated on the Grand for 20 years after its construction at Grand Rapids in 1874, was another boat that could operate in shallow water. When unloaded, it needed only 16 inches and, on its first trip, it drew 34 inches of water while carrying a cargo of plaster and furniture weighing 130 tons. Sparks from the steamer's stack at Spring Lake in May 1893 started a fire that destroyed much of the east side of the village. Little more than a year later, in November 1894, the Barrett itself burned to the water line while docked in Grand Rapids.
20th-Century Ships
Loss of the veteran Barrett seemed to signal the end of the good old days of Grand River steamer operation. Nevertheless, efforts to keep the boats running persisted, and new craft were still taking to the waters of the Grand in the early years of the 20th century.
In 1901, the Evelyn left its home at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, crossed Lake Michigan, was renamed the City of Grand Rapids, and joined the fleet on the Grand. A stern-wheeler that could carry 400 passengers, it made the downriver trip from the rapids to Grand Haven in 4 3/4 hours and the upstream return trip in 6 1/4 hours. The fare was 50 cents in each direction.
Grand Rapids investors attempted to keep steamer traffic on the river alive when they constructed twin stern-wheel replicas of Mississippi River boats, the Grand and the Rapids, in 1905. They began regular service between Grand Rapids and Grand Haven in 1906. Competition by interurban lines forced sale of the boats in 1912, and they ended their periods of service on the Mississippi.
Last to make the run between Grand Rapids and Grand Haven was the May Graham, which passed through the swing bridge at Eastmanville shortly before it rusted shut. Built at St. Joseph in 1879, it operated on the St. Joseph River until it was brought to the Grand in 1907. Besides carrying passengers and freight, it took shells from clammers to factories in Lamont and Grand Haven where they were used to make clamshell buttons. Soon after its last trip on the Grand, the May Graham was disassembled and its hull became a barge. The pilothouse and upper decks served as a cottage at Grand Haven until the 1950s, when the structure was razed.
Though it may seem Eastmanville's rusty bridge sealed the fate of the Grand River steamers, the real villains were the smoke-belching railroad engines that reached Grand Rapids and Grand Haven in 1858 and the speedy, electric-powered interurbans that came in 1902. Unable to compete with the newcomers, the steamboats gradually disappeared from the river. By the early 1900s, they were gone.
Diesel-powered boats resembling the old steamers still provide cruises on the Grand in the greater Lansing and Grand Rapids areas but, today, the river's steam-powered watercraft are only cherished memories for a few centenarians who may have seen them sail.
RELATED ARTICLE: A day on the Olive Branch.
The following account of a trip down the Grand on the Olive Branch was written by Charles Belknap and included in his book "The Yesterdays of Grand Rapids" (The Dean Hicks Company, 1922). A Civil War major, he lived briefly on a farm near Sparta before moving to Grand Rapids where he established the Belknap Wagon and Sleigh Company. He served as a volunteer fireman, member of the Grand Rapids Board of Education and Board of Aldermen, mayor of the city, and congressman.
One spring morning in 1857, drifting away from the pier at the Yellow warehouse, the steamer Olive Branch set forth for the Haven with a cargo of package freight, a top deck loaded with passengers, and Capt. Robert Collins, Pilot Tom Robbins and Cook Jim Dailey with a full crew of husky Irishmen. We were soon winding between banks heavily wooded and bordered with wild fruit trees in full bloom--plum, cherry, crab and thornapple--all festooned with wild grape vines.
At the dock of Hovey's plaster mills a hundred barrels of land plaster were taken aboard. Then angling across the river we were against the bank at Grandville, the place nature intended should be a town site. The settlement got an early start with some of the best men who came out of the east in those pioneer days. Here we left package freight and took aboard a few passengers.
At Haire's landing we gathered up a lot of maple sugar in tubs and a pile of slabwood for the boilers.
At the mouth of Sand Creek, where there had once been an Indian village, we added a couple going to the Haven to be married. Coming down from the upper road they crossed the creek on a tree footbridge and the young lady had taken a tumble and had to swim out.
They built a fire to dry out as well as to signal the boat. Once aboard, the women passengers fitted the young woman out in dry clothing and the couple were seated at the captain's table for the noon meal. The bride-to-be was game all right. She had come west to teach the Sand Creek school, but the first month she found a better job and the log shack's pupils had a vacation.
At the Blendon hills two families of Hollanders, all wearing wooden shoes, were met by a man with a yoke of cattle. Their goods were piled high on his cart and the boat tooted a goodbye as they trailed away into the forest.
It was a short run to Lamont, a beautiful place so spread along the bluffs--for every man wanted a home on the river front--that it looked four miles long and four rods wide.
All the morning a couple had occupied a bench on the top deck in front of the pilot house. The man smoked a fancy shaped pipe and they talked only in German. Lamont evidently touched his heart and with arm outstretched he recited "Bingen on the Rhine." I did not understand then as I did in the Civil War days when I served with men who often in battle days sang of "Bingen on the Rhine."
There have been many changes since those days, but time cannot blot out pretty Lamont as it looked to me in my boyhood.
At Eastmanville Mr. Eastman came aboard with a party of ladies and gentlemen. The ladies were carrying many things made by the Indian women of the vicinity, beaded belts and beaded money bags; some had traveling bags of smoke-tanned buckskin ornamented with native dyes and woven designs of porcupine quills. The freight taken here consisted of many packs of ax helves shaved out of white hickory.
The long dining table was crowded at the evening meal. Capt. Collins toasted the bride-to-be who was garbed in the best that several "carpet sacks" afforded.
At the landing at Bass River Mr. Eastman took charge of the dining cabin and with song and story the Olive Branch rounded Battle Point, paddling past great river bottom meadows of cattail and wild rice, from which flocks of wild duck came swirling overhead.
There were many inviting channels and waterways and the pilot needed to be well informed.
As we neared the Haven the sun in the golden west disclosed smoking mill stacks, forests of ship masts and drifting sand dunes. Beyond was a great sea of white caps.
This was the end of a "perfect day."
Gordon Beld is a frequent contributor to Michigan History magazine; his last article was "Bridges to a Romantic Past" in the July/August 2009 issue. He lives in Holland, Michigan.
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| Author: | Beld, Gordon |
|---|---|
| Publication: | Michigan History Magazine |
| Geographic Code: | 1U3MI |
| Date: | May 1, 2010 |
| Words: | 3066 |
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