Picture of the week

I know where the bell is and what the owners claim it to be. I also know what my father, who was a striker and deckhand, on the reputed boat, always said about the bell. Also this bell has been discussed before here.

The pictured cast iron bell is on display at the Northern Kentucky and Greater Cincinnati International Airport. Years ago it was displayed along with Ravell plastic models of the racer NATCHEZ and ROBT. E. LEE.near the entrance to the now defunct River Queen Restaurant. A sign on the bell proclaims it as being from the second ISLAND QUEEN.

As I mentioned, my father worked on the ISLAND QUEEN and he maintained that it was, "an old farm bell," and wasn't on the ISLAND QUEEN. It appears to be cast iron and not the alloy or brass associated with a fine steamboat bell. It certainly wasn't her much larger roof bell, nor any of the various engineroom bells onboard. I have to side with my father on this one, and it still looks like, "an old farm bell," to me.

Thanks, Frank, for information on the mystery bell. I've been through the Cincinnnati airport numerous times but have managed to overlook the bell! I agree with you and your dad. In at least one edition of the OHIO RIVER HANDBOOK AND PICTURE ALBUM, there is a photo of a polished bell, said to be from the engineroom of the ISLAND QUEEN and now on display at The Mariners Museum. I know the roof bell from the steamer KATE ADAMS is at the museum, but always thought that just about everything on the IQ was destroyed in the 1947 fire. Homer Denney had several melted brass keys from the calliope he played but the rest of the instrument disappeared in the inferno. Although posters, pennants, and various souvenir items turn up from the ISLAND QUEEN, I've never heard of many actual artifacts being in existence. When the White brothers wrote their wonderful book about the history of the ISLAND QUEEN several years ago it came as a big surprise to many to learn that her hull was still at Pittsburgh until being scrapped in 1995.

Steamboating colleagues:
Thanks to Franz, Frank and Keith for breaking the ice on the 'mystery bell.' I had an inkling but was afraid to lay my head on the block--talk about being a 'know nothing' or a 'mugwhump.'

The legend Re: the bell displayed at the Great Cincinnati Airport in northern Kentucky has surfaced several times. Robert McCann, GREENE LINE Purser, examined it years back and just hemmed rocking on his heels, hands in pockets. The late John Robertson, engineer for C&O Rail for 40 years, also examined it with strong doubts. Some years back a series of letters came to the Ohio River Museum and thence to me from a gentleman with strong concerns [i.e. demands] the assumed ISLAND QUEEN bell be better displayed...sent to a museum...not being handled properly etc. I got to digging on behalf of the OHS in Columbus and Marietta and talked at length with the late Capt. John Beatty.

Capt. Beatty related to me that when he arrived on the scene in Pittsburgh, 1947, to work on the salvage of the exploded and burned last ISLAND QUEEN, her bell, due to its low melting point, had melted in the inferno and drippled as molten metal down through the wreck. John also showed me tubes of U.S. currency from the ISLAND QUEEN's Purser office that had been totally fused together like rods from the extreme heat. Granted there are probably one or more bells from the IQ's engine spaces that may have survived. The roof bell...no. I gathered the information I found together and sent a reply to the gentlemen. That ended it then and there. Two opinions coming my way were that the bell was from a large steam locomotive. Why this bell we see has been painted red is a good guess. Look at old photos of the roof bell on the ISLAND QUEEN and then compare to the display bell. No comparison. Well, what do I know? Not much in the end.

Again old 'legends' about this bell intrigue us and there's always a slightly open door to be proven wrong. At times history has other things on its mind. Now, will the real bell stand up and tell us where it is and what it is?

Thanks for you all posting.

Cheer,
R. Dale Flick

Well, Frank, you hit the nail on the head 😉 It is displayed at Terminal 2, where obviously only US Airways is operating about 5 flights per day, so it's quite out of reach for most of the passengers of that airport. In fact, they also have the Revell model of the Robert. E. Lee and a model of the Natchez on display next to the bell - the Natchez model painted in green (!) as the model kit recommends; this one was not from Revell, but I can't remember the manufacturer at the moment.

They claim it's the bell of the second Island Queen and I was already wonderering how such a small bell could have been the bell of such a great steamboat. Also, who would dare to paint such a bell red? Another thing is: The clapper (is this the correct term?) doesn't have a hole, so I wondered where the string was attached to ring this bell. Seams to be an indicator that not the clapper but the bell was moved to ring the bell.

Well, now that I know that most likely it is just an old farm bell (which is not bad anyway), this all makes more sense to me.

Franz

Franz et al: Sigh! One of the early "steamboat" books that I acquired was the Ohio River Handbook...'way back a half century ago. Since that time, I have acquired the fourth edition thereof which hit the streets about 1958. In the earlier edition and the fourth edition too (on page 222) is a photo of a similarly shaped bell and the caption reads: "Brass engine room bell recovered from the wreck of the excursion steamer ISLAND QUEEN, which exploded and burned with a loss of 19 crew members on September 9, 1947 at Pittsburgh, Pa." This is the bell that I thought of when Franz posted the photo, but dismissed as not being the same since it was of iron and not the highly polished brass in the handbook. Knowing just a bit about Beatty's penchant for tall tales, I doubt if either one is off the IQ, but I am satisfied that those pictured are two different bell in that, to my eye, the skirt on the one is a little fuller than that on the other not to mention the paint and the materials of which they are made. I have no idea of their relative sizes. I will side with Frank and Dale. Steamboat bells sometimes are not what they seem...the one that I have on MISSIE is marked "TITANIC 1912". Anyone who believes that it was off the TITANIC would be a prime candidate to buy it from me!

Steamboating colleagues:
EUREKA! Tom Schiffer has provided us with additional interesting observations and data Re: the famed 'mystery bell' on display at the Greater Cincinnati & Northern Kentucky International Airport. My vintage copy dated 1954 of THE OHIO RIVER HANDBOOK AND PICTURE ALBUM, Young & Klein, Cincinnati, shows, as Tom indicates, that self-same hightly polished bell on Pg. 222 with the note 'Courtsey The Mariner's Museum. No comparison, as Tom states. The hanging device on the Mariner's Museum bell is linked with a double hook into a brass hanging plate at the crown/head of the bell. The bell's lip in this photo bears no similarity to the 'Pic o' the Week' bell. The 'clapper' of many bells weren't hung with cord or chain but, if 'free swinging,' by a metal rod. Such a bell as pictured in HANDBOOK would have been a 'hand rung' bell. I looked with a glass and there's a hint of a drilled hole in the nipple of the swinging clapper. If that's the case then I'd opine a cord was introduced through for ringing by hand. All of this only idle speculation and observations on my part. Hey, CSI on TV has nothing on this gang when we delve into steamboat forensics. These exchanges are what makes Steamboats.org such fun.

Um...er...ah...Tom, I have a little bell here from the original MAYFLOWER. Are you interested?

Cheers,
R. Dale Flick

Uh...er...Dale, I think that one bell is enuff for little ol' MISSIE!