Topic starter
05/02/2011 2:48 pm
As many know, we are in the midst of "chaos" at the Howard Steamboat Museum, as a new geothermal heating and cooling system is being installed for the 22 room Victorian mansion. In order to create space for the workmen and the system itself, we are moving stored artifacts and other items to temporary offsite storage. Later this month we'll break ground for a new climate controlled building (adjacent to the museum) for storage and preparation of artifacts. It also will provide a place for exhibit construction, etc. It's gonna be great!
Yesterday, our focus was the huge attic. Many boxes and relics up there in the dark recesses have not been pulled out for decades. Kenny Howe, Jim Reising and I had fun with some of our fabulous finds which included two transom windows of colored glass from the Anchor Line steamboat CITY OF HICKMAN, a chair from the Str. SOUTHLAND, a steamboat cabin door of unusual shape to fit the sheer of the deck, wood casting patterns for steamboat engine parts, a mirrored cabin door from the TOM GREENE, boxes of blueprints for LST's and all sorts of "stuff". One of our best discoveries was a daybook from the 1880's, -- sort of a 19th century "blog" of the daily happenings in the Howard yards. Other treasures include a pilothouse nameboard, painted by Capt. Doc Hawley, from the AVALON, gingerbread trim from Greene Line boats, ancient models, half hull models, a model steam engine, and all sorts of furniture and household items (including a small and very heavy clawfoot bath tub) used by the Howard family. All of this is being sorted, tagged and decisions made for storage, etc. Many boxes of old Waterways Journals, some of them fire and water damaged, have been relegated to the dumpster, as that magazine is now indexed on microfilm and easily accessible for researchers. This "clear out" is an ongoing and laborious process, but it's long overdue and soon we'll have much easier access to our collections and know what we have and where it is located. It's a LONG haul UP all those steps from the back porch to the attic! When I first began volunteering at the museum in 1968, those flights of stairs weren't steep at all -- but I was only 14 years old!!!
In one of the "dusty boxes", I found the attached two photos from the collection of the late Harry Stocksdale, long a music instructor here in New Albany and a calliopist on such excursion boats as the PILGRIM, PRINCESS, AMERICA, EAST ST. LOUIS, G.W. HILL, ISLAND MAID, JULIA BELLE SWAIN (sidewheeler) and ISLAND QUEEN. Harry and Margretta ("Margie") Stocksdale were members of the same church my family attended and Harry was my grandmother's piano teacher. In my early teenage years I once visited him in his "studio" and it was a virtual river museum, the walls covered with framed steamboat pictures and artifacts. Mr. Stocksdale, born in 1895 and whose grandfather was employed at the Howard Shipyard for over 50 years as a builder of pilotwheels, died at age 87.
Meanwhile, if you visit us at the museum, please pardon our mess and the dust!
Images:
(1) Harry and Margie Stocksdale at the calliope of the Str. AVALON - Mother's Day, 1952, at Louisville.
(2) Excursion Str. PRINCESS (formerly the SUNSHINE) taken in 1924 at Sugar Grove, an amusement park 14 miles downriver from New Albany. Note the calliope aft of the pilothouse.
05/02/2011 3:34 pm
For some reason I could not get the calliope picture to enlarge. What are those barrel looking things on either side of the calliope?
Topic starter
05/02/2011 5:15 pm
Lex, I believe those are life rafts. The attached image, taken from the pilothouse door, of Doc playing the AVALON calliope, circa 1956 at Fort Madison, Iowa, shows the life saving devices on the roof in better detail.
05/02/2011 8:48 pm
Howard Museum 'culls and throwaways'
To borrow one of CW's expressions when he tossed out free photos at S&D... I don't know the legalities of disposition of museum artifacts and acquisitions, but if it is legal, I would suggest that the unwanted/extra items you all are discovering be put up for sale, perhaps at a River Ramblings meeting or at the September conference, or even online. Again I wouldn't presume to know the amount of money you might bring in, but whatever amount could certainly be put to good use by the little museum that could and does...
Topic starter
05/02/2011 10:52 pm
We have already tried selling vintage copies of The Waterways Journal in the gift shop for 25 cents each -- and even giving them away -- with minimal interest. There are tentative plans for a future "yard sale" of eclectic items that have absolutely nothing to do with our mission or collections.
Topic starter
06/02/2011 7:31 pm
I dug into my files last night and found two other views of Harry Stocksdale at the keyboard of excursion boat calliopes.
(1) At the 36 whistle instrument aboard the Str. PILGRIM.
(2) The calliope on the Str. PRINCESS, formerly the SUNSHINE.
07/02/2011 8:29 pm
Thanks for posting those great Harry Stocksdale photos, Keith. Wow, that 36-whistle giant on the PILGRIM must have been one of the rarer Nichol creations! Would have loved to hear those booming bass notes of that one. We just got another 3 inches of snow this weekend, after digging out from under 13 inches last Tuesday/Wednesday. Will spring ever get here?
Topic starter
09/02/2011 10:48 pm
You're very welcome Dave! I've uncovered a few more photos of Harry Stocksdale at calliopes, including a view of the Str. QUEEN CITY with a calliope on her roof. Enjoy!
Images:
(1) Aboard Str. PILGRIM - 1920
(2) At Str. AVALON calliope - 1953
(3) Str. QUEEN CITY
11/02/2011 2:29 am
The amount of steamboat material at Howards never ceases to amaze me. Yesterday while cleaning the attic, laying in a box was a letter dated June 1930 from a engineer with Foster Wheeler Boiler Co. adressed to Loretta Howard. In the letter the engineer stated that per her request from Tom Greene he had studied the boiler on the TOM GREENE preparatory to it's upcoming race. He found that the moisture content of the steam was 5%, much too high, the ideal moisture content was 1%. He also found the boilers were stopped up from accumulated soot. His recommendations were 1. put a dry pipe in the boiler or 2. or absent a dry pipe, tell the engineer he was carrying the water too high and they needed to blow soot much more often than they apparently were. His conclusions were to carry the water lower and blow soot and the boat should have adequate steam.
This letter is interesting in a couple of ways because it meant that Tom Greene took the race much more seriously than I ever thought. It was not just a show. And it showed that Loretta Howard had consderable "pull", also it proved that the Howards and the Greenes must have been good friends.
11/02/2011 1:18 pm
*RE: TOM GREENE/Howard Attic.*
Hi, Jim & Steamboating colleagues:
Great work on the part of Keith, Kenny and you with the winter project at the Howard Museum attic delving into 'archival archaeology.' I've no doubt other treasures, documents, ephemera will show up in time. I remember Keith showing me the attic some years back seeing a large framed litho of the famed ocean steamship GREAT EASTERN and hope it's still there. You guys keep us posted on new discoveries in the future.
The letter/report from the FOSTER-WHEELER BOILER CO. engineer doesn't surprise me in the least. By 1930 the Great Depression had already flattened the country here and abroad. The TOM GREENE was just sevn years old then having been finished by MARIETTA MANUFACTURING CO. Pt. Pleasant, W.Va. Virginia Bennett, Fred Way, C.W. Stoll--and a number on this web--have mentioned the TOM was a pretty high powered boat in her time. Virginia had some old LP recordings from the TOM's engineroom I heard years ago that were pretty impressive. Frank Prudent may also have heard accounts from his father Bill on the TG.
The big races then were huge media events receiving national coverage along with connections to "romantic old days...Mark Twain etc." Fred Way has plenty to say about the races in his 'She Takes the Horns' book on steamboat racing etc. Tom Greene had more than just minimal PR on his mind. The Depression didn't help the passenger end of their service much with freight paying the bills. The big media coverage could mean cash on the ledger page with fun and romance secondary. Passenger cabins were removed in 1936 to focus on the lucrative auto carrying business with the company focusing their tourist division with the GORDON C. GREENE. All the rest is history.
Archival research is time consuming--often dirty--but rewarding. One single letter, financial report, contract, account book may not alter history entirely but it certainly sheds new light on old stories. Keep up the good work!
Well, what do I know?
R. Dale Flick
Coal Haven Landing, Ohio River, Cincinnati.
Topic starter
11/02/2011 11:59 pm
The "Attic Adventures" continued this week and today we moved a lot of display cases, the ED J. HOWARD nameboard, caulking tools, half hull models, paintings, a search light and other artifacts out of harm's way while HVAC workmen cut holes into walls on the second floor. The mansion is in a state of chaos and things are a mess. Dust control is impossible! One tedious task was taking down the big eagle that was on top of the shipyard weathervane for many years and the gilded antlers from the Str. CALHOUN. Kenny, Jimmy and I are like "kids in a candy store" as we delve into trunks and boxes, anxious to see what treasures (or NOT!) we uncover. It's WORK, but great FUN -- and we get sooty enough to look like we've been in a minstrel show! We are happy to have the assistance of two young college men, but since they didn't have the privilege of knowing Mrs. Loretta Howard as we did, they don't get as excited over some of the things we re-discover and remember from LONG AGO days at the museum when WE were YOUNG!
Next Thursday (February 17th) at 11:30 AM, we'll have a groundbreaking ceremony for our new collections management facility, to be constructed adjacent to the museum - across High Street near the floodwall. Museum members, friends, media and others are invited to the ceremony, with a reception following at the mansion.
12/02/2011 1:42 am
Wish the ground breaking were later in the day. I know some steamboatin' people who will be in town later. Others in the area that would like to join us we'll be at Kingfish, River Road and Zorn around 5:30ish.