double stages

*RE: Double stages.*
Hi, Tom & steamboating colleagues:
Welcome to Seamboats.org! You've come to the right place for your question above RE: Double stages as seen on big southern cotton boats and others. I remember this topic coming up several years ago with lots of input. There are many who post here knowing far, far more than I do on this topic and just about whatever people are interested in. Double stages not so common up on our northern Ohio River here; yet now and then they were seen. Lots of reasons. So, keep 'lurkin' on this site and you're bound to read more in short order.
Cheers!

R. Dale Flick
Coal Haven Landing, Ohio River, Cincinnati.

Seems as if I've seen a picture of a steamboat with a stage on either bank of a rather narrow river. Now that's where 2 stages would come in handy. I've also seen pictures of the stage resting athwartships on the foredeck and not hanging at all. There's always the philosophy where one is good, two is better.

*RE: Double stages/Ole Laidley.*
Hi, Lexie,
Good point and observation. Again, I don't know much but 'seems' one comment here was the size of the big cotton boats loading/unloading demanded double stages to keep the bales going on and off in either direction with dispatch using those rolling carts. Took no doubt a lot of roustabouts working in tandem. Capt. Ellis Mace and Ole' Commodre Fred Laidley got to reminiscing the other day about the huge Big Sandy Wharfboat here built with some 300,000 feet of lumber, piped for gas, elevators etc. Mace's fine book recalled at one time some 60 to 80 rousters working and I couldn't believe it.

Ellis recalled the day Laidley wrestled control of the company in a meeting with votes. There were long faces along the wharf and in steamboat offices at the time with dire predictions. Ellis came up the steps the next morning only to be met by the Commodore with his gold watch in hand, "See heah,' Ellis...guess you know you have a new boss now." "Um, yes Commodore I do," Ellis said meekly. "Well, you'll do fine...just fine like before. I'm increasing all the wages again back to what they were. You know this warfboat like no other. Keep her in trim as a good mate knows how. People down heah' say that if Ellis Mace not in charge this wharfboat will sink in no time." Ellis in time found the Commodore not the bear he was portrayed--fair, good to work for, asked opinions from all his officers, crew, office. "But when I make up my mind it's good and made up."

Ellis made suggestions about building the CITY OF LOUISVILLE, CITY OF CINCINNATI & INDIANA. One suggestion was to have the extreme stern decks built with an outside veranda--not the usual end bulkhead--for passengers. The LOUISVILLE

*No. 2 RE: Double Stages/Ladley.*
I hit the wrong key and my above went POOF! To continue. The LOUISVILLE was Laidley's favorite, his baby: built strong, fast to the point where on her first trip her engine supports/mountings worked free. Back to HOWARD YARD for reinforcing steel and beams/plates which answered the problem. The LOUISVILLE, due to speed and operations, was never the big financial success Laidley wished for in spite of his love for her. Just today Ole Laidley waxed with memories. "Dale, Ellis, when I let go of the Cincinnati to Memphis & Cincinnati to New Orleans trade there was a lot of cryin' and grousin' around the Cincinnati waterfront from all the boys. Had to be done...had to...trade dyin' and fast. Before lunch we all went down on the wharf to see one of these new gasoline delivery trucks or 'lorries' as some call them with much excitement. Laidley looked long with interest asking questions. Just then a long freight train rolled over the rails up on Front St. with a string of new, bigger engine and freight cars. Laidley looked at this gasoline truck, the train long with a deep thought. Back in the office he puffed his cigar at the big map of the Ohio River from Pittsburgh to Cairo and then out on the LOUISVILLE loading for tonight. "Changes comin' boys, big changes...I don't like what I'm seein' y'all heah' me?" Ole Laidley could be like that.

R. Dale Flick
Coal Haven Landing, Ohio River, Cincinnati.

Tom, I don't know the definetive answer, but I do know that on locking rivers the double stages posed problems with guidewalls, lockwalls etc. If you notice most boats on the Upper Miss, another locking river,had single stages. At least that's what Bob McCann once told me when I asked why the Greene's took the double stage off the Cape Girardeau when they brought her to the Ohio River.

Thanks Jim. This doesn't answer my question why Lower Miss boats had double stages, but it's interesting and good-to-know information. It does answer the other side of my question, why Ohio and Upper Miss boats used a single stage. By the way, did you get my last email about grandpa and his hearing aid? When I pushed the button to send, it disappeared and I'm not sure if it was sent to you.

double stages

Jim Reising;24683 wrote: Tom, I don't know the definetive answer, but I do know that on locking rivers the double stages posed problems with guidewalls, lockwalls etc. If you notice most boats on the Upper Miss, another locking river,had single stages. At least that's what Bob McCann once told me when I asked why the Greene's took the double stage off the Cape Girardeau when they brought her to the Ohio River.

Jim, looks like Bob McCann was right (not that there was any doubt). I just read in Fred Way's "Mississippi Stern-Wheelers" where he was talking about BETSY ANN. Capt. Way says: "...the double stage planks have been replaced [in this photo] by a single one--a necessity dictated by upper Ohio River locks."

In the beginning there were no stages. Planks were erected, sometimes on "sawhorse" legs to reach shore.

Next came a built-up stage carried across the main deck or suspended above it on the spars. There were two spar masts and two spars and the stage could be set up to run to either side of the boat using the spar derricks. Boats of the 1850-1870 were fitted this way.

The big invention came in 1869 on the sixth Natchez. Booms were rigged to ride on the spar masts and the stages were suspended from them. They could not serve both sides of the boat because the jackstaff was in the way.

The next step in the evolution was to omit the jackstaff and fit the boom to a central mast. The boom was rigged to swing to both sides. This idea seems to have been adopted soon after the double stages.

On the Lower Mississippi two booms enabled the boat to get closer to shore. Being a conservative lot, those river-boaters stuck with two stages and the jackstaff. On rivers with locks, underbrush, and wharfboats to contend with, the single stage was preferred.

Having dealt with a stage, in my opinion one is enough!

*RE: In the beginning/No stages*
Steamboating colleagues:
Alan has in crisp form with few wasted words provided us with a near mini 'treatise' on swinging stages. Examine closely the famed Cincinnati Panorama of 1848 and you see no stages in evidence in those earlier boats built for simplicity. Digging in archives here I've found some first hand accounts in the words of steamboat travelers then commenting on the "precarious planks running from boat to shore." Others write also of "several steamboats tethered next to each other so passengers and cargo moved across the decks from one boat to another and then to the shore." Was there some mutual understanding of boat officers/crews for this moving/trundling from one boat to another?

Those early double stages appear to me to be pretty impressive works of carpenty in their own right. Question: On stormy/windy days did any of these big stages cause problems catching the wind like sails? Well, what do I know?

R. Dale Flick
Coal Haven Landing, Ohio River, Cincinnati.

Not if they were properly secured. That big old superstructure was/is the windjammer. The stages would be little jibs at best.

You betcha stages were a trial in a strong wind. I don't think they made any difference in navigation, but they gave a lot of trouble in a cross wind handling the stage itself.
If the deckhand handling the windward swing guy lost control the stage would go with the wind, taking everything before it.

The biggest problem this mate had with the stage was automobiles parked too close to shore. Once we scraped a scratch from end to end of a beautifully kept Pontiac. When the owner came by I expected a lot of yelling, but he calmly remarked, "I shouldn't have parked so close," got in it and drove away.
On Green River we stuck the stage gunwale into a pickup truck window. A brutal farmer was waiting at the end of it. Mr. Printz, our purser, shoved me aside and said, "I'll take care of it." He did, too, by waving a five dollar bill under the farmer's nose saying, "Here. Will this take care of it?" The farmer said, "Sure."
Mr. Printz, who could play on a seesaw with a girl gymnast, told me, "Always offer them cash. They will shut up and take it nearly every time."

I watched the Delta Queen's heavy stage turn a car completely over at the Louisville wharf one afternoon.