Steamboating Humor

Bye Jove, you're talkin' bout the ol' HURONACO. Some sez she was spelt HURONICO, but them Overseas National Airline folks insisted it was HURONACO. Cap'n. Dayton Randolph, whom was one of the sky gazers on the ol' BETSY ANN, was quite fond of the HURONACO and talked a bunch 'bout her.

Dear Ed and steamboating colleagues:
Your posted inquiry Re: "...fictional story about a really 'mighty' steamboat," jolted me out of a winter lethargy and I ran post paste to my library shelves. I yanked down 'Pilotin' Comes Natural,' Capt. Frederick Way, Jr. Farrar & Reinhart, Inc. 1943 and here it is.

In chapter twenty a then young Fred Way was aboard the Str. GENERAL CROWDER when famed Ohio River pilot Dayton Randolph came aboard. Fred was then a young clerk and Dayton baited him while in the pilot house. Pgs. 134 and 135 set the stage for the interesting dialogue exchange regarding the famed mythical HURRONICO. Dayton had a live one in Fred Way and his descriptions of the great boat goes on and on. "I helped bring her up to Pittsburgh]...too big for one pilot...had thirteen partners. They laid the SPRAGUE up in a creek when the HURRONICO went by sos' not to let her get sunk in the suck. Even running a slow bell she'd suck up all the river ahead of her, and leave the catfish standing on their heads to keep their gills wet. The HURRONICO was the super-impossible steamboat; the Paul Bunyan of the Ohio River with a hull under her."

From Fred Way's written account stories of the HURRONICO have mushroomed at the hands of humorist and river writers ever since.

Cheers,
R. Dale Flick

The Jim Johnson

Ed,

Check Cathy Barton and Dave Para´s song "The Jim Johnson"

http://www.bartonpara.com/discog/livriver/lr04.html

Carmen

Hurronico

It's rumored that it was built at the Rabbit Hash Shipyard. I'm also sorry that Dale is pasted to his library shelves.

According to Capt. Harry Louden

Maybe it was the steamboat Cap'n Harry Louden bragged about around the stove up at the RH General Store:

"She was," Harry said, "seven decks high, with a straw hull, leather boilers, and brick chimneys. And carried a shoemaker and brick mason on each watch. One day the Striker came up missing, and he was found a week later floating in the guage glass on the donkey boiler."

That the same one?

I stood third assistant striker-pilot on her in 1848. We stood eighteen hour watches to give us time to climb to the pilothouse. She came to a sad end - tell Ed about it, Sam and Frank.

"I see the light" said the sinner at a tent meeting. I now know the source of my "mighty steamboat" stories which no doubt came from a white haired, twist tobaco smoking old riverboat pilot. As a young deckhand I spent many hours listening to the older pilots talk endlessly about the river, their lives and the boat they served on. No doubt it also included some selected "riverlord" to insure my broad education. They are no doubt still laughing rest their souls.

Ed Ray

Shipyard Sam;3807 wrote:

"She was," Harry said, "seven decks high, with a straw hull, leather boilers, and brick chimneys. And carried a shoemaker and brick mason on each watch. One day the Striker came up missing, and he was found a week later floating in the guage glass on the donkey boiler."

I don't remember Cap Louden callin' it a "donkey boiler" though, but that's the one! 😉

Right you are. (Wink. Wink.) Have to be PC, you know.