From Fort Worth to Chicago by water? This Trinity River booster proved it could be done.
Commodore Basil Muse Hatfield was a Texan doodle dandy, born on the Fourth of July, 1871, in Washington-on-the-Brazos, where the Texas Declaration of Independence was signed.
Commodore (the rank was self-ascribed) Hatfield was born on the Brazos, but his passion was the Trinity River. The commodore, like Star-Telegram publisher Amon Carter, believed that the Trinity River could be made navigable from the gulf to Fort Worth.
To prove it, in 1933 the commodore set out to sail from Fort Worth down the Trinity to the gulf, then along the intracoastal canal and up the Atchafalaya, Mississippi and Illinois rivers to Chicago. The commodore estimated the voyage would take 40 days.
On Aug. 23, Commodore Hatfield and his crew of four weighed anchor of his 24-foot Texas Steer flatboat at the Belknap Street Bridge. As Hatfield began his voyage he was 62. And clean shaven. He did not remain unwhiskered for long: He had vowed not to shave until the Trinity River was navigable. Eventually his chin was a waterfall of gray whiskers.
As the Texas Steer headed downstream, a crowd cheered, and a band played “Over the Waves” and “Three Cheers for Commodore Hatfield,” an original composition.
At first the crew poled and rowed the boat. But after encountering snags, sand bars and slow current, in Dallas the commodore had a one-cylinder engine added to the Texas Steer.
After some delay, the Texas Steer reached the Mississippi River. According to Time magazine, while on the Mississippi the Texas Steer hitched a ride by tying up to a towboat going north from New Orleans. Hatfield was a big man, a dreadnought in khakis: 6 foot 3, 300 pounds. Time wrote: “Three or four days out, according to river bargemen, the cook complained to the captain that the commodore ate too much. The captain ordered the commodore listed as ‘four guests’ for the rest of the voyage.”
In July 1934, the commodore sailed the Texas Steer into Chicago. The boat had sailed 19 rivers on the trip of 4,500 miles.
On May 23, 1935, 21 months after setting sail from “Port Worth,” Hatfield chugged back up the Trinity to the Belknap Street Bridge. Fort Worth welcomed him home with a parade down Main Street.
The Texas Steer’s one-cylinder engine had African Queened its way 9,000 miles on the round trip. More than 100 different crew members had come and gone. Along the way, the commodore gave almost 500 testimonials touting the river, met 26 governors and 64 mayors and was toasted at more than 60 banquets. Oh, and he played Santa in two Christmas parades.
Canalization of the Trinity, to the dismay of Carter and Hatfield, was never realized, of course, and Hatfield died in 1942 while living in Liberty, Texas, on the river he loved. His final wish was to have his ashes sprinkled into the Trinity River.
His ashes were brought back to Fort Worth but would not be consigned to the river until a son serving in the Navy consented. But that son went missing in action in World War II, and the family put off the consignment for years, hoping the son would come home.
At last, in 1987, 45 years after the commodore died, he took his final voyage down the river he had championed. From the Belknap Street Bridge, where his 1933 voyage had begun, his ashes were sprinkled, no doubt spicing up considerably the Trinity River soup.
Mike Nichols blogs about Fort Worth history at www.hometownbyhandlebar.com.
