In Honor of Fort Benton’s Steamboat Era: The death of the steamboat Bertrand
As the end of the Civil War neared in the spring of 1865, a flood of steamboats gathered at the St. Louis levee to load passengers and freight bound for Fort Benton at the height of the exciting gold rush in newly formed Montana Territory. The rich gold mining camps along Alder Gulch, Confederate Gulch, and Last Chance Gulch had the gold dust, and St. Louis steamers prepared to deliver a massive range of mining tools, foodstuffs, luxury goods and passengers needed to satisfy the demand. For context, in that year 1865 Montana placer gold mines yielded some $18,000,000—more than $310,000,000 today. The dawn of a golden era in steamboat navigation was opening at Fort Benton, head of navigation of the upper Missouri River.
Yet as the spring of 1865 dawned, Fort Benton was in turmoil. The American Fur Company trading posts on the upper Missouri were sold to the North West Fur Company. The streets of Fort Benton were becoming “the bloodiest blocks in the West.” Incidents between Native Blackfoot and White settlers along the Benton to Helena road, the old Mullan Road, were increasing. A new town at the mouth of the Marias River, Ophir, some twelve miles downriver from Fort Benton, was boldly designed to end Fort Benton’s reign as head of navigation. Ophir’s fate was tragically sealed, when on May 25, a work party of 10 woodcutters were massacred by a large force of Kainai (Blood) Blackfoot under Calf Shirt from north of the Medicine Line.
Adding further complexity was river navigation, for this would prove to be the third low water season in a row on the upper Missouri. The stage was set for heavy demand from the gold camps but very tough navigation on the river. Of the 23 steamboats that departed St. Louis bound for Fort Benton, just three would land at the Benton levee—five counting the three trips by Deer Lodge. Sixteen steamers would be forced to off-load cargo and passengers downriver, with seven of these reaching the Marias landing. Four more of these valuable steamers (each worth about $40,000) would be snagged and lost to the hazards of the mighty Missouri—Cora No. 2, E.O. Standard, Twilight, and Bertrand. This is the tragic story of the steamboat Bertrand, a story that remarkably lives on to today.
The Civil War was just eight days from the dramatic surrender of General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox when, on April 1, 1865, the new construction Copelin-line steamboat Bertrand struck an underwater tree stump, snagged, and sunk in the morgue for Missouri River steamboats, DeSoto Bend about 50 river miles north of Omaha, Nebraska. Bound for Fort Benton, the Bertrand was heavily loaded with cargo and passengers destined for the gold mining camps of Virginia City, Diamond City, and Helena, in the newly created Montana territory.
Bertrand departed from the St. Louis levee at 10 a.m. Saturday, March 18. For six weeks prior to the departure, the St. Louis newspapers had advertised “HO! FOR THE GOLD MINES OF IDAHO . . . [of the] MONTANA AND IDAHO TRANSPORTATION LINE . . . the new and elegant steamer Bertrand’s departure to leave for the gold regions on the opening of navigation. The Bertrand is of very light draught, fast, and has fine accommodation for passengers, and is sure to go through as advertised.” The ads enticed “Shippers and passengers seeking transportation to Fort Benton, Virginia City, Deer Lodge and Bitter Root Valley, cannot improve this opportunity. The steamer Bertrand is of light draught, with a good carrying capacity and excellent cabin accommodations, insuring to Freighter and Travelers that speed and safety so essential on a trip of this kind. Shippers may rely upon this being one of the first boats to Benton.”
With part-owner and Captain James Yore at the helm, a crew of more than 20, about 28 passengers, and a full cargo of 250 tons, the Bertrand got underway. The collapse of Confederate resistance in Missouri ensured that, unlike the previous three years, no threat came from Quantrill and other roving guerilla bands. Thus, the trip to Omaha was peaceful with stops for passengers at Versailles, Missouri, and Atchison, Kansas, before arrival at Omaha the evening of March 31. Capt. Yore went ashore to spend the night at the Herndon House, the town’s most prestigious hotel, as he prepared to return to St. Louis.
At daybreak the morning of April 1, the Bertrand got underway under highly experienced, new captain, Horace Bixby, who had relieved Capt. Yore on arrival at Omaha. This stretch of the Missouri above Omaha was treacherous and slow going. By three o’clock on a clear, warm afternoon, the steamer was nearly 25 miles (50 river miles) north of Omaha at DeSoto Bend (then known as Portage La Force) when a shocking jolt gripped the boat and its passengers. “Speed and safety” be damned, the Bertrand struck a submerged log amidships on the port side and the giant snag ripped through the hull as the boat began to sink in about 12 feet of water. As the force of the current caused the boat to warp around the snag, Capt. Bixby spun the pilot wheel hard to port to reach the shallows on the Nebraska shore.
Taking on water, the Bertrand beached on a sandbar about 30 feet from the bank. Some passengers jumped overboard and swam ashore. When the boat stabilized, the crew launched the yawl loaded with passengers, and then swung the loading plank ashore so remaining passengers could make their way ashore with no loss of life.
Safe, but shaken, passenger Caroline Barrows Millard, a mother travelling with two small children, wrote, “in a moment as it were, our peaceful little home was changed into fright, confusion, and almost despair, our plans for the future were all changed, and each was eager to save himself from the muddy waters of the Missouri river.”
Montanans, spread through the gold mining camps in southwestern Montana, first learned of the catastrophe through the pages of the Montana Post on April 27:
“STEAMBOAT SUNK.—The steamer Bertrand sunk above Omaha, while on her voyage hither. The passengers, among whom where Mrs. Atchison and Mrs. Millard, with their children, are all safe and sound, but they have lost all their baggage. The cargo was nearly all insured. We learn from Mr. R. Simpson that Gen. Dorris, one of our pioneer merchants, lost, by this accident, a part of the goods he was bringing to this city.”
This short account gave hints of the passengers and the valuable cargo onboard. While all 28 known passengers survived, their personal baggage was lost, and a stunning amount of cargo was lost. Among the passengers were two highly successful Virginia City merchants, John T. Murphy and General George Poole Dorriss, and the families of several others. John Murphy was already a thriving merchant in Virginia City, and on his eventual arrival this year he would form Murphy, Neel & Co. in Helena and Fort Benton and later Murphy-Maclay Hardware—in the words of historian Ronald R. Switzer, “Murphy was one of those rare individuals who could touch anything and turn it to gold.”
Dorriss, on the other hand had a darker past. After serving in the Black Hawk War in Illinois in 1832, and receiving the title “general” from Illinois Governor Reynolds, George Dorriss settled in Platte City, Missouri. There he began trading in African-American slaves, receiving fabulous prices as he took large gangs of slaves down South every few months. The onset of the Civil War ended that lucrative venture, and Gen. Dorriss headed west to begin a mercantile business supplying mining equipment to Alder Gulch miners. Both Murphy and Dorriss had large consignments of goods on the Bertrand. Other major consignees included Granville Stuart of Deer Lodge, Frank Worden of Hell Gate, James M. Vivian and Robert Simpson of Virginia City, M. Kingman of Virginia City, and John J. Roe & Co.
Sixteen women and children were aboard, on the adventures of their lifetimes. Wives, Atchison, Millard, and Walton, were all upper middle class with children, enroute the Montana frontier to join their husbands. Caroline Millard’s father, Willard Barrows, was also onboard to bring his business experience to Virginia City. Two young Campbell sisters, Annie who celebrated her 21st birthday on the day Bertrand sailed, and Fannie, age 18, were enroute to join their father, Major James B. Campbell in Gallatin City. The Campbell sisters were well-educated and would make their own mark on the new territory, teaching and ranching with future husbands. Most passengers proceeded up the Missouri within a few days aboard the Copelin line steamer General Grant, finally reaching Fort Benton onboard another Copelin steamer Deer Lodge. As was common practice, the captain’s wife, Susanna Bixby, was onboard, with her “servant,” possibly Chinese woman Yi-Shing.
The Bertrand’s cargo provided “a time capsule containing a wealth of mid-nineteenth-century Americana.” The story this cargo told is stunning and presented today in exceptional displays of portions of the 300,000 salvaged artifacts at DeSoto Wildlife Refuge, north of Omaha. The early mining camps lacked farms and gardens resulting in shortages in all manner of foodstuffs. Bertrand was loaded not only with flour, sugar, potatoes, other foodstuffs, but even exotic items like brandied peaches and cherries, sardines and many others. Large amounts of textiles and leather goods, mining tools and equipment, a sawmill, nails, saws, locks, hand tools and plows filled the steamer’s hold. Military supplies were onboard including gunpowder and artillery balls and shells. Reportedly, some 5,000 gallons of whiskey in oaken barrels were onboard. Likely the most valuable cargo, consigned by Gen. Dorriss, were cast-iron containers holding as much as 35,000 pounds of mercury (worth more than $250,000 today)—the mercury (quicksilver) was used to separate gold from impurities. Overall, the Bertrand’s cargo was a treasure trove of nineteenth-century material culture.
The Bertrand belonged to a new steamboat line, the Montana and Idaho Transportation Co. formed the previous year and owned principally by wealthy St. Louis pork-packer Captain John J. Roe. The “trading empire” that Roe established in 1864 intended to dominate the upper Missouri River market, providing trade goods, moving these goods and passengers on company steamboats to Fort Benton, then loading the cargo on company wagon trains to freight in every direction around the new territory, to be sold in company retail stores. So, Capt. Roe provided the money; his son-in-law Captain John G. Copelin managed the Montana and Idaho Transportation Co. steamboat operation; and close friend Captain Nicholas Wall managed the overland freight line that became famous as the “Diamond R,” with the “R” for Roe. Capt. Nick Wall also managed the John J. Roe & Co. Montana retail stores in Bannack, Virginia City, and Helena.
All three men, Roe, Wall, and Copelin, were steamboat captains, and Roe and Wall had operated steamboat commission houses in St. Louis before the Civil War. Roe made a fortune during the war supplying pork to the Union army. Copelin “grew up” during the war, marrying Roe’s daughter, and gaining experience as steamboat captain throughout the war. Wall, on the other hand had begun the war as Major of Commissary for the Confederate-leaning Missouri State Guard, and with the rest of the Guard had been captured by federal troops at Camp Jackson, held as prisoner of war, and paroled. Honoring his parole, Capt. Wall came up the Missouri River on the steamer Emilie in 1862 to open a retail store at Gold Creek, beginning his Montana adventure.
By 1865, the Roe empire dominated the trade with 11 of the 23 steamboats bound for Fort Benton, while operating the largest freight line, the Diamond R, and the largest retail stores, John J. Roe & Co. Only the Bertrand failed to deliver the goods to Montana Territory for the Roe empire that year.
Most of Bertrand’s cargo was insured by the Board of Underwriters of St. Louis, and salvage operations soon recovered the steamer’s valuable engines, machinery, deck cargo, and apparently some of the whiskey and most of the mercury. Several other salvage attempt were made with the last in 1896-97 to recover more of the Bertrand’s cargo with little success. Yet, over the decades the Missouri changed course, silting over the steamer, eventually burying it under a cornfield.
A century passed, and in 1968 two local private salvagers, Sam Corbino and Jesse Pursell, discovered the long-lost steamer in the DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge, managed by the U.S. Department of Interior. Complying with the Antiquities Act of 1906, all recovered artifacts went to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for preservation. Some 300,000 artifacts were recovered from the hold of the Bertrand—about half its total cargo. This massive treasure today is presented as a time capsule of life and material culture in Montana mining camps through displays in a museum at the DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge, north of Omaha. While Bertand’s cargo never arrived at the Fort Benton levee to be freighted to the gold mining camps of Montana, through the DeSoto Wildlife Refuge Museum, a unique and powerful story is presented of life and culture on the Montana frontier.
This article originally appeared on Great Falls Tribune: In Honor of Fort Benton’s Steamboat Era: The death of the steamboat Bertrand
