J.W. Rambo

RAMBO, METZGAR

Posted By: Rebecca Foster (email)
Date: 9/10/2014 at 12:40:13

One of Last Raft Pilots Succumbs at Le Claire in his Eighty-First Year.

With the death at 5 o’clock this morning at Le Claire of Capt. J. W. Rambo, is marked the passing of one of the few remaining raft pilots who plied the Mississippi river in the heyday of steam boating before the ramifications of the railroad industry had made obsolescent and almost obsolete the slower and less direct transportation afforded by the locomotive.
Capt. Rambo was 81 years of age, and had been retired from active piloting since Oct 15, 1922. His declining health was not marked until the last few weeks.

For sixty years he piloted rafts thru the Le Claire rapids, having gained his first river experience when an adolescent.

The fascination of the river held for him the remainder of his life. He guided hundreds of boats up and down the Mississippi and earned a reputation as a rapids pilot in the days when railroading was in its infancy.

During the last years of his active river service, Capt. Rambo was commanding officer of the steamer “Artimus Gates” of Clinton owned by the Clinton Sand and Gravel company. He knew well every bend and shoal in the river for many miles on either side of his home city.
For four terms, he served as mayor of Le Claire, and was acting in that capacity at the time the present city hall was built there. He also served as a councilman of Le Claire for several years.

Capt. Rambo was born in Rapids City, Ill., July 27, 1844 across the river from Le Claire and with his parents came to Le Claire when he was but two weeks old, retaining his residence there ever since. He married Miss Josephine Slaughter at Princeton, Nov. 24, 1864, and the couple celebrated their sixtieth wedding anniversary on Thanksgiving day of last year.

In the Masonic fraternity, Capt. Rambo won distinction by serving in the various offices of the fraternity, including that of worshipful master. He was a member of Snow Lodge No. 34 at Le Claire, with which he became affiliated in 1871. At the time he was initiated, his brother-in-law, Capt. Joseph Hawthorne, also a pioneer river captain, also took the initiatory degree, and both were equally prominent in the offices of the lodge. In 1921, the lodge celebrated the golden anniversary of the affiliation of Capt. Rambo and Capt. Hawthorne.
In childhood, Capt. Rambo attended the old Sycamore school, at that time resided with his parents near the old water mill.

Those who survive are his wife; one daughter, Mrs. B. J. Metzgar; and one grandson, Ward Metzgar of Dubuque.

Funeral service will be held Sunday afternoon from the home under the auspices of the Masonic Lodge. Interment will be in the Le Claire Cemetery.

Source: Davenport Democrat, Davenport, Ia., 30 Jan 1925.