IOWA HISTORY PROJECT |
Burlington, Iowa
“Saturday Evening Post”
1911
OLD STEAMBOAT BURIED NEAR FOOT OF MARKET STREET
Many readers have been interested in the story of
Viking ships hat have been discovered and raised and are on exhibition in
England and Germany, or of ancient Roman Galleys and other Greek and Roman
vessels that have been recovered from their resting places at he bottom of
lakes and bays. Burlington may contribute a similar find somewhere in the dim
and distant future. Old-timers recall an early steamer named “the Jerry”, She
had been used on the Missouri river in that era ere the people in the Valley
had forgotten that the big Muddy is a navigable stream. Later ‘The Jerry’ was
brought to Burlington, where she was kept busy and even navigated Hawkeye creek
and sometime ascended far into the present business district of the city of Burlington.
One winter she was moored at Market and Main streets. Burlington. Her upper decks and the engines and machinery were being changed.
Some trouble arose, the hull began filling with mud and sand. The means for
raising and repairing vessels were rather primitive and the right kind of
timber for building new hulls was very plentiful at that time, and was to be
had for the taking. Accordingly no effort was made to raise the old hull, and
if the old timers are correct she must now be lying in Market Street Burlington.
Perhaps long after the memory of “The Jerry” shall
have perished somebody may be excavating at that spot, the old hull may be
brought to light. And the savants of that period will gather and will hold long
sessions and perhaps they will claim that it was a De Soto vessel that ascended
the river, or that it formed a part of an early fleet of discovery of which the
very name has been lost. Or if Ignasius Donnelly is not forgotten at that time,
they may find that it was a part of the navy of Atlantis, that has lain there
for in numbered centuries. It might be the proper thing for the Hawkeye Natives
to look, up the records of “Jerry’ and preserve it for the benefit of future
historians and antiquarians.
Burlington, Iowa
“Saturday Evening Post”
1911
From an old magazine article by G. C. Broadhead
Quoting from an old account of the trip of Capt. Sarpy, of St. Louis, he says:
“They tied up at this island on the evening of the 15th of December, 1811. In
looking around they found that a party of river pirates occupied part of the
island and were expecting Sarpy with the intention of robbing him. As soon as
Sarpy found that out he quietly dropped lower down the river. In the night the
earthquake came and next morning when the accompanying haziness disappeared the
island could no longer be seen. It had been utterly destroyed as well as its
pirate inhabitants.”
On the river a number was drowned. Bradbury mentions seeing drifting canoes,
the owners of which he afterward found had been lost. Hildreth describes the
loss of several boats and their crews by caving banks. Lloyd records that a
flatboat belonging to Richard Stump was swamped and six men drowned. Many other
boats were destroyed by snags and the river covered with wrecks.
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