IAGenWeb - Scott County
MISSISSIPPI RIVER FOLK BACKGROUND
D. F. DORRANCE THE PILOTS IMMBROGLIO
ARREST OF D H. Dorrance for driving without a license
What is claimed by the inspectors and what Mr. Durance claims, held for appearance.
There was some more pilot business before Commissioner White this afternoon. D. H. Dorrance, one of three Dorrance's who are so well-known as rapids pilots, was the party in custody, charged with the crime of violating section 4438 of the laws of the United States, which forbids any person to sail as pilot of a vessel on the navigable waters of the United States without a license.
It appears that the district inspectors, Barns and Scott, are at the bottom of the prosecution. They notified U. S.Attorney finch of the alleged offense and he added accordingly, and Captain Jack McCaffrey was summoned as the prosecuting witness. The information alleges that on the 14th day of September, 1886, the License of D. A. Dorrance was suspended by the inspectors for a period of ten days, and that on the 17th day of September he acted as pilot on the steamer Pilot, on the Mississippi river, in Scott County, Iowa, that he did the same thing with the same steamer on the 30th and 31st day of September.
Attorney Fisch was present for the government and Abner Davison appeared with Mr. Dorrance as his counsel. Mr Davison claimed that Mr. Dorrance had not been properly suspended-that he had been given no opportunity for a hearing before the inspectors, who suspended prematurely without notice to him, and that therefore the suspension was waived and the commissioners held Dorrance in the sum of $300 for appearance of the next term of the U. S. court in Keokuk.
All the pilots on the upper Mississippi and the masters and mates of steamboats are watching the proceedings against Dorrance with great interest. There are some very peculiar features in the case. For instance, Dana Dorrance claims that he did not get a pilot during his suspension, that because he was seen in the pilot house of the steamer it was taken for granted that he was acting at the wheel, when he wasn't, he claims, too, that he employed another pilot, giving him $300 a month to do his work. But the government will endeavor to show that durance was really the pilot when he was in the pilot house the times complained of that the party he employed was not a rapids pilot at best a packet pilot; that the later stood at the wheel. While Dorrance told him how to direct the raft in the channel, and he steered the raft accordingly; and that thus Dorrance was pilot in fact. The inspectors say that there is no use of having rules and regulations for the government of pilots if pilots are to be permitted to get around them in that way, or to pay no attention to suspensions.
Source: Unknown. 18 Nov 1886.