IAGenWeb - Scott County
MISSISSIPPI RIVER FOLK BACKGROUND
CAPTAIN S. R. VAN SANT Captain Van Sant
Sketch of Capt. S. R. Van Sant
From cabin boy to GovernorA long, honorable and successful career as a boat owner and operator on the Upper Mississippi.
"Of course all river men know that captain Van Sant is not a native Le Claire but he has always been so intimately connected with the steamboat and river life of Le Claire that in my mind I always think of him as being to the manor born.
Neither was his wife Ruth Hall a native of le Claire, although remembering her joyous participation in the social gayety of the old town during her girlhood and the deep personal interest she ahs shown for it during her mature years we feel that le Claire has a greater right to claim them both than has any other place.
There probably never was a couple in real life who achieved the fame and the material success the have that were more free form a snobbish sense of their importance. Plain, unaffected, sociable, business like they have remained thru go as well as evil fortune. Preoccupied, at times as Captain Sam was some may have thought him unsociable but when you consider the load he was carrying you certainly must admit him excusable.
I was not on the inside, of course but from current river gossip, there was a time when probably more than $50,000 would have been needed to put the firm on its feet. It used to be told the Captain that he was in the habit of carrying around a five hundred dollar bill to pull on the groceryman, woodhawks, coal men, butchers and other small dealers and when they would say they couldn't change it he would just say "Well you will just have to wait till next trip them."
Rathmann used to tell this on him with great gusto. He said the Captain come running into the shop one day after he had finished icing the meat for the Silver Wave and asked if he could make out the bill for the days supplies right away as he was in a hurry but to just let the old account stand for awhile longer. As Rathmann handed him the invoice he threw down the five hundred dollar bill and asked him to take the change out of that. As Rathmann frequently needed change he generally kept a pretty good nest-egg on hand and was especially prepared so he just reached down under the counter and brought up a wallet and then he went back and came up with a shot-sack but about that time Captain Sam picked up the bill remarking "Oh just wait a minute. I believe I can make the change." And he pulled out a roll and paid it and then Rathmann walked out from behind the counter and placing his hand on the Captains shoulder and said "Now Sammie you hadn't ought to do me that way, you can get any thing you want but you musn't treat me like that. Great bighearted butcher Rathmann, he carried many a man beside Captain Sam thru a tight place."
Now at the same time that captain Van Sant was turning every trick and making every edge cut, every man on deck got his envelope."
Source: Saturday Evening Post, Burlington, Ia., 02 Sep 1916.