Prairie Belle?

Subject: Prairie Belle?
From: harpgirl
Date: 15 May 99 - 07:51 PM

can someone click me to the thread with the click to the picture of the Prairie Belle burning?....I have a song about it which I don't think we have in the DT...harpgirl

Subject: RE: Prairie Belle?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 16 May 99 - 12:24 PM

Harp, Could be wrong but I think the Prairie Bell was a fictional steamboat in the poem "Jim Bledsoe". Some folks do sing it. (Dave Para & Cathy Barton out o' Boonville, Missouri--right on thre Missouri River.) They sing on the Delta Queen sometimes.

Could you be meaning the Bayou Sara? I've seen photos of that boat but not photos of it burning. It did burn though.

Art

Subject: RE: Prairie Belle?
From: harpgirl
Date: 16 May 99 - 02:53 PM

Hey Art,
I realized I confused the Sultana with the Priarie Belle! I ran across the words to the Jim Bledsoe and the Prairie Belle song and wanted to post and talk about them. I ordered some vinyl from Caroline yesterday and hope to hear some more of Dave and Cathy. Sorry for the politically uncorrect joke about the Sultana tragedy but the picture had an odd impact on me. Maybe it's because I have been in some boating accidents including one in which I capsized with nine little kids in a sailboat in the Detroit River. (All accounted for)...words coming...harp

Subject: RE: Prairie Belle?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 16 May 99 - 03:23 PM

Ms. Abby,

Don't mean to Harp on this, but... :-)

The photos of the Sultana were within the Steamboat thread, in a posting from Dale Rose I believe. He provided a link to the place where it was, but maybe I'm wrong. I recall a fairly recent article from an Arkansas newspaper on the anniversary of the Sultana explosion. That's where I put the song I wrote back in 1961. Whew, this memory crap gets to ya. Anyhow, Dale did provide a link I think. (therefore I am)

Art

Subject: RE: Prairie Belle?
From: Dale Rose
Date: 16 May 99 - 09:43 PM

Art is right, I posted it, but in a separate thread entitled Sultana something-or-other. It won't do you any good to look it up, though, as the Arkansas Democrat Gazette only leaves stories on line for a week after publication, so the story and picture are long gone.

However, there is a ton of stuff out there. Here are a couple. poem and picture There is also access at the bottom of the page to a Sultana webring. Bet you can find lots there.

story and picture

Interestingly enough, just this morning, I was skimming through my old copy of Legends and Lore of Southern Illinois by John W. Allen, Southern Illinois University, 1963, and read his story about The Six Sultanas. I have no time now, but I will scan and post later if you are interested.

Subject: RE: Prairie Belle?
From: Dale Rose
Date: 16 May 99 - 09:52 PM

Oh, should have given you this too. (Too many things on my mind overload my brain) song and info about Jim Bludso and the Prairie Belle from Dave and Cathy's site. Recommended. (Actually ANYTHING they do is recommended)

Subject: RE: Prairie Belle?
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 16 May 99 - 09:53 PM

Dale: I'm interested! Please post when you have a chance.

Sandy

Subject: RE: Prairie Belle?
From: harpgirl
Date: 16 May 99 - 10:01 PM

I'm glad you posted their site Dale. I do remember the Gazette article about the Sultana. The picture of that crowded boat shook me up and I made a joke about it...I found the song about the Prairie Belle in an old cowboy songbook and would like to hear someone perform it...harpgirl

Subject: RE: Prairie Belle?
From: Dale Rose
Date: 19 May 99 - 01:06 AM

OK, I scanned it, and I think I caught all the obvious OCR errors. First, a bit about the book. It is available from Barnes and Noble, used, at prices ranging from $15 on up to $118.16. I have no idea why there is such a range, but a good many of the books are signed by John W. Allen, as is mine. The book was of great interest, especially in Southern Illinois, as it was a compilation of a series of newspaper articles that Mr. Allen wrote back in that era. As such, the information contained in the article is not nearly as detailed as you will find in some of the books written specifically about the Sultana, but interesting, nevertheless.

THE SIX SULTANAS

THE GREATEST MARINE disaster in American history is brought to mind by the name "Sultana." There actually were six Sultanas that operated along the Ohio and Mississippi borders of southern Illinois before tragedy came to rest upon the final one. The first bearing the name was built in Cincinnati in 1836 and operated from that port until it was abandoned in 1844. A second and somewhat larger one was built at Jeffersonville, Indiana, and registered at New Orleans. The latest record of this second boat indicates that it left St. Louis for New Orleans with a part of the Fourth Illinois Infantry bound for the Mexican War.

The third and smallest "Sultana," also known as "Sultana No. 2," was built at New Albany, Indiana, in 1848 and operated out of St. Louis until abandoned in 1852. The fourth and largest "Sultana," known for its splendor and luxury, was built at Cincinnati in 1848. It burned at St. Louis on June 12, 1851, with the loss of one life. A fifth "Sultana" was built at Paducah in 1852, operated from its home port of Evansville until destroyed by fire at Hickman, Kentucky, on March 25, 1857.

The sixth and last of the Sultanas was built at Cincinnati and commissioned there on February 7, 1863. On March 11 of that year, its registry was transferred to St. Louis, and John C. Mason became its master. This steamer was 210 feet long, 41 feet wide and 6 feet 6 inches deep. It had one deck, a plane head cabin, four boilers and two engines with 25-inch cylinders and strokes of 8 feet. Its tonnage was 660.38. There were accommodations for seventy-six cabin and three hundred deck passengers.

In April, 1865, the "Sultana" left New Orleans carrying a total of 250 passengers and crew, and a cargo of 250 hogsheads of sugar. It stopped at Vicksburg to take on two thousand Union prisoners recently released by the defeated Confederacy and assembled there. This made a total of more than 2,200 passengers on a steamer licensed to carry only 376. It also took about sixty horses and mules aboard, despite the fact that the "Pauline Carroll," an unloaded steamer as large as the "Sultana," was lying at the Vicksburg wharf and sought vainly for one thousand of the troops at the government rate.

While stopped at Vicksburg, it had boiler repairs made. A section 26 inches by 11 inches was cut from the worst part of its bulged plates. A makeshift patch was placed over the hole by boilermaker R. G. Taylor. Taylor later testified that he was not allowed to press the bulged section back into place because that would have delayed the boat. The plate used for patching was only 1/4 inch thick while the regular plate was 17/48 inch. The boat's officers insisted that the work be done in this manner and promised to cut out the bulged section and install thicker plate at St. Louis.

Overloaded beyond reason, the steamer left Vicksburg for St. Louis. Having already flouted many safety regulations, the "Sultana" proceeded to ignore still others. The engineers did not lower steam pressure to compensate for the thinner section of plate. Regular operations and accustomed speed were maintained until the boat reached a point about seven miles above Memphis, when the patched boiler suddenly exploded, killing many outright and hurling others into the river. The boat immediately burst into flame, trapping hundreds of passengers. Perhaps no large steamer was destroyed in so short a time; few survived. Passenger lists and rosters of released prisoners vanished in the explosion and fire. According to the most reliable estimates made at the official investigation, at least 1,900 persons perished. This tragic marine disaster of April 27, 1865 still is unparalleled in American records.

Very old persons in southern Illinois may recall an elder's occasional remark concerning some local Civil War soldier: "He was on the 'Sultana.'" No other boat has been named "Sultana," it being an established tradition of the river that the name of a boat meeting a disastrous end be discontinued.