Lee Line Steamers | Riverboat History

The Memphis Commerical Appeal May 18, 2012 reported the following for May 18, 1887

“A large number of excursionists from Illinois who came to see the delights of Memphis aboard the steamer BUCKEY STATE, yesterday visited the Cotton Exchange and Merchants Exchanges.  A number of them expressed a determination to move to Memphis.”

Since Memphis had suffered from several outbreaks of Yellow Fever resulting in the deaths of thousands of Memphians, this is quite interesting.

The Commercial Appeal also reported the following for May 18, 1912

“A parting shot at gambling in Memphis will be taken by the retiring Grand Jury today.  In its supplemental report to Judge Jesse Edgington there will be included a long list of saloon-keepers accused of running gambling houses in connection with their bars.”

Before and during that time, the Memphis City Directory listed more saloons by far than any other businesses.   The City Directories listed name, race, address and the occuption of many Memphis residents.  Old Directory listings can be searched at the following link:  http://register.shelby.tn.us/ under the tab Memphis City Directories 1859 through 1923.

The Memphis Commercial Appeal Mid-South Memories May 13, 2012

Built in Memphis from bow to stern, the Lee Line’s Bob Lee Jr. will make her trial trip on the Mississippi this week.  The stern wheeler is 145 feet long with a beam of 32 feet.  Except for the upperworks, very little wood was used in her construction, the hull and decks being of steel.  The boat was built for speed and it is thought she will be able to splash water on any packet on the river.

The only picture I have found in various steamboat picture archives is of the BOB LEE Jr renamed the CORONA which is pictured under the Univ. of Wisconsin tab above.  The  CORONA was bought by Standard Oil of New Jersey and was used to push barges in Mexico.  Her sternwheel looks to be the size of much larger sternwheel boats such as the STACKER LEE.  The BOB LEE Jr would have been named for my great uncle Robert E Lee’s son Bobby Lee my fathers first cousin.

The Memphis Commercial Appeal today reported the following: “Bucking the national trends of persistent and even widening gaps in survival rates between black and white cancer patients, kids of both races are faring equally well at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital according to an expansive new study.  The report in Monday’s online edition of the Journal of Clinical Oncology showed there was no significant differences in outcomes for African-American and white children treated at St. Jude over a 15 year period ending in 2007.  “There is absolutely no survival gap by race” at St. Jude, said Dr. Ching-Hon Pui, chairman of the oncology department at the Memphis hospital and lead author of the study.”

Our family has a deep appreciation for the work of St. Jude.   St. Jude treats children regardless of their families ability to pay for treatment.  In June 1992 our oldest child who was 12 at the time was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia.   The doctors, nurses, social workers, chaplains, housekeepers, aids and food service do a remarkable job of taking care of the children and their families who find themselves at St. Jude.   Late December 1994, we learned that our child had relapsed and needed a bone marrow transplant.   In-spite of a low probability of surviving her transplant, her doctors and transplant team willingly provided this life saving proceedure and the necessary care.   Thank you St. Jude doctors and staff.  Dr. Pui was her leukemia doctor for her first 30 months at St. Jude.  Thank you Dr. Pui.

The Memphis Commercial Mid-South Memories April 29, 2012 reported “The steamer JACK FROST left yesterday for the Illinois River with three empty ice barges.  Its return with the barges filled will be eagerly awaited by those wishing to slake their thirst with a cool drink.”  April 29, 1887.

The Bohlen Huse Ice Company which was operated various times my great grandfather James Lee Jr along with my great uncle Bayliss Lee who later served as an officier after working for Lee Brothers Co. (which was the sole supplier to the Lee Line Steamers Co.)  In the early and mid 1890′s the businesses called itself the Bohlen Huse Lake and Machine Ice Co, indicating that northern lake ice was brought to Memphis to meet the demand that man made ice could not satisfy.  The Bohlen Huse Ice Company operated the first artesian well in Memphis.  The business owned a farm in the Raleigh area of what is now Memphis where mules were rested from their jobs pulling ice wagons.

IDLEWILD  Way’s Packet Directory:  built by Howard Shipyard Jeffersonville Ind. 1870 216 x 35.6 x 6.4, sternwheel packet wood hull.  “She was a beautful clipper of faultless proportions, proud and jaunty appearance, and as speedy as she was handsome.”  This boat paid for herself in just 2 years, and then was sold for just what she cost.  Her last owner was Memphis & Arkansas City Packet Co.  On Feb. 13, 1876 below Friar’s Point Mississippi she knocked out both cylinder heads in one engine when her starboard shaft broke.  A tornado whipped across, sinking the CITY OF QUINCY nearby.  The IDLEWILD , in her disabled condition, came alongside and removed the passengers.  The IDLEWILD and the OSCEOLA BELLE burned at Memphis on July 31, 1881.

QUICK STEP Way’s Packet Directory:  Sternwheel packet wood hull built Murraysville, West Virginia 1866 200 x 29 x 5.4.  Completed at Pittsburg.  Entered the Pittsburg – Cincinnatti trade fall 1866.  Sold first week of December 1866 and ran the Evansville – Paducah trade.  April 1869 the QUICK STEP collided with and sank OLLIE SULLIVAN at Diamond Island.  During a storm at Evansville July 7, 1873 she lost her stacks and was blown from the landing.  When dismantled at Metropolis Illinois, 1876 her machinery went to COAHOMA (Lee Line Steamer Co.).  Her oil headlights still was in the Lee Line wharfboat at Memphis 1920.  The QUICK STEP is named on the Lee Line Poster naming all boats the Lee Line owned during its existence from 1866 to 1926.

COAHOMA: Way’s Packet Directory page 102. Side Wheeler, Packet, wood hull, built Metropolis, Ill 1876, 205.2 x 32 x 7. Compound engines, 17’s, 31’s – 7 ft. Three boilers and five flues. Built for the Lee Line Memphis. A widely circulated report while she was under construction was that Capt. James Lee (Sr) intended renaming her KATE FRISBEE to honor that old packet and her builder. The Ohio River was very low when she was launched. The new hull plowed in the mud and stuck. The IDLEWILD took a pull at it but had no luck. Her wheel shafts came from the burned CITY OF EVANSVILLE and her cabin was from the QUICKSTEP. The job of moving the cabin took only an hour and thirty minutes and was done so easily that the night watchman asleep in the Texas did not know he was on a new boat until he was called. Paddlewheels were 26 ft. in diameter with 15 ft buckets. She ran Memphis – Friars Point where the Lee Line had a U.S. Mail contract at $18,400 annually. Capt. Harry Cooper was master in 1882 with John Haley clerk. In 1892 she was in Pittsburg having been bought by Capt. Lee Anshutz and theater owner Harry Davis. They had plans to make an excursion boat of her which died aborning. Dismantled. QUICKSTEP’S oil headlight was still in the Lee Line wharf boat at Memphis 1920

Memphis Commercial Appeal Mid-South Memories April 18, 2012

April 18, 1912 Memphis will not have automobile mail service.  The contract for transporting the mail from the Post Office to the depots and back has been awarded to Dr. J.T. Spence for $9000 a year.  He will use the screened wagons that have carried the mails for the past eight years, the use of automobiles being too high in cost.

Around 1912 the automobile was seen as an answer to the pressing pollution problem of the day in major cities such as Chicago and New York, what to do with the mountains of horse manure discarded from the streets.  Brownstone homes in New York were built with elevated first floors to escape manure ladened rain run-off from seeping into street level homes.

The following is from the book STEAMBOATS AND FERRIES ON THE WHITE RIVER A HERITAGE REVISITED (page 90) by The University of Arkansas Press Fayetteville Arkansas:  “Already hard pressed by the increasing railroad competition, steam navigation received another setback when a government tax was placed on the industry.  Needless to say, the new levy was very unpopular with the steamboat captains.  A reporter for the MEMPHIS PUBLIC LEDGER quoted portions of a speech that was written  by Capt. Stacker Lee  and presented by Capt. Milt Harry at the convention of steamboatmen: …”showing the whereofs of boats carrying freight at cheap rates, heavy insurance, and the bare faced cussedness of the newfangled government tax tacked on to the poor steamboatmen, who can’t afford to pay lobbyist to represent then in Congress.”  March 29, 1879.

Cut throat competition, taxes, conventions and lobbyist, expensive insurance, change the date and this could have been written about current events.  This also brings to mind the quote from King Solomon who said in Ecclesiastes chapter 1 verses 9 and 10 “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.  Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This is something new”?  It was here before our time.”

Sadie Lee Univ of Wisconsin Neg. 33042

Ways Packet Directory boat 4908; Sadie Lee was named after the daughter of Captain and Mrs. James Lee, Jr. Original cost was $10,000. She came out in Memphis-Ashport trade and later ran Memphis-Vicksburg. On November 13, 1910 she struck a log at O.K. Landing, on the Mississippi River while enroute to Memphis, Tennessee. She sank and was raised with estimated damage at $7,000. On November 15, 1912, while upbound, she hit a snag and sank at Dennis Landing, Mississippi. The John Lee and the Kate Adams picked up some of the passengers.

This picture is used with permission from the University of Wisconsin LaCrosse Collection.