Lee Line Steamers | Riverboat History

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.

CORONA Univ of Wisconsin neg 8755

Way’s Packet Directory boat 0662.  “Steel Hull packet, built 1912 on the levee by the Southern Tank & Boiler Works Memphis Tn. for the Lee Line.  145 ft x 32 ft, originally had compound engines, 15’s, 30’s – 6 ft stroke and a firebox boiler.  Burned at the Memphis wharf destroying upper works in August 1913.  Sold to Standard Oil which made a towboat of her and renamed her CORONA.  They sold her to Transcontinental Oil (Standard subsidiary) and she was taken to the Panuco River, Mexico where she was renamed ROBALO.  Ultimately Standard brought her back again and called her CORONA, she flopped over at Island 35, in 1932.”  In this picture the CORONA is pushing a fuel barge.

This picture is used with permission of the University of Wisconsin Murphy Special Collections LaCrosse WI.  In searching their archive looking for the BOB LEE JR, this is the only picture available.

The President of Standard Oil of New Jersey, Walter Teagle met my great aunt Rowena Lee on a transatlantic voyage sometime in the early 1900’s and married around 1907.  In 1912 her nephew by marriage, Walter Edge former governor of New Jersey and former ambassador to France became President of the Lee Line Co with Walter Teagle serving as Vice President after my great uncle Robert E. Lee served as Lee Line President from 1895 until 1912.  My grandfather Shelby Rees Lee and his older brother G Peters Lee served as district managers of the Lee Line until the Lee Line entered voluntary liquidation in 1926.

City of Clifton neg 30269 Univ of Wisconsin LaCrosse Collection

This picture used by permission from the Univ. of Wisconsin LaCrosse Collection.

CITY OF CLIFTON Way’s Packet Directory boat 1068, sternwheel packet, wood hull, built Jeffersonville Ind., 1900.  190 ft. 36 ft.x 5 ft.  Engines 16’s – 7 ft.  Three boilers.  She was built for the Lee Line Memphis, christened ROWENA LEE, but was bought by the St. Louis & Tennessee River Packet Co. before she left the builders.  They renamed her CITY OF CLIFTON.  Capt. R.W. McCoy, master.  Sank at Seventy-Six Landing, a short distance above Grand Tower, Ill., in August 1901, raised.  Burned at Clifton Tenn. in February 1903.

The origional ROWENA LEE was built at Howard Shipyard Jeffersonville Ind., 1890 and was 166.5 ft. x 35 ft. x 4.5 ft.  Way’s Packet Directory Boat 4856.  She sank at Mhoon’s Landing below Memphis in October 1897 with her head in six feet and the stern in 12 feet.  Had 300 bales of cotton and some passengers, removed by the J.N. HARBIN.  The ROWENA LEE carried the whistle from the RUTH and it later went to the JAMES LEE (2nd)  and then to HARRY LEE.  Rebuilt at Howards in 1899.  Finally sank for keeps at Tyler’s Mo., just above the Arkansas state line, this in 1902.