Will J. Cummins (Packet, 1895-1901)

Summary

• BOAT DESCRIPTION: Sternwheel
• BOAT TYPE: Packet
• BUILT: 1895 at Jeffersonville, Indiana by Howard Ship Yard
• FINAL DISPOSITION: Snagged and lost at Beech Creek below Clifton, Tennessee on the Tennessee River in April 1901
• OWNERS: Captain J. Mack Gamble (1897); Louisville and Nashville Railroad Company (1899); St. Louis and Tennessee River Packet Company (1901)
• OFFICERS & CREW: Captain Tim Armstrong; Captain James Till (master, 1899); William Hunter (first mate, 1899)
• RIVERS: Cumberland River; Ohio River
• OTHER INFORMATION: Ways - 5792; She ran in opposition to the Ryman Line in the Cumberland River making trips to the headwaters at Burnside, Kentucky. She once raced the R. Dunbar. New owner Captain Gamble entered her in the Wheeling-Cincinnati trade on June 13, 1897. About a week later she was tied up by low water. In the fall of 1897 she ran low water in the Louisville-Cincinnati trade with the H.K. Bedford as her partner. She then went back to the Wheeling-Cincinnati run but was laid up by ice in the Muskingum. In 1898 she ran Pittsburgh-Cincinnati. In 1899 the owner, Louisville and Nashville Railroad Company, took her to the Tennessee River. The St. Louis and Tennessee River Packet Company was running her when she was lost at Beech Creek in April 1901