James Howard (Packet, 1870-1881)

Date

• 1871

Summary

• BOAT DESCRIPTION: Sidewheel
• BOAT TYPE: Packet
• BUILT: Jeffersonville, Indiana by Howard, 1870
• FINAL DISPOSITION: Burned at St. Louis, March 13, 1881
• OWNERS: Captain B. Rush Pegram (1870); Anchor Line (1878)
• OFFICERS & CREW: Captain B. Rush Pegram (master); Captain James O'Neal; Captain James H. Pepper (master); March 1881: Captain Joseph W. Bryant (master), Archie Woods (first clerk), J. C. Elton (second clerk), James Reed and Ned Fulkerson (pilots), James Newell (chief engineer), Eugene Smith (second engineer), Dennis Conner (mate), Patrick Doyle (second mate), Alf Dickson (steward)
• RIVERS: Mississippi River
• OTHER INFORMATION: Ways - 2930; Home port or owner's residence 1870 at New Orleans; carried 3,200 tons and cost $180,000; known as the "Oil Cake Jim". Built for Captain B. Rush Pegram and others for the St. Louis-New Orleans trade. She was at Cincinnati January 21, 1871, for public inspection; an estimated 45,000 visitors came aboard. She transported the Grand Duke Alexis of Russia to New Orleans for the 1872 Mardi Gras. On September 9, 1873, fire was discovered in the hold at Commerce, Missouri, and she had to be scuttled on purpose to put out the blaze. Her biggest cotton cargo into New Orleans on a single trip was 7,701 bales in 1875, a record to that date. Her biggest trip was in January 1881 with 3200 tons of cargo. She was sold to the Anchor Line in 1878. She burned at St. Louis March 13, 1881, just in from New Orleans with a large cargo of sugar. Crew and passengers escaped safely. She was replaced by the Thompson Dean