George Matheson (Towboat, 1878-1906)

Summary

• BOAT DESCRIPTION: Sternwheel
• BOAT TYPE: Towboat
• BUILT: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1878
• FINAL DISPOSITION: Dismantled 1906
• OWNERS: Marmet Coal Company; Miller
• RIVERS: Ohio River; Kanawha River
• OTHER INFORMATION: Ways - T0923; National Tube Works built her original boilers, lap-welded, double riveted as were the mud drums and steam drum. This was one of the first applications of steel for such purposes. She carried a whistle which duplicated that of the Katie Stockdale and which went on the second boat of that name. She towed out of Pittsburgh for Marmet Coal in her early years, and later out of Kanawha River. She towed the Santa Maria in a Columbus Day celebration at Cincinnati on October 12, 1892. On board were E. A. Burnside, Harry Burnside, Charles E. Morris, William D. Curry and others, fresh down the Ohio River on a rowboat trip from Point Pleasant. She sank in ice at Cincinnati on January 8, 1893 and sank over the cabin roof. When the ice moved out, the upper cabins were shorn off. A man named Miller bought the wreck at a bargain, raised it, and soon had it running again. She was dismantled in 1906
• PHOTO DESCRIPTION: Kanawha River dock at Point Pleasant, West Virginia; from left to right, the George Matheson, the J. B. Lewis, and the Iron Age