Rob't. E. Lee (Packet, 1876-1882)

Summary

• BOAT DESCRIPTION: Sidewheel
• BOAT TYPE: Packet
• BUILT: Jeffersonville, Indiana, hull by Howard Ship Yard; construction was completed at Portland, Kentucky, and New Albany, Indiana, and finishing touches at Cairo in mid-summer, 1876
• FINAL DISPOSITION: Destroyed by fire at Yucatan Plantation, down river from Vicksburg, on September 30, 1882
• OWNERS: Captain John W. Cannon
• OFFICERS & CREW: Captain John W. Cannon (master); John Stout (pilot); September 30, 1882: Ben Stout (pilot), William Perkins (engineer)
• RIVERS: Mississippi River
• OTHER INFORMATION: Ways - 4778; Much of the equipment from the former Rob't. E. Lee went into her construction. More pretentious than her predecessor, she was designed for the New Orleans-Vicksburg trade. She entered that trade August 15, 1876 and ran regularly until February 16, 1877, when she blew a cylinder head, killing one of the crew. After $3500 in repairs, she resumed the trade on March 24. She finished the season July 1, 1878, having made a total of 43 round trips and bringing to New Orleans large and extensive shipments of the following goods: many thousands of bales of cotton and sacks of cotton seed; hundreds of sacks of cotton seed meal, cotton and oil cake; and many hundreds of barrels of cotton seed oil, flour, apples, whiskey, molasses, potatoes, plus other miscellaneous cargo. On several occasions she was chosen to serve as the Royal Yacht bearing the Mardi Gras royalty to New Orleans, in 1878, in 1879, and again in 1880. Because of the impact of widespread yellow fever on business in 1878, Captain Cannon was forced to cancel insurance on his boat. He died at the age of 62 in the spring of 1882. In fall, 1882, the boat was renovated, repainted and entered again into the trade. While downbound from Vicksburg at 3:30 a.m. on September 30, 1882, she caught fire at Yucatan Plantation and, according to some witnesses, she "went up like gunpowder", with a loss of 30 lives and a financial loss of $118,000. Her roof bell was salvaged several years later by W. J. Pearson and placed in the Methodist Church at Grand Gulf, Mississippi. In 1902 the bell was presented to Mrs.Callender of Port Gibson, and her son B. B. Callender still had it there in 1947
• PHOTO DESCRIPTION: On the ways at Howard Ship Yard