Steamboat Days on the C&D Canal

Steamboat Days on the C&D Canal

The General I. J. Wister, a wooden, steam-powered tug owned by the Back Creek Towing Co. Inset: Capt. Jacob Isaac Truss, master of the Wister.

The Startle, emerging from the Chesapeake City lock with a schooner in tow. Note Masonic Hall in distance, circa 1910. Inset left: The steam whistle off the Startle, courtesy of Harold Lee.  Inset right: Capt. Ed Sheridan, master of any craft on the water.

The Lord Baltimore, the most popular day boat of Ericsson Line fleet.  Inset: John Sager, about the age when he sailed on the steamer to Baltimore.

It was the mistake of my life that I was born too late to have enjoyed the escapades aboard the various steamboats that puffed their way through Chesapeake City’s canal. But I’ve been blessed over the last several years by being able to talk with folks who were born early enough to remember the glory of those extraordinary times. I do recall seeing the old Wilson Liners, and even sailed aboard the City of Wilmington on its voyage to the great Riverview Amusement Park on the Jersey side of the bay. I also talked with Jim Peaper, who ran a concession stand aboard the Wilson Line steamer, Mount Vernon. Edna, Jim’s widow, remembered putting her three-year-old daughter, Susan, up on a table so she could sing for the admiring passengers.

But I like to think that living during the earlier days of the steam vessels—the days of the tugs and Ericsson Liners—would have been even more delightful. With this in mind, let me take you back to those days via the memories of those chosen ones who talked with sparking eyes as they relived in words those youthful, enthusiastic times. And, by the way, hand over your TV remote and iPhone. I promise to return them after the steamboats glide by, trailing their pitch-black smoke, phantom-like, in the distance . . . until the air clears and returns us to the sanitized year of 2013.

“My father was master of the steamboats.” That’s what my grandmother used to exclaim with pride when I was a boy in the forties. She told about Capt. Jacob Truss, pilot of the General D. J. Wister, one of five wooden tugboats powered by steam. The tugs worked the waters of the Chesapeake and Delaware bays and their tributaries. My grandmother told me that Capt. Truss sometimes saw Civil War battles in the distance when he steamed along on the Potomac River. Capt. Ed Sheridan explained further: “My great-grandfather, Capt. Jacob Truss, moved to Chesapeake City in 1852 when he was 18 years old. He became captain of the old side-wheel tug boats, towing barges down the bay, then up the Potomac River. It was while he was going up the Potomac toward the end of the Civil War that he had a four-legged stool shot out from under him.”

          The most popular and most recently-seen steam tug in the canal was the Startle, which can be identified by a statue of a horse on the bow. Capt. Stanley Benson was its pilot, Nobe Benson its engineer, Groom Benson its fireman, and John Sager its cook and deck hand. I believe it was the Startle that was pulling a barge through the canal when the barge sank.  John Loveless remembered: “The barge was loaded with a 65-foot whale, weighing 75 tons. They had the whale’s mouth propped open, which was about eight feet long, and inside the whale they had laid a floor with a carpet, a small table, and four chairs. When the barge sank, the whale was loaded onto another barge and taken to Tolchester and displayed for sightseers. After that it was made into fertilizer.”

          The other very popular steam vessels were the ones in the Ericsson Line fleet. Capt. Ed Sheridan remembered them well. He explained: “The route to Philly is the same that was taken by the Lord Baltimore and the Penn, which have long since been turned into scrap. Those steamers used to make stops in Chesapeake City when the lock was operating, before 1927. When I was a boy I used to go to the lock at noontime to meet the two steamboats as they stopped on their way to Philadelphia and Baltimore. There were dining rooms for their use on both boats. A pianist and often a band played waltzes and fox trots for dancing during the trip.”

          Other residents who were lucky enough to have sailed on those luxury liners remembered: John Sager: “I remember riding from here to Baltimore on the Lord Baltimore. I went with my mother; we boarded just below the Pivot Bridge, near the Pumping Station, at the Ericsson Line Wharf on the North Side. I recall how much smoke those steamers put out, and how narrow they were—about 20 feet wide. Sometimes we'd sail on the day boats and sometimes on the night boats. If we were going down at night we'd get on in the evening at 8 or 9 o'clock. We went to see my aunts in South Baltimore and stayed about a week before returning on another steamer. The steamboat docked at Pratt and Light Streets, in the last berth up in the harbor. At the stern of the Ericsson Line Berth was an area where the banana boats used to come in from South America. They were boarded-up high. I remember that if you wanted to be brave you could go down and throw a pack of cigarettes up there and they'd throw down all the bananas you wanted.”

Bill Briscoe: “When I was a kid we owned the farm that went right down to Hollywood Beach. I remember when the Ericsson Line steamers used to stop at the Town Point Wharf. In fact, we used to ship tomatoes from that wharf. Yes, I watched those steamers run up and down the river. We used to go to Philadelphia on the Night Boat. We'd board at the wharf in Chesapeake City at 10:30 and get to Philly real early in the morning. I wasn't tired when we got there because we always got a berth.” Bob Nichol: “I used to ride up on the Chesapeake City lift bridge. On Saturday evenings the steamer, John Cadwalader, would pass under and many people would sometimes ride up so they could look down on it and all of the passengers aboard. Sometimes there would be so many people on the bridge that the tender would come out and chase some of them off. Two of the bridge tenders were Friday Rhodes and George Knott, the boss. They didn’t care if we rode the bridge.”

          Edna Gorman: “I still remember when the steamers stopped at the Ericsson Line Building to load and unload freight and a few passengers. I remember when they closed the lock. I used to swim down there. I never rode the boats, but in the evenings I used to go down there and watch them. The smoke used to just pour out of them.” John Reynolds: “I remember the steamer, John Cadwalader. My grandmother and aunts used to come up from Baltimore on those steamboats. They'd get off at Schaefer's in the morning to visit us, and then get back on board in the evening to return. I never rode the boats, but I used to ride up on the old Lift Bridge and look down on them as they passed under. That was in 1934 or 1935.”

Walter Cooling: “I recall the steamboats that used to come through here. As a kid I used to jump off them into Back Creek. You see, we kids used to swim off the V, which was a wharf area at the entrance to the Chesapeake City Lock. The lock was next to Schaefer's old store. Well, if we saw the Penn or the Lord Baltimore in the lock, ready to drop into Back Creek, we would run up there, climb aboard, ride it a short distance, and then dive off into the water. Nobody on the boats ever objected.” Lucy Titter: “Miriam Watson told me that when she and Helen Titter were teenagers they rode with Mrs. Titter to Philadelphia on the steamer, Penn. Miriam recalls getting a bloody nose when the upper bunk collapsed onto Mrs. Titter, who was sleeping below.”

The steam vessels are gone, as are the locks, the lift bridges, and the pivot bridges. The canal is now a 450-foot wide, sea-level waterway. But older residents whom I talked with took great pleasure in reminiscing about the lost days of the steamboats.