File:History of early steamboat navigation on the Missouri River - life and adventures of Joseph La Barge (1903) (14579418109).jpg

Identifier: historyofearlyst02chit (find matches)
Title: History of early steamboat navigation on the Missouri River : life and adventures of Joseph La Barge
Year: 1903 (1900s)
Authors: Chittenden, Hiram Martin, 1858-1917
Subjects: La Barge, Joseph, 1815-1899 Ship captains Steam-navigation Fur trade Steamboats
Publisher: New York : F.P. Harper
Contributing Library: Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection
Digitizing Sponsor: The Institute of Museum and Library Services through an Indiana State Library LSTA Grant

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It is a sad reflection that, after a life of hard anduseful work and the prominent part he took in up-building the great West, Captain La Barge should haveclosed his career in comparative want. But such werethe vicissitudes of the business to which his life hadbeen devoted. That business had passed away, andlike a sinking ship it dragged down all who clung toit. Captain La Barge struggled bravely against theseadverse conditions, but it was impossible to withstandthe downward tendency. From 1890 to 1894 Captain La Barge held a posi-tion under the city government of St. Louis. Hisvery last remunerative work of any kind was for theUnited States Government, under the direction of theauthor of this work, whom he helped compile a Hst ofthe steamboat wrecks which have occurred on the Mis-souri River. This work was done in the year 1897,and was published as a part of the report of the Mis-souri River Commission for that year. Although thenumber of these wrecks lacks but five of three hun- 438
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GREATEST WRECK OF ALL. 439 dred, the Captains memory embraced them nearly all,and most of them with great accuracy of detail. Truly a mournful task was this to the veteran pilot.What reminiscences of a strange and wonderful pastdid it bring to mind! He lived over again his riverlife of fifty years, saw the old keelboat, the mackinaw,and the canoe, dodged again the bullets of the treach-erous savages, killed the wild buffalo, sparred his boatover sandbars or warped it up the rapids, beheldagain the wild rush to the gold fields, heard the trampof the army going to battle on the plains, and musedupon a thousand other features of a life that existedno more. And as he recalled one by one these wrecksof a once flourishing business, he could not but reflectthat the greatest wreck of all was the business itself.It was gone—buried so deep in the sands of com-mercial competition that not even the pennant staff orsmokestack caused a ripple on the surface—passengers,cargo, and all that clung

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