Traveling by Steamboat

By: Peggy Henderson

While doing some research for my current WIP, I came across this article I wrote for an earlier book in that particular series, and thought it would be fun to share here. My characters usually travel by horseback or on foot through the remote mountains of the Rockies, but for my book, Teton Splendor, I needed them to travel part-way via steamboat up the Ohio River. I never thought I'd have to revisit that again, but now that I'm working on another book in the series, I found myself revisiting this method of transportation.
                                                       
Before the railroads took over as the fastest way to travel west, steamboats were the premier  mode of transportation along the Mississippi River and its tributaries. In the 1820’s and 30’s, steamboats were mainly used to transport furs, lead, and army supplies to forts and encampments along the Mississippi. In the late 1840’s, settlers swarmed into the new Minnesota Territory, and for the first time, entire families could travel together. 

Early settlers, however, usually did not get to travel in luxury. Only the wealthy could afford the luxurious accommodations that were available on the finer steamboats. The average settler had few comforts. The poorer passengers slept on the freight decks, which also housed the boiler, fuel, and cargo. There was little or no protection from the elements for deck passengers, who would sleep on cargo crates or bales. They were allowed to cook their own meals using stoves provided by the captain. However, it was often too crowded to even prepare a simple meal.  Otherwise, they could eat with the crew if they paid the cook. 

Those who could afford the price could travel on the upper deck in private cabins. These passengers ate their meals in the state room, and were entertained in the grand salon. Some of the finer steamboats featured grand salons that ran the entire three hundred foot length of the boat, and were considered floating palaces, with heavy wood furniture, gilded ceilings, and mirrored walls. Dining experiences rivaled the best restaurants in New York at the time. Some boats had bands or musical entertainment, and even theater performances. 

 

Traveling by steamboat was not without danger, however. Deck passengers were in constant danger of boiler explosions, or being shoved overboard. Boiler explosions were common and often disastrous. Boats were often caught on sandbars or snags, and many times the passengers were asked to get off the boat to lighten the load. Captains didn’t always return for their passengers in those instances. And, of course, the river was teeming with thieves who loved to prey on unsuspecting passengers. 

Overall, steamboat travel was preferred to overland travel for its speed (up to eight miles per hour!) and comparative luxury, until the railroad’s influence in the 1860’s and 70’s.

Peggy L Henderson

Western Historical and Time Travel Romance

“Where Adventure Awaits and Love is Timeless”

Award-Winning and Best-Selling Author of:

Yellowstone Romance Series

Teton Romance Trilogy

Second Chances Time Travel Romance Series

Blemished Brides Western Historical Romance Series

Wilderness Brides Historical Romance Series

               

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Peggy L Henderson is an award-winning, best-selling western historical and time travel romance author of the Yellowstone Romance Series, Second Chances Time Travel Romance Series, Teton Romance Trilogy, and the Blemished Brides and Wilderness Brides Western Historical Romance Series. When she’s not writing about Yellowstone, the Tetons, or the old west, she’s out hiking the trails, spending time with her family and pets, or catching up on much-needed sleep. She is happily married to her high school sweetheart. Along with her husband and two sons, she makes her home in Southern California.

Christmas in Yellowstone

By: Peggy L Henderson

Growing up in Germany, we usually had a white Christmas. When my family moved half-way across the world to sunny California, Christmas no longer included snow. It was replaced with warmth and sunshine. To this day, I miss a white Christmas.

This year, a few weeks before Christmas, I received the most wonderful gift from a friend, which fulfilled two of my greatest wishes – to experience winter in Yellowstone, and to have a white Christmas. While I didn’t actually spend Christmas in Yellowstone, the week before was close enough.

For everyone who knows me, I love Yellowstone! It’s why I wrote a 13-book series time travel/western historical series set there, after all. In all my years of visiting the park, this was the first year I got to visit and experience it in winter. I returned three days ago from the most amazing trip I’ve ever had, and came away with a greater understanding of why I chose to write a time travel series set in this amazing place.

When I was asked before why a time travel and why Yellowstone, the second part of the question has always been easy to answer. The first part – the time travel part – was a bit harder to pinpoint. “The premise always intrigued me”, was my standard answer.

Experiencing Yellowstone in winter suddenly made it clear to me what the answer to that first part of the question is. Nothing beats the solitude and quiet of a winter experience in the park, when there are few people around, and when one can stand and gaze out at the magnificent landscape and features without standing elbow to elbow with other people. It’s easy to imagine what it must have been like to be the first person to experience this magical place when you’re surrounded not by people talking on their cell phones when they should be enjoying the natural splendors before them, but by the peaceful sounds of nature.  

So, for me, this Christmas will always be special 

for this wonderful gift I received to see Yellowstone in winter, and to have a magical pre-Christmas winter-wonderland experience. 

 

Comment for a chance to receive a signed paperback copy of my Christmas stories set in Yellowstone and in related Grand Tetons, A Yellowstone Christmas and Teton Season of Joy. (make sure to leave your contact information in your comment)

Peggy L Henderson

Western Historical and Time Travel Romance

“Where Adventure Awaits and Love is Timeless”

Award-Winning and Best-Selling Author of:

Yellowstone Romance Series

Teton Romance Trilogy

Second Chances Time Travel Romance Series

Blemished Brides Western Historical Romance Series

Wilderness Brides Historical Romance Series

               

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Amazing Story of Survival

By: Peggy L Henderson

In 1870, an expedition set out into Yellowstone to document the wonders of the area that so many fur trappers had talked about, but not many people wanted to believe. It was called the Washburn-Langford-Doane expedition, which consisted of nineteen men and forty horses.

One unlikely man who joined this strenuous expedition into the wild, uncharted territory of Yellowstone was a 54-year-old former assessor for the territory of Montana by the name of Truman Everts.  For him, it was the chance of a lifetime to explore where not many men had gone before.

By September, the expedition reached Yellowstone Lake and were getting ready to head back to Helena. Often during the expedition, the party would split up as various groups went to explore different areas. It wasn’t uncommon for members of the party to separate from the main group for a day or two, but they always met up again.

 One day, while the main party made their way through thick timber between Heart Lake and Yellowstone Lake, Everts became separated from the group. This didn’t cause much alarm for anyone, since it often happened. Even Everts wasn’t worried about it. He made camp and figured he’d meet up with the party again the following morning.

The next day, he set off in the direction the party had been traveling, certain that he’d meet up with them for breakfast. He became disoriented, however, in the forest. He also made one serious mistake – he got off his horse and didn’t tie the animal properly while he tried to find a way through a particularly dense area. The horse ran off, carrying all his gear and supplies - blankets, guns, everything. He had only the clothes on his back, a couple of knives and a small opera glass.

This was only the beginning of a series of unfortunate events for Truman Everts in one of the most amazing survival stories ever. He became completely disoriented at this point. Rather than heading toward Yellowstone Lake where he might have met up with his party, he went further south, where he encountered snow and rain.  Due to the bad weather, he camped in a thermal area to keep warm, He managed to catch a small bird to eat, but nothing else, and after being lost for eleven days, he was able to finally make fire using his opera glass.

He lost his two knives that he’d carried, but once again was able to improvise using a belt buckle and fishhook out of a pin. He lost these items when he accidentally started a small forest fire and severely burned himself.  

Everts’ party had waited for him for several days and sent out a search team, but as the days passed and the weather got worse, they had to start heading back to civilization. They left food for Everts in various locations, but Truman never found them.

For 37 days, Everts stayed alive eating nothing but the roots of elk thistle, which is today known as Everts Thistle. He walked, crawled and struggled his way around Yellowstone Lake and down the Yellowstone River.

In mid-October, he was finally found by two men – Jack Barronnett and George Pritchett, who were offered $600 to go out and search for him by Everts’ former companions to find and bring back his body for proper burial. Noone expected to find him alive. Barronett almost shot him, thinking he was a bear crawling among the rocks.  Everts was delirious, covered in burns and frostbite, and weighed in at around 55 pounds.

One man stayed with Everts to nurse him back to some strength, while the other made a 75-mile trip back to Helena, Montana, to get help.  When it was time to collect their reward, Everts refused to pay his rescuers, saying he could have made it out alive by himself, and said they had been offered the money for a body, not a live man.

Everts gained a lot of publicity for his harrowing tale and was even honored by being offered a job: first superintendent of the new Yellowstone Park in 1872. He turned the job down, because there was no salary for the job. A year after his ordeal, he published an account of his survival journey titled “Thirty-Seven Days of Peril”. He lived until 1901, dying in Maryland at the age of 85, apparently none the worse for wear from being lost in the first national park.

Peggy L Henderson

Western Historical and Time Travel Romance

“Where Adventure Awaits and Love is Timeless”

Award-Winning and Best-Selling Author of:

Yellowstone Romance Series

Teton Romance Trilogy

Second Chances Time Travel Romance Series

Blemished Brides Western Historical Romance Series

Wilderness Brides Historical Romance Series

               

Amazon | Barnes and Noble | iTunes | Blog |Facebook |

Facebook Group | Pinterest | Twitter |mailing list