Steamboats on the Ouachita
The captains and crews of the steamboats on the Ouachita River played a major role in the settlement of the Calhoun County area. Steamboats came up the Ouachita River as far as the trading post of Ecore Fabre, the community which would become Camden, by 1823. Steamboats made it possible to travel from New Orleans and back in less than a week and were also used to bring factory goods and foodstuffs up the river from New Orleans and return with cotton, animal hides, bear oil and other local products. Little Bay Landing shipped up to 10,000 bales of cotton some years. Much of it shipped thought a large warehouse Dr. Cap Dunn owned there. His warehouse was the last business to close at Little Bay.
Most of the steamboats traveling the inland rivers had to be created to deal with the unique conditions on the rivers they traveled. Steamboats were different from the deep-water vessels which carried cargo deep in the hull. They were long, narrow, and shallow with the cargo stacked. Cabins were built higher and higher with passengers usually on the second deck. There were wrought iron rods fitted with enormous turnbuckles that could be tightened or loosened to walk the flexible hull over shallow sand bars if needed. Because of the need for these customized boats, the earlier ones were not widely known. Some of the ones that were known follow.
The Dime was one of the Ouachita River steamboats. Jacob Barkman built this boat when his business had outgrown the pirogues he had been using. Local legend tells that the boat got its name when a man who had seen much larger steamboats on the Mississippi River laughed and said, “Tain’t no bigger’n a dime!” The Dime made regular trips up and down the river before it eventually sank.
Another steamboat, the Romeo, snagged and sank on the Ouachita at Champagnolle on December 31, 1851. Snags were caused when trees dropped into the river as the shifting waters eroded the banks and eventually became lodged in the riverbed.
The Homer ran from New Orleans to Camden as early as the 1860s. It ran a regular mail route until it was placed under contract to the Confederate government after the Civil War began. It was captured by Major General Frederick Steele’s Union Troops during the Camden Expedition. Steele was without supplies for the troops and forage for the animals. A detachment captured the Homer around thirty miles below Camden. It was loaded with corn and other supplies so they piloted it to Camden and unloaded to feed the men. The Homer was sunk at Camden on April 26, 1864, to prevent the Confederates from taking her. The timbers were used by the Confederate soldiers to build rafts which were strung together to form a bridge over the Ouachita. This bridge was used to pursue the Union troops who were retreating to Little Rock. This all played a part in the Camden Expedition of 1864.
The largest boat to come up the Ouachita was the Will S. Hays. It could carry 2,000 bales of cotton, and eventually sank on the river by being overloaded with that cargo. Other boats that traveled the Ouachita as far as Camden prior to the Civil War, included the Alamo, C.M. Humphrey, Jo Jacques, Arkadelphia City, Francis Jones, Susie B., and Rock City.
Sources: Arkansashistory.online; Morrison and Eppinette, Historical Ouachita County; History of Union County, Arkansas by Juanita Whitaker Green; encyclopediaofarkansas; the writings of Wilma Humphreys Newton; arkansasonline.com;
