Attached is a scan of a printed ink and color drawing of a fanciful steamboat for Rocky and his Friends aka The Bullwinkle show produced by Commodore Jay Ward and piloted by Director Brigadier Bill Scott (I'm pretty sure who that's supposed to be) with Bullwinkle Moose, Rocky the Flying Squirrel up top also. On deck Inspector Fenwick drinking on Texas deck. Below him is his daughter admiring Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties while Snidely Whiplash prepares to blow up the boat. I have this one matted and framed, around 11x14 size. Boat resembles a Rose Parade float, this could 'a been concept art work for such a thing. Who knows? Perhaps the print was enclosed with Christmas cards from Jay Ward's Studio back in the 60's. - Dave

A cover illustration for Le Grand Henderson's 1953 novel HOME IS UPRIVER Description by Dave Thomson: Pulp novel cover with hunky hero Buck and his sultry wife Martha for Le Grand Henderson's 1953 novel HOME IS UPRIVER, which was published under the pen name Brian Harwin. In the novel Buck names his little Stover gas engine towboat Martha after his wife. Biographical material gathered from Wikipedia: Le Grand Henderson (1901 - 1964) was born in Connecticut and attended the Yale School of Fine Arts. After graduating from Yale he designed heating and ventilating equipment, switchboards for submarines, and window & interior displays for Macy's and Bloomingdale's in New York City. After moving to St. Paul, Minnesota Henderson began a year-long journey on a houseboat down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. He wrote and illustrated over a dozen children's books including these two books set on the Mississippi River: Augustus and the River 1939 When the Mississippi Was Wild 1952 Home Is Up River, 1953 written by Le Grand Henderson and published under the pen name Brian Harwin by Signet Books EXCERPTS - from pages 48 - 50: When Buck decided to live on a houseboat on the Mississippi, he had been ingenious in persuading his bride to agree to it. Martha's brother, Ramsey, heard about it, back home in Indiana, and he wrote a letter that began, "The damn man's crazy." Sister Jen added a postscript: "All I say is, Martha, you're no lady if you go off amongst those riffraffs and river rats. I knew you shouldn't never have married that man. Always roaming from job to job." Martha's widowed mother accepted it without comment. She lived with Jen, but she liked Buck. The attitude of the other two was understandable: the Grants had been small farmers in middle-Indiana; then, when industrialism came, they had become steady, sober, and reliable holders of jobs in middle-Indiana. Buck Sanjamon was a Louisiana Cajun. The name had been St. Germaine originally, and old Amedee St. Germaine had been among those forest-loving voyageurs from Canada who, with rollicking spirits and small canoes, tripped the Mississippi, singing lustily all the way to the Gulf. The joy of motion was in Buck's blood, and he was a man who followed the joy where it led. Once it had led him to middle-Indiana, and that was how he had met Martha. In the course of his wanderings, Buck had become an all-around good mechanic. The last of his many jobs ashore had taken him to the maintenance department of a machine shop in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. And that was where he had the vision: "I was working there, at the plant," he had told Kip, "and all of a sudden that old brick wall just faded away. And I could see, just as plain, the Mississippi River coming round a bend, all sparkly in the sun, like when I was on the river before. And I could see a shantyboat drifting on downriver. I could hear those little waves go wunk ga-lunk against the hull of that shantyboat. And I could smell that smell of wind and water and wet wood that ain't maybe as sound as boat wood ought to be." Buck's blocky face was alight with the wonder of his vision. "I was a riverman long before I got to be a land tarrapin, and I knew, right then, I had to go back to the river. I had some money saved up, and went down and bought the boat off old Nooky Rowe. . . . . . . the boat Buck bought from Nooky Rowe was not a houseboat. She was an old and very small stern-wheel towboat about forty feet long. Most of the buckets were gone from her little paddlewheel, but she had a big old Stover engine in her cabin. It was rusty and needed overhauling, but it was a towboat's engine, and it could be fixed up. And such an engine was more suited to river roving and river working than to lying tied to the bank . . . from pages 54 and 55: ". . . nothing to hold us here now. The boat's all ready to go. We'll head out on the river, away from such damn' outfits as this." His voice was like a song. "You hear, Martha? We're going to travel the river." Martha's eyes were glassy. "I got it all planned out." Buck went on. "We'll tow timber rafts to the mills. There's good money in it. That old Stover engine will do it. It runs pretty good now, and I can fix it up later so's it'll purr like your sister Jen at feeding time." His eyes glowed. He patted Martha's shoulder with a touch that was an accolade. "And you'll be engineer, Martha. Think of that. First damn' woman engineer on the whole Mississippi River." "Buck," Martha said, "how much money do you have?" . . . "Well, it all depends on how you look at it. We got the Martha. We got the little gas boat. We got, anyway, two weeks' groceries. We'll make a lot of money on the next rise of the river. Course, the river's low now, but when a rise comes there'll be a lot of drift timber floating down. Always is. It's those caving banks does it. Whole forests fall into the river. We'll catch that drift timber and make it up into rafts. We'll tow it to the mills. There's big money in that." "Buck," Martha said. "How much money now?" "Oh, you mean cash money. Well, right now we got more opportunities than cash money." He pulled a damp-looking wad of bills out of his pocket. "Forty-three dollars." "Buck! How we going to get along on that?" Buck looked pained. "Get along? We got the whole Mississippi River to get along on, ain't we? Look, Martha, I didn't go at this thing half-cocked. Just as soon as we get a little money out of that drift timber we'll go to buying up timber all along the river. Every old shantyboater's got a pile of drift tied up. We'll make it all up into rafts. We'll tow it to the mills. There's big money in it." "But Buck, how we going to get along now?" "Well, we'll catch the drift ourselves, first, like I said. We don't need money for that." "But you said the river's low now," Martha reminded him. "You said there wouldn't be any drift timber until the river rises." "Sure, that's right," Buck agreed amiably. "I guess we'll have to go to fishing for a while. Until a rise comes. They're getting good prices for fish these days." Buck managed to get a few towing jobs, in addition to his fishing, by the time Storm was born. . . .

This just in STOCKER'S LANDING On the Blackwater Levee, Circa 1905. Compliments of Killark Electric Mfg. Co. St. Louis, MO 1977

Richard Bissell's book THE MONONGAHELA (1952 Rinehart) had a "rebirth" 3 years later with a new name RIVER IN MY BLOOD (1955 Signet) and a men's "pulp novel" cover. Attached scans of both editions. Below is the original review of the hardcover edition from Time Magazine. Dave Books: Workhorse River Monday, Jun. 16, 1952 TIME MAGAZINE REVIEW THE MONONGAHELA (239 pp.) - Richard Bissell-Rinehart ($3.50). The series of books known as Rivers of America has given rise to some rather crude jokes in the publishing trade. When the number got to 45, wags began planning volumes on creeks, rills and even smaller flows. But, at least until No. 47 turns up, the kidding will have to stop. For No. 46 is one of the best in the series. It is also one of the few instances in which the right author met the right river. Author Bissell, 38, helps run his father's clothing factory in Dubuque, Iowa these days, but once he did an outdoor man's work: he was a river pilot. He wrote a novel about it two years ago (A Stretch on the River - TIME, July 24, 1950), and the river descriptions and river lingo rang fair and true. He writes just as effectively in The Monongahela and even gives a fair amount of his secret away: "In order to have a river in your blood, unforgettably and forever . . . you have to work on her for wages." In 1944 he piloted a diesel towboat on the Monongahela for seven months. Nuggets & Chasers. Bissell did some library work this time and, like his fellow grubbers in the River series, passes along his share of historical nuggets, e.g., in the 1790s, there were some 1,300 stills in western Pennsylvania; no less an authority than George Washington pronounced Monongahela rye "excellent,'' etc. But what gives the book its special tang is Pilot Bissell's own experiences on the old Mon. When he reported for duty on the Coal Queen, he saw a dirty one-stacker, "a piece of marine junk." That was winter time, and he had to be persuaded not to take the first train back to the Midwest. Came spring and Pilot Bissell thought: "For me to be drawing wages for piloting a towboat under these conditions. why, that's just like paying a kid to watch the circus." Piloting the Coal Queen, from Morgantown, W. Va. downstream (north) to Pittsburgh, took a little doing, what with pushing barges through the locks and threading through more traffic tonnage than passes through the Panama or Suez Canals. There wasn't much that didn't catch Pilot Bissell's eye, from the architecture (mostly horrendous) of the houses ashore to a little girl in a spring hat on a slate pile. He remembers the valley's favorite drink (cheap rye and a beer chaser), the variety of foreign tongues heard in saloons. "Oh, it's some wonderful valley, the Monongahela. There's more hell popping and more loud noise in any ten miles at the lower end than there is in five hundred on the Mississippi or the Congo." Good riverman that he is, Author Bissell writes with affection of the old steamboat days, when a big one like the Sprague could push as many as 60 barges loaded down with 54,000 tons of coal. He becomes nostalgic recalling that stern-wheelers in the '70s made regular trips on the highways of water between Pittsburgh and Fort Benton, Mont. But he knows that diesels are here to stay, and doesn't let his nostalgia get teary-eyed. Nor does he equate the ' Monongahela and the Coal Queen with romance. But when a stranger looked at the Queen and asked, "Ain't it a miracle what some fools will do to earn a living? Can you imagine living on a thing like that?", Bissell answered, "I can imagine it." time.com cover illustration

I just received a large print of Robert Rucker's "Ghostly Steamboat" . . . attached oval vignette version showcasing the boat and a photo that Jim Hale found on the Murphy site of the "Little Ouachita" after she was abandoned to the elements above Mobile around 1909 with her stacks leaning sadly from neglect. Here is a site that specialized in Rucker prints whose link you can use: robertruckerartbykaren.com Photo Courtesy of Murphy Library at the University of Wisconsin - La Crosse Steamboat Collection Photographs. Dave From Jim Hale's message: THE BOAT IS THE "LITTLE OUACHITA" BUILT AT HOWARD'S IN 1899 TO RUN ON THE UPPER OUACHITA IN LOUISIANA TO BRING COTTON DOWN TO MONROE TOO BE THEN SHIPPED ON THE "AMERICA" TO NEW ORLEANS. CAPTAIN COOLEY HAD BUILT THE "AMERICA" IN 1898 AND THEN HAD THE "LITTLE OUACHITA" BUILT THE NEXT YEAR. HE SOLD THE "LITTLE OUACHITA" IN 1906 TO THE ALABAMA RIVER PACKET CO. THE PILOT HOUSE WAS RAISED AND THE NARROW TEXAS BUILT IN FRONT OF AND BEHIND IT AFTER IT GOT TO MOBILE. THE "LITTLE OUACHITA" WAS LAID UP IN 1909 OR SO ABOVE MOBILE WHERE THE PICTURE THE MURPHY LIBRARY WAS TAKEN. THE BOAT LOOKED A LOT BETTER BEFORE THE TEXAS WAS ADDED. THIS PAINTING OF HER BY RUCKER, HAS TO BE THE MOST GHOSTLY STEAMBOAT PAINTING EVER. MAYBE SHE STILL HAUNTS THE BAYOUS ABOVE MOBILE EVEN TO THIS DAY.

Safe and sane 2011, although the 'publicans will try to make it otherwise. Robert Rucker who painted the LITTLE OUACHITA bayou picture also painted this charming winter scene for sale at $6,500 via the Gilley Gallery link: gilleysgallery.com Rucker's story is touching, he got polio as a teenager but was able to thrive as an artist. Dave Robert Rucker b. 1932 d. 2001 Robert Rucker was a native of New Orleans, and he opened his own gallery in the French Quarter at the age of sixteen. Immediately, Rucker found himself surrounded by fine artists of the New Orleans area, like Knute Heldner and Clarence Millet, two of his earliest influences. At the age of seventeen, he developed polio, an event that ironically became a blessing rather than a handicap. Because of his illness, the Louisiana Department of Education funded his schooling at the John McCrady School of Fine Arts in New Orleans. Rucker studied under McCrady for the next five years, developing a style that would later become synonymous with New Orleans and the surrounding countryside of the Mississippi Delta. Rucker's most famous subject is perhaps the steamboat. His love of them came from his family, having two grandfathers who were steamboat captains. He produced many variations on the theme during his career. He is also well known for various bayou scenes and the south Louisiana countryside, themes that he eventually began to render in an impressionistic style and often with pastel tones during the late 1970's and early 1980's. Rucker held exhibits in Baton Rouge and New Orleans as well as Chicago, San Francisco, St. Louis and Cleveland. In addition to being an art teacher at his own gallery, he was a textile designer, an art teacher for the City of New Orleans and a medical artist for Tulane Medical School. Robert Rucker died of a heart attack in 2001.

Latest acquisition. Original Ralph Law painting of the QUINCY which often frequented Hannibal, Missouri. A much photographed boat, I must have more photos and post cards of the QUINCY than any other. Width of painting seen here about 18 3/4 inches. Some history gathered from Riverboat Dave's site: The QUINCY was launched 1896 at the Howard Yard for the Diamond Jo Line Dimensions 264.7' X 42' X 6.8' Ran St. Louis to St. Paul, Upper Mississippi and Ohio Rivers 1906, July, sank and raised at Trempealeau Mountain, Wisconsin. 1917 ran St. Louis - New Orleans 1918-19, remodeled extensively and renamed the "J.S." DELUXE after Capt. John Streckfus. Some of her original equipment came from the GEM CITY.

Here's a detail of the Law painting which may be worth including. Hairs from his brushes stuck to the illustration board here and there. I saw Law's painting of the SPRAGUE in Nauvoo many years ago but it was 10 time what I paid for the QUINCY. Perhaps I should have made the shop keepers an offer but didn't.

ATTACHED SCAN OF PRINT OF JACK WOODSON'S PAINTING OF TOM AND HUCK WITH WHAT WHAT IS OBVIOUSLY THE BETSY ANN IN THE BACKGROUND. TOM IN FOREGROUND IS A BIT TOO CUTE LIKE HE'S SELLING WHOLESOME CALCIUM RICH MILK IN A 1950'S OLD MAGAZINE AD. PICTURE AREA INSIDE MARGINS ABOUT 13 X 17 1/2. WOODSON ALSO PAINTED A NUMBER OF OTHER STEAMBOAT PAINTINGS INCLUDING ONE OF STEAMBOAT BILL'S WHIPPOORWILL THAT THE ARTIST BASED ON THE BAYOU BOAT AMY HEWES. CAPTION SAYS: Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer on the Mississippi by Jack Woodson United States Historical Society, Richmond, Virginia. AVAILABLE AT A RATHER STEEP PRICE (EVEN WITH THE DISCOUNT) ON AMAZON.COM. (SEE BELOW) DAVE amazon.com U.S. Historical Society Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer on the Mississippi River By Jack Woodson Fine Art Print Original - Mark Twain by U.S. Historical Society Price:$49.99 Sale:$29.99 You Save:$20.00 (40%) in Stock. Ships from and sold by FAB FINDS 4 YOU.

A German children's LP adaptation of Huck Finn with fanciful/whimsical cover art. Huck's horizontal striped shirt and style of hat and pipe give if that European flair. Was impressed that the artist researched steamboats to paint a reasonable stylized depiction of one. The cat and birds are right out of Sesame Street. My scanner enhanced the colors so they're even richer here than they really were. Looks like friskets and airbrush at work in the clouds, foliage, the "sugar hogshead" (barrel), Huck's hat and face. . . . surrealism for the kiddies . . .

This paper was laminated which probably kept it intact (browning wood pulp paper, color correction during scanning makes it look about as good as new). Full article continued on another page that wasn't included with this one but this stands nicely on its own.

Sept 23rd, 1865 Gleason's Pictorial illustration of loadin' cotton bales down yonder in Alabammy . . .

NORI - I "PROOFED" THE COPPER PLATED LEAD PRINTER'S BLOCK OF THE LITTLE STEAMER "KELLY" BY MAKING A MIRROR IMAGE OF IT IN PHOTO SHOP, CONVERTED IT TO GRAYSCALE AND ADJUSTED THE CONTRAST. SOMEDAY I'LL FIND A PLACE WITH A LETTERPRESS AND HAVE THEM MAKE A PROOF FROM THIS IN INK ON PAPER. DAVE

This was a printed graphic that was vignetted in a Southern Comfort advertising mirror hung in "saloons" and/or bars. The pilot house and its windows are a bit small but you can't have everything.

Pictorial portion of 1914 Anheuser-Busch serving tray featuring advertising art by O.E.Berninghaus of ST. LOUIS LEVEE IN THE EARLY '70'S. I used a detail from this in a composite I made which included Mark Twain smoking a pipe from a Campbell's soup ad which you have under my "steamboat illustrations." There was also a large panoramic full color lithograph of this which was intended as decor in bars and saloons. I have a copy of that lithograph framed and when it is unobstructed by "stuff" piled in front of it I'll take a photo of it for you.

Steamboat label from the days of Sacramento produce crates.

Attached photo of limited edition print of Dean Cornwell's huge 1947 painting of the race of the LEE and NATCHEZ that he made for the Boatman's Bank of St. Louis. I went to visit the painting in the early '80's, it was upstairs in the bank building downtown, hanging behind the desk of a receptionist. She asked me what I wanted and I said that I had come to see the painting. She said "What painting?" I pointed behind her and she looked around a bit incredulously, apparently she was not a connoisseur of art or steamboats. The Ohio River Museum in Marietta has Cornwell's much smaller study for this painting which has more of a "cinemascope" look to it, a long and narrow horizontal format. My expert framers cut down an antique frame which is nicely compatible with Cornwell's majestic graphics. Colors are elusive in photography, hard to really capture them. Not sure why Dean chose to paint the sky behind the clouds a deep navy blue although the sky in the photo I took of the GEO. M. VERITY at close of day at Keokuk in '07 is reminiscent of this. It hangs over the fireplace mantle, tricky to light it so the glass wouldn't reflect.

Unusual hand tinted photographic print mounted on a card with the studio name "Vogue" written in pencil below. On the paper backing is written: Pilot Miller on the "Gordon C. Greene" on the Ohio River Photo by Elizabeth Miller Barely legible rubber stamp Vogue Studio - Peoria, Illinois.

http://etsy.com See the other half of the Steamboat Illustrations collection in the Dave Thomson section. Return to the Dave Thomson Museum Wing Index