Page 39 - Cornelius Hedges Story

For This And Succeeding Generations Gardiner 26

Their river-steamer, the “Waverly”, arrived on April 10, and they
boarded even though all their baggage had not arrived on the loading
dock. The steamer finally got under way late on the 11th and traveled
7 miles that first day. After being held up by ice jams in the Missouri
on April 12 and 13, they reached Fort Randall, Dakota Territory, on
the 22nd and Fort Sully on the 24th. On May 9, they docked at Fort
Berthold and they reached the mouth of the Yellowstone and Fort
Union by the 14th. Hedges noted in his journal that large herds of
bison, numbering into the thousands, were in sight on the 16th, 17th,
18th and 19th of May, and that on the 18th, they ran over 5 bison,
but they all survived. The mouth of the “Musselshell” River was
passed by the “Waverly” on May 21, and they finally docked on the
levee at Fort Benton on May 25.73

Figure 6. Cornelius Hedges sent this letter to his father in Westfield, MA. It was carried
by the Steamer Waverly Mo. Packet. Note the Waverly hand stamp on the upper right
dated May 5, 1867. A “packet ship” was originally a vessel employed to carry post office
mail packets , Packet trade generally refers to any regularly scheduled cargo, passenger
and mail. Ref: The Steamboat Postal History of Dakota Territory, by Ken Stach, and
Mike Ellingson.

The steamer Waverly had a short history; it was a wooden
hulled, stern-wheeled, packet measuring 200 feet long, by 34 feet
wide, by 5 feet 5 inches deep and weighed 324 tons, powered by two
boilers. The vessel was launched in 1866 in Metropolis, Illinois. She
was owned by John P. Kiser, Thomas Raigin, and Capt. Thomas W.
Rhea. The Waverly was destroyed on Nov. 24, 1867 on the down
river run from Omaha to St. Louis when it became snagged near
Bowling Green Bend, Glasgow, Mo. The boat cost $50,000 when
built and is said to have paid for herself on the first round trip to Fort
Benton.