Friday, April 18, 2014

Does lost steamboat cargo remain at the bottom of the Alabama River?

Steamboat 'Magnolia' at Claiborne landing in 1855.
(The following story was originally published in The Monroe Journal’s Centennial Edition on Dec. 22, 1966. Written by Riley Kelly, the story appeared on Page 15C of that issue under the headline, “’Spirits’ Are Still Unfound.")

Skin divers in the area who have a big summertime thirst might find more than muddy water at the bottom of the Alabama River near Claiborne.

Currents of over 100 years might have covered with mud a steamboat-load of ‘aged in the water’ spirits, part of the cargo of The Henderson, sunk about a mile from Claiborne.

The Nov. 13, 1883 file copy of The Monroe Journal, Monroeville, reprinted a story from the Wilcox Home Ruler, Camden, relating the sinking in a story, ‘Buried Whiskey.’

Site Not Specified

The river boat, a 123-tonner, sank April 27, 1825, after colliding with another vessel, the Balize. The history of Merchant Steam Vessels of the United States, which lists this information, does not specify the exact location of the accident.

The Henderson is recognized by many Alabama historians as the boat on which French Gen. LaFayette made his voyage down the Alabama River. He landed at Claiborne on April 6, 1825 and was honored at a reception at the old Masonic Hall, which still stands at Perdue Hill.

The Henderson, at the time of her submersion, was declared to have held a load of ‘barrels of fine whiskey, brandy and wines.’

The Camden paper’s description of the watery resting place of the Henderson specifies no location other than ‘she sank in tolerable deep water and has never been opened.’

Attempts were made to release the entombed spirits as early as 1829 when the ‘low stage of the river exposed the boat and she could be seen with her bow sticking up in the water.’

The newspaper account of 1883 recalls:

Mr. Thomas Gaillard, the father of Drs. Sam and Edmond Gaillard and Col. Richbourg Gaillard, impelled by the spirit of laudable enterprise, attempted to open her hatches and get into the hold. He procured two flatboats and various appliances in the way of pulleys, ropes, etc. He also employed an old sailor to assist in the work. Her timbers were so strong, however, and the force of the water so great that he never succeeded in getting into her hold, and the attempt was finally abandoned.

New Call To Action

The 1883 drought was apparently a call to action again, since the water at the location was again low and the Henderson was exposed. The Wilcox Home Ruler surmised that time had weakened her fastenings and that she could be easily penetrated.

Further encouragement to adventurers before the days of snorkels and aqua lungs declared: ‘It is also not at all impossible that the cask may have withstood the action of the water during the half century that has passed over them, as they have not been exposed to air, and are in all likelihood encased in mud and sand.’

Today, some 141 years after the sinking, who is to say the cargo of the old Henderson is not still as the Home Ruler conjectured: ‘Those spirits are still emphatically good.’

Any divers interested in a dip for a nip would just have to confine their operations to one mile or so near the Claiborne landing, or maybe one mile south of the present landing… that’s just about as closely as the site of the boat’s remains can be pinpointed.


Such is the case – unless you run into some tipsy fish. 

2 comments:

  1. Around Thanksgiving in 2007, I saw a structure when kayaking just above the grain elevator..May not be a ship but there were exposed timbers on river left downstream in the location named...the Alabama was extremely low...as low as I have ever paddled it.

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  2. My grandfather used to tell a story about how there was a spot on the river, if it got low enough, you could once see the smoke stack from an old boat. He said he'd always heard it held a cargo of old whiskey.

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