The Courier

Begun in Belle Vernon, PA, and finished in Wheeling, WV, in 1885, the Courier originally ran on the Mississippi River near Vicksburg.  She was sold to the White Collar Line out of Cincinnati on August 5, 1895, and they put here in the regular trade between Cincinnati and Maysville.  White Collar sold her to Capt. Gordon Greene in 1904, who continued her in the Cincinnati-Maysville trade.  She ran the Cincinnati-Maysville route for 22 years.

She was sunk three time: once at West Wheeling when new, and once in Cincinnati when she crashed into a Central Bridge pier in 1896.  A third instance occurred at the Little Muskingum River, when she pulled over to discharge a passenger who had paid a quarter for his fare.

She was dismantled in Ashland, Kentucky in the spring of 1918.

The bell from the Courier went to a church in Pliny, West Virginia.

The information above, as well as everything else you ever wanted to know about steam boats on American Rivers, is in Frederick Way Jr.'s encyclopedic Way's Packet Directory, 1848-1994, from the Ohio University Press. That's him at left, and he's famous in steamboat  circles for his encyclopedic knowledge and vast collection of steamboat matters.