Early River Days 



I was born November 17, 1856, in Galena, Illinois. 

 Galena at that time was noted for its rich and produc- 

 tive lead and zinc mines, for its many fine steamboats, 

 prominent and successful steamboat men, and big river 

 commerce. 



Captain Smith Harris and his brothers Scribe, 

 Keeler, Meeker, and Jack, Captains Orrin Smith, 

 Charles L. Stephenson, G. W. Girdon, Adam and Ste- 

 phen Younker, Paul Kerz, N. F. Webb, and E. H. 

 Beebe; Pilots William White, Thomas Drenning, Will 

 Kelly, John Arnold, George Tromley, Stephen B. 

 Hanks, Hiram Beedle, William Fisher, John King, W. 

 R. Tibbals; and Engineers Henry Whitmore, William 

 Myers, James Hunt, George Griffith, and Sam Max- 

 well, were some of those actively engaged. I still re- 

 member them in those happy boyhood days when I 

 found so much enjoyment playing around the old Ga- 

 lena levee, and watching them loading the handsome 

 big steamboats with pigs of lead, sacks of grain, or 

 barrels of pork, for which Galena was noted. 



Galena was then the largest and wealthiest city north 

 of Saint Louis, with more of a population than it has 

 today. It is on the Fevre river, five miles from where it 

 enters Harris Slough, which opens out into the Missis- 

 sippi six miles above Bellevue, Iowa. Fevre river and 

 Harris Slough were both deep then. Boats, fully 

 loaded had no trouble getting out into the Mississippi, 

 and boats like the "Northern Light" or the "Grey 



