MEN PROAIINENT IN THE RAFTING INDUSTRY 245 

 CAPTAIN ROBERT DODDS 



I Started to write something about this man who held 

 high place in the esteem of his employers, his crew and 

 his fellow pilots, when it came to me that a man who 

 had been closely associated with Captain Dodds for 

 many years had written an article published in the 

 Saint Louis Waterways Journal about him soon after 

 his death. 



Mr. Harris has kindly furnished me a copy of that 

 letter, describing Captain Dodds correctly. It is much 

 better than I could have done it. 



Chicago, July 27, 1903. 



Gentlemen': In j'our issue of July 25, a five-lined notice tells 

 the world of the death of Captain Dodds, a retired steamboat ofScer, 

 who was found dead at his home on Thursday, July 23rd, and that 

 his death was due to heart failure, hence sudden. 



The meagre notice conveys but an inadequate idea of the peculiar 

 position that the late Captain Dodds held in the army of steamboat 

 men, for what Edwin Booth was to the stage, Charles Dickens to 

 literature, Darwin to science or Beecher to theology, Robert Dodds 

 was to the pilot's profession, holding a distinct and peculiar position. 



It would be somewhat difficult doubtless, to define his true status 

 or to explain why he held such an honored place in the realm of steam- 

 boat officers. 



Captain Robert Dodds, or Bob Dodds, as he was familiarly known, 

 commenced his river life as a floating raftsman, and becoming a pilot 

 before he had reached his majority. A man of pleasing presence, hand- 

 some in appearance, tasty in dress, without being lavish, courteous in 

 manner, proficient in conversation, and lastly, giving to money no 

 apparent value, and being a large money earner at a very early stage, 

 he developed eccentricities of character, if we may use the expression, 

 that established him as a prince of good fellows. 



Captain Dodds floated rafts for Schulenburg and Boeckeler for a 

 number of years, and with the advent of the steam boat for the pur- 

 pose of towing rafts, he took charge of the Pittsburg towboat, "Grey 

 Eagle." After operating this boat for one or two seasons, she turned 

 over at the foot of Stag Island upon the first trip in the spring, Cap- 



