Bio of Kirns, Peter Wabasha Co., MN
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Made available to The USGenWeb Archives by: Barbara Timm and Carol Judge
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This bio comes from "HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY" 1884.
Check out Barbara's site for more great information on this book:
http://www.rootsweb.com/~mnwabbio/wab1.htm
There are also some pictures and information from descendents for some 
of the bios on her pages.

Peter Kirns, lumberman, is a partner of M. E. Drury of Wabasha. The
business of the firm of Drury & Kirns consists in towing lumber, and from
the date of its establishment in 1878, until the commencement of the
towing season in 1883, they were engaged in towing from the Eau Claire
mills in Wisconsin to points as far down the river as St. Louis.
Operations were conducted by floating the materials for these rafts
(dimensions, timbers, boards, lath and shingles) down the Chippewa to this
point, where they were coupled into rafts containing from two million to
three million feet of stuff, exclusive of the top load, shingles and lath,
and from this point towed down the Mississippi. Since the beginning of the
present season, floating down the Chippewa has been discontinued, and
their operations are coupling rafts at this place and towing down the
river. They have at present two boats in their trade, the J. G. Chapman
and the Lizzie Gardner, and with a good stage of water the round trip is
made from here to St. Louis and return in about twelve days. Last year the
company kept three boats on the river, but the other, the Peter Kirns, was
sold to the United States and is now used in the government improvement
works on the lower Mississippi, at Plums Point, Louisiana. The rafter J.
G. Chapman was built expressly for the company, at Metropolis, Ohio, in
1880, and cost twenty thousand dollars. Her dimensions are, length over
all one hundred and forty-five, beam twenty-eight feet, hold four feet.
She has a full cabin, has two steel boilers, and her engines are of
fourteen-inch bore, with six-foot stroke. The Lizzie Gardner was purchased
in 1880 at Cincinnati, Ohio, to replace their iron steamer, J. G. Chapman,
which sunk at the mouth of the Illinois river in the month of June, 1880.
The Gardner cost seven thousand dollars. She is one hundred and
thirty-five feet over all, twenty-two feet beam, double boilers, and her
engines are fourteen-inch bore, with five-foot stroke. The company find
constant employment for their boats, and including boats' crews and
raftsmen employ a force of about sixty men during the season. Their
operations aggregate a total tonnage of sixty million feet of lumber
during the season, exclusive of what is designated top load, lath, pickets
and shingles.
War of Rebellion (Civil War)