Freestone County, Texas Reflections Other boats in the Trinity By Bill Young Two hundred and forty-five miles on today’s Interstate 45 from Dallas to Houston and 600 miles by boat on the Trinity River. Not only was the distance over twice as long, there was an ever-present danger of the boat you were riding on striking a snag or running aground on a submerged sand bar. This year would be a classic example of a year where boat traffic on the Trinity River would be limited to Galveston Bay and the first few settlements along the lower extremities of the Trinity. Anyone who has studied Texas weather is aware of the cycles affecting our annual rainfall. We tend to go from too much precipitation to almost none with an occasional three to four major drought cycle every once in a while. With these fluctuations continuously affecting the water levels in the Trinity River, boat traffic was limited to the whims of our Texas weather. Several of the boats plying the Trinity were well over 100 feet in length. The measurements of several boats were written in the publication I am currently re-reading. One boat was 148 feet long while a second vessel was listed at 138 feet in length. Either boat turned across the channel of the Trinity River today could be used as a bridge because most of the channel in our area is less then 100 feet wide. Think about this: If a boat was trying to make its way either upstream or downstream in the channel today, every time the boat came to a bend in the river, there would be the chance the boat would not be able to negotiate the turn. Either the bow or the stern might come in contact with the bank on one side or the other causing the boat to be lodged in the bend. I am sure good experienced boat captains were constantly aware of this problem and did their very best to not let anything happen to their vessel. But what about the inexperienced boat captain who had experienced sailing in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico or the wide Mississippi River and suddenly his company transfers him and his vessel to the vary narrow and crooked Trinity River. I would venture to say it was a learning experience not to be forgotten by any new boat captain. Add in the presence of submerged snags and overhanging trees and one trip up river might be your very last. Another problem facing boat captains on the Trinity River was the chance of a huge flood somewhere upstream sending a wall of water down channel. The big rise in the water level usually did not create a special problem if the boat captain could see it coming. The main problem with those bigger flood episodes was the amount and size of the debris riding on the crest of the flood. Anyone who has ever stood on a piece of high ground near the river during one of those flooding episodes knows what I am talking about. Numerous times I have witnessed an entire tree as big as a truck come passing by during the flood. Trees of this size striking a steam boat might sink the vessel or at least cause major damage. If the boat happened to be tied up to one of the wharfs at a settlement along the channel, there might be a blacksmith available to do repairs and lumber could be acquired at the same time. To my knowledge, none of the settlements along the Trinity River had any form of a dry dock facility where a damaged boat could be lifted out of the river for repairs. Some of the early settlements did have boat building capabilities but I would imagine this was limited to building a boat on the shoreline. Several other boats which sank in the Trinity River are listed in the book: The Mary Conley sank in the Trinity River Jan. 10, 1873 at what is now referred to as the Mary Conley Bend. The boat was subsequently stripped of various materials. Several homes were built from some of the timbers and the boiler is now on the grounds of the Sam Houston Regional Archives Center at Liberty. The Mary Hill was damaged by a snag midway between the mouth of the Trinity River and Liberty. Its hulk was towed to a nearby lagoon and left to rot. The Memphis Belle sank at the port town of Sebastopol in 1870. During low water in 1936, the keep was visible. The Orizaba struck a snag and sank about one mile below the residence of Dick Cole. The Nellie while docked at a wharf near Commerce St. in downtown Dallas was picked up by a major flood on the river in 1908. The boat was carried downstream and wedged into the Dallas-Oak Cliff St. trestle. It sank during salvage operations and was never raised. The manometer survey several years ago provided evidence the remains of the Nellie are still buried in the silts near the trestle location. The 1908 flood on the Trinity River is still considered today to be the highest flood ever recorded in modern times on the river. One long steel bridge erected from S. Lamar St. to South Dallas was washed away during this flood. You can still see remnants of the supporting columns lying in the bottom of the channel just to the east of the I-45 bridge spanning the river at the South Dallas Sewer Plant on your way into Dallas. The Ruthven sank at Parker’s Bluff in Anderson County while undergoing conversion to a flatboat. The Sallie Haynes was sunk by a snag approximately 40 miles below Dallas and the Lone Star, a steamer, on March 1, 1860, bound from Magnolia and Parker’s Bluff for Galveston, was snagged and sank about two miles below Hall’s Bluff. There is a possible wreck on the Trinity River between the railroad trestle and the U.S. Highway 90 bridge at Liberty. In 1968, the Texas Highway Department recovered a steamer anchor (now on display at the Sam Houston Archives Center in Liberty) during the construction of a boat ramp between the bridges. It is possible this anchor belonged to the Alice since the warehouse where Hall worked was just south of the present day highway bridge on the east bank. I mentioned the Alice wreck in last week’s article. Next week: The Flatboat, another vessel plying the Trinity River ------ Bill Young is a Daily Sun columnist. His column appears Sundays.