Uncle Sam (1852 sidewheeler)

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History
Name:Uncle Sam
Builder: Domingo Marcucci, San Francisco
Completed: June 1852
Fate: Sank 1853 at Fort Yuma
General characteristics
Type: Paddle steamer
Length: 65 ft (20 m)
Installed power: 20  hp (15 kW) engine
Capacity: 35 tons

Uncle Sam, was a side-wheel paddle steamer and the first steamboat on the Colorado River in 1852.

Paddle steamer steamship or riverboat powered by a steam engine that drives paddle wheels

A paddle steamer is a steamship or riverboat powered by a steam engine that drives paddle wheels to propel the craft through the water. In antiquity, paddle wheelers followed the development of poles, oars and sails, where the first uses were wheelers driven by animals or humans.

Colorado River major river in the western United States and Mexico

The Colorado River is one of the principal rivers in the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The 1,450-mile-long (2,330 km) river drains an expansive, arid watershed that encompasses parts of seven U.S. and two Mexican states. Starting in the central Rocky Mountains of Colorado, the river flows generally southwest across the Colorado Plateau and through the Grand Canyon before reaching Lake Mead on the Arizona–Nevada border, where it turns south toward the international border. After entering Mexico, the Colorado approaches the mostly dry Colorado River Delta at the tip of the Gulf of California between Baja California and Sonora.

In November 1852, Uncle Sam, a 65-foot (20 m) long side-wheel paddle steamer was brought by the schooner Capacity from San Francisco to the Colorado River Delta by the next contractor to supply Fort Yuma, Captain James Turnbull. It had been built in June 1852 in San Francisco by Domingo Marcucci and disassembled for shipment. [1] It was assembled and launched in the estuary, 30 miles (48 km) above the mouth of the Colorado River. Equipped with only a 20- horsepower (15 kW) engine, Uncle Sam could only carry 35 tons of supplies, taking 15 days to make the first 120-mile (190 km) trip.

A schooner is a type of sailing vessel with fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts. The most common type has two masts, the foremast being shorter than the main. While the schooner was originally gaff-rigged, modern schooners typically carry a Bermuda rig.

Capacity, was an American schooner that arrived in San Francisco on January 9, 1852. The Capacity under Captain Driscoll, subsequently was hired by Captain James Turnbull to carry a cargo of U. S. Army supplies for Fort Yuma. It would also carry the engine, boiler and wood to assemble the side-wheel paddle steamer tug, Uncle Sam to the Colorado River Delta. The Uncle Sam would be the first of many steamboats on the Colorado River.

San Francisco Consolidated city-county in California, United States

San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural, commercial, and financial center of Northern California. San Francisco is the 13th-most populous city in the United States, and the fourth-most populous in California, with 884,363 residents as of 2017. It covers an area of about 46.89 square miles (121.4 km2), mostly at the north end of the San Francisco Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area, making it the second-most densely populated large US city, and the fifth-most densely populated U.S. county, behind only four of the five New York City boroughs. San Francisco is also part of the fifth-most populous primary statistical area in the United States, the San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland, CA Combined Statistical Area.

Uncle Sam made many trips up and down the river for four months to finish carrying all the supplies for the fort, improving its time up river to 12 days. Negligence caused it to sink at its dock below Fort Yuma, and was then washed away and lost before it could be raised, in the spring flood of 1853. Turnbull who meanwhile had returned to the Delta from San Francisco with another cargo and a more powerful engine for the Uncle Sam. [2] He returned to San Francisco, for a new hull, while the army sent wagons to recover the cargo from the delta again. However, Turnbull in financial difficulty, disappeared from the city leaving creditors unpaid. Nevertheless, Turnbull had shown the worth of steamboats to solve Fort Yuma's supply problem. [3]

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Steamboat smaller than a steamship; boat in which the primary method of marine propulsion is steam power

A steamboat is a boat that is propelled primarily by steam power, typically driving propellers or paddlewheels. Steamboats sometimes use the prefix designation SS, S.S. or S/S or PS, however these designations are most often used for steamships.

Fort Yuma

Fort Yuma was a fort in California located in Imperial County, across the Colorado River from Yuma, Arizona. It was on the Butterfield Overland Mail route from 1858 until 1861 and was abandoned May 16, 1883, and transferred to the Department of the Interior. The Fort Yuma Indian School and the Saint Thomas Yuma Indian Mission now occupy the site. It is one of the "associated sites" listed as Yuma Crossing and Associated Sites on the National Register of Historic Places in the Yuma Crossing National Heritage Area. In addition, it is registered as California Historical Landmark #806.

Port Isabel, Sonora human settlement in Mexico

Port Isabel was a seaport established on Port Isabel Slough in 1865 during the American Civil War in Sonora, Mexico in the mouth of the Colorado River on the Gulf of California. It was founded to support the increased river traffic caused by the gold rush that began in 1862 on the Colorado River and the Yuma Quartermaster Depot newly established in 1864 to support the Army posts in the Arizona Military District. The slough was discovered in 1865 by the Captain W. H. Pierson of the schooner Isabel, that first used the slough to transfer its cargo to steamboats safe from the tidal bore of the Colorado River. Shortly afterward Port Isabel was established 3 miles up the slough and replaced Robinson's Landing as the place where cargo was unloaded in the river from seagoing craft on to flat bottomed steamboats of the Colorado River and carried up to Fort Yuma and points further north on the river.

George Alonzo Johnson (1824-1903) 49er, Colorado River steamboat entrepreneur, California politician.

Steamboats of the Colorado River

Steamboats on the Colorado River operated from the river mouth at the Colorado River Delta on the Gulf of California in Mexico, up to the Virgin River on the Lower Colorado River Valley in the Southwestern United States from 1852 until 1909, when the construction of the Laguna Dam was completed. The shallow draft paddle steamers were found to be the most economical way to ship goods between the Pacific Ocean ports and settlements and mines along the lower river, putting in at landings in Sonora state, Baja California Territory, California state, Arizona Territory, New Mexico Territory, and Nevada state. They remained the primary means of transportation of freight until the advent of the more economical railroads began cutting away at their business from 1878 when the first line entered Arizona Territory.

James Turnbull was the first steamboat captain on the Colorado River. His voyages supplying the Army at Fort Yuma demonstrated that the river was navigable by steamboats.

Explorer was a small, custom-made stern-wheel steamboat built for Second lieutenant Joseph Christmas Ives and used by him to carry the U. S. Army Corps of Topographical Engineers expedition to explore the Colorado River above Fort Yuma in 1858.

Colorado, was a stern-wheel paddle-steamer, the third steamboat on the Colorado River, and first stern-wheel steamboat put on that river, in December 1855.

Cocopah, was a stern-wheel paddle-steamer, the fifth steamboat on the Colorado River, first put on the river in August 1859.

General Jesup was a side-wheel paddle-steamer, named for General Thomas Jesup then Quartermaster General of the United States Army, and was the second steamboat launched on the Colorado River, in 1854.

Cocopah II (Sternwheeler)

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John Gunder North shipbuilder, businessman

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Esmerelda, was a stern-wheel paddle-steamer, built for the Sacramento River trade, in 1864 it became the first of the opposition steamboats on the Colorado River. It was also the first steamboat to tow large cargo barges on that river, in May 1864 and to reach Callville, Nevada in 1866.

Benjamin Minturn Hartshorne (1826–1900) was a California businessman who immigrated during the California Gold Rush. He was involved in Sacramento River and Colorado River steamboats as well as maritime shipping.

Mohave was the first stern-wheel steamboat of that name running on the Colorado River between 1864 and 1875.

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Sierra Nevada was a schooner, used as a transport for the U. S. Army Department of the Pacific in California to carry supplies for Fort Yuma to the mouth of the Colorado River in 1853-1854.

References

  1. ↑ Scott, Erving M. and Others, Evolution of Shipping and Ship-Building in California, Part I, Overland Monthly and Out West Magazine, Volume 25, January 1895, p. 15; from quod.lib.umich.edu accessed December 14, 2014
  2. ↑ Sixteen Days later from California, Col.3-4, New York Times, August 10, 1853
  3. ↑ Richard E. Lingenfelter, Steamboats on the Colorado River, 1852-1916, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 1978, pp.10-11


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