"Arabia" - "Tom Sawyer's Steamboat" of Amazing Destiny
"Arabia" on the move. Artist Gary Lucey
He quickly sold our little shop, and on April 10, 1856, we left St. Louis on the brand new steamboat Chippewa, recently purchased by the company. I was then thirteen years old, and it was my first time on a steamboat. When the paddle wheel behind the stern began to break up the water with its paddles and the steamboat quickly floated upstream, I was delighted and ready to dance on the deck, remembering that we had to travel about three thousand kilometers along the river to our destination.
James Willard Schultz. "With the Indians in the Rocky Mountains"
James Willard Schultz. "With the Indians in the Rocky Mountains"
Artifacts stories techniques. It is interesting that some historical artifacts were absolutely unremarkable at the time of their existence in the past, but as soon as they got into some cataclysm, their historical value increased many times over. For example, Roman Pompeii. An unremarkable town, of which there were hundreds, if not thousands, in the Roman Empire. But... as soon as it perished, it acquired enormous historical significance, because it became a kind of repository of many other monuments of the past, and monuments that were absolutely accurately documented in time. The same applies to ancient sunken ships found on the seabed - these are real "treasure ships", although very often neither gold nor silver is found on them. "Arabia" - an American paddle-wheel cargo-passenger river steamer, built in 1853, belongs to these monuments of the past.
This could be seen very often on the rivers of America...
On September 5, 1856, the Arabia was wrecked and sank near the town of Parkville on the Missouri River. The passengers and crew managed to escape, but about two hundred tons of various cargo could not be saved. An attempt was made to retrieve the cargo of whiskey that was supposedly on board the Arabia, but, alas, to no avail. And in the last quarter of the XNUMXth century, the riverbed shifted to the east, as a result of which the remains of the Arabia were covered with a fifteen-meter layer of sand and silt.
However, in 1987, treasure hunters found the Arabia, and in the winter of 1988-1989, they began to excavate it. As a result, amateur archaeologists managed to bring to the surface both the surviving parts of the ship and, most importantly, almost all of its cargo - a truly unique collection of household items and tools from the era preceding the American Civil War. Today, most of these finds are kept in the private Arabia Museum, located in downtown Kansas City, Missouri.
It is clear that the model of the steamship "Arabia" is very popular among American modelers. Front view of the model
Deck cargo and... firewood!
Construction and service
The Arabia was built in 1853 at the Pringle Boat Building shipyard in Brownsville, 25 miles from Pittsburgh. The name of the ship was not accidental. The fact is that in the USA at that time there was a saying: "A well-built steamboat will sail even on the sands of Arabia." That's what this steamboat was named after. With a hull length of 55 m, the Arabia took on board up to 220 tons of cargo. The steam engine ran on wood heating of steam boilers, but, nevertheless, provided a speed of up to five knots against the current, and spent up to thirty bundles of firewood per day. The lanterns of the Arabia were powered by whale oil. Kerosene lamps had not yet come into use!
Side view. The paddle wheel structure can be clearly seen.
In 1853-1854, the Arabia sailed along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and in 1855, it was among about sixty ships that connected the settled areas of St. Louis and Kansas City with the new settlements of the American frontier as far as North Dakota, that is, it sailed together with the above-mentioned steamship Chippewa.
A beautiful steamer, although quite simple...
The Arabia carried settlers, Union soldiers, traveling salesmen, card sharpers, and smugglers of all stripes heading west. Kansas was in the midst of the Civil War from 1854 to 1858, and one day a weapon for local abolitionists. Slavery supporters almost lynched the passengers, but the dangerous cargo was confiscated. On its last voyage, the ship had 130 passengers on board, so in terms of passenger capacity, it was not a very large steamer, even though it was a two-wheeler. There were two classes of passengers: "deck" (lower) and "cabin". A testimony from 1855 has survived from one of the "cabin" passengers, who recommended the "Arabia" for its speed, safety and comfort. But another passenger, according to him, was deceived by the owners of the steamer, and he publicly called on passengers to boycott it.
This is what riverboat tickets looked like back then...
In the spring of 1856, the ship collided with a floating log and only miraculously stayed afloat, and when the hull of the Arabia was repaired, the cylinder of the steam engine exploded. Be that as it may, the steamer constantly made trips along the Missouri. And on two trips it was completely filled with Mormon settlers - both Americans and emigrants from England and various Scandinavian countries, who in this way got from the assembly point in St. Louis to their "winter quarters" in Florence (in the XNUMXst century - a suburb of Omaha, Nebraska). Here, in Florence, wealthy Mormons got on ox teams that they had bought in advance and rode to the Salt Lake. Well, the poor Mormons trudged there on foot.
Arabia Museum building
wreck
The Missouri was a dangerous river to navigate. In the 1830s alone, about 400 steamboats sank and about a thousand people died. A third of the steamboats were lost in fires and boiler explosions, and two thirds were lost in holes they sustained when colliding with sunken or floating logs and tree trunks torn out by the river current along with their roots. And on August 30, 1856, one such tree (an American walnut) pierced the three-inch (76 mm) wooden hull planking and penetrated three meters. The Arabia's hold quickly began to fill with water, causing the steamboat to lie on its left side. However, all of the steamboat's passengers were saved and managed to reach the shore. They managed to save their personal belongings, but at night thieves looted all the suitcases that had been piled on the shore, left unattended for some reason, while the passengers walked to the nearest town.
Paddle Wheel. Arabia Museum, Kansas City
Stem
Very soon, the Arabia sank so deep into the water that only the pilot house remained above the surface. The river was turbulent, the current strong. Therefore, the insurers decided not to bother with saving the cargo and already on September 10, 1856, began paying out the insurance money.
The ill-fated log
Attempts to rise
In 1871, the Kansas City Times reported that locals had managed to take several barrels of whiskey and a box of dishes from the steamer. In 1877, an attempt was made to reach it using a wooden caisson. Two thousand dollars and four months of hard work were spent, but the treasure hunters got only a box of felt hats, and they went bankrupt.
By 1894, the Arabia's hull was buried under nine metres of river sediment, but in 1896, a company from Parkville tried to reach it. In 1897, with the help of a six-foot-diameter steel caisson, they finally succeeded, but the whiskey barrels were not found. They tried to dig up the Arabia in 1975, but were also unsuccessful.
Boilers
Excavations of 1988-1989
In 1987, Bob Hawley and his sons Greg and David, Jerry Mackey and Dave Luttrell Hawley began searching for the Arabia in partnership. They had been searching for “Missouri treasures” for several years, hoping to sell their finds to wealthy collectors. The Arabia, according to Greg Hawley, was the fifth or sixth vessel they had decided to excavate.
Hardware
Footwear
Type and Ink: Council Bluffs Mormon Printing House
From the local Hawley archive newspapers, they learned that the cargo on the steamer was insured for ten thousand dollars (the maximum insurance in those years did not exceed fifteen thousand), that is, it was carrying quite expensive goods and in large quantities. True, since then the river has changed its course so often that, as it turned out, there was now a farm on the site of the wreck. Norman Sortor, its owner, agreed to conduct excavations on his land for fifteen percent of the proceeds from the sale of finds. This was a great success, since on federal lands everything found belonged to the state by law.
Cavalry boots, powder flasks, and weapons
A proton magnetometer was used to accurately determine the location of "Arabiya" - that's how far exploration science has come! It showed a depth of 13,5 m below ground level. And since the groundwater was no more than 2 meters below the surface, it was necessary to carry out expensive work to drain it. It was decided to carry out excavations in winter, when the level of the river and groundwater should be minimal. After that, they began to look for money to carry out the work. At first, they decided that 50-60 thousand dollars would be enough. Then they collected 250 thousand. But this was only enough for three weeks of work. And in total, as it turned out, all the excavations cost about a million!
cigars
Digging began on November 7, 1988. Twenty wells 21 meters deep were drilled along the perimeter of the excavation, almost reaching the bedrock. Pumps with a capacity of 75 cubic meters per minute pumped water and diverted it to Missouri through laid pipes. Thus, the excavation site was drained. But on frosty nights, the pumps had to be turned off, and the pipelines had to be dismantled and the water drained from the pipes so that they would not burst. But all this hard work was not in vain: on November 26, the hull of the Arabia appeared in the light.
At first, the treasure hunters came across rubber boots. But on December 5, they found a wooden box with a single porcelain vase, carefully wrapped in yellow straw. And then the finds poured out like a horn of plenty. Wooden items were stored in chilled water so that they would not dry out and deteriorate. All the refrigerators that could be used were also filled with finds. As a result, the antiques found filled the refrigerators in a restaurant in a nearby town, which almost made the health inspector faint. But ... he understood the importance of the enterprise and did not pursue the violators. And then they raised the boilers, the steam engine and even one of the two huge paddle wheels. They also found the log that sank the Arabia in the hold. Well, and then Hawley turned off the pumps, and in just a few hours the water completely flooded the excavation site.
Pickled cherries
Cosmetics
Alcohol
Finds on board
The most important thing is that the finds on board the Arabia greatly influenced historians' ideas about the life and everyday life of pioneers in the American Far West. They were portrayed as rude, drunk, and illiterate, and also poor people. However, many luxury items and delicacies were found on the Arabia, not only of American but also of European origin, ordered either from expensive stores or even from France itself. That is, all of this was quite accessible to residents of the American frontier. That is, the finds directly contradicted the understanding of its life. Moreover, only two years had passed since Kansas was declared a territory, and yet so many exquisite goods were already being brought here. That is, the arrival of pioneer settlers, as well as the construction of cities, occurred simultaneously. Moreover, the settlers, as it turned out, valued luxury items and were able to buy them. That is, the West was not a "release valve" for losers who failed to take root in the East. It was a typical middle class, which was just amazing in itself!
Axe handles!
After all, on the Arabia they found canned cherries in cognac, made in France, and canned cucumbers from New York. Moreover, one of the “diggers” could not resist and decided to try cucumbers from the 1855 harvest. And he survived! Moreover, they turned out to be quite edible! The Arabia also carried oysters, cheeses, coffee beans and cigars. The elegantly shaped bottles contained pepper sauce made in St. Louis (there were no household refrigerators back then, and pepper sauce, which masked the smell of stale food, was one of the most consumed in the USA). They also found patented canning jars here - ceramic vessels with reusable metal lids that had to be sealed with melted wax. And there were also many boxes of gin, wine, cider and cognac. But there were no barrels of whiskey at all. The only keg on the ship was of… ale.
Among the goods were cosmetics and medicines - pills, ointments and mixtures with the inscriptions "Dr. Jones's Expectorant", "Nerve and Bone Ointment", "Mexican Mustang". The perfumes found on the Arabia also retained all their properties and aroma. Moreover, when the Hawleys created the Arabia Museum, they sent them to New York for analysis and even ordered modern copies of these perfumes to sell to visitors to the museum.
Just look at these dishes! Just looking at them "broke my heart". And they were taking them to "rough frontiersmen", whose main entertainment, judging by the westerns, was mass brawls in saloons!
About two thousand examples of porcelain and earthenware dishes, which were perfectly preserved, were found on board the steamship. And among them was the wonderful Wedgwood porcelain, from which the heroines of Jane Austen's novels loved to drink tea! Four thousand pairs of shoes, from children's slippers to cavalry boots, weapons, a variety of tools and hardware from horseshoes to nails - the Arabia was carrying all of this here, to the Far West.
True, neither Hawley himself nor even the archaeologist they hired kept any search logs or documented the finds. Therefore, information that could have linked the finds to specific people was lost. But, by a lucky chance, the archive preserved the names of all the recipients of the wholesale cargo of "Arabia". Hawley justified this by saying that they had to work very quickly, because every day of delay caused the destruction of the excavated but not yet preserved organic objects. This required a great many professional people and a lot of money, and they did not have this. After all, the enterprise was strictly private.
And in general, the Hawley and Mackey families were excavating with one goal in mind - to sell everything they found. But, having assessed the scale of everything they found on "Arabia" - essentially, it was a "portal to the past" - they decided not to sell the finds, but to open a museum! By the way, farmer Sortor, having learned about this, refused the money he initially wanted to receive, and only took "twenty-five things for his grandchildren" as a keepsake.
After that, the Hawleys rented a large refrigerated warehouse, moved all the finds there, and began preserving and documenting them, now quite professionally. And this work took... many years. Thus, by the summer of 2006, only 70% of what was found had been described. Many finds, such as shoes, had to be restored, which was not a cheap pleasure.
In one of the halls of the museum in Kansas City
At the same time, they began building a museum building in downtown Kansas City. It cost the family $750, which was much cheaper than what other contractors had offered. The museum opened in 1991, but has been expanded every year since. According to Greg Hawley, it is here that the largest collection of pre-Civil War artifacts in the United States and the world is concentrated. In the hall, you can see a life-size model of a ship's deck, with authentic ship mechanisms mounted on it, as well as a paddle wheel, a steamboat's stem, and an anchor. The "fatal log" is also on display here. And the display cases around the "deck" are filled with a mass of finds from the Arabia.
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