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Grant Prince Marsh
Engraving of Stede Bonnet from A General History of the Pyrates

Grant Marsh (May 11. 1834 – January , 1916) (also know as Grant P. Marsh, and Grant Prince Marsh) was a steamboat pilot and captain, who became legendary for his piloting exploits on the upper Missouri River and the Yellowstone River, though he also was a pilot and captain on the entire Missouri River and the Mississippi River. He is today widely referred to as, "Possibly the greatest steamboatman ever",

Grant Marsh was a major figure in Missouri River steamboat navigation from the days of the early Montana gold discoveries in 1862 until 1882. He served on more than 22 vessels in his long career, he pioneered many journeys by steamboat on the Upper Missouri and on the Yellowstone River, and he amassed an outstanding record and reputation as a river steamboat pilot and captain.

Grant Marsh is most commonly remembered in history as the steamboat pilot captain of the Far West, who from June 30 to July 3, 1876 brought his boat downriver to Bismark, carrying fifty wounded cavalry troopers from the site of the defeat of General George Armstrong Custer on the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876. He brought the first news of the "Custer Massacre", and set a steamboat record, traversing some 710 river miles in 54 hours.

Childhood and Early career

Grant Prince Marsh was born on May 11, 1834, in New York. A few years later, he moved with his parents to Rochester, Pennsylvania, a small town, 30 miles below Pittsburg on the Ohio River. Steamboat packets plying the Ohio past Rocheser were easily visible as they passed, and Grant Marsh and his young friends would run to the river bank and watch until the riverboats steamed from view.

In 1846, at age 12, Marsh entered river service, serving as cabin boy on the Dover, an Allegheny River packet plying between Pittsburgh and Freeport. In those years, there were no railroads west of the Alleghenies, and riverboats controlled all the commerce of the river towns, as well as the volume of passengers and immigrants moving west down the Ohio.

Moving westward with the tide of immigration, Marsh took work on boats running from Pittsburg to Ohio River ports, and in 1852 he became employed as a deckhand on the Beaver which ran between Pittsburg and St. Louis. In 1852 no rail reached St. Louis and its levee was lined with scores of steamboats.

In 1854 Marsh became a deckhand on Missouri River steamboats F.X. Audrey and then the A.B. Chambers, and thus launched his career on the Missouri River with which his name would become linked in hisotry. At this time, Missouri riverboat traffic was expanding. As settlers spread up the Missouri and out into the surrounding praries, all commerce moved by steamboat.

The St. Louis Ice Gorge of '56

In the winter of 1855-1856, Marsh was a watchman on the A. B. Chambers during the event known as the St. Louis Ice Gorge of '56. Extreme cold weather in January caused thick river ice to form on the Mississippi river at and above St. Louis, but unseasonably warm weather in February caused the ice to break into floes that then came flooding down the river. At St. Louis scores of riverbots lay in winter harbor along the levees. The boats were so closely packed one could walk on their decks for a distance of 20 blocks. Pushed by the current the ice floes piled up against the steamboats. The ice wrecked steamboats, sank them, pushed them ashore, and tore off parts. The force of the ice floes broke the boats from their moorings causing them to drift down, singly or entangled together, to collide with and damage other steamboats. A large number of boats become lodged on the upstream point of an island below St. Louis known as the Lower Dyke. In the evening, an ice dam (ice gorge) formed just below St. Louis, bringing the floes to a halt for a time, during which the water rose ten feet. Then the gorge broke and the ice flows and steamboat hulks continued moving, causing more destruction. Watchman Marsh had stayed with the A.B. Chambers which was torn loose and carried down on the flood. The boat was damaged, and Marsh expected the boat to be crushed or sunk, but it finally came to rest against the wall of the arsenal, below St. Louis, and Mrsh went ashore safely.

First Mate--An adventure with Samuel Clemens

In 1858 Grant Marsh was enrolled as a first mate on the Alonzo Child a large side wheel packet going upriver to Omaha with stops at intermediate points. This was the first position of command for Marsh. At this time, Omaha consisted of two wretched streets along the river bank, but it was the outfitting place for the thousands of emigrants going west to the California goldfields, and the rendezvous place for groups of Mormons migrating to Utah. .

Marsh transferred as first mate to the Hesperian and then the A. B. Chambers No. 2. When winter and ice brought an end to Missouri River navigation, these boats shifted to the St. Louis--New Orleans trade on the Mississippi. The water level of the Mississippi below St. Louis dropped to low stages in the winter, and heavier boats had to lie up. Freight rates rose and the light draught Missouri River boats took the opportunity to continue to work.

During the winter of 1858-59, the A.B. Chambers was headed down the Mississippi with a young Mississippi River pilot by the name of Samuel Clemens. The weather was cold and the river channel was filled with ice floes and the boat ran hard aground while hugging the bank. As luck would have it the boat's fuel was also low, and was soon exhausted. Marsh and Clemens were sent back upstream with the yawl to the town of Commerce to get a wood raft to bring fuel down to the boat. To reach their destination the yawl had to cross a narrow section of the river where the ice cakes would first jam up until they built up pressure, then the ice jam would suddenly break free. Just as the yawl was crossing the river in front of the ice jam, it gave way. While Marsh called out to turn back, Clemens cooly guided the boat forward just in front of the swiftly advancing ice, to the safety of the opposite shore, saving the lives of those in the yawl. Marsh and Samuel Clemens became friends and maintained a correspondece, even after Samuel Clemens attained fame as 'Mark Twain'.

In a letter to Jack Downing, Clemens said this about that incident, "When we were taking that wood flat down to the Chambers, which was aground, I soon saw that I was a perfect lubber at poloting such a thing. I saw that I could never hit the Chambers with it, so I resigned in Marsh's favor, and he accomplished the task to my admiration. We should all have gone to the mischief if I had remained in authority."

Marriage and the Civil War

In 1860 Grant Marsh married and set up a home in St. Louis.

At the start of the Civil War Marsh was a mate on the steamer John G. Roe, a St. Louis to New Orleans packet. In March 1862, the Roe was one of a large flotilla of 80 steamboats commandeered by the Union army to take General Grant's Army of the Tennessee to Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River. The Union troops under Grant were divided with the Army of the Tennessee on the west side of the Tennessee River, and the Army of the Ohio, under General Don Carlos Buell approaching from the east side of the river. On the morning of April 6, 1862 the Confederates, advancing from their base at Corinth, surprised the Union troops on the west bank, advancing through the scrub oak thickets surrounding a small church called Shiloh. The Confederates hoped to overwhelm the Union troops on the west bank before they could be reinforced by the troops approaching from the east, across the Tenessee river. All day long the Union troops on the west bank fought desperately to hold on and reform their defensive lines, while the Roe and other steamboats went down to Savannah landing on the Tennessee River and as the segments of Buell's Army of the Ohio arrived, they ferried these troops from the east bank to Pittsburg landing on the west bank. The steamboats continued to ferry troops through the eveing and all night, and into the next morning despite a heavy rain that caused the Tennessee River to rise eight feet. The Roe was a large steamship and commonly ferried two regiments, and in one nightime crossing carried an entire brigade. By early morning on April 7, the reinforced Union forces were strong enough to counterattack and they drove off the Confederate forces.

In the early morning of 7 April, during a break, Marsh and some shipmates climbed the bluff above Pittsburg landing and walked into the woods seeking news of a Missouri regiment. They encountered many wounded and dead lying in the woods.

The Roe continued to ferry troops over to the battle field on 8 April. That evening the Roe was dispatched down river with as many wounded troops as could be carried aboard.

The next year, 1863, Marsh's boat participated in the actions of the Union Army in Arkansas, again transporting troops. Marsh's vessel was present at the mouth of Yazoo when the Mississippi river squadrons from upriver and downriver were united after running by the Vicksburg batteries.

Captain Marsh goes to the upper Missouri

The 1862 Sioux outbreak in Minnesota was locally contained, but not before the unrest had spread to the Sioux tribes in areas along the Missouri River. In the spring of 1864, General Sully set out from Ft. Sully (on the Missouri just below the present site of Pierre, South Dakota) intending to subjugate these hostile Sioux tribes. Eight steamboats came upriver to transport supplies for the expedition, and one of them was the Marcella with Grant Marsh as mate. This was Marsh's first trip to the upper reaches of the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers. The steamboats had a difficult time -- one struck a snag, tore a hole in the hull and sank rapidly. Two other boats were caught in unseasonably low water up the Yellowstone, and only managed to get back down river after teams from the military column were hitched to long ropes to pull the boats over the shallowest bars and rapids.

Steamboats on the upper Missouri after 1862

Prior to the 1860's steamboats brought supplies and passengers to the upper Missouri for the fur trade and buffalo robe trade. However, after 1862 and 1863, gold discoveries in the western Montana Territories (Alder Gulch at Virginia City, Last Chance Gulch at Helena, Confederate Gulch at Diamond City, Grasshopper Gulch at Bannock) so increased the demands for freight that steamboat traffic on the upper Missouri offered the chance of huge profits to river steamboats. Steamboats were the one reliable method of transporting goods (particularly the heavy bulky goods demanded by the expanding mining industry) and passengera from the down river Missouri ports to Ft. Benton, Montana, at the head of navigation on the Missouri. Five sixths of the gold of the Montana Territory was brought out by steamboats, and a single cargo of gold would often exceed one hundred thousand dollars. Ft. Benton, was suddenly propelled into a trading and rendevous center of great commercial importance. Steamboat arrivals at Ft. Benton went from about 6 a year in 1865 to 31 in 1866 and 39 in 1867, transporting 8,000 tons of goods and 10,000 passengers each year.

A riverboat took about 2 months to go upriver from St. Louis to the head of navigation at Ft. Benton, a distance of some 2600 river miles. Freight was then forwarded on by a relatively short overland journey (200 miles) to the heart of the mining districts. The down river journey, with the help of the swift current, was much swifter, and could be made in 2 to 4 weeks.

A riverboat could pay for itself in one round trip from St. Louis to Ft. Benton, hauling supplies and passengers up to the mining camps and bringing down passengers and gold. Marsh once hauled a cargo valued at $1,250,000.00 in gold and gold dust from Fort Benton, Montana. This was considered "the most valuable cargo of treasure ever transported on the Missouri."

The term "upper Missouri" referred to the last 1300 miles of navigable river, from Ft. Randall(a military post on the southern border of the Dakota Territory) to Ft. Benton. In this section the river traversed remote plains and breaks, which had no ports or settlements except a few military posts which were often attacked by Indians. The upper Missouri presented a severe challenge to a river pilot who had to contend with shifting channels, swift rapids, rocks and snags; these hazards were made worse during low water, after the spring floods. Occasionally a boat encountered maurading bands of Indians. Wood hawks cut and sold wood on the river banks, but was an isolated and dangerous job, and when no wood hawk could be found, the boat simply pulled over at a plentiful supply of dead wood, and all the passengers and crew would pitch in to "wood up".

A boat coming upriver from St. Louis left just after the ice went out, and tried to catch the high water in May, June and early July on the upper Missouri from the melting Rocky Mountain snow pack. Heavy draft boats from the lower Missouri, tempted by the potential of huge profits, often came to grief on the upper Missouri, if the river became too low for these boats after the spring floods had subsided. Light draft riverboats, designed for the upper Missouri could operate throughout the summer. Some of these light draft riverboats could make two round trips from St. Louis to Ft. Benton in a season, but this was the exception and not the rule. Boats that remained up the Missouri, late in the year, ran the risk of being caught in ice and damaged or sunk when the Montana winter set in.

Besides meeting the demands of the developing Montana gold fields, were also opportunities for steamboats to work under contract to the U.S. Army, including bringing supplies to forts, and supporting surveys or military expeditions, on the Missouri River and also on the Yellowstone River.

Grant Marsh takes "Luella" to Ft. Benton, Montana Territory and back, 1866

Grant Marsh's previous experience on the upper Missouri with the Sully expedition became valuable and marketable when new gold fields were discovered in Montana. Passengers wanted to get up the Missouri as swiftly as possible. Thus, in the early spring of 1866, Grant Marsh was selected as master of the Missouri packet steamboat "Luella", with orders to take the boat up the Missouri from St. Louis to Fort Benton, Montana territory.

This was the first boat that Marsh commanded. Marsh adopted the practice, which he followed afterwards, of acting as both master and chief pilot, using a relief pilot as necessary. This held the boat at all times under his absolute control.

Grant Marsh backed away from the St. Louis Levee as soon as ice was out of the river, because the "Luella" was reported to be slower than other boats and time was precious. The "Luella" carried a full load of passengers, and a mixed cargo of 113 tons of staple groceries and mining machinery..

Rumors of Indian attacks on steamboats were enountered with every hailing of a downstream boat. At the mouth of Milk River (near present Ft. Peck dam), the boat's clerk became so jangled with thoughts of imminent death by murdering savages, that he quit, and left on the next downstream boat.

Despite the rumors, Marsh maintained steady progress, and though he had never been above Wagon Wheel Bluffs, he piloted his boat through to Fort Benton in only 60 days arriving on June 17, 1866.

As the "Luella" lay snubbed to the bank at Fort Benton on June 17, 1866, Marsh was confronted by a community of only 500 people, but the center of commerce for a vast region. Muddy rutted streets ran between rough built buildings. Ft. Benton is located in a large "cove" in the bluffs along the north side of the Missouri. Facing the river, Front Street had bars, bordellos and mercantile establishments, in front of which stood huge freight wagons pulled by six to twelve spans of mules or oxen, loading freight from steambats for the last overland haul to Alder Gulch (Virginia City), Last Chance Gulch (Helena), Confederate Gulch, or to other more distant mining camps. Facing the river just east of Front Street were the crumbling adobe bastions of the American Fur Company's Fort Benton which had stood guard over the fur and robe trade at this location for 20 years. Here thronged men of all stamp and type, but having a large proportion of former soldeir from the recently defeated Confederate army.

After the "Luella" had been unloaded for a few days, Captain Marsh met a representative of Smith, Hubbel and Hawley who had purchased Fort Union, a historic fort from the fur trapping era, which had been in existence for 39 years. Located where the Yellowstone flowed into the Missouri Fort Union had been operated by the American Fur Company. Marsh contracted to bring all the fort's goods back to Fort Benton. Marsh dropped down the river to the mouth of the Yellowstone, loaded all the goods from Fort Union, and returned to Fort Benton without mishap.

After unloading Captain Marsh quickly found another business opportunity. A down river deep-draft boat, the "Marion", had stayed up river too late into the summer and as it attempted its downriver run with a heavy load of passenger it had gone aground at Pablos rapid, some 76 miles below Fort Benton, where falling water left it hopelessly stranded. Grant Marsh piloted the shallower draft "Luella" down to the "Marion", rescued the passengers and bought the boat's machinery on the spot, which he then loaded and brought back to Ft. Benton and sold. .

It was now late August, and the "Luella" was the only riverboat still at Ft. Benton. No other boat had ever dared stay up river so late into the season. But Captain Marsh was confident and he advertised in the Helena papers that the "Luella" would leave for St. Louis during the first week in September.

Since the "Luella" offered the last chance to leave Montana territory before winter set in, there was great demand for space on the boat, particularly from miners who had "made their stake" and were eager to return to the states. When "Luella" backed away from the Ft. Benton landing on September 2, she carried 230 miners and $1,250,000.00 in gold dust. This was the most valuable cargo ever carried down the Missouri River by any steamboat, then or later.

Marsh hired a qualified clerk named McCleod from among the passengers to be the boat's clerk, whose duties were to collect from the passengers their fares and the freight charges for the cargo of gold. Payment was by gold dust. A trick of the miners was to mix black sand with the gold they offered for payment. McCleod dutifully collected full fares and freight charges, requiring the miners to repan their gold in front of him before accepting it in payment.

The "Luella" ran aground on a sandbar at the mouth of the Milk River. While the crew was working the boat off the bar miners gathered along the rails to watch. One named McClellan fell overboard. Like other miners he carried his gold dust in a leather belt around their waist. Although McClellan fell into water of about 2 feet of depth, the current was swift and he was swept off his feet into deeper water, where the weight of his gold belt promptly pulled him under and he drowned. Neither his body nor the belt were ever recovered.

As the "Luella" passed the mouth of the Yellowstone they came across a small body of soldiers erecting Fort Buford. While passing the White Earth River the boat again went aground on a sand bar, this time under a high bluff. Indians appeared on the bluff and fired down on the deck of the steamboat. Captain Marsh ordered the passengers (who were well armed with individual firearms) to the top Texas deck, and from there to direct a repressive fire on the edge of the bluff. This gave the crew sufficient cover so they could "grasshopper" the steamboat free.

The "Luella" arrived at St. Louis on about October 6, after only 34 days. She cleared $24,000.00 in profits from her trip, a sum equal to about $500,000.00 in present day money.

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In late 1869, Marsh undertook to captain the "North Alabama" loaded with vegetables for army posts up the Missouri. Despite the dangers of becoming ice-bound for the winter a thousand miles from home, Marsh went all the way to Fort Buford at the mouth of the Yellowstone River to deliver the fresh provisions. These foods provided a welcome relief from the usual soldier's diet of salt meat, canned goods and hardtack.

From the late 1860s into the 1880s he worked with the Coulson Line on the Missouri and Yellowstone River as a captain/river pilot.

In 1873 Marsh assisted in an army column commanded by General Stanley which was escorting a survey team for the Northern Pacific Railroad which was locating a railroad line west from Bismark. He took the Key West 450 miles up the Missouri and Yellowstone to the mouth of the Powder River.

In 1875, Grant Marsh took the river steamboat Josephine 483 mi. up the Yellowstone River, to the current site of Billings, Montana. At this point rapids made further advance impossible. This was the farthest any steamboat ever came up the Yellowstone River.

In June 1876, as captain of the "Far West" Marsh had accompanied a calvary column under the command of General Alfred H. Terry and Col. George Armstrong Custer up the Yellowstone as part of the Sioux war of 1876. While waiting with reserve supplies on the Yellowstone River, the Far West received news of the defeat of the detachment under Custer on the Little Bighorn. Taking advantage of flood waters he took the Far West up the Big Horn River to the mouth of the Little Bighorn River, a feat worthy of note. Marsh then loaded wounded from the battle on June 30th, and made the historic and record setting river run for which he is most famous--the steamboat trip down river, to Bismark in the Dakota Territory, 710 miles in 54 hours.

In 1878, Grant took command of Coulson Line's new boat "F. Y. Batchlor" at Pittsburgh and took her to the Custer landing (supply point for Ft. Custer, just above the mouth of hte Bighorn River) on the Yellowstone River. Grant worked this boat on the upper Missouri River and the Yellowstone River for several years, hauling cargo and supporting army activities

In 1882 Grant purchased the "W.J. Behan", and in late April,he transported Sitting Bull and his remaining 171 followers from Fort Randall, where they had been detained after their return from Canada, up the river to Fort Yates.

Steamboats on the Yellowstone

There were also opportunities for steamboats doing work under contract to the U.S. Army, including bringing supplies to forts, and supporting surveys or military expeditions, on the Missouri River and Yellowstone River. The Key West supported the 1873 army escort of the Norther Pacific Railroad crew. The Josephine supported the 1875 army escort of yet another survey team on the Yellowstone. the Far West supported the Terry-Gibbon-Custer column in the Yellowstone valley in teh Sioux War of 1876.

After the Battle of the Little Bighorn in mid 1876, the army located Ft. Keogh on the Yellowstone, and Ft. Custer on the Bighorn River. Steamboat traffic on the Yellowstone River supplied Fort Keogh and Fort Custer. Towns sprang up along the Yellowstone, because after the defeat of the tribes in the Sioux War of 1876, the Indians went onto reservations and shortly after that hide hunters and the trail herds arrived. Miles City and Junction City on the Yellowstone were shipping centers for the buffalo hide trade.

The completion of the Northern Pacific Railroad up the Yellowstone in 1882, and the Great Northern Railroad in 1887 spelled the end of riverboat steamer traffic.

Later Career and Death

When the Northern Pacific Railroad was completed through the Montana Territory in 1882, Marsh moved to Memphis, Tennessee, and then to St. Louis. He worked on the Mississippi River for 20 years. In 1902, he returned to the Upper Missouri, working with the Benton Packet Company until his death in 1916.

Grant Marsh served on more than 22 vessels in his long and illustrious career. He had an outstanding record and reputation. He is considered one of the best steamboat men of his time.

Grant Marsh died of pneumonia, in near poverty, in Bismarck, North Dakota on January 9, 1916, at the age of 83. He is buried in St. Mary's Cemetery located on a hilltop overlooking the Missouri River and the valley.

Places or Things named after Grant Marsh

Grant Marsh is remembered by place names, and names of other objects.

• The Intersatate 94 Grant Marsh Bridge at Bismark was constructed in 1965. .

• The Grant Marsh fishing access and wild life management area is on the Big Horn River, 7 miles north of Hardin, Montana.

• The (now abandoned) railroad station and (ghost) town of Marsh in Dawson County was on the Northern Pacific Railroad, midway between Terry, Montana and Glendive, Montana

• A Liberty Ship, built during World War II, was initially named for Grant P. Marsh at the start of ship construction, but the ship was completed as the Valery Chkalov in 1943 and given as part of a loan to the USSR.

Further reading

Grant Marsh is rememberd in several biographies and he is referenced in other books.

• "The Conquest of the Missouri, Being the Story of the Life and Exploits of Captain Grant Marsh", Joseph Mills Hanson, Chicago, A.C. McClurg & Co. 1909. A biography devoted to Grant Marsh, this book is also a history of steamboats on the Missouri. Available online at Internet Archive

• "Grant Marsh: Steamboat Captain" (The American adventure series) by A. M Anderson, Harper & Row (1964). A biography.

• "The Taming of the Sioux", Frank Fisk, bismark Tribune, Bismark North Dakota, 1917. This book mentions Grant Marsh on pp. 90, 106, 117, 125, 126, 130. This book is available online at books.google.com

External Sites

• Riverboat Dave's web site, listing all riverboat captains by alphabetical order, including Grant P. Marsh, listing each boat by year that each captain commanded, and adding comments on highlights of their various careers.

• National Public Radio Program on Grant P. Marsh.

• Wyoming Trails and Tails, Little Big Horn Page, comment on Grant P. Marsh’s role bringing wounded from the Little Bighorn Battlefield downriver to Bismark.

• Montana Fish Game and Wildlife Department page describing the Grant P. Marsh Fishing Access on the Bighorn River, and Montana Fish and Wildlife Department page describing the Grant P. Marsh Wildlife management site on the Bighorn River.

• Mark Twain web site, this page contains quotes from Marsh and Twain about each other.

• Yellowstone Geneology Forum, this site has a letter from Marsh dated 1907

• Missouri National Recreational River site, a division of the National Park Service, this page has a biography of Grant Marsh.

• Historical Fort Benton, this page has a good biography of Grant Marsh, listing the riverboats he commanded, year by year, with a commentary.

• Reprint of a August 16, 1943 TIME magazine critique of "The Conquest of the Missouri" by Joseph Mills Hanson, on the occasion of its reissuance.