Boat lighting prior to electricity

[Joe E Brown]

--- In Paddleducks@yahoogroups.com, "ijigm" <ijig@t...> wrote:
Well, in the beginning the riverboats just used candles for general
deck lights and relied on the moon for spot lights. On moonless
nights they hung an iron cage with burning material at the bow out
over the river for lighting. Most of the time is was foggy so they
were tied up to the bank.

Later on they started using oil lamps for the cabins, navigation and
spot lights. To concentrate more light forward the spot lights had
reflectors in them. They looked much like the lanterns you'd see on
the old late 19th century steam engines. I could probably dig up a
couple of photos.

[Bryant Owen]

If you look in the Alligator folder in the files section you'll see a
pic of the Hamilton H in tow showing a large light. Not sure about
much more. Acetyline? The larger 'gators often had electric lighting
even in the early days.

Bryant

[Joe E Brown]

That happens to be a coal oil or whale oil lantern searchlight atop
the Hamilton H.

I done a little more research and found, on the U S rivers, prior to
the 1870's steamboats used torch baskets for lighting the nearby
shores. Beginning in the 1850's coal oil or whale oil lantern
searchlights began to be used. The electric searchlight arrived on
the U S rivers in 1880.

[TEX]

I'm not challenging your statement, but I wanted to add another
light source used before and during the American Civil War ... pine
knots. Jefferson, Texas was, at one time, a port city. Steamboats
traveled up the thru various rivers, bayous and creeks to the Big
Cypress river an into Big Cypress Creek to dock in Jefferson. Later
tha US Army Corp of Engineers, blew up a natural damn an drained the
water so low, that the steam boats could no longer travel that far
inland.

They have worked to preserve this old part of Jefferson and use the
same pine knot street lamps. Back during that era, a know in a picec
of wood made it inferior, so the knots were collected an burned in a
container, much like you would charcoal. The gas coming out of the
container, was piped to the street lamps. I don't think they use
pine knot gas now, but have switched to natural gas. It took me a
while to find out how pine knots could be made into gas, then I
remembered making charcoal in chemistry class and burnin the gas
that came out of the flask. The wood inside never caught fire and
didn't leave any ash.

Wow ... all that explanation to get to my point. I have to wonder if
those steam boats might have used such for lights. It seems that it
would be very easy to add such a chamber to the boiler fires. While
there is surface coal in east Texas, wood was much more plentiful.
I've met old timers that told me they have seen several entire city
blocks covered with cord wood just to fire boilers in railroad
locomotives, before they ventured into the barren western parts of
Texas. One of em told me that the area around this one small town
had been heavily forested in oak trees before the railroad burned
all of it. ... ) TEX

[Joe E Brown]

i don't think they burned the gas from pine knots, but it did mention
that the torch baskets were hung over the sides where the sparks from
burning pine knots would fall hissing into the river. So apparently
there was a lot of pine consumed back in those days, huh! Seems they
would burn a more dense wood that would burn longer. Of course it was
probably a little hotter too. Could you imagine being around a torch
basket on those hot humid southern July and August nights.

[TEX]

I understood what you meant, I was jus curious if perhaps some of
them mite have done so. Seems like I visited a CW era plantation
that was maintained in it's original furnishings. They said the
lamps were gas lamps. Didn't think to ask how they gassed em. lol

Compared to the rest of the pine tree, the knots are perty dense and
do produce a lot of resin.

BTW ... The creek and canals in old Jefferson are rather narrow, so
I have to wonder just what these small steamers looked like. I spose
I need to check it out. First time I went there, somebody had taken
one of the old warfside cotton warehouses an turned it into a neat
restaurant decorated with old stuff they found in the warehouse such
as cotton scales an other devices.

My hometown sits on a river called the Pecan Bayou. There are two
damns on it about 2 miles apart. I was told that there was a small
steamboat that plied the water between the damns and anuther that
operated above the first one.

While I'm thinkin about it ... Does anyone know how ya determine
which it the left bank and right bank of a river? ... ) TEX

[Joe E Brown]

Looking down stream the left bank is on your left and right is on
right. If your headed upstream the left bank is on your right. Just
think of Ole Man River's head waters looking down at cha and you'll
remember his left and right.