Recollections of a pioneer steamboat pilot : contributing to the early history of the Mississippi
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- Created Date
- 1840-1870
- Description
This short book contains the recollections of Mississippi steamboat pilot George C. Nichols, as recorded in the third person by an anonymous editor. Nichols was born in Ohio in 1824 and his family moved steadily westward until settling on the Black River in Wisconsin in 1840. Young George went to St. Louis that year to learn to be a riverboat pilot but soon returned north to work on the family farm for four years. In 1845, he returned to the river, beginning a decades-long career as a steamboat pilot for the Minnesota Packet Company; over the next 40 years he worked for many other firms on the upper Mississippi and its tributaries. Nichols' memoir discusses not only a pilot's duties and wages but also the early years of Fort Snelling, the fur trade, the Ho-Chunk, Sioux and Ojibwe Indians, lumber rafts, birth of Wisconsin river towns, and collisions and crashes between vessels. A long section describes the removal of the Ho-Chunk to Minnesota, in which he was personally involved.
- Creator
Nichols, George C., 1824
- Partner
- Recollection Wisconsin
- Contributing Institution
- Wisconsin Historical Society
- Collection
- Pamphlets in Rare Book
- Publisher
- Tucker & Co
- Subjects
- Native Americans
Indians of North America Government relations
Rivers
Steamboats
Forest products industry
Fur trade
Dakota (Sioux)
Ho-Chunk
Ojibwe - Type
- text
- Language
- English
- Rights
- We believe that online reproduction of this material is permitted because its copyright protection has lapsed or because sharing it here for non-profit educational purposes complies with the Fair Use provisions of the U.S. Copyright Law. Teachers and students are generally free to reproduce pages for nonprofit classroom use. For advice about other uses, or if you believe that you possess copyright to some of this material, please contact us at asklibrary@wisconsinhistory.org.
- Chicago citation style
- Nichols, George C., 1824. Recollections of a pioneer steamboat pilot : contributing to the early history of the Mississippi. 1840-1870. Retrieved from the Digital Public Library of America, http://content.wisconsinhistory.org/cdm/ref/collection/tp/id/44479. (Accessed March 29, 2024.)
- APA citation style
- Nichols, George C., 1824, (1840-1870) Recollections of a pioneer steamboat pilot : contributing to the early history of the Mississippi. Retrieved from the Digital Public Library of America, http://content.wisconsinhistory.org/cdm/ref/collection/tp/id/44479
- MLA citation style
- Nichols, George C., 1824. Retrieved from the Digital Public Library of America <http://content.wisconsinhistory.org/cdm/ref/collection/tp/id/44479>.