The steamboat Bertrand April 1865

[tamrock]

I had the opportunity to visit this museum this week along the Missouri River just east of Blair Nebraska. There is much you can research about the recovery of this steamboat online. It only put me back 3 bucks to visit the museum and explore the DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge, which was also a pleasure to explore. These are just a few pictures of what all I saw recovered from this paddle wheeler heading to the mining regions of Virginia City, Montana. A real time capsule it is.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_(steamboat)

 

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[BosnMate]

I'd love to go through that museum.

 

[tamrock]

Well I hope you get the chance BM. It just amazing how well preserved this cargo of goods endured. Your talking wool shirts,wool socks and stick matches that were sealed and buried in the fine silt for over a 100 years. One thing I saw were these small hand vices. There were other tools for carpenters, blacksmith and other small hand tools such as clamps and metal files. I have one of these small hand vice tools and they were the kind of tools used by a gunsmith. The boat was also loaded with all kinds of munitions such as mountain howitzer exploding shells, sabots and Maynard cartridges. I guess it's unclear as to were and to who all these munitions were headed, as there have not been any records found on these items aboard the Bertrand. What they had on display is just a fraction of the goods recovered from this wreck. Not much was recovered in the way of treasures like gold & silver, but they did find some pieces of fine sterling silver that someone I'm sure ordered through the merchants in Virginia City back in the 1860's. I read that these steamboat's could profit enough from one haul to buy another complete new steamboat, but the risk of a successful complete trip was very low. Eventually all the merchants in Virginia City who lost this cargo did reach a settlement with their insurance company and were compensated for their loss, which was valued at the time a hundred thousand dollars. Today we have Amazon and maybe we'll see these drones buzzing through with all the stuff we want and I'm sure there will be mishaps with those crashing into each other or into the side of a building? I'll bet there were a few customers with tears in their eye's over the loss of this cargo. Some I believe could have been Christmas gifts and who ever spent the money for those fine and most likely very expensive buffalo skin winter boots I'm sure were very sad to know they won't be arriving in time for the coming winter.