Often while working on a column, I fall down a rabbit home. That was the case Saturday while working on a column about the Tombigbee steamboats of 1852. The rabbit hole I stumbled into was the steamer Sallie Spann which sank on the lower Tombigbee 90 miles above Mobile November 22, 1855.
The Sallie Spann was a 190 ton side-wheeler built in New Albany, Indiana, in 1852 specifically for the Mobile trade on the Tombigbee and Alabama Rivers. According to press reports “The dimensions of the boat are 165 feet length, 33 feet beam, and 6 feet hold.” She was called a “light draught summer boat” as she only drew 22 inches of water when lightly loaded and could travel most rivers during the low water of summer. The Sallie Spann could carry more than 1,800 500 pound bales of cotton. She had 25 staterooms for men and 15 for ladies.
After arriving in Mobile from Louisville on October 2, 1852, she was on her way to Montgomery with a load of goods within three days under the command of Capt. William Buckley. Her schedule for the 1852-1853 season was to leave Montgomery every Friday night and arrive in Mobile on Sunday night. She continued in the Alabama River trade in 1854.
In August of 1855 the Sallie Spann moved to the upper Tombigbee and the Columbus-Plymouth Mobile trade. Most steamboats could not make it to Columbus in the low water of summer, but the Sallie Spann did. Not only that but she was experimenting with India rubber “cotton floaters” that could raft or float cotton down river in low water. They were considered cheaper and safer than flatboats or barges attached to steamboats.
On November 17, 1855, the Mobile Advertiser reported that the Sallie Spann had arrived in Mobile “from Plymouth above Columbus on the Bigbee” with “no less than 2,333 bales of cotton.” It was the largest load of cotton by a single boat during that season or the previous one. She had the assistance of a barge attached to her. The paper described the Sallie Spann when she arrived as being “piled with the staple in a most surprising manner, little more than the chimneys and paddle-boxes being visible to show that there was a steamboat under the mass of cotton.”
Then on November 22, 1855, disaster struck. It all started when the Steamer Eliza Battle was headed down the Tombigbee with a full load of cotton from the Upper Tombigbee and ran aground on Croom’s Bar just below Black Bluff. She managed to lighten her load and get off the bar by transferring some of the cotton to the steamer Jenny Belle. The Jenny Belle then ran aground and transferred the Eliza battle’s cotton to the Sallie Spann. As the Sallie Spann proceeded down river toward Mobile, she caught fire.
The Mobile Advertiser on November 24th reported:
“Loss of the Sallie Spann. – At 15 minutes before 2 o’clock yesterday morning, when the steamer Sallie Spann was in the Bigbee river about ninety miles from this city, she was discovered to be on fire near the stern. The boat was immediately run aground near the bank, and all on board landed to safety, with the exception of one white man, a deck hand, name unknown, who jumped overboard and was drowned, and a colored boy employed in the kitchen department, who is supposed to have perished by fire in the engine-room. The flames spread rapidly and the boat was soon destroyed, together with a load of 1,079 bales cotton, a pair of horses, and other freight. The Sallie Spann was a good boat with 1,900 bale capacity, and was partially insured. The fire is supposed to have been communicated by a spark from the chimneys. About an hour after the boat was run ashore the Eliza Battle hove in sight, and by her the officers and crew were brought down to the city. The Sallie Spann was owned by the firm of Cox, Brainard, & Co.”
Rufus Ward is a local historian.
Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].
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