One of the more interesting river stories out of Columbus was the theft in 1880 of the steamboat Alice from under the nose of the Lowndes County sheriff.
The Alice was a small “light draught” steamboat built in Columbus in 1876 for the Mobile trade. Fully loaded, she could carry about 500 bales of cotton from the Upper Tombigbee to Mobile. Because she had a shallow draught, she could negotiate the river after it was too low for most other steamboats to travel. On many of her runs between Columbus and Mobile, Capt. A.B. Shropshire had been her master.
In the spring of 1880, the owners of the Alice got in financial difficulties and were unable to pay significant debts in both Columbus and Mobile. In May, legal action was taken in Columbus. The Alice, which was docked at the Columbus landing, was seized under court order by Sheriff Bell to be held pending a court hearing. Of course, the creditors in Mobile were not very happy about being left high and dry.
An account of what happened next appeared in the Columbus Index and was picked up by the Pickens County Herald and West Alabamian of Carrollton, Alabama on June 9, 1880:
A Breeze on the River–A Steam-boat Stolen. – Thursday there was some excitement in town. News came up that our little home steamer, as we call her, the Alice, had been taken possession of – stolen, in fact – and that in charge of her captors she was making head with all the power there was in her diminutive engines, down the river. Enquiry proved that the report was true, and enabled us to the following facts:
As is known the Alice has been tied up here for some time to await legal proceedings in which she had become involved. Capt. Shropshire, her old commander, came up from below by train (from mobile) yesterday. His movements when he arrived did not excite suspicion, though he had a party who proved to be a pilot (and an engineer) in his company, and took the rear part of the train as a place to get off. One of the crew went to the wharf where the boat lay about dinner time, and discovering that steam was being raised on board, concluded that something was wrong and hastened to the Sheriff’s office and gave the alarm. Mr. Bell promptly repaired to the river to look after his charge but found that he was too late. The little craft had already shoved off and well on her way downward. A hail and a call for a round to were made but not regarded. Capt. Shropshire and his pilot were too busy. The lower bridge (the Southside railroad trestle) was opened, and the Alice was making for it.
Capt. Moore, who has charge of the bridge, was then signaled by the pursuing official and ordered to close the draw. This, however, he declined do on the ground that he had no right to “obstruct navigation.” And so the Alice went her way, and the last that was seen of her was when she was rounding the bend, with the black smoke issuing from her chimneys, puffing and paddling as if in a race for life.
The capture was well planned and successfully carried out. If it was “steal” it was rather huge and somewhat unusual one. We have heard all sorts of thefts, but it is rarely we are called upon to chronicle so sudden, bold, and skillful a spiriting away of a steam boat in broad daylight. Suppose Capt. Shropshire will his prize out of the State, and perhaps to Mobile. What he proposes to do with her we can only conjecture. Legal proceedings to recover her, and also arrest the parties engaged in the piracy will, we learn, be taken. Requisition for her, Capt. Shropshire, the pilot and the engineer, will doubtless be made by Gov. Stone, which will serve to bring the matter in our courts.
The Captain did make it to Mobile with the Alice, where it was sold to pay the creditors there. The unpaid creditors in Columbus pressed criminal charges against Shropshire, the pilot and the engineer. A couple of weeks later, Shropshire was apprehended and placed in the Columbus Jail. The Times-Democrat of New Orleans, on Oct. 27, 1881, reported that in the Circuit Court at Columbus Capt Shropshire was convicted of grand larceny. The paper added, “Shropshire is an old man and a life-long steamboat man and thought the marine law would protect the theft.”
Capt. Shropshire was sentenced to two years in the state penitentiary, but many people felt the sentence too severe and “almost amounted to cruelty.” The Vicksburg Herald reported on Dec. 16, “On learning all the facts by a large petition almost universally signed by the citizens of Columbus and vicinity, Gov. Stone promptly pardoned Capt. Shropshire. In so doing we think the Governor wisely used his power. He was clothed with it to meet just such remarkable freaks of juries.”
Capt. A.B. Shropshire died in Memphis, Alabama, on Friday, May 11, 1888. The last accounts found of the Steamer Alice show her operating on rivers in southeast Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. Thanks to Carolyn Kaye for all her help with this column.
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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