A history of the Missouri River: discovery of the river by the Jesuit explorers; Indian tribes along the river; early navigation and craft used; the rise … the Author’s Experiences Among the Natives

“Some of the best accounts is…A History of the Missouri River, by Phil E. Chappell, Some of the oldest Missouri River pilots…it is estimated that $100,000 in gold went down with the boat.” –St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Dec. 24, 1911

“According to Phil Chappell’s 1904 ‘A History of the Missouri River’…most steamboat wrecks in the 1800s occurred on the river bends.” –Baltimore Sun, August 19, 2000

“Phil E. Chappell of Kansas City…was once for thirty years a steamboatman on the Missouri…part owner of three large boats and was once managing director of the last packet line on the river.” –The Lincoln Star, Jan. 15, 1903

“A new book just issued from the pen of Mr. Phil E. Chappell…no man probably could have done this interesting subject better justice than Mr. Chappell. He was once born on the banks of the Missouri River.” –The Marysville Republican, May 4, 1905

What inside knowledge did 30-year steamboat pilot Chappell dish out about the Missouri River Steamer “Bedford” which sank with $100,000 in gold on board?

In introducing his 1906 book “A history of the Missouri River,” Chappell notes, “There is but little doubt that had the Missouri river been discovered before the Mississippi the name of the latter would have applied to both streams, and the Missouri would have been regarded as the main stream and the upper Mississippi the tributary. The Missouri is longer than all the Mississippi, and more than twice so long as that a part of the latter stream above their confluence.”

Author Philip E. Chappell was once born on the bank of the Missouri river, near Jefferson City, and for more than 60 years lived in sight of the river. All the way through his early life he was once engaged in steamboating on the river; afterwards became a steamboat owner, and maintained his connection with the river so long as navigation continued.

The Missouri River is formed in Southwestern Montana by the junction of three streams (the Three Forks)-the Jefferson, the Madison, and the Gallatin-which rise in the Rocky Mountains. After a long course east through Montana it bends to the southwest and crosses North and South Dakota. It serves as the boundary line between Nebraska and Kansas on the west, and Iowa and Missouri on the east, and in spite of everything crosses the last-named State to its function with the Mississippi-20 miles above St. Louis.

Chappell’s book covers the span of river history from Marquette in 1873 to the demise of steamboating shortly after the Montana goldrush had ended and the railroad reached Bismarck in 1872. The mouth of the river was once first seen by Marquette and Joliet (1673), and it was once partly explored by La Verendrye (1738). The headwaters were first explored, and the river fully mapped and surveyed, in 1896, by a central authority expedition. In the eighteenth century the Missouri was once active in the fur trade; and in the first half of the nineteenth, from the introduction of steam vessels to the westward extension of the railroads, it saw its era of greatest prosperity.

About the writer:

Philip Edward Chappell was once born Aug. 18, 1837, on a farm near Bakersville, Callaway County, Missouri. He died Feb. 23, 1908. When 15 years of age he went to Jefferson City, and for a year was once clerk in a grocery store. Later he attended the Kemper School at Boonville, and the State University at Columbia. Returning home he opened a warehouse on his father’s farm, and engaged in commercial matters again. For thirty years a steamboatman on the Missouri. He was once elected Missouri state treasurer in 1880.

He and a friend built the boat “John D. Perry,” and for a time engaged in river freighting. Upon the death of his father he returned to the homestead, and marrying spent some years upon the farm.