TRAIN PASSENGERS TOOK TO BOAT
When Parkersburg Became an Island
Taken from a hand-written account by Mae Stump
Elliott
First published 2001
In 1907 Parkersburg had two floods, one of over 40 feet on January
21st
and the other cresting at nearly 52 feet on March 16th.
According
to old records, March 16, 1907 was a bright sunny day. Despite
the
welcomed sunshine, Parkersburg was an island with all roads in and out
of the city cut off by the high water.
But there were the boats which ran regularly on the Ohio and Little
Kanawha Rivers, flood or no flood. And, there were trains, or at
least there had been.
On the morning of the 16th, the Baltimore and Ohio's crack train,
The
St. Louis Limited, was trying desperately to reach Parkersburg with
its
105 passengers and her crew.
It seemed The Limited would make it but, about half a mile west of
Kanawha
Station, high water on the tracks put the fire out under her
boiler.
With the fire gone, the supply of steam declined rapidly and the train
came to a hopeless halt surrounded by the muddy waters of the Little
Kanawha
River.
However, there was just enough steam left for the engineer to blow
a
distress signal to a boat which could be seen passing rapidly, riding
the
swift current downstream toward Parkersburg.
An old newspaper reports "Captain Bill Stump, skipper of the
gasoline
sternwheeler, RELIANCE, was headed downstream from Grantsville with a
barge
16 feet wide and 60 feet long. The barge was loaded with
white
oak staves consigned to the Standard Oil Co. Refinery which was then
located
on Staunton Ave. These staves would be delivered and a load of
oil
field equipment would then be taken back up the river and delivered to
different locations between Burning Springs and Grantsville."
RELIANCE
The account of the old, near-tragedy continued, "Captain Stump was
quick
to recognize the distress call and came immediately to the rescue,"
the
article related. "The Captain maneuvered his boat alongside the
stalled
train and took off all passengers and the crew without injury to any
of
the more than 110 anxious souls who were marooned there. There
was
not enough room in the cabin of the boat to accomodate a crown of that
magnitude. It was a nice sunshiny day and passengers and train
crew
stood on the quarter decks at each end of the barge, or sat on the
cargo."
"When the RELIANCE and her precious carge reached Parkersburg, the
barge
was headed up Market Street. The RELIANCE was then cut loose
from
the barge and was propelled by hand with long poles up past the City
Building
at Fifth and Market Sts., the passengers being unloaded approximately
in
front of what is now Reps Furniture Store." Captain Stump told
that
the auditor of the B & O compensated him with an order for $100.00
which, he said was a lot of money at that time.
The newspaper article was written several decades after the
incident,
it related, "Three unidentified reporters wrote, "The veteran riverman
said that at that time (1907) all steam and gasoline boats were built
of
wood. The Little Kanawha was a busy river with locks and dams in
good repair, making a pool in stages from Parkersburg to
Creston.
The river was channeled and the timber was kept cut from harbor line
to
shore line." At the time the story was related, Captain Stump
had
retired, but in speaking of his years on the river, he said, "I had a
good
time. I worked hard but I enjoyed every minute of it."
There are probably not many cases on record where a boat has
rescued
the stranded passengers from a crack train.
After retirement, Captain Bill Stump and wife Ruby Dent Stump lived
near Wheeling for several years, then came to Parkersburg, and lived
there
until they died. He died in 1962, and she in 1964. They
were
interred in Mt. Olivet Cemetery, Parkersburg, W. Va. | 
