Traveling in the U.S. via the Rivers

Migration has been part of this country’s history since its inception, and for the next few weeks, we will explore some ways you can learn more about your ancestors’ travels across North America, wherever and however they went. 

Perhaps you had ancestors who used the rivers to travel or to earn a living? If so, you will want to know about the Waterways Journal, 134 years old and “America’s oldest continuously published inland waterways trade magazine.” The Herman T. Pott National Inland Waterways Library, located in the Mercantile Library on the campus of the University of Missouri-St. Louis, has an extensive collection of these journals and related materials and has recently added even more. The publisher of the Waterways Journal has donated its research library and photo morgue to the library.

The photo morgue contains an estimated 15,000 photographs, from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century, from old albumen prints to Polaroids, revealing images of river life from steamboats to Civil War gunboats to more modern industry. The research library contains hundreds of books and pamphlets, again from the nineteenth century onward, covering history, navigation, and inland waterways regulations. These new publications contain lists of boats and their crew members, especially helpful for genealogists.

(Lee Line Steamers ad, Waterways Journal, 1909)

Another highlight of this new donation is a copy, made in 1931, of a rare chart of the Mississippi River from Natchez to New Orleans created in 1858. The original artist, Marie Adrien Persac, meticulously rode mile by mile in a skiff on the Mississippi charting owners, plantations, schools, churches, hotels, and post offices on both sides of the river. He was commissioned by Benjamin Moore Norman, who took Persac’s drawings and created a hand-colored lithograph; today, only a few copies still exist. At this time, volunteers in the Pott Library are processing the collection and working on a finding aid, which will be added to their website. 

To explore the Waterways Journal collection: https://www.umsl.edu/mercantile/collections/pott-library-special-collections/collections/pott001.html 

Streckfus Steamboats 

For an interesting article by St. Louis historian Andrew Wanko on the history of the Streckfus Steamboat Line (owners of the President and the Admiral), check out the Missouri Historical Society’s blog from 2 April 2021.

“Identifying Migration Trails” in the StLGS Fall Speaker Series 

The earliest migration routes in the U.S. were well-worn footpaths, many originally created by animals and followed for generations by Native Americans, and the rivers that made traveling long distances relatively easy. If you want to learn more about seventeenth and eighteenth-century American migration routes, you will want to register for the StLGS Fall Speaker Series, “Mapping Our Ancestors,” which will take place live via Zoom on Saturday, 16 October 2021. Assistant manager of the History and Genealogy Department at St. Louis County Library, Jacob “Jake” Eubanks will begin our full day of livestreamed lectures with “Identifying Migration Trails.” Jake will discuss the post roads, footpaths, and rivers our ancestors used as they moved about during colonial years and shortly thereafter.

Jake's talk will be followed by three more lectures on mapping websites and resources. We'll talk more about those in the coming weeks.

Registration for the Fall Speaker Series is now open on the StLGS website!