ALAQUIPPA (1888 - 1902)


HISTORY

(The following is copied directly from Norton's notes)

In the Winter of 1887-88, Samuel L. Cooper of Mayville, NY built a two-decker, stern paddle wheel steamboat of the Mississippi River type for W.K. Vandergriff of Jamestown. The new steamer was built at the Boatlanding in Jamestown, it was named the "Alaquippa". The size of the new boat was 80 feet long, 17 foot beam and 4 foot depth of the hold. It had a carrying capacity of over 250 persons.

Mr. Vendergriff, the owner used his boat to advertise his medicine company. From a Journal article dated July 26, 1888: The new steamer "Alaquippa" will leave her dock at Jamestown at 7:00 AM and 1:15 PM. Anyone buying a round trip ticket will be entitled to any of the following articles:

1 Bottle - Frisby's Vegetable Cough Syrup

1 Bottle - Carson's Healing Ointment

1 Bottle - Carson's Magic Eye Water

1 Bottle - Carson's Catarrah Snuff

The "Alaquippa" made a few trips its first year. At a public sale the next spring she was sold to E.F. Alling of Akron, Ohio. Her new owner had her towed to a point above Chautauqua and drawn out of the water. She lay beached for several years. Finally in 1895 Mr. Alling had her overhauled an put in commission. Her name was changed to the "Buckeye" and she ran in ferry service around the upper end of the lake the summers of 1895-96-97.

The "Buckeye" was again beached near Mayville after the summer of 1897, her engine and boiler taken out and her hull floated to Lighthouse Point and beached.

In 1901, the newly organized Chautauqua Lake Dredging & Filling Company purchased the hull of the "Buckeye". She was floated down to the Boatlanding and fitted up with apparatus for hydraulic dredging. Mud was sucked up from the bottom of the lake and blown through a hose and deposited on the shore.

After one year or so this was given up and the "Buckeye" was soon dismantled and her hull sunk in the steamboat boneyard just below Celoron.

The "Alaquippa" - "Buckeye" was a complete failure. She had the engines of the burned "May Martin", which was also a failure.

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