# 3091-95 FDC - 1996 32c Riverboats

US #3091-95
1996 Riverboats

• First Day Cover
• Set of five picturing historic riverboats
• First US commemorative to bey issued only in self-adhesive format
• The boats represent all regions of the US
  
  

Stamp Category:  Commemorative
Set:  Riverboats
Value:  32¢, First-Class mail rate
First Day of Issue:  August 22, 1996
First Day City:  Orlando, Florida
Printed by:  Avery Dennison
Printing Method:  Photogravure
Format:  Panes of 20 (4 across, 5 down) from printing cylinders of 200 (10 across, 20 down)
Perforations:  Die-cut simulated

Why the stamp was issued:  The Riverboats stamps were issued to commemorate an important form of transportation along America’s inland waterways. 

About the stamp design:  The artwork for the Riverboat stamps was done by Dean Ellis.  His gouache (opaque watercolor) paintings were larger than those usually made for stamps because he wanted to show the details of each ship.  The backgrounds on the stamps reflect the regions of the US where the boats sailed.  Kevin Foster, a maritime historian with the US National Park Service, was consulted to assure the images were historically accurate.

Special design details:  Though the names of each riverboat appears on the boat, it  is difficult to read them because of their small size and because photogravure printed is relatively course.

About the printing process:  The Riverboat stamps were the first to be printed exclusively as self-adhesive stamps.  Previous issues were produced in both self-adhesive and water-activated gum formats.
The die-cut simulated perforations went through the backing paper as well as the stamp.  This allowed postal clerks to divide up the pane for individual sale.  Collectors could also easily save the stamps with the backing paper attached.

First Day City:  The stamps were dedicated at Stampshow 96, which took place in Orlando, Florida.

About the Riverboats set:  Picturing five riverboats from the turn of the century - Robert. E. Lee, Sylvan Dell, Far West, Rebecca Everingham, and Bailey Gatzert - these stamps represent a bygone era.  Chosen for their historical significance as well as their visual appeal, the boats represent five different regions.  All were in service around the turn of the 20^th century and were efficient means to transport goods and passengers.
This set is patterned after a 1989 issue of five Steamboats (US #2405-09).

History the stamp represents: 
Robert E. Lee: Some of the finest, most glamorous steamboats ever built sailed the mighty Mississippi.  None is more celebrated than the Robert E. Lee, winner of a fearsome race with the Natchez, immortalized in Roy Barkhau’s “The Great Steamboat Race,” and in a Currier & Ives’ painting.
Mississippi boats were broad but required shallow keels and powerful engines to navigate the strong but shallow currents.  The Robert E. Lee was 285 feet long, 47 feet wide, and weighed over 1,450 tons. Each of its eight boilers was 42 inches high and 28 feet long. Together the eight engines produced the 120 pounds of steam necessary to turn the Lee’s two 30-foot sidewheels. 
In 1866, Captain John Cannon of New Orleans commissioned Hoosiers in New Albany, Indiana, to build this steamboat, but delayed christening it until it was safe in a Kentucky port. Because it was to operate between New Orleans and Vicksburg, he named it the Robert. E. Lee.
Though fire and shifting sandbars quickly destroyed many western steamboats, they were nonetheless enormously profitable, paying for themselves in 22 weeks. Like others, the Lee was short-lived, hitting a sandbar in 1874.  Two years later, the boat was dismantled and replaced by a larger boat with the same name

Sylvan Dell: The Sylvan Dell was the last and probably the finest and fastest of the five steamboats built for the Harlem & New York Navigation Company.  She was a 440-ton, single stack steam and paddle boat that measured 178 feet long and 27 feet wide.  On her maiden voyage in 1872, she steamed upriver from New York to Albany, without passengers or stops, in a record seven hours, 43 minutes, becoming the fastest boat on the Hudson River.
The Sylvan Dell generally carried commuters between Harlem and lower Manhattan, but with the opening of the Third Avenue Elevated Railroad in 1883, the company discontinued the service and sold its boats. 

The riverboat then carried New Yorkers on pleasure excursions until 1889. She was sold again to ferry commuters between Philadelphia and Salem, NJ, on the Delaware River.  In 1919, she sank in Salem Creek.

Far West: The steamboats that navigated the treacherously shallow Missouri River were lovingly called mountain boats.  Their hulls were narrow as well as shallow and their single paddlewheel was located in the back. Rivermen said their boats could travel across a meadow on a heavy dew, and that in low water the captain could travel for miles on the foam from an opened keg of beer.
The first steamboat ventured onto the Missouri in 1819, but for the longest time the only boat traffic on the river’s upper reaches was limited to hunters, trappers, and the US Army.  For this was the land of the Sioux, Crow, and other tribes who did everything they could to keep the white man out. All too frequently, stern-wheelers had to battle Indians who fired at them from the banks, only to have to battle them again around the bend. Consequently, rifles were kept close at hand and iron plating on pilothouses was standard equipment. 
By 1860, traveling the Missouri was almost routine, with boats steaming to Fort Benton in Montana, 2200 miles upriver. Though the Far West was launched in 1870, her claim to fame is that she carried the news and the 52 survivors of Custer’s massacre at Little Bighorn to the rest of the world. In 1883, the Far West hit a snag and sank seven miles from St. Charles, Missouri.

Rebecca Everingham: The deep, slow-moving rivers of the South were well suited for the deep-hulled, northern-made steamboats.  As they forged inland, they opened up the wilderness, contributing significantly to the growth and prosperity of the South.  One such area developed was the Chattahoochee-Apalachicola river basin which stretches from Apalachicola, Florida, on the Gulf of Mexico to Columbus, Georgia, 700 miles upstream.
Besides ending the use of slave labor, the Civil War also wreaked havoc with the South’s transportation system.  However, steamboats made a quick comeback because cotton and tobacco remained in high demand. The Rebecca Everingham made its appearance at this time.
Launched in 1880, the Everingham was one of the finest boats floating south of the Mason-Dixon Line.  It glided at an average speed of seven miles an hour and regularly carried 900 bales of cotton, 75 cabin passengers, and as many on deck as could be squeezed aboard.  The affluent enjoyed Victorian staterooms and dining rooms that rivaled those found in the finest hotels.  So modern and up-to-date was the Everingham, she even carried cork life preservers as a precaution.  But like so many steamboats fueled by burning wood or coal, the Everingham was short-lived, burning to the waterline in 1884.

Bailey Gatzert: Climactic conditions in the Pacific Northwest required steamboats with structural features different from boats navigating elsewhere.  Here, single smokestacks, enclosed superstructures, and covered sternwheels were favored. 
When the Bailey Gatzert was launched in Seattle in 1890, the young city was teeming with new settlers and prospectors heading for gold fields in Alaska. John Leary of the Seattle Steam Navigation and Transportation Company had a luxurious steamboat built in Ballard, Washington to provide transportation between Seattle, Tacoma, and Olympia, Washington, naming it the Bailey Gatzert after one of Seattle’s pioneer citizens and former mayors.
Besides running scheduled passenger service in the Puget Sound, the Bailey Gatzert ran the Columbia River, the major transportation artery to the interior.  To do this, she had to cross the Juan De Fuca Strait to the Pacific, then sail south to the river.  She raced all comers with a broom lashed to her mast, symbol of her power to sweep the river clear of competition.  When the Bailey Gatzert finally lost a race in 1918, Leary sold her.  Before being dismantled eight years later, the grand old steamboat ferried automobiles between Seattle and Bremerton.