Lake Maxinkuckee Its Intrigue History & Genealogy Culver, Marshall, Indiana

Early History of Lake Maxinkuckee - Steam Boats  



The first steam boat on the lake was brought from Rochester, Ind., by a man whose name can not be ascertained. It was launched at Maxinkuckee landing on the east side in the spring of 18778, and was christened "the VICTOR". It was a small, unpretentious vessel, with a diminutive engine and boiler, and was not considered entirely safe. There were not many people about the lake at that time, and the few that patronized it did not justify the owner in keeping it on the lake and it was removed elsewhere the same year. And the "the Victor" was vanquished.

The next steam boat brought to the lake came from the St. Joseph river at South Bend in February, 1883, by a man named Davis. It was called "the BESSIE", but when the railroad reached the lake early the same year the name was changed to "the VANDALIA". The patronage was not sufficient to make it a paying investment and it was removed not long after it came to Cedar Lake, now Bass Lake, in Starke county.

Capt. R. K. Lord brought the iron clad steamer he named "the W. R. MCKEEN", in honor of the president of the Vandalia Railroad, about the first of April, 1883. Capt. Lord purchased it from a man by the name of Conover, at Cleveland, Ohio, where it had been run on Lake Erie for the accommodation of the owner. It was a small boat, but modern in all its appointments, and had a fair patronage from the first. Capt Lord continued to run it for several years, but becoming despondent, drowned himself in the lake a short distance east of Long Point in the spring of 1889. Mrs. Lord continued to run it for a few years, when she sold it to a man who removed it to the Lake of the Woods. During the first winter it was there, water was left in the boiler and pipes, which were busted from freezing, and the boat was so badly injured that the owner did not consider it worth repairing, and this ended the career of "the W. R. McKeen".

About 1886 Capt. A. J. Knapp purchased a small steamer which had been built for service on Pretty Lake, near Plymouth, but as there was no sufficient patronage to justify the owner keeping it there he sold it to Mr. Knapp, who launched it on Maxinkuckee lake in connection with his hotel, "the Arlington" christening it "the LLOYD MCSHEEHY", in honor of a son of editor McSheey of the Logansport Chronicle, and it has been doing service on the lake ever since.

Capt Ed. Morris began building boats in 1872. His first White Hall clinker row boat was built for B. F. Jones of Indianapolis, in the spring of 1879. About that time he also built boats for N. H. Oglesbee and C. E. Toan, of Plymouth. He built and launched the first side wheel steamer "WELCOME", in 1885. It was 50 by 14 feet, but was so badly built and equipped owing to lack of experience in boat building, that it proved a failure and was abandoned during the year.

The next year he built "the PEERLESS" which he ran for ten years, when it was laid aside and the present "Peerles" No. 2 was constructed. Capt Morris has the distinction of having been the first to build all kinds of boats now on the lake that were built here, except gasoline and naphtha launches, and in all has built more than one thousand boats which have been used on the lake. This is a record that probably no other man in this country can duplicate.

After the coming of the railroad in 1883-4, naphtha and gasoline launches, steamers and sail boats became numerous, so that now it is but the truth to say that no lake of its size anywhere is so well stocked as is Maxinkuckee with every kind of up-to-date water craft.