Dear Members of the Lewis County, Kentucky Mailing List, Vanceburg, Kentucky was home to the steamboat "W.P. Thompson" for part of her life on the Ohio River. The "W.P. Thompson" was a wooden-hull, sternwheel packet built at Harmar, Washington County, Ohio in 1876, at the Knox Boatyard. Harmar is located at the mouth of the Muskingum River, on the opposite bank of the Muskingum from Marietta, Ohio. She was first owned by the J.N. Camden and Company, an oil-producing company of Parkersburg, West Virginia. J.N. CAMDEN was one of the company's directors. One of the first missions of the "W.P. Thompson" was running the Pittsburgh to Cincinnati route in the spring of 1877, replacing the "Emma Graham" while the new vessel of the same name was being built. During this period, E.B. COOPER was Captain and Nat EARHART was Clerk, with Captain J.N. WILLIAMSON part owner. She then took the Cincinnati to Charleston run, under Captain John THORNBURG. Following that, she again plied the Pittsburgh to Cincinnati route, in 1878 and 1879, Captained by Hod KNOWLES, with Nat EARHART again as Clerk. At this time, the craft was owned by the Parkersburg and Ohio River Transportation Company, whose president was Captain E.P. CHANCELLOR, with J.N. WILLIAMSON as Superintendant. Captain Ellis MACE recalled that the "W.P. Thompson" once ran between Cincinnati, Ohio and Vanceburg, Kentucky. In the fall of 1883, the steam packet headed for the sultry South and began handling cotton bales out of the Yazoo River, a tributary of the Mississippi, north of Vicksburg. Civil War Note: This was the site of the Battle of Chickasaw Bayou, Mississippi, 29 Dec 1862, in which the Federal troops were repulsed in their first drive to conquer Vicksburg. A sizable number of Lewis County, Kentucky soldiers of the Twenty-second Regiment were killed or wounded in this battle. Captain Alexander BRUCE of Company E was wounded in the foot. Now back to Steamboating: In the winter, the "W.P. Thompson" went South with John ROBINSON's Circus, but was sunk 7 Dec 1884 in a collision, sixty miles downriver from Vicksburg. The other vessel was said to be the "Captain Miller".* Randal W. Cooper <[email protected]> Lorain, Ohio *The source for most of this posting, except the Civil War trivia, is ~Way's Packet Directory, 1848-1994~, compiled by Frederick Way, Jr.