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Bertrand Site
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Model of the Bertrand
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| Nearest city: | Blair, Nebraska |
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| Built: | 1865 |
| Governing body: | U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service |
| NRHP Reference#: |
69000138 [1] |
| Added to NRHP: | March 24, 1969 |
The Steamboat Bertrand was owned by the J.J. Roe and Company in St. Louis, Missouri. Loaded with cargo heading for remote Virginia City, Montana Territory, the steamboat sank on April 1, 1865, after hitting a log in the Missouri River north of Omaha, Nebraska. Half of its cargo was recovered 100 years later. Today the artifacts are displayed in a museum at the DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge near Missouri Valley, Iowa. The display makes up the largest intact collection of Civil War-era artifacts in the United States.
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The Steamboat Bertrand, weighing 251 tons and extending over 161 feet, was commanded by Captain James Yore on April 1, 1865, when it sank after hitting a submerged log in the Desoto Bend of the Missouri River. The boat took less than ten minutes to sink, but no lives were lost. The steamboat was originally owned by J.J. Roe and Company out of St. Louis, Missouri and used to bring good and supplies to the Montana Territory.
Over 100 years later, in 1968, private salvagers, Sam Corbino and Jesse Pursell, discovered the wreck in the DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge. Since the boat was found on government property, the men had to comply with the Antiquities Act of 1906. They had to give all of the artifacts to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for permanent preservation. The boat and over 500,000 artifacts excavated from the hold can be found at the DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge in the Missourri Valley, Iowa.
The Bertrand was part of a large water-based regional trading system that developed during the mid to late 19th-century. Only since 1859 had steamboats been traveling up the Missouri River to Fort Benton, Montana Territory. When gold was found in the Alder Gulch Claim in Montana in 1863, streams of hopefuls migrated to the area from other states; they created one of the most prosperous frontier cities: Virginia City, Montana Territory. Within a year of the find, more than 35,000 people would be living within a 10-mile radius of the discovery point. J.J. Roe and his partners entered the shipping business in 1864, creating a line to ship goods up the Missouri River to the frontiers of the Montana Territory. J.J. Roe & Co. also invested in the Diamond R Transportation Co., which established a system of ox trains to bring goods to more remote locations, some hundreds of miles from the river. Prospectors and settlers created the demand for the goods that the steamboats were able to bring up the Missouri. By 1867, there were 113 different businesses registered in Virginia City to provide goods and services. Soon, the Alder Gulch Gold Camp grew into one of the largest frontier gold towns. It would prove one of the largest gold payoffs from the Rocky Mountains. The Missouri River was a major transportation route that sustained these Montana gold mines and the budding cities.
The river route was integral to the fur trade between St. Louis and the Indian Country that provided American furs. J.J. Roe & Co. consistently took goods upriver, and brought furs and other extractive materials back down the river. On one trip in 1865, the ship unloaded in St. Louis with 260 packs of furs. The trip from St. Louis to this new Montana Territory took about two months and was often dangerous, due to encounters with the local Sioux Indians, but the profits were well worth the hardships. J.J. Roe entered the market with other merchants, businessmen and salesmen in this period, all earning their profits from supplying the demands of the settlers for consumable goods. This was an incredibly profitable economic niche on the frontier.
The cargo found on the excavated Bertrand provides a unique glimpse into the material life of Virginia City, Montana Territory. The steamboat was full of clothing, tools, food and various consumer items on their way upriver. The ship’s cargo amounted to roughly 283 cubic meters, about half of which was recovered. The collection includes: dried and salted beef, mutton and pork; oysters; pepper sauce; strawberries, peaches and peanuts; mustard from France; 5,000 barrels of whiskey including bourbon; brandy and brandied cherries; and medicine bottles. There were over 3,000 textiles and clothing items, including gloves, hats, trousers and 137 men’s coats in seven different styles. Household goods included mirrors, clocks and silverware; and there were various building supplies for the growing town. The largest consignment of the goods was bound for the Vivian and Simpson retailer in Virginia City. They would have also been sold from log cabin stores in the surrounding towns, including that of Frank Worden, the founder of Missoula.
Many of the goods were beyond the expectations for a primitive mining town. The ship also carried everything necessary to mine the Montana claim, including blasting powder, pickaxes and shovels. All the goods were fully insured, and the insurance company ultimately reimbursed the merchants for their losses. The men and women on the frontier were not totally isolated from the rest of the country and its consumption and fashion habits, but appear to have been relatively integrated and informed. The artifacts from the Bertrand represent the evidence of what kinds of goods flowed from St. Louis to the Montana territory during this important period of American state formation. More generally, water travel and the development of the steamboat played a major role in the settlement and development of America.
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