DISASTER: FORDING THE MISSOURI WITH A STEAM ENGINE

It happened in 1927, a wet year when the river was running high.
The attempt was made by Ernest L. (Moonlight) Stinson, of Brady,
operator of a large custom thrashing business at that time. He had
extended his thrashing season by starting in the Highwood country,
moving to the Brady east area, then west and ending on the Porter
Bench near Pendroy.

Since the river ferry at Carter could not carry the large Case
110 steam engine, he would load it on a flat car and ship it to
Highwood.

He hired Mr. Fred Deering, a 23 year old man of Brady, to drive
his old Waterloo Boy tractor (forerunner of the John Deere) to
Carter pulling the Red River Special thrasher and cookhouse, use
the ferry and go on to Highwood.

One day when the outfit was thrashing away, a farmer approached
Mr. Stinson and inquired how much cash he wanted for the Waterloo
Boy. ‘What will you offer me?’ ‘How about $500.00?’
Well, now this was a small worn out tractor that had been out of
production since 1913 and besides Mr. Stinson operated on the rule
that ‘If you ever have a chance to sell anything for all that
it is worth, you had better do so, for there may never be another
chance.’ So the job of moving the cook house went to the water
hauler with the Denby truck, a World War I vintage, chain drive,
hard tires, 15 mph type.

When the thrashing run was over at Highwood, the problem of how
to move the thrasher to Brady became acute. Now Mr. Stinson was a
very experienced person having worked for the Advance Machinery
Company as an expert in South America for six years. Down there he
would assemble steamers in the cities, and drive them out to the
colonies, where he would make them perform, and get the acceptance
signature from the head man. Often the local gendarmes would meet
him at a bridge and say ‘too heavy.’ He would pull to one
side, pull his fire, drive thru the water, fire up again on the
other side, and proceed. Six hundred feet of Missouri River did not
seem to be too much for his Case steamer.

The engineer-fireman and crew leader was Mr. Samuel Johnson, a
farmer about four miles north of Brady. He was quiet, pleasant,
always ahead of trouble, and harmonious, continuous operation was
his trademark. Once a young fellow came looking for a job. Sam said
‘If I could stand you I would hire you. Sit down there.’ He
then pulled his tin snips from the tool box and started snipping
over his fingers. In just a few minutes the fellow had a pretty
respectable haircut, and was hired.

The person that ran the Denby truck and hauled the water was
Fred Deering, because he was the reliable type that could run most
every kind of machine, and when the water man had trouble,
everything had to stop. The Denby had a squeeze-ball type ah-oo-ga
horn on it and when Fred was about to start up the steep hill, he
would give several hard squeezes, to warn anyone not to start down
the one way grade. He is now a retired mechanic and lives in Cut
Bank.

The cook was Mrs. Swan Lyden, a prodigious worker. She
didn’t want a helper, she did both jobs and drew double wages.
Sometimes she had to hurry with her work. One time Mr. Stinson
brought her a 100# sack of potatoes at 10 a lb., and all she did
was ‘square them a little’ he said.

So they picked a spot where the ground was level on both sides
of the river, just a little below the present ferry, which is run
by Mr. Speed Lamey, and a little above the rapids.

‘Sam, how far can you swim?’ ‘Not a stroke,’
said Sam. ‘How far can you swim, Fred?’ ‘Sam
distance,’ was Fred’s answer. So Mr. Stinson said,
‘Well, since it will always be partly above water, you
won’t need to swim, so you two are elected to take it
across.’

So they pulled the fire and Sam was driving and Fred was
watching on the other side for big rocks. All went well until they
were about two-thirds across, when suddenly the smokestack went
down and under water. ‘It’s got to be a deep hole,’
yelled Fred. Sam pulled the big throttle lever all the way back,
which caused the steam motor to stop and start turning the opposite
way, and the big drivers had enough traction, and as the tractor
backed up, the front wheels came out of the hole and the smoke
stack appeared again. They continued backing toward the place where
they had entered the water, but when they were still about 150 feet
from shore they ran out of steam pressure, and there they sat in 6
feet of fast running water. The big flywheel was mounted at the
very top of the tractor, and was above water. The only practical
way to move the big tractor was to wrap a rope about 7 turns around
that big wheel, and then have a team of horses on shore pull the
rope, rolling the wheel, which moved the tractor about two feet
each time.

To get to the engine with such a long rope, Mr. Stinson, who was
raised in the lake country of Minnesota, borrowed the row boat from
the ferry, got the coal hauler to go with him, and started out. Mr.
Stinson was in the middle seat, rowing, facing toward the man in
the rear seat, who was sitting with his back to Mr. Stinson and
paying out the rope from a large coil in the very rear of the boat.
As they progressed across and a little upstream of the steamer, the
rope that had been paid out submerged in the water and was pulled
downstream by the strong current. It seemed to the man that the
whole coil might tangle and go overboard at once, so he tied the
other end around himself. Mr. Stinson did not see him do it, but
those on shore did and they yelled to him to untie himself but he
did not.

When Moonlight Stinson was even with and a little up stream of
the steamer, he turned the boat down stream and grabbed for the
steamer, but the pull of the current on the rope pulled him away a
little too much, and he missed catching it. So they were going down
stream when suddenly the rope which had been tied to the Denby on
shore became tight, and jerked the coal hauler out of the boat,
overturning it at the same moment.

The man tied to the rope was pulled under by the strong current
and drowned before those on shore could pull him in. Mr. Stinson
stayed with the boat and when it went against the big cliff at the
curve down stream, he wedged himself between the boat and a little
ledge, and up-righted the boat and bailed it out some. The oars
were still locked in place so he rowed back across the river and
had the ferry man telephone the sheriff of Chouteau County at Ft.
Benton about the casualty. There was still the problem of the
steamer in the river with two men marooned on it.

They learned fast in those days, and the second try was
successful. It took all afternoon and well into the night to get
the steamer wound back into water shallow enough that they could
build a fire in the fire box, then they soon had steam and backed
it out, and headed for Highwood, where they shipped the steamer to
Carter, at about the same cost as to ship it to Brady.

That night in Highwood in a hotel room, Moonlight Stinson (he
got the nickname because quite frequently the moon was shining
before he would toot the stopping whistle) pulled out his wallet
and spread out paper money all over the place to dry. Sam Johnson
said, ‘If you had gotten lost in the river, we would have had
to find you just to recover the payroll.’

Later an inquest was held and Mr. Stinson was declared not at
fault in the death. He offered the next of kin a rather generous
settlement, amounting to much more than the Waterloo Boy. The
person did not want to settle, and it looked like a law suit
coming. A few days later one of the spike pitchers informed Mr.
Stinson that he knew that family, and the person was a famous jewel
thief, and would not want any publicity, and sure enough, he did
soon settle.

The next year was the last of the big threshing runs, the
combines had come and taken over. Mr. Johnson prospered on his
farm, and years later served terms as Pondera County Commissioner,
and did everything for everybody but himself. Today his son,
Leonard, is Commissioner, and he has the worst road to drive of
anybody in the county.

Mr. Stinson became a garage owner and implement dealer in Brady,
for a successful business life, and retired in Kalispell, where he
passed on in 1961.