[Lexie Palmore]

A local historian who writes articles for a newspaper mentioned a steamboat that I cannot find in Way's. He said it was built in either Jeffersonville in 1853or Louisville in 1856. It was called the Uncle Ben, was a 171' sidewheeler, and ran on the Sabine River as far north as Brazoria (no longer exists) which is just north of my home town of Tyler. This is an unbelievably long way inland for a steamboat in Texas, but they did do it. These Texas rivers nowadays hardly seem big enough for a canoe. Is there a resource in the Louisville area for finding documentation of this boat? The boat was snagged and lost in 1867.