Pioneer Bluffs Steamboat Captain Died Monday

Captain A. Overton, 88, Omaha and Council Bluffs pioneer steamboat commander in the early days on the Missouri River and ordained minister died at his home, 1320 Avenue A, Council Bluffs, Monday evening. Captain Overton devoted much of his youth to assisting immigrants from the east to the west. Most of his ventures as steamboat captain met with misfortune. Five times boats on which he was commander were wrecked in the Missouri.

At 18 years of age young Overton ran away from home and became bootblack on a Missouri River steamboat. In a few years he had so forged ahead that he was given command of the steamer. On the first trip on which he was in command of a steamer, in the early '50s, the captain brought the Missouri legislature from St. Louis to Jefferson City, Missouri, on the El Paso.

Captain Overton decided to go into the transporting business for himself in 1862, and bought the Emma. The Emma struck a snag on the trip from Council Bluffs to Sioux City and sank. Another boat he purchased sank while on the way to Omaha with ties for the Burlington. In 1865 he purchased the Pocahontas at Cincinnati, Ohio. It struck a rock at Cedar Island and sank in the more and quicksand. One more attempt was made by the captain, when he bought the R.M. Bishop, a river freighter. While this boat was transporting corn from Hamburg, Iowa, to Omaha it struck a snag and sank in two minutes. By this time the railroads had connected the east with the west and Captain Overton quit river navigation because he was unable to compete with the railroad rates.

Captain Overton established a lumber yard in the Bluffs. He sold the street railway company a large percentage of the ties used in that city. Captain Overton went to Missouri, and was ordained a minister in the Methodist Church, two years after he quit the steamboat business. He established a mission in Council Bluffs after his return, and preached there Sundays.

The captain is survived by three sons and two daughters, all of whom were at his bedside at his death.