Way’s Packet Directory, 1848–1994 — 1995 ·

Passenger Steamboats of the Mississippi River System Since the Advent of Photography in Mid-Continent America

Foreword by Joseph W. Rutter

“This is not a reading book, but rather a reference work. Even so, the marvelous introduction, the lengthy captions in the photo collection, and the various letters and special notes in the boat bios are captivating and enlightening.”

Seaways‘ Ships in Scale magazine

“The 620-page book attempts to list the history of every packet that traveled the Mississippi River system from 1848 to the present. . . . The book is a 69-year labor of love. . . . Fred Way is the world’s foremost authority on river life.”

The Marietta Times

“The number of steamboats ending their careers by disaster is startling in our current safety-conscious era; on nearly every page there are boats wrecked or destroyed by exploding boilers.”

Ohioana Quarterly

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“Way’s Packet Directory is the most useful research aid that anyone studying the steamboats of the western rivers could ask for. (It) is a sine qua non; and that is putting it mildly.”

The Filson Club Historical Quarterly

“A bargain for most libraries’ reference collections as it will be of interest for transportation history, U.S. history, genealogy, and just plain pleasurable browsing.”

American Reference Books Annual

“Way has sought every source available—government lists of merchant vessels, and quotes from waterway journals, newspapers, letters, poems and songs, to jam-pack a wealth of information into each entry.”

The Western Library

“History scholars, steamboat researchers, genealogists and countless others will rejoice in the long-awaited. . . revision of Way’s Packet Directory. This is the most comprehensive treatment yet attempted of 19th- and 20th-century steamboats.”

The Courier-Journal

“Reviewing the names of the numerous boats is a fascinating project. . . . The most pleasing. . . are those which show some imagination on the part of the owners. Consider, for instance, The Fire Canoe, The Mocking Bird, The 35th Parallel, The Water Witch, The Minnow, The Little Joker, The Vice President, The Why Not. We like, especially, a steamer called Any One. It was built in New Orleans in 1863, had several Louisiana owners, (and) was snagged in Bayou Teche in 1869.”

The Times-Picayune

“Way’s Packet Directory is the work of the dedicated steamboat enthusiast Frederick Way who devoted his long life, from boyhood in 1914, to their study and recording. . . . It is an alphabetic directory in order of vessel names and whilst many entries are brief and terse records of basic technical data, for all the important steamboats more extensive and fascinating career details are given, making the book a very browsable historical study of these splendid steamboats.”

Lloyd’s List

“The name Fred Way was—and is—synonymous with exhaustive research on America’s western rivers.... (Way’s Packet Directory) remains indispensable.”

Steamboat Bill

The first Mississippi steamboat was a packet, the New Orleans, a sidewheeler built at Pittsburgh in 1811, designed for the New Orleans-Natchez trade. Packets dominated during the first forty years of steam, providing the quickest passenger transportation throughout mid-continent America. The packets remained fairly numerous even into the first two decades of the twentieth century when old age or calamity overtook them. By the 1930s, the flock was severely depleted, and today the packet is extinct.

Containing almost 6,000 entries, Way’s Packet Directory includes a majority of combination passenger and freight steamers, but includes in a broader sense all types of passenger carriers propelled by steam that plied the waters of the Mississippi System. Each entry describes its steamboat by rig, class, engines, boilers, the shipyard where and when built, along with tidbits of historical interest on its use, demise, and/or conversion.

Honorable Mention
John Lyman Book Award (North American Society for Oceanic History)

Cover of Way’s Packet Directory, 1848–1994

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$39.95 · paperback
$31.96 (20% off)

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638 pages • 8½ × 11 in., illus., index • 2nd rev ed., 1994 • Paperback: 978-0-8214-1106-3

Way’s Packet Directory, 1848–1994 — 1995 ·

Passenger Steamboats of the Mississippi River System Since the Advent of Photography in Mid-Continent America

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