Grant Prince Marsh

Background

Grant Marsh was born on May 11, 1834 in Chautauqua County, New York. He was the son of John and Lydia (Dyer) Marsh. A few years later the family moved to Rochester, Pa. , on the Ohio River.

Education

At the age of twelve young Marsh's schooling came to an end, and he became a cabin boy on a local steamboat plying from Pittsburgh.

Career

For more than sixty years thereafter, almost without interruption, he was connected with river transportation. In 1852, as a deckhand, he reached St. Louis, which for a long period was to be his home. As a watchman on the A. B. Chambers, he narrowly escaped with his life in the great disaster of February 27, 1856, when the breaking of an ice jam wrecked or sank some fifty vessels on the St. Louis waterfront. In the following year he became a mate, and in the winter of 1858-59 served with Mark Twain, with whom he formed a lifelong friendship. He was the mate of the John J. Roe when that vessel, in March 1862, assisted in carrying Grant's army from Fort Donelson to Pittsburg Landing, and on the bloody Sunday of April 6 aided in placing Buell's army on the left bank of the river. In 1864, in the service of transporting supplies for General Sully's army, operating against the Sioux, he had his first experience with the Indian country. He became a master in 1866, taking his vessel, the Luella, to Fort Benton, the head of navigation on the Missouri. He soon acquired an exceptional knowledge of the upper waters, and his skill as a pilot (for he always piloted his own vessels) caused him to be frequently employed by the military authorities during the Sioux wars. Early in 1873 he carried Gen. G. A. Forsyth's party of reconnaissance up the Yellowstone to a point near the mouth of the Powder, and on the voyage he gave names to many of the physical features of the valley. In the summer of that year he cooperated with the Stanley-Custer expedition along the Yellowstone, and two years later carried Gen. J. W. Forsyth's expedition nearly fifty miles above Pompey's Pillar. In 1876, in the historic Far West, he cooperated with the Custer-Terry expedition, forcing his boat up the tortuous channel of the Bighorn to the mouth of the Little Bighorn. From there he brought down the wounded from the Custer battlefield, and starting from Fort Pease, in the afternoon of July 3, took his vessel to Fort Abraham Lincoln, a distance of 710 miles, in the unparalleled time of fifty-four hours. The close of the Sioux wars and the advent of railroads to the Upper Missouri had by 1882 paralyzed the steamboat industry in that region. For the next twenty-one years Marsh's service was on the Mississippi. A revival of steamboating on the Upper Missouri brought him again to the region in 1903, at first in the employ of Gen. W. D. Washburn and later of the Benton Packet Company. He made his home in Bismarck, N. Dak. In about 1910 he retired. He died on May 11, 1834 at St. Alexius Hospital, Bismarck, and was buried, by his own request, on Wagonwheel Bluff, overlooking the Missouri River.

Achievements

• Grant Marsh was noted for his many piloting exploits on the upper Missouri River and the Yellowstone River in Montana from 1862 until 1882. He served on more than 22 vessels in his long career.

Personality

Marsh was a man somewhat above medium height, of sinewy body and of great strength. He was keen-sighted, alert and quick of movement, and deliberate in speech. His manner was as a rule gentle, though at times he could be aroused to a high pitch of anger. His skill as a pilot and his fearlessness in time of danger were recognized by all. He was, wrote Gen. G. A. Forsyth, "the ideal man of his profession"; and Sherman, Sheridan, Custer, Miles, Stanley, and others paid high tribute to his abilities and his character.

Connections

In 1861, at St. Louis, he married Catharine Reardon. In 1906 his wife died. The couple had five children.

Father:

John Marsh

1797 - 1851

Mother:

Lydia Dyer Marsh

1800 - 26 May 1875

child:

John Reardon Marsh

8 February 1863 - 24 May 1929

child:

Elizabeth “Lizzie” Marsh

January 1861 - August 1864

child:

Grant C. Marsh

2 May 1866 - 5 May 1934

child:

Nellie P Marsh Albert

1873 - 29 Aug 1946

child:

Melissa Marsh

Died in Jul 1869.

Wife:

Catherine “Kate” Reardon Marsh

May 1841 - May 1906

References

• Conquest of the Missouri (Frontier Classics)
• The Conquest of the Missouri: Captain Grant Marsh, and the Riverboats of the American Civil War and Plains Indian Wars
• The Conquest of the Missouri, Being the Story of the Life and Exploits of Captain Grant Marsh
• Grant Marsh: Steamboat Captain (The American Adventure Series)