The Redden Brothers
and the Steamer Handy No. 2
By William M. Talley & guest contributor Dr. Bruce E. King
(use the "Contact Us" form to comment on Dr. Talley's columns)
Note: The material in this article was researched and composed by Dr. Bruce E.
King, of Chandler, Indiana. Dr. King is related to the Bruce, Bragg, Elliott and many
other Lewis County families. His e-mail address is beking4@gmail.com
Only once in a while does a family produce a group of children so well-known,
so loved, and respected as the five Redden brothers who acted as river pilots
on the Ohio and other rivers over a long period of years and were so
accomplished as they came to be.
The parents of these five sons were Thomas E. Redden and his wife, Brunette
Proctor Bruce. Thomas, a merchant and steamboat captain, was born in
Somerset County, Maryland, May 6, 1804, and was married twice. He first
married Martha J. Grant, a relative of U.S. Grant, on September 19, 1831, in
Lewis County. After her death at the age of 19, on November 27, 1832, he
married second Brunette Proctor Bruce, daughter of Alexander and Amanda
(Bruce) Bragg, on March 1, 1836.
Thomas E. Redden lived a full and productive life until his death of an
“apoplexy fit” (stroke) in Lewis County and was buried at Vanceburg. He, like
the rest of his family, was first buried in the old graveyard on River Road and
then moved to the family plot in Woodland Cemetery after it opened in 1878.
Thomas was one of the pioneer steamboat men of the Ohio River and was
captain of the Hunter at the time of his marriage to Brunette. Mr. Redden’s
sons followed their father and operated boats on the Ohio, Kanawha,
Cumberland, Tennessee and Mississippi Rivers.
Thomas, like many other pioneers of the time, was a slaveholder, owning five
slaves in 1850. After Thomas’ death, Brunette appears on the slave schedule
as owner of three black males, two black females, and a mulatto female.
Brunette was named for her aunt, Brunette (Bruce) Proctor. She outlived her
husband by more than 50 years and never remarried. She spent most of her
life in Lewis County. It was at her home at Clarksburg that Lucy Bragg, her
grandmother, died at the age of 98 in 1862.
The 1900 census shows Brunette living in Decatur, Morgan County, Alabama
with her son, Henry, and his new bride Sigourney. They moved to Portsmouth,
Ohio, seven years before her death and died at the apartment of her son, Capt.
Henry, in the Elk Building, in Portsmouth, in October 1908. According to her
obituary, she was a lifelong member of the Methodist Church “and a noble
Christian woman, loved and respected by all who knew her. Her death was due
to the infirmities of old age.” The obituary stated that she had at that time nine
grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Thomas and Brunette’s family
The eight children of Thomas and Brunette Redden were as follows:
(1) James Alexander Redden, born in Kentucky, died young. He was perhaps
named after two grandfathers, James Redden and Alexander Bruce.
(2) Elizabeth “Lizzie” Clay Redden, born about 1839, in Kentucky, died May 26,
1853, and was buried in Woodland Cemetery.
(3) Thomas Bruce Redden (probably named for his grandfather Thomas Bragg)
was born May 29, 1841, in Kentucky and died from a stroke, January 12, 1898, in
Gunnison, Colorado, and was buried there. He married Katherine “Kate”
Abigail Walker, in Humboldt, Allen County, Kansas, May 1, 1883. She was born in
Greenbrier County, Virginia (now West Virginia) November 23, 1850 and died in
Gunnison, Colorado, May 3, 1929. “Kate” was a daughter of Ezra Walker and
Julia Marietta Shepard.
Thomas spent his early life in Lewis County and in the 1860 census he was
listed as a student. In the Civil War, he joined the Confederate cause, serving
as a sergeant in Byrne’s Company, Kentucky Horse Artillery, Byrne’s Battery,
commanded by Captain Edward P. Byrne. This company was organized at Camp
Boone, Tennessee, during the early summer of 1861, with men from Kentucky
and Mississippi. After taking part in the Battle of Shiloh, the company joined
the Army of Tennessee and saw action at Murfreesboro. Later it served in the
eastern part of Tennessee and disbanded. Thomas then joined company K, 7th
Kentucky Cavalry, as a private. The unit skirmished in Tennessee and
Kentucky and then fought with John Hunt Morgan. Most of its men were
captured at Buffington Island on July 19, 1863, and the rest at New Lisbon on
July 26, 1863.
The 1870 census shows Thomas living with his mother, Brunette, in Vanceburg
and working as a farm laborer. We have found no record of him in the 1880
census. For some time, Thomas (also known as Bruce) was Clerk on the
Steamer Handy, commanded by Capt. Edgington and later by his brother Capt.
B.M. Redden. He was with the Handy in 1877 and later served as Captain on the
Handy No. 2. On May 1, 1882, he received a certificate from the “Local
Inspectors of Steam Vessels for the District of Cincinnati”, certifying him as a
“skillful Master of steam vessels” and licensing him for the term of a one year
“to perform such duties upon the waters of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers
and their tributaries.”
It was on the Handy No. 2 that he met Kate Walker, while he was hauling her
down the Ohio to Charleston, West Virginia, where she was principal of the
high school. Upon expiration of his steamboat license, they were married May
1, 1883, and in that year began their life together in Gunnison County, Colorado.
Why did they move to Colorado? We don’t know, but we speculate that it had
something to do with the recent discovery of silver and, later, the discovery of
marble in the mountains.
The obituary of Thomas in the January 15, 1898, Gunnison News says that he
died on January 12, 1898, aged 56 years, 7 months, and 13 days . . . He came to
Colorado in 1879 and lived on a ranch at Doyleville in Gunnison County. His
mother was then living in Ohio and he had four brothers in Kentucky and
Alabama. He left a wife and four children. He had a lively interest in religious
subjects and was an honorary member of the WCTU. He had taken sick two
weeks previous to his death when he was returning from Baldwin. He “was
buried from the Presbyterian Church.”
Kate Redden’s father, Ezra Walker, graduated from Ohio University in 1826 and
then moved to Charleston (W. Va.) where he read law. In 1834, he was
appointed to the position of Engineer and Superintendent of Western
Improvements by the James River and Kanawha Company in Kanawha County.
He died March 31, 1853, 30 miles below Charleston, leaving a pregnant widow,
Julia, and a two and a half-year-old daughter, Kate.
Julia later moved to Charleston with her sister and brother-in-law (Rebecca
and John A. Truslow), and it was there that Kate’s brother, Ezra Truslow
Walker, was born three months after his father’s death. Eventually all of the
family moved to Gunnison. In 1920, Kate was living with her daughter and son-
in-law, Thomas and Julia Huffman, in Wilcox, Arizona.
The Gunnison Republican, of May 9, 1879, carried the obituary of Katherine
Abigail Redden, widow of Thomas E. Redden, died at the ranch home of her
son, William, near Amont (Colorado), May 3, after an illness of three weeks. Her
early education was in a private school and she later attended a Girls’
Seminary at Steubenville, Ohio. She was principal of a school in Charleston,
West Virginia, for ten years. She moved to Kansas in 1881. Her late husband,
Thomas E. Redden, served in the Confederate army as a Captain in the ranks
of the noted General John Hunt Morgan. Morgan’s Raiders created havoc in
Indiana and Ohio. Captain Redden fired the first Confederate cannon shot east
of the Ohio River. He was finally made a prisoner of war and spent three years
in the Ohio State Penitentiary.
Mrs. William Redden once wrote a letter to her son, Paul, explaining the use of
the name Bruce in the naming of children. The name was so frequently used it
is sometimes confusing to determine which Bruce Redden is being spoken of.
She also said that Thomas Bruce Redden was a boiler man on the boats on the
Ohio River and migrated from Ohio to Colorado as a young man. He was on the
Gunnison police force. He and some other men went riding in the hills one day
and discovered marble, and later marble quarries were opened. His death left
his widow with small children who experienced great hardship in raising them
to maturity.
(4) Belville Moss Redden, often called “Bell” Redden, was born April 26, 1843,
in Vanceburg, and died April 3, 1917, at the home of his brother Henry, in the
Eagle Building, in Portsmouth, Ohio. He was a steamboat captain and pilot. He
married first to America Stout, in 1869. She was born June 28, 1847, a daughter
of John M. and Achsah (Gould) Stout, and died April 15, 1875, in Lewis County.
“Bell” married second to Joan Freeman, born January 21, 1847, at Concord,
and died of a stroke on May 9, 1913, in Concord and was buried in Concord
Cemetery. She was the daughter of John Freeman and Cynthia Ann White.
According to the Vanceburg Sun, of May 15, 1913, Mrs. B.M. Redden was
stricken with paralysis in the morning of May 15, and died that evening. Her
funeral was conducted at her home (it being her request) by Rev. James Word.
Her death certificate says she died of tuberculosis of the lungs.
Perhaps named after Belville Grant Moss, an early resident of Fleming County
and Maysville, Belville Moss Redden was raised in and near Vanceburg. He
joined the Methodist Episcopal Church in his youth. He was a pilot and captain
on the river for over twenty years, working mostly from Portsmouth. An item in
the Lewis County Herald, on February 24, 1927 said: “Capt. George Edgington
commanded the Steamer Handy, which left Vanceburg every morning for
Maysville and return. B.M. and Bruce Redden were clerks.”
The Redden brothers purchased the Handy in the 1870s, Belville serving as
captain with Bruce and Harvey as clerks. The steamer and its crew became a
well-known, popular attraction along the local Ohio River circuit. In May, 1877,
the small packet boat was making tri-weekly trips between Vanceburg and
Maysville, making stops at the many small nearby towns and settlements in
between. It was available for hauling freight or taking passengers to nearby
destinations or on short excursions.
The Vanceburg Courier reported on May 9, 1877, that “the Handy made 28
landings between here and Maysville, on a down-trip, one day last week, under
the superintendence of the Redden brothers." By 1881, Capt. John C. Agnew
had charge of the boat.
The Portsmouth Times, of February 20, 1892, reported that: “The old steamer
Handy is being dismantled at the lower landing. Her machinery will be put into
another small boat in course of construction and lying alongside the Handy."
In the 1880s the Redden brothers acquired the Handy No. 2 a stern wheel
steamboat.
The Vanceburg Courier of September 17, 1884 reported that “the Redden
brothers have gone to Portsmouth to bring the Handy down. She will go down
tomorrow and make regular trips thereafter." In 1888 it was reported that the
boat had again extended her trips to Portsmouth.
The Tribune Telegraph, of Pomeroy, Meigs County, Ohio, reported that the
Handy No. 2 would be put on the docks at Middleport the next week where she
was to receive a new hull.”
Belville retired about ten years before his death, but continued to work as a
captain and pilot for pastime following his retirement. He was considered one
of the best river men that ever piloted a boat up and down the Ohio. In the
flood of 1913, his concord home took in 55 and a half inches of water. By July
1913, he was living in Mt. Vernon, Ohio.
Mr. Redden had not been in the best of health for some time, due to Bright’s
disease, but his death came unexpectedly at 12:30. He had been to the revival
services at Bigelow Methodist Church and had been attending regular
services and Sunday school. The fatal heart trouble came just as he made
ready for the night. He was affiliated with the Masons at Concord.
(5) Harvey Lewis Redden, a steamboat captain, was born May 2, 1845, in
Newport Campbell County, Ky., and died June 18, 1914, in Portsmouth, Ohio,
where he was buried in Greenlawn Cemetery. He was married first by Rev.
Farmer, May 17, 1871, at the residence of the bride’s parents, in Greenup
County, Ky., to Virginia Jane Killen, born March 24, 1850, in Kentucky and died
in childbirth, February 25, 1875, on the home farm and was buried in Laughlin
Cemetery, at the Forest Home owned by William and Nita (McElhaney) Cropper,
South Portsmouth. Virginia was the daughter of Capt. William Killen and Anna
Elizabeth Laughlin. Harvey married second to Catherine R. “Kate” unknown.
She was born February 19, 1836, near Memphis, Clark County, Indiana, and
died after a lingering illness September 25, 1907, at the home of her daughter,
Mrs. A. Oleitha Lloyd, 263 East Ninth Street, Portsmouth, Ohio, and was buried
in the Berry-Morse family graveyard at Quincy, Ky. Kate was first married to N.
G. Morse, of Quincy, by whom she had four children, the oldest of which died
at age five. We do not know Kate’s last name before marrying Mr. Morse.
The Vanceburg Courier, September 27, 1907, reported that when she married
Mr. Redden she became the step-mother of two children, Eugene Redden and
Bertha Life, residents of Portsmouth. She was afflicted with cancer for five
years and was confined to her bed for nine months. She went to live with Mrs.
Lloyd after her son-in-law, T. Frank Lloyd, died suddenly. Mrs. Redden had
been in the home only two days when his death occurred. She was a
consistent member of the Christian Church. She received her flowers while
she was living, her many friends sending her a fresh bonnet during her illness.
Virginia Killen grew up near Springville, Greenup County, Ky., where her father
William Killen, a gentleman well-known in his community, farmed. He was born
in Maryland and captained a steamboat in the New Orleans trade early in life.
His wife, Anna Elizabeth Laughlin, was a daughter of Judge Robert Laughlin
and Judith Fuqua, daughter of Moses Fuqua Jr. and wife, Cynthia Collins. Mr.
Killen died on his farm near Springville. Mrs. Redden was interred in the family
burying ground.
Captain Harvey Redden died at the age of 69. He was a former commander of
the C&O ferryboat Chesapeake. The Portsmouth Times said that: “A stroke of
paralysis, his third in two years, suffered a few hours before was the cause of
Captain Redden’s . . . Two of his best friends observed the attack. He had
finished his supper and gone out for a brief stroll. After walking around the
house he came back and closed the gate and was slowly approaching the door
of his home when his friends shouted at him. He failed to return the greeting
and feeling that something was wrong they crossed over to investigate.
Before they could reach his side he threw up his hands and pitched forward
falling in a heap on the porch. They carried him into the house and a physician
was summoned but it was plain he was past medical aid, expiring several
hours later . . . on Thursday, as was his custom when able, he walked to the
river front to spend considerable time sitting on the flood wall. He was first
stricken with paralysis on April 19, 1912. It was an unusually cold morning and
the river was full of ice. He was on his way to work when he suffered the
stroke which incapacitated him for further duty on the river. His second stroke
came June 22, 1913.
Capt. Redden was born in Newport, Ky., May 2, 1845. At the age of 18 years he
became a clerk on a New Orleans boat and he followed the river until 1871
when he became associated in the hardware business in Vanceburg for a
couple of years with the late Nelson Fisher, who died several years ago of
paralysis. Returning to the river, Captain Redden became captain and part
owner of the packed W.P. Thompson and also of the Handy in the Portsmouth-
Cincinnati trade. In 1890 he went to Decatur, Alabama, taking command of the
packet B.F. Young. Capt. Redden came to Portsmouth and took charge of the
C&O ferry in 1895 and continued until his illness.
(6) Henry Clay Redden, steamboat captain and antique dealer, born December
26, 1848, in Vanceburg, died November 7, 1938, in Portsmouth and buried in
Greenlawn Cemetery. He was married April 16, 1899, in Decatur County,
Alabama, to Sigourney Alice Weast, who was born April 16, 1862, in the
Shenandoah Valley, of Virginia. She died in 1927, following a long illness, and
was buried in Vanceburg’s Woodland Cemetery. The couple lived in Alabama a
few years and moved to Portsmouth in 1910. She was a member of Bigelow
Methodist Church.
In his early days Henry like his brothers was a steamboat operator running on
the river in 1880 and when he went to Alabama, he met his future wife. He was
associated in the antique business with his brother’s son-in-law, G.W. Life.
Henry outlived all his siblings and was nearly 90 when he died.
(7) Bruce Redden, steamboat captain, was born January 4, 1852, in Kentucky
and died suddenly of heart disease on January 18, 1923, in Columbus, Ohio. He
was married on June 18, 1885, to Amy White Cox (sister of John Wesley Cox,
who married Mary Bruce, daughter of John Logan Bruce). In 1870, Bruce was
working as a clerk in the dry goods store of George McAdow Lafferty. Bruce
Redden married Anna Maria’s sister 15 years later.
Bruce Redden was a well-known river man, having been a clerk and steamboat
captain on the Ohio River. In 1878 he became a Mason at Polar Star Lodge
#363. For a while he piloted the Handy.
After leaving the river, Bruce moved to the Stricklett property on Front Street
in Vanceburg. The Portsmouth Times, of October 8, 1887, reported that Capt.
Bruce Redden, the popular bookkeeper at the Deposit Bank, is in the city
where he is having his eyes operated on. Later, in 1893, it was reported that he
had lost his sight and was blind the last 30 years of his life. His body was
brought from Columbus, Ohio, to the home of his brother, Henry, and he was
buried in Woodland Cemetery. His wife, Amy, lived in Columbus for 46 more
years and supported the family by keeping a boarding house. She had 18
boarders and a servant in 1900, 12 boarders in 1910, and seven in 1920.
(8) Lucy Bragg Redden, born March 19, 1854, in Lewis County, died by 1880,
married September 20, 1875, in Lewis County to Martin Van Buren Park, born
about 1842, in Jackson County, Virginia. He (Park) appears as a widower in the
1880 census in Vanceburg
All of the children of this illustrious family, except Bruce and the two infant
children, had many descendants but we do not have the space to go into their
lineage. Dr. King has a complete write-up of this family.
and the Steamer Handy No. 2
By William M. Talley & guest contributor Dr. Bruce E. King
(use the "Contact Us" form to comment on Dr. Talley's columns)
Note: The material in this article was researched and composed by Dr. Bruce E.
King, of Chandler, Indiana. Dr. King is related to the Bruce, Bragg, Elliott and many
other Lewis County families. His e-mail address is beking4@gmail.com
Only once in a while does a family produce a group of children so well-known,
so loved, and respected as the five Redden brothers who acted as river pilots
on the Ohio and other rivers over a long period of years and were so
accomplished as they came to be.
The parents of these five sons were Thomas E. Redden and his wife, Brunette
Proctor Bruce. Thomas, a merchant and steamboat captain, was born in
Somerset County, Maryland, May 6, 1804, and was married twice. He first
married Martha J. Grant, a relative of U.S. Grant, on September 19, 1831, in
Lewis County. After her death at the age of 19, on November 27, 1832, he
married second Brunette Proctor Bruce, daughter of Alexander and Amanda
(Bruce) Bragg, on March 1, 1836.
Thomas E. Redden lived a full and productive life until his death of an
“apoplexy fit” (stroke) in Lewis County and was buried at Vanceburg. He, like
the rest of his family, was first buried in the old graveyard on River Road and
then moved to the family plot in Woodland Cemetery after it opened in 1878.
Thomas was one of the pioneer steamboat men of the Ohio River and was
captain of the Hunter at the time of his marriage to Brunette. Mr. Redden’s
sons followed their father and operated boats on the Ohio, Kanawha,
Cumberland, Tennessee and Mississippi Rivers.
Thomas, like many other pioneers of the time, was a slaveholder, owning five
slaves in 1850. After Thomas’ death, Brunette appears on the slave schedule
as owner of three black males, two black females, and a mulatto female.
Brunette was named for her aunt, Brunette (Bruce) Proctor. She outlived her
husband by more than 50 years and never remarried. She spent most of her
life in Lewis County. It was at her home at Clarksburg that Lucy Bragg, her
grandmother, died at the age of 98 in 1862.
The 1900 census shows Brunette living in Decatur, Morgan County, Alabama
with her son, Henry, and his new bride Sigourney. They moved to Portsmouth,
Ohio, seven years before her death and died at the apartment of her son, Capt.
Henry, in the Elk Building, in Portsmouth, in October 1908. According to her
obituary, she was a lifelong member of the Methodist Church “and a noble
Christian woman, loved and respected by all who knew her. Her death was due
to the infirmities of old age.” The obituary stated that she had at that time nine
grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Thomas and Brunette’s family
The eight children of Thomas and Brunette Redden were as follows:
(1) James Alexander Redden, born in Kentucky, died young. He was perhaps
named after two grandfathers, James Redden and Alexander Bruce.
(2) Elizabeth “Lizzie” Clay Redden, born about 1839, in Kentucky, died May 26,
1853, and was buried in Woodland Cemetery.
(3) Thomas Bruce Redden (probably named for his grandfather Thomas Bragg)
was born May 29, 1841, in Kentucky and died from a stroke, January 12, 1898, in
Gunnison, Colorado, and was buried there. He married Katherine “Kate”
Abigail Walker, in Humboldt, Allen County, Kansas, May 1, 1883. She was born in
Greenbrier County, Virginia (now West Virginia) November 23, 1850 and died in
Gunnison, Colorado, May 3, 1929. “Kate” was a daughter of Ezra Walker and
Julia Marietta Shepard.
Thomas spent his early life in Lewis County and in the 1860 census he was
listed as a student. In the Civil War, he joined the Confederate cause, serving
as a sergeant in Byrne’s Company, Kentucky Horse Artillery, Byrne’s Battery,
commanded by Captain Edward P. Byrne. This company was organized at Camp
Boone, Tennessee, during the early summer of 1861, with men from Kentucky
and Mississippi. After taking part in the Battle of Shiloh, the company joined
the Army of Tennessee and saw action at Murfreesboro. Later it served in the
eastern part of Tennessee and disbanded. Thomas then joined company K, 7th
Kentucky Cavalry, as a private. The unit skirmished in Tennessee and
Kentucky and then fought with John Hunt Morgan. Most of its men were
captured at Buffington Island on July 19, 1863, and the rest at New Lisbon on
July 26, 1863.
The 1870 census shows Thomas living with his mother, Brunette, in Vanceburg
and working as a farm laborer. We have found no record of him in the 1880
census. For some time, Thomas (also known as Bruce) was Clerk on the
Steamer Handy, commanded by Capt. Edgington and later by his brother Capt.
B.M. Redden. He was with the Handy in 1877 and later served as Captain on the
Handy No. 2. On May 1, 1882, he received a certificate from the “Local
Inspectors of Steam Vessels for the District of Cincinnati”, certifying him as a
“skillful Master of steam vessels” and licensing him for the term of a one year
“to perform such duties upon the waters of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers
and their tributaries.”
It was on the Handy No. 2 that he met Kate Walker, while he was hauling her
down the Ohio to Charleston, West Virginia, where she was principal of the
high school. Upon expiration of his steamboat license, they were married May
1, 1883, and in that year began their life together in Gunnison County, Colorado.
Why did they move to Colorado? We don’t know, but we speculate that it had
something to do with the recent discovery of silver and, later, the discovery of
marble in the mountains.
The obituary of Thomas in the January 15, 1898, Gunnison News says that he
died on January 12, 1898, aged 56 years, 7 months, and 13 days . . . He came to
Colorado in 1879 and lived on a ranch at Doyleville in Gunnison County. His
mother was then living in Ohio and he had four brothers in Kentucky and
Alabama. He left a wife and four children. He had a lively interest in religious
subjects and was an honorary member of the WCTU. He had taken sick two
weeks previous to his death when he was returning from Baldwin. He “was
buried from the Presbyterian Church.”
Kate Redden’s father, Ezra Walker, graduated from Ohio University in 1826 and
then moved to Charleston (W. Va.) where he read law. In 1834, he was
appointed to the position of Engineer and Superintendent of Western
Improvements by the James River and Kanawha Company in Kanawha County.
He died March 31, 1853, 30 miles below Charleston, leaving a pregnant widow,
Julia, and a two and a half-year-old daughter, Kate.
Julia later moved to Charleston with her sister and brother-in-law (Rebecca
and John A. Truslow), and it was there that Kate’s brother, Ezra Truslow
Walker, was born three months after his father’s death. Eventually all of the
family moved to Gunnison. In 1920, Kate was living with her daughter and son-
in-law, Thomas and Julia Huffman, in Wilcox, Arizona.
The Gunnison Republican, of May 9, 1879, carried the obituary of Katherine
Abigail Redden, widow of Thomas E. Redden, died at the ranch home of her
son, William, near Amont (Colorado), May 3, after an illness of three weeks. Her
early education was in a private school and she later attended a Girls’
Seminary at Steubenville, Ohio. She was principal of a school in Charleston,
West Virginia, for ten years. She moved to Kansas in 1881. Her late husband,
Thomas E. Redden, served in the Confederate army as a Captain in the ranks
of the noted General John Hunt Morgan. Morgan’s Raiders created havoc in
Indiana and Ohio. Captain Redden fired the first Confederate cannon shot east
of the Ohio River. He was finally made a prisoner of war and spent three years
in the Ohio State Penitentiary.
Mrs. William Redden once wrote a letter to her son, Paul, explaining the use of
the name Bruce in the naming of children. The name was so frequently used it
is sometimes confusing to determine which Bruce Redden is being spoken of.
She also said that Thomas Bruce Redden was a boiler man on the boats on the
Ohio River and migrated from Ohio to Colorado as a young man. He was on the
Gunnison police force. He and some other men went riding in the hills one day
and discovered marble, and later marble quarries were opened. His death left
his widow with small children who experienced great hardship in raising them
to maturity.
(4) Belville Moss Redden, often called “Bell” Redden, was born April 26, 1843,
in Vanceburg, and died April 3, 1917, at the home of his brother Henry, in the
Eagle Building, in Portsmouth, Ohio. He was a steamboat captain and pilot. He
married first to America Stout, in 1869. She was born June 28, 1847, a daughter
of John M. and Achsah (Gould) Stout, and died April 15, 1875, in Lewis County.
“Bell” married second to Joan Freeman, born January 21, 1847, at Concord,
and died of a stroke on May 9, 1913, in Concord and was buried in Concord
Cemetery. She was the daughter of John Freeman and Cynthia Ann White.
According to the Vanceburg Sun, of May 15, 1913, Mrs. B.M. Redden was
stricken with paralysis in the morning of May 15, and died that evening. Her
funeral was conducted at her home (it being her request) by Rev. James Word.
Her death certificate says she died of tuberculosis of the lungs.
Perhaps named after Belville Grant Moss, an early resident of Fleming County
and Maysville, Belville Moss Redden was raised in and near Vanceburg. He
joined the Methodist Episcopal Church in his youth. He was a pilot and captain
on the river for over twenty years, working mostly from Portsmouth. An item in
the Lewis County Herald, on February 24, 1927 said: “Capt. George Edgington
commanded the Steamer Handy, which left Vanceburg every morning for
Maysville and return. B.M. and Bruce Redden were clerks.”
The Redden brothers purchased the Handy in the 1870s, Belville serving as
captain with Bruce and Harvey as clerks. The steamer and its crew became a
well-known, popular attraction along the local Ohio River circuit. In May, 1877,
the small packet boat was making tri-weekly trips between Vanceburg and
Maysville, making stops at the many small nearby towns and settlements in
between. It was available for hauling freight or taking passengers to nearby
destinations or on short excursions.
The Vanceburg Courier reported on May 9, 1877, that “the Handy made 28
landings between here and Maysville, on a down-trip, one day last week, under
the superintendence of the Redden brothers." By 1881, Capt. John C. Agnew
had charge of the boat.
The Portsmouth Times, of February 20, 1892, reported that: “The old steamer
Handy is being dismantled at the lower landing. Her machinery will be put into
another small boat in course of construction and lying alongside the Handy."
In the 1880s the Redden brothers acquired the Handy No. 2 a stern wheel
steamboat.
The Vanceburg Courier of September 17, 1884 reported that “the Redden
brothers have gone to Portsmouth to bring the Handy down. She will go down
tomorrow and make regular trips thereafter." In 1888 it was reported that the
boat had again extended her trips to Portsmouth.
The Tribune Telegraph, of Pomeroy, Meigs County, Ohio, reported that the
Handy No. 2 would be put on the docks at Middleport the next week where she
was to receive a new hull.”
Belville retired about ten years before his death, but continued to work as a
captain and pilot for pastime following his retirement. He was considered one
of the best river men that ever piloted a boat up and down the Ohio. In the
flood of 1913, his concord home took in 55 and a half inches of water. By July
1913, he was living in Mt. Vernon, Ohio.
Mr. Redden had not been in the best of health for some time, due to Bright’s
disease, but his death came unexpectedly at 12:30. He had been to the revival
services at Bigelow Methodist Church and had been attending regular
services and Sunday school. The fatal heart trouble came just as he made
ready for the night. He was affiliated with the Masons at Concord.
(5) Harvey Lewis Redden, a steamboat captain, was born May 2, 1845, in
Newport Campbell County, Ky., and died June 18, 1914, in Portsmouth, Ohio,
where he was buried in Greenlawn Cemetery. He was married first by Rev.
Farmer, May 17, 1871, at the residence of the bride’s parents, in Greenup
County, Ky., to Virginia Jane Killen, born March 24, 1850, in Kentucky and died
in childbirth, February 25, 1875, on the home farm and was buried in Laughlin
Cemetery, at the Forest Home owned by William and Nita (McElhaney) Cropper,
South Portsmouth. Virginia was the daughter of Capt. William Killen and Anna
Elizabeth Laughlin. Harvey married second to Catherine R. “Kate” unknown.
She was born February 19, 1836, near Memphis, Clark County, Indiana, and
died after a lingering illness September 25, 1907, at the home of her daughter,
Mrs. A. Oleitha Lloyd, 263 East Ninth Street, Portsmouth, Ohio, and was buried
in the Berry-Morse family graveyard at Quincy, Ky. Kate was first married to N.
G. Morse, of Quincy, by whom she had four children, the oldest of which died
at age five. We do not know Kate’s last name before marrying Mr. Morse.
The Vanceburg Courier, September 27, 1907, reported that when she married
Mr. Redden she became the step-mother of two children, Eugene Redden and
Bertha Life, residents of Portsmouth. She was afflicted with cancer for five
years and was confined to her bed for nine months. She went to live with Mrs.
Lloyd after her son-in-law, T. Frank Lloyd, died suddenly. Mrs. Redden had
been in the home only two days when his death occurred. She was a
consistent member of the Christian Church. She received her flowers while
she was living, her many friends sending her a fresh bonnet during her illness.
Virginia Killen grew up near Springville, Greenup County, Ky., where her father
William Killen, a gentleman well-known in his community, farmed. He was born
in Maryland and captained a steamboat in the New Orleans trade early in life.
His wife, Anna Elizabeth Laughlin, was a daughter of Judge Robert Laughlin
and Judith Fuqua, daughter of Moses Fuqua Jr. and wife, Cynthia Collins. Mr.
Killen died on his farm near Springville. Mrs. Redden was interred in the family
burying ground.
Captain Harvey Redden died at the age of 69. He was a former commander of
the C&O ferryboat Chesapeake. The Portsmouth Times said that: “A stroke of
paralysis, his third in two years, suffered a few hours before was the cause of
Captain Redden’s . . . Two of his best friends observed the attack. He had
finished his supper and gone out for a brief stroll. After walking around the
house he came back and closed the gate and was slowly approaching the door
of his home when his friends shouted at him. He failed to return the greeting
and feeling that something was wrong they crossed over to investigate.
Before they could reach his side he threw up his hands and pitched forward
falling in a heap on the porch. They carried him into the house and a physician
was summoned but it was plain he was past medical aid, expiring several
hours later . . . on Thursday, as was his custom when able, he walked to the
river front to spend considerable time sitting on the flood wall. He was first
stricken with paralysis on April 19, 1912. It was an unusually cold morning and
the river was full of ice. He was on his way to work when he suffered the
stroke which incapacitated him for further duty on the river. His second stroke
came June 22, 1913.
Capt. Redden was born in Newport, Ky., May 2, 1845. At the age of 18 years he
became a clerk on a New Orleans boat and he followed the river until 1871
when he became associated in the hardware business in Vanceburg for a
couple of years with the late Nelson Fisher, who died several years ago of
paralysis. Returning to the river, Captain Redden became captain and part
owner of the packed W.P. Thompson and also of the Handy in the Portsmouth-
Cincinnati trade. In 1890 he went to Decatur, Alabama, taking command of the
packet B.F. Young. Capt. Redden came to Portsmouth and took charge of the
C&O ferry in 1895 and continued until his illness.
(6) Henry Clay Redden, steamboat captain and antique dealer, born December
26, 1848, in Vanceburg, died November 7, 1938, in Portsmouth and buried in
Greenlawn Cemetery. He was married April 16, 1899, in Decatur County,
Alabama, to Sigourney Alice Weast, who was born April 16, 1862, in the
Shenandoah Valley, of Virginia. She died in 1927, following a long illness, and
was buried in Vanceburg’s Woodland Cemetery. The couple lived in Alabama a
few years and moved to Portsmouth in 1910. She was a member of Bigelow
Methodist Church.
In his early days Henry like his brothers was a steamboat operator running on
the river in 1880 and when he went to Alabama, he met his future wife. He was
associated in the antique business with his brother’s son-in-law, G.W. Life.
Henry outlived all his siblings and was nearly 90 when he died.
(7) Bruce Redden, steamboat captain, was born January 4, 1852, in Kentucky
and died suddenly of heart disease on January 18, 1923, in Columbus, Ohio. He
was married on June 18, 1885, to Amy White Cox (sister of John Wesley Cox,
who married Mary Bruce, daughter of John Logan Bruce). In 1870, Bruce was
working as a clerk in the dry goods store of George McAdow Lafferty. Bruce
Redden married Anna Maria’s sister 15 years later.
Bruce Redden was a well-known river man, having been a clerk and steamboat
captain on the Ohio River. In 1878 he became a Mason at Polar Star Lodge
#363. For a while he piloted the Handy.
After leaving the river, Bruce moved to the Stricklett property on Front Street
in Vanceburg. The Portsmouth Times, of October 8, 1887, reported that Capt.
Bruce Redden, the popular bookkeeper at the Deposit Bank, is in the city
where he is having his eyes operated on. Later, in 1893, it was reported that he
had lost his sight and was blind the last 30 years of his life. His body was
brought from Columbus, Ohio, to the home of his brother, Henry, and he was
buried in Woodland Cemetery. His wife, Amy, lived in Columbus for 46 more
years and supported the family by keeping a boarding house. She had 18
boarders and a servant in 1900, 12 boarders in 1910, and seven in 1920.
(8) Lucy Bragg Redden, born March 19, 1854, in Lewis County, died by 1880,
married September 20, 1875, in Lewis County to Martin Van Buren Park, born
about 1842, in Jackson County, Virginia. He (Park) appears as a widower in the
1880 census in Vanceburg
All of the children of this illustrious family, except Bruce and the two infant
children, had many descendants but we do not have the space to go into their
lineage. Dr. King has a complete write-up of this family.
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