About a year after I came to Marietta in the 1970s another newcomer arrived in town. Sadly, she is no longer with us. Becky Thatcher, or more properly, the sternwheeler Becky Thatcher, spent much of her hard life along the banks of the Muskingum River in Marietta.

She arrived in town in 1975 as part of a bicentennial project designed to bring entertainment and good food to the riverbank. The city made a lot of improvements to the area behind the armory so that people could board the boat for melodrama plays and to dine at the restaurant on the second deck of the boat. The boat had a dramatic life of its own before it arrived in Marietta.

Before moving to Marietta, Becky lived in St. Louis along the Mississippi. During a stormy Saturday night in June of 1969, tied to the riverbank by steel cables, the boat broke free when 60 mile-per-hour winds started moving the craft away from the west bank. Thirty people managed to get off the boat before it broke free, but the remaining 70 were in for a wild ride. Powerless and out of control, the boat began drifting downriver. The only illumination for the frightened guests came from the flashes of lightning striking nearby. It soon crashed into the Golden Arrow, a small packet boat moored downstream. Bouncing off the boat, Becky was now heading toward the middle of the river. It barely missed the Poplar Street Bridge before heading directly toward the McArthur Bridge. Guests, who did not have life jackets, were told to all sit on the deck on the east side of the boat in an effort to steer the boat around a pier. It worked, the boat, still tied to a barge and a replica of the Santa Maria cleared the bridge pier by inches. Two miles later Becky ran into a dock of the Monsanto Company after the Santa Maria hit the shore and began to sink. The guests were rescued by a boat that finally caught up with the drifting sternwheeler. I was there when the boat arrived in Marietta to great fanfare, unaware of her storied past, I just thought it was a neat addition to the riverbank. What did I know, I was just a stupid kid. I was also there when she left decades later for the final trip of its long life.

As a member of the Marietta High School Crew team in the 1970s, I saw The Becky often, passing her nearly daily during practice. The Muskingum with Becky at one end, and the W.P. Snyder at the other end was a great place to row. It amazed visiting crews that were not accustomed to passing huge vintage riverboats during practice. The photo on page 2 today shows The Becky at its normal spot behind the Armory.

Except for going up and down during flooding, Becky never moved from its riverside home. When it did, it got her into trouble. In 1984 she was moved from the east bank of the river to the west bank so dredging could happen in her normal spot. Soon the river dropped, tied tightly to the riverbank, the riverboat started leaning to one side. She came to rest on some rocks that were likely parts of the old Marietta dam. The rocks poked holes in her thin hull and she sank. Eventually water would cover the entire first deck and part of the second. I started at The Times full time in April of 1984. Becky sank a few weeks before. Photographing a half-sunk Becky Thatcher would occupy much of my first few months. There are only so many ways you can photograph a sunk sternwheeler though and we were all a bit relieved when two giant cranes pulled her free of the muddy bottom. I and a reporter visited her while she was in a riverboat ER in Point Pleasant. Safely resting in a dry dock, a worker showed us how thin the hull was by poking his finger through it. I asked him how long a new hull would last, for a stationary boat like Becky he said, about 30 years. She didn’t make it that long. She did though return to Marietta for a while, returning to its spot on the east bank of the Muskingum with a permanent bow to the decks caused by sitting on the rocks for months, the boat would spend two more decades here. I like many, enjoyed eating there from time to time and having a beer on the front deck at others. Falling into hard times, the craft changed hands a few times and was even listed on eBay for a while.

Evicted from the riverbank, Becky left Marietta for the last time when it departed for a new life in Pittsburgh in October of 2009. In February of 2010 following a heavy snowfall the boat took on water, listing to one side and sank for the final time. Part of the wood upper decks gave way and collapsed on itself; the Becky was a total loss.