The year is 1987 and a self-described treasure hunter is slogging through a Kansas corn field listening to the sounds coming from a magnetometer he carries. Suddenly, the sounds become frantic and he knew he'd found something important. Twenty years on now, the importance is still being discovered a bit at a time. For what David Hawley had found, buried 30 feet below that field, was the Missouri River steamboat, the Arabia. On September 5, 1856, the Arabia had hit a massive snag – a tree trunk – in the river and had gone down in a very short time. Miraculously, everyone on board escaped. But the steam packet and its entire cargo had gone to the bottom of the muddy Missouri. Hawley and his family went from being treasure hunters to historians overnight.
Inspired by tales of lost consignments of gold and valuable cargoes of whiskey, Hawley, his father, Bob, and younger brother, Greg, had searched for years for wrecks of sunken Missouri River steamboats, nearly 300 of which have been documented. By 1987, they had little more than old timbers to show for their efforts and, in one disappointing instance, a cargo of waterlogged salt pork. The Hawleys considered themselves treasure hunters who would sell what they found for whatever profit they could make. But the steamboat David Hawley stumbled onto that July afternoon would transform them into archaeologists, and in turn, preservationists, curators and fundraisers for a new museum. It would also enlarge historians' understanding of the American frontier and the era when the paddle wheel was queen of the Western waters.
From their research, the Hawleys knew that Arabia had been launched in 1853 on the Monongahela River in Pennsylvania; newspapers of the time described the boat as a "handsome and staunch packet…furnished throughout with the latest accommodations and improvements for the comforts of the passengers and conveyance of freight." They knew, too, that Arabia carried Mormon settlers on their way to Utah and soldiers to forts in distant Montana. Arabia had even played a role in the battle for "Bleeding Kansas," when pro-slavery men discovered crates of rifles destined for abolitionists in the ship's hold and nearly lynched the passengers who had brought them aboard. The Hawleys had also come across an eyewitness account of Arabia's last moments. "There was a wild scene on board," recalled a survivor named Abel Kirk. "The boat went down till the water came over the deck, and the boat keeled over on one side. The chairs and stools were tumbled about and many of the children nearly fell into the water." Amazingly, considering that Arabia sank in less than ten minutes, all 130 passengers, and the crew, survived.
Bob Hawley, 77, calls his clan "just a run-of-the-mill blue-collar family," one that owned a refrigerator business in Independence, Missouri. Hawley's ancestors went West to join up with the first settlers in Utah. "My great-great-grandfather was told he had to get himself another wife," says Bob, "but he just couldn't make himself do it, so he left Utah in the dead of night." From his father, Gerry, a blacksmith, Bob inherited mechanical ingenuity and a stubborn perfectionism that would serve the Hawleys well in their quest to salvage Arabia.
Go read the whole thing, it is a fascinating story. My wife and I have visited the Arabia Museum and can highly recommend it as something well worth seeing. Here is the Arabia Museum's website.
