The River: The sounds of a riverboat calliope bring fond memories — and Homer Denney’s rise to the top

The riverboat captain is a storyteller, and Captain Don Sanders will be sharing the stories of his long association with the river — from discovery to a way of love and life. This a part of a long and continuing story.

By Capt. Don Sanders
Special to NKyTribune

Which looked the whitest, the fading snow on the roof outside the window or my computer screen while trying to concoct something to write this week? The face of the blank, white monitor was about to win until I gave an old river buddy I’d known for ages a ring.

During the past 150 years, and “Professor” Homer Denney’s name will be topping the list as the musical maestro of the “steam piano.”

After agreeing we both were still above the sod and progressing through time at a respectable rate, my friend disclosed that when he first auditioned to play the steam calliope aboard a steamboat, we’d known decades ago, his apprenticeship and his future career were forthwith sealed when an old pilot observing the demonstration remarked:

“That boy sounds like Homer Denney a’ playin’.”

Mention the history of the steam calliope played on showboats and passenger boats on the Mississippi River System during the past 150 years, and “Professor” Homer Denney’s name will be topping the list as the musical maestro of the “steam piano.” No wonder my friend was hired on the spot after receiving such an electrifying comparison.

With the ice broken and the conversation headed in the direction of calliopes and Mr. Denney, I informed my friend that “the last time Homey Denney played the calliope onboard the DELTA QUEEN, he played for me.” Perhaps I was taking a little too much credit for the responsibility for Homer’s last steamboat performance. Still, I was in charge of the DELTA QUEEN while it laid up at the Cincinnati Public Landing on that summer day in 1970.

I informed my friend that “the last time Homey Denney played the calliope onboard the DELTA QUEEN, he played for me.” (Bert Finn Photo)

Back in that year, the QUEEN found herself snoozing at the Public Landing for a couple of days between trips. Most of the crew hailed from “Ragtown,” as Cincy was known during the steamboat era for rag bales arriving by the zillions on the busy packets. As soon as the last line ran ashore, and as fast as each crewman and woman could desert the boat like rats abandoning a doomed ship, they did… including Captain Ernest E. Wagner, the Master, who fled to nearby New Richmond, upstream a few miles, and left me to watch the DELTA QUEEN until he returned.

It was a lazy afternoon when I answered a knock on my three-by-seven-foot “stateroom” door, and the college kid working as a Watchman for the summer announced:

Grandma Edith heard many played in her time growing up around the river in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when she knew the various steamboats by the sounds of their whistles.

“There’s some old dude down on the bow who wants to play the calliope.”

Just as I was about to bust out in mocking laughter, a better voice in the back of my mind caused me to ask:

“Did he give his name?”

“Yeah… Benny, Skinny, Vinnie… something like that?”

Again that better voice thought and asked:

Denney… Denney? Homer Denney, perhaps?”

“Yeah, that’s it… Homer Denney.”

The General Alarm Bells inside my head immediately replaced the “better voice,” and I scrambled into my shirt and shoes before Mr. Denney changed his mind and left the boat. As I tore out of my suite and ran for the bow, I thought enough to swing by the Purser’s Office where Chief Purser Gabriel Chengery happened to be and alerted Gabe that we had an illustrious visitor aboard.

Today, everyone remembers Gabe as “Captain Gabe,” one of the longest-serving and most-capable captains on the DELTA QUEEN and MISSISSIPPI QUEEN steamboats. In 1970, Gabe was in the purser’s office keeping track of the DELTA QUEEN’s money and whatever-else pursers did after the days when the “Clerk” kept track of the cargo and livestock of the two and four-footed varieties. Gabe played the steam calliope and was also an avid fan of the accomplishments of Mr. Denney and his contributions to the multi-whistled musical instrument my granny, Edith LaVelma, called a “Calley-O;” not a “calliope.”

Captain Ernest E. Wagner fled to nearby New Richmond and left me to watch the DELTA QUEEN until he returned. 

Grandma Edith heard many of them played in her time growing up around the river in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when she knew the various steamboats by the sounds of their whistles.

By the time I introduced myself to the elder steamboat statesman and had him seated at the QUEEN’s version of the “infernal music machine,” Gabe had the steam cranked on high and collected a few more fans for the maestro’s final presentation at the brass calliope keyboard. During the impromptu concert, Gabe made an audiotape recording, and I shot 35mm black and white photos as the old gentleman resurrected the tunes he’d been playing on numerous steam-powered musical machines since he began playing on the first ISLAND QUEEN in the early days of the 20th Century.
 
Many years later, I found the undeveloped film in the abandoned camera and failed to realize it recorded the Denney presentation until the prints returned from the developer. I wonder, now, if Captain Gabe still has the recording of Professor Homer Denney’s last time he played the Thomas J. Nichol steam-powered Calley-O onboard the DELTA QUEEN? Gabriel?

Of course, my friend had to counter my calliope story with another of his own:

In 1970, Gabe was in the purser’s office keeping track of the DELTA QUEEN’s money.

It was around the last of winter, possibly during March of 1960, when the “genuine Thomas J. Nichol job, with sweet-toned copper whistles” was new aboard the DELTA QUEEN following the acquisition and installation by Commander E. Jay Quinby, Chairman of the Board of Greene Line Steamers, Inc., owners of the QUEEN. The DELTA QUEEN was wintering at the Greene Line wharfboat. Keeping her company on the downstream end of the floating wharf was the Steamer AVALON, the last tramping excursion steamboat, which, within two years, would become the Steamer BELLE of LOUISVILLE, now, 61 years later, still operating and soon to be in her 107th year of continual service.

Although the AVALON was “cooled down,” the small, auxiliary, or “donkey” boiler spouted a full head of steam. The coal-fired boiler had enough vaporous energy to spin the capstan, lift the stage, and operate the main boilers’ fuel pumps until they came online. The donkey boiler also possessed enough potency to power the calliope high on the roof behind the pilothouse.

Seated aft, one deck below the DELTA QUEEN roof, Professor Quinby belted out a tune on his newly-acquired musical instrument to show off its ability to generate raucous, cacophonous, and melodious reverberations. As soon as Quinby finished the first song, the calliopist aboard the AVALON answered in return. Soon, one tune after another echoed among the high hills on either side of the Ohio River Valley until it seemed, as one witness observed:

Commander E. Jay Quinby, chairman of the board of Greene Line Steamers Inc., owners of the DELTA QUEEN. (Wm. Muster photo)

“The reverberating notes appeared to drown out each other.”

By then, those aboard the AVALON feared the continuous competing of the dueling calliopes would soon lay waste to the smaller boat’s reserves of precious coal reserves. So the tramp excursionist signaled default with a final cessation of notes musicians sometimes call “over the fence and out.” Not being musically inclined, myself, I harken the expression to mean what John Hartford called, “a shave and a haircut.”

With the AVALON out of the show, Mr. Quinby finished one last melody aboard the DELTA QUEEN, and all was quiet between the steamboats.

Suddenly and unexpectedly, a third calliope shattered the silence. Overtopping the Public Landing, the piercing tones blasting from the brass whistles of an air-powered calliope on a circus-style wagon filled the atmosphere barely recovered from the combined wails of the two steam-operated machines. To the trained ear, the tonal technique of the mysterious newcomer possessed a familiar air. Within minutes, the stranger’s identity was soon revealed. It was none other than Professor Homer Denney tickling the keys on the air-powered calliope to join in the celebration for the acquisition of the new steam-calliope onboard the Steamboat DELTA QUEEN.

Captain Don Sanders is a river man. He has been a riverboat captain with the Delta Queen Steamboat Company and with Rising Star Casino. He learned to fly an airplane before he learned to drive a “machine” and became a captain in the USAF. He is an adventurer, a historian, and a storyteller. Now, he is a columnist for the NKyTribune and will share his stories of growing up in Covington and his stories of the river. Hang on for the ride — the river never looked so good.