See quotation, 1853. [These boats were called by the river-men] “Uncle Sam’s Tooth-Pullers.”—(E. Flagg, ‘The Far West,’ 1838, i. 84.)
1843. The snag-boat had been invented twelve or fifteen years ago, for the removal of logs and trees…. Rocks and hard bars did not require snag-boats.—Mr. Benton of Missouri, U.S. Senate, Jan. 17: Congressional Globe, p. 165.
1853. These snag boats have a double bottom, like to our ferry boats. They run up to a snag or sawyer, from down stream, force it up straight, if it be inclined by the force of the current, fasten to it by a chain, and drawing it on the deck, it is cut by machinery into lengths of perhaps eight feet, and then cast overboard again, to do no more mischief.—S. A. Hammett (‘Philip Paxton’), ‘A Stray Yankee in Texas,’ p. 405.
1853. As I once said to Sydney Rigdon, our boat is an old snag boat, and has never been out of snag harbor, but it will root up the snags, run them down, split them up, and scatter them to the four winds.—Brigham Young, June 19: ‘Journal of Discourses,’ i. 189.
1911. There are a few sections of our marine strength that are seldom heard of. One is composed of the snagboats on the Mississippi. The men who man them do not seek publicity and are never given any medals or tablets for battle efficiency. The John N. Macomb arrived in Vicksburg early in the week from St. Louis, and on her trip from Memphis to Vicksburg she destroyed 187 snags. These snags are trees and driftwood which gather in the shallows or channels and menace navigation. If they are not carefully watched, they become so large that they deflect the current and make old charts valueless. Ever since the first steamboat sailed the great river these snags have been the terror of captains. Sixty were removed from one section of the river near Bolivar by the Macomb on her last cruise.—Springfield Republican, November.
