Capt. Thomas H. Dolson 1849-1923

DOLSON, TIBBALS, HANKS

Posted By: CHERYL MOONEN (email)
Date: 6/8/2018 at 21:42:34

Dubuque Telegraph-Herald, Wed. June 27, 1923,

The death of Capt. Thomas H. Dolson removes another veteran from the thinning ranks of the upper Mississippi rivermen. Born in Dubuque in 1849, and a follower of the river for fifty years, he was allied to an earlier generation of rivermen through his father and his older brother, Stephen, both of whom were pilots.

As early as 1898river traffic had declined to such a degree that Capt. Dolson sought employment on the Yukon River in Alaska, where he remained for ten years. Most of his fellow pilots of the ‘70s and ‘80s have crossed the bar, but there are yet a few survivors, among them Capt. Wm Tibbals of Dubuque, whose service on the upper river began in 1854, and whose recollections go back to the real pioneers. such as the late Capt. Steve Hanks of Albany, Ill.

The records of the early days on the Mississippi have been preserved by Merrick in the publication he issued under the patronage of the University of Wisconsin and by Fred A. Bill of Minneapolis, formerly of general agent of the Diamond Jo Lines at Dubuque, who collected and published in a series of sketches in the Burlington Post a mass of material in connection with his biography of Capt. Steve Hanks.

We have had no new generation of rivermen on the upper Mississippi since Capt. Dolson made his start for the Yukon a quarter century ago. In the minds of those to whom river lore is of perennial interest the question is whether we have seen the last of activity on this majestic stream, or whether what we have witnessed is merely a prologue to the greater scene yet to dawn.