Encyclopedia Dubuque
"Encyclopedia Dubuque is the online authority for all things Dubuque, written by the people who know the city best.”
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Affiliated with the Local History Network of the State Historical Society of Iowa, and the Iowa Museum Association.
DUBUQUE ROWING CLUB
DUBUQUE ROWING CLUB. On April 30, 1870, the Dubuque Rowing Club was organized with about one hundred members and a capital of two thousand five hundred dollars. Its president was Gen. William Hyde Clark.
The club started with one barge, two gigs, three skiffs, and a boathouse 60 x 20 feet.
June 4, 1870 was "red letter day" for the club; it was the first public rowing exhibition. The rowers were (1) G. Stephens, (2) M. S. Conningham, (3) James Stout, (4) Alfred Hobbs (stroke), and A. H. Gibbs, coxswain.
Later the club owned the barge Desoto, two four-oared gigs, two four-oared skififs and one captain's cutter— Vixen. The fourteen-oared barge Desoto was launched June 25, 1870: it was built by Daniel Hewitt and was forty feet long, five feet wide; it had fourteen oars, double banked man-of-war fashioned.
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Source:
1. Oldt, Franklin T. History of Dubuque County. http://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/franklin-t-oldt/history-of-dubuque-county-iowa-being-a-general-survey-of-dubuque-county-histor-tdl/page-26-history-of-dubuque-county-iowa-being-a-general-survey-of-dubuque-county-histor-tdl.shtml