Relaxation on the River

It seems fitting the Mayo brothers bought a steamboat. As well-established surgeons, they looked for ways to relax from their busy schedules. By 1910, Dr. Will was bored with summers at their lake cottage near Oronoco, Minn. He devised a plan to buy a somewhat dilapidated 220-ton sternwheel raftboat, the John H. Rich, which began life as the E. Rutledge in 1892. Dr. Will arranged his schedule to have Sundays and Mondays off for river trips.

Dr. Will purchased the boat from the Forest Products Co. of Red Wing, Minn., in partnership with John Rich, the company's chairman (who also was president of the Goodhue County National Bank). Dr. Will brought in his brother and clinic partners Dr. Henry Plummer and Dr. E. Starr Judd as part of the group. Cost was $9,500. The partners, along with hotel owner John Kahler, bought out Mr. Rich in 1913. Dr. Will then petitioned the Treasury Department to change the boat's name to the Oronoco. Although each partner owned roughly equal shares, it was Dr. Will who took to boating with a passion.

The Mayo group inherited Capt. Robert Cassidy. Word leaked to the press that the Mayos were the new owners of a steamboat; a Saint Paul paper speculated, inaccurately, that the brothers were converting it to a "floating sanatorium" for their patients. But the sternwheeler was meant for pleasure; other prominent families of the day kept steamboats on the upper river, too, including the Cargills, the August Busch family and the John Deere heirs.

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