The Philip Pennywit was a sidewheel paddleboat named for an esteemed Arkansas riverboat captain, plying a route between New Orleans, Louisiana, and Fort Gibson in the Indian Territory (modern-day Oklahoma). Philip Pennywit had established the first regular service on the Arkansas River in the early 1880s, expanding into the White River, where his Waverly steamboat was the first to ascend as far as Batesville (Independence County). By 1849, he had retired from the active river trade to become a merchant in Van Buren (Crawford County), though he remained involved in the steamboat business. In 1849, Pennywit and Captain Robert Beatty, described as “an enterprising, accommodating and a safe boatman,” had a steamboat built in Cincinnati, Ohio, that would be named …