Johnny Balser of McComb spent decades capturing special moments as a photographer.
Now, he’s turned his eye to preserving another kind of history, by making a model of the first steamboat built in the United States — the Clermont.
Built by Robert Fulton and ridiculed as “Fulton’s Folly,” The Clermont marked its 200th birthday in August.
The steamboat was the first commercially successful steamboat in the world. On its initial trip in 1807, the paddlewheel made the trip up the Hudson River from New York City to Albany and back in 62 hours.
Balser, 85, combined his interests in history and ships when he began work on the Clermont model.
Balser retired from photography in the early 1990s.
“You know, when you retire, you can do whatever you please,” he said with a chuckle.
And what has pleased Balser for the past year is working on the Clermont.
He cut the wood for the tiny rails that ring the boat, glued two fishing lures together to make an anchor and crafted a lifeboat. The paddlewheel’s working mechanism prompts the action in the “steam engine.”
He had not done much in the way of model making before taking on the Clermont project. He made one P-51 airplane with his grandson.
Balser began his career not as a photographer, but as a machinist for the Illinois Central Railroad. It seemed the natural thing to do.
“My father, my grandfather and two uncles worked for the railroad,” he said.
Then came World War II, and Balser was drafted into military service. He served as an ordnance man in the 3rd Army, under Gen. George S. Patton in the European Theater. He was in Europe from May 1944 until June 1945 and served in the Battle of the Bulge.
“On July 4, I was in New York City for the victory celebration,” Balser recalled. And he was preparing to rejoin the fight in the Pacific when the United States bombed Nagasaki and Hiroshima, ending the war.
Balser attended the dedication of a Smithsonian Museum that houses model ships, but he noted that there was nothing there to represent the Clermont.
He plans to offer the model to the museum.
But first, McComb Library patrons will get a view of it when it goes on display there in the coming weeks.
