This little book has given me a place to share stories of the steamboats and the era in which they prospered. You see, I am the granddaughter of a well known steamboat captain, Captain Archibald Long, better known as Captain Arch, who for 26 plus years piloted the Potomac and other steamboats up and down the Chesapeake Bay from Baltimore up the Rappahannock to Fredericksburg and down to Norfolk and back again. When I was a young girl, I would sit and listen to tales of his travels and adventures. The steamboats changed the way of life for all living on the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries and stories abound about those changes in the villages and small towns of the Northern Neck. These stories have been collected from my grandfather as well as by the research of my brother Jack, relatives and local friends and the Long Family Collection of pictures and writings. Always interesting to those who would listen, they tell of happy times, sad times and I hope they are not only educational, but fun and heartwarming. So please join me as I take you into the past to a time-an era-that is almost forgotten but loved by those who do remember.