Kribben, William J. (Bill) (d. 1878), of St. Louis, was a Mississippi steamboat pilot. In 1863 he was arrested by Union soldiers on the charge of disloyalty, but was released on bond pending a trial, the outcome of which is not known. During the Civil War he was secretary and treasurer of the Western Boatmen’s Benevolent Association and contributed to the organization’s decline by embezzling its “ample fund” (Life on the Mississippi, chapter 15). He died of yellow fever when co-piloting the Molly Moore with Samuel Adams Bowen, Jr. Clemens’s notebook entries during his 1882 visit to the Mississippi River indicate that Kribben was buried at the head of Island 68 in Arkansas (N&J2, 527, 562). “Villagers” (97) calls him “the defaulting secretary” (Kennedy 1857, 302, where his name is entered as W. S. Kibben; “Paroled,” clipping from unidentified newspaper, ca. Apr 63, CU-MARK; McNeil 1861; M. Clabaugh to SLC, 19 July 90, CU-MARK).
