Captain Winfield Scott Paris piloted riverboats for 45 years, including many famous steamboats and paddlewheelers that navigated the Ohio River. Born May 20, 1848 in Kentucky to Dabner Cosby and Mary ReynoldsParis, he was one of seven children. His parents were farmers who later moved to Indiana. By the age of 12, Winfield had moved to Leavenworth and was working on a flatboat, and by 14 he was boarded out to a river captain to learn the trade. With his first wife Mary Jane Wilkins, he had three children: Sarah, also called Sallie, John, and Francis, who died as a child. After Mary Jane died in 1890, he married his sister-in-law Mary Alice Wilkens in 1892; she was a widow with one child, Nellie. Paris was still piloting boats at the age of 73, moving boats at Leavenworth's No. 44 Locks. He piloted the Tell City Steamboat, the Steamboat Tarascon, the E.G. Ragon, and after 1908 the Nelle Willett towboat, which was built in Leavenworth in 1904 and named for his daughter. From 1900 to 1921, Paris and his family rented a house on East Elm Street in New Albany, Indiana, and he and his wives are buried in the Leavenworth Cedar Cemetery.