paddlewheel

noun, a wheel with blades fitted round in circumference which provides impetus to a boat when revolved so that the blades push backwards against the water (COD); see also paddle box, paddlewheel(er), paddlewheel steamboat

“The brothers had the ferry. It was the Hunter. The Hunter had a six-cylinder paddlewheel.”

“She was a steam-operated ferry, and she had two huge paddlewheels on each side of her that propelled the ferry. And of course you could open up the doors from inside, and down in around these paddlewheels there’d just be fish to no end. So when my father and brother used to be salvaging the scrap out of her, why I used to spend my time in there fishing.”