This confused me because "strewheel" doesn't work as a search term and I wasn't even sure how to pronounce it much less understand it. Until I reread your comment and used commonsense logic to figure out you must have misspelt "sternwheel" or "sternwheeler." Which was still a word I don't remember ever hearing, but it's easy to look up. And I bet it's findable somewhere in Mark Twain, but it's been a generation since I've read him.