Samuel Cornell Plant (8 August 1866 – 26 February 1921) was a British sailor who is best known as the first to command a merchant steamer plying on the Upper Yangtze River in 1900.

Plant installed the river's navigational marks, established signaling systems, wrote a manual for shipmasters, and trained hundreds of foreign and Chinese pilots.

Captain Sam suffered a heart attack on the journey and fell from his companion ladder, dying shortly after.

The Shah of Persia granted England limited permission to initiate commercial trade on the Lower Karun.

The outbreak of the Boxer Rebellion put an end to its future commercial passages and the British Navy acquired the vessel for military use, renaming it HMS Kinsha.

He bought property on the hills opposite Chongqing in 1905 in the same expatriate community as Little and other foreign merchants and customs officials.

In 1908, the Chinese partnered with Plant, who combined Upper Yangtze navigational knowledge with a thorough understanding of steamship performance and design.

He trained pilots - both foreign and Chinese, issued licenses, developed a manual, installed navigational marks, inspected ships and established signaling systems to ensure successful passages.

[14] On 23 February 1921, Captain Plant, his wife, Alice, and their two adopted Chinese daughters, boarded SS Teiresias in Shanghai to return to England.

Their adopted daughters were returned to China by shipping agent Butterfield & Swire and placed under legal guardianship of New Zealand missionary, Mary Emelia Moore at the Church of Scotland Mission in Yichang.

[19] In 2002, the Chinese government flagged the monument as important ahead of the Three Gorges Dam project and moved it to higher ground where it can be seen today.