Four Months in a Sneak-Box
by Nathaniel H. Bishop · English · Gutenberg #5686 · 449,564 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Four Months in a Sneak-Box
Author: Nathaniel H. Bishop
Release date: May 1, 2004 [eBook #5686]
Most recently updated: December 29, 2020
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5686
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX ***
This eBook was produced by Bruce Miller
FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX.
A BOAT VOYAGE OF 2600 MILES DOWN THE OHIO
AND MISSISSIPPI RIVERS, AND ALONG
THE GULF OF MEXICO.
BY
NATHANIEL H. BISHOP
AUTHOR OF "A THOUSAND MILES' WALK ACROSS SOUTH AMERICA," AND "VOYAGE
OF THE PAPER CANOE."
TO THE
OFFICERS AND EMPLOYEES
OF THE
LIGHT HOUSE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE UNITED STATES
This Book is Dedicated
BY ONE WHO HAS LEARNED TO RESPECT THEIR
HONEST, INTELLIGENT AND EFFICIENT LABORS
IN SERVING THEIR GOVERNMENT, THEIR
COUNTRYMEN, AND MANKIND
GENERALLY.
INTRODUCTION.
EIGHTEEN months ago the author gave to the public his "VOYAGE OF THE
PAPER CANOE:--A GEOGRAPHICAL JOURNEY OF 2500 MILES FROM QUEBEC TO THE
GULF OF MEXICO, DURING THE YEARS 1874-5."
The kind reception by the American press of the author's first journey
to the great southern sea, and its republication in Great Britain and
in France within so short a time of its appearance in the United
States, have encouraged him to give the public a companion volume,--
"FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX,"--which is a relation of the experiences
of a second cruise to the Gulf of Mexico, but by a different route
from that followed in the "VOYAGE OF THE PAPER CANOE." This time the
author procured one of the smallest and most comfortable of boats--a
purely American model, developed by the bay-men of the New Jersey
coast of the United States, and recently introduced to the gunning
fraternity as the BARNEGAT SNEAK-BOX. This curious and stanch little
craft, though only twelve feet in length, proved a most comfortable
and serviceable home while the author rowed in it more than 2600 miles
down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and along the coast of the Gulf
of Mexico, until he reached the goal of his voyage--the mouth of the
wild Suwanee River--which was the terminus of his "VOYAGE OF THE PAPER
CANOE."
The maps which illustrate the contours of the coast of the Gulf of
Mexico, like those in the other volume, are the most reliable ever
given to the public, having been drawn and engraved, by contract for
the work, by the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey Bureau.
LAKE GEORGE, WARREN CO.,
NEW YORK STATE,
SEPTEMBER 1st, 1879.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
THE BOAT FOR THE VOYAGE.
CANOES FOR SHALLOW STREAMS AND FREQUENT PORTAGES.-- SNEAK-BOXES FOR
DEEP WATERCOURSES.-- HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION OF THE BARNEGAT SNEAK-
BOX.-- A WALK DOWN EEL STREET TO MANAHAWKEN MARSHES.-- HONEST GEORGE,
THE BOAT-BUILDER.-- THE BUILDING OF THE SNEAK-BOX "CENTENNIAL
REPUBLIC."-- ITS TRANSPORTATION TO THE OHIO RIVER.
CHAPTER II.
SOURCES OF THE OHIO RIVER.
DESCRIPTION OF THE MONONGAHELA AND ALLEGHANY RIVERS.-- THE OHIO
RIVER.-- EXPLORATION OF CAVELIER DE LA SALLE.-- NAMES GIVEN BY ANCIENT
CARTOGRAPHERS TO THE OHIO.-- ROUTES OF THE ABORIGINES FROM THE GREAT
LAKES TO THE OHIO RIVER.
CHAPTER III.
FROM PITTSBURGH TO BLENNERHASSET'S ISLAND.
THE START FOR THE GULF.-- CAUGHT IN THE ICE-RAFT.-- CAMPING ON THE
OHIO.-- THE GRAVE CREEK MOUND.-- AN INDIAN SEPULCHRE.--
BLENNERHASSET'S ISLAND.-- AARON BURR'S CONSPIRACY.-- A RUINED FAMILY.
CHAPTER IV.
FROM BLENNERHASSET'S ISLAND TO CINCINNATI.
RIVER CAMPS.-- THE SHANTY-BOATS AND RIVER MIGRANTS.-- VARIOUS
EXPERIENCES.-- ARRIVAL AT CINCINNATI.-- THE SNEAK-BOX FROZEN UP IN
PLEASANT RUN.-- A TAILOR'S FAMILY.-- A NIGHT UNDER A GERMAN COVERLET.
CHAPTER V.
FROM CINCINNATI TO THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER.
CINCINNATI.-- MUSIC AND PORK IN PORKOPOLIS.-- THE BIG BONE LICK OF
FOSSIL ELEPHANTS.-- COLONEL CROGHAN'S VISIT TO THE LICK.-- PORTAGE
AROUND THE "FALLS," AT LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY.-- STUCK IN THE MUD.-- THE
FIRST STEAMBOAT OF THE WEST.-- VICTOR HUGO ON THE SITUATION.-- A
FREEBOOTER'S DEN.-- WHOOPING AND SAND-HILL CRANES.-- THE SNEAK-BOX
ENTERS THE MISSISSIPPI.
CHAPTER VI.
DESCENT OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER.
LEAVE CAIRO, ILLINOIS.-- THE LONGEST RIVER IN THE WORLD.-- BOOK
GEOGRAPHY AND BOAT GEOGRAPHY.-- CHICKASAW BLUFF.-- MEETING WITH THE
PARAKEETS.-- FORT DONALDSON.-- EARTHQUAKES AND LAKES.-- WEIRD BEAUTY
OF REELFOOT LAKE.-- JOE ECKEL'S BAR.-- SHANTY-BOAT COOKING.-- FORT
PILLOW.-- MEMPHIS.-- A NEGRO JUSTICE.-- "DE COMMON LAW OB
MISSISSIPPI."
CHAPTER VII.
DESCENT OF THE MISSISSIPPI TO NEW ORLEANS.
A FLATBOAT BOUND FOR TEXAS.-- A FLAT-MAN ON RIVER PHYSICS.-- ADRIFT
AND ASLEEP.-- SEEKING THE EARTH'S LITTLE MOON.-- VICKSBURGH.--
JEFFERSON DAVIS'S COTTON PLANTATION, AND ITS NEGRO OWNER.-- DYING IN
HIS BOAT.-- HOW TO CIVILIZE CHINESE.-- A SWIM OF ONE HUNDRED AND
TWENTY MILES ON THE MISSISSIPPI.-- TWENTY-FOUR HOURS IN THE WATER.--
ARRIVAL IN THE CRESCENT CITY.
CHAPTER VIII.
NEW ORLEANS.
BIENVILLE AND THE CITY OF THE PAST.-- FRENCH AND SPANISH RULE IN THE
NEW WORLD.-- LOUISIANA CEDED TO THE UNITED STATES.-- CAPTAIN EADS AND
HIS JETTIES.-- TRANSPORTATION OF CEREALS TO EUROPE.-- CHARLES MORGAN.-
- CREOLE TYPES OF CITIZENS.-- LEVEES AND CRAWFISH.-- DRAINAGE OF THE
CITY INTO LAKE PONTCHARTRAIN.
CHAPTER IX.
ON THE GULF OF MEXICO.
LEAVE NEW ORLEANS.-- THE ROUGHS AT WORK.-- DETAINED AT NEW BASIN.--
SADDLES INTRODUCES HIMSELF.-- CAMPING AT LAKE PONTCHARTRAIN.-- THE
LIGHT-HOUSE OF POINT AUX HERBES.-- THE RIGOLETS.-- MARSHES AND
MOSQUITOES.-- IMPORTANT USE OF THE MOSQUITO AND BLOW-FLY.-- ST.
JOSEPH'S LIGHT.-- AN EXCITING PULL TO BAY ST. LOUIS.-- A LIGHT-KEEPER
LOST IN THE SEA.-- BATTLE OF THE SHARKS.-- BILOXI.-- THE WATER-CRESS
GARDEN.-- LITTLE JENNIE.
CHAPTER X.
FROM BILOXI TO CAPE SAN BLAS.
POINTS ON THE GULF COAST.-- MOBILE BAY.-- THE HERMIT OF DAUPHINE
ISLAND.-- BON SECOURS BAY.-- A CRACKER'S DAUGHTER.-- THE PORTAGE TO
THE PERDIDO.-- THE PORTAGE FROM THE PERDIDO TO BIG LAGOON.-- PENSACOLA
BAY.-- SANTA ROSA ISLAND.-- A NEW LONDON FISHERMAN.-- CATCHING THE
POMPANO.-- A NEGRO PREACHER AND WHITE SINNERS.-- A DAY AND A NIGHT
WITH A MURDERER.-- ST. ANDREW'S SOUND.-- ARRIVAL AT CAPE SAN BLAS.
CHAPTER XI.
FROM CAPE SAN BLAS TO ST. MARKS.
A PORTAGE ACROSS CAPE SAN BLAS.-- THE COW-HUNTERS.-- A VISIT TO THE
LIGHT-HOUSE.-- ONCE MORE ON THE SEA.-- PORTAGE INTO ST. VINCENT'S
SOUND.-- APALACHICOLA.-- ST. GEORGE'S SOUND AND OCKLOCKONY RIVER.--
ARRIVAL AT ST. MARKS.-- THE NEGRO POSTMASTER.-- A PHILANTHROPIST AND
HIS NEIGHBORS.-- A CONTINUOUS AND PROTECTED WATER-WAY FROM THE
MISSISSIPPI TO THE ATLANTIC COAST.
CHAPTER XII.
FROM ST. MARKS TO THE SUWANEE RIVER.
ALONG THE COAST.-- SADDLES BREAKS DOWN.-- A REFUGE WITH THE
FISHERMEN.-- CAMP IN THE PALM FOREST.-- PARTING WITH SADDLES.-- OUR
NEIGHBOR THE ALLIGATOR.-- DISCOVERY OF THE TRUE CROCODILE IN AMERICA.-
- THE DEVIL'S WOOD-PILE.-- DEADMAN'S BAY.-- BOWLEGS POINT.-- THE COAST
SURVEY CAMP.-- A DAY ABOARD THE "READY."-- THE SUWANEE RIVER.-- THE
END.
ILLUSTRATIONS
DRAWN BY F. T. MERRILL. ENGRAVED BY JOHN ANDREW & SON.
SHANTY-BOATS--THE CHAMPION FLOATERS OF THE
WEST....... FRONTISPIECE.
DIAGRAM OF PARTS OF BOAT...14
INDIAN IN CANOE...28
THE START--HEAD OF THE OHIO RIVER ...31
COAL-STOVE. . .39
INDIAN MOUND AT MOUNDSVILLE, WEST VIRGINIA...54
A NIGHT UNDER A GERMAN COVERLET...78
POPULAR IDEA OF THE NESTING OF CRANES...111
STERN-WHEEL WESTERN TOW-BOAT PUSHING FLATBOATS...114
MEETING WITH THE PARAKEETS...125
DYING IN HIS BOAT...177
BOYTON DESCENDING THE MISSISSIPPI...187
NEW ORLEANS ROUGHS AMUSING THEMSELVES...214
ARRIVAL AT THE GULF OF MEXICO--CAMP MOSQUITO...239
THE PORTAGE ACROSS CROOKED ISLAND...269
SADDLES BREAKS DOWN...292
PARTING WITH SADDLES...302
LAST NIGHT ON THE GULF OF MEXICO...322
LIST OF MAPS
DRAWN AND ENGRAVED BY THE UNITED STATES COAST AND GEODETIC SURVEY
BUREAU
TO ILLUSTRATE N. H. BISHOP'S BOAT VOYAGES.
1. GENERAL MAP OF ROUTES FOLLOWED BY THE AUTHOR DURING HIS TWO VOYAGES
MADE TO THE GULF OF MEXICO, IN THE YEARS 1874-6.....OPPOSITE PAGE 1
GUIDE MAPS OF ROUTE FOLLOWED
IN DUCK-BOAT "CENTENNIAL REPUBLIC," ALONG THE GULF OF MEXICO, IN 1876
2. FROM NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA, TO MOBILE BAY, ALABAMA. . . .OPPOSITE
209
3. FROM MOBILE BAY, ALABAMA, TO CAPE SAN BLAS, FLORIDA. . . .OPPOSITE
247
4. FROM CAPE SAN BLAS, FLORIDA, TO CEDAR KEYS, FLORIDA. . . .OPPOSITE
273
MAP SHOWING RIVER AND PORTAGE ROUTES
ACROSS FLORIDA FROM THE GULF OF MEXICO TO THE ATLANTIC OCEAN.
5. ROUTE FOLLOWED BY THE AUTHOR IN PAPER CANOE "MARIA THERESA," IN
1875. . . . OPPOSITE 319
[MAP OF ROUTES FOLLOWED BY N. H. BISHOP IN PAPER CANOE "MARIA THERESA"
AND DUCK-BOAT "CENTENNIAL REPUBLIC" 1874-1876]
Four Months in a Sneak-Box
CHAPTER I.
THE BOAT FOR THE VOYAGE
CANOES FOR SHALLOW STREAMS AND FREQUENT PORTAGES.-- SNEAK-BOXES FOR
DEEP WATERCOURSES.-- HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION OF THE BARNEGAT SNEAK-
BOX.-- A WALK DOWN EEL STREET TO MANAHAWKEN MARSHES.-- HONEST GEORGE,
THE BOAT-BUILDER.-- THE BUILDING OF THE SNEAK-BOX "CENTENNIAL
REPUBLIC."-- ITS TRANSPORTATION TO THE OHIO RIVER.
THE READER who patiently followed the author in his long "VOYAGE OF
THE PAPER CANOE," from the high latitude of the Gulf of St. Lawrence
to the warmer regions of the Gulf of Mexico, may desire to know the
reasons which impelled the canoeist to exchange his light, graceful,
and swift paper craft for the comical-looking but more commodious and
comfortable Barnegat sneak-box, or duck-boat. Having navigated more
than eight thousand miles in sail-boats, row-boats, and canoes, upon
the fresh and salt watercourses of the North American continent
(usually without a companion), a hard-earned experience has taught me
that while the light, frail canoe is indispensable for exploring
shallow streams, for shooting rapids, and for making long portages
from one watercourse to another, the deeper and more continuous water-
ways may be more comfortably traversed in a stronger and heavier boat,
which offers many of the advantages of a portable home.
To find such a boat--one that possessed many desirable points in a
small hull--had been with me a study of years. I commenced to search
for it in my boyhood--twenty-five years ago; and though I have
carefully examined numerous small boats while travelling in seven
foreign countries, and have studied the models of miniature craft in
museums, and at exhibitions of marine architecture, I failed to
discover the object of my desire, until, on the sea-shore of New
Jersey, I saw for the first time what is known among gunners as the
Barnegat sneak-box.
Having owned, and thoroughly tested in the waters of Barnegat and
Little Egg Harbor bays, five of these boats, I became convinced that
their claims for the good-will of the boating fraternity had not been
over-estimated; so when I planned my second voyage from northern
America to the Gulf of Mexico, and selected the great water-courses of
the west and south (the Ohio and Mississippi rivers) as the route to
be explored and studied, I chose the Barnegat sneak-box as the most
comfortable model combined with other advantages for a voyager's use.
The sneak-box offered ample stowage capacity, while canoes built to
hold one person were not large enough to carry the amount of baggage
necessary for the voyage; for I was to avoid hotels and towns, to live
in my boat day and night, to carry an ample stock of provisions, and
to travel in as comfortable a manner as possible. In fact, I adopted a
very home-like boat, which, though only twelve feet long, four feet
wide, and thirteen inches deep, was strong, stiff, dry, and safe; a
craft that could be sailed or rowed, as wind, weather, or inclination
might dictate,--the weight of which hardly exceeded two hundred
pounds,--and could be conveniently transported from one stream to
another in an ordinary wagon.
A Nautilus, or any improved type of canoe, would have been lighter and
more easily transported, and could have been paddled at a higher speed
with the same effort expended in rowing the heavier sneak-box; but the
canoe did not offer the peculiar advantages of comfort and freedom of
bodily motion possessed by its unique fellow-craft. Experienced
canoeists agree that a canoe of fourteen feet in length, which weighs
only seventy pounds, if built of wood, bark, canvas, or paper, when
out of the water and resting upon the ground, or even when bedded on
some soft material, like grass or rushes, cannot support the sleeping
weight of the canoeist for many successive nights without becoming
strained.
Light indeed must be the weight and slender and elastic the form of
the man who can sleep many nights comfortably in a seventy-pound canoe
without injuring it. Cedar canoes, after being subjected to such use
for some time, generally become leaky; so, to avoid this disaster, the
canoeist, when threatened with wet weather, is forced to the
disagreeable task of troubling some private householder for a shelter,
or run the risk of injuring his boat by packing himself away in its
narrow, coffin-like quarters and dreaming that he is a sardine, while
his restless weight is every moment straining his delicate canoe, and
visions of future leaks arise to disturb his tranquillity.
The one great advantage possessed by a canoe is its lightness.
Canoeists dwell upon the importance of the LIGHT WEIGHT of their
canoes, and the ease with which they can be carried. If the canoeist
is to sleep in his delicate craft while making a long journey, she
must be made much heavier than the perfected models now in use in this
country, many of which are under seventy-five pounds' weight. This
additional weight is at once fatal to speed, and becomes burdensome
when the canoeist is forced to carry his canoe upon his OWN shoulders
over a portage. A sneak-box built to carry one person weighs about
three times as much as a well-built cedar canoe.
This remarkable little boat has a history which does not reach very
far back into the present century. With the assistance of Mr. William
Errickson of Barnegat, and Dr. William P. Haywood of West Creek, Ocean
County, New Jersey, I have been able to rescue from oblivion and bring
to the light of day a correct history of the Barnegat sneak-box.
Captain Hazelton Seaman, of West Creek village, New Jersey, a boat-
builder and an expert shooter of wild-fowl, about the year 1836,
conceived the idea of constructing for his own use a low-decked boat,
or gunning-punt, in which, when its deck was covered with sedge, he
could secrete himself from the wild-fowl while gunning in Barnegat and
Little Egg Harbor bays.
It was important that the boat should be sufficiently light to enable
a single sportsman to pull her from the water on to the low points of
the bay shores. During the winter months, when the great marshes were
at times incrusted with snow, and the shallow creeks covered with
ice,--obstacles which must be crossed to reach the open waters of the
sound,--it would be necessary to use her as a sled, to effect which
end a pair of light oaken strips were screwed to the bottom of the
sneak-box, when she could be easily pushed by the gunner, and the
transportation of the oars, sail, blankets, guns, ammunition, and
provisions (all of which stowed under the hatch and locked up as
snugly as if in a strong chest) became a very simple matter. While
secreted in his boat, on the watch for fowl, with his craft hidden by
a covering of grass or sedge, the gunner could approach within
shooting-distance of a flock of unsuspicious ducks; and this being
done in a sneaking manner (though Mr. Seaman named the result of his
first effort the "Devil's Coffin" the bay-men gave her the sobriquet
of "SNEAK-BOX"; and this name she has retained to the present day.
Since Captain Seaman built his "Devil's Coffin," forty years ago, the
model has been improved by various builders, until it is believed that
it has almost attained perfection. The boat has no sheer, and sets low
in the water. This lack of sheer is supplied by a light canvas apron
which is tacked to the deck, and presents, when stretched upward by a
stick two feet in length, a convex surface to a head sea. The water
which breaks upon the deck, forward of the cockpit, is turned off at
the sides of the boat in almost the same manner as a snow-plough
clears a railroad track of snow. The apron also protects the head and
shoulders of the rower from cold head winds.
The first sneak-box built by Captain Seaman had a piece of canvas
stretched upon an oaken hoop, so fastened to the deck that when a head
sea struck the bow, the hoop and canvas were forced upward so as to
throw the water off its sides, thus effectually preventing its ingress
into the hold of the craft. The improved apron originated with Mr.
John Crammer, Jr., a short time after Captain Seaman built the first
sneak-box. The second sneak-box was constructed by Mr. Crammer; and
afterwards Mr. Samuel Perine, an old and much respected bay-man, of
Barnegat, built the third one. The last two men have finished their
voyage of life, but "Uncle Haze,"--as he is familiarly called by his
many admirers,--the originator of the tiny craft which may well be
called multum in parvo, and which carried me, its single occupant,
safely and comfortably twenty-six hundred miles, from Pittsburgh to
Cedar Keys, still lives at West Creek, builds yachts as well as he
does sneak-boxes, and puts to the blush younger gunners by the energy
displayed and success attained in the vigorous pursuit of wildfowl
shooting in the bays which fringe the coast of Ocean County, New
Jersey.
A few years since, this ingenious man invented an improvement on the
marine life-saving car, which has been adopted by the United States
government; and during the year 1875 he constructed a new ducking-punt
with a low paddle-wheel at its stern, for the purpose of more easily
and secretly approaching flocks of wild-fowl.
The peculiar advantages of the sneak-box were known to but few of the
hunting and shooting fraternity, and, with the exception of an
occasional visitor, were used only by the oystermen, fishermen, and
wild-fowl shooters of Barnegat and Little Egg Harbor bays, until the
New Jersey Southern Railroad and its connecting branches penetrated to
the eastern shores of New Jersey, when educated amateur sportsmen from
the cities quickly recognized in the little gunning-punt all they had
long desired to combine in one small boat.
Mr. Charles Hallock, in his paper the "Forest and Stream," of April
23, 1874, gave drawings and a description of the sneak-box, and fairly
presented its claims to public favor.
The sneak-box is not a monopoly of any particular builder, but it
requires peculiar talent to build one,--the kind of talent which
enables one man to cut out a perfect axe-handle, while the master-
carpenter finds it difficult to accomplish the same thing. The best
yacht-builders in Ocean County generally fail in modelling a sneak-
box, while many second-rate mechanics along the shore, who could not
possibly construct a yacht that would sail well, can make a perfect
sneak-box, or gunning-skiff. All this may be accounted for by
recognizing the fact that the water-lines of the sneak-box are
peculiar, and differ materially from those of row-boats, sailboats,
and yachts. Having a spoon-shaped bottom and bow, the sneak-box moves
rather over the water than through it, and this peculiarity, together
with its broad beam, gives the boat such stiffness that two persons
may stand upright in her while she is moving through the water, and
troll their lines while fishing, or discharge their guns, without
careening the boat; a valuable advantage not possessed by our best
cruising canoes.
The boat sails well on the wind, though hard to pull against a strong
head sea. A fin-shaped centre-board takes the place of a keel. It can
be quickly removed from the trunk, or centre-board well, and stored
under the deck. The flatness of her floor permits the sneak-box to run
in very shallow water while being rowed or when sailing before the
wind without the centre-board. Some of these boats, carrying a weight
of three hundred pounds, will float in four to six inches of water.
The favorite material for boat-building in the United States is white
cedar (Cupressus thyoides), which grows in dense forests in the swamps
along the coast of New Jersey, as well as in other parts of North
America. The wood is both white and brown, soft, fine-grained, and
very light and durable. No wood used in boat-building can compare with
the white cedar in resisting the changes from a wet to a dry state,
and vice versa. The tree grows tall and straight. The lower part of
the trunk with the diverging roots furnish knee timbers and carlines
for the sneak-box. The ribs or timbers, and the carlines, are usually
1 1/4 x 1 1/4 inches in dimension, and are placed about ten inches
apart. The frame above and below is covered with half-inch cedar
sheathing, which is not less than six inches in width. The boat is
strong enough to support a heavy man upon its deck, and when well
built will rank next to the seamless paper boats of Mr. Waters of
Troy, and the seamless wooden canoes of Messrs. Herald, Gordon &
Stephenson, of the province of Ontario, Canada, in freedom from
leakage.
During a cruise of twenty-six hundred miles not one drop of water
leaked through the seams of the Centennial Republic. Her under
planking was nicely joined, and the seams calked with cotton wicking,
and afterwards filled with white-lead paint and putty. The deck
planks, of seven inches width, were not joined, but were tongued and
grooved, the tongues and grooves being well covered with a thick coat
of white-lead paint.
The item of cost is another thing to be considered in regard to this
boat. The usual cost of a first-class canoe of seventy pounds' weight,
built after the model of the Rob Roy or Nautilus, with all its
belongings, is about one hundred and twenty-five dollars; and these
figures deter many a young man from enjoying the ennobling and
healthful exercise of canoeing. A first-class sneak-box, with spars,
sail, oars, anchor, &c., can be obtained for seventy-five dollars, and
if several were ordered by a club they could probably be bought for
sixty-five dollars each. The price of a sneak-box, as ordinarily built
in Ocean County, New Jersey, is about forty dollars. The Centennial
Republic cost about seventy-five dollars, and a city boat-builder
would not duplicate her for less than one hundred and twenty-five
dollars. The builders of the sneak-boxes have not yet acquired the art
of overcharging their customers; they do not expect to receive more
than one dollar and fifty cents or two dollars per day for their
labor; and some of them are even so unwise as to risk their reputation
by offering to furnish these boats for twenty-five dollars each. Such
a craft, after a little hard usage, would leak as badly as most cedar
canoes, and would be totally unfit for the trials of a long cruise.
[Diagram of Sneak-Box "Centennial Republic"]
The diagram given of the Centennial Republic will enable the reader of
aquatic proclivities to understand the general principles upon which
these boats are built. As they should be rated as third-class freight
on railroads, it is more economical for the amateur to purchase a
first-class boat at Barnegat, Manahawken, or West Creek, in Ocean
County, New Jersey, along the Tuckerton Railroad, than to have a
workman elsewhere, and one unacquainted with this peculiar model,
experiment upon its construction at the purchaser's cost, and perhaps
loss.
One bright morning, in the early part of the fall of 1875, I trudged
on foot down one of the level roads which lead from the village of
Manahawken through the swamps to the edge of the extensive salt
marshes that fringe the shores of the bay. This road bore the
euphonious name of Eel Street,--so named by the boys of the town. When
about half-way from its end, I turned off to the right, and followed a
wooded lane to the house of an honest surf-man, Captain George Bogart,
who had recently left his old home on the beach, beside the restless
waves of the Atlantic, and had resumed his avocation as a sneak-box
builder.
The house and its small fields of low, arable land were environed on
three sides by dense cedar and whortleberry swamps, but on the eastern
boundary of the farm the broad salt marshes opened to the view, and
beyond their limit were the salt waters of the bay, which were shut in
from the ocean by a long, narrow, sandy island, known to the fishermen
and wreckers as Long Beach,--the low, white sand-dunes of which were
lifted above the horizon, and seemed suspended in the air as by a
mirage. Across the wide, savanna-like plains came in gentle breezes
the tonic breath of the sea, while hundreds, aye, thousands of
mosquitoes settled quietly upon me, and quickly presented their bills.
In this sequestered nook, far from the bustle of the town, I found
"Honest George," so much occupied in the construction of a sneak-box,
under the shade of spreading willows, as to be wholly unconscious of
the presence of the myriads of phlebotomists which covered every
available inch of his person exposed to their attacks. The appropriate
surroundings of a surf-man's house were here, scattered on every side
in delightful confusion. There were piles of old rigging, iron bolts
and rings, tarred parcelling, and cabin-doors,--in fact, all the
spoils that a treacherous sea had thrown upon the beach; a sea so
disastrous to many, but so friendly to the Barnegat wrecker,--who, by
the way, is not so black a character as Mistress Rumor paints him. A
tar-like odor everywhere prevailed, and I wondered, while breathing
this wholesome air, why this surf-man of daring and renown had left
his proper place upon the beach near the life-saving station, where
his valuable experience, brave heart, and strong, brawny arms were
needed to rescue from the ocean's grasp the poor victims of misfortune
whose dead bodies are washed upon the hard strand of the Jersey shores
every year from the wrecks of the many vessels which pound out their
existence upon the dreaded coast of Barnegat? A question easily
answered,--political preferment. His place had been filled by a man
who had never pulled an oar in the surf, but had followed the
occupation of a tradesman.
Thus Honest George, rejected by "the service," had left the beach, and
crossing the wide bays to the main land, had taken up his abode under
the willows by the marshes, but not too far from his natural element,
for he could even now, while he hammered away on his sneak-boxes, hear
the ceaseless moaning of the sea.
A verbal contract was soon made, and George agreed to build me for
twenty-five dollars the best boat that had ever left his shop; he to
do all the work upon the hull and spars, while the future owner was to
supply all the materials at his own cost. The oars and sail were not
included in the contract, but were made by other parties. In November,
when I settled all the bills of construction, cost of materials, oar-
locks, oars, spars, sail, anchor, &c., the sum-total did not exceed
seventy-five dollars; and when the accounts of more than twenty boats
and canoes built for me had been looked over, I concluded that the
little craft, constructed by the surf-man, was, for the amount it cost
and the advantages it gave me, the best investment I had ever made in
things that float upon the water. Without a name painted upon her
hull, and, like the "Maria Theresa" paper canoe, without a flag to
decorate her, but with spars, sail, oars, rudder, anchor, cushions,
blankets, cooking-kit, and double-barrelled gun, with ammunition
securely locked under the hatch, the Centennial Republic, my future
travelling companion, was ready by the middle of November for the
descent of the western rivers to the Gulf of Mexico.
Captain George Bogart, attentive to the last to his pet craft,
affectionately sewed her up in a covering of burlap, to protect her
smooth surface from scratches during the transit over railroads. The
two light oaken strips, which had been screwed to the bottom of the
boat, kept the hull secure from injury by contact with nails, bolt-
heads, &c., while she was being carried in the freight-cars of the
Tuckerton, New Jersey, Southern and Pennsylvania railroads to
Philadelphia, where she was delivered to the freight agent of the
Pennsylvania Railroad, to be sent to Pittsburgh, at the head of the
Ohio River.
Here I must speak of a subject full of interest to all owners of
boats, hoping that when our large corporations have their attention
drawn to the fact they will make some provision for it. There appears
to be no fixed freighting tariff established for boats, and the
aquatic tourist is placed at the mercy of agents who too frequently,
in their zeal for the interests of their employers, heavily tax the
owner of the craft. The agent of the Pennsylvania Railroad in
Philadelphia was sorely puzzled to know what to charge for a BOAT. He
had loaded thousands of cars for Pittsburgh, but could find only one
precedent to guide him. "We took a boat once to Pittsburgh," he said,
"for twenty-five dollars, and yours should be charged the same." The
shipping-clerk of a mercantile house, who had overheard the
conversation, interrupted the agent with a loud laugh. "A charge of
twenty-five dollars freight on a little thing like that! WHY, MAN,
THAT SUM IS NEARLY HALF HER VALUE! How LARGE was the boat you shipped
last fall to Pittsburgh for twenty-five dollars?" "Oh, about twice the
size of this one," answered the agent; "but, size or no size, a boat's
a boat, and we handle so few of them that we have no special tariff on
them." "But," said the clerk, "you can easily and honestly establish a
tariff if you will treat a boat as you do all other freight of the
same class. Now, for instance, how do common boats rank, as first or
third class freight?" "Third class, I should think," slowly responded
the agent. "Ease your conscience, my friend," continued the clerk, "by
weighing the boat, and charging the usual tariff rate for third class
freight."
The boat, with its cargo still locked up inside, was put upon the
scales, and the total weight was three hundred and ten pounds, for
which a charge of seventy-two cents per one hundred pounds was made,
and the boat placed on some barrels in a car. Thus did the common-
sense and business-like arrangement of the friendly clerk secure for
me the freight charge of two dollars and twenty-three cents, instead
of twenty-five dollars, on a little boat for its carriage three
hundred and fifty-three miles to Pittsburgh, and saved me not only
from a pecuniary loss, but also from the uncomfortable feeling of
being imposed upon.
In these days of canoe and boat voyages, when portages by rail are a
necessary evil, a fixed tariff for such freight would save dollars and
tempers, and some action in the matter is anxiously looked for by all
interested parties.
I gave a parting look at my little craft snugly ensconced upon the top
of a pile of barrels, and smiled as I turned away, thinking how
precious she had already become to me, and philosophizing upon the
strange genus, man, who could so readily twine his affections about an
inanimate object. Upon consideration, it did not seem so strange a
thing, however, for did not this boat represent the work of brains and
hands for a generation past? Was it not the result of the study and
hard-earned experiences of many men for many years? Men whose humble
lives had been spent along the rough coast in daily struggles with the
storms of ocean and of life? Many of them now slept in obscure graves,
some in the deep sea, others under the tender, green turf; but here
was the concentration of their ideas, the ultimatum of their labors,
and I inwardly resolved, that, since to me was given the enjoyment, to
them should be the honor, and that it should be through no fault of
her captain if the Centennial Republic did not before many months
reach her far-distant point of destination, twenty-six hundred miles
away, on the white strands of the Gulf of Mexico.
CHAPTER II.
SOURCES OF THE OHIO RIVER
DESCRIPTION OF THE MONONGAHELA AND ALLEGHANY RIVERS.-- THE OHIO
RIVER.-- EXPLORATION OF CAVELIER DE LA SALLE.-- NAMES GIVEN BY ANCIENT
CARTOGRAPHERS TO THE OHIO.-- ROUTES OF THE ABORIGINES FROM THE GREAT
LAKES TO THE OHIO RIVER.
THE southerly branch of the Ohio River, and one of its chief
affluents, is made by the union of the West Fork and Tygart Valley
rivers, in the county of Marion, state of Virginia, the united waters
of which flow north into Pennsylvania as the Monongahela River, and is
there joined by the Cheat River, its principal tributary. The
Monongahela unites with the Alleghany to form the Ohio, at Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania. The length of the Monongahela, without computing that of
its tributaries, is about one hundred and fifty miles; but if we
include its eastern fork, the Tygart Valley River, which flows from
Randolph County, Virginia, the whole length of this tributary of the
Ohio may exceed three hundred miles. It has a width at its union with
the Alleghany of nearly one-fourth of a mile, and a depth of water
sufficient for large steamboats to ascend sixty miles, to Brownsville,
Pennsylvania, while light-draught vessels can reach its head, at
Fairmont, Virginia.
The northern branch of the Ohio, known as the Alleghany River, has a
length of four hundred miles, and its source is in the county of
Potter, in northern Pennsylvania. It takes a very circuitous course
through a portion of New York state, and re-enters Pennsylvania
flowing through a hilly region, and at the flourishing city of
Pittsburgh mingles its waters with its southern sister, the
Monongahela.
The region traversed by the Alleghany is wild and mountainous, rich in
pine forests, coal, and petroleum oil; and the extraction from its
rocky beds of the last-named article is so enormous in quantity, that
at the present time more than four million barrels of oil are awaiting
shipment in the oil districts of Pennsylvania. The smaller steamboats
can ascend the river to Olean, about two hundred and fifty miles above
Pittsburgh. At Olean, the river has a breadth of twenty rods.
In consequence of its high latitude, the clear waters of the Alleghany
usually freeze over by the 25th of December, after having transported
upon its current the season's work, from the numerous saw-mills of the
great wilderness through which it flows, in the form of rafts
consisting of two hundred million feet of excellent lumber.
The Ohio River has a width of about half a mile below Pittsburgh, and
this is its medial breadth along its winding course to its mouth at
Cairo; but in places it narrows to less than twenty-five hundred feet,
while it frequently widens to more than a mile. A geographical writer
says, that, "In tracing the Ohio to its source, we must regard the
Alleghany as its proper continuation. A boat may start with sufficient
water within seven miles of Lake Erie, in sight sometimes of the sails
which whiten the approach to the harbor of Buffalo, and float securely
down the Conewango, or Cassadaga, to the Alleghany, down the Alleghany
to the Ohio, and thence uninterruptedly to the Gulf of Mexico."
There are grave reasons for doubting that part of the statement which
refers to a boat starting from a point within seven miles of Lake
Erie. It is to be hoped that some member of the New York Canoe Club
will explore the route mentioned, and give the results of his
investigations to the public. He would need a canoe light enough to be
easily carried upon the shoulders of one man, with the aid of the
canoeist's indispensable assistant--the canoe-yoke.
It will be seen that the Ohio with its affluents drains an immense
extent of country composed of portions of seven large states of the
Union, rich in agricultural wealth, in timber, iron, coal, petroleum,
salt, clays, and building-stone. The rainfall of the Ohio Valley is so
great as to give the river a mean discharge at its mouth (according to
the report of the United States government engineers) of one hundred
and fifty-eight thousand cubic feet per second. This is the drainage
of an area embracing two hundred and fourteen thousand square miles.
The head of the Ohio River, at Pittsburgh, has an elevation of eleven
hundred and fifty feet above the sea, while in the long descent to its
mouth there is a gradual fall of only four hundred feet; hence its
current, excepting during the seasons of freshets, is more gentle and
uniform than that of any other North American river of equal length.
During half the year the depth of water is sufficient to float
steamboats of the largest class along its entire length. Between the
lowest stage of water, in the month of September, and the highest, in
March, there is sometimes a range of fifty feet in depth. The spring
freshets in the tributaries will cause the waters of the great river
to rise twelve feet in twelve hours. During the season of low water
the current of the Ohio is so slow, as flatboat-men have informed me,
that their boats are carried by the flow of the stream only ten miles
in a day. The most shallow portion of the river is between Troy and
Evansville. Troy is twelve miles below the historic Blennerhasset's
Island, which lies between the states of Ohio and Virginia. Here the
water sometimes shoals to a depth of only two feet.
Robert Cavelier de la Salle is credited with having made the discovery
of the Ohio River. From the St. Lawrence country he went to Onondaga,
and reaching a tributary of the Ohio River, he descended the great
stream to the "Fa1ls," at Louisville, Kentucky. His men having
deserted him, he returned alone to Lake Erie. This exploration of the
Ohio was made in the winter of 1669-70, or in the following spring.
The director of the Dpt des Cartes of the Marine and Colonies, at
Paris, in 1872 possessed a rich mass of historical documents, the
collection of which had covered thirty years of his life. This
material related chiefly to the French rule in North America, and its
owner had offered to dispose of it to the French government on
condition that the entire collection should be published. The French
government was, however, only willing to publish parts of the whole,
and the director retained possession of his property. Through the
efforts of Mr. Francis Parkman, the truthful American historian,
supported by friends, an appropriation was made by Congress, in 1873,
for the purchase and publication of this valuable collection of the
French director; and it is now the property of the United States
government. All that relates to the Sieur de la Salle--his journals
and letters--has been published in the original French, in three large
volumes of six hundred pages each. La Salle discovered the Ohio, yet
the possession of the rich historical matter referred to throws but
little light upon the details of this important event. The discoverer-
-of the great west, in an address to Frontenac, the governor of
Canada, made in 1677, asserted that he had discovered the Ohio, and
had descended it to a fall which obstructed it. This locality is now
known as the "Falls of the Ohio," at Louisville, Kentucky.
The second manuscript map of Galine'e, made about the year 1672, has
upon it this inscription: "River Ohio, so called by the Iroquois on
account of its beauty, which the Sieur de la Salle descended." It was
probably the interpretation of the Iroquois word Ohio which caused the
French frequently to designate this noble stream as "La belle
rivire."
A little later the missionary Marquette designed a map, upon which he
calls the Ohio the "Ouabouskiaou." Louis Joliet's first map gives the
Ohio without a name, but supplies its place with an inscription
stating that La Salle had descended it. In Joliet's second map he
calls the Ohio "Ouboustikou."
After the missionaries and other explorers had given to the world the
knowledge possessed at that early day of the great west, a young and
talented engineer of the French government, living in Quebec, and
named Jean Baptiste Louis Franquelin, completed, in 1684, the most
elaborate map of the times, a carefully traced copy of which, through
the courtesy of Mr. Francis Parkman, I have been allowed to examine.
The original map of Franquelin has recently disappeared, and is
supposed to have been destroyed. This map is described in the appendix
to Mr. Parkman's "Discovery of the Great West," as being "six feet
long and four and a half wide." On it, the Ohio is called "Fleuve St.
Louis, ou Chucagoa, ou Casquinampogamou;" but the appellation of
"River St. Louis" was dropped very soon after the appearance of
Franquelin's map, and to the present time it justly retains the
Iroquois name given it by its brave discoverer La Salle.
It would be interesting to know by which of the routes used by the
Indians in those early days La Salle travelled to the Ohio. After the
existence of the Ohio was made known, the first route made use of in
reaching that river by the coureurs de bois and other French
travellers from Canada, was that from the southern shore of Lake Erie,
from a point near where the town of Westfield now stands, across the
wilderness by portage southward about nine miles to Chautaugue Lake.
These parties used light bark canoes, which were easily carried upon
the shoulders of men whenever a "carry" between the two streams became
necessary. The canoes were paddled on the lake to its southern end,
out of which flowed a shallow brook, which afforded water enough in
places to float the frail craft. The shoal water, and the obstructions
made by fallen trees, necessitated frequent portages. This wild and
tortuous stream led the voyagers to the Alleghany River, where an
ample depth of water and a propitious current carried them into the
Ohio.
The French, finding this a laborious and tedious route, abandoned it
for a better one. Where the town of Erie now stands, on the southern
shore of the lake of the same name, a small stream flows from the
southward into that inland sea. Opposite its mouth is Presque Isle,
which protects the locality from the north winds, and, acting as a
barrier to the turbulent waves, offers to the mariner a safe port of
refuge behind its shores. The French ascended the little stream, and
from its banks made a short portage to the Rivire des boeuf, or some
tributary of French Creek, and descended it to the Alleghany and the
Ohio. This Erie and French River route finally became the military
highway of the Canadians to the Ohio Valley, and may be called the
second route from Lake Erie.
The third route to the Ohio from Lake Erie commenced at the extreme
southwestern end of that inland sea. The voyagers entered Maumee Bay
and ascended the Maumee River, hauling their birch canoes around the
rapids between Maumee City and Perrysburgh, and between Providence and
Grand Rapids. Surmounting these obstacles, they reached the site of
Fort Wayne, where the St. Joseph and St. Mary rivers unite, and make,
according to the author of the "History of the Maumee Valley," the
"Maumee," or "Mother of Waters," as interpreted from the Indian
tongue. At this point, when ninety-eight miles from Lake Erie, the
travellers were forced to make a portage of a mile and a half to a
branch called Little River, which they descended to the Wabash, which
stream, in the early days of French exploration, was thought to be the
main river of the Ohio system. The Wabash is now the boundary line for
a distance of two hundred miles between the states of Indiana and
Illinois. Following the Wabash, the voyager would enter the Ohio River
about one hundred and forty miles above its junction with the
Mississippi.
The great Indian diplomatist, "Little Turtle," in making a treaty
speech in 1795, when confronting Anthony Wayne, insisted that the Fort
Wayne portage was the "key or gateway" of the tribes having
communication with the inland chain of lakes and the gulf coast. It is
now claimed by many persons that this was the principal and favorite
route of communication between the high and low latitudes followed by
the savages hundreds of years before Europeans commenced the
exploration of the great west.
There was a fourth route from the north to the tributaries of the
Ohio, which was used by the Seneca Indians frequently, though rarely
by the whites. It was further east than the three already described.
The Genesee River flows into Lake Ontario about midway between its
eastern shores and the longitude of the eastern end of Lake Erie. In
using this fourth route, the savages followed the Genesee, and made a
portage to some one of the affluents of the Alleghany to reach the
Ohio River.
[Indian in canoe]
CHAPTER III.
FROM PITTSBURGH TO BLENNERHASSET'S ISLAND
THE START FOR THE GULF.-- CAUGHT IN THE ICE-RAFT.-- CAMPING ON THE
OHIO.-- THE GRAVE CREEK MOUND.-- AN INDIAN SEPULCHRE.--
BLENNERHASSET'S ISLAND.-- AARON BURR'S CONSPIRACY.-- A RUINED FAMILY.
UPON arriving at Pittsburgh, on the morning of December 2d, 1875,
after a dreary night's ride by rail from the Atlantic coast, I found
my boat--it having preceded me--safely perched upon a pile of barrels
in the freight-house of the railroad company, which was conveniently
situated within a few rods of the muddy waters of the Monongahela.
The sneak-box, with the necessary stores for the cruise, was
transported to the river's side, and as it was already a little past
noon, and only a few hours of daylight left me, prudence demanded an
instant departure in search of a more retired camping-ground than that
afforded by the great city and its neighboring towns, with the united
population of one hundred and eighty thousand souls. There was not one
friend to give me a cheering word, the happy remembrance of which
might encourage me all through my lonely voyage to the Gulf of Mexico.
The little street Arabs fought among themselves for the empty
provision-boxes left upon the bank as I pushed my well-freighted boat
out upon the whirling current that caught it in its strong embrace,
and, like a true friend, never deserted or lured it into danger while
I trusted to its vigorous help for more than two thousand miles, until
the land of the orange and sugar-cane was reached, and its fresh,
sweet waters were exchanged for the restless and treacherous waves of
the briny sea. Ah, great river, you were indeed, of all material
things, my truest friend for many a day!
The rains in the south had filled the gulches of the Virginia
mountains, the sources of the Monongahela, and it now exhibited a
great degree of turbulence. I was not then aware of the tumultuous
state of the sister tributary, the Alleghany, on the other side of the
city. I supposed that its upper affluents, congealed during the late
cold weather, were quietly enjoying a winter's nap under the heavy
coat in which Jack Frost had robed them. I expected to have an easy
and uninterrupted passage down the river in advance of floating ice;
and, so congratulating myself, I drew near to the confluence of the
Monongahela and Alleghany, from the union of which the great Ohio has
its birth, and rolls steadily across the country a thousand miles to
the mightier Mississippi.
The current of the Monongahela, as it flowed from the south, covered
with mists rising into the wintry air,--for the temperature was but a
few degrees above zero,--had not a particle of ice upon its turbid
bosom.
I rowed gayly on, pleased with the auspicious beginning of the voyage,
hoping at the close of the month to be at the mouth of the river, and
far enough south to escape any inconvenience from a sudden freezing of
its surface, for along its course between its source at Pittsburgh and
its debouchure at Cairo the Ohio makes only two hundred and twelve
miles of southing,--a difference of about two and a half degrees of
latitude. It is not surprising, therefore, that this river during
exceedingly cold winters sometimes freezes over for a few days, from
the state of Pennsylvania to its junction with the Mississippi.
In a few minutes my boat had passed nearly the whole length of the
Pittsburgh shore, when suddenly, upon looking over my shoulder, I
beheld the river covered with an ice-raft, which was passing out of
the Alleghany, and which completely blocked the Ohio from shore to
shore. French Creek, Oil Creek, and all the other tributaries of the
Alleghany, had burst from their icy barriers, thrown off the wintry
coat of mail, and were pouring their combined wrath into the Ohio.
This unforeseen trouble had to be met without much time for
calculating the results of entering the ice-pack. A light canoe would
have been ground to pieces in the multitude of icy cakes, but the
half-inch skin of soft but elastic white swamp-cedar of the decked
sneak-box, with its light oaken runner-strips firmly screwed to its
bottom, was fully able to cope with the difficulty; so I pressed the
boat into the floating ice, and by dint of hard work forced her
several rods beyond the eddies, and fairly into the steady flow of the
strong current of the river.
[The start--head of the Ohio River.]
There was nothing more to be done to expedite the journey, so I sat
down in the little hold, and, wrapped comfortably in blankets, watched
the progress made by the receding points of interest upon the high
banks of the stream. Towards night some channel-ways opened in the
pack, and, seizing upon the opportunity, I rowed along the ice-bound
lanes until dusk, when happily a chance was offered for leaving the
frosty surroundings, and the duck-boat was soon resting on a shelving,
pebbly strand on the left bank of the river, two miles above the
little village of Freedom.
The rapid current had carried me twenty-two miles in four hours and a
half.
Not having slept for thirty-six hours, or eaten since morning, I was
well prepared physically to retire at an early hour. A few minutes
sufficed to securely stake my boat, to prevent her being carried off
by a sudden rise in the river during my slumbers; a few moments more
were occupied in arranging the thin hair cushions and a thick cotton
coverlet upon the floor of the boat. The bag which contained my
wardrobe, consisting of a blue flannel suit, &c., served for a pillow.
A heavy shawl and two thin blankets furnished sufficient covering for
the bed. Bread and butter, with Shakers' peach-sauce, and a generous
slice of Wilson's compressed beef, a tin of water from the icy
reservoir that flowed past my boat and within reach of my arm, all
contributed to furnish a most satisfactory meal, and a half hour
afterwards, when a soft, damp fog settled down upon the land, the
atmosphere became so quiet that the rubbing of every ice-cake against
the shore could be distinctly heard as I sank into a sweeter slumber
than I had ever experienced in the most luxurious bed of the daintiest
of guest-chambers, for my apartment, though small, was comfortable,
and with the hatch securely closed, I was safe from invasion by man or
beast, and enjoyed the well-earned repose with a full feeling of
security. The owl softly winnowed the air with his feathery pinions as
he searched for his prey along the beach, sending forth an occasional
to-hoot! as he rested for a moment on the leafless branches of an old
tree, reminding me to take a peep at the night, and to inquire "what
its signs of promise" were.
All was silence and security; but even while I thought that here at
least Nature ruled supreme, Art sent to my listening ear, upon the
dense night air, the shrill whistle of the steam-freighter, trying to
enter the ice-pack several miles down the river.
So the peaceful night wore away, and in the early dawn, enveloped in a
thick fog, I hastily dispatched a cold breakfast, and at half-past
eight o'clock pushed off into the floating ice, which became more and
more disintegrated and less troublesome as the day advanced. The use
of the soft bituminous coal in the towns along the river, and also by
the steamboats navigating it, filled the valley with clouds of smoke.
These clouds rested upon everything. Your five senses were fully aware
of the presence of the disagreeable, impalpable something surrounding
you. Eyes, ears, taste, touch, and smell, each felt the presence.
Smoky towns along the banks gave smoky views. Smoky chimneys rose high
above the smoky foundries and forges, where smoke-begrimed men toiled
day and night in the smoky atmosphere. Ah, how I sighed for a glimpse
of God's blessed sunlight! and even while I gazed saw in memory the
bright pure valleys of the north-east; the sparkling waters of lakes
George and Champlain, and the majestic scenery, with the life-giving
atmosphere, of the Adirondacks. The contrast seemed to increase the
smoke, and no cheerfulness was added to the scene by the dismal-
looking holes in the mountain-sides I now passed. They were the
entrances to mines from which the bituminous coal was taken. Some of
them were being actively worked, and long, trough-like shoots were
used to send the coal by its own gravity from the entrance of the mine
to the hold of the barge or coal-ark at the steam-boat landing. Some
of these mines were worked by three men and a horse. The horse drew
the coal on a little car along the horizontal gallery from the heart
of the mountain to the light of day.
During the second day the current of the Ohio became less violent. I
fought a passage among the ice-cakes, and whenever openings appeared
rowed briskly along the sides of the chilly raft, with the intent of
getting below the frosty zone as soon as possible.
About half-past eight o'clock in the evening, when some distance above
King's Creek, the struggling starlight enabled me to push my boat on
to a muddy flat, destined soon to be overflowed, but offering me a
secure resting-place for a few hours. Upon peeping out of my warm nest
under the hatch the next day, it was a cause of great satisfaction to
note that a rise in the temperature had taken place, and that the ice
was disappearing by degrees.
An open-air toilet, and a breakfast of about the temperature of a
family refrigerator, with sundry other inconveniences, made me wish
for just enough hot water to remove a little of the begriming results
of the smoky atmosphere through which I had rowed.
At eleven o'clock, A. M., the first bridge that spans the Ohio River
was passed. It was at Steubenville, and the property of the Pan-Handle
Railroad.
Soon after four o'clock in the afternoon the busy manufacturing city
of Wheeling, West Virginia, with its great suspension bridge crossing
the river to the state of Ohio, loomed into sight.
This city of Wheeling, on the left bank of the river, some eighty
miles from Pittsburgh, was the most impressive sight of that dreary
day's row. Above its masses of brick walls hung a dense cloud of
smoke, into which shot the flames emitted from the numerous chimneys
of forges, glass-works, and factories, which made it the busy place it
was. Ever and anon came the deafening sound of the trip-hammer, the
rap-a-tap-tap of the rivet-headers' tools striking upon the heavy
boiler-plates; the screeching of steam-whistles; the babel of men's
voices; the clanging of deep-toned bells. Each in turn striking upon
my ear, seemed as a whole to furnish sufficient noise-tonic for even
the most ardent upholder of that remedy, and to serve as a type for a
second Inferno, promising to vie with Dante's own. Yet with all this
din and dirt, this ever-present cloud of blackness settling down each
hour upon clean and unclean in a sooty coating, I was told that
hundreds of families of wealth and refinement, whose circumstances
enabled them to select a home where they pleased, lingered here,
apparently well satisfied with their surroundings. We are, indeed, the
children of habit, and singularly adaptable. It is, perhaps, best that
it should be so, but I thought, as I brushed off the thin layer of
soot with which the Wheeling cloud of enterprise had discolored the
pure white deck of my little craft, that if this was civilization and
enterprise, I should rather take a little less of those two
commodities and a little more of cleanliness and quiet.
At Wheeling I left the last of the ice-drifts, but now observed a new
feature on the river's surface. It was a floating coat of oil from the
petroleum regions, and it followed me many a mile down the stream.
The river being now free from ice, numerous crafts passed me, and
among them many steam-boats with their immense stern-wheels beating
the water, being so constructed for shallow streams. They were
ascending the current, and pushing their "tows" of two, four, and six
long, wide coal-barges fastened in pairs in front of them. How the
pilots of these stern-wheel freighters managed to guide these heavily
loaded barges against the treacherous current was a mystery to me.
It suddenly grew dark, and wishing to be secure from molestation by
steamboats, I ran into a narrow creek, with high, muddy banks, which
were so steep and so slippery that my boat slid into the water as fast
as I could haul her on to the shore. This difficulty was overcome by
digging with my oar a bed for her to rest in, and she soon settled
into the damp ooze, where she quietly remained until morning.
[Coal-oil stove.]
During this part of my journey particularly, the need of a small coal-
oil stove was felt, as the usual custom of making a camp-fire could
not be followed for many days on the upper Ohio River. The rains had
wet the fire-wood, which in a settled and cultivated country is found
only in small quantities on the banks of the stream. The driftwood
thrown up by the river was almost saturated with water, and the damp,
wild trees of the swamp afforded only green wood.
In a less settled country, or where there is an old forest growth, as
along the lower Ohio and upon the banks of the Mississippi, fallen
trees, with resinous, dry hearts, can be found; and even during a
heavy fall of rain a skilful use of the axe will bring out these
ancient interiors to cheer the voyager's heart by affording him
excellent fuel for his camp-fire.
The recently perfected coal-oil stove does not give out disagreeable
odors when the petroleum used is refined, like that known in the
market as Pratt's Astral Oil. This brand of oil does not contain
naphtha, the existence of which in the partially refined oils is the
cause of so many dangerous explosions of kerosene lamps.
Recent experiences with coal-oil burners lead me to adopt, for camp
use, the No.0 single-wick stove of the "Florence Machine Co.," whose
excellent wares attracted so much attention at the Centennial
Exhibition in Philadelphia. The No. 0 Florence stove will sustain the
weight of one hundred and fifty pounds, and is one of the few
absolutely safe oil stoves, with perfect combustion, and no unpleasant
odor or gas. This statement presupposes that the wicks are wiped along
the burnt edges after being used, and that a certain degree of
cleanliness is observed in the care of the oil cistern. I do not stand
alone in my appreciation of this faithful little stove, for the
company sold forty thousand of them in one year. In Johnson's
Universal Cyclopdia, Dr. L. P. Brockett, of Brooklyn, N.Y., expresses
himself in the most enthusiastic terms in regard to this stove. He
says: "For summer use it will be a great boon to the thousands of
women whose lives have been made bitter and wretched by confinement in
close and intensely heated kitchens; in many cases it will give health
for disease, strength for weakness, cheerfulness for depression, and
profound thankfulness in place of gloom and despair."
Boatmen and canoeists should never travel without one of these
indispensable comforts. Alcohol stoves are small, and the fuel used
too expensive, as well as difficult to obtain, while good coal-oil can
now be had even on the borders of the remote wilderness. The economy
of its use is wonderful. A heat sufficient to boil a gallon of water
in thirty minutes can be sustained for ten hours at the cost of three
cents.
For lack of one of these little blessings--which the prejudice of
friends had influenced me to leave behind--my daily meals for the
first two or three weeks generally consisted of cold, cooked canned
beef, bread and butter, canned fruits, and cold river water. The
absence of hot coffee and other stimulants did not affect my appetite,
nor the enjoyment of the morning and evening repasts, cold and
untempting as they were. The vigorous day's row in the open air, the
sweet slumbers that followed it at night in a well-ventilated
apartment, a simple, unexciting life, the mental rest from vexatious
business cares, all proved superior to any tonic a physician could
prescribe, and I became more rugged as I grew accustomed to the duties
of an oarsman, and gained several pounds avoirdupois by the time I
ended the row of twenty-six hundred miles and landed on the sunny
shores of the Gulf of Mexico.
Sunday broke upon me a sunless day. The water of the creek was too
muddy to drink, and the rain began to fall in torrents. I had
anticipated a season of rest and quiet in camp, with a bright fire to
cheer the lonely hours of my frosty sojourn on the Ohio, but there was
not a piece of dry wood to be found, and it became necessary to change
my position for a more propitious locality; so I rowed down the stream
twelve miles, to Big Grave Creek, below which, and on the left bank of
the Ohio, is the town of Moundsville. One of the interesting features
of this place is its frontage on a channel possessing a depth of
fifteen feet of water even in the dryest seasons. Wheeling, at the
same time of the year, can claim but seven feet. Here, also, is the
great Indian mound from which it derives its name.
The resting-place of my craft was upon a muddy slope in the rear of a
citizen's yard which faced the river; but when the storm ended, on
Monday morning, my personal effects were hidden from the gaze of
idlers by securely locking the hatch, which was done with the same
facility with which one locks his trunk--and the former occupant was
at liberty to visit the "Big Grave."
I walked through the muddy streets of the uninteresting village to the
conspicuous monument of the aboriginal inhabitant of the river's
margin. It was a conical hill, situated within the limits of the town,
and known to students of American pre-historic races as the "Grave
Creek Mound." This particular creation of a lost race is the most
important of the numerous works of the Mound Builders which are found
throughout the Ohio Valley. Its circumference at the base is nine
hundred feet, and its height seventy feet. In 1838 the location was
owned by Mr. Tomlinson, who penetrated to the centre of the mound by
excavating a passage on a level with the foundation of the structure.
He then sank a shaft from the apex to intercept the ground passage.
Mr. Tomlinson's statement is as follows:
"At the distance of one hundred and eleven feet we came to a vault
which had been excavated before the mound was commenced, eight by
twelve feet, and seven in depth. Along each side, and across the ends,
upright timbers had been placed, which supported timbers thrown across
the vault as a ceiling. These timbers were covered with loose unhewn
stone common to the neighborhood. The timbers had rotted, and had
tumbled into the vault. In this vault were two human skeletons, one of
which had no ornaments; the other was surrounded by six hundred and
fifty ivory (shell) beads, and an ivory (bone) ornament six inches
long. In sinking the shaft, at thirty-four feet above the first, or
bottom vault, a similar one was found, enclosing a skeleton which had
been decorated with a profusion of shell beads, copper rings, and
plates of mica."
Dr. Clemmens, who was much interested in the work of exploration here,
says: "At a distance of twelve or fifteen feet were found numerous
layers composed of charcoal and burnt bones. On reaching the lower
vault from the top, it was determined to enlarge it for the
accommodation of visitors, when ten more skeletons were discovered.
This mound was supposed to be the tomb of a royal personage."
At the time of my visit, the ground was covered with a grassy sod, and
large trees arose from its sloping sides. The horizontal passage was
kept in a safe state by a lining of bricks, and I walked through it
into the heart of the Indian sepulchre. It was a damp, dark, weird
interior; but the perpendicular shaft, which ascended to the apex,
kept up an uninterrupted current of air. I found it anything but a
pleasant place in which to linger, and soon retraced my steps to the
boat, where I once more embarked upon the ceaseless current, and kept
upon my winding course, praying for even one glimpse of the sun, whose
face had been veiled from my sight during the entire voyage, save for
one brief moment when the brightness burst from the surrounding gloom
only to be instantly eclipsed, and making all seem, by contrast, more
dismal than ever.
It would not interest the general reader to give a description of the
few cities and many small villages that were passed during the descent
of the Ohio. Few of these places possess even a local interest, and
the eye soon wearies of the air of monotony found in them all. Even
the guide-books dispose of these villages with a little dry detail,
and rarely recommend the tourist to visit one of them.
One feature may be, however, remarked in descending the Ohio, and that
is the ambition displayed by the pioneers of civilization in the west
in naming hamlets and towns--which, with few exceptions, are still of
little importance--after the great cities of the older parts of the
United States, and also of foreign lands. These names, which occupy
such important positions on the maps, excite the imagination of the
traveller, and when the reality comes into view, and he enters their
narrow limits, the commonplace architecture and generally unattractive
surroundings have a most depressing effect, and he sighs, "What's in a
name?" We find upon the map the name and appearance of a city, but it
proves to be the most uninteresting of villages, though known as
Amsterdam. We also find many towns of the Hudson duplicated in name on
the Ohio, and pass Troy, Albany, Newburg, and New York. The cities of
Great Britain are in many instances perpetuated by the names of
Aberdeen, Manchester, Dover, Portsmouth, Liverpool, and London; while
other nations are represented by Rome, Carthage, Ghent, Warsaw,
Moscow, Gallipolis, Bethlehem, and Cairo. Strangely sandwiched with
these old names we find the southern states represented, as in
Augusta, Charleston, &c.; while the Indian names Miami, Guyandot,
Paducah, Wabash, and Kanawha are thrown in for variety.
In the evening I sought the shelter of an island on the left side of
the river, about three miles above Sisterville, which proved to be a
restful camping-place during the dark night that settled down upon the
surrounding country.
Tuesday being a rainy day, I was forced by the inclemency of the
weather to seek for better quarters in a retired creek about three
miles above the thriving town of Marietta, so named in honor of Maria
Antoinette of Austria.
The country was now becoming more pleasing in character, and many of
the islands, as I floated past them on the current, gave evidence of
great fertility where cultivation had been bestowed upon them. Some of
these islands were connected to one shore of the river by low dams,
carelessly constructed of stones, their purpose being to deepen the
channel upon the opposite side by diverting a considerable volume of
water into it. When the water is very low, the tops of these dams can
be seen, and must, of course, be avoided by boatmen; but when the Ohio
increases its depth of water, these artificial aids to navigation are
submerged, and even steamboats float securely over them.
On Wednesday the river began to rise, in consequence of the heavy
rains; so, with an increased current, the duck-boat left her quarters
about eleven o'clock in the forenoon. Early in the afternoon,
Parkersburgh, situated at the mouth of the Little Kanawha River, in
Virginia, came into view. This is the outlet of the petroleum region
of West Virginia, and is opposite the little village of Belpr, which
is in the state of Ohio. These towns are connected by a massive iron
bridge, built by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company.
Two miles below Belpr lay the beautiful island, formerly the home of
Blennerhasset, an English gentleman of Irish descent, of whom a most
interesting account was given in a late number of Harper's Magazine.
Mr. Blennerhasset came to New York in 1797, with his wife and one
child, hoping to find in America freedom of opinion and action denied
him at home, as his relations and friends were all royalists, and
opposed to the republican principles he had imbibed. Here, on this
sunny island, under the grand old trees, he built a stately mansion,
where wealth and culture, combined with all things rich and rare from
the old world, made an Eden for all who entered it.
Ten negro servants were bought to minister to the daily needs of the
household. Over forty thousand dollars in gold were spent upon the
buildings and grounds. A telescope of high power to assist in his
researches, books of every description, musical instruments, chemical
and philosophical apparatus, everything, in fact, that could add to
the progress and comfort of an intellectual man, was here collected.
Docks were built, and a miniature fleet moored in the soft waters of
the ever-flowing Ohio. Nature had begun, Blennerhasset finished; and
we cannot wonder when we read of the best families in the neighboring
country going often thirty and forty miles to partake of the generous
hospitality here offered them. Mrs. Blennerhasset, endowed by nature
with beauty and winsome manners, was always a charming and attractive
hostess, as well as a true wife and mother.
For eight years Blennerhasset lived upon his island, enjoying more
than is accorded to the lot of most mortals; but the story of his
position, his intelligence, his wealth, his wonderful social influence
upon those around him, reached at length the ear of one who marked him
for his prey.
Aaron Burr had been chosen vice-president of the United States in
1800, with Thomas Jefferson as president; but in 1804, when Jefferson
was re-elected, Burr was not. The brain of this brilliant but ill-
balanced and unprincipled man was ever rife with ambitious schemes,
and the taste of political power in his position as vice-president of
the United States seemed to have driven him towards the accomplishment
of one of the boldest and most extravagant dreams he ever imagined.
Mexico he thought could be wrested from Spain, and the then almost
unpeopled valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi taken from the United
States. This fair region, with its fertile soil and varied climate,
should be blended into one empire. On the north, the Great Lakes
should be his boundary line, while the Gulf of Mexico should lave with
its salt waters his southern shores. The high cliffs of the Rocky
Mountains should protect the western boundary, and on the east the
towering Alleghanies form a barrier to invading foe.
Such was the dream, and a fair one it was. Of this new empire, Aaron
Burr would of course be Imperator; and the ways and means for its
establishment must be found. The distant Blennerhasset seemed to point
to the happy termination of at least some of the difficulties. His
wealth, if not his personal influence, must be gained, and no man was
better suited to win his point than the fascinating Aaron Burr. We
will not enter into the plans of the artful insinuator made to enlist
the sympathies of the unsuspecting Englishman, but we must ever feel
sure that the cloven foot was well concealed until the last, for
Blennerhasset loved the land of his adoption, and would not have
listened to any plan for its impoverishment. His means were given
lavishly for the aid of the new colony, as Burr called it, and his
personal influence made use of in enlisting recruits. Arms were
furnished, and the Indian foe given as an excuse for this measure.
Burr during this time resided at Marietta, on the right bank of the
river, fifteen miles above Blennerhasset's Island. He occupied himself
in overseeing the building of fifteen large bateaux in which to
transport his colony. Ten of these flat-bottomed boats were forty feet
long, ten feet wide, and two and a half feet deep. The ends of the
boats were similar, so that they could be pushed up or down stream.
One boat was luxuriously fitted up, and intended to transport Mr.
Blennerhasset and family, proving most conclusively that he knew
nothing of any treasonable scheme against the United States.
The boats were intended to carry five hundred men, and the energy of
Colonel Burr had engaged nearly the whole number. The El Dorado held
out to these young men was painted in the most brilliant hues of
Burr's eloquence. He told them that Jefferson, who was popular with
them all, approved the plan. That they were to take possession of the
immense grant purchased of Baron Bastrop, but that in case of a war
between the United States and Spain, which might at any time occur, as
the Mexicans were very weary of the Spanish yoke, Congress would send
an army to protect the settlers and help Mexico, so that a new empire
would be founded of a democratic type, and the settlers finding all on
an equality, would be enabled to enrich themselves beyond all former
precedent.
About this time rumors were circulated that Aaron Burr was plotting
some mischief against the United States. Jefferson himself became
alarmed, knowing as he so well did the ambition of Burr and his
unprincipled character. A secret agent was sent to make inquiries in
regard to the doings at Blennerhasset's Island and Marietta. This
agent, Mr. John Graham, was assured by Mr. Blennerhasset that nothing
was intended save the peaceful establishment of a colony on the banks
of the Washita.
Various reports still continued to greet the public ear, and of such a
nature as to make Blennerhasset's name disliked. Some said treason was
lurking, and blamed him for it. He was openly spoken of as the
accomplice of Burr. The legislature of Ohio even made a law to
suppress all expeditions found armed, and to seize all boats and
provisions belonging to such expeditions. The governor was ready at a
moment's notice to call out the state militia. A cannon was placed on
the river-bank at Marietta, and strict orders given to examine every
boat that descended the stream.
Mr. Blennerhasset had no idea of resisting the authorities, and gave
up the whole scheme, determined to meet his heavy losses as best he
might.
Four boats, with about thirty men, had been landed upon
Blennerhasset's Island a short time before these rigorous measures had
been taken. They were under the care of Mr. Tyler, one of Burr's
agents from New York, and he did all in his power to urge
Blennerhasset not to retire at so critical a moment. It was, however,
too late to avert calamity, and the unfortunate family was doomed to
misfortune.
The alarming intelligence now reached the island that the Wood County
militia was en route for that place, that the boats would be seized,
the men taken prisoners, and probably the mansion burned, as the most
desperate characters in the surrounding country had volunteered for
the attack. Urged by his friends, Blennerhasset and the few men with
him escaped by the boats. His flight was not a moment too soon, for
having been branded as a traitor, no one knows what might have
befallen him had the lawless men who arrived immediately after his
departure found him in their power. Colonel Phelps, the commander of
the militia, started in pursuit, and the remainder of his men, with no
one to restrain them, gave full play to their savage feelings. Seven
days of riot followed. They took possession of the house, broke into
the cellars, and drank the choice wines, until, more like beasts than
men, they made havoc of the rich accumulation of years. Everything was
destroyed. The paintings, the ornaments, rare glass and china, family
silver, furniture, and, worst vandalism of all, the flames were fed
with the choicest volumes, many of which never could be duplicated,
for the value of Blennerhasset's library was known through all the
country.
Mrs. Blennerhasset had remained upon the island during this week of
terror, hoping by her presence to restrain the lawless band, but the
brave woman was at last obliged to fly with her two little sons,
taking refuge on one of the flat river boats sent by a friend to
afford her a way of escape.
Mr. Blennerhasset was afterwards arrested for treason, but no evidence
could be found against him, and he was never brought to trial. He
invested the little means left him in a cotton plantation near
Natchez, where, with his devoted wife, he tried to retrieve his fallen
fortunes. The second war with England rendered his plantation
worthless, and returning by way of Montreal to his native land, he
died a broken-hearted man, leaving his wife in destitute
circumstances. An attempt was made by her friends to obtain some
return for the destruction of their property from the United States
government, but all proved of no avail, and she who had always been
surrounded by wealth and luxury, was, during her last hours, dependent
upon the charity of a society of Irish ladies in New York city, who
with tenderness nursed her unto the end, and then took upon themselves
the expenses of her interment.
Such is the sad story of Blennerhasset and his wife; and I thought, as
I quietly moored my boat in a little creek that mingled its current
with the great river, near the lower end of the island which was once
such a happy home, of the uncertainty of all earthly prosperity, and
the necessity there was for making the most of the present,--which
last idea sent a sleepy sailor hastily under his hatch.
[Indian mound, at Moundsville, West Virginia.]
CHAPTER IV.
FROM BLENNERHASSET'S ISLAND TO CINCINNATI
RIVER CAMPS.-- THE SHANTY-BOATS AND RIVER MIGRANTS.-- VARIOUS
EXPERIENCES.-- ARRIVAL AT CINCINNATI.-- THE SNEAK-BOX FROZEN UP IN
PLEASANT RUN.-- A TAILOR'S FAMILY.-- A NIGHT UNDER A GERMAN COVERLET.
ABOUT this time the selection of resting places for the night became
an important feature of the voyage. It was easy to draw the little
craft out of the water on to a smooth, shelving beach, but such places
did not always appear at the proper time for ending the day's rowing.
The banks were frequently precipitous, and, destitute of beaches,
frowned down upon the lonely voyager in anything but a hospitable
manner. There were also present two elements antagonistic to my peace
of mind. One was the night steamer, which, as it struggled up stream,
coursing along shore to avoid the strong current, sent swashy waves to
disturb my dreams by pitching my little craft about in the roughest
manner. A light canoe could easily have been carried further inland,
out of reach of the unwelcome waves, and would, so far as that went,
have made a more quiet resting-place than the heavy duck-boat; but
then, on the other hand, a sleeping-apartment in a canoe would have
lacked the roominess and security of the sneak-box.
After the first few nights' camping on the Ohio, I naturally took to
the channelless side of one of the numerous islands which dot the
river's surface, or, what was still better, penetrated into the wild-
looking creeks and rivers, more than one hundred of which enter the
parent stream along the thousand miles of its course. Here, in these
secluded nooks, I found security from the steamer's swash.
The second objectionable element on the Ohio was the presence of
tramps, rough boatmen, and scoundrels of all kinds. In fact, the Ohio
and Mississippi rivers are the grand highway of the West for a large
class of vagabonds. One of these fellows will steal something of value
from a farm near the river, seize the first bateau, or skiff, he can
find, cross the stream, and descend it for fifty or a hundred miles.
He will then abandon the stolen boat if he cannot sell it, ship as
working-hand upon the first steamer or coal-ark he happens to meet,
descend the river still further, and so escape detection.
To avoid these rough characters, as well as the drunken crews of
shanty-boats, it was necessary always to enter the night's camping-
ground unobserved; but when once secreted on the wooded shore of some
friendly creek, covered by the dusky shades of night, I felt perfectly
safe, and had no fear of a night attack from any one. Securely shut in
my strong box, with a hatchet and a Colt's revolver by my side, and a
double-barrelled gun, carefully charged, snugly stowed under the deck,
the intruder would have been in danger, and not the occupant of the
sneak-box.
The hatch, or cover, which rested upon the stern of the boat during
rowing-hours, was at night dropped over the hold, or well, in such a
way as to give plenty of ventilation, and still, at the same time, to
be easily and instantly removed in case of need.
I must not fail here to mention one characteristic feature possessed
by the sneak-box which gives it an advantage over every other boat I
have examined. Its deck is nowhere level, and if a person attempts to
step upon it while it is afloat, his foot touches the periphery of a
circle, and the spoon-shaped, keelless, little craft flies out as if
by magic from under the pressure of the foot, and without further
warning the luckless intruder falls into the water.
At the summer watering-places in Barnegat Bay it used to be a great
source of amusement to the boatmen to tie a sneak-box to a landing,
and wait quietly near by to see the city boys attempt to get into her.
Instead of stepping safely and easily into the hold, they would
invariably step upon the rounded deck, when away would shoot the
slippery craft, and the unsuccessful boarder would fall into two feet
of water, to the great amusement of his comrades. When once inside of
the sneak-box, it becomes the stiffest and steadiest of crafts. Two
men can stand upright upon the flooring of the hold and paddle her
along rapidly, with very little careening to right or left.
By far the most interesting and peculiar features of a winter's row
down the Ohio are the life-studies offered by the occupants of the
numerous shanty-boats daily encountered. They are sometimes called,
and justly too, family-boats, and serve as the winter homes of a
singular class of people, carrying their passengers and cargoes from
the icy region of the Ohio to New Orleans. Their annual descent of the
river resembles the migration of birds, and we invariably find those
of a feather flocking together. It would be hard to trace these
creatures to their lair; but the Alleghany and Monongahela region,
with the towns of the upper Ohio, may be said to furnish most of them.
Let them come from where they may (and we feel sure none will quarrel
for the honor of calling them citizens), the fall of the leaf seems to
be the signal for looking up winter-quarters, and the river with its
swift current the inviting path to warmer suns and an easy life.
The shanty-boatman looks to the river not only for his life, but also
for the means of making that life pleasant; so he fishes in the stream
for floating lumber in the form of boards, planks, and scantling for
framing to build his home. It is soon ready. A scow, or flatboat,
about twenty feet long by ten or twelve wide, is roughly constructed.
It is made of two-inch planks spiked together. These scows are calked
with oakum and rags, and the seams are made water-tight with pitch or
tar. A small, low house is built upon the boat, and covers about two-
thirds of it, leaving a cockpit at each end, in which the crews work
the sweeps, or oars, which govern the motions of the shanty-boat. If
the proprietor of the boat has a family, he puts its members on
board,--not forgetting the pet dogs and cats,--with a small stock of
salt pork, bacon, flour, potatoes, molasses, salt, and coffee. An old
cooking-stove is set up in the shanty, and its sheet-iron pipe,
projecting through the roof, makes a chimney a superfluity. Rough
bunks, or berths, are constructed for sleeping-quarters; but if the
family are the happy possessors of any furniture, it is put on board,
and adds greatly to their respectability. A number of steel traps,
with the usual double-barrelled gun, or rifle, and a good supply of
ammunition, constitute the most important supplies of the shanty-boat,
and are never forgotten. Of these family-boats alone I passed over two
hundred on the Ohio.
This rude, unpainted structure, with its door at each end of the
shanty, and a few windows relieving the barrenness of its sides, makes
a very comfortable home for its rough occupants.
If the shanty-man be a widower or a bachelor, or even if he be a
married man laboring under the belief that his wife and he are not
true affinities, and that there is more war in the house than is good
for the peace of the household, he looks about for a housekeeper. She
must be some congenial spirit, who will fry his bacon and wash his
shirts without murmuring. Having found one whom he fondly thinks will
"fill the bill," he next proceeds to picture to her vivid imagination
the delights of "drifting." "Nothing to do," he says, "but to float
with the current, and eat fresh pork, and take a hand at euchre." The
woods, he tells her, are full of hogs. They shall fall an easy prey to
his unfailing gun, and after them, when further south, the golden
orange shall delight her thirsty soul, while all the sugar-cane she
can chew shall be gathered for her. Add to these the luxury of plenty
of snuff with which to rub her dainty gums, with the promise of
tobacco enough to keep her pipe always full, and it will be hard to
find among this class a fair one with sufficient strength of mind to
resist such an offer; so she promises to keep house for him as long as
the shanty-boat holds together.
Her embarkation is characteristic. Whatever her attire, the bonnet is
there, gay with flowers; a pack of cards is tightly grasped in her
hand; while a worn, old trunk, tied with a cord and fondly called a
"saratoga," is hoisted on board; and so, for better or for worse, she
goes forth to meet her fate, or, as she expresses it, "to find luck."
More than one quarrel usually occurs during the descent of the
Mississippi, and by the time New Orleans is reached the shanty-boatman
sets his quondam housekeeper adrift, where, in the swift current of
life, she is caught by kindred spirits, and being introduced to city
society as the Northern Lily, or Pittsburgh Rose, is soon lost to
sight, and never returns to the far distant up-river country.
Another shanty-boat is built by a party of young men suffering from
impecuniosity. They are "out of a job," and to them the charms of an
independent life on the river is irresistible. Having pooled their few
dollars to build their floating home, they descend to New Orleans as
negro minstrels, trappers, or thieves, as necessity may demand.
Cobblers set afloat their establishments, calling attention to the
fact by the creaking sign of a boot; and here on the rushing river a
man can have his heel tapped as easily as on shore.
Tin-smiths, agents and repairers of sewing machines, grocers, saloon-
keepers, barbers, and every trade indeed is here represented on these
floating dens. I saw one circus-boat with a ring twenty-five feet in
diameter upon it, in which a troop of horsemen, acrobats, and flying
trapze artists performed while their boat was tied to a landing.
The occupants of the shanty-boats float upon the stream with the
current, rarely doing any rowing with their heavy sweeps. They keep
steadily on their course till a milder climate is reached, when they
work their clumsy craft into some little creek or river, and securely
fasten it to the bank. The men set their well-baited steel traps along
the wooded watercourse for mink, coons, and foxes. They give their
whole attention to these traps, and in the course of a winter secure
many skins. While in the Mississippi country, however, they find other
game, and feast upon the hogs of the woods' people. To prevent
detection, the skin, with the swine-herd's peculiar mark upon it, is
stripped off and buried.
When engaged in the precarious occupation of hog-stealing, the shanty-
man is careful to keep a goodly number of the skins of wild animals
stretched upon the outside walls of his cabin, so that visitors to his
boat may be led to imagine that he is an industrious and legitimate
trapper, of high-toned feelings, and one "who wouldn't stick a man's
hog for no money." If there be a religious meeting in the vicinity of
the shanty-boat, the whole family attend it with alacrity, and prove
that their BELIEF in honest doctrines is a very different thing from
their daily PRACTICE of the same. They join with vigor in the
shoutings, and their "amens" drown all others, while their excitable
natures, worked upon by the wild eloquence of the backwoods' preacher,
seem to give evidence of a firm desire to lead Christian lives, and
the spectator is often deceived by their apparent earnestness and
sincerity. Such ideas are, however, quickly dispelled by a visit to a
shanty-boat, and a glimpse of these people "at home."
The great fleet of shanty-boats does not begin to reach New Orleans
until the approach of spring. Once there, they find a market for the
skins of the animals trapped during the winter, and these being sold
for cash, the trapper disposes of his boat for a nominal sum to some
one in need of cheap firewood, and purchasing lower-deck tickets for
Cairo, or Pittsburgh, at from four to six dollars per head, places his
family upon an up-river steamer, and returns with the spring birds to
the Ohio River, to rent a small piece of ground for the season, where
he can "make a crop of corn," and raise some cabbage and potatoes,
upon which to subsist until it be time to repeat his southern
migration.
In this descent of the river, many persons, who have clubbed together
to meet the expenses of a shanty-boat life for the first time, and who
are of a sentimental turn of mind, look upon the voyage as a romantic
era in their lives. Visions of basking in the sunlight, feasting, and
sleeping, dance before their benighted eyes; for they are not all of
the low, ignorant class I have described. Professors, teachers,
musicians, all drift at times down the river; and one is often
startled at finding in the apparently rough crew men who seem worthy
of a better fate. To these the river experiences are generally new,
and the ribald jokes and low river slang, with the ever-accompanying
cheap corn-whiskey and the nightly riots over cutthroat euchre, must
be at first a revelation. Hundreds of these low fellows will swear to
you that the world owes them a living, and that they mean to have it;
that they are gentlemen, and therefore cannot work. They pay a good
price for their indolence, as the neglect of their craft and their
loose ideas of navigation seldom fail to bring them to grief before
they even reach the Mississippi at Cairo. Their heavy, flat-bottomed
boat gets impaled upon a snag or the sharp top of a sawyer; and as the
luckless craft spins round with the current, a hole is punched through
the bottom, the water rushes in and takes possession, driving the
inexperienced crew to the little boat usually carried in tow for any
emergency.
Into this boat the shanty-men hastily store their guns, whiskey, and
such property as they can save from the wreck, and making for the
shore, hold a council of war.
There, in the swift current, lies the centre of their hopes, quickly
settling in the deep water, soon to be seen no more. The fact now
seems to dawn upon them for the first time that a little seamanship is
needed even in descending a river, that with a little care their
Noah's Ark might have been kept afloat, and the treacherous "bob
sawyer" avoided. This trap for careless sailors is a tree, with its
roots held in the river's bottom, and its broken top bobbing up and
down with the undulations of the current. Boatmen give it the
euphonious title of "bob sawyer" because of the bobbing and sawing
motions imparted to it by the pulsations of the water.
Destitute of means, these children of circumstance resolve never to
say die. Their ship has gone down, but their pride is left, and they
will not go home till they have "done" the river; and so, repairing to
the first landing, they ship in pairs upon freighters descending the
stream. Some months later they return to their homes with seedy
habiliments but an enlarged experience, sadder but wiser men.
And so the great flood of river life goes on, and out of this annual
custom of shanty-boat migration a peculiar phase of American character
is developed, a curious set of educated and illiterate nomads, as
restless and unprofitable a class of inhabitants as can be found in
all the great West.
After leaving my camp near Blennerhasset's Island, on December 9, the
features of the landscape changed. The hills lost their altitude, and
seemed farther back from the water, while the river itself appeared to
widen. Snow squalls filled the air, and the thought of a comfortable
camping-ground for the night was a welcome one. About dusk I retired
into the first creek above Letart's Landing, on the left bank of the
Ohio, where I spent the night. The next forenoon I entered a region of
salt wells, with a number of flourishing little towns scattered here
and there upon the borders of the stream. One of these, called
Hartford City, had a well eleven hundred and seventy feet in depth.
From another well in the vicinity both oil and salt-water were raised
by means of a steam-pump. These oil-wells were half a mile back of the
river. Coal-mines were frequently passed in this neighborhood on both
sides of the Ohio.
After dark I was fortunate enough to find a camping-place in a low
swamp on the right bank of the stream, in the vicinity of which was a
gloomy-looking, deserted house. I climbed the slippery bank with my
cooking kit upon my back, and finding some refuse wood in what had
once been a kitchen, made a fire, and enjoyed the first meal I had
been able to cook in camp since the voyage was commenced.
Cold winds whistled round me all night, but the snug nest in my boat
was warm and cheerful, for I lighted my candle, and by its dear flame
made up my daily "log." There were, of course, some inconveniences in
regard to lighting so low-studded a chamber. It was important to have
a candle of not more than two inches in length, so that the flame
should not go too near the roof of my domicile. Then the space being
small, my literary labors were of necessity performed in a reclining
position; while lying upon my side, my shoulder almost touched the
carlines of the hatch above.
Saturday was as raw and blustering as the previous day, so hastily
breakfasting upon the remains of my supper,--COLD chocolate, COLD
corned beef, and COLD crackers,--I determined to get into a milder
region as soon as possible.
As I rowed down the stream, the peculiar appearance of the Barnegat
sneak-box attracted the attention of the men on board the coal-barges,
shanty-boats, &c., and they invariably crowded to the side I passed,
besieging me with questions of every description, such as, "Say,
stranger, where did you steal that pumpkin-seed looking boat from?"
"How much did she cost, any way?" "Ain't ye afeard some steamboat will
swash the life out of her?" On several occasions I raised the water-
apron, and explained how the little sneak-box shed the water that
washed over her bows, when these rough fellows seemed much impressed
with the excellent qualities of the boat, and frankly acknowledged
that "it might pay a fellow to steal one if there was a good show for
such a trick."
At three o'clock P. M. I passed the town of Guyandot, which is
situated on the left bank of the Ohio, at its junction with the Big
Guyandot. Three miles below Guyandot is the growing city of
Huntington, the Ohio River terminus of the Chesapeake and Ohio
Railroad, which has a total length of four hundred and sixty-five
miles, exclusive of six private branches. The Atlantic coast terminus
is on the James River, Chesapeake Bay.
The snow squalls now became so frequent, and the atmosphere was so
chilly and penetrating, that I was driven from the swashy waves of the
troubled Ohio, and eagerly sought refuge in Fourfold Creek, about a
league below Huntington, where the high, wooded banks of the little
tributary offered me protection and rest.
At an early hour the next morning I was conscious of a change of
temperature. It was growing colder. A keen wind whistled through the
tree-tops. I was alarmed at the prospect of having my boat fastened in
the creek by the congealing of its waters, so I pushed out upon the
Ohio and hastened towards a warmer climate as fast as oars, muscles,
and a friendly current would carry me. The shanty-boatmen had informed
me that the Ohio might freeze up in a single night, in places, even as
near its mouth as Cairo. I did not, however, feel so much alarmed in
regard to the river as I did about its tributaries. The Ohio was not
likely to remain sealed up for more than a few days at a time, but the
creeks, my harbors of refuge, my lodging-places, might remain frozen
up for a long time, and put me to serious inconvenience.
About ten o'clock A. M. the duck-boat crossed the mouth of the Big
Sandy River, the limit of Virginia, and I floated along the shores of
the grand old state of Kentucky on the left, while the immense state
of Ohio still skirted the right bank of the river.
The agricultural features of the Ohio valley had been increasing in
attractiveness with the descent of the stream. The high bottom-lands
of the valley exhibited signs of careful cultivation, while
substantial brick houses here and there dotted the landscape.
Interspersed with these were the inevitable log-cabins and dingy
hovels, speaking plainly of the poverty and shiftlessness of some of
the inhabitants.
At four P. M. I could endure the cold no longer, and when a beautiful
creek with wooded shores, which divided fine farms, opened invitingly
before me on the Kentucky side, I quickly entered it, and moored the
sneak-box to an ancient sycamore whose trunk rose out of the water
twelve feet from shore. I was not a moment too soon in leaving the
wide river, for as I quietly supped on my cold bread and meat, which
needed no better sauce than my daily increasing appetite to make it
tempting, the wind increased to a tempest, and screeched and howled
through the forest with such wintry blasts that I was glad to creep
under my hatch before dark.
On Monday, December 13, the violent wind storm continuing, I remained
all day in my box, writing letters and watching the scuds flying over
the tops of high trees. At noon a party of hunters, with a small pack
of hounds, came abruptly upon my camp. Though boys only, they carried
shot-guns, and expectorated enough tobacco-juice to pass for the type
of western manhood. They chatted pleasantly round my boat, though each
sentence that fell from their lips was emphasized by its accompanying
oath. I asked them the name of the creek, when one replied, "Why,
boss, you don't call this a CREEK, do you? Why, there is twenty foot
of water in it. It's the Tiger River, and comes a heap of a long way "
Another said, "Look here, cap'n, I wouldn't travel alone in that 'ere
little skiff, for when you're in camp any feller might put a ball into
you from a high bank." "Yes," added another, "there is plenty o' folks
along the river that would do it, too."
As my camp had become known, I acted upon the friendly hint of the
boy-hunters, and took my departure the next day at an early hour,
following the left bank of the river, which afforded me a lee shore.
As I dashed through the swashy waves, with the apron of the boat
securely set to keep the water from wetting my back, the sun in all
its grandeur parted the clouds and lighted up the landscape until
everything partook of its brightness. This was the second time in two
weeks that the God of Day had asserted his supremacy, and his advent
was fully appreciated.
Two miles below Portsmouth, Ohio, I encountered a solitary voyager in
a skiff, shooting mallards about the mouths of the creeks, and having
discovered that he was a gentleman, I intrusted my mail to his
keeping, and pushed on to a little creek beyond Rome, where, thanks to
good fortune, some dry wood was discovered. A bright blaze was soon
lighting up the darkness of the thicket into which I had drawn my
boat, and the hot supper, now cooked in camp, and served without
ceremony, was duly relished.
The deck of the boat was covered with a thin coating of ice, and as
the wind went down the temperature continued to fall until six o'clock
in the morning, when I considered it unsafe to linger a moment longer
in the creek, the surface of which was already frozen over, and the
ice becoming thicker every hour. An oar served to break a passage-way
from the creek to the Ohio, which I descended in a blustering wind,
being frequently driven to seek shelter under the lee afforded by
points of land.
At sunset I reached Maysville, where the celebrated Daniel Boone, the
pioneer of Kentucky backwoods life, once lived; and as the wind began
to fall, I pulled into a fine creek about four miles below the
village, having made twenty-nine miles under most discouraging
circumstances. The river was here, as elsewhere, lighted by small
hand-lanterns hung upon posts. The lights were, however, so dull, and,
where the channel was not devious, at such long intervals, that they
only added to the gloom.
As the wind generally rose and fell with the sun, it became necessary
to adopt a new plan to expedite my voyage, and the river being usually
smooth at dawn of day, an early start was an imperative duty. At four
o'clock in the morning the duck-boat was under way, her captain
cheered by the hope of arriving in Cincinnati, the great city of the
Ohio valley, by sunset. I plied my oars vigorously all day, and when
darkness settled upon the land, was rewarded for my exertions by
having my little craft shoot under the first bridge that connects
Cincinnati with Kentucky. Here steamers, coal-barges, and river craft
of every description lined the Ohio as well as the Kentucky shore.
Iron cages filled with burning coals were suspended from cranes
erected upon flatboats for the purpose of lighting the river, which
was most effectually done, the unwonted brilliancy giving to the busy
scene a strange weirdness, and making a picture never to be forgotten.
The swift current now carried me under the suspension-bridge which
connects Cincinnati and Covington, and my boat entered the dark area
below, when suddenly the river was clouded in snow, as fierce squalls
came up the stream, and I eagerly scanned the high, dark banks to find
some inlet to serve as harbor for the night. It was very dark, and I
hugged the Kentucky shore as closely as I dared. Suddenly a gleam of
light, like a break in a fog-bank, opened upon my craft, and the dim
outlines of the sides of a gorge in the high coast caught my eye. It
was not necessary to row into the cleft in the hillside, for a fierce
blast of the tempest blew me into the little creek; nor was my
progress stayed until the sneak-box was driven several rods into its
dark interior, and entangled in the branches of a fallen tree.
In the blinding snowfall it was impossible to discern anything upon
the steep banks of the little creek which had fairly forced its
hospitality upon me; so, carefully fastening my painter to the fallen
tree, I hastily disappeared below my hatch. During the night the
mercury fell to six degrees above zero, but my quarters were so
comfortable that little inconvenience from the cold was experienced
until morning, when I attempted to make my toilet with an open hatch.
Then I discovered the unpleasant fact that my boat was securely frozen
up in the waters of the creek! Being without a stove, and finding that
my canned provisions--not having been wrapped in several coverings
like their owner, and having no power to convert oxygen into fuel for
warmth--were solidifying, I locked my hatch, and scrambled up the high
banks to seek the comforts of that civilization which I had so gladly
left behind when I embarked at a point five hundred miles further up
the river, thinking as I went what a contrary mortal man was, myself
among the number, for I was as eager now to find my human brother as I
had been to turn my back upon him a short time before. The poetry of
solitude was frozen into prose, and the low temperature around me made
life under a roof seem attractive for the time being, though, judging
from the general aspect of things, there was not much to look forward
to, in either a social or comfortable light, in my immediate vicinity.
I was, however, too cold and too hungry to be dainty, and felt like
Dickens's Mrs. Bloss, that I "must have nourishment."
A turnpike crossed the ravine a few rods from my boat, and the
tollgate-keeper informed me that I was frozen up in Pleasant Run, near
which were several small houses. Upon application for "boarding"
accommodations I discovered that breakfast at Pleasant Run was a
movable feast, that some had already taken it at seven A. M., and that
others would not have it ready till three P. M. This was anything but
encouraging to a cold and hungry man; but I at length obtained
admission to the house of a German tailor, and, explaining my
condition, offered to pay him liberally for the privilege of becoming
his guest until the cold snap was over. He examined me closely, and
having made, as it were, a mental inventory of my features, dress,
&c., exclaimed, "Mine friend, in dese times nobody knows who's which.
I say, sar, nobody knows who's what. Fellers land here and eats mine
grub, and den shoves off dere poats, and nevar says 'tank you, sar,'
for mine grub. Since de confederate war all men is skamps, I does
fully pelieve. I fights twenty-doo pattles for de Union, nots for de
monish, but because I likes de free government; but it is imbossible
to feeds all de beebles what lands at Pleasant Run."
I assured this patriotic tailor and adopted citizen that I would pay
him well for the trouble of boarding me, but he answered in a surly
way:
"Dat's vat dey all says. It's to be all pay, but dey eats up de sour-
crout and de fresh pork, and drinks de coffee, and ven I looks for de
monish, de gentlemens has disappeared down de rivver. Now you don't
looks as much rascal as some of dem does, and as it ish cold to-day, I
vill make dish corntract mid you. You shall stay here till de cold
goes away, and you shall hab de pest I've got for twenty-five cents a
meal, but you shall pays me de twenty-five cents a meal down in
advance, beforehand."
"Here is a character," I thought, "a new type to study, and perhaps,
after all, being frozen up in Pleasant Run may not be a fact to
regret."
My landlord's proposition was at once accepted, and I offered to pay
him for three meals in advance, to which he replied, "Dat dree pays at
one time was not in de corntract." "You have forgotten one point," I
said, addressing him as he led me to the kitchen, where "mine frau"
was up to her elbows in work. "And what ish dat?" he asked, rather
suspiciously eying me. "You have not fixed a price for my lodgings."
"De use of de peddothes costs me notting, so I never charges for de
lodgings wen de boarder WASHES himself every day," answered mine host.
Having settled this point, and ordered his wife, in commanding terms,
"to gib dish man his breakfast," he withdrew. The woman treated me
very kindly, apologizing for her husband's exacting demands by
assuring me that "Nobody knows WHO'S when nowadays. Seems as if
everybody had got 'moralized by de war." The coffee the good lady made
me, though thoroughly boiled, was excellent, and I complimented her
upon it. "Yes," she replied, "my coffee IS coffee. De 'Merican beeble
forgets de coffee wen dey makes it, and puts all water. Oh, wishy-
washy is 'Merican coffee. It's like peas and beans ground up. De
German beebles won't drink de stuff."
A generous repast of sausage, fresh pork, good bread, butter, and
coffee, was placed before me, when the tailor returned with darkened
brow, and rudely demanded the whereabouts of my boat. "I looks
everywhere," he said, "and don't finds de poat. Hab you one poat, or
hab you not?" I carefully described the exact location of the sneak-
box in the rear of the tollgate-house, when he hastily disappeared.
The old lady and I had fully discussed the wishy-washy coffee
question, when mine host returned. This time he wore a pleasant
countenance, and took me into his shop, where he introduced me to
three of his apprentices. At night I was given a bed in an unfinished
attic, under a shingled roof, which was not even ceiled, so the
constant draughts of air whistling through the interstices overhead
and at the sides of my apartment, kept up a ventilation more perfect
than was desirable; and I should have suffered from the cold had it
not been for my German coverlet, which was a feather-bed about twenty
inches in thickness. It, of course, half smothered me, but there
seemed no choice between that and freezing to death, so I patiently
accepted my fate.
[A night under a German coverlet.]
CHAPTER V.
FROM CINCINNATI TO THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER
CINCINNATI.-- MUSIC AND PORK IN PORKOPOLIS.-- THE BIG BONE LICK OF
FOSSIL ELEPHANTS.-- COLONEL CROGHAN'S VISIT TO THE LICK.-- PORTAGE
AROUND THE "FALLS," AT LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY.-- STUCK IN THE MUD.-- THE
FIRST STEAMBOAT OF THE WEST.-- VICTOR HUGO ON THE SITUATION.-- A
FREEBOOTER'S DEN.-- WHOOPING AND SAND-HILL CRANES.-- THE SNEAK-BOX
ENTERS THE MISSISSIPPI.--
THE next day being Saturday, and the mercury still standing at seven
degrees above zero, I walked to Covington, and crossed the suspension-
bridge to Cincinnati. It was the season of the year when the vast
pork-packing establishments were in full blast, and the amount of work
done spoke well for western enterprise.
Pork-raising and pork-packing is one of the great industries of the
Ohio valley, and the Cincinnati and Louisville merchants have control
of the largest portion of the business growing out of it.
When a stranger visits the pork-packing establishments of Cincinnati
he marvels at the immensity and celerity of the various manipulations,
which commence with the killing of a squealing pig, and the
transformation of his hogship, in a few minutes, into a well-cleaned
animal, hanging up to cool in a store-room, from which he is taken a
little later and immediately cut up and packed in barrels for market.
The reader may have a distaste for statistics, but I cannot impress
upon him the magnitude of this great industry without giving a few
reliable figures.
The number of hogs packed in Cincinnati during the past twenty-one
years, from 1853 to 1875, was 9,242,972. While Cincinnati was at work
on one season's crop of pork of 632,302 pigs, her rival, Chicago, on
the shore of Lake Michigan, killed and packed in the same time her
crop of 2,501,285 animals.
The "Twenty-ninth Annual Report of the Cincinnati Price Current,"
published while the author has been writing this chapter, shows what
our country can do in supplying meat for foreign as well as home
markets. The states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin,
Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas, Kentucky, and
Tennessee, contributed to the packing establishments between November
1, 1877, and March 1, 1878, during the winter season of six months,
6,505,446 hogs; and during the summer season, from March 1 to November
1, 2,543,120 animals,--making a one year's total of 9,048,566 pigs,
which averaged a net weight, when dressed, of two hundred and twenty-
six pounds. Thus the weight of meat alone packed in one year was
2,044,975,916 pounds. Add to this the crop of California, Oregon, and
Canada of the same year, and the total swells to 12,301,589 hogs, duly
registered as having been killed by the pork-packers, and there still
remain uncounted all the pigs killed in thirty-eight states by farmers
for their own and neighbors' consumption.
This annual crop of pork a jocund professor once described as "a
prodigious mass of heavy carburetted hydrogen gas and scrofula;" but
the chemists of our day would more properly stigmatize it as a vast
quantity of Luzic, Myristic, Palmitic, Margaric, and Stearic acids in
combination with glycerine and fibre.
A western savant, having investigated the parasites existing in hogs,
affirms that in western pork, eight animals out of every one hundred
are affected by that muscle-boring pest so dangerous to those who have
eaten the infected meat, and so well known to all students as the
Trichina spiralis. The distinguished writer Letheby says of this
parasite: "As found in the human subject (after death) it is usually
in the encysted state, when it has passed beyond its dangerous
condition, and has become harmless. In most cases, when thus
discovered, there is no record of its action, and therefore it was
once thought to be an innocent visitor; but we now know that while it
was free, (that is, before nature had barricaded it up in the little
cyst,) its presence was the cause of frightful disorders, killing
about fifty per centum of its victims in terrible agony. The young
worms having hatched in the body of man, migrate to the numerous
muscles, causing the most excruciating pain, so that the patient,
fearing to move his inflamed muscles, would lie motionless upon his
back, and if he did not die in this state of the disorder, nature came
to the rescue and imprisoned the creature by surrounding it with a
fibrous cyst, where it lives for years, being ready at any moment to
acquire activity when it is swallowed and released from its cell."
Another parasite found in the muscles of the pig is known as the
Cysticercus cellulosus, and the animals afflicted by it are said to
have the measles. This larva of the tapeworm exists in the pig in
little sacs not larger than a pin's head, and can be seen by the naked
eye. The strong brine of the packer does not kill them, and I have
known them to be taken alive from a boiled ham. The great heat of
frying alone renders them harmless. When partially-cooked, measly pork
is eaten by man, the gastric juice of the stomach dissolves the
membranous sac which contains the living larva, and the animal soon
passes into the intestines, where, clinging by its hooks, it holds on
with wonderful tenacity, rapidly sending out joint after joint, until
the perfect tapeworm sometimes attains a length of thirty feet.
Let us hope, for the credit of humanity, that these facts are not
generally known, for man has ills enough without incurring the risks
of such a diet. If pork must form a staple, let the genealogical tree
of his pigship be carefully sought after, and let the would-be
consumer ask the question considered so important in a certain river-
bounded city of Pennsylvania, "Who was his grandfather?"
In the year 1800 Cincinnati was a little pioneer settlement of seven
hundred and fifty men, women, and children. Her census of 1880 will
not fall far short of a quarter of a million. She contributes more
than her share to feed the world, and is, strange to say, as
celebrated for the terpsichorean art as for her pork. Even Boston must
yield her the palm as a musical centre, and give to the inhabitants of
the once rough western city the credit due them for their versatility
of talent, and the ease with which they render Beethoven, or "take a
turn in pork," as occasion may demand, many of the music-loving
citizens being engaged at times in a commercial way with this staple.
Having obtained at a bookstore a copy of Lloyd's Map of the
Mississippi River, I returned to the tailor's, where I was greeted in
the most kindly manner, and informed that the young lady of the house,
the only daughter of my host, had voluntarily left home to visit some
city relations, that I might occupy her comfortably furnished room,
with the open fireplace, which was now filled with blazing wood, and
sending forth a genial glow into the heavily-curtained apartment. When
I protested against this promotion in the social scale, and refused to
deprive the young lady of her room, I was informed that she knew "WHO
WAS WHO," and had insisted upon leaving her room that a gentleman
might be properly entertained in it. From this time my now agreeable
host stoutly refused to accept payment in advance for my daily
rations, while, with his family and apprentices, he took up his
quarters each evening in my new room, relating his experiences during
the war, and giving me many original ideas.
It grew warmer, but the ice of the creek in which my boat lay did not
melt. The water was, however, falling, and it became necessary to cut
out the sneak-box, and slide her over the ice into the unfrozen Ohio.
My host had become alarmed, and kept an anxious eye upon the boat. "De
peoples knows de poat is here, and some of dem hab told others about
it. If you don't hide her down de rivver to-night, she will be stolen
by de rivver thieves." I was thus forced to leave these kind people,
who about noon escorted me to the duck-boat, and showered upon me
their best wishes for a prosperous voyage. It was a glorious
afternoon, and the sun poured all his wealth of light and cheerfulness
upon the valley.
Late in the day I passed the mouth of the Big Miami River. Indiana was
on the right, while Kentucky still skirted the left bank of the river.
The state of Ohio had furnished the Ohio River with a margin for four
hundred and seventy-five miles. The Little Miami River joins the Ohio
six miles above Cincinnati; the Big Miami enters it twenty miles below
the city. These streams flow through rich farming regions, but they
are not navigable. After passing the town of Aurora, which is six
miles below the Big Miami, I caught sight of the mouth of a creek,
whose thickets of trees, in the gloom of the fast approaching night,
almost hid from view the outlines of a forlorn-looking shanty-boat.
Clouds of smoke, with the bright glare of the fire, shot out of the
rusty stove-pipe in the roof, but I soon discovered that it was the
abode of one who attended strictly to his own business, and expected
the same behavior from his neighbors. So, saying good evening to this
man of solitary habits, I quickly rowed past his floating hermitage
into the darkness of the neighboring swamp. I soon put my own home in
order, ate my supper, and retired, feeling happy in the thought that I
should before long reach a climate where my out-door life would not be
attended with so many inconveniences.
The next day a milder but damper atmosphere greeted me. By noon I had
rowed twenty-two miles, and was off the mouth of Big Bone Lick Creek,
in Kentucky. Two miles from the mouth of this creek are some springs,
the waters of which are charged with sulphur and salt. The most
interesting feature of this locality was the fact that here were
buried in one vast bed the fossil bones of "The Mastodon and the
Arctic Elephant." Formerly these prehistoric relics of a departed
fauna were scattered over the surface of the earth. The first mention
of this locality was made, I think, by a French explorer in 1649. It
is again referred to by a British subject in 1765. A rare copy of a
private journal kept by this early explorer of the Ohio, Colonel
George Croghan, was published in G. W. Featherstonhaugh's "American
Journal of Geology," of December, 1831. This monthly publication ended
with its first year's existence. Only five copies of this number were
known to be in print three years since, when Professor Thomas, of
Mount Holly, New Jersey, encouraged the issue of a reprint of one
hundred copies, from which some of our public libraries have been
supplied.
This Colonel George Croghan, in company with deputies from the Seneca,
Shawnesse, and Delaware nations, left Fort Pitt (Pittsburgh), in two
bateaux, on the 15th of May, 1765, bound on a mission to the Indian
tribes of the Ohio valley. On the 29th of the month the expedition
reached the Little Miami River. Colonel Croghan there commences his
account of the Big Bone Lick region. He says: "May 30th we passed the
Great Miami River, about thirty miles from the little river of that
name, and in the EVENING arrived at the place WHERE THE ELEPHANTS'
BONES ARE FOUND, when we encamped, intending to take a view of the
place next morning. This day we came about seventy miles. The country
on both sides level, and rich bottoms, well watered. May 31st. Early
in the morning we went to the great Lick, where those bones are only
found, about four miles from the river, on the south-east side. In our
way we passed through a fine-timbered, clear wood: we passed into a
large road, which the buffaloes have beaten, spacious enough for two
wagons to go abreast, and leading straight into the Lick. It appears
that there are vast quantities of these bones lying five or six feet
under ground, which we discovered in the bank at the edge of the Lick.
We found here two tusks above six feet long; we carried one, with some
other bones, to our boat, and set off."
In relation to the aboriginal inhabitants of the country of the Ohio
valley, it is interesting to note that the "Six Nations" held six of
the gates to New York, and were strong because they were united, for
Colonel Croghan's enumeration of them shows that they had only two
thousand one hundred and twenty fighting-men, and were never supported
by more than about two thousand warriors from tributary tribes, when
at war with the whites.
That the Iroquois, with their adopted children, have not lost in
numbers up to the present day, is a curious fact. About six thousand
of the descendants of the "Six Nations" are at Forestville, Wisconsin,
on government reservations; and the official agent reports that nearly
two thousand of them can read and write; that they have twenty-nine
day schools, and two manual-labor schools; that they cultivate their
lands so diligently that they pay all the expenses of their living.
They are reported as advancing in church discipline, growing in
temperance; and are making rapid progress towards a complete
civilization.
These six thousand, with other descendants of the Iroquois in Canada,
will no doubt make up a total equal in number to the members of the
old "Indian Confederacy," so graphically pictured in the glowing pages
of Mr. Francis Parkman, the reliable historian, who has given us such
vivid descriptions of the French rule in America as have called forth
the unqualified praise of students of American history on both sides
of the Atlantic.
Having rowed forty-three miles in twelve hours, I reached the town of
Vevay, Indiana, which was first settled by a Swiss colony, to whom
Congress granted lands for the purpose of encouraging grape-culture.
Keeping close under the banks of the river, I entered a little creek a
mile below the village, where a night, restful as usual, was passed.
On Tuesday I rose with the moon, though it was as late as five o'clock
in the morning; but, although fertile farms were stretched along the
river's bank, and the land gave every sign of careful culture, it was
anything but an enjoyable day, as the rain fell in almost
uninterrupted showers from eight o'clock A. M. until dusk, when I was
glad to find an inviting creek on the Kentucky shore, about one mile
below Bethlehem, and had the great satisfaction of logging thirty-
eight miles as the day's run.
It was necessary to make an early start the next day, as I must run
the falls of the Ohio at Louisville, Kentucky, or make a portage round
them. The river was enveloped in fog; but I followed the shore
closely, hour after hour, until the sun dispelled the mists, and my
little duck-boat ran in among the barges at the great Kentucky city.
Here, at Louisville, is the only barrier to safe navigation on the
Ohio River. These so-called Falls of the Ohio are in fact rapids which
almost disappear when the river is at its full height. At such times,
steam-boats, with skilful pilots aboard, safely follow the channel,
which avoids the rocks of the river. During the low stage of the
water, navigation is entirely suspended. The fall of the current is
twenty-three feet in two miles. To avoid this descent, in low water,
and to allow vessels to ascend the river at all times, a canal was
excavated along the left shore of the rapids from Louisville to
Shippingsport, a distance of two miles and a half. It was a stupendous
enterprise, as the passage was cut almost the entire distance through
the solid rock, and in some places to the great depth of forty feet.
On the 25th of September, 1816, when Louisville had a population of
three thousand inhabitants, her first steamboat, the Washington, left
the young city for New Orleans. A second trip was commenced by the
Washington on March 3, 1817. The whole time consumed by the voyage
from Louisville to New Orleans, including the return trip, was forty-
one days. The now confident Captain Shreve, of the Washington,
predicted that steamboats would be built which could make the passage
to New Orleans in ten days. I have been a passenger on a steamboat
which ascended the strong currents of the river from New Orleans to
Louisville in five days; while the once pioneer hamlet now boasts a
population exceeding one hundred thousand souls.
As the bow of my little craft grounded upon the city levee, a crowd of
good-natured men gathered round to examine her. From them I
ascertained that the descent of the rapids could not be made without a
pilot; and as the limited quarters of the sneak-box would not allow
any addition to her passenger-list, a portage round the falls became a
necessity. The canal was not to be thought of as it would have been a
troublesome matter, without special passes from some official, to have
obtained the privilege of passing through with so small a boat. The
crowd cheerfully lifted the sneak-box into an express-wagon, and
fifteen minutes after reaching Louisville I was en route for Portland,
mailing letters as I passed through the city. The portage was made in
about an hour. At sunset the little boat was launched in the Ohio, and
I felt that I had returned to an old friend. The expressman entered
with entire sympathy into the voyage, and could not be prevailed upon
to accept more than a dollar and a half for transporting the boat and
her captain four miles.
When night came on, and no friendly creek offered me shelter, I pushed
the boat into a soft, muddy flat of willows, which fringed a portion
of the Kentucky shore, where there was just enough water to float the
sneak-box. The passing steamers during the night sent swashy waves
into my lair, which kept me in constant fear of a ducking, and gave me
anything but a peaceful night. This was, however, all forgotten the
next morning, when the startling discovery was made that the river had
fallen during the night and left me in a quagmire, from which it
seemed at first impossible to extricate myself.
The boat was imbedded in the mud, which was so soft and slimy that it
would not support my weight when I attempted to step upon it for the
purpose of pushing my little craft into the water, which had receded
only a few feet from my camp. I tried pushing With my oak oar; but it
sunk into the mire almost out of sight. Then a small watch-tackle was
rigged, one block fastened to the boat, the other to the limb of a
willow which projected over the water. The result of this was a
successful downward movement of the willow, but the boat remained in
statu quo, the soft mud holding it as though it possessed the sucking
powers of a cuttlefish.
I could not reach the firm shore, for the willow brush would not
support my weight. There was no assistance to be looked for from
fellow-voyagers, as the river-craft seemed to follow the channel of
the opposite shore; and my camp could not be seen from the river, as I
had taken pains to hide myself in the thicket of young willows from
all curious eyes. There was no hope that my voice would penetrate to
the other side of the stream, neither could I reach the water beyond
the soft ooze. Being well provisioned, however, it would be an easy
matter to await the rise of the river; and if no friendly freshet sent
me the required assistance, the winds would harden the ooze in a few
days so that it would bear my weight, and enable me to escape from my
bonds of mud.
While partaking of a light breakfast, an idea suddenly presented
itself to my mind. I had frequently built crossways over treacherous
swamps. Why not mattress the muddy flat? Standing upon the deck of my
boat, I grasped every twig and bough of willow I could reach, and
making a mattress of them, about two feet square and a few inches
thick, on the surface of the mud at the stern of my craft, I placed
upon it the hatch-cover of my boat. Standing upon this, the sneak-box
was relieved of my weight, and by dint of persevering effort the after
part was successful]y lifted, and the heavy burden slowly worked out
of its tenacious bed, and moved two or three feet nearer the water. By
shifting the willow mattress nearer the boat, which was now ON the
surface of the mud, and not IN it, my floating home was soon again
upon the current, and its captain had a new experience, which, though
dearly bought, would teach him to avoid in future a camp on a soft
flat when a river was falling.
A foggy day followed my departure from the unfortunate camp of
willows; but through the mist I caught glimpses of the fine lands of
the Kentucky farmers, with the grand old trees shading their
comfortable homes. In the drizzle I had passed French's Creek, and
after dark ran upon a stony beach, where, high and dry upon the bank,
was a shanty-boat, which had been converted into a landing-house, and
was occupied by two men who received the freight left there by passing
steamers. The locality was six miles below Brandenburg, Kentucky, and
was known as "Richardson's Landing." Having rowed forty miles since
morning, I "turned in" soon after drawing my boat upon the shelving
strand, anticipating a quiet night.
At midnight a loud noise, accompanied with bright flashes of light,
warned me of the approach of a steamboat. She soon after ran her bow
hard on to the beach, within a few feet of my boat. Though the rain
was falling in torrents, the passengers crowded upon the upper deck to
examine the snow-white, peculiarly shaped craft, or "skiff" as they
called it, which lay upon the bank, little suspecting that her owner
was snugly stowed beneath her deck. I suddenly threw up the hatch and
sat upright, while the strong glare of light from the steamer's
furnaces brought out every detail of the boat's interior.
This sudden apparition struck the crowd with surprise, and, as is
usual upon such an occasion in western America, the whole company
showered a fire of raillery and "chaff" upon me, to which, on account
of the heavy rain, I could not reply, but, dropping backward into my
bed, drew the hatch into its place. The good-natured crowd would not
permit me to escape so easily. Calling the entire ship's company from
the state-rooms and cabins to join them, they used every artifice in
their power to induce me to show my head above the deck of my boat.
One shouted, "Here, you deck-hand, don't cut that man's rope; it's
mean to steal a fellow's painter!" Another cried, "Don't put that
heavy plank against that little skiff!" Suspecting their game,
however, I kept under cover during the fifteen minutes' stay of the
boat, when, moving off; they all shouted a jolly farewell, which
mingled in the darkness with the hoarse whistle of the steamer, while
the night air echoed with cries of; "Snug as a bug in a rug;" "I never
seed the like afore;" "He'll git used to livin'in a coffin afore he
needs one," &c.
The reader who may have looked heretofore upon swamps and gloomy
creeks as too lonely for camping-grounds, may now appreciate the
necessity for selecting such places, and understand why a voyager
prefers the security of the wilderness to the annoying curiosity of
his fellow-man.
The rains of the past two days had swollen the Kentucky River, which
enters the Ohio above Louisville, as well as the Salt River, which I
had passed twenty miles below that city, besides many other branches,
so that the main stream was now rapidly rising. After leaving
Richardson's Landing, the rain continued to fall, and as each
tributary, affected by the freshet, poured logs, fallen trees, fence-
rails, stumps from clearings, and even occasionally a small frame
shanty, into the Ohio, there was a floating raft of these materials
miles in length. Sometimes an unlucky shanty-boat was caught in an
eddy by the mass of floating timber, and at once becoming an integral
portion of the whole, would float with the great raft for two or three
days. The owners, being in the mean time unable to free themselves
from their prison-like surroundings, made the best of the blockade,
and their fires burned all the brighter, while the enlivening music of
the fiddle, and the hilarity induced by frequent potions of corn
whiskey, with the inevitable games of cards, made all "merry as a
marriage bell," as they floated down the river.
In the evening, a little creek below Alton was reached, which
sheltered me during the night. Soon the rain ceased, and the stars
shone kindly upon my lonely camp. I left the creek at half-past four
o'clock in the morning. The water had risen two feet and a half in ten
hours, and the broad river was in places covered from shore to shore
with drift stuff; which made my course a devious one, and the little
duck-boat had many a narrow escape in my attempts to avoid the
floating mass. The booming of guns along the shore reminded me that it
was Christmas, and, in imagination, I pictured to myself the many
happy families in the valley enjoying their Christmas cheer. The
contrast between their condition and mine was great, for I could not
even find enough dry wood to cook my simple camp-fare.
An hour before sunset, while skirting the Indiana shore, I passed a
little village called Batesville, and soon after came to the mouth of
a crooked creek, out of which, borne on the flood of a freshet, came a
long, narrow line of drift stuff. Just within the mouth of the creek,
in a deep indenture of the high bank, a shanty-boat was snugly lashed
to the trees. A young man stood in the open doorway of the cabin,
washing dishes, and as I passed he kindly wished me a "Merry
Christmas," inviting me on board. He eagerly inspected the sneak-box,
and pronounced it one of the prettiest "tricks" afloat. "How my father
and brother would like to see you and your boat!" exclaimed he. "Can't
you tie up here, just under yonder p'int on the bank? There's an eddy
there, and the drift won't work in enough to trouble you."
The invitation so kindly given was accepted, and with the assistance
of my new acquaintance my boat was worked against the strong current
into a curve of the bank, and there securely fastened. I set to work
about my house-keeping cares, and had my cabin comfortably arranged
for the night, when I was hailed from the shanty-boat to "come
aboard." Entering the rough cabin, a surprise greeted me, for a table
stood in the centre of the room, covered with a clean white cloth, and
groaning under the weight of such a variety of appetizing dishes as I
had not seen for many a day.
"I thought," said the boy, "that you hadn't had much Christmas to-day,
being as you're away from your folks; and we had a royal dinner, and
there's lots left fur you--so help yourself." He then explained that
his father and brother had gone to a shooting-match on the other side
of the river; and when I expressed my astonishment at the excellent
fare, which, upon closer acquaintance, proved to be of a dainty nature
(game and delicate pastry making a menu rather peculiar for a shanty-
boat), he informed me that his brother had been first cook on a big
passenger steamer, and had received good wages; but their mother died,
and their father married a second time, and--Here the young fellow
paused, evidently considering how much of their private life he should
show to a stranger. "Well," he continued, "our new mother liked cities
better than flatboats, and father's a good quiet man, who likes to
live in peace with every one, so he lets mother live in Arkansas, and
he stays on the shanty-boat. We boys joined him, fur he's a good old
fellow, and we have all that's going. We git plenty of cat-fish,
buffalo-fish, yellow perch, and bass, and sell them at the little
towns along the river. Then in summer we hire a high flat ashore,--not
a flatboat,--I mean a bit of land along the river, and raise a crop of
corn, 'taters, and cabbage. We have plenty of shooting, and don't git
much fever 'n ager."
I had rowed fifty-three miles that day, and did ample justice to the
Christmas dinner on the flatboat. The father and brother joined us in
the evening, and gave me much good advice in regard to river
navigation. The rain fell heavily before midnight, and they insisted
that I should share one of their beds in the boat; but as small
streams of water were trickling through the roof of the shanty, and my
little craft was water-tight, I declined the kindly offer, and bade
them good-night.
The next day being Sunday, I again visited my new acquaintances upon
the shanty-boat, and gathered from their varied experiences much of
the river's lore. The rain continued, accompanied with lightning and
thunder, during the entire day, so that Monday's sun was indeed
welcome; and with kind farewells on all sides I broke camp and
descended the current with the now almost continuous raft of drift-
wood. For several hours a sewing-machine repair-shop and a
photographic gallery floated with me.
The creeks were now so swollen from the heavy rains, and so full of
drift-wood, that my usual retreat into some creek seemed cut off; so I
ran under the sheltered side of "Three Mile Island," below Newburg,
Indiana. The climate was daily improving, and I no longer feared an
ice blockade; but a new difficulty arose. The heavy rafts of timber
threatened to shut me in my camp. At dusk, all might be open water;
but at break of day "a change came o'er the spirit of my dream," and
heavy blockades of timber rafts made it no easy matter to escape.
There were times when, shut in behind these barriers, I looked out
upon the river with envious eyes at the steamboats steadily plodding
up stream against the current, keeping free of the rafts by the skill
of their pilots; and thoughts of the genius and perseverance of the
inventors of these peculiar craft crowded my mind.
In these days of successful application of mechanical inventions, but
few persons can realize the amount of distrust and opposition against
which a Watts or a Fulton had to contend while forcing upon an
illiberal and unappreciative public the valuable results of their busy
brains and fertile genius. It is well for us who now enjoy these
blessings,--the utilized ideas of a lifetime of unrequited labors,--to
look back upon the epoch of history so full of gloom for the men to
whom we owe so much.
At the beginning of the present century the navigation of the Ohio was
limited to canoes, bateaux, scows, rafts, arks, and the rudest models
of sailing-boats. The ever downward course of the strong current must
be stemmed in ascending the river. Against this powerful resistance
upon tortuous streams, wind, as a motor, was found to be only
partially successful, and for sure and rapid transit between
settlements along the banks of great waterways a most discouraging
failure. Down-river journeys were easily made, but the up-river or
return trip was a very slow and unsatisfactory affair, excepting to
those who travelled in light canoes.
The influx of population to the fertile Ohio valley, and the settling
up of the rich bottoms of the Mississippi, demanded a more expeditious
system of communication. The necessities of the people called loudly
for this improvement, but at the same time their prejudices and
ignorance prevented them from aiding or encouraging any such plans.
The hour came at length for the delivery of the people of the great
West, and with it the man. Fulton, aided by Watts, offered to solve
the problem by unravelling rather than by cutting the "Gordian knot."
It was whispered through the wilderness that a fire-ship, called the
"Clermont," built by a crazy speculator named Fulton, had started from
New York, and, steaming up the Hudson, had forced itself against the
current one hundred and fifty miles to Albany, in thirty-six hours.
This was in September, 1807.
The fool and the fool's fire-ship became the butt of all sensible
people in Europe as well as in America. Victor Hugo remarks that, "In
the year 1807, when the first steamboat of Fulton, commanded by
Livingston, furnished with one of Watts's engines sent from England,
and manoeuvred, besides her ordinary crew, by two Frenchmen only,
Andr Michaux and another, made her first voyage from New York to
Albany, it happened that she set sail on the 17th of August. The
ministers took up this important fact, and in numberless chapels
preachers were heard calling down a malediction on the machine, and
declaring that this number seventeen was no other than the total of
the ten horns and seven heads of the beasts in the Apocalypse. In
America they invoked against the steamboat the beast from the book of
Revelation; in Europe, the reptile of the book of Genesis. The SAVANS
had rejected steamboats as impossible; the PRIESTS had anathematized
them as impious; SCIENCE had condemned, and RELIGION consigned them to
perdition."
"In the archipelago of the British Channel islands," this learned
author goes on to say, "the first steamboat which made its appearance
received the name of the 'Devil Boat.' In the eyes of these worthy
fishermen, once Catholics, now Calvinists, but always bigots, it
seemed to be a portion of the infernal regions which had been somehow
set afloat. A local preacher selected for his discourse the question
of, 'Whether man has the right to make fire and water work together
when God had divided them.' (Gen. ch. i. v.4.) No; this beast composed
of iron and fire did not resemble leviathan! Was it not an attempt to
bring chaos again into the universe?"
So much for young America, and so much for old mother England! Now
listen, men and women of to-day, to the wisdom of France--scientific
France. "A mad notion, a gross delusion, an absurdity!" Such was the
verdict of the Academy of Sciences when consulted by Napoleon on the
subject of steamboats early in the present century.
It seems scarcely credible now that all this transpired in the days of
our fathers, not so very long ago. Time is a great leveller. Education
of the head as well as of the heart has liberalized the pulpit, and
the man of theoretical science to-day would not dare to stake his
reputation by denying any apparently well-established theory, while
the inventors of telephones, perpetual-motion motors, &c., are gladly
hailed as leaders in the march of progress so dear to every American
heart. The pulpit is now on the side of honest science, and the savant
teaches great truths, while the public mind is being educated to
receive and utilize the heretofore concealed or undeveloped mysteries
of a wise and generous Creator, who has taught his children that they
must labor in order to possess.
The Clermont was the pioneer steamer of the Hudson River, and its
trial trip was made in 1807. The first steamboat which descended the
Ohio and Mississippi rivers was christened the New Orleans." It was
designed and built by Mr. N.J. Roosevelt, and commenced its voyage
from Pittsburgh in September, 1811. The bold proprietor of this
enterprise, with his wife, Mrs. Lydia M. Roosevelt, accompanied the
captain, engineer, pilot, six hands, two female servants, a man
waiter, a cook, and a large Newfoundland dog, to the end of the
voyage. The friends of this lady--the first woman who descended the
great rivers of the West in a steamboat--used every argument they
could offer to dissuade her from undertaking what was considered a
dangerous experiment, an absolute folly. The good wife, however, clung
to her husband, and accepted the risks, preferring to be drowned or
blown up, as her friends predicted, rather than to desert her better-
half in his hour of trial. A few weeks would decide his success or
failure, and she would be at his side to condole or rejoice with him,
as the case might be.
The citizens of Pittsburgh gathered upon the banks of the Monongahela
to witness the inception of the enterprise which was to change the
whole destiny of the West. One can imagine the criticisms flung at the
departing steamer as she left her moorings and boldly faced her fate.
As the curious craft was borne along the current of the river, the
Indians attempted to approach her, bent upon hostile attempts, and
once a party of them pursued the boat in hot chase, but their
endurance was not equal to that of steam. These children of the forest
gazed upon the snorting, fire-breathing monster with undisguised awe,
and called it "Penelore"--the fire-canoe. They imagined it to have
close relationship with the comet that they believed had produced the
earthquakes of that year. The voyage of the "New Orleans" was a
romantic reality in two ways. The wonderful experiment was proved a
success, and its originator won his laurel wreath; while the bold
captain of the fire-ship, falling in love with one of the
chambermaids, won a wife.
The river's travel now became somewhat monotonous. I had reached a low
country, heavily wooded in places, and was entering the great prairie
region of Illinois. Having left my island camp by starlight on Tuesday
morning, and having rowed steadily all day until dusk, I passed the
wild-looking mouth of the Wabash River, and went into camp behind an
island, logging with pleasure my day's run at sixty-seven miles. I was
now only one hundred and forty-two miles from the mouth of the Ohio,
and with the rising and rapidly increasing current there were only a
few hours' travel between me and the Mississippi.
Wednesday morning, December 29th, I discovered that the river had
risen two feet during the night, and the stump of the tree to which I
had moored my boat was submerged. The river was wide and the banks
covered with heavy forests, with clearings here and there, which
afforded attractive vistas of prairies in the background. I passed a
bold, stratified crag, covered with a little growth of cedars. These
adventurous trees, growing out of the crevices of the rock, formed a
picturesque covering for its rough surface. A cavern, about thirty
feet in width, penetrated a short distance into the rock. This natural
curiosity bore the name of "Cave-in-Rock," and was, in 1801, the
rendezvous of a band of outlaws, who lived by plundering the boats
going up and down the river, oftentimes adding the crime of murder to
their other misdeeds. Just below the cliff nestled a little village
also called "Cave-in-Rock."
Wild birds flew about me on all sides, and had I cared to linger I
might have had a good bag of game. This was not, however, a gunning
cruise, and the temptation was set aside as inconsistent with the
systematic pulling which alone would take me to my goal. The birds
were left for my quondam friends of the shanty-boat, they being the
happy possessors of more TIME than they could well handle, and the
killing of it the aim of their existence.
The soft shores of alluvium were constantly caving and falling into
the river, bringing down tons of earth and tall forest-trees. The
latter, after freeing their roots of the soil, would be swept out into
the stream as contributions to the great floating raft of drift-wood,
a large portion of which was destined to a long voyage, for much of
this floating forest is carried into the Gulf of Mexico, and travels
over many hundreds of miles of salt water, until it is washed up on to
the strands of the isles of the sea or the beaches of the continent.
Having tied up for the night to a low bank, with no thought of danger,
it was startling, to say the least, to have an avalanche of earth from
the bank above deposit itself upon my boat, so effectually sealing
down my hatch-cover that it seemed at first impossible to break from
my prison. After repeated trials I succeeded in dislodging the mass,
and, thankful to escape premature interment, at once pushed off in
search of a better camp.
A creek soon appeared, but its entrance was barred by a large tree
which had fallen across its mouth. My heavy hatchet now proved a
friend in need, and putting my boat close to the tree, I went
systematically to work, and soon cut out a section five feet in
length. Entering through this gateway, my labors were rewarded by
finding upon the bank some dry fence-rails, with which a rude kitchen
was soon constructed to protect me from the wind while preparing my
meal. The unusual luxury of a fire brightened the weird scene, and the
flames shot upward, cheering the lone voyager and frightening the owls
and coons from their accustomed lairs. The strong current had been of
great assistance, for that night my log registered sixty-two miles for
the day's row.
Leaving the creek the next morning by starlight, I passed large flocks
of geese and ducks, while Whooping-cranes (Grus Americanus) and Sand-
hill cranes (Grus Canadensis), in little flocks, dotted the grassy
prairies, or flew from one swamp to another, filling the air with
their startling cries. Both these species are found associated in
flocks upon the cultivated prairie farms, where they pillage the grain
and vegetable fields of the farmer. Their habits are somewhat similar,
though the whooping-crane is the most wary of the two. The adult
Whooping-cranes are white, the younger birds of a brownish color. This
species is larger than the Sand-hill Crane, the latter having a total
length of from forty to forty-two inches. The Sand-hill species may be
distinguished from the Whooping-crane by its slate-blue color. The
cackling, whooping, and screaming voices of an assembled multitude of
these birds cannot be described. They can be heard for miles upon the
open plains. These birds are found in Florida and along the Gulf coast
as well as over large areas of the northern states. They feed upon
soft roots, which they excavate from the swamps, and upon bugs and
reptiles of all kinds. It requires the most cautious stalking on the
part of the hunter to get within gunshot of them, and when so
approached the Whooping-crane is usually the first of the two species
which takes to the wing. The social customs of these birds are most
entertaining to the observer who may lie hidden in the grass and watch
them through a glass. Their tall, angular figures, made up of so much
wing, leg, neck, and bill, counterpoised by so little body, incline
the spectator to look upon them as ornithological caricatures. After
balancing himself upon one foot for an hour, with the other drawn up
close to his scanty robe of feathers, and his head poised in a most
contemplative attitude, one of these queer birds will suddenly turn a
somersault, and, returning to his previous posture, continue his
cogitations as though nothing had interrupted his reflections. With
wings spread, they slowly winnow the air, rising or hopping from the
ground a few feet at a time, then whirling in circles upon their toes,
as though going through the mazes of a dance. Their most popular
diversion seems to be the game of leap-frog, and their long legs being
specially adapted to this sport, they achieve a wonderful success. One
of the birds quietly assumes a squatting position upon the ground,
when his sportive companions hop in turn over his expectant head. They
then pirouette, turn somersaults, and go through various exercises
with the skill of gymnasts. Their sportive proclivities seem to have
no bounds; and being true humorists, they preserve through their
gambols a ridiculously sedate appearance. Popular accounts of the
nidification of these birds are frequently untrue. We are told that
they build their cone-shaped nests of mud, sticks, and grass in
shallow water, in colonies, and that their nests, BEING PLACED ON
RAFTS of buoyant material, float about in the bayous, and are
propelled and guided at the will of the sitting bird by the use of her
long legs and feet as oars. The position of the bird upon the nest is
also ludicrously depicted. It is described as sitting astride the
nest, with the toes touching the ground; and to add still more
comicality to the picture, it is asserted that the limbs are often
thrust out horizontally behind the bird. The results of close
observations prove that these accounts are in keeping with many others
related by parlor naturalists. The cranes sit upon their nests like
other birds, with their feet drawn up close to the body. The mound-
shaped nests are built of sticks, grass, and mud, and usually placed
in a shallow pond or partially submerged swamp, while at times a
grassy hassock furnishes the foundation of the structure. In the
saucer-shaped top of the nest two eggs are deposited, upon which the
bird sits most assiduously, having no time at this season for aquatic
amusements, such as paddling about with her nest.
[Popular idea of the nesting of cranes.]
The young birds are most hilarious babies, for they inherit the social
qualities of their parents, and are ready to play or fight with each
other before they are fairly out of the nest. A close observer of
their habits writes from the prairies of Indiana: "When the young get
a little strength they attack each other with great fury, and can only
be made to desist by the parent bird separating them, and taking one
under its fostering care, and holding them at a respectable distance
until they reach crane-hood, when they seem to make up in joyous
hilarity for the quarrelsome proclivities of youth."
Like geese and ducks, cranes winter in one locality so long as the
ponds are open, but the first cold snap that freezes their swamp
drives them two or three degrees further south. From this migration
they soon return to their old haunts, the first thawing of the ice
being the signal.
The mouths of the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers were passed, and the
Ohio, widening in places until it seemed like a lake, assumed a new
grandeur as it approached the Mississippi. Three miles below
Wilkinsonville, but on the Kentucky side, I stole into a dark creek
and rested until the next morning, Friday, December 31st, which was to
be my last day on the Ohio River.
I entered a long reach in the river soon after nine o'clock on Friday
morning, and could plainly see the town of Cairo, resting upon the
flat prairies in the distance. The now yellow, muddy current of the
Ohio rolled along the great railroad dike, which had cost one million
dollars to erect, and formed a barrier strong enough to resist the
rushing waters of the freshets. Across the southern apex of this
prairie city could be seen the "Father of Waters," its wide surface
bounded on the west by the wilderness. A few moments more, and my
little craft was whirled into its rapid, eddying current; and with the
boat's prow now pointed southward, I commenced, as it were, a life of
new experiences as I descended the great river, where each day I was
to feel the genial influences of a warmer climate.
The thought of entering warm and sunny regions was, indeed, welcome to
a man who had forced his way through rafts of ice, under cloudy skies,
through a smoky atmosphere, and had partaken of food of the same
chilling temperature for so many days. This prospect of a genial
clime, with the more comfortable camping and rowing it was sure to
bring, gave new vigor to my arms, daily growing stronger with their
task, and each long, steady pull TOLD as it swept me down the river.
The faithful sneak-box had carried me more than a thousand miles since
I entered her at Pittsburgh. This, of course, includes the various
detours made in searching for camping-grounds, frequent crossings of
the wide river to avoid drift stuff; &c. The descent of the Ohio had
occupied about twenty-nine days, but many hours had been lost by
storms keeping me in camp, and other unavoidable delays. As an offset
to these stoppages, it must be remembered that the current, increased
by freshets, was with me, and to it, as much as to the industrious
arms of the rower, must be given the credit for the long route gone
over in so short a time, by so small a boat.
[Stern-wheel Western tow-boat pushing flatboats.]
CHAPTER VI.
DESCENT OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER
LEAVE CAIRO, ILLINOIS.-- THE LONGEST RIVER IN THE WORLD.-- BOOK
GEOGRAPHY AND BOAT GEOGRAPHY.-- CHICKASAW BLUFF.-- MEETING WITH THE
PARAKEETS.-- FORT DONALDSON.-- EARTHQUAKES AND LAKES.-- WEIRD BEAUTY
OF REELFOOT LAKE.-- JOE ECKEL'S BAR.-- SHANTY-BOAT COOKING.-- FORT
PILLOW.-- MEMPHIS.-- A NEGRO JUSTICE.-- "DE COMMON LAW OB
MISSISSIPPI."
MY floating home was now upon the broad Mississippi, which text-book
geographers still insist upon calling "the Father of Waters--the
largest river in North America." Its current was about one-third
faster than that of its tributary, the Ohio. Its banks were covered
with heavy forests, and for miles along its course the great
wilderness was broken only by the half-tilled lands of the cotton-
planter.
From Cairo southward the river is very tortuous, turning back upon
itself as if imitating the convolutions of a crawling serpent, and
following a channel of more than eleven hundred and fifty miles before
its waters unite with those of the Gulf of Mexico. This country
between the mouth of the Ohio and the Gulf of Mexico is truly the
delta of the Mississippi, for the river north of Cairo cuts through
table-lands, and is confined to its old bed; but below the mouth of
the Ohio the great river persistently seeks for new channels, and, as
we approach New Orleans, we discover branches which carry off a
considerable portion of its water to the Gulf coast in southwestern
Louisiana.
It is always with some degree of hesitation that I introduce
geographical details into my books, as I well know that a taste for
the study of physical geography has not been developed among my
countrymen. Where among all our colleges is there a well-supported
chair of physical geography occupied by an American? We sometimes hear
of a "Professor of Geology and Physical Geography," but the last is
only a sort of appendage--a tail--to the former. When a student of
American geography begins the study in earnest, he discovers that our
geographies are insufficient, are filled with errors, and that our
maps possess a greater number of inaccuracies than truths. When he
goes into the field to study the physical geography of his native
land, he is forced to go through the disagreeable process of
unlearning all he has been taught from the poor textbooks of stay-at-
home travellers and closet students, whose compilations have burdened
his mind with errors. In despair he turns to the topographical charts
and maps of the "United States Coast and Geodetic Survey," and of the
"Engineer Corps of the United States Army," and in the truthful and
interesting results of the practical labors of trained observers he
takes courage as he enters anew his field of study. The cartographer
of the shop economically constructs his unreliable maps to supply a
cheap demand; and strange to say, though the results of the government
surveys are freely at his disposal, he rarely makes use of them. It
costs too much to alter the old map-plates, and but few persons will
feel sufficiently interested to criticise the faults of his latest
edition.
"How do you get the interior details?" I once asked the agent of one
of the largest map establishments in the United States. "Oh," he
answered, "when we cannot get township details from local surveys, we
sling them in anyhow." An error once taught from our geographies and
maps will remain an error for a generation, and our text-book
geographers will continue to repeat it, for they do not travel over
the countries they describe, and rarely adopt the results of
scientific investigation. The most unpopular study in the schools of
the United States is that of the geography of our country. It does not
amount merely to a feeling of indifference, but in some colleges to a
positive prejudice. The chief mountain-climbing club of America,
counting among its members some of the best minds of our day, was
confronted by this very prejudice. "If you introduce the study of
physical geography in connection with the explorations of mountains, I
will not join your association," said a gentleman living almost within
the shadow of the buildings of our oldest university.
A committee of Chinese who called upon the school authorities of a
Pacific-coast city, several years since, respectfully petitioned that
"you will not waste the time of our children in teaching them
geography. You say the world is ROUND; some of us say it is FLAT. What
difference does it make to our business if it be round or flat? The
study of geography will not help us to make money. It may do for
Melican man, but it is not good for Chinese."
I once knew a chairman of the school trustees in a town in New Jersey
to remove his daughters from the public school simply because the
teacher insisted that it was his duty to instruct his pupils in the
study of geography. "My boys may go to sea some day, and then
geography may be of service to them," said this chairman to the
teacher, "but if my daughters study it they will waste their time. Of
what use can geography be to girls who will never command a vessel?"
While conscious that I may inflict an uninteresting chapter upon my
reader who may have accompanied me with a commendable degree of
patience so far upon my lonely voyage, I nevertheless feel it a duty
to place on record a few facts that are well known to scientific men,
if not to the writers of popular geographies, regarding the existence
within the boundaries of our own country of the longest river in the
world. It is time that the recognition of this fact should be
established in every school in the United States. As this is a very
important subject, let us examine it in detail.
THE MISSOURI IS THE LONGEST RIVER IN THE WORLD, AND THE MISSISSIPPI IS
ONLY A BRANCH OF IT. The Mississippi River joins its current with that
of the Missouri about two hundred miles above the mouth of the Ohio;
consequently, as we are now to allow the largest stream (the Missouri)
to bear its name from its source all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, it
follows that the Ohio flows into the Missouri and not into the
Mississippi River. The Missouri, and NOT the Mississippi, is the main
stream of what has been called the Mississippi Basin. The Missouri,
when taken from its fountain-heads of the Gallatin, Madison, and Red
Rock lakes, or, if we take the Jefferson Fork as the principal
tributary, has a length, from its source to its union with the
Mississippi, of above three thousand miles. The United States
Topographical Engineers have credited it with a length of two thousand
nine hundred and eight miles, when divested of some of these tributary
extensions. The same good authority gives the Mississippi a length of
thirteen hundred and thirty miles from its source to its junction with
the Missouri.
At this junction of the two rivers the Missouri has a mean discharge
of one hundred and twenty thousand cubic feet of water per second, or
one-seventh greater than that of the Mississippi, which has a mean
discharge of one hundred and five thousand cubic feet per second. The
Missouri drains five hundred and eighteen thousand square miles of
territory, while the Mississippi drains only one hundred and sixty-
nine thousand square miles. While the latter river has by far the
greatest rainfall, the Missouri discharges the largest amount of
water, and at the point of union of the two streams is from fifteen to
seventeen hundred miles the longer of the two. Therefore, according to
natural laws, the Missouri is the main stream, and the smaller and
shorter Mississippi is only a branch of it. From the junction of the
two rivers the current, increased by numerous tributaries, follows a
crooked channel some thirteen hundred and fifty-five miles to the Gulf
of Mexico. The Missouri, therefore, has a total length of four
thousand three hundred and sixty-three miles, without counting some of
its highest sources.
The learned Professor A. Guyot, in a treatise on physical geography,
written for "A. J. Johnson's New Illustrated Family Atlas of the
World," informs us that the Amazon River, the great drainer of the
eastern Andes, is three thousand five hundred and fifty miles long,
and is the LONGEST RIVER IN THE WORLD.
According to the figures used by me in reference to the Missouri and
Mississippi, and which are the results of actual observations made by
competent engineers, the reader will find, notwithstanding the
statements made by our best geographers in regard to the length of the
Amazon, that there is one river within the confines of our country
which is eight hundred and thirteen miles longer than the Amazon, and
is the longest though not the widest river in the world. The rivers of
what is now called the Mississippi Basin drain one million two hundred
and forty-four thousand square miles of territory, while the broader
Amazon, with its many tributaries, drains the much larger area of two
million two hundred and seventy-five thousand square miles.
A century after the Spaniard, De Soto, had discovered the lower
Mississippi, and had been interred in its bed, a French interpreter,
of "Three Rivers," on the northern bank of the St. Lawrence River,
named Jean Nicollet, explored one of the northern tributaries of the
Mississippi. This was about the year 1639.
It was reserved for La Salle to make the first thorough exploration of
the Mississippi. A few months after he had returned, alone, from his
examination of the Ohio as far as the falls at Louisville, in 1669-70,
this undaunted man followed the Great Lakes of the north to the
western shore of Lake Michigan, and making a portage to a river,
"evidently the Illinois," traversed it to its intersection with
another river, "flowing from the north-west to the south-east," which
river must have been the Mississippi, and which it is affirmed La
Salle descended to the thirty-sixth degree of latitude, when he became
convinced that this unexplored stream discharged itself, not into the
Gulf of California, but into the Gulf of Mexico. So La Salle was the
discoverer of the Illinois as well as of the Ohio; and during his
subsequent visits to the Mississippi gave that river a thorough
exploration.
My entrance to the Mississippi River was marked by the advent of
severe squalls of wind and rain, which drove me about noon to the
shelter of Island No. 1, where I dined, and where in half an hour the
sun came out in all its glory. Many peculiar features of the
Mississippi attracted my notice. Sand bars appeared above the water,
and large flocks of ducks and geese rested upon them. Later, the high
Chickasaw Bluff, the first and highest of a series which rise at
intervals, like islands out of the low bottoms as far south as
Natchez, came into view on the left side of the river. The mound-
builders of past ages used these natural fortresses to hold at bay the
fierce tribes of the north, and long afterward this Chickasaw Bluff
played a conspicuous part in the civil war between the states.
Columbus, a small village, and the terminus of a railroad, is at the
foot of the heights.
A little lower down, and opposite Chalk Bluff, was a heavily wooded
island, a part of the territory of the state of Illinois, and known as
Wolf Island, or Island No. 5. At five o'clock in the afternoon I ran
into a little thoroughfare on the eastern side of this island, and
moored the duck-boat under its muddy banks. The wind increased to a
gale before morning, and kept me through the entire day, and until the
following morning, an unwilling captive. Reading and cooking helped to
while away the heavy hours, but having burned up all the dry wood I
could find, I was forced to seek other quarters, which were found in a
romantic stream that flowed out of a swamp and joined the Mississippi
just one mile above Hickman, on the Kentucky side. Having passed a
comfortable night, and making an early start without breakfast, I
rowed rapidly over a smooth current to the stream called Bayou du
Chien Creek, in which I made a very attractive camp among the giant
sycamores, sweet-gums, and cotton-woods. The warm sunshine penetrated
into this sheltered spot, while the wind had fallen to a gentle
zephyr, and came in refreshing puffs through the lofty trees. Here
birds were numerous, and briskly hopped about my fire while I made an
omelet and boiled some wheaten grits.
[Meeting with the parakeets.]
In this retired haunt of the birds I remained through the whole of
that sunny Sunday, cooking my three meals, and reading my Bible, as
became a civilized man. While enjoying this immunity from the
disturbing elements of the great public thoroughfare, the river,
curious cries were borne upon the wind above the tall tree-tops like
the chattering calls of parrots, to which my ear had become accustomed
in the tropical forests of Cuba. As the noise grew louder with the
approach of a feathered flock of visitors, and the screams of the
birds became more discordant, I peered through the branches of the
forest to catch a glimpse of what I had searched for through many
hundred miles of wilderness since my boyhood, but what had so far
eluded my eager eyes. I felt certain these strange cries must come
from the Carolina Parrot, or Parakeet (Conurus Carolinensis), which,
though once numerous in all the country west of the Alleghanies as far
north as the southern shores of the Great Lakes, has so rapidly
diminished in number since 1825, that we find it only as an occasional
inhabitant of the middle states south of the Ohio River. In fact, this
species is now chiefly confined to Florida, western Louisiana, Texas,
Arkansas, and the Indian Territory. That careful and reliable
ornithologist, Dr. Elliot Coues, seems to doubt whether it is now
entitled to a place in the avi-fauna of South Carolina, where it was
once found in large flocks.
The birds soon reached the locality of my camp, and circling through
the clear, warm atmosphere above the tree-tops, they gradually settled
lower and lower, suspiciously scanning my fire, screaming as though
their little throats would burst, while the sunlight seemed to fill
the air with the reflections of the green, gold, and carmine of their
brilliant plumage. They dropped into the foliage of the grove, and for
a moment were as quiet as though life had departed from them, while I
kept close to my hiding-place behind an immense fallen tree, from
beneath which I could watch my feathery guests.
The bodies of the adult birds were emerald green, with bright blue
reflections. The heads were yellow, excepting the forehead and cheeks,
which were scarlet. The large, thick, and hooked bill was white, as
well as the bare orbital space around the eye. The feet were a light
flesh-color. The length from tip of bill to end of tail was about
fourteen inches. The young birds could be easily distinguished from
the adults by their short tails and the uniform coat of green, while
in some cases the frontlet of scarlet was just beginning to show
itself. The adult males were longer than the females.
The Carolina Parrot does not put on its bright-yellow hues until the
second season, and its most brilliant tints do not come to perfection
until the bird is fully two years old. They feed upon the seeds of the
cockle-burrs, which grow in abandoned fields of the planter, as well
as upon fruits of all kinds, much of which they waste in their
uneconomical method of eating. The low alluvial bottom-lands of the
river, where pecan and beech nuts abound, are their favorite hunting-
grounds.
It is singular that Alexander Wilson, and, in fact, all the
naturalists, except Audubon, who have written about this interesting
bird, have failed to examine its nest and eggs. By the unsatisfactory
manner in which Audubon refers to the nidification of this parakeet,
one is led to believe that even he did not become personally
acquainted with its breeding habits.
The offer by Mr. Maynard of one dollar for every parrot's egg
delivered to him, induced a Florida cracker to cut a path into a dense
cypress swamp at Dunn's Lake, about the middle of the month of June.
The hunter was occupied three days in the enterprise, and returned
much disgusted with the job. He had found the nests of the parakeets
in the hollow cypress-trees of the swamp, but he was too late to
secure the eggs, as they were hatched, and the nests filled with young
birds. The number of young in each nest seemed to leave no doubt of
the fact of several adults nesting in one hole. Probably the eggs are
laid about the last of May.
These birds are extremely gregarious, and have been seen at sunset to
cluster upon the trunk of a gigantic cypress like a swarm of bees. One
after another slowly crawls through a hole into the cavity until it is
filled up, while those who are not so fortunate as to obtain entrance,
or reserved seats, cling to the outside of the trunk with their claws,
and keep their position through the night chiefly by hooking the tip
of the upper mandible of the beak into the bark of the tree. The
backwoodsmen confidently assert that they have found as many as twenty
eggs of a greenish white in a single hollow of a cypress-tree; and as
it is generally supposed, judging from the known habits of other
species of this genus, that the Carolina Parrot lays only two eggs,
but few naturalists doubt that these birds nest in companies. It is a
very difficult task to find the nests of parrots in the West Indies,
some of them building in the hollowed top of the dead trunk of a royal
palm which has been denuded of its branches; and there, upon the
unprotected summit of a single column eighty feet in height, without
any shelter from tropical storms, the Cuban Parrot rears its young.
The Carolina Parrot is the only one of this species which may truly be
said to be a permanent resident of our country. The Mexican species
are sometimes met with along the southwestern boundaries of the United
States, but they emigrate only a few miles northward of their own
regions. The salt-licks in the great button-wood bottoms along the
Mississippi were once the favorite resorts of these birds, and they
delighted to drink the saline water. It is to be regretted that so
interesting a bird should have been so ruthlessly slaughtered where
they were once so numerous. Only the young birds are fit to eat, but
we read in the accounts of our pioneer naturalists that from eight to
twenty birds were often killed by the single discharge of a gun, and
that as the survivors would again and again return to the lurking-
place of their destroyer, attracted by the distressing cries of their
wounded comrades, the unfeeling sportsman would continue his work of
destruction until more than half of a large flock would be
exterminated. This interesting parakeet may, during the next century,
pass out of existence, and be known to our descendants as the Great
Auk (Alca impennis) is now known to us, as a very rare specimen in the
museums of natural history.
On Monday, January 3, I rowed out of the Bayou du Chien, and soon
reached the town of Hickman, Kentucky, where I invested in a basketful
of mince-pies, that deleterious compound so dear to every American
heart. A large flatboat, built upon the most primitive principles, and
without cabin of any kind, was leaving the landing, evidently bound on
a fishing-cruise, for her hold was filled with long nets and barrels
of provisions. A large roll of canvas, to be used as a protection
against rain, was stowed in one end of the odd craft, while at the
other end was a large and very rusty cooking-stove, with a joint of
pipe rising above it. The crew of fishermen labored at a pair of long
sweeps until the flat reached the strong current, when they took in
their oars, and, clustering about the stove, filled their pipes, and
were soon reclining at their ease on the pile of nets, apparently as
well satisfied with their tub as Diogenes was with his. As I rowed
past them, they roused themselves into some semblance of interest, and
gazed upon the little white boat, so like a pumpkin-seed in shape,
which soon passed from their view as it disappeared down the wide
Mississippi.
There was something in the appearance of that rough flatboat that made
me wish I had hailed her quiet crew; for, strange to say, they did not
send after me a shower of slang phrases and uncouth criticisms, the
usual prelude to conversation among flatboat-men when they desire to
cultivate the acquaintance of a fellow-voyager. In fact, it was rather
startling not to have the usual greeting, and I wondered why I heard
no friendly expressions, such as, "Here, you river thief, haul
alongside and report yourself! Whar did you come from? Come and take a
pull at the bottle! It's prime stuff, I tell ye; will kill a man at
forty paces," &c. The rusty stove was as strong an attraction as the
quiet crew, as I thought how convenient it would be to run alongside
of the old boat and utilize it for my culinary purposes. The unwonted
silence, however, proved conclusively that some refined instinct,
unknown to the usual crews of such boats, governed these voyagers, and
I feared to intrude upon so dignified a party.
Descending a long straight reach, after making a run of twenty-three
miles, I crossed the limits of Kentucky, and, entering Tennessee, saw
on its shore, in a deep bend of the river, the site of a
fortification, while opposite to it lay the low Island No. 10. Both of
these places were full of interest, being the scenes of conflict in
our civil war. The little white sneak-box glided down another long
bend, over the wrecks of seven steamboats, and passed New Madrid, on
the Missouri shore. The mouth of Reelfoot Bayou then opened before me,
a creek which conducts the waters from the weird recesses of one of
the most interesting lakes in America,--a lake which was the immediate
result of a disastrous series of disturbances generally referred to as
the New Madrid earthquakes, and which took place in 1811-13. Much of
the country in the vicinity of New Madrid and Fort Donaldson was
involved in these serious shocks. Swamps were upheaved and converted
into dry uplands, while cultivated uplands were depressed below the
average water level, and became swamps or ponds of water. 'The
inhabitants, deprived of their little farms, were reduced to such a
stage of suffering as to call for aid from government, and new lands
were granted them in place of their fields which had sunk out of
sight. Hundreds of square miles of territory were lost during the two
years of terrestrial convulsions.
The most interesting effect of the subsidence of the land was the
creation of Reelfoot Lake, the fluvial entrance to which is from the
tortuous Mississippi some forty-five miles below Hickman, Kentucky.
The northern portion of the lake is west of and a short distance from
Fort Donaldson, about twenty miles from Hickman, by the river route.
As Reelfoot Lake possesses the peculiar flora and characteristics of a
multitude of other swamp-lakes throughout the wilderness of the lower
Mississippi valley, I cannot better describe them all than by giving
to the reader a description of that lake, written by an intelligent
observer who visited the locality in 1874.
"Nothing," he says, "could well exceed the singularity of the view
that meets the eye as one comes out of the shadows of the forest on to
the border of this sheet of water. From the marshy shore spreads out
the vast extent of the seemingly level carpet of vegetation,--a mat of
plants, studded over with a host of beautiful flowers; through this
green prairie runs a maze of water-ways, some just wide enough for a
pirogue, some widening into pools of darkened water. All over this
expanse rise the trunks of gigantic cypresses, shorn of all their
limbs, and left like great obelisks, scattered so thickly that the
distance is lost in the forest of spires. Some are whitened and some
blackened by decay and fire; many rise to a hundred feet or more above
the lake. The branches are all gone, save in a few more gigantic
forms, whose fantastic remnants of the old forest arches add to the
illusion of monumental ruin which forces itself on the mind. The
singularity of the general effect is quite matched by the wonder of
the detail.
"Taking the solitary dug-out canoe, or pirogue, as it is called in the
vernacular, we paddled out into the tangle of water-paths. The green
carpet, studded with yellow and white, that we saw from the shores,
resolved itself into a marvellously beautiful and varied vegetation.
From the tangle of curious forms the eye selects two noble flowers:
our familiar northern water-lily, grown to a royal form, its flowers
ten inches broad, and its floating pads near a foot across; and
another grander flower, the Wampapin lily, the queen of American
flowers. It is worth a long journey to see this shy denizen of our
swamps in its full beauty. From the midst of its great floating
leaves, which are two feet or more in diameter, rise two large leaves
borne upon stout foot-stalks that bring them a yard above the water;
from between these elevated leaves rises to a still greater height the
stem of the flower. The corolla itself is a gold-colored cup a foot in
diameter, lily-like in a general way, but with a large pestle-shaped
ovary rising in the centre of the flower, in which are planted a
number of large seeds, the 'pins' of Wampapin. These huge golden cups
are poised on their stems, and wave in the breeze above great wheel-
like leaves, while the innumerable white lilies fill in the spaces
between, and enrich the air with their perfume.
"Slowly we crept through the tangled paths until we were beyond the
sight of shore, in the perfect silence of this vast ruined temple, on
every side the endless obelisks of the decaying cypress, and as far as
the eye could see were ranged the numberless nodding bells of the
yellow lilies, and the still-eyed white stars below them. While we
waited in the coming evening, the silence was so deep, the whir of a
bald eagle's wings, as he swept through the air, was audible from
afar. The lonely creature sat on the peak of one of the wooden towers
over our boat, and looked curiously down upon us. The waters seemed
full of fish, and, indeed, the lake has much celebrity as a place for
such game. We could see them creeping through the mazes of the water-
forest, in a slow, blind way, not a bit like the dance of the northern
creatures of the active waters of our mountain streams.
"There is something of forgetfulness in such a scene, a sense of a
world far away, with no path back to it. One might fall to eating our
Wampapin lily, as did the Chickasaws of old, and find in it the all-
forgetting lotus, for it is, indeed, the brother of the lotus of the
Nile. We do not know how far these forgotten savages found the mystic
influence of the Nilotic lotus in these queenly flowers of the swamps,
but tradition says that they ate not only the seeds, but the bulbous
roots, which the natives aver are quite edible. So we, too, can claim
a lotus-eating race, and are even able to try the soul-subduing powers
of the plant at our will.
"There is something in the weight of life and death in these swamps
that subdues the mind, and makes the steps we take fall as in a dream.
It was not easy to fix a basis for memory with the pencil, and
recollection shapes a vast sensation of strangeness, a feeling as if
one had trod for a moment beyond the brink of time, rather than any
distinct images."
At sunset I came upon Joe Eckel's Bar,--not the fluvial establishment
so much resorted to by people ashore,--but a genuine Mississippi
sandbar, or shoal, which was covered with two feet of water, and
afforded lodgment for a heavy raft of trees that had floated upon it.
The island was also partly submerged, but I found a cove with a sandy
beach on its lower end; and running into the little bay, I staked the
boat in one foot of water, much to the annoyance of flocks of wild-
fowl which circled about me at intervals all night. The current had
been turbid during the day, and to supply myself with drinking-water
it was necessary to fill a can from the river and wait for the
sediment to precipitate itself before it was fit for use. Fifty-six
miles were logged for the day's row.
In the morning Joe Eckel's Bar was alive with geese and ducks,
cackling a lusty farewell as I pushed through the drift stuff and
resumed my voyage down the swelling river.
The reaches were usually five miles in length, though some of them
were very much longer. Sometimes deposits of sand and vegetable matter
will build up a small island adjacent to a large one, and then a dense
thicket of cotton-wood brush takes possession of it, and assists
materially in resisting the encroachments of the current. These
little, low islands, covered with thickets, are called tow-heads, and
the maps of the Engineer Corps of the United States distinguish them
from the originally numbered islands in the following manner: "Island
No. 18," and "Tow Head of Island No.18."
In addition to the numbered islands, which commence with Island No. 1,
below the mouth of the Ohio, and end with Island No. 125, above the
inlet to Bayou La Fourche, in Louisiana, there are many which have
been named after their owners. During one generation a planter may
live upon a peninsula comprising many thousand acres, with his cotton-
fields and houses fronting on the Mississippi. The treacherous current
of this river may suddenly cut a new way across his estate inland at a
distance of two miles from his home. As the gradual change goes on, he
looks from the windows of his house upon a new scene. He no longer has
the rapid flowing river, enlivened by the passage of steamboats and
other craft; but before him is a sombre bayou, or crescent-shaped
lake, whose muddy waters are almost motionless. He was the proprietor
of Needham's Point, he is now the owner of Needham's Island, and lives
in the quiet atmosphere of the backwoods of Tennessee.
This day's row carried me past heavily-wooded shores, cotton-fields
with some of the cotton still unpicked; past the limits of Missouri on
the left side, and into the wild state of Arkansas at Island No. 21. I
finally camped on Island No. 26, in a half submerged thicket, after a
row of fifty-eight miles.
As there were many flat and shanty boats floating southward, I adopted
a plan by means of which my dinners were frequently cooked with little
trouble to myself or others. About an hour before noon I gazed about
within the narrow horizon for one of those floating habitations, and
rowing alongside, engaged in conversation with its occupants. The men
would tell what success they had had in collecting the skins of wild
animals (though silent upon the subject of pig-stealing), while the
women would talk of the homes they had left, and sigh for the
refinements and comforts of "city life," by which they meant their
former existence in some small town on the upper river. While we were
exchanging our budgets of information I would obtain the consent of
the presiding goddess of the boat to stew my ambrosia upon her stove,
the sneak-box floating the while alongside its tub-like companion.
Many a half hour was spent in this way; and, besides the comfort of a
hot dinner, there were advantages afforded for the study of characters
not to be found elsewhere.
These peculiar boats, so often encountered, found refuge in the
frequent cut-offs behind the many islands of the river; for besides
those islands which have been numbered, new ones are forming every
year. At times, when the water is very high, the current will cut a
new route across the low isthmus, or neck, of a peninsula, around
which sweeps a long reach of the main channel, leaving the tortuous
bend which it has deserted to be gradually filled up with snags,
deposits of alluvium, and finally to be carpeted with a vegetable
growth. In some cases, as the stream works away to the eastward or
westward, it remains an inland crescent-shaped lake, numbers of which
are to be found in the wilderness many miles from the parent stream. I
have known the channel of the Mississippi to be shortened twenty miles
during a freshet, and a steam-boat which had followed the great ox-bow
bend in ascending the river, on its return trip shot through the new
cut-off of a few hundred feet in length, upon fifteen feet of water
where a fortnight before a forest had been growing.
The area of land on both sides of the Mississippi subjected to annual
overflow, like the country surrounding the Nile, in Egypt, is very
large. There are localities thirty or forty miles away from the river
where the height of the overflow of the previous year is plainly
registered upon the trunks of the trees by a coating of yellow mud,
which sometimes reaches as high as a man's head. This great region
possesses vast tracts of rich land, as well as millions of acres of
low swamps and bayou bottoms.
The traveller, the hunter, the zologist, and the botanist can all
find here in these rich river bottoms a ready reward for any
inconveniences experienced on the route. Strange types of half-
civilized whites, game enough to satisfy the most rapacious, beast and
bird of peculiar species, and over all the immense forests of cypress,
sweet-gums, Spanish-oaks, tulip-trees, sycamores, cotton-woods, white-
oaks, &c., while the most delicate wild-flowers "waste their sweetness
on the desert air." Across all this natural beauty the whisper of
desolation casts a cloud, for here during most of the year arises the
health-destroying malaria.
Upon the high lands the squatter builds his log cabin, and makes his
clearing where the rich soil and warm sun assist his rude agricultural
labors, and he is rewarded with a large crop of maize and sweet
potatoes. These, with bacon from his herd of wandering pigs, give
sustenance to his family of children, who, hatless and bonnetless,
roam through the woods until the sun bleaches their hair to the color
of flax. With tobacco, whiskey, and ammunition for himself, and an
ample supply of snuff for his wife, he drags out an indolent
existence; but he is the pioneer of American civilization, and as he
migrates every few years to a more western wilderness, his lands are
frequently occupied by a more intelligent and industrious class, and
his improvements are improved upon. The new-comer, with greater
ambition and more ample means, raises cotton instead of corn, and
depends upon the Ohio valley for a supply of that cereal.
Wednesday, January 5th, was a sunny and windy day. The Arkansas shores
afforded me a protection from the wind as I rowed down towards Fort
Pillow, which, according to the map of the United States Engineer
Corps, is situated upon Chickasaw Bluff No. 1, though some writers and
map-makers designate the Columbus Bluff, below the mouth of the Ohio,
as the first Chickasaw Bluff. The site of Fort Pillow is about thirty
feet above the water. It commands the low country opposite, and two
reaches of the river for a long distance. A little below the fort, on
the right bank of the river, was an extensive cotton-field, still
white with the flossy cellulose. Here I landed under the shady trees,
and gathered cotton, the result of peaceful labor. Truly had the sword
been beaten into the ploughshare, and the spear into a pruning-hook,
for above me frowned down Fort Pillow, the scene of the terrible negro
massacre in our late war. Now the same sun shone so brightly upon the
graves scattered here and there, and warmed into life the harvest sown
in peace.
At intervals I caught glimpses of negro cabins, with their clearings,
and their little crops of cotton glistening in the sun. The island
tow-heads and sand-bars were numerous, and in places the Mississippi
broadened into lake-like areas, while the yellow current, now heavily
charged with mud, arose in height every hour. The climate was growing
delightful. It was like a June day in the northern states. Each soft
breeze of the balmy atmosphere seemed to say, as I felt its strange,
fascinating influence, "You are nearing the goal!" The shadows of the
twilight found me safely ensconced behind the lower end of Island No.
33, where in the bayou between it and the Tennessee shore I lazily
watched fair Luna softly emerging from the clouds, and lending to the
grand old woods her tender light.
I proceeded southward the next day, rowing comfortably after having
divested myself of all superfluous apparel. The negroes, on their one-
horse plantations, gave a hearty hail as I passed, but I noted here a
feature I had remarked when upon my "Voyage of the Paper Canoe," on
the eastern coast. It was the silence in which these people worked.
The merry song of the darky was no longer heard as in the "auld lang
syne." Then he was the slave of a white master. Now he is the slave of
responsibilities and cares which press heavily upon his heretofore
unthinking nature. To-day he has a future IF he can make it.
During the day, a lone woman on a shanty-boat, which was securely
fastened to an old stump, volunteered much information in regard "her
man," and the money he expected to receive for the skins he had been
collecting during the winter. She said he would get in New Orleans
thirty-five cents apiece for his coon-skins, one dollar for minks, and
one dollar and a half each for beaver and otter skins. She informed me
that the sunken country below Memphis, on the Arkansas side, was full
of deer and bears.
By rowing briskly I was able to pass Memphis, the principal river port
of Tennessee, at five o'clock in the afternoon. This flourishing city
is situated upon one of the Chickasaw bluffs, thirty feet above the
river. At the base of the bluff a bed of sandstone projects into the
water, it being the only known stratum of rock along the river between
Cairo and the Gulf. From the Ohio River to Vicksburg, a distance of
six hundred miles, it is asserted that there is no other site for a
commercial city: so Memphis, though isolated, enjoys this advantage,
which has, in fact, made her the busy cotton-shipping port she is to-
day. Her population is about forty thousand. As Memphis is connected
by railroads with the towns and villages of all the back country, in
addition to her water advantages, she may be called the business
centre of an immense area of cultivated land. The view of the city
from the river is striking. Her esplanade, several hundred feet in
width, sweeps along the bluffs and is covered with large warehouses.
Pushing steadily southward, I looked out anxiously for a good camping-
ground for the night, feeling that a rest had been well earned, for I
had rowed sixty-one miles that day. Soon after passing Horn Lake Bend,
the thickets of Crow Island attracted my attention, for along the
muddy, crumbling bank the mast of a little sloop arose from the water,
and a few feet inland the bright blaze of a camp-fire shone through
the mists of evening. A cheery hail of; "I say, stranger, pull in, and
tie up here," came from a group of three roughly-clad men, who were
bending over the coals, busily engaged in frying salt pork and
potatoes. The swift current forced me into an eddy close to the camp.
One of the men caught my painter, and drew me close under the lee of
their roughly constructed sloop of about two tons' burden. When seated
by the bright fire, "the boys" told me their history. They were out of
work; so, investing sixty dollars in an old sloop, putting on board a
barrel of pork, a barrel of flour, some potatoes, coffee, salt, and
molasses, (which cargo was to last three months,) they started to cut
canes in the canebrakes of White River, Arkansas. These canes were to
be utilized as fishing-poles, and being carefully assorted and
fastened into bundles, were to be shipped to Cincinnati by steamer,
and from there by rail to Cleveland, Ohio, where Mr. Farrar, their
consignee, would dispose of them for the party. They had come down the
Mississippi from Keokuk, Iowa, having left that place December 13th,
and had experienced various delays, having several times been frozen
up in creeks. They would be able to cut, during the winter, twenty-
five thousand fishing-rods, enough, one would think, to clear the
streams of all the finny tribe. Mr. F. C. Stirling, of Painesville,
Ohio, was the principal of the party, and I found him an unusually
intelligent young man. He had passed the previous winter alone upon
White River in an experimental sort of way, and had succeeded in
obtaining the finest lot of fishing-rods that had ever been sent
north.
There was so much to be talked about, and so many experiences in
voyaging to be exchanged, that we decided to remain that night on Crow
Island, as there was not much risk of. my being deluged by the passing
steamers, for it was evident that the steamboat channel hugged the
bank of the opposite side of the river. I took ashore chocolate,
canned milk, white sugar, and some of the Hickman mince-pies, while
the boys rolled logs of wood on to the fire, and buried potatoes in
the hot ashes. Stirling went to work at bread-making, and putting his
dough in one of those flat-bottomed, three-legged, iron-covered
vessels, which my reader will now recognize as the bake-pan, or Dutch
oven, placed it on the coals, and loaded its cover with hot embers.
The potatoes were soon baked, and possessed a mealiness not usually
found in those served up by the family cook. Stirling's bread was a
success, and my chocolate disappeared down the throats of the hearty
western boys as fast as its scalding temperature would admit.
Stirling told me of his life during the previous winter in the swamps
of White River. On one occasion, a steamer having lost her anchor near
his locality, the captain of the boat offered to reward Stirling
liberally if he would recover the lost property; so, while the captain
was making his up-river trip, the Ohio boy worked industriously
dredging for the cable. He found it; and under-running the heavy rope,
raised it and the anchor. When the steamer returned to Beteley's
Landing, Stirling delivered the anchor and coil of rope to the
captain, who, intending to defraud the young man of the promised
reward, ordered the mate to "cast off the lines." The gong had
signa
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