One day in the spring of 1881, after having finished the business that had called me to St. Paul from my home in River Falls, Wisconsin (where I was a railway agent and newspaper proprietor combined), I was loafing about the Grand Central Station, killing time until my train should be ready to start. The big whistle of a big boat drew me to the adjacent wharf of the Diamond Jo Line. The craft proved to be the "Mary Morton". As soon as the lines were fast, the stages in position, and the first rush of passengers ashore, I walked aboard and up to the office. A small man, past middle life, his hair somewhat gray, was writing in a big book which I recognized as the passenger journal. By the same token I realized that I was in the presence of the chief clerk, even if I had not already seen the "mud" clerk hard at work on the levee, checking out freight. I spoke to the occupant of the office, and after a few questions and counter questions I learned that he was Charley Mathers, who had been on the river before 1860 as chief clerk, and he in turn learned my name and former standing on the river. From him I learned that the chief pilot of the steamer was Thomas Burns. It did not take a great while to get up to the pilot house. I would not have known my old chief had I not been posted in advance by Mr. Mathers. This man was grey instead of brown, and had big whiskers, which the old Tom did not have. He was sitting on the bench, smoking his pipe and reading a book. He looked up as I entered, and questioned with his eyes what the intrusion might mean, but waited until I should state my business. It took some minutes to establish my identity; but when I did I received a cordial welcome.

And then we talked of old times and new, and war times too—for he had gone out as captain in an Illinois regiment at the same time that I went out as a Wisconsin soldier. From a pilot's view point the old times were simply marvelous as compared with the present. A hundred and fifty dollars a month, now, as against six hundred then; and a "wild" pilot, picking up seventeen hundred dollars in one month as was done by one man in 1857. Now he couldn't catch a wild boat if he waited the season through—there are none. We went over the river, the steamboats, and the men as we knew them in 1860; and then we went down below and hunted up George McDonald, the good old Scotchman, who never swore at you through the speaking tube, no matter how many bells you gave him in a minute, and who never got rattled, however fast you might send them; who never carried more steam than the license called for, and who never missed a day's duty. The same banter had to be gone through with, with the same result—he had forgotten the slim youth who "shipped up" for him twenty years ago, but whom he promptly recalled when given a clue. And then, it being train time, we all walked across to the station and Burns invited me to take a trip with him, next time, down to St. Louis and back, and work my way at the wheel.

I knew that I had not yet been weaned from the spokes, and doubted if I ever should be. I said that I would try, and I did. I filed an application for the first leave of absence I had ever asked for from the railroad company, and it was granted. I found a man to assist the "devil" in getting out my paper, he doing the editing for pure love of editing, if not from love of the editor. We set our house in order, packed our trunk and grips, and when the specified fortnight was ended, we (my wife, my daughter, and myself) were comfortably bestowed in adjoining staterooms in the ladies' cabin of the "Mary Morton", and I was fidgeting about the boat, watching men "do things" as I had been taught, or had seen others do, twenty years ago or more.

The big Irish mate bullied his crew of forty "niggers", driving them with familiar oaths, to redoubled efforts in getting in the "last" packages of freight, which never reached the last. Among the rest, in that half hour, I saw barrels of mess pork—a whole car load of it, which the "nigger" engine was striking down into the hold. Shades of Abraham! pork out of St. Paul! Twenty years before, I had checked out a whole barge load (three hundred barrels) through from Cincinnati, by way of Cairo. Cincinnati was the great porkopolis of the world, while Chicago was yet keeping its pigs in each back yard, and every freeholder "made" his own winter's supply of pork for himself. The steward in charge of the baggage was always in the way with a big trunk on the gangway, just as of old. The engineers were trying their steam, and slowly turning the wheel over, with the waste cocks open, to clear the cylinders of water. The firemen were coaxing the beds of coal into fiercer heats. The chief clerk compared the tickets which were presented by hurrying passengers, with the reservation sheet, and assigned rooms, all "the best", to others who had no reservations. The "mud" clerk checked his barrels and boxes, and scribbled his name fiercely and with many flourishes to last receipts. The pilot on watch, Mr. Burns, sat on the window ledge in the pilot house, and waited. The captain stood by the big bell, and listened for the "All ready, Sir!" of the mate. As the words were spoken, the great bell boomed out one stroke, the lines slacked away and were thrown off the snubbing posts. A wave of the captain's hand, a pull at one of the knobs on the wheel-frame, the jingle of a bell far below, the shiver of the boat as the great wheel began its work, and the bow of the "Mary Morton" swung to the south; a couple of pulls at the bell-ropes, and the wheel was revolving ahead; in a minute more the escape pipes told us that she was "hooked up", and with full steam ahead we were on our way to St. Louis. And I was again in the pilot house with my old chief, who bade me "show us what sort of an education you had when a youngster".

Despite my forty years I was a boy again, and Tom Burns was the critical chief, sitting back on the bench with his pipe alight, a comical smile oozing out of the corners of mouth and eyes, for all the world like the teacher of old.

The very first minute I met the swing of the gang-plank derrick (there is no jack staff on the modern steamboat, more's the pity), with two or three spokes when one would have been a plenty, yawing the boat round "like a toad in a hailstorm", as I was advised. I could feel the hot blood rushing to my cheeks, just as it did twenty years before under similar provocation, when the eye of the master was upon me. I turned around and 243 244 found that Mr. Burns had taken it in, and we both laughed like boys—as I fancy both of us were for the time.

But I got used to it very soon, getting the "feel of it", and as the "Mary Morton" steered like a daisy I lined out a very respectable wake; although Tom tried to puzzle me a good deal with questions as to the landmarks, most of which I had forgotten save in a general way.

When eight bells struck, Mr. Link, Mr. Burns's partner, came into the pilot house; that let me out, and after an introduction by Mr. Burns, Mr. Link took the wheel. He was a young man, of perhaps thirty years of age. We lingered a few minutes to watch him skilfully run Pig's Eye, and then went down to dinner, and had introductions all around—to Captain Boland, Mr. Mathers, Mr. McDonald, and other officers.

I took the wheel again, later in the afternoon. It was easy steering, and there was no way of getting out of the channel, for a time; and later I found that some things were taking on a familiar look—that I had not forgotten all of the river, and things were shaping themselves, as each new point or bend was reached, so that very little prompting was necessary.

I had the wheel from Pine Bend to Hastings, where I was given permission to step on the end of a board lever fixed in the floor of the pilot house, on one side of the wheel, and give the signal of the Diamond Jo Line for the landing—two long blasts, followed by three short ones. Here was another innovation. In old times you had to hold your wheel with one hand while you pulled a rope to blow for a landing, which was sometimes a little awkward. This was a very little thing, but it went with the landing-stage derrick, the electric search-light, and a score of other improvements that had come aboard since I walked ashore two decades before.

A mile or two below Hastings I saw the "break" on the surface of the water which marked the resting-place of the "Fanny Harris", on which I had spent so many months of hard work, but which, looked back upon through the haze of twenty years, now seemed to have been nothing but holiday excursions.

At Prescott I looked on the familiar water front, and into the attic windows where with my brother I had so often in the night watches studied the characteristics of boats landing at the levee. Going ashore I met many old-time friends, among whom was Charles Barnes, agent of the Diamond Jo Line, who had occupied the same office on the levee since 1858, and had met every steamboat touching the landing during all those years. He was the Nestor of the profession, and was one of the very few agents still doing business on the water front who had begun such work prior to 1860. Since then, within a few years past, he also has gone, and that by an accident, while still in the performance of duties connected with the steamboat business.

Dropping rapidly down the river, we passed Diamond Bluff without stopping, but rounded to at Red Wing for passengers and freight, and afterward headed into a big sea on Lake Pepin, kicked up by the high south wind that was still blowing. We landed under the lee of the sand-spit at Lake City, and after getting away spent the better part of an hour in picking up a barge load of wheat, that was anchored out in the lake.

By a wise provision of the rules for the government of pilots, adopted since I left the river, no one is permitted in the pilot house except the pilot on watch, or his partner, after the sidelights have been put up. For this reason I could not occupy my chosen place at the wheel after sunset; but I found enough to occupy my time down below in the engine-room, watching the great pitman walk out and in, to and from the crank-shaft, listening to the rush of the water alongside as it broke into a great wave on either side, and to the churning of the wheel, and all the while discussing old times with George McDonald. As the wind was still high and the water rough, I had an opportunity to see Mr. McDonald answer bells, which came thick and furious for a good while before we were well fast to the levee at Reed's Landing. There was no excitement, however, and no rushing from side to side as in the old days, to "ship up". He stood amidship, his hand on the reversing bar, just as a locomotive engineer sits with his hand on the bar of his engine. When the bell rang to set her back, he pulled his lever full back, and then opened his throttle without moving a step. After getting started, and under full way, he simply "hooked her back" three or four notches, and the old-time "short link" operation had been performed without taking a step. A great advance in twenty years! But why wasn't it thought of fifty years ago? I don't know. The same principle had been in use on locomotives from the start. It is simple enough now, on steamboat engines. Perhaps none of the old-timers thought of it.

I turned in at an early hour, and lay in the upper berth, listening to the cinders skating over the roof a couple of feet above my face, and translating the familiar sounds that reached me from engine-room and roof—the call for the draw at the railroad bridge, below the landing; the signal for landing at Wabasha; the slow bell, the stopping-bell, the backing-bell, and a dozen or twenty unclassified bells, before the landing was fully accomplished; the engineer trying the water in the boilers; the rattle of the slice-bars on the sides of the furnace doors as the firemen trimmed their fires; and one new and unfamiliar sound from the engine-room—the rapid exhaust of the little engine driving the electric generator, the only intruder among the otherwise familiar noises, all of which came to my sleepy senses as a lullaby.

I listened for anything which might indicate the passage of the once dreaded Beef Slough bar, but beyond the labored breathing of the engines, that at times indicated shoaling water, there was nothing by which to identify our old-time enemy. So listening, I fell asleep.

"Breakfast is ready, sah", was the pleasant proclamation following a gentle rapping on the stateroom door. Very refreshing, this, compared with the sharp manifesto of the olden-days watchman: "Twelve o'clock; turn out"!

The "Morton" was ploughing along between Victory and De Soto. By the time justice had been done to the well-cooked and well-served meal, the boat had touched at the latter port and taken on a few sacks of barley (potential Budweiser), consigned to one of the big St. Louis breweries. Mr. Link was at the wheel, and as a good understanding had been reached the day before, there was no question as to who was going to do the steering. Mr. Link took the bench and talked river as only a lover could talk, while I picked out the course by the aid of diamond boards and ancient landmarks, without asking many questions. A suggestion now and then: "Let her come in a little closer". "Now you may cross over". "Look out for the snag in the next bend", and like cautions were all that was necessary.

And the pleasure of it! The beautiful morning in June, the woods alive with songbirds; the bluffs and islands a perfect green; the river dimpling under the caresses of a gentle breeze, and blushing rosy under the ardent gaze of the morning sun—a picture of loveliness not to be outdone anywhere in the wide world. And then the sense of power that comes to one who has learned to handle a steamboat with a touch of the wheel, in taking a long bend, a mile or more in length, without moving the wheel an inch, the rudders so slightly angled as to guide the boat along the arc of a circle which would be ten miles in diameter, could it be extended to completion, and leaving a wake as true as if drawn by a pair of dividers!

We did not go into Prairie du Chien, but with the glasses the old French town could be discerned across the island and the slough; it claims to be two hundred years old, and it looked its age. Time was when Prairie du Chien, the terminus of the railroad nearest to St. Paul and the upper river, gave promise of being a big city, the outlet and entrepÔt for the trade of a great territory. Her people believed in her, and in her great future. A dozen steamboats might be seen, on many occasions, loading merchandise from the railroad, or unloading grain and produce, in sacks and packages, destined to Milwaukee and Chicago. When I was second clerk I once checked out twenty thousand sacks of wheat in something over thirty-six hours, the cargo of boat and two barges. The wheat now goes through in bulk, in box cars loaded in Iowa and Minnesota, and they do not even change engines at Prairie du Chien, the roundhouse and division terminal being located at McGregor, on the west side of the Mississippi.

At McGregor I saw Joseph Reynolds, at that time owner of five fine steamers, and manager of the Diamond Jo Line. Captain Burns pointed out a man dressed in a dark business suit, sitting on a snubbing post, lazily and apparently indifferently watching the crew handling freight, or looking over the steamer as if it were an unusual and curious sight. He did not speak to any of the officers while we were watching him, and Mr. Burns thought it very unlikely that he would. He did not come on board the boat at all, but sat and whittled the head of the post until we backed out and left him out of sight behind. Mr. Burns allowed that "Jo" was doing a heap of thinking all the time we were watching him, and that he probably did not think of the boat, as a present object of interest, at all.

Joseph Reynolds began his river experience in 1867 with one small boat, carrying his own wheat, and towing a barge when the steamer could not carry it all. When we saw him holding down a snubbing post at McGregor he owned and operated, under the title of the "Diamond Jo Line", the "Mary Morton", "Libbie Conger", "Diamond Jo", "Josephine", and "Josie", all well equipped and handsome steamers. Later, he added the "Sidney", the "Pittsburg", the "St. Paul", and the "Quincy", still larger and better boats.

That night I witnessed for the first time the operation of the electric search-light as an aid to navigation. The night came on dark and stormy, a thunder shower breaking over the river as we were running the devious and dangerous Guttenburg channel, about five or six miles below the town by that name. Instead of straining his eyes out of his head, hunting doubtful landmarks miles away, as we used to do, Mr. Link tooted his little whistle down in the engine-room, and instantly the light was switched on to the lantern at the bow of the boat. Lines running from the pilot house gave perfect control of the light, and it was flashed ahead until it lighted up the diamond boards and other shore-marks by which the crossings were marked and the best water indicated to the pilot. Under a slow bell he worked his way down the ugly piece of river without touching. He had the leads two or three times, just to assure himself, but apparently he could have made it just as well without them.

A mile and a half above the mouth of Turkey River, in the very worst place of all, we found a big log raft in trouble, hung up on the sand, with a steamboat at each end working at it. They occupied so much of the river that it took Mr. Link over an hour to get past the obstruction, the search-light in the meantime turning night into day, and enabling him to look down on the timber and see just where the edge of the raft was. By backing and flanking he finally squeezed past, but not without scraping the sand and taking big chances of getting hung up himself. Coming back, we did hang up for an hour or more in the same place, a mile above the foot of Cassville Slough. Without the aid of the search-light it would have been impossible to have worked the steamer past the raft until daylight came. It is a wonderful aid to navigation, and it is as easy to run crooked places by night as by day, with its assistance.

In St. Louis, after seeing Shaw's Garden and tasting the old French market, the best thing you can do is to go back to the levee and watch the river, the big Eads bridge, the boats, and the darkies. There may be no boats other than the one you came on and are going back upon, but you will not miss seeing the bridge, and you must not miss seeing the darkies. They are worth studying—much better than even imported shrubbery.

There was an Anchor Line boat moored just below us the day we were there, a big side-wheeler, in the New Orleans trade, sixteen hundred tons. The "Mary Morton" was four hundred and fifty, and had shrunk perceptibly since the big liner came alongside. There were two or three other boats, little ones, ferries and traders, sprinkled along the three miles of levee. In 1857 I have seen boats lying two deep, in places, and one deep in every place where it was possible to stick the nose of a steamboat into the levee—boats from New Orleans, from Pittsburg, from the upper Mississippi, from the Missouri, from the Tennessee and the Cumberland, the Red River and the Illinois, loaded with every conceivable description of freight, and the levee itself piled for miles with incoming or outgoing cargoes. Now, it was enough to make one sick at heart. It seemed as if the city had gone to decay. The passage of a train over the bridge every five minutes or less, each way, reassured one on that point, however, and indicated that there was still plenty of traffic, and that it was only the river that was dead, and not the city.

In old times the steamboat crews were comprised principally of white men—that is, deck hands and roustabouts (or stevedores). The firemen may have been darkies, and the cabin crews were more than likely to have been, but the deck crews were generally white. Now, the deck crews are all colored men. They are a happy-go-lucky set, given to strong drink and craps, not to mention some other forms of vice. In old times the crews were hired by the month. The members of a modern deck crew never make two trips consecutively on the same boat. The boat does not lay long enough in St. Louis to give them time to spend ten days' wages, and then get sober enough, or hungry enough, to reship for another trip. Therefore, as soon as the last package of freight is landed, the crew marches to the window of the clerk's office opening out onto the guards, and gets what money is coming to each individual after the barkeeper's checks have been deducted. With this wealth in hand the fellow makes a straight wake for one of the two or three score dives, rum-holes, and bagnios that line the levee. He seldom leaves his favorite inn until his money is gone and he is thrown out by the professional "bouncer" attached to each of these places of entertainment.

The boat does not remain without a crew, however. While one of the clerks is paying off the old crew, another has gone out on the levee with a handful of pasteboard tickets, one for each man he desires to ship for the next round trip to St. Paul. Mounting the tallest snubbing post at hand, he is instantly surrounded by a shouting, laughing, pushing, and sometimes fighting mass of negroes, with an occasional alleged white man. This mob of men are clothed in every conceivable style of rags and tatters, and all are trying to get near the man on the post.

After a minute's delay the clerk cries out: "All set! Stand by"! and gives his handful of tickets a whirl around his head, loosening them a few at a time, and casting them to every point of the compass so as to give all a fair chance to draw a prize. The crowd of would-be "rousters" jump, grab, wrestle, and fight for the coveted tickets, and the man who secures one and fights his way victoriously to the gang plank is at once recorded in the mate's book as one of the crew. The victorious darky comes up the gang plank showing every tooth in his head. It is the best show to be seen in St. Louis.

"Why do they not go out and pick out the best men and hire them in a business-like and Christian-like manner?" inquires the unacclimated tourist.

"Because this is a better and very much quicker way", says the mate, who knows whereof he speaks. "The nigger that can get a ticket, and keep it until he gets to the gang plank, is the nigger for me. He is the 'best man'; if he wasn't he wouldn't get here at all. Some of 'em don't get here—they carry 'em off to the hospital to patch 'em up; sometimes they carry 'em off and plant 'em. There wasn't much of a rush to-day. You ought to see 'em in the early spring, when they are pretty hungry after a winter's freezing and fasting, and they want to get close to a steamboat boiler to get warm. There was not more'n three hundred niggers out there to-day. Last April there was a thousand, and they everlastingly scrapped for a chance to get close to the post. Some of 'em got their 'razzers', and sort of hewed their way in. The clerk got a little shaky himself. He was afraid they might down him and take the whole pack."

"I shouldn't think that you would care to ship the men with 'razzers' as you call them."

"Oh, I don't mind that if they can tote well. Anyway, they all have 'em. They don't use them much on white men, anyhow. And then we look out for them. After we back out from here they will get enough to do to keep them busy. They don't carry any life insurance, and they don't want to fool with white folks, much."

Having watched the mates handling the crew on the down trip one could form a pretty clear judgment why the "niggers" were not solicitous to "fool with" the white men with whom they were in contact while on the river.

That night we steamed across to East St. Louis and took on three thousand kegs of nails for different ports on the upper river. These were carried on the shoulders of the newly-hired deck crew a distance of at least two hundred feet from the railroad freight house to the boat; every one of the forty men "toting" seventy-five kegs, each weighing a hundred and seven pounds. At the conclusion of this exercise it is safe to say that they were glad enough to creep under the boilers so soon as the boat pulled out from the landing. The next morning we were well on our way up the river. I steered most of the daylight watches for Mr. Link all the way upstream. He had a terrible cough, and was very weak, but had the hopefulness which always seems to accompany that dread disease (consumption), that he "would soon get over it". I was glad to relieve him of some hard work, and I was also greatly pleased again to have an opportunity to handle a big boat. Poor fellow, his hopefulness was of no avail. He died at his home in Quincy within two years of that time. We arrived at St. Paul on schedule time, with no mishaps to speak of, and I parted with regret from old and new friends on the boat, none of whom I have ever seen since that parting twenty-five years ago. Thomas Burns, Henry Link, George McDonald, and Captain Boland are all dead. Charles Mathers, the chief clerk, was living a few years ago at Cairo, an old man, long retired from active service.

As we started to leave the boat, we were arrested by an outcry, a pistol shot, and the shouting of the colored deck hands, followed by the rush of the mate and the fall of one of the men, whom he had struck with a club or billet. Still another colored man lay groaning on the wharf, and a white man was binding up an ugly gash in his neck made by the slash of a razor. In a few minutes the clang of the patrol wagon gong was heard, as it responded to the telephone call, and two darkies were carried off, one to the hospital and the other to the jail. The slightly-interrupted work of toting nail kegs was then resumed. Thus the last sights and sounds were fit illustrations of river life as it is to-day, and as it was a half a century ago—strenuous and rough, indeed, but possessing a wonderful fascination to one who has once fallen under the influence of its spell.

254 255