When we first knew it, Prescott was in many respects a typical river town. But in one, it differed from all others with the possible exception of Wacouta and Reed's Landing. "Towing through" had not then been inaugurated. The great rafts of logs and lumber from Stillwater and the upper St. Croix, were pushed to Prescott by towboats from Stillwater, at the head of the lake. From there to Lake Pepin they drifted. They were again pushed through that lake by other boats, and from Reed's Landing, at the foot of the lake, drifted to their destination at Winona, La Crosse, Clinton, Le Claire, or Hannibal.
The necessary preparation for the trip down river was made at Prescott. Stores of pork, beans, flour, molasses, and whiskey were laid in. The hundreds of rough men who handled the great steering oars on these rafts spent their money in the saloons which lined the river front and adjacent streets, filling themselves with noxious liquors, and often ending their "sprees" with a free fight between rival crews. A hundred men would join in the fray, the city marshal sitting on a "snubbing post", revolver in hand, watching the affair with the enlightened eye of an expert and the enjoyment of a connoisseur.
Prescott was also a transfer point for freight consigned to Afton, Lakeland, Hudson, Stillwater, Osceola, and St. Croix Falls. The large boats, unless they were heavily freighted for Stillwater and Hudson, did not make the run of thirty miles up the lake. The freight was put ashore at Prescott, and reshipped on the smaller boats plying between Prescott and St. Croix River points. This made necessary large warehouses in which to store the transshipped goods. My father, L. H. Merrick, engaged in this business of storing and transshipping, as well as dealing in boat-stores and groceries. Buying one warehouse on the levee, he started a store in the basement, which opened directly on to the levee. Moving his family into the two upper stories, he began at once the erection of a second and larger warehouse. These being insufficient for his business, he bought, in 1855, a third warehouse. These were filled, in summer, with goods in transit, and in winter with wheat awaiting the opening of navigation for shipment to Eastern markets, via Dunleith, Illinois, at that time the nearest railroad connection on the river. The name of this one-time prosperous city has, however, disappeared from the map, to be replaced by East Dubuque.
From 1854 until 1858 the firm of L. H. Merrick & Co. (the company being William R. Gates, my brother-in-law) did all the transfer and storage business for the regular packets belonging to the Galena, Dubuque, Dunleith & St. Paul Packet Company, commonly shortened to Minnesota Packet Company, and also for such "wild" boats as did not make the run up the lake.
The business was very profitable. Much of the freight consisted of pork and beef in barrels, whiskey, sugar in hogsheads (refined sugar was then scarcely known on the upper river), rice, soap, etc., which, if there was no boat ready to receive it, could be covered with tarpaulins on the levee, thus saving the cost of putting it in the warehouses. The perishable freight and household goods were of course stored under cover. A man was always on duty to meet incoming boats at night, and to watch the freight piled on the levee. Sometimes, when there was a large amount of such freight left outside, we boys spent the night skylarking about the piles, keeping our eyes open to see that the ubiquitous raftsmen did not surreptitiously transfer some of the packages to the everpresent rafts. The transfer agents paid the freight on the goods from the lower river points to Prescott, and charged a commission of from five to twenty-five per cent for such advance. In addition, a charge was made for storage, whether the freight was actually placed in the warehouse or simply covered and watched on the levee. If the goods were from Pittsburg or St. Louis, the freight bills were usually large, and a five per cent commission would produce a quite respectable income. If the cargo were divided into small lots, so much the better. No package, however small, escaped for less than a quarter ("two bits", as money was then 31 32 reckoned); and in addition to the commission on the money advanced, there was an additional charge for storage, graduated, as I have before stated, upon the value and perishability of the freight handled. Altogether it was a very profitable occupation until the year 1858, when there appeared a new bidder for the business, knocking down the rates of commission and storage, as well as cutting the business in two by getting the agency of many of the boats, heretofore served by the old firm.
My brother and myself "bunked" in the garret of the warehouse in which we had made our temporary home. There were two windows fronting the river, and I feel sure that at night no steamboat ever landed at the levee without having at least two spectators, carefully noting its distinguishing characteristics. Was she a side-wheel or stern-wheel? Was she large or small? Had she trimmings on her smokestack, or about the pilot house, and if so of what description? Had she a "Texas", or no "Texas"? Were the outside blinds painted white, red, or green? What was the sound of her whistle and bell? All of these points, and many others, were taken in, and indelibly impressed upon our memories, so that if the whistle or bell were again heard, perhaps months afterward, the name of the boat could be given with almost unfailing accuracy. It was a part of the education of the "levee rats", as the boys were called. A boy that could not distinguish by ear alone a majority of the boats landing at the levee from year to year, was considered as deficient in his education. Of course every boy in town could tell what craft was coming as soon as she whistled, if she was one of the regular "packets". Every boat had a whistle toned and tuned so that it might be distinguished from that of any other boat of the same line. The bells, which were always struck as the boat came into the landing, also differed widely in tone. There was one, the music of which will live in my memory so long as life lasts. The tone of the "Ocean Wave's" bell was deep, rich, sonorous, and when heard at a distance on a still, clear night, was concentrated sweetness. Were I rich I would, were it a possibility, find that bell and hang it in some bell-less steeple where I might hear again its splendid tones, calling not alone to worship, but summoning for me from the misty past pictures indelibly printed upon boyish senses.
A picturesque and animated scene, was one of these night landings; the discharge and taking on of freight, the shouting of orders, the escaping of steam, and all the sights and sounds which for the time transformed the levee from its usual quietude and darkness, broken only by the faint glimmer of the watchman's lantern and the ripple of the water upon the beach, into life, light, and activity.
The advent of the electric search-light has driven from the river one of the most picturesque of all the accessories to such scenes as we boys looked down upon, night after night, during the busy times of 1854 and 1855, before I myself became part and parcel of it all. The torch, by the light of which the work went on by night, was within an iron basket, about a foot in diameter and eighteen inches deep, swung loosely between the prongs of a forked iron bar or standard, which could be set in holes in the forward deck, leaning far out over the water, so as to allow live coals from the burning wood to fall into the river, and not upon deck.
When a landing was to be made at a woodyard or a town, the watchman filled one or perhaps two of these torch baskets with split "light-wood", or "fat-wood"—Southern pine full of resinous sap, which would burn fiercely, making a bright light, illuminating the deck of the boat and the levee for hundreds of feet around. As the boat neared the landing the pine splinters were lighted at the furnace door, the torch being carried to place and firmly fixed in its socket. Then came out the attending demon who fed the burning, smoking "jack" with more pine fatwood, and from time to time with a ladle of pulverized rosin. The rosin would flare up with a fierce flame, followed by thick clouds of black smoke, the melted tar falling in drops upon the water, to float away, burning and smoking until consumed. This addition to the other sights and sounds served more than any other thing to give this night work a wild and weird setting. We boys decided, on many a night, that we would "go on the river" and feed powdered rosin and pine kindlings to torches all night long, as the coal-black and greasy, but greatly envied white lamp-boy did, night after night, in front of our attic windows on the levee at Prescott. The cleaner and brighter, but very commonplace electric light has driven the torch from the river; and if one is to be found at all in these degenerate days it will be as a curiosity in some historical museum.
And thus we grew into the very life of the river as we grew in years. I finally attained an age when my services were worth something in the economy of a steamboat's crew. My first venture was made in company with one who afterward attained rank and honor in the civil service of the state—the Honorable Sam. S. Fifield, lieutenant-governor of Wisconsin. I have a letter written by Mr. Fifield since I began writing these sketches, in which he says that he recollects the writer as a "white-haired boy, full of all sorts of pranks". I presume this description of how I looked and what I did is correct; but forty years ago to have applied to him any such personal description of his thatch would have been a casus belli for which nothing but blood could atone. It is white, now; at that time it was a subdued brindle, with leanings toward straw, and a subject not lightly to be discussed in the presence of its owner.
The stern-wheel steamer "Kate Cassell" wintered above the lake—that is, above Lake Pepin—I think at Diamond Bluff, where at the close of navigation she was caught in the ice. In the spring her captain appeared, with an engineer, a pilot, a steward, and possibly some other officers, and picked up the remainder of officers and crew 'longshore. I remember that one of my schoolmates, Nat. Blaisdell, went as assistant engineer, Russ. Ruley as mate, and a number of longshoremen from Prescott as deck hands, while Sam Fifield and I were pantry boys. Sam got enough of it in a few trips between St. Paul and Rock Island. I stayed through the season. We both were printers. Sam went back to the case at once; I went to mine again in the fall, after the close of navigation, and stuck type during the winter, as I also did each returning season while on the river.
The next spring I engaged with "Billy" Hamilton, as a "cub" engineer. Prior to starting out on the season's run the machinery of the boat ("Fanny Harris") had to be put in order. There was a regular blacksmith's forge on board. All river engineers were, perforce, good blacksmiths, able to make anything pertaining to the machinery which it was possible to make from wrought iron bars with an ordinary forge and anvil, with a twelve-pound striking hammer and a two-pound shaper. We made scores of extra "stirrups"—the double bolts, with nuts, that clamp the "buckets" to the wheel-arms. We made hog-chains and chimney guys, and, as needed, bent them into place. The boilers, engines, and "Doctor"—the steam pump for feeding water to the boilers, pumping out the steamer, etc.—were all overhauled and put in perfect order. The engines were leveled and "lined up"; the eccentrics were carefully adjusted and securely fastened; the "nigger" hoisting engine, for handling freight and warping the boat over sand-bars was fitted up, and a hundred other minor but important matters were attended to, so that when steam was raised and turned on, the wheel would "turn over", and the boat go. Some wheels did not at first turn over, and it was not to the credit of the man who had lined the engines and set the eccentrics. Billy Hamilton's wheel, however, turned over the first trial.
Had I followed up this line of activity under Billy's tutelage, no doubt I would have become a capable engineer, for I liked the work and took a genuine delight in handling machinery, a liking which I have not yet outgrown. But there were decided drawbacks. The reversing gear of a Mississippi River steamboat, in old times, was like nothing else of its kind, anywhere under the sun. The engines were of the lever and poppet-valve order, and the reversing gear was heavy. The connecting-rod (cam-rod, we called it) weighed at least fifty pounds, even though it was attached to the "rock-shaft" at one end. In reversing, the end of the connecting-rod was lifted off its hook at the bottom, the lever thrown over, in which operation two heavy valve-levers were raised, the rod lifted about three feet, and dropped on to the upper hook. It was all right when you did this once or twice in making a landing; but in a piece of "crooked river", the boat dodging about among reefs and bars, with the bells coming faster than you could answer them, it was another matter, and became pretty trying work for a stripling boy; his arms could not keep the pace.
Another drawback in the life of a "cub" engineer was the fact that when in port there was no let-up to the work. In fact, the worst part of it came then. As soon as the steamer reached her destination at Galena, the pilots were at liberty until the hour of sailing; not so with the engineers. We usually reached Galena Thursday evening or night, and left for up river Friday evening. As soon as the boat was made fast the "mud-valves" were opened, the fires drawn, the water let out of the boilers, and the process of cleaning began. Being a slim lad, one of my duties was to creep into the boilers through the manhole, which was just large enough to let me through; and with a hammer and a sharp-linked chain I must "scale" the boilers by pounding on the two large flues and the sides with the hammer, and sawing the chain around the flues until all the accumulated mud and sediment was loosened. It was then washed out by streams from the deck-hose, the force-pump being manned by the firemen, of whom there were eight on our four-boiler boat.
Scaling boilers was what decided me not to persevere in the engineering line. To lie flat on one's stomach on the top of a twelve-inch flue, studded with rivet heads, with a space of only fifteen inches above one's head, and in this position haul a chain back and forth without any leverage whatever, simply by the muscles of the arm, with the thermometer 90° in the shade, was a practice well calculated to disillusionize any one not wholly given over to mechanics. While I liked mechanics I knew when I had enough, and therefore reached out for something one deck higher. The unexpected disability of our "mud clerk", as the second clerk is called on the river, opened the way for an ascent, and I promptly availed myself of it.
Prescott Levee in 1876. Showing Steamer "Centennial" and the little Hastings ferry, "Plough Boy." The double warehouse, showing five windows in the second story and four in the third was the building in which the author lived when a boy.
Prescott Levee in 1908. But one business building—one of the old Merrick warehouses, left intact. Dunbar's Hall gutted by fire recently. The large steamboat warehouse next to it destroyed some years ago. All the shipping business gone to the railroad, which runs just back of the buildings shown.
Before leaving the main deck, with its savory scents of scorching oil, escaping steam, and soft-coal gas, let me describe some of the sights, sounds, and activities which impressed themselves upon the memory of the young "cub" during his brief career as an embryo engineer.
The engine-room crew of a Mississippi steamer varies as the boat is a side-wheeler or a stern-wheeler. In my day, a stern-wheeler carried two engineers, a "first" and a "second". The former was chosen for his age and experience, to him being confided the responsibility of the boat's machinery. His knowledge, care, and oversight were depended upon to keep the engines, boilers, etc., in good repair, and in serviceable condition. The second engineer received less wages, and his responsibility ended in standing his watch, handling the engines, and in keeping enough water in the boilers to prevent the flues from burning, as well as to avoid an explosion. If a rival boat happened to be a little ahead or a little behind, or alongside, and the "second" was on watch, the margin of water between safety and danger in the boilers was usually kept nearer the minimum than it would have been were the "chief" in command. It is very much easier to get hot steam with little water than with much; and hot steam is a prime necessity when another boat is in sight, going the same direction as your own.
On the "Fanny Harris", the pilots always depended upon Billy Hamilton when in a race, as he would put on the "blowers"—the forced draft, as it is called in polite, though less expressive language—and never let the water get above the second gauge, and never below the first, if he could help it. Sometimes it was a matter of doubt where the water really was, the steam coming pretty dry when tried by the "gauge-stick"—a broom handle, which, pushed against the gauges, of which there were three in the end of the boiler (three inches apart, vertically, the lower one situated just above the water-line over the top of the flues), opened the valve and permitted the steam and water to escape into a short tin trough beneath. If a stream of water ran from the first and second gauges when so tried, but not from the third, there was a normal and healthy supply of water in the boilers. If the water came from the first, but not from the second, the "Doctor" was started and the supply increased. When it reached the third gauge the supply was cut off. If, as I have seen it, there was, when tried, none in the first or lower gauge, there followed a guessing match as to just how far below the minimum the water really was, and what would be the result of throwing in a supply of cold water. The supply was always thrown in, and that quickly, as time counts in such cases.
The pilot at the wheel, directly over the boilers, is in blissful ignorance of the vital question agitating the engineer. He may at times have his suspicions, as the escape pipes talk in a language which tells something of the conditions existing below decks; but if the paddle wheels are turning over with speed, he seldom worries over the possibilities which lie beneath him. His answer to the question, whether the water is below the safety point, comes as he feels the deck lifting beneath his feet, and he sails away to leeward amid the debris of a wrecked steamboat.
Probably four-fifths of the boiler explosions which have taken place on the Mississippi River during the last eighty years—and there have been hundreds of such—were the result of these conditions: low water in the boilers, exposing the plates until red-hot, then throwing in water and "jumping" the steam pressure faster than the engines or safety-valve could release it, followed by the inevitable giving away of the whole fabric of the boiler, wrecking the steamer, and usually killing and scalding many of the passengers and crew.
On a side-wheel boat the make-up of the engine crew is different. In addition to the first and second engineers there are two "cubs", or "strikers". The stern-wheeler has two engines, but they are both coupled to the same shaft, by a crank at each end. The throttle wheel is in the centre of the boat. One man operates the two engines, and assists at landings, but in a bad piece of river is helped by one of the firemen, who is called aft by a little bell controlled by a cord from the engine-room. This man "ships up" on the port side, while the engineer "ships up" on the starboard. "Shipping up" was the term used to describe the act of shifting the cam-rod from the lower pin on the reversing lever to the upper, or vice versa. If done at a sudden call, the engineer ran to one side and "shipped up", then across the deck to the other, and then back to the centre to "give her steam". That is all changed now by the adoption of an improved reversing gear, similar to that on a railway locomotive, the throwing of a lever at the centre of the boat operating the reversing gears on both engines at once. Instead of the old-time "short-link", or "cut-off hook", the equivalent of the "hooking-back" on a locomotive when under way is performed by the engineer at the centre of the boat by hooking back the reversing lever one, two, or three notches, exactly as on the locomotive. Fifty years ago this simple device had not been adopted on the river.
On the side-wheel boat, to get back to my subject, the engines are independent—one engine to each wheel. One may be coming ahead while the other is backing, or they may both be reversing at the same time. A man is therefore required to operate each engine, hence the necessity for a "striker", or "cub", to take one engine while the engineer on watch takes the other. The engineer on duty, be he chief or assistant, takes the starboard engine and controls the running of the machinery and the feeding of the boilers during his watch; the "cub" takes the port engine and works under the direction of his superior on watch. As I have stated at the beginning of this chapter, the handling of these powerful engines was hard work, even for a grown man, when the river was low and the pilot was feeling his way over a crossing in a dark night, with both leads going, and the wheels doing much of the work of keeping the boat in the intricate channel between the reefs. Then it was that the bells came thick and fast—to stop, to back, to come ahead again, to slow, to come ahead full steam, and again to stop and back and come ahead. Then the cut-off hook was pulled up by a rope attached to the deck beams overhead, and the heavy cam-rod was lifted from the lower hook to the upper by main strength, or dropped from the upper to the lower with scant regard for the finish on the bright work, to be lifted again at the call of the next bell from the pilot, and all this a dozen times, or even more, in making one crossing.
And all the time the "cub" was in deadly fear of getting his engine caught on the centre, a calamity in both material and moral sense, as a "centre" might mean the disablement of an engine at a critical moment, throwing the steamer out of the channel, and hanging her up for hours, or even for days, on a sand-bar. It might even have a more calamitous sequence, by running her on the rocks or snags and sinking her. Hence, for pressing reasons, the most acute alertness was necessary on the part of the "striker". The moral obloquy of "centring" an engine was so great among river men, especially among engineers, that no "cub" ever again held his head high after suffering such a mischance; and it was a proud boast among the embryo engineers if they could honestly claim that they had never "centred" their engine. On general principles they always boasted of it as a fact, until some one appeared who could testify to the contrary. I enter that claim here and now without fear of successful contradiction. All my confederates in that business are now out of commission.
One of the beauties of the puppet-valve engine, with its long stroke[1] and consequent "purchase" on the shaft-crank, was that by the aid of a billet of wood, about two and a half inches square, with a handle whittled off on one end, and with a loop of cord to hang it up by, or to hang it on one's wrist (where it was usually found when the boat was navigating a crooked piece of river), an increase of fifty per cent of steam could be let into the cylinder by the simple device of inserting the club between the rocker-arm and the lever which lifted the inlet valve, as graphically described in the paper by Mr. Holloway, quoted in this chapter. If the valve were normally lifted four inches by the rocker-arm, the insertion of the club would increase the lift by its thickness. This additional power fed to the cylinder at the right moment would drive the wheel over the centre when reversed with the boat going upstream at a speed of eight or ten miles an hour, against a four-mile current, with almost absolute certainty. With a ten-foot wheel, and three buckets in the water, one submerged to its full width of three feet, and the other two perhaps two feet, it can readily be understood by an engineer that to turn such a wheel back against the current required a great expenditure of power at just the right time. The "club" of the Western steamboat engineer solved the question of additional power at the critical moment. No short-stroke engine would respond to such a call. While this service tried the cylinders to their utmost—many times a little beyond their utmost, with a consequent loss of a cylinder head, and worse yet, a scalded engineer—the use of the club was justified by experience; and results which, with finer and more perfect machinery would have been impossible, were, day after day, made possible by reason of the crudeness and roughness of this usage.
The great steamers plying on Long Island Sound attain a speed of twenty miles an hour, or even more. It is said that when under full speed it is possible to turn the wheels back over the centre within half a mile after steam has been shut off. Under ordinary conditions it is not necessary that they should be handled any faster. But think of the conditions under which a Mississippi River steamboat must stop and back, or suffer shipwreck. And imagine, if you can, the remarks a river pilot would make if the wheel were not turning back within thirty seconds after the bell was rung. I think five seconds would be nearer the limit for reversing and giving steam. In fact, on all side-wheel boats, the levers controlling the steam valves are attached to small tackles, and these are controlled by one lever, by which the steam levers may be raised in an instant, without closing the throttle at all, and the steam allowed to pass out through the escape pipes while the engine remains passive.
Two ends are attained by this device: steam can instantly be shut off, or as quickly given to the cylinders, thus making a saving in time over the usual opening and closing of the steam ports by the throttle wheel. Another advantage is, that this device acts as a safety-valve; for, were the steam to be entirely shut off, and the safety-valve fail to work, an explosion would certainly follow. By opening all the valves at once, and permitting as much steam to escape through the exhaust pipes as when the engine is in motion, the danger of an explosion is minimized. At the call of the pilot the levers can instantly be dropped and full steam ahead or reversed given at once—of course at the expense of a good deal of a "jolt" to the engines and cylinders. But the river engines were built to be "jolted", hence their practical adaptation to the service in which they were used.
J. F. Holloway, of St. Louis, who, in his own words, "was raised on the river, having filled every position from roustabout to master", in a paper read before the American Society of Mechanical Engineers at St. Louis in May, 1896, contributes the following description of a steamboat race as seen and heard in the engine-room—a point of view somewhat lacking, perhaps, in picturesqueness to the ordinary observer, but nevertheless very essential in winning a race. The writer is evidently as thoroughly at home in the engine-room as he is upon the roof:
"The reason which induced the builders of engines for these Western river boats to adopt such peculiar construction could hardly be made clear without a careful description of the hull of the boats, and of the varying conditions to which both engines and hulls are subjected, and under which they must operate. The steam cylinders are placed on foundations as unstable as would be a raft, and the alignment is varied by the addition or removal of every ton of freight which the boats carry when afloat, and they are further distorted when aground, or when the boats are being dragged over sand bars having several inches less of water on them than is required to float the hull. While the calm study of the machinery of a Western river steamboat while at rest would be an interesting object lesson to any one at all interested in such matters, it can only be seen at its best at a time when some rival boat is striving with it for "the broom," and close behind is slowly gaining, with roaring furnaces, and chimneys belching out vast volumes of thick black smoke; when all on board, from the pilot above to the fireman below are worked up to the highest pitch of enthusiasm, and when engines, boilers, engineers and all concerned in the management of the boat, are called upon to show the stuff which is in them. I know of no more exciting scene than was often to be witnessed in the days of the old famous Ohio River ports, when a "ten-boiler" boat was trying to make a record, or take a wharf-boat landing away from some close-following rival steamer. To stand on the boiler deck at such a time on a big side-wheel boat, when in order to get ahead the pilot had made up his mind to close-shave a "tow-head," or take the dangerous chances of a new channel or a new "cut-off," and when all on board knew the risk he was taking, and standing by to help him through, or help themselves if he failed, was exciting to a degree. Then it was that the two most skilful and daring engineers were called on watch, and took their stands alongside their respective engines, stripped like gladiators for the tussle which soon came as the clanging starboard bell rang out to "slow down," and as the hasty ringing of the "jingler" over the port engine meant "crack it to her." Then as the bow of the big boat swung, all too slow to suit the emergency or the impatience of the pilot, a stopping starboard bell would ring, quick followed by a backing one which would set the engineer to wrestling with his "hooks," one of which he hangs up with a cord, and the other he picks up seemingly from somewhere on the platform. As the suddenly stopped and quivering wheel in the swift-flowing current hangs for a moment poised on the centre, the engineer, grasping his ever-at-hand club of wood, quickly thrusts it between the uprising rocker-arm and the lever that lifts the inlet puppet valve, to which widened opening of the steam-valve port the engine responds with a noise of escaping steam not unlike the roar of an enraged elephant when prodded with the iron hook of his keeper. The battle of the bells thus begun, waxes more fierce as the excitement increases. There are bells to the right, and bells to the left, and amid their discordant jangle the engineers are working like mad as they clutch the throttle, open or close "the bleeder," hook her on "ahead," or stop and back, in such rapid succession as that soon neither they, nor any one else, can tell how far behind the bells of the pilot they are. Then soon amid the wild roar of the pent-up steam as it rushes out of the safety-valve pipes, the exploding exhausts of the engines which at the end of each stroke sound as if the cylinder-head had blown off, and to which is added the shrill noise of the warning bell which calls to the firemen to "throw open the furnace doors," there comes from out the huge trumpet shaped pipe above the head of the engineers, and which leads down from the pilot-house, a hoarse shout, heard above all else, partaking alike of command, entreaty, and adjectives, urging something or other to be done, and done quick, else the boat and all on board of her, in a brief time will land in a place which by reason of the reputed entire absence of water could not well be called a "port" (and certainly is no port mentioned in the boat's manifests). This battle of the bells and irons goes on until, if in a race, the rival boat is passed or crowded to the bank, or the narrow channel widens out into the broad river, when the discordant jangle of the bells ceases, the tired engineer drops on the quiet "cut-off hook," lays by his emergency wooden club, and wiping the sweat from his heated brow, comes down from the foot-board to catch a breath of the cool air which sweeps over the guards, and to formulate in his mind the story which he will have to tell of the race just over, or the perils just past.
But the old-time flyers which before the war tore their way up and down through the muddy waters of these Western rivers are all gone, and the marvelously skilled pilots of those days have gone too; the men who, through the darkest hours of the darkest nights, knew to within a few feet just where their boats were, and what was on the right or on the left, or beneath them, which was to be shunned. The engineers too, who with a courage born and nurtured amid the vicissitudes of a backwoods life, and with an experience and skill the outgrowth of trials and dangers gone through, have also passed away, and to the generation of the present are unhonored and unknown, as are the men who designed and built the hulls, and the workmen who, with crude and scant tools, built for them the machinery which they so well planned and handled.
Who they were, and where they lie, is known to but few, if any. Did I but know their final resting-place, I would, like "Old Mortality," wish to carve anew, and deep, the fading records of their life and death, which time has so nearly obliterated, and to herald abroad the praise and honor due them as the designers, builders, and engineers, of the old-time Western river steamboats."
It would be impossible to pick out any one man who handled an engine on the river fifty years ago, and in describing his habits and peculiarities claim him as a type of all river engineers of his time. The legendary engineer, such as Colonel Hay has given us, standing at the throttle of his engine on the ill-fated "Prairie Belle", waiting for signals from the pilot house, his boat a roaring furnace of fire, and whose spirit finally ascended with the smoke of his steamer, was a true type of one class, and possibly a large class, of old-time river engineers. Reckless, profane, combative; yet courageous, proud of their calling, and to be depended upon to do their duty under any and all circumstances; giving, if need be, their lives for the safety of the passengers and crew of the boat—such was one class. Another was composed of men equally courageous, equally to be depended upon in time of danger, but sober, quiet, religious, family men, who never used a profane word, never went on sprees ashore, never supported one wife at home and another at "Natchez under the Hill."
On the boat upon which I gained the greater part of my river experience, we had the two types: George McDonald, chief, and Billy Hamilton, assistant. Either would have died at his post, the one with a prayer upon his lips, and the other with a jest; both alike alert, cool, efficient. McDonald was a Scotch Presbyterian, and might have been an elder in the church at home—perhaps he was. He was a religious man on board his boat, where religion was at a discount. He was a capable engineer; he could make anything that it was possible to make, on the portable forge in the steamer's smithy. He was always cool, deliberate, ready, and as chief was the captain's right-hand man in the engine-room.
Billy Hamilton was his opposite in everything, save in professional qualifications. In these he was the equal of his chief, except in length of service, and consequent experience. The son of a Maryland slave owner, he was a "wild one" on shore, and a terror to the captain when on board and on duty. In a race with a rival boat his recklessness in carrying steam was always counted upon by the pilot on watch, to make up for any inherent difference in speed that might handicap our boat. He would put on the blower (forced draft) until solid chunks of live wood coals would be blown from the smokestacks. He would keep the water at the first gauge, or under it. He had a line rigged from the safety-valve lever, running aft to the engine-room. In times of peace the line was rove over a pulley fixed under the deck, above the safety-valve. A pull on the line in this position would raise the valve and allow the steam to escape. When another boat was in sight, going our way, the slack of the rope was hauled forward and the bight carried under a pulley fixed in a stanchion alongside the boiler, below the safety-valve, running thence up and over the upper pulley as before—but with all the difference in the world, for with the fifty-pound anvil hanging to the end of the line thus reversed in its leverage, the boilers might have blown up a hundred times before the safety-valve would have acted.
I have often heard the signal which Billy had agreed upon with his fireman on the port side, and have seen the darky slip the line under the lower pulley, and then keep one eye on the boiler-deck companionway, watching for the captain. Should he be seen coming below, the line was as quickly slipped off the lower pulley and restored to its normal position; sometimes with a concurrent "blowing off" through the safety-valve, which was evidence enough for the captain, although he might not catch Billy in the act. It is no more than just to say that the visits of the captain below decks were not frequent. He was a New Orleans man, of French extraction, with a fine sense of honor which forbade any espionage of this nature, unless there seemed to be an especially flagrant case of steam-carrying on the part of his junior engineer.
Billy had another device which greatly galled the captain, and later it was the cause of a serious affair. The captain had a private servitor, a colored man who cared for his rooms in the "Texas", served his lunches there, and ran errands about the boat as required. The captain used to send him down to the engine-room when he suspected Hamilton was carrying more steam than was nominated in the license, to look at the gauge and take readings.
It was not long before Hamilton became aware of this surreptitious reading, and set himself to work to defeat it without the necessity of ordering the captain's man out of the engine-room. To this end he made a cap of sheet lead which covered the face of the dial, leaving only about two inches in the centre, showing the pivot and a small portion of the pointer. This balked the colored messenger completely, as he could not see the figures, and he was not well enough acquainted with the instrument to read it from the centre. On his last visit to the engine-room, Hamilton saw him coming. Pretending that he was going forward to try the water, but keeping his eye on the messenger, he saw him reach up and take off the cap. In an instant Hamilton turned and threw his shaping hammer, which he had in his hand, with such true aim that it struck the poor darky in the head and knocked him senseless. As he dropped to the deck Hamilton called one of his firemen, telling him to give his compliments to Captain Faucette and tell him to send some men and take away his (profanely described) nigger, as he had no use for him. The darky pulled through all right, I think. He was put ashore at the first landing and placed under the care of a doctor, and Hamilton paid his bills. His successor never came into the engine-room, and the cap on the steam gauge was laid aside as unnecessary.
Whenever the mate had a "shindy" with the crew, which was composed of forty Irishmen, all the other officers of the boat were bound to "stand by" for trouble. Hamilton was always ready, if not anxious, for such occasions, and he and Billy Wilson, the mate, always supported each other so effectively that many an incipient mutiny was quickly quelled, the two jumping into a crowd and hitting every head in sight with whatever weapon happened to be at hand until order was restored. Usually, however, it was with bare hands, and the show which authority always makes in face of insubordination.
At times, Billy's vagaries were of a grisly and gruesome character. I recall that at Point Douglass, on one of our trips, we found a "floater" (body of a drowned man) that had been in the water until it was impossible to handle it. To get it on shore it was necessary to slide a board beneath, and draw out board and body together. It was a malodorous and ghastly undertaking. Something said to this effect, Hamilton laughed at as being altogether too finicky for steamboatmen. To demonstrate that it need not affect either one's sensibilities or stomach, he stepped into the cook's galley for a sandwich, and sitting down on the end of the board, alongside the corpse, ate his lunch without a qualm.
Another and rather more amusing incident took place while the "Fanny Harris" was in winter quarters at Prescott. The night before St. Patrick's day, Billy made up an effigy, which he hung between the smokestacks. As the manikin had a clay pipe in its mouth and a string of potatoes about its neck, it might have reference to the patron saint of the Old Sod. The loyal Irishmen of the town so interpreted it at least, and Billy had to stand off the crowd for several hours with a shot gun, and finally get the town marshal to guard the boat while he climbed up and removed the obnoxious image.
He had a little iron cannon which he fired on all holidays, and sometimes when there was no holiday; in the latter case, at about three o'clock in the morning, just to remind people living in the vicinity of the levee that he was still "on watch". In retaliation for the effigy affair, his Irish friends slipped aboard the boat one evening while he was away and spiked his cannon by driving a rat-tail file into the vent; this was after he had carefully loaded it for a demonstration intended to come off the next morning. He discovered the trick when he attempted to fire the gun, and offered pertinent and forcible remarks, but unprintable in this narration. He lost no time in vain regrets, however. Lighting up his forge he made a screw and drew out the load. Then with the help of several chums he moved his forge to the bow of the boat (the foc'sle), rigged a crane so that he could swing his little cannon in a chain sling, from the capstan to the forge, and back again. When the time came for firing the salute he had his gun heated red-hot on the forge; it was then swung back on to the capstan-head, where it was lashed with a chain. A bucket of water was then thrown into the gun, and instantly a hardwood plug, made to fit, was driven home with his heavy striking hammer. In a minute the steam generated by this process caused an explosion that threw the plug almost across the river, fully a quarter of a mile, with a reasonably fair result in the way of noise. It was a risky piece of work, but "Billy" was in his element when there was a spice of risk mixed with his sports.
Billy's humor was broad, but never malicious. He never missed an opportunity to play a practical joke on any one, save, perhaps, the captain himself. The deck hands who "soldiered" by sitting on the side of their bunks when they ought to be at work toting freight, were sometimes lifted several feet in the air by the insertion of two inches of a darning needle ingeniously attached to the under side of the board bench upon which they took their seat. It was operated from the engine-room by a fine wire and a stiff spring, the whole boxed in so securely by the carpenter that there was no possibility of its discovery by the enraged victim.
He was one of the most open-handed and liberal of men in his givings, and in spite of his escapades a valuable officer. In 1862 he left the boat, as did all the crew, to enlist under the call for three hundred thousand troops, made in July of that year. In all discussions of the war he had asserted his determination to keep away from any place where there was shooting, as he was afraid of bullets of any size from an ounce up. As he was a Southern man, son of a slaveholder, we thought that this badinage was to cover his determination not to take any part in the war on the Union side; we never questioned his courage. He went into the navy as an acting assistant engineer, and was assigned to one of the "tin-clads" that Commodore Porter had improvised for service on the Mississippi and tributaries, and that did such heroic service in opening and keeping open the great river. Within a few months after his entry into the service, his old friends saw with pleasure, but not surprise, his name mentioned in general orders for gallantry in action. He had stood by his engine on the gunboat after a pipe had been cut by a shell from a Confederate shore battery, a number of men being killed and wounded, and the engine-room filled with escaping steam. Binding his coat over his face and mouth to prevent inhalation of the steam he handled his engines at the risk of his life, in response to the pilot's bells, until his boat was withdrawn from danger. It was in keeping with his known character; and his talk of being "afraid of guns" was only a part of the levity with which he treated all situations, grave or gay.
I do not know Billy's ultimate fate. When he left the "Fanny Harris" for gunboat service, I also left to enlist in the infantry. After three years in the army I was mustered out in Washington, and soon went to New York where I remained for ten years or more. In the interim between 1862 and 1876, when I returned to the West, I completely lost sight of all my old river acquaintances. When, later, I made inquiries of those whom I did find, they either did not enlighten me as to his fate, or, if they did, I made so little note of it that it has escaped my memory.
The transition from the "main deck" to the "boiler deck" marked an era in my experience. It opened a new chapter in my river life, and one from which I have greatly profited. When I went upon the river I was about as bashful a boy as could be found; that had been my failing from infancy. As pantry boy I had little intercourse with the passengers, the duties of that department of river industry requiring only the washing, wiping, and general care of dishes and silverware. A "cub" engineer slipped up to his stateroom, and donned presentable clothing in which to eat his meals in the forward cabin, at the officers' table, where all save the captain and chief clerk took their meals. After that, his principal business was to keep out of sight as much as possible until it was time to "turn in". He was not an officer, and passengers were not striving for his acquaintance.
As second clerk all these conditions were changed. In the absence of the chief clerk, his assistant took charge of the office, answered all questions of passengers, issued tickets for passage and staterooms, showed people about the boat, and in a hundred ways made himself agreeable, and so far as possible ministered to their comfort and happiness while on board. The reputation of a passenger boat depended greatly upon the esteem in which the captain, clerks, and pilots were held by the travelling public. The fame of such a crew was passed along from one tourist to another, until the gentle accomplishments of a boat's personnel were as well known as their official qualifications.
Captain William Faucette was, as I have said, of French Creole stock, from New Orleans. In addition to being a good and capable officer on the roof, he was also highly endowed with the graces that commended him to the ladies and gentlemen who took passage with him. Polite in his address, a fine dancer, a good story-teller and conversationist, his personality went far toward attracting the public who travelled for pleasure—and that was the best-paying traffic, for which every first-class packet was bidding.
Charles Hargus, chief clerk, was not far behind his chief in winning qualities. An educated man, he was also possessed of the address and the other personal qualities which were necessary to equip one for becoming a successful officer on a Mississippi passenger steamer.
Such was the atmosphere into which the oily "cub" from the engine-room was ushered, when drafted into this service because of the serious illness of the second clerk. It was too late to get a man from the city, and the necessities of the case required an immediate filling of the vacancy. I was invited, or rather commanded, to go into the office for the trip, and do what I could to help out with the work until the return to Galena, where a man or boy could be found to fill the office until the sick officer returned.
The boat was guard-deep with freight, and at night the cabin was carpeted with passengers sleeping on mattresses spread on the floor. The chief clerk simply had to have somebody to help out. On my part, it was the chance of my life. Without much prior business experience, what little I had was right in line. I had checked freight on the levee for the firm of L. H. Merrick & Co., was a good penman, fairly good at figures, and had made out freight bills in the transfer of freight at Prescott, which fact was known to the chief clerk. It is needless to add that I required no second order. While second clerks were not likely to get any shore leave at either end of the route, nor at any intermediate ports, it required no brilliancy of intellect to see that checking freight was comparatively cleaner than, and superlatively preferable to, boiler-scaling.
Regarding my success in this new field, suffice it to say that the trip to St. Paul and return was made, and the freight checked out with surprisingly few errors for a beginner. The cargo of wheat, potatoes, etc., was correctly counted in, properly entered in the books, and correctly checked out at Prairie du Chien and Dunleith. The sick clerk did not rejoin the boat. The temporary appointment by the captain and chief clerk was made permanent by the secretary of the company at Dunleith, Mr. Blanchard, on the recommendation of Mr. Hargus, my chief. We ran into Galena on our regular Thursday afternoon time, and instead of creeping into a steaming, muddy boiler, I walked out on to the levee and was introduced to the great wholesalers who at that time made Galena their headquarters, as "Mr. Merrick, our new second clerk", and the work of loading for a new trip was taken up.
While the office of second clerk was a decided promotion from my point of view, it was not so esteemed on the river. Leaving the engine-room was leaving the opportunity to learn the profession of engineering. Once learned, it was then assumed that the person so equipped was guaranteed employment so long as he willed, with a minimum amount of competition. Later developments revealed the fallacy of this conception. Within ten years thereafter, steamboating was practically dead on the upper Mississippi. The completion of one or more railroads into St. Paul, ended the river monopoly. Thereafter a dozen steamboats did the business formerly requiring a hundred. The wages of engineers and pilots dropped to a figure undreamed of in the flush times between 1850 and 1860; there were twenty men competing for every berth upon the river.
My new berth was not silk-lined, however. There was an aristocracy in the official family above decks. The captain and the chief clerk represented the first class, and the mate and the second clerk the other. The line between these was represented by the watches into which all officers on the boat were divided for rounds of duty. The captain and his mate, and the chief clerk and his second stood watch and watch during the twenty-four hours (that is, six hours on and six hours off) all the season. The pilots and engineers interposed a "dog watch", to break the monotony. The captain and the chief clerk went on watch after breakfast, at seven in the morning, and stood until noon. At twelve o'clock they were relieved by the mate and the second clerk, who ran the steamboat and the business until six o'clock in the evening, when they were relieved. After supper, they turned in until midnight, when they were called and relieved the captain and the chief clerk, who retired and slept until morning. While each class of officers was on duty the same number of hours each day, the difference lay in the fact that the junior officers were compelled by this arrangement to turn out at midnight throughout the season. It was this turning out at midnight that made the mate's watch (the port watch) very undesirable so far as personal ease and comfort was concerned. A man can knock about until midnight very agreeably, after a short nap in the afternoon, provided he can have a sound sleep during the "dead hours" from midnight until six o'clock in the morning. To turn out at midnight every night and work until six is an entirely different matter.
The pilots and engineers on our boat—and so far as my experience went, on all boats—stood a "dog-watch" from four in the morning until seven, thus making five watches during the twenty-four hours, bringing the men of the two watches on duty alternately at midnight, and shortening the "dead hours" from midnight to four o'clock, and from four until seven, so that one did not get so "dead" tired and sleepy as he would in standing a watch beginning every night at midnight.
It was believed on the river that more people die between midnight and morning than during any other six hours in the twenty-four. I think that I have heard physicians confirm this. My own experience in going on watch at midnight continuously during six months is, that there is less vitality and ambition available in that period than in any other. In fact, I have no distinct recollection that there was any ambition at all mixed up in the process of writing up delivery books, checking out freight, measuring wood, and performing the hundred other duties that fell to the lot of the officer on watch, when done in the depressing atmosphere of early morning. It was a matter of duty, unmixed with higher motives.
It was not only the turning out at unholy hours, that differentiated between first and second clerk. The second clerk must have his delivery book written up for all the landings to be made during his off-watch. The chief clerk then made the delivery from the book, upon which the receipts were taken. If, during the second clerk's off-watch, there was a particularly large manifest for any landing, the assistant was called to attend to the delivery, after which he could turn in again, if he chose. Of course it took a river man but a moment to go to sleep after touching his bunk; but his rest was broken, and in the course of the season this began to tell on every one. Under the stress of it, men became hollow-eyed and lost flesh and strength.
When on watch, the second clerk not only attended to his own particular duties, but he also assumed for the time those of the chief clerk. He collected fares from passengers coming aboard during his watch; assigned rooms, provided there were any left to assign, or a mattress on the cabin floor if there chanced to be any space left on the floor, whereon to place another mattress; collected freight bills, paid for wood or coal, and performed any other duties ordinarily performed by the chief clerk when on watch. It was not considered good form to call the chief clerk during his off-watch; in fact, to do so would be a confession of ignorance or inability, which no self-respecting second clerk cared to exhibit, and but rarely did. Many the close conference with the chief mate, his companion as well as superior during the long night watches; and many the smiles evoked in after days when recalling the well-meant but somewhat impracticable advice tendered upon some such occasions by the good-hearted autocrat of the "roof" and fo' castle.