The Project Gutenberg EBook of Old Times on the Upper Mississippi, by George Byron Merrick This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. Title: Old Times on the Upper Mississippi The Recollections of a Steamboat Pilot from 1854 to 1863 Author: George Byron Merrick Release Date: November 1, 2014 [EBook #47262] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD TIMES ON THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI *** Produced by Chris Curnow, Pasteur Nicole and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) Old Times on the Upper Mississippi MOUTH OF THE WISCONSIN RIVER. THE ANCIENT HIGHWAY BETWEEN THE GREAT LAKES AND THE MISSISSIPPI. THIS SCENE GIVES SOME idea of the multitude of islands which diversify both the Wisconsin and the Mississippi Rivers. Old Times on the Upper Mississippi The Recollections of a Steamboat Pilot from 1854 to 1863 By George Byron Merrick Cleveland, Ohio The Arthur H. Clark Company 1909 Copyright 1908 George Byron Merrick All rights reserved Dedicated to the Memory of My Chiefs William H. Hamilton, Engineer, Charles G. Hargus, Clerk, Thomas Burns, Pilot, masters in their several professions. From each of them I learned something that has made life better worth living, the sum of which makes possible these reminiscences of a "cub" pilot. Contents Prelude 13 Chapter I Early Impressions 15 Chapter II Indians, Dugouts, and Wolves 20 Chapter III On the Levee at Prescott 29 Chapter IV In the Engine-room 38 Chapter V The Engineer 46 Chapter VI The "Mud" Clerk—Comparative Honors 52 Chapter VII Wooding Up 59 Chapter VIII The Mate 64 Chapter IX The "Old Man" 71 Chapter X The Pilots and Their Work 78 Chapter XI Knowing the River 92 Chapter XII The Art of Steering 100 Chapter XIII An Initiation 106 Chapter XIV Early Pilots 111 Chapter XV Incidents of River Life 117 Chapter XVI Mississippi Menus 126 Chapter XVII Bars and Barkeepers 132 Chapter XVIII Gamblers and Gambling 138 Chapter XIX Steamboat Racing 143 Chapter XX Music and Art 152 Chapter XXI Steamboat Bonanzas 161 Chapter XXII Wild-cat Money and Town-sites 174 Chapter XXIII A Pioneer Steamboatman 184 Chapter XXIV A Versatile Commander; a Wreck 190 Chapter XXV A Stray Nobleman 196 Chapter XXVI In War Time 206 Chapter XXVII At Fort Ridgeley 212 Chapter XXVIII Improving the River 221 Chapter XXIX Killing Steamboats 229 Chapter XXX Living It Over Again 240 Appendix A. List of Steamboats on the Upper Mississippi River, 1823-1863 257 B. Opening of Navigation at St. Paul, 1844-1862 295 C. Table of Distances from St. Louis 296 D. Improvement of the Upper Mississippi, 1866-1876 299 E. Indian Nomenclature and Legends 300 Index 305 Illustrations MOUTH OF THE WISCONSIN RIVER. The ancient highway between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi. This scene gives some idea of the multitude of islands which diversify both the Wisconsin and the Mississippi Rivers Frontispiece 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 32 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 32 ALMA, WISCONSIN. A typical river town in the fifties 54 ABOVE TREMPEALEAU, WISCONSIN. In the middle foreground, at the head of the slough, is the site of the winter camp of Nicolas Perrot, in the winter of 1684-5, as identified in 1888 by Hon. B. F. Heuston and Dr. Reuben Gold Thwaites of the Wisconsin State Historical Society 68 DANIEL SMITH HARRIS. Steamboat Captain, 1833-1861 82 CAPTAIN THOMAS BURNS. Pilot on the Upper Mississippi River from 1856 to 1889. Inspector of Steamboats under President Cleveland and President McKinley 82 CHARLES G. HARGUS. Chief Clerk on the "Royal Arch," "Golden State," "Fanny Harris," "Kate Cassell" and many other fine steamers on the Upper Mississippi 82 GEORGE B. MERRICK. "Cub" Pilot, 1862 82 TYPICAL PORTION OF THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI. Map of the river between Cassville, Wis., and Guttenberg, Iowa, showing the characteristic winding of the stream 98 STEAMER "WAR EAGLE," 1852; 296 TONS 120 STEAMER "MILWAUKEE," 1856; 550 TONS 120 WINONA, MINNESOTA. The Levee in 1862 134 THE LEVEE AT ST. PAUL, 1859. Showing the Steamer "Grey Eagle" (1857; 673 tons), Capt. Daniel Smith Harris, the fastest and best boat on the Upper River, together with the "Jeanette Roberts" (1857; 146 tons), and the "Time and Tide" (1853; 131 tons), two Minnesota River boats belonging to Captain Jean Robert, an eccentric Frenchman and successful steamboatman. (Reproduced from an old negative in possession of Mr. Edward Bromley of Minneapolis, Minn.) 146 STEAMER "KEY CITY," 1857; 560 TONS 154 STEAMER "NORTHERN LIGHT," 1856; 740 TONS 154 FACSIMILES OF EARLY TICKETS AND BUSINESS CARD 166 MCGREGOR, IOWA. Looking north, up the river 178 ALTON, ILLINOIS. Looking down the river facing p.188 RED WING, MINNESOTA. Showing Barn Bluff in the background, with a glimpse of the river on the left 198 BAD AXE (NOW GENOA), WISCONSIN. Scene of the last battle between the United States forces and the Indians under Chief Black Hawk, August 21, 1832. The steamer "Warrior," Captain Joseph Throckmorton, with soldiers and artillery from Fort Crawford, Prairie du Chien, took an active and important part in this battle 218 REED'S LANDING, MINNESOTA. At the foot of Lake Pepin. During the ice blockade in the Lake, in the spring of each year before the advent of railroads to St. Paul; all freight was unloaded at Reed's Landing, hauled by team to Wacouta, at the head of the Lake, where it was reloaded upon another steamboat for transportation to St. Paul and other ports above the Lake 236 STEAMER "MARY MORTON," 1876; 456 TONS. Lying at the levee, La Crosse, Wisconsin. (From a negative made in 1881.) 244 STEAMER "ARKANSAS," 1868; 549 TONS. With tow of four barges, capable of transporting 18,000 sacks— 36,000 bushels of wheat per trip. The usual manner of carrying wheat in the early days, before the river traffic was destroyed by railroad competition) 244 MAP OF THE MISSISSIPPI BETWEEN ST. LOUIS AND ST. PAUL facing p.304 12 Prelude The majesty and glory of the Great River have departed; its glamour remains, fresh and undying, in the memories of those who, with mind's eye, still can see it as it was a half-century ago. Its majesty was apparent in the mighty flood which then flowed throughout the season, scarcely diminished by the summer heat; its glory, in the great commerce which floated upon its bosom, the beginnings of mighty commonwealths yet to be. Its glamour is that indefinable witchery with which memory clothes the commonplace of long ago, transfiguring the labors, cares, responsibilities, and dangers of steamboat life as it really was, into a Midsummer Night's Dream of care-free, exhilarating experiences, and glorified achievement. Of the river itself it may be said, that like the wild tribes which peopled its banks sixty years ago, civilization has been its undoing. The primeval forests which spread for hundreds of miles on either side, then caught and held the melting snows and falling rains of spring within spongy mosses which carpeted the earth; slowly, throughout the summer, were distilled the waters from myriad springs, and these, filling brooks and smaller rivers, feeders of the Great River, maintained a mighty volume of water the season through. Upon the disappearance of the forests, the melting snows and early rains having no holding grounds, are carried quickly to the river, which as quickly rises to an abnormal stage in the early part of the season, to be followed by a dearth which later reduces the Mississippi to the dimensions of a second-rate stream, whereon navigation is impossible for great steamers, and arduous, disheartening and unprofitable for boats of any class. To most men of our day, the life of those who manned the steamers of that once mighty fleet is legendary, almost mythical. Its story is unwritten. To the few participants who yet remain, it is but a memory. The boats themselves have disappeared, leaving no token. The masters and the mates, the pilots and the clerks, the engineers and the men of humbler station have likewise gone. Of the thousands who contributed to give life and direction to the vessels themselves, a meager score of short biographies is all that history vouchsafes. The aim of the present volume is to tell something of these men, and of the boats that they made sentient by their knowledge and power; to relate something of the incidents of river life as seen by a boy during eight years of residence by the riverside, or in active service on the river itself. While it may not literally be claimed, "All of which I saw," it is with satisfaction, not unmixed with pride, that the writer can truthfully assert, "A part of which I was." G. B. M. The several quotations from "Mark Twain" which herein appear are from Life on the Mississippi (copyright, 1903), by Samuel L. Clemens, permission for the use of which is kindly granted for the present purpose by the publishers, Messrs. Harper & Brothers, New York. 14 Chapter I Early Impressions Descent from an ancestry whose members built and sailed ships from Salem, Newburyport, and Nantucket two hundred years ago, and even down to the early days of the nineteenth century, ought to give an hereditary bias toward a sailor's life, on waters either salt or fresh. A score-and-a-half of men of my name have "died with their boots on" at sea, from the port of Nantucket alone. They went for whales, and the whales got them. Perhaps their fate should have discouraged the sea-going instinct, but perversely it had the opposite effect. A hundred men are lost out of Gloucester every year, yet their boys are on the "Banks" before they are fairly weaned. I was born at Niles, Michigan, on the historic St. Joseph River, which in those days was of considerable importance commercially. Scores of keel boats plied between South Bend and the mouth of the river at St. Joseph, on Lake Michigan. Keel boats drifted down the river, and after unloading were towed back by little steamboats, about eighty feet long by eighteen feet beam. These were propelled by side wheels attached to a single shaft, driven by a horizontal engine of indifferent power. These steamers towed four "keels" upstream at the rate of five or six miles an hour. The former had no upper cabin answering to the "boiler deck" of the Mississippi River boats—only a roof covering the main deck, with the passenger cabin aft, and the quarters of the crew forward of the boiler and engine. It was, I suppose, a quarter of a mile from my birthplace to the river bank where we boys of the neighborhood went to see the steamboats pass. In the opposite direction, around a sharp bend and across the low-lying, alluvial land, which comprised the home farm, the river was discernible a mile away. When a boat was seen coming up river, the alarm was given, and we little shavers of the neighborhood raced for the nearest point of view, a high bank of blue clay, rising probably seventy-five feet above the river. We used to think it was as many hundreds of feet; and what I now know as the quarter mile, then stretched away into interminable distances as it was measured by the stubby yet sturdy little legs of six-year-old runners. On the edge of this blue-clay bank, I received my first impressions in river piloting. My teacher in these matters was a man whom I greatly envied. Kimball Lyon lived in a house three times as large as that in which I was born. His father had left a big farm and a bank account of fabulous dimensions. We knew it was large, because "Kim" never worked as other young men of twenty-five or thirty years did in those days. His mother always kept a "hired man", while Kim toiled not; but he spun. It was not his riches, however, nor his immunity from toil, that common lot of other men, which excited the envy of the six-year-olds. He could, and did, play on the accordion. Lying on his back in the shade and resting one corner of his instrument upon his bosom, with irresistible power and pathos he sang and played "A life on the ocean wave, A home on the rolling deep." It appealed to all the natural impulses of our being, and the dormant instincts inherited from generations of whale-hunting ancestors were aroused by the power of music, reinforced by the suggestive words of the song itself; and then and there we vowed that when we were men like Kimball Lyon, we too would own and play upon accordions, and do all else that he had done; for marvelous tales he told, of his experiences in great storms at sea and of deeds of aquatic prowess. We learned in after years that "Kim" once sailed from St. Joseph to Chicago in a sawed-off lumber hooker, when the wind was west nor'west, down the lake, and that he did actually lie on the deck, but not on his back, and that it was not music which he emitted, and that the sailors railed at him, and that he came back from Chicago by stage coach to Niles. But we didn't know this when he was awakening our viking instincts, as we lay on the banks of the old St. Joe in the sunny summer days of long ago. "Kim" Lyon knew all about steamboats, as well as about deep sea ships, and when we asked questions he could answer out of the fullness of his knowledge. We wondered what made the wheels go 'round, and he told us. I have forgotten what made them go 'round, but my recollection is that it was a peculiar mechanical process of which I have never seen the like in any other service on river, lake or ocean. His answer to the query as to "what is the man in the little house on top of the boat doing?" I have never forgotten, as it afterward came more in my line of business. The man was twisting the wheel as all pilots before and since that time twist it, a spoke or two to port, a half dozen to starboard, hard up and hard down, there being a shallow piece of river just there, beset with big boulders and reefs of gravel, through which he was cautiously worming his boat and its kite-tail of keels. "That man," said Kimball, "is drawing water from a well in the bottom of the boat and emptying it into the boiler, just as your father draws water from his well with a rope, a bucket and a crank. If he should stop for a minute the boiler would burst for want of water, the boat would blow up, and we should all be killed by the explosion." This definition at once gave us a personal interest in the work of the man at the wheel; we all felt that our lives depended upon this man's devotion to his duty. Had he struck a piece of "easy water" at that time, and centred his wheel, there is no doubt that we would have scurried for home before the inevitable explosion should occur. That was my first lesson in piloting. Perhaps this childish concern that the man "drawing water for the boilers" should faithfully perform his duty, was but a prefigurement of the interest with which the writer, and hundreds of others, in later years, have watched the pilot 16 17 work his boat through a tangled piece of river, knowing that the safety of all depended upon the knowledge and faithfulness of the "man at the wheel." The steamboats plying on the St. Joe were crude little affairs, and there were but four or five of them, all alike. I remember the name of but one, the "Algoma"; the others are quite forgotten. Doubtless they were commonplace, and did not appeal to the poetic side of the boy. But "Algoma"! The word has a rhythmical measure, and conjures up visions of wigwams, council fires, dusky maidens, and painted braves. An Indian name would stick when all the saints in the calendar were forgotten. The "Algoma" and her consorts have gone the way of all steamboats. The railroad came and killed their business, just as a few years later, it did on the Great River. A few years later I saw the Mississippi River for the first time, at Rock Island, Illinois; and through the kindness of another well-posted bystander to whom the then twelve-year-old boy appealed, I received my first impressions of a stern-wheel boat. There were two steamboats lying at the levee—the "Minnesota Belle", a side-wheeler, upon which we had taken passage, while just above lay the "Luella", a stern-wheeler. I knew about the former variety from observation on the St. Joe, but I had never seen even a picture of one of the latter sort, so it was a novelty. I wasn't certain that it was a steamboat at all, and after referring the matter to my stranger friend, I learned definitely that it wasn't. The "Luella's" wheel was slowly turning over as she lay at the levee, and as I did not comprehend the mechanical details of that kind of craft I began asking questions. My mentor assured me that the "Luella" was not a steamboat at all, but a water power sawmill. The big wheel then moving was driven by the current, and it in turn operated the sawmill machinery on the inside of the boat. As I could not figure any other use for a wheel out in the open, at the end of the boat, instead of on the side where it ought to be, and as I had no reason to doubt the statement of my informant, I readily accepted the sawmill explanation, and hastened to confide my newly-acquired knowledge to my brother and other members of the family. A few hours later both boats pulled out for St. Paul. After she had rounded the first point, ahead of us, we saw nothing more of the "Luella" until we met her coming down the river on her return trip. She was a heavily-powered boat, and showed her heels to the larger and slower "Minnesota Belle". The sight of the "Luella" kicking her way upstream at the rate of two miles to our one, not only dissipated the sawmill impression, but taught me not to accept at face value all information communicated by glib-tongued and plausible strangers. That steamboat trip from Rock Island to Prescott was one long holiday excursion for us two small and lively boys from Michigan. There was so much to see and in so many different directions at once, that it was impossible to grasp it all, although we scampered over the deck to get differing view points. We met dozens of boats, going back to St. Louis or Galena after further loads of immigrants and freight; and there were other boats which came up behind us, gaining slowly but surely, and finally passing the deeply-laden "Belle". There were landings to be made, and freight and passengers to be disembarked. There were strange Indians to be seen—we were familiar enough with Michigan tribesmen, having been born within a mile or two of old Pokagon's tribal village. There were boys with fish for sale, fish larger than any inhabiting the waters of Michigan streams, sturgeons only excepted, and this promised well for the fun in store when we should reach our journey's end. Finally, on a bright June day in the year 1854, the writer, then a boy of twelve, with his brother, three years younger, were fully transplanted from their Michigan birthplace to the row of stores and warehouses which fronted on the "levee" at Prescott, Wisconsin, where the waters of St. Croix River and Lake join the Mississippi. The town was then a typical frontier settlement. Two hundred white people were planted among five hundred Chippewa Indians; with as many more Sioux, of the Red Wing band, across the river in Minnesota, a few miles lower down the river. The not infrequent outbreaks of the hereditary enmity existing between these ancient foes, would expend itself on the streets of the town in war whoops, gunpowder, and scalping knives, enlivening the experience of the average citizen as he dodged behind the nearest cover to avoid stray bullets; while the city marshal was given an opportunity to earn his salary, by driving out both bands of hostiles at the point of his revolver. 18 19 Chapter II Indians, Dugouts, and Wolves In that early day when my acquaintance with the Mississippi began, Indians were numerous. Their dugouts lay at the levee by the dozen, the hunters retailing the ducks and geese, or venison and bear meat, which had fallen to their guns, while the squaws peddled catfish and pickerel that had been ensnared on the hooks and lines of the women and children of the party. Situated as Prescott was at the junction of the St. Croix with the Mississippi, its citizens were favored with visits both from the Chippewa, who hunted and fished along the former stream and its tributaries in Wisconsin, and the Sioux, who made the bottom lands on the Minnesota side of the river, between Hastings and Red Wing, their home and hunting ground. This was the boundary line which had existed for a hundred years or more; although the Sioux (or Dakota) laid claim to many thousand square miles of hunting grounds in Wisconsin, for which they actually received a million and a half dollars when they quit-claimed it to the United States. Their claim to any lands on the east side of the river had been disputed by the Chippewa from time out of mind; and these rival claims had occasionally been, as we have seen, referred to the only court of arbitration which the Indians recognized—that of the tomahawk and scalping knife. As a boy I have spent many an hour searching in the sands at the foot of the bluffs below Prescott, for arrowheads, rusted remnants of knives and hatchets, and for the well-preserved brass nails with which the stocks and butts of old- time trade muskets were plentifully ornamented. Just how many years ago that battle had been fought, does not appear to be a matter of historical record. That it was fiercely contested, is abundantly proven by the great amount of wreckage of the fight which the white lads of Prescott recovered to be sold to tourists on the steamboats which touched at our levee. The Indians themselves had a tradition that it was a bloody fight. Taking the word of a Chippewa narrator, one was easily convinced that hundreds of Sioux bit the sand on that eventful day. If the narrator happened to belong across the river, one felt assured, after listening to his version, that the Chippewa met their Marathon on this battle plain. In any case the treasure trove indicated a very pretty fight, whichever party won the field. Charlevoix, the French historian, relates that in 1689 Le Seuer established a fortified trading post on the west side of the Mississippi, about eight miles below the present site of Hastings. In speaking of this fort, he says: "THE ISLAND HAS A BEAUTIFUL PRAIRIE, AND THE FRENCH OF CANADA HAVE MADE IT A CENTRE OF COMMERCE FOR THE WESTERN parts, and many pass the winter here, because it is a good country for hunting." As a boy I have many a time visited the site of this ancient stronghold, and hobnobbed with the Indians then occupying the ground, descendants of those with whom the French fraternized two hundred years ago. At this point the islands are about four miles across from the main channel of the river; the islands being formed by Vermillion Slough, which heads at Hastings, reëntering the river about two and a half miles above Red Wing. Trudell Slough, which heads in the river about four miles below Prescott, joins Vermillion at the point at which was probably located Le Seuer's post. At the juncture of the two sloughs there was a beautiful little prairie of several acres. On the west, the bluffs rose several hundred feet to the level prairie which constitutes the upper bench. Just at this point there are three mounds rising fifty to seventy-five feet above the level of the prairie, and serving as a landmark for miles around. Whether they are of geological origin or the work of the Indians in their mound-building epoch, had not been determined in my day. There are other prominences of like character everywhere about, and it would seem that they were erected by the hand of man. On the north, east, and south the islands afforded good hunting grounds for the French and their allies. In 1854 and later (I think even yet), the site of this ancient fort was occupied by a band of Sioux Indians of Red Wing's tribe, under the sub-chieftaincy of a French half-breed named Antoine Mouseau (Mo'-sho). In Neill's history of the settlement of St. Paul he mentions Louis Mouseau as one of the first settlers occupying, in 1839, a claim lying at the lower end of Dayton Bluff, about two miles down the river from the levee. This Antoine Mouseau, a man about forty in 1854, was probably a son of the St. Paul pioneer and of a squaw of Red Wing's band. In the days when the white boys of Prescott made adventurous trips "down to Mo-sho's", the islands were still remarkably rich in game—deer, bear, wolves, 'coons, mink, muskrats, and other fur-bearing animals; and in spring and fall the extensive rice swamps literally swarmed with wild fowl. Two or three of the adventures which served to add spice to such visits as we made with the little red men of Mouseau's tribe, will serve to illustrate the sort of life which was led by all Prescott boys in those early days. They seemed to be a part of the life of the border, and were taken as a matter of course. Looking back from this distance, and from the civilization of to-day, it seems miraculous to me that all of those boys were not drowned or otherwise summarily disposed of. As a matter of fact none of them were drowned, and to the best of my knowledge none of them have as yet been hanged. Most of them went into the Union army in the War of Secession, and some of them are sleeping where the laurel and magnolia bend over their last resting places. The water craft with which the white boys and Indian boys alike traversed the river, rough or smooth, and explored every creek, bayou, and slough for miles around, were "dug-outs"—canoes hollowed out of white pine tree trunks. Some canoes were large and long, and would carry four or five grown persons. Those owned and used by the boys were from six to eight feet long, and just wide enough to take in a not too-well-developed lad; but then, all the boys 21 22 were lean and wiry. It thus happened that the Blaisdells, the Boughtons, the Fifields, the Millers, the Merricks, the Schasers, the Smiths, and the Whipples, and several other pairs and trios ranging from fourteen years down to seven, were pretty generally abroad from the opening of the river in the spring until its closing in the fall, hunting, fishing and exploring, going miles away, up or down the river or lake, and camping out at night, often without previous notice to their mothers. With a "hunk" of bread in their pockets, some matches to kindle a fire, a gun and fishlines, they never were in danger of starvation, although always hungry. One of the incidents referred to, I accept more on the evidence of my brother than of my own consciousness of the situation when it occurred. He was eleven at the time, and I fourteen. We each had a little pine "dug-out", just large enough to carry one boy sitting in the stern, and a reasonable cargo of ducks, fish or fruit. With such a load the gunwales of the craft were possibly three or four inches above the water line. The canoe itself was round on the bottom, and could be rolled over and over by a boy lying flat along the edges, with his arms around it, as we often did for the amusement of passengers on the boats—rolling down under water and coming up on the other side, all the time holding fast to the little hollowed-out log. Such a craft did not appear to be very seaworthy, nor well calculated to ride over rough water. Indeed, under the management of a novice they would not stay right side up in the calmest water. For the boys who manned them, however, whether whites or Indians, they were as seaworthy as Noah's ark, and much easier to handle. A show piece much in vogue, was to stand on the edge of one of these little round logs (not over eight feet long), and with a long-handled paddle propel the thing across the river. This was not always, nor usually, accomplished without a ducking; but it often was accomplished by white boys without the ducking, and that even when there was some wind and little waves. The Indian lads would not try it in public. For one thing, it was not consonant with Indian dignity; for another, an Indian, big or little, dislikes being laughed at, and a ducking always brought a laugh when there were any spectators. I cannot, after all these years, get over an itching to try this experiment again. I believe that I could balance myself all right; but the difference between sixty pounds and a hundred and sixty might spoil the game. Some boys, more fortunate than others, were from time to time possessed of birch-bark canoes—small ones. Of all the craft that ever floated, the birch-bark comes nearer being the ideal boat than any other. So light is it, that it may be carried on the head and shoulders for miles without great fatigue; and it sits on the water like a whiff of foam—a veritable fairy craft. It was the custom of the boys who owned these little "birches" to shove them off the sand with a run, and when they were clear of the land to jump over the end, and standing erect, paddle away like the wind. This was another show piece, and was usually enacted for the benefit of admiring crowds of Eastern passengers on the steamboats. On one such occasion, a young man from the East who professed to be a canoeist, and who possibly was an expert with an ordinary canoe, came off the boat, and after crossing the palm of the birch-bark's owner with a silver piece, proposed to take a little paddle by himself. The boy was an honest boy, as boys averaged then and there, and although not averse to having a little fun at the expense of the stranger, in his capacity of lessor he deemed it his duty to caution his patron that a birch-bark was about as uncertain and tricky a proposition as any one would wish to tackle— especially such a little one as his own was. He proposed to hold it until his passenger had stepped in and sat down and was ready to be shoved off. This was the usual procedure, and it had its good points for the average tourist. But this one had seen the boys shoving the same canoe off the sand and jumping over the stern, and he proposed to do the same thing, because he was used to canoes himself. Against the cautions of the owner he did shove off and jump, but he did not alight in the canoe. That elfish little piece of Indian deviltry was not there when he arrived; it slipped out from under him, sidewise, and with a spring which jumped it almost clear of the water it sailed away before the wind, while the canoeist went headfirst into six or eight feet of water, silk hat, good clothes and all, amid the howls of delight from the passengers on the steamer who had been watching him. He was game, however, and admitted that he had never imagined just how light and ticklish a birch-bark was; nor how much science it required to jump squarely over the stern of such a fragile creation and maintain one's balance. Woodmen and canoeists familiar with "birches" will understand just how small a deviation is required to bring discomfiture. A little carelessness on the part of an old hand is often just as fatal as a little ignorance on the part of the tenderfoot. But I digress. On the trip concerning which I started to tell, my brother and I had been down to the Indian village and were on our way home. When we emerged from Trudell Slough we found a gale blowing from the south, against the current of the river, and great combing waves were running, through which it seemed impossible to ride in our little boats. However, we had to cross the river in order to get home, and we did not long debate the question. Being the oldest I took the lead, Sam following. He was but eleven years old, and had a boat all by himself to manage in that sea. But he could paddle a canoe as well as any Indian boy. I also could paddle, and being older, nearly fourteen, was supposed to have the wisdom of the ages in the matter of judgment in meeting and riding combers. Under these conditions, I started out to make the crossing. My brother has told me since that he never thought of any danger to himself; but he figured, a dozen times, that I was gone—in fact he lost three or four good bets that I would not come up again after going down out of sight. My canoe would go down into the trough of the sea at the same time that his did, thus he would lose track of me. He had to keep his eyes on the "combers" and meet them at just the right angle, or he himself would have been the "goner". Sometimes he would not locate me until he had met three or four big ones. Then he would rise over the tops of the waves at the same time and would be able to reassure himself that I was still right side up and paddling for life, and that he was out another bet. I do not know that I thought of the danger at all, 23 24 25 as I simply had my canoe to look out for. Had Sam been in front I would have realized, as he did, that we were taking lots of chances, and would have learned from the diving of his craft just how great the danger really was, as he did. We shipped a good deal of water—that is, a good deal for the amount we could afford to take in and maintain any margin between the gunwales of our canoes and the water outside. Before we got across we were sitting in several inches of water, but a little baling cleared this out as soon as we reached the Wisconsin side, and we proceeded up the river, hugging the shore and keeping in the eddies and under the points, without further adventures. I do not think we mentioned the crossing as anything to brag of, as under the circumstances any of the boys would have done the same thing in the same way. One other incident in which the little canoe figured, involved the closest call to drowning I ever had as a boy. Again I was out with my brother, some ten miles down the river, near Diamond Bluff, fishing and scouting about in the customary manner. Sam was ahead of me, and had landed on a pile of driftwood lodged against a giant cottonwood which had been undermined by the eating away of the river bank. In falling, one or more of its branches had been so deeply driven into the bottom of the river that it held at right angles with the current, extending out fifty feet or more into the channel. Against this obstruction all sorts of logs, lumber, and other drift had lodged, forming a large raft. My brother had run in under the lower side of this and climbed out, preparatory to dropping his line for fish. I, doubtless carelessly, drifted down toward the upper side. One of the limbs which did not quite reach the surface so as to be seen, caught my little vessel and in an instant I was in the water, and under the raft. I thought I was surely gone, for I supposed that the driftwood was deep enough to catch and hold me. I had presence of mind enough left, however, to do the only thing which was left—dive as deeply as possible, and with open eyes steer clear of the many branches through which I had to find my way toward the open water on the lee side of the raft. Sam ran to the lower side to catch me if I came up—an expectation which he had little hope of realizing, thinking as I did that I would be caught like a rat in a trap, and never come up until dug out. Fortunately the drift was not deep, and the limbs not very close together, and I popped up as I cleared the last log, but with so little breath left that another ten feet would have drowned me. Sam caught me by the hand and "yanked" me out on the drift, where I lay and took in air for some minutes to fill out my collapsed lungs. In another ten minutes we were fishing as if nothing had happened. In these upsets which we were almost daily experiencing, our costumes played an important though passive part. The entire uniform of the average river lad of those days consisted of a pair of blue jean trousers, a calico shirt, a home- made straw hat, and sometimes a pair of "galluses". The last named item indicated an extravagant expenditure; one "gallus" was ample for all practical purposes; the second represented luxury and wanton extravagance. With such a costume a boy in the water was practically unhampered, and could and did swim with all the freedom of an unclothed cupid. One of the customary relaxations of the Prescott boys was to run down Orange Street when school "let out", in single file, dressed as above described, hats and all, and dive from the ledge of rocks fifteen feet high into water forty feet deep. It was on one of these excursions that I had the only real scare of my life. This may sound like braggadocio, but it is a fact. I have been in places since that time, where I thought death imminent, and knew that it was possible, if not probable, at any moment; but in such situations I have more or less successfully been able to conceal the fact of fear. In the case in question I did not attempt to conceal from myself the fact that I was sincerely alarmed. We had, late in the autumn, landed at a desolate coulee several miles below Prescott. I had gone back about half a mile from the river, on to the prairie, leaving my brother at the canoe. Suddenly I heard the long-drawn hunting cry of a wolf. Looking in the direction of the sound I saw a big grey timber wolf loping toward me with the speed of a race horse. His cries were answered from a distance, and then I saw six other big wolves bounding over the prairie after me. I looked around for some place of safety and saw at some distance—a good deal less than a quarter of a mile, as I know it now, but it looked all of that at the time—a small burr oak, the only tree near enough to be available in this crisis. I knew enough about the big timber wolves to know that I would instantly be in ribbons after they were upon me. One alone might be kept off; but seven would have the courage of numbers, and would make short work of a single boy. Then I was scared. I could actually feel every hair upon my head standing straight on end, as stiff as Hamlet's "quills upon the fretful porcupine". It has been worth all that it cost, this hair-raising experience, as an interpretation of the much-quoted expression from the immortal Bard of Avon. A good runner, I had a full half mile the start of the leading wolf. I did not wait for him greatly to diminish the lead, but "lit out" for the little burr oak. I covered the ground in the shortest time I had ever devoted to a like distance, and although very nearly winded jumped for the lower limbs and pulled myself up just in time to escape the teeth of the forward beast. In another minute there were seven of them, leaping to within a few feet of my legs as I stood on a branch of the small tree, as high up as I dared to go. My brother had heard the cries of the wolves, and running to the top of the bank had watched the race with great interest. When the tree was safely reached he shouted to me to hold on and he would go for help, and he at once started for Prescott, four miles away, against the current. For some reason which I have never been able to explain, the wolves, after yelping and leaping for an hour or so, suddenly started off across the prairie, and when they had gone a mile away I climbed down and ran for home. In the meantime my hair had resumed its normal position, and never since, under any circumstances, have I experienced a like sensation. I presume that the thought of being torn to pieces by the wolves, a contingency which seemingly was quite probable, added a horror to the imminence of death which was not present at a time when there was an equal chance of being drowned. It was not because I did not know all about 26 27 28 wolves, for I did. Their cries were familiar sounds in that wild country, and their ferocity had been proven time and again; but I had never heard nor seen them when it meant quite so much to me, nor when the chances seemed so slim. Chapter III On the Levee at Prescott 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 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, 30 33 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 t...