EARLY RIVER DAYS
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I was born November 17, 1856, Galena, Illinois. Galena at that time
was noted for its rich and productive lead and zinc mines, for its many fine
steamboats, prominent and successful steamboat men, and big river commerce.
Captain Smith Harris, and his brothers, Scribe, Keeler, Meeker and
Jack,
Captain Orrin Smith, Charles L. Stephenson, G.W. Girdon, Adam and Stephen
Younkers, Paul Kerz, N.F. Webb, and E.H. Beebe; Pilots William
White, Thomas Drenning, Will Kelly, John Arnold, George Tromley, Stephen B.
Hanks, Hiram Beedle, William Fisher, John King, W.R. Tibbals; and Engineers
Henry Whitmore ,William Myers, James Hunt, George Griffith, and Sam Maxwell,
were some of those actively engaged. I still remember them in those happy
boyhood days when I found so much enjoyment playing around the old Galena levee, and watching them loading the
handsome big steamboats with pigs of lead, sacks of grain, or barrels of
pork, for which Galena was noted.
Galena was then the largest and wealthiest city north of Saint
Louis, with more of a population than it has today. It is on the Fevre river, five
miles from where it enters Harris Slough, which opens out into the
Mississippi six miles above Bellevue, Iowa. Fevre river and Harris Slough
were both deep then. Boats, fully loaded had no trouble getting out into
the Mississippi, and boats like the 'Northern Light' or the 'Grey …
24
Eagle,' two hundred and fifty feet long could turn around in Galene harbor.
When I was there, a few years ago, with the 'Helen Blair', we had to back all
the way out of the river, and turn in Harris Slough. The 'Helen Blair' was
only one hundred and eighty feet long. The old, deep Fevre river has been
filled up by the soil from the cultivated hills. Besides
the large steamers that ran to Saint Louis or Saint Paul, there were smaller
ones, like the 'Alice Wild,' 'Charles Rogers,' 'Belle of Bellevue,' the
'Sterling', and the 'Willie Wilson,' engaged in local work, towing wood,
sand, and lumber, coming and going to and from the Mississippi.
I have in memory a few days that stand out with more than ordinary
interest. one was a fine afternoon when Matt Lorraine, a boy two or three
years older than I, took me out rowing in a nice skiff named 'Mab,' and
generously shared with me a sack of peanuts, which he said cost five cents. I
recall nothing of the three hundred and sixty-four days of that year.
One of Galena's noted characters, in those days, was a little
Irishman
called Conny O'Ryan. Conny had a strong dislike for steady employment. He
didn't object to a short job now and then, if the pay was good and the jobs
didn't come too close together. He spent most of his winters in jail.
Once, toward spring Owen M'Gaughy, one Conny's old pals, took him up some
tobacco, and when about to leave, asked "Will you be soon out,
Conny?" He replied" Me time is pretty near up, but Mr. Pittam says I
may stay
in, a few weeks longer, if I behave myself." One day, as winter was
coming on, we asked him what he was going to do this winter, as they would
not keep him in jail there any more. He answered, quite cheerfully,
"I'll go over to …
25
Dubuque, so I will, and get good and drunk and break in some man's window and
they'll sind me up for three months. Divil the lick of work
will I do till spring." And that is just what he did.
In 1857, the Illinois Central railroad extended from Cairo, at the
extreme southern end of the state, to Galena, in the northwest corner,
with a branch from Amboy to Chicago, and was then the longest railroad
in the world. The Galena steamboats connected this great railroad with
the entire Northwest and it gave the boats regular and reliable connection
with the East and South. These conditions, while they lasted, were
mutually advantages to all concerned, and many snug fortunes were made
by members of the Galena and Minnesota Company and a few independents.
The lumber handled by the Galena yards nearly all came from
sawmills
on the Wisconsin river. It was floated down the Wisconsin and Mississippi
and towed to the Fevre river, by some of the small boats, or pulled and
poled up by hand, when the conditions were favorable.
Log to supply the local sawmills came from the northern pineries in
the
same way. Considerable Galena capital was invested in lumbering in the
Wisconsin pineries. Many of the men who worked on the boats as deck-
hands in summer went up to the pineries in winter and helped cut and
bank the logs and in early spring, to get the logs down to the sawmills.
Naturally some of these men were engaged to help float the rafts of
logs or lumber down the Wisconsin and Mississippi, earning good money while
getting back to their summer jobs. In doing this, a few of the more ambitious
chaps developed into 'raft pilots' who knew the river, and either piloted for
so much per …
26
month, trip, or season, or took contracts to run rafts of logs or lumber
for so much per thousand feet. In the latter case, the Pilot-contractor
hired and paid his own crew, besides furnishing the necessary kit of ropes
((called lines) to hold the logs together, making the raft strong and stiff,
and also to check and hold it when landing. Some tools were required;
besides axes, crank augers, pike poles, snatch poles, pikes and peavies,
A prudent pilot would also provide a supply of plugs, lockdowns, and brail-
rigging, for repair work. Last of all, he must have two safe, easy-rowing
skiffs. These things had to be good or trouble was sure to follow. A pilot or
company that was known to be niggardly or indifferent about the kit,
often had to take men who couldn't get work elsewhere.
Furnishing the provisions, or 'grub', was not so particular a
matter, for
little was expected in the way of variety or delicacies. Salt meats, flour,
cornmeal, beans, and potatoes, with coffee and sugar, filled the bill. No
milk or butter was expected, but molasses, then plentiful and cheap, was
sometime furnished.
George Tromley, William Simmons and David Philamulee were the only
'floating pilots' living in Galena, remembered in my boyhood. Later when
steamboats were used to guide and tow rafts down the river, the term
'raft pilot' applied to a pilot who piloted a raft and the boat towing it.
He had to have a government license to pilot the steamboat, while no license
was required to pilot a floating raft. Those pilots were usually
called 'floaters', to distinguish them from others running rafts with steam
towboats.
My father was engaged in a retail lumber business, first in Galena,
and
afterwards in Princeton, a smaller town, on the Mississippi. He secured all
his supply …
27
from floating rafts that would land above our yard so we could pick out
the cribs and strings that had the kinds of lumber we wanted for our trade.
While this work of selection was going on, the pilot usually stayed
at
our house. I spent much of my time on the raft with the crew, and was always
glad to be invited to sit up to the table with them at meal-time;
not because the food was better or even as good as we had at home, but
it was different, quite different.
I was greatly interested in the talk of the crew, especially in their
arguments. I asked many questions about the Wisconsin river, the Dalles,
Little Bull Falls, and other features I had heard so much about. Some of
the information they gave me was correct perhaps; at any rate it was colored
up enough to create a strong desire to see that wonderful river.
For over forty years I have been planning a voyage in an old-fashioned
raft-skiff, from Stevens Point to its mouth. I have crossed the river
many times, on the railway bridge, near its mouth, but never rode a mile on
its surface.
My favorite pilot was Joe Blow, an old Frenchman of Stevens Point,
of
whom we bought lumber every year. He was intelligent above the average,
and had such a delightful Canadian- French dialect and such agreeable
manners that no matter how late he stayed up and talked, Mother could
not drive us children to bed until Captain Blow went upstairs.
He owned the raft or an interest in it, and did his own piloting
down
the Wisconsin to the Mississippi and down the Mississippi to Saint Louis,
including both the Upper and Lower rapids. His crew were nearly all
'Canucks' like himself, and they treated him with marked respect.
The Mississippi has an average current of two and a …
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... half mile per hour. A floating raft would have the same speed if there were
no wind, but it was very much affected by even a light wind, and
had to be tied up for any moderate side or down- stream wind. Much time
was lost on this account, and even a short trip in distance often turned to
be a long one, in time. One windy spring, Captain Blow was six
weeks from the mouth of the 'Wisconsin' to 'de rapids' only one hundred and
fifty miles.
The pilots wanted calm weather to run the rapids, because it was
impossible to tie up, in such strong current, if there was much wind. A
favorite place to wait for daylight, or calm weather to run the Upper or
Rock Island rapids , was under the bar, in front of Harvey Goldsmith's place,
above LeClaire, Iowa . When half a dozen rafts, with their crews
of from twenty to thirty men each, were held up here for a few days,
with nothing to do, they had high old times.
In low water these rafts had to be cut up into several sections and
extra
oars shipped up on each end and men taken on, so the sections
could be kept in the narrows, crooked ' steamboat channels' , whereas in
ordinary stages of the water the whole raft could be rub down 'raft-
channel’.
This low-water work made good business for the 'rapids
pilots' and
'trippers' in LeClaire and Montrose, who received four dollars for the
fifteen mile trip 'bucking' an oar from LeClaire to Davenport, or from
Montrose to Keokuk. This was hard on the owner or contractor though.
I guess 'bucking' an oar on a raft was the best exercise to
develop the
lungs and all the muscles that has yet been found. It sure produced a
strong, husky lot of men.
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The oars or sweeps by which the raft was handled, consisted of stems
twenty feet long, usually young tamarack poles about twelve inches thick
at the big end. Into this was pinned a pine blade fourteen inches wide,
about twelve feet long and two and one half inches thick at the end attached
to the blade, and sawed tapering to one and one quarter inches
at the outboard end.
Each string of the raft had one of these oars hung on a head-block
across the end and held in place by a two-inch oak pin, working in a long
slat through the oar-stem near the big end, and driven deep down into
the head-block. This made the heavy oar balance nicely, and with a big, strong
man at the end of each of eight to twelve oars, directed by an intelligent
pilot, very satisfactory work was done when the weather was calm.
Rafts of both logs and lumber were made up of long strings each
six-
teen feet wide and about four hundred feet long. The string was composed
of logs placed in rows, close together, side by side and butt to butt, and
the rows held together by sixteen -foot poles laid across the string and
fastened to each log by hickory or elm lockdowns and wooden plugs. The
lockdown was bent over the pole, the ends stuck down into one and one-quarter
inch holes in the log, and then the plugs driven in to hold them.
Lumber was built in strongly framed cribs at the mill where it
was sawed, and slid off into the river by a tilting cradle on which it
rested.
Rafts were not made up to size until they were safely on the
Mississippi
About seven cribs long and four strings wide was the usual size run on the
tributaries.
The crew lived on the raft on its voyage down to the …
30
mill, where it was to be sawed, or to market to be sold.
There was so much
objection to any structure that would catch wind and cause more work
at the oars, that they were contented with very small tents made of rough
boards. If any ambitious members of the crew built higher shanties they
were usually told to knock them down, the first windy day. Failure to comply
with this suggestion frequently resulted in a fight that was sure
to end in defeat for the owner, because the pilot or the rest of the crew
would knock it down anyway.
They generally had a low wide 'cook-shanty' in which they sat down
to
eat; but often the cooking was done with only a cover to keep the rain off
the stove, and the grub was served out in the open, the men standing to eat.
The success of the cook depended more on his ability to lick any man
in the crew than on his skill in the culinary art. Even the pilot had to give
in to the cook, at least until the end of the trip. Most of the cooks were
only known by their nick-names, such as sailor Jack, Spike Ike, Calfskin Ben,
Steubenville Ben, Kelly the Cutter, Hayden the Brute, Slufoot Murphey, Double
Headed Bob and many more just as musically names; all
good cooks and most of them agreeable when sober, but real bad actors
when liquored up.
One day two of them especially noted for their skill as cooks and
also
for their bilbulous habits, met in the Lansing boat store and strange to
tell they were both sober.
After friendly greeting Hayden said to Luker "I thought you were on the
Calfrey."
"I was"
"Why leave her; she furnishes well?"
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"I couldn't give her satisfaction, I was paid off."
"Where did the kick come from, the cabin or the mess room?"
"Why the mess room, of course. The officers were delighted with me
work. The captain had tears in his eyes when I left the boat; but I couldn't
please the men."
"Well Jimmy Luker! I'm really surprised that a 'cuke' of your experience
should fail to handle a common situation like that. Why didn't you fill
them up on sweet stuff-pie and cake and candy."
"Thats just what I did. I sat up nights making candy and gave them pie and
cake three times a day and for midnight lunch and then the reprobates
set up the howl for 'puddin' and I quit her right then."
HISTORY