Waterways of Westward Expansion - The Ohio River and its Tributaries

by Archer Butler Hulbert

“Didn’t you ever hear of black murrain?”

“Yes,” was the terrified reply.

“Well, that’s it—all sheep up the river’s got it dreadful—dyin’ like rotten dogs, hundreds daily.”

“You don’t tell!” cried the victim; “and what’s the cure?”

“Nothin’ but killin’ ’em to prevent it’s spreadin’; it’s dreadful catchin’, is black murrain.”

The riverman was at once begged to kill the infected sheep and throw their bodies into the current of the river. Mike did not at once agree, but when a couple of gallons of peach brandy was named as a consideration, he consented. And that night as his boat left the cove its freight was increased by many pounds of mutton and something less than two gallons of peach brandy. The same story is told of other bargemen in various portions of the Union but, whoever was guilty of the theft, it is typical of all so far as their attitude to the public is concerned.

Such men, being constantly on the move, were hard to place, and as difficult to bring to justice as a government official. A keel-boat captain surrounded by a swarthy crew which he had treated liberally to plunder would not be attacked by any posse in its right mind. On one occasion—whether or not the story is true, the spirit of it is no misrepresentation—Mike Fink was so earnestly desired that a reward was offered for his capture. When his boat was anchored at Louisville an old friend of Mike’s, a constable, approached him and expressed the desire to bring him to trial in order to obtain the promised reward. At the same time he assured the culprit that there was no evidence that could result in conviction. The keel-boat man took pity on his friend and agreed, after some consideration, to acquiesce on one condition: he would go if he could be drawn thither in his yawl, surrounded by his men.

The condition was agreed to. “Accordingly a long-coupled wagon was procured, and, with oxen attached, it went down the hill, at Third Street for Mike’s yawl. The road, for it was not then a street, was very steep and very muddy at this point. Regardless of this, however, the boat was set upon the wagon, and Mike and his men, with their long poles ready, as if for an aquatic excursion, were put aboard, Mike in the stern. By dint of laborious dragging, the wagon had attained half the height of the hill, when out shouted the stentorian voice of Mike calling to his men, ‘Set poles!’—and the end of every long pole was set firmly in the thick mud; ‘Back her!’ roared Mike, and down the hill again went wagon, yawl, men, and oxen. Mike had been revolving the matter in his mind and had concluded that it was best not to go; and well knowing that each of his men was equal to a moderately strong ox, he had at once conceived and executed this retrograde movement. Once at the bottom, another parley was held and Mike was again overpowered. This time they had almost reached the top of the hill, when ‘Set poles! Back her!’ was again ordered and again executed. A third attempt, however, was successful, and Mike reached the court house in safety; and, as his friend, the constable, had endeavored to induce him to believe, he was acquitted for lack of sufficient evidence. Other indictments, however, were found against him, but Mike preferred not to wait to hear them tried; so, at a given signal he and his men boarded their craft and again stood ready to weigh anchor. The dread of the long poles in the hands of Mike’s men prevented the posse from urging any serious remonstrance against his departure. And off they started with poles ‘tossed.’ As they left the court house yard Mike waved his red bandanna, which he had fixed on one of the poles, and promising to ‘call again’ was borne back to his element and launched once more upon the waters.”[73]

Our inability to believe such stories is only an additional proof that those days might as well be a cycle as a century behind us, so far as catching the genuine atmosphere of them is concerned. It was a rough day on shore, a day when, so the story goes, a Louis Phillippe could not treat an Ohio innkeeper with hauteur (after announcing that he would “be King of France”) without being thrown into the street to the accompaniment of the boast: “We are all Kings over here.” English travelers in the middle West have probably left truer pictures of actual social conditions in the days of the keel-boat and barge than we have elsewhere. We think many of these accounts are, like Dickens’s Notes, exaggerated. If any of them are true, all might as well be. And, at any rate, whatever the social average, we can be very certain that the rivermen had the hardest work and were the hardest type of all laborers in the new West.

A hint has been dropped some pages before about the feeling of the old-time rivermen concerning the introduction of steam navigation. In this series of monographs it has been in place now and then to refer to the anger and disgust of every class of men engaged in land transportation over the introduction of new methods. The old packhorse-men were intensely incensed at the introduction of wheeled vehicles on the great routes of trade and immigration, and even opposed the widening of Indian trails and the building of roads. The first wagons were assaulted and demolished. In turn the “waggoners” and teamsters opposed the building of canals and the improvement of the rivers. Teamsters, tow-boat men, and rivermen were foremost in opposing the railway. Something of the same spirit exists in certain parts today, in the struggle which is on, and which is growing more bitter each year, between railway and electric roads.