Pen Pictures, of Eventful Scenes and Struggles of Life

by B. F. Craig

Some of the old heroes who battled for the free navigation of the western waters, left a request to be buried on the bank of the beautiful Ohio, where the merry song of the boatman would break the stillness of their resting place, and the music of the steam engine soothe their departed spirits. Well have their desires been fulfilled.

Some long and tedious summers had passed away—notwithstanding a congressman had declared in Washington City, “that the Ohio river was frozen over six months in the year, and the balance of the season would not float a tad-pole.”

The music of the steam engine or the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, had given rise to unforseen industries. Don and Dan Carlo, standing in the half-way house between boyhood and manhood, without inheriting a red cent in the wide world with which to commence the battle of life, grown up in poverty, surrounded by family pride, with willing hearts and strong arms, were ready t-o undertake any enterprise that glimmering fortune might point out.

A relative on the mother's side held the title papers, signed by the Governor of Arkansas, to a tract ol land on the Mississippi river, who gave the privilege to Don and Dan Carlo, to establish a wood yard on said premises.

For steam navigation was not only a fixed fact, but the boats were much improved—many of them taking on board twenty-four cords of wood at one landing.

“Competition is the life of trade,” and several enterprising woodmen were established in this locality; and when a passing steamboat would ring for wood after night, all anxious to show the first light, the woodmen, torch in hand, would run out of their cabins in their shirt-tails. From this circumstance, that locality was known by the boatmen from Pittsburgh to New Orleans, by the homely appellation of the Shirt-Tail Bend.

That, like many other localities on the Mississippi, was first settled by wood-choppers. The infantile state of society in those neighborhoods can be better imagined than described. The nearest seat of justice was forty miles, and the highest standard of jurisprudence was a third-rate county court lawyer. Little Rock was, perhaps, the only point in the State that could boast of being the residence of a printers' devil, or the author of a dime novel.

The wood-cutters were the representative men of the neighborhood. The Gospel of peace and good will to men was, perhaps, slightly preserved in the memories of some who had been raised in a more advanced state of civilization. The passing days were numbered by making a mark on the day-board every morning, and a long mark every seventh day, for the Sabbath.

Quarrels concerning property seldom, if ever, occurred. The criminal code or personal difficulties were generally settled according to the law of the early boatmen, which was: if two men had a personal quarrel, they were required to choose seconds, go ashore and fight it out. The seconds were chosen to see that no weapons were used and no foul holds were taken. It was a trial of physical strength, and when the vanquished party cried “enough!” the difficulty was considered settled.

I am speaking of times prior to the inauguration of the Arkansas Bowie knife and pistol Many of the early woodcutters on the Mississippi were men of sterling integrity. Don Carlo never wrote a line for the future antiquarian to ponder over, or dreamed that he was transmitting anything to posterity; yet, by his bold and noble conduct, he stamped the impress of his character upon the memories of all who witnessed the blossom of society in the woods on the Mississippi river.