It was the day before Thanksgiving when the houseboat Gadabout, with her good-byes all said, fished up her anchor from the river bottom in front of Weyanoke, and started off to find another place to drop it farther up the stream. She was ready for the holiday. The material for her Thanksgiving dinner was all aboard: part of it canned and boxed as the steamer had just brought it from Norfolk; and the rest of it, and the best of it, plump and gobbling on the stern.
But Gadabout's preparations for the day had not stopped here. Not only had she provided the season's feast, but she had diligently inquired of her chart and of her neighbours where she might take her family to church. The chart had told her of a little stream, called Herring Creek, a few miles farther up the James, and had shown her a mark upon the bank of the creek that it called Westover Church. The neighbours had said that the chart was right; and had added that the church was a colonial one still in use, and doubtless Thanksgiving services would be held there. Fortunately, Herring Creek was a stream that Gadabout had intended running into anyway, as it would be the anchorage most convenient to the next colonial estate that she should visit—the plantation of Westover from which the church had taken its name.
From Weyanoke to the old church was not very far; but, as Gadabout had one or two things to stop for on the way and as she might be delayed by the tide, this bright Wednesday morning found her bustling up the river almost afraid that she would be late for service.
Doubtless, in her haste, she was quite put out when we threw the wheel to starboard as she was passing Court House Creek, and carried her somewhat out of her way. All that we did it for was to run in close to look at some "stobs" just showing above the water. At the mouths of most of the creeks along the James are such "stobs" or broken pilings. They are the ruins of old-time piers, the last vestige of a vanished, picturesque river trade.
Ancient pilings have lasted well in the James; and these evidently once belonged to the piers of up-creek colonial planters. They tell of the day when ships from England, Holland, and the Indies sailed up the river for barter with the colonists. While the planters whose estates fronted directly on the James received their importations upon wharves before their doors and delivered their tobacco in the same convenient manner, the planters up the creeks were at more trouble in the matter. The bars at the mouths of the streams kept the ships from entering; and they had to wait outside while the planters brought their produce down upon rafts and in shallow-draft barges, pirogues, and shallops.
Some of the most picturesque of the colonial river trade was at these little creek-mouth piers. Here came not only the tall ships from England bearing everything used upon the plantations from match-locks and armour to satin bodice and perfumed periwig, from plow and spit to Turkey-worked chairs and silver plate, from oatmeal, cheese, and wine to nutmegs and Shakespeare's plays; but here came also tramp craft—broad, deep-laden bottoms from the Netherlands, and English and Dutch boats from the West Indies. These picturesque vagrant sails sought their customers from landing to landing, and sold their cargoes at comparatively low prices. Such a ship was assort of bargain boat for these scattered settlers up the creeks of the James; a queer, transient department store at the little cross-roads of tidewater.
There would be exchange of news as well as of commodities, and a friendly rivalry in the matter of tales of adventure—the planter's story of Indian attacks being pitted against the captain's yarn of the "pyrats" that gave him chase off the "Isle of Devils." Then up the masts of the trading ship the sails would go clacking, and the prow that had touched the warm wharves of the Indies would point up the river again, bound for the next landing. And the shallops of the planter—after loading from the little pier with casks and bales still strong of the ship's hold, of the tar of the ropes, of the salt of the sea—would disappear up the forest stream.
A short distance above Court House Creek, Gadabout stopped at a landing to get some oil. She was rather hurried and flustered about the matter, as the steamer from Petersburg was coming around the point above and would soon be making this same landing, and a schooner that was loading was right in the way, and the first line that was thrown out broke, and the engine stopped at the wrong time, and—all those people looking on! Besides, this was supposed to be an interesting fishing point; but how was a little houseboat to get a look at it, lying there alongside a big schooner that she couldn't see over? Altogether, Gadabout fumed and fussed so much here, pitching about in the choppy water, jerking her ropes, and battering her big neighbour, that it was a relief to all concerned when she got her oil aboard, cast off her ropes, and, giving the schooner a last vindictive dig in the ribs, set off up the river.
Even after getting away from the schooner there was not much to be seen at the landing. Yet, in season, the little place would be quite quaint and bustling; for it was one of the many fishing hamlets along the river.
The James has always been a favourite spawning-ground for sturgeon. Those first colonists, writing enthusiastically of the newfound river, declared "As for Sturgeon, all the World cannot be compared to it." They told of a unique and spirited way the Indians had of catching these huge, lubberly fish. In a narrow bend of the river where the sturgeon crowded, an adroit fisherman would clap a noose over the tail of a great fish (a fish perhaps much larger than himself) and go plunging about with his powerful captive. And he was accounted "cockarouse," brave fellow, who kept his hold, diving and swimming, and finally towed his catch ashore.