AMONG my earliest recollections is a trip from Cumberland County to Lynchburg, in 1835, or thereabouts. As the stage approached Glover’s tavern in Appomattox county, sounds as of a cannonade aroused my childish curiosity to a high pitch. I had been reading Parley’s History of America, and this must be the noise of actual battle. Yes; the war against the hateful Britishers must have broken out again. Would the stage carry us within range of the cannon balls? Yes, and presently the red-coats would come swarming out of the woods. And—and—Gen. Washington was dead; I was certain of that; what would become of us? I was terribly excited, but afraid to ask questions. Perhaps I was scared. Would they kill an unarmed boy, sitting peaceably in a stage coach? Of course they would; Britishers will do anything! Then they will have to shoot a couple of men first;—and I squeezed still closer between them.
My relief and my disappointment were equally great, when a casual remark unfolded the fact that the noise which so excited me was only the “blasting of rock on the Jeems and Kanawha Canell.” What was “blasting of rock?”
What was a “canell?” and, above all, what manner of thing was a “Jeems and Kanawha Canell?” Was it alive?
I think it was; more alive than it has ever been since, except for the first few years after it was opened.
Those were the “good old days” of batteaux,—picturesque craft that charmed my young eyes more than all the gondolas of Venice would do now. True, they consumed a week in getting from Lynchburg to Richmond, and ten days in returning against the stream, but what of that? Time was abundant in those days. It was made for slaves, and we had the slaves. A batteau on the water was more than a match for the best four or six horse bell-team that ever rolled over the red clay of Bedford, brindle dog and tar-bucket included.
Fleets of these batteaux used to be moored on the river bank near where the depot of the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad now stands; and many years after the “Jeems and Kanawha” was finished, one of them used to haunt the mouth of Blackwater creek above the toll-bridge, a relic of departed glory. For if ever man gloried in his calling,—the negro batteau-man was that man. His was a hardy calling, demanding skill, courage and strength in a high degree. I can see him now striding the plank that ran along the gunwale to afford him footing, his long iron-shod pole trailing in the water behind him. Now he turns, and after one or two ineffectual efforts to get his pole fixed in the rocky bottom of the river, secures his purchase, adjusts the upper part of the pole to the pad at his shoulder, bends to his task, and the long, but not ungraceful bark mounts the rapids like a sea-bird breasting the storm. His companion on the other side plies the pole with equal ardor, and between the two the boat bravely surmounts every obstacle, be it rocks, rapids, quicksands, hammocks, what not. A third negro at the stern held the mighty oar that served as a rudder. A stalwart, jolly, courageous set they were, plying the pole all day, hauling in to shore at night under the friendly shade of a mighty sycamore, to rest, to eat, to play the banjo, and to snatch a few hours of profound, blissful sleep.
The up-cargo, consisting of sacks of salt, bags of coffee, barrels of sugar, molasses and whiskey, afforded good pickings. These sturdy fellows lived well, I promise you, and if they stole a little, why, what was their petty thieving compared to the enormous pillage of the modern sugar refiner and the crooked-whiskey distiller? They lived well. Their cook’s galley was a little dirt thrown between the ribs of the boat at the stern, with an awning on occasion to keep off the rain, and what they didn’t eat wasn’t worth eating. Fish of the very best, both salt and fresh, chickens, eggs, milk and the invincible, never-satisfying ash-cake and fried bacon. I see the frying-pan, I smell the meat, the fish, the Rio coffee!—I want the batteau back again, aye! and the brave, light-hearted slave to boot. What did he know about the State debt? There was no State debt to speak of. Greenbacks? Bless, you! the Farmers Bank of Virginia was living and breathing, and its money was good enough for a king. Readjustment, funding bill, tax-receivable coupons—where were all these worries then? I think if we had known they were coming, we would have stuck to the batteaux and never dammed the river. Why, shad used to run to Lynchburg! The world was merry, butter-milk was abundant; Lynchburg a lad, Richmond a mere youth, and the great “Jeems and Kanawha canell” was going to—oh! it was going to do everything.
This was forty years ago and more, mark you.
In 1838, I made my first trip to Richmond. What visions of grandeur filled my youthful imagination! That eventually I should get to be a man seemed probable, but that I should ever be big enough to live, actually live, in the vast metropolis, was beyond my dreams. For I believed fully that men were proportioned to the size of the cities they lived in. I had seen a man named Hatcher from Cartersville, who was near about the size of the average man in Lynchburg, but as I had never seen Cartersville, I concluded, naturally enough, that Cartersville must be equal in population. Which may be the fact, for I have never yet seen Cartersville, though I have been to Warminster, and once came near passing through Bent-Creek.
I went by stage.