History of Early Steamboat Navigation on the Missouri River, Volume 1 (of 2) / Life and Adventures of Joseph La Barge

by Hiram Martin Chittenden

As already noted, when the Nimrod arrived at the site of the Omaha villages, the river was so low that she could not proceed for several days. A crew was kept constantly busy with the yawl, sounding the channel to detect any favorable changes in its shifting bed. On one of these sounding excursions, when about five miles from the boat, and under a high cut bank, La Barge was surprised and captured by a Pawnee war party on their way to steal horses from the Yanktonais. When the Captain heard them speak Pawnee he felt safe, and at once opened conversation with them in their own tongue. Although he knew none of the Indians personally, he succeeded in inducing them to come to the boat and partake of a feast. Thus the Captain’s knowledge of the Pawnee language, acquired in the villages of that tribe ten years before, stood him in excellent stead. These Indians might not have killed him, belonging as they did to a friendly tribe; but war parties, even of friendly Indians, were lawless and desperate, and they would no doubt have handled the little boat crew pretty roughly.

THE LOST SAILORS.

A TIMELY RESCUE.

Among the crew of the Nimrod there were two ocean sailors, good men, but with no river experience, who had engaged for the trip to see the interior of the country. They were employed principally in handling the rigging. One Sunday morning, May 19, while the boat was still at the Omaha villages, they set off together with a single gun to try their luck hunting. They failed to return that day and likewise the next, when general uneasiness began to be felt about them. Parties were sent after them in all directions, guns were fired, and everything done to find them, but to no purpose; and the boat proceeded on her way without them. The general opinion was that they had been killed by some vagrant war party of Indians. Some two weeks later, as the boat was setting out one morning, a trader by the name of Kensler was seen coming down the river with a small boatload of furs. La Barge ran his boat to shore and hailed the trader, who promptly hove to and came on board. La Barge explained the circumstance of these two men having been lost, gave Kensler some provisions for them, and asked him to stop at the woodpile,[25] where the boat had laid up so long, and see if he could find any traces of the men. He did so, and actually found them there. They had converted the woodpile into a rude fortress, with one opening on the river just large enough to enable them to get out for water. They were almost starved to death, being reduced to mere skeletons, scarcely able to crawl back and forth to the river. Kensler took them to P. A. Sarpy’s trading post at Bellevue, where the Nimrod found them on her way back and took them to St. Louis. They gave La Barge the following story: On the first day of their hunt they became confused and lost, and after much wandering came to the bank of the river. But they were utterly unable to conjecture whether they were above or below the steamboat, and in this dilemma resolved to build a raft and float down the river. If above the boat they would, of course, come to where it was; if below, they would land after having proven the fact, and return on foot. As a matter of fact they were below the boat, and after drifting some thirty miles concluded to start back. They were considering the question of landing when their raft ran upon a snag, broke to pieces, precipitated them into the water, and lost them their gun. They swam ashore and walked up the river bank until they reached the place where the boat had been. They resolved to stay there and wait for someone to come along. They disposed the woodpile so as to make a rough fort, and gathered into their fortress all remnants of camp refuse left by the Nimrod which could sustain life. Here they waited for several weeks, and had about given themselves up as lost when they were rescued in the manner already related.

NOT “UP TO” BUFFALO.

The fare provided by the company for its steamboat crew was exceedingly plain and scanty. The men got very tired of it, and as they were much delayed by low water in getting into the buffalo country, La Barge told them that the first buffalo they came in sight of they should have, even if he had to lie to half a day to get it. La Barge had as first mate an excellent man, John Durack, who had served in the English navy, and had made his way to New Orleans and thence to St. Louis. He had been on the river before, but had never been engaged in a buffalo hunt, and the Captain thought this a good opportunity to initiate him. When the boat reached the vicinity of Handy’s post four buffalo bulls were seen swimming the river. “Man the yawl, John,” said La Barge. “I will go with you and we will have a buffalo before we get back.” The Captain gave orders to the men on the boat to shoot the buffaloes, and he would then lasso one of the wounded ones and drag it to the boat. He put Durack in the bow with a line while he took the rudder. The men on the steamboat fired and wounded two of the buffaloes. To get to the wounded ones the boat had to pass close to the two uninjured ones. The Captain supposed that Durack fully understood the programme, but the mate was not “up to buffalo,” and to La Barge’s consternation slipped the noose over the head of one of the uninjured animals. Too late Captain La Barge shouted to him not to do this—that he did not want to anchor to a live buffalo. “Oh,” replied Durack, “he’s as good as any.” The buffalo kept straight on his course. The men backed their oars, but to no purpose; they could not stop him. Finally his feet touched bottom and up the bank he went with the boat and its helpless crew after him. They might indeed have taken a boat ride over the bare prairie had not the stem of the yawl given way, being wrenched entirely out of the boat and carried off by the terrified animal. There stood the sorry crew, shipwrecked on a sandbar across the river from the steamboat—and with no buffalo. A whole day was consumed in getting back to the boat and in repairing the broken yawl. Meanwhile the crew kept on eating salt pork and navy bread.

A TERRIBLE STORM.

On the 23d of June, when the Nimrod was a little below the site of the Aricara villages, near the mouth of Grand River, there arose one of those frightful tempests of wind, hail, and rain which were so frequent on the central prairies. For a little while the safety of the boat was despaired of. All the glass on the windward side was broken and the interior of the boat deluged with rain and hail. The hail accumulated in the cabin to the depth of a foot, and some of the hailstones were as large as turkey eggs. Captain La Barge made clay impressions of some of them and sent them to the St. Louis Republican as curiosities deserving public notice. Besides the damage to the cabins the wind carried away the pilot-house, which had to be replaced with a skin roof.

On another of Captain La Barge’s voyages he encountered a storm which carried away the smokestacks. He extemporized some skin chimneys, which enabled him to complete the trip. The Captain was once summoned as an expert witness in a trial which grew out of a similar accident to another steamboat, whose owners had been sued for damages for not delivering freight. The defense was that a storm had so wrecked the boat that she could not proceed. The particular damage alleged was the blowing down of the smokestacks. La Barge explained how he had managed in a similar case, and the court instructed the jury against the defendant.

EXPERT WITNESS.