Seven miles below the Tennessee, on the Illinois side, we sought relief from the blazing sun within the mouth of Seven Mile Creek, which is cut deep through sloping banks of mud, and overhung by great sprawling sycamores. These always interest us from the generosity of their height and girth, and from their great variety of color-tones, induced by the patchy scaling of the bark—soft grays, buffs, greens, and ivory whites prevailing. When sufficiently refreshed in this cool bower, we ventured once more into the fierce light of the open river, and two miles below shot into the broader and more inviting Massac Creek (928 miles), just as, of old, George Rogers Clark did with his little flotilla, when en route to capture Kaskaskia. Clark, in his Journal written long after the event, said that this creek is a mile above Fort Massac; his memory failed him—as a matter of fact, the steep, low hill of iron-stained gravel and clay, on which the old stronghold was built, is but two hundred yards below.[A]
The French commander who, in October, 1758, evacuated and burned Fort Duquesne on the approach of the English army under General Forbes, dropped down the Ohio for nearly a thousand miles, and built "a new fort on a beautiful eminence on the north bank of the river." But there was a fortified post on this hillock at a much earlier date (about 1711), erected as a headquarters for missionaries, and to guard French fur-traders from marauding Cherokees; and Pownall's map notes one here in 1751. This fort of 1758 was but an enlarged edition of the old. The new stronghold, with a garrison of a hundred men, was the last built by the French upon the Ohio, and it was occupied by them until they evacuated the country in 1763. England does not appear to have made any attempt to repair and occupy the works then destroyed by the French, although urged to do so by her military agents in the West. Had they held Fort Massac, no doubt Clark's expedition to capture the Northwest for the Americans might easily have been nipped in the bud; as it was, the old fortress was a ruin when he "reposed" on the banks of the creek at its feet.
When, in 1793-1794, the French agent Genet was fomenting his scheme for capturing Louisiana and Florida from Spain, by the aid of Western filibusters, old Fort Massac was thought of as a rallying-point and base of supplies; but St. Clair's proclamation of March 24, 1794, ordering General Wayne to restore and garrison the place, for the purpose of preventing the proposed expedition from passing down the river, ended the conspiracy, and Genet left the country. A year later, Spain, who had at intervals sought to detach the Westerners from the Union, and ally them with her interests beyond the Mississippi, renewed her attempts at corrupting the Kentuckians, and gained to her cause no less a man than George Rogers Clark himself. Among other designs, Fort Massac was to be captured by the adventurers, whom Spain was to supply with the sinews of war. There was much mysterious correspondence between the latter's corruption agent, Thomas Power, and the American General Wilkinson, at Detroit; but finally Power, in disguise, was sent out of the country under guard, by way of Fort Massac, and his escape into Spanish territory practically ended this interesting episode in Western history. The fort was occupied as a military post by our government until the close of the War of 1812-15; what we see to-day, are the ruins of the establishment then abandoned.
No doubt the face of this rugged promontory of gravel has, within a century, suffered much from floods; but the remains of the earthwork on the crest of the cliff, some fifty feet above the present river-stage, are still easily traceable throughout. The fort was about forty yards square, with a bastion at each corner; there are the remains of an unstoned well near the center; the ditch surrounding the earthwork is still some two-and-a-half or three feet below the surrounding level, and the breastwork about two feet above the inner level; no doubt, palisades once surmounted the work, and were relied upon as the chief protection from assault. The grounds, a pleasant grassy grove several acres in extent, are now enclosed by a rail fence, and neatly maintained as a public park by the little city of Metropolis, which lies not far below. It was a commanding view of land and river, which was enjoyed by the garrison of old Fort Massac. Up stream, there is a straight stretch of eleven miles to the mouth of the Tennessee; both up and down, the shore lines are under full survey, until they melt away in the distance. No enemy could well surprise the holders of this key to the Lower Ohio.
Our camp is on the sandy beach opposite Metropolis, and two hundred yards below the Kentucky end of the ferry. Behind us lies a deep forest, with sycamores six and eight feet in diameter; a country road curving off through the woods, to the sparse rustic settlement lying some two miles in the interior—on higher ground than this wooded bottom, which is annually overflowed. Now and then the blustering little steam-ferry comes across to land Kentucky farm-folk and their mules, going home from a Saturday's shopping in Metropolis. Occasionally a fisherman passes, lagging on his oars to scan us and our quarters; and from one of them, we purchased a fish. As the still, cool night crept on, Metropolis was astir; across the mile of intervening water, darted tremulous shafts of light; we heard voices singing and laughing, a fiddle in its highest notes, the puffing of a stationary engine, and the bay and yelp of countless dogs. Later, a packet swooped down with smothered roar, and threw its electric search-light on the city wharf, revealing a crowd of negroes gathered there, like moths in the radiance of a candle; there were gay shouts, and a mad scampering—we could see it all, as plainly as if in ordinary light it had been but a third of the distance; and then the roustabouts struck up a weird song as they ran out the gang-plank, and, laden with boxes and bales, began swarming ashore, like a procession of black ants carrying pupa cases.
Mound City Towhead, Sunday, 10th.—During the night, burglarious pigs would have raided our larder, but the crash of a falling kettle wakened us suddenly, as did geese the ancient Romans. The Doctor and I sallied forth in our pajamas, with clods of clay in hand, to send the enemy flying back into the forest, snorting and squealing with baffled rage.
We were afloat at half-past seven, under an unclouded sky, with the sun sharply reflected from the smooth surface of the river, and the temperature rapidly mounting.
The Fort Massac ridge extends down stream as far as Mound City, but soon degenerates into a ridge of clay varying in height from twenty-five to fifty feet above the water level. Upon the low-lying bottom of the Kentucky shore, is still an interminable dark line of forest. The settlements are meager, and now wholly in Illinois: For instance, Joppa (936 miles), a row of a half-dozen unpainted, dilapidated buildings, chiefly stores and abandoned warehouses, bespeaking a river traffic of the olden time, that has gone to decay; a hot, dreary, baking spot, this Joppa, as it lies sprawling upon the clay ridge, flanked by a low, wide gravel beach, on which gaunt, bell-ringing cows are wandering, eating the leaves of fallen trees, for lack of better pasturage. Our pilot map, of sixty years ago, records the presence of Wilkinsonville (942 miles), on the site of old Fort Wilkinson of the War of 1812-15, but no one along the banks appears to have ever heard of it; however, after much searching, we found the place for ourselves, on an eminence of fifty feet, with two or three farm-houses as the sole relics of the old establishment. Caledonia (Olmstead P.O.), nine miles down, consists of several large buildings on a hill set well back from the river. Mound City (959 miles),—the "America" of our time-worn map,—in whose outskirts we are camped to-night, is a busy town with furniture factories, lumber mills, ship-yards, and a railway transfer. Below that, stretches the vast extent of swamp and low woodland on which Cairo (967 miles) has with infinite pains been built—like "brave little Holland," holding her own against the floods solely by virtue of her encircling dike.