[“Forty Years of American Life,” by Dr. Thomas L. Nichols, is the source of the following selection, which gives a graphic and interesting picture of steamboat life on the great rivers of the West in the days before the war. It needs only one thing to complete the story, the race and the explosion, which was no uncommon incident at that period, but an example of which, fortunately for our author, was not among his experiences.]
We embarked on a little steamboat which drew twelve inches of water, and whose single wide paddle-wheel was at the stern, and extended the whole width of the hull. A succession of dams made the river navigable at that season of low water, and at each dam we were let down by a lock to a lower level. At the high stage of water dams and locks are all buried deep beneath the surface, and larger steamboats go careering over them.
What I best remember, in crossing the Alleghanies and descending this river, were the beds of coal. It seemed to be everywhere just below the surface. We saw it along the route, where the people dug the fuel for their fires out of a hole in the yard, ten feet from the door. Along the high perpendicular banks of the river there were strata of coal ten or twelve feet thick. Men were digging it down with picks and sliding it into flat-boats, which, when the river rose, would float down with the current to Cincinnati, Louisville, Memphis, and New Orleans. These frail boats—long boxes made of deal boards nailed together, and loaded nearly to the top—would many of them be lost. The swell of a passing steamboat, or a snag or a sawyer in the river, would sink them. They would ground on sand-bars. A sudden hurricane sometimes sinks a hundred of them. Perhaps a third of the whole number are lost, but the coal costs almost nothing—three halfpence a bushel—and brings a price proportional to the distance which it floats in safety.
At Pittsburg, a city of coal and iron, smoky and grimy as Newcastle or Birmingham, we took a larger boat, but still a small one, for Cincinnati. The Ohio was very low. We passed slowly down, getting pleasant glimpses of the towns upon its banks, and especially of the flourishing cities of Cincinnati and Louisville.
I was disappointed with the Ohio for a few hundred miles from its source, most unreasonable tourist that I was. I recall whatever I may have said to its disparagement. The Ohio, charming in all its course of a thousand miles, becomes grandly beautiful below Louisville for the lower half of its course. Were it but deep as well as broad and splendid in its great reaches and graceful curves and picturesque banks, nothing would be wanting to its pleasing souvenirs. But I have tried its current at an unfortunate period,—the river at its lowest point. At its highest it would be fifty feet deeper,—a great torrent pouring onward towards the sea.
We were all of us in high spirits on the “Fort Wayne.” The crew was firing up, and singing merrily below; and in the cabin we were sitting round our good coal-fire, chatting, reading, and some playing poker, calculating the next morning but one to wake upon the Mississippi. So passed we down merrily, until, sunk upon a bar, we saw the wreck of the steamboat “Plymouth,” which two nights before had been run into by another boat, which sunk her instantly, and her deck-passengers woke up under the waters of the Ohio. Twenty unfortunates were drowned; and our passengers, accustomed to the river, spoke of it with perfect indifference, as a very common affair.
We passed this bar safely, touching bottom indeed, as we often did; but in passing over the next we grounded firm and fast. The engines were worked at their greatest power, but in vain. Efforts were made all day to get the boat off, but without moving her, and older voyagers began to tell pleasant stories of boats lying for three weeks on a sand-bar, and getting out of provisions and wood. For us passengers there was but patience, but for captain and crew there was a hard night’s work in a cold November rain. They went at it heartily, and when we woke up in the morning the steamboat was afloat, and as soon as she had got in a fresh supply of wood we went merrily down the Ohio again, putting off by a day our arrival at the Father of Waters. So we went, talking on morals and politics, reading the “Wandering Jew,” and playing poker, until dinner came; and just after dinner we came to another bar, on which we ran as before, giving our crew a second night of hardship and toil, and us a more thorough disgust of low-water navigation. We got off by morning as before, by great exertion and the steady use of effective machinery, the boat being hoisted over the bar inch by inch by the aid of great spars, blocks, and windlass.
There was still, but a short distance below this spot, the worst bar of all to pass.... Having been twice aground and lost nearly two days, our captain determined to take every precaution. He hired a flat-boat, into which were discharged many tons of whiskey and butter, and which was lashed alongside. A boat was sent down to sound the channel and lay buoys. This done, just as breakfast was ready, all the male passengers were summoned to go on board the flat-boat, fastened alongside, with the butter and whiskey, so as to lighten the steamer as much as possible, and when we were all aboard we started down. As luck would have it, the current carried the boat a few feet out of her proper course, and she stuck fast again. The wheels could not move her, and we jumped on board again to eat our breakfast, now grown cold from waiting.
This despatched, we went out on the promenade deck, and to our chagrin saw the “Louis Philippe,” which left Louisville one day behind us, coming down, looking light and lofty, with a flat-boat alongside. She came down rapidly, and passed close by us, her passengers laughing in triumph at our predicament. The “Louis Philippe” had not got her length below us before she too stuck fast and swung round into a more difficult position, lying broadside upon the bar, with the strong current full against her. The laugh was now on our side, and the “Louis Philippe” gave rise to the more jokes, because her hurricane-deck was entirely covered with cabbages, with their stumps sticking up, giving her a droll appearance, while our hurricane-deck was filled with chicken-coops. It was time now to go to work in earnest. More freight was discharged into our lighter, and all the passengers, except the women and children, were sent on board her. We thickly covered the barrels of whiskey and kegs of butter, and the captain, to keep us off the steamer, cast us loose, and we floated off with the current, and were safely blown ashore on the Kentucky side, about a mile below, leaving the two steamers above to get off as soon as they were able.
When our flat-boat touched the Kentucky bank of the river, her ninety passengers jumped joyfully ashore, and with noisy hilarity scattered along the beach. The morning was beautiful. The clear sunlight glittered upon the river and lighted up the forest with golden radiance. The sky was blue, and the air cool and bracing. The land was high, well wooded, and fertile. Seeing a substantial-looking double log house a short distance from the river, about a dozen of us went up to warm our fingers at its fire....