History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois, Part 22

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892?
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. ; O.L. Baskin & Co.
Number of Pages: 948

USA > Illinois > Union County > History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois > Part 22
USA > Illinois > Pulaski County > History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois > Part 22
USA > Illinois > Alexander County > History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois > Part 22

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Steamboats .- Among the many pilots who

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have stood at the wheel and guided the boat to the Cairo "throw-out-the-gang-plank place," was no less a character than the hu- morist, Mark Twain. . It is not certain but that the wag got his first lesson in spinning characteristic yarns when he was a cub, list- ening to the old pilots, while waiting in port, spin "river yarns," some of which were of immense size, and some again very amusing, and when the older heads had run over their oft-told stock stories and the " kid " was in- duced to try his prentice hand, and failed most funerealy, the old fellows laughed out of sympathy and politeness, and this proved the boy's ruin. It was a fatal encourage- ment that transformed Mark from what might have been a valuable and noble life at the wheel, to a miserable, heartbreak- ing, continual weeping fountain, and he never stopped until he has just now bur- dened the " Father of Waters " with a book entitled " Life on the Mississippi." A re- viewer of this book says: "He was born on the banks of the great stream. The river shaped the course of his youth and his life upon its bosom as pilot's apprentice and pi- lot gave him the experience and associations that fitted him when time and opportunity came to step into his rightful place as a really great and typical American humorist." Now, from a long acquaintance with pilots, we have no hesitation in saying that Mark might, had he continued with them, have eventually become not only a pilot, but a jokist of no mean pretensions. For instance, we remember on one occasion during the war of being one of a party seated in a yawl ou our way to one of the new gunboats an- chored opposite Cairo. The commander of the gunboat and several officers were of the party, and those who were guests had been invited to go on board the boat, as she was ready to go up the Ohio for a short trial run,

and was going to test a 400-pound gun that was mounted in the turret. It was a jolly party, all anticipating a most pleasant day. But the writer noticed one man in the crowd who was the picture of despair and sullen- ness. His attention was arrested by the fierceness of this man's gloomy mood. After we had reached the vessel and an opportun- ity presented itself, the melancholy gentle- man was gradually approached, when at a point no one else could hear and the ques- tion asked: "My friend, you seem to be much troubled; what's the matter? " In the best yellow-back slang, his dark eyes flashed and between his set teeth (not a false set) he hissed like an escaping volcano, " Matter! matter! Helen Blazes! I'm arrested! pressed! as a pilot on this limpin' Lazarus of an old gunboat, and Government will only pay $350 a month for pilots, and I can git five and six hundred on the boats. Isn't that mat- ter enough ?" Now here, Mark, was a true pilot joke, you see, with a $150 to $200 a month moral in it. You can see for yourself what you have missed. A half-dozen such efforts as that and see what your fortune now would be. Do your own figuring; say six jokes, $200 per month each, for thirty years. Any old Cairoite will recognize the follow- ing in reference to raft life of the early days on the river: "In the heyday of the steam- boating prosperity, the river, from end to end, was flanked with coal fleets and timber rafts, all managed by hand and employing hosts of rough characters. Processions of migthy rafts-an acre or so of white, sweet- smelling boards in each raft, a crew of two dozen men or more, three or four wigwams scattered about the raft's vast level space for storm quarters-and the rude ways and tre- mendous talk of their big crews, the ex- keelboatmen and their admiringly patroniz- ing successors; for we used to swim out a

F. E, Searsdaly

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quarter or a third of a mile and get on these rafts and have a ride."

By way of illustrating this keelboat talk and manners, and that now departed and hardly remembered raft life, the author throws in a chapter from a book which he " has been working on by fits and starts during the past five or six years, and may possibly finish in the course of five or six more." It is a story detailing some passages in the life of an ignorant village boy, son of the town drunkard of the author's time out West. The boy had run away, together with a slave, and in floating down the river at high water and in dead summer time on a fragment of a raft. they got lost in the fog and passed Cairo without knowing it. So the boy swims out to a huge raft in the dark, hoping to gain the information by listening to the talk of the men. The odd, rude life of the raftsmen, as thus witnessed by the boy, is graphically described. After singing, drink- ing and dancing, two of the men begin to quarrel, and the following is a specimen of the language of one of the men in getting ready:

" He jumped up in the air three times and cracked his heels together every time. He flung off a buckskin coat that was all hung with fringes, and says 'you lay thar till the chawin'-up's done;' and flung his hat down, which was all over ribbons and says, 'You lay thar till his sufferin's is over.'

" Then he jumped up in the air and cracked his heels together again and shouted out:

" ' Whoo-oop! I'm the old original iron- jawed, brass-mounted, copper-bellied corpse - maker from the wilds of Arkansaw! Look at me! I'm the man they call Sudden Death and General Desolation! Sired by a hurri- cane, dam'd by an earthquake, half-brother to the cholera, nearly related to the small- pox on the mother's side! Look at me! I

take nineteen alligators and a bar'l of whisky for breakfast when I'm in robust health and a bushel of rattlesnakes and a dead body when I'm ailing! I split the everlasting rocks with my glance, and I squench the thunder when I speak! Whoo- oop! stand back and give me room according to my strength! Blood's my natural drink and the wails of the dying is music to my ear! Cast your eye on me, gentlemen, and lay low and hold your breath, for I'm 'bout to turn myself loose!'

" All the time he was getting this off he was shaking his head and looking fierce and kind of swelling around in a little circle, tucking up his wristbands and now and then straight- ening up and beating his breast with his fist, saying: 'Look at me, gentlemen! I'm the bloodiest son of a wild cat that lives!'

" Then the man that started the row tilted his old slouch hat down over his right eye; then he bent forward with his back sagged and his south end sticking out far, and his fists a shoving out and drawing to in front of him, and so went around in a little circle about three times, swelling himself up and breathing hard, and he began to shout like this:

" ' Whoo-oop! bow your neck and spread, for the kingdom of sorrow's a coming. Hold me down to the earth, for I feel my powers a-working! Whoop! I'm a child of sin, don't let me get a start! Smoked glass here for all! Don't attempt to look at me with the naked eye, gentlemen. When I'm playful, I use the meridians of longitude and the parallels of latitude for a seine and drag the Atlantic ocean for whales! I scratch my head with the lightning and purr myself to sleep with the thunder! When I'm cold, I bile the gulf of Mexico and bathe in it; when I'm hot, I fan myself with an equinoctial storm; when I'm thirsty, I reach up and suck a cloud dry,

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like a sponge; when I range the earth, hun- gry famine follows in my tracks! Whoo-op! Bow your neck and spread. I put my hand on the sun's face and make it night on the earth; I bite a piece out of the moon and hurry the season; I shake myself and crum- ble the mountains! Contemplate me through leather -- don't use the naked eye! I'm the man with a petrified heart and boiler-iron bowels! Whoo-oop! Bow your neck and spread, for the pet-child of calamity's a com- . ing.'"

The narrative goes on to show how a little black whiskered chap cooled off their rage and thrashed them both for a couple of chicken-livered cowards.

That child of Sudden Death and General Desolation was the missing "link," that leads us by most plainly marked footsteps up to the pilot joker, and back to his pre. historic ancestors, the Cave (of Gloom) Dwellers. No reference here, Mark, to that settled and incurable gloom that is noted in the best medical works as characterizing the wrecked lives of your readers.

But the following very happy description of high water will be recognized by many a Cairo "tenderfoot" as a side-splitting joke:

" The big rise brought a new world under my vision. By the time the river was over its banks, we had forsaken our old paths, and were hourly climbing over banks that had stood ten feet out of water before; we were shaving stumpy shores, like that at the foot of Madrid bend, which I had always seen avoided before; we were clattering through chutes like that of 82, where the opening at the foot was an unbroken wall of timber, till our nose was almost at the very spot. Some of these chutes were utter solitudes. The dense, untouched forest overhung both banks of the crooked little crack, and one could believe that human creatures had never

intruded there before. The swinging grape- vines, the grassy nooks and vistas glimpsed as we swept by, the flowering creepers wav- ing their red blossoms from the tops of dead trunks and all the spendthrift richness of the forest foliage were wasted and thrown away there. The chutes were lovely places to steer in; they were deep except at the head; the current was gentle; under the 'points,' the water was absolutely dead, and their vis- ible banks so bluff that where the tender wil- low thickets projected, you could bury your boat's broadside in them as you tore along, and then you seemed fairly to fly."

But altogether Cairo remembers with much pride the fact that Sam Clemens (Mark Twain) was at one time among the number of pilots that belonged to her trade. And the numerous fraternity here will read his book with great interest, as it is a story whose incidents often occurred in the com- pany of men still at the wheel. While no other Cairo pilot, perhaps, has gained the celebrity that has Mark Twain, yet there are some who have merited a more lasting im- mortality as great heroes-standing at the wheel and going down bravely to death in the sublime act of protecting and saving the lives of those who were in their safe keeping. The fraternity of pilots are well known to most of the people of Cairo. They are a sin- gular class of men, and their lives have not been a careless holiday. But it was during the war the lives of many of them were filled with terrifying troubles. A couple of in- stances will illustrate our meaning: On one occasion, as the fleet was transporting the troops to Fort Donelson, and the stage of the water and the point in the river had been reached by the flag-boat, where it was dan- gerous navigation, the officers of the boat desired to tie up for daylight, but the mili- tary authorities demurred to this. It was

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very dark, and the boat became entangled, and in backing and starting up she was run into an overhanging tree and the chimneys knocked down. The usual wild consterna- tion followed, and the affrighted soldiers imagined everything bad. But after awhile, when they found the boat was not sunk in the bottom of the river, they set about hunt- ing for the cause of the disaster. In some way, they learned the pilot lived in Louis - ville, and this was enough, he was a rebel and had deliberately conspired to destroy them all by sinking the boat. In a moment it was a mob. Now an ordinary mob is the silliest monster that ever lived, yet a soldier mob makes a common one appear as Solomon and Patience enthroned on that historical monument. The pilot saved his life by se- creting himself. Of course, the soldiers had no evidence against the pilot, for none ex- isted. The truth afterward turned out to be that he had rung the engineer to go ahead when he made the mistake and backed.

Another incident happened in the river in front of Cairo. The small boat, Echo, was coming down the Ohio River laden with sol- diers, and struck one of the iron-clad gunboats that split her hull and she was hopelessly wrecked. The wreck floated a mile or so below town and lies on the Kentucky bar yet. No lives were lost, but the soldiers at once jumped to the conclusion the pilot purposely did it and they howled for his blood. In fact, the clamor was so great that Wilson Dunn, the pilot, was arrested and tried by a court martial. As he was clearly innocent, it is probable the trial saved his life. The fact that these gunboats (turtles) had sunk a number of boats cut no figure with the sol- diers, and the further fact that the pilot was an officer of the Government, as true and loyal and patriotic as ever lived, but he did not wear an infantry or cavalry uniform and

the idiots therefore believed he was a traitor.

The present distinguished engineer. J. B. Eads, was another man who made his start in life among the Cairo river men. He lived for some years here, and came here, we be- lieve, some time in the forties as a member of the firm of Eads & Nelson. Mr. Eads' his- tory is so identified with the Mississippi River that one cannot be given without the other, his vast enterprises, commencing as they did in Cairo, have so extended his name and fame throughout the world.

In a preceding chapter, we gave an account of the coming down the Ohio River of the steamer New Orleans, Capt. Roosevelt - the first boat that ever floated upon Western waters. A few words in reference to the his- tory of this historical boat may not be out of place here. She was built in the Fulton & Livingston's ship yards, Pittsburgh; ca- pacity, one hundred tons; was furnished with propelling wheel to the stern and two masts. Mr. Fulton at that time believed that sails would be indispensable to a steamboat. The boat was placed in the New Orleans and Natchez trade, and continued in this trade for a short time, when she struck a snag near Baton Rouge and sunk. The passage of this first steamboat down the river, making her landings and obtaining fuel, etc., at an aver- age rate of three miles an hour, left in her wake an excitement that could not have been exceeded had a flying angel appeared to the people.

The second boat that ever came by the doors of Cairo-before the doors were here- was the Comet, Daniel D. Smith, owner, D. French, builder. Her machinery was con- structed on a plan invented by French, in 1809. She descended the river in 1814. She was only a twenty-five-ton boat. She reached New Orleans and made two voyages

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to Natchez and return and was then sold and taken to pieces and her engine and machin- ery were put in a cotton factory.

The Vesuvius was the third boat built at Pittsburgh, and came down the Ohio, and also in the year 1814, ¿under command of Capt. Frank Ogden. After reaching New Orleans, she started to return, July 14, and grounded on a bar about 700 miles above New Orleans, where she remained until December 3, when the waters rising. she floated off and re- turned to New Orleans. During 1815-16, this boat continued to make regular trips be- tween New Orleans and Natchez. She was first commanded by Capt. Clement, and he was succeeded by Capt. John De Hart. In the latter part of 1816, as the boat approached New Orleans with a valuable cargo, she took fire and burned. The hulk was afterward raised and refitted and ran in the New Or- leans and Louisville trade until 1819, when she was condemned.

The fourth boat was the Enterprise, built at Brownsville, Penn., by D. French, and his patent engine supplied. This was a seven- ty-five-ton boat. She made two voyages to Louisville in 1814, under Capt. Gregg. She was loaded with ordnances and stores for New Orleans, and while there, Gen. Jackson pressed her into the Government service. The Enterprise loaded and left New Orleans for Louisville in . May, 1815, and arrived at Louisville safely, making the trip in twenty- five days. This was the first trip ever made by a steamboat from between these two points.

The next boat in order of appearance was the Washington, constructed by Henry M. Shreve. The hull was built in Wheeling and engines at Brownsville, Penn. This was the first double " decker " ever con- structed, the cabin being placed between the decks, and the boilers placed on deck. This

daring innovation made the Washington look very much as steamboats do now. Theu in French's patent the engines were vibrating. but Capt. Shreve caused the cylinder to be placed horizontally. All engines were the single, low-pressure engines. The great in- vention of the cam cut-off was Capt. Shreve's, and this was added to the machinery of the Washington. When thus completed and launched, the new steamer, not only new in contruction but in such new and great im- provements in her machinery, that it leaves it a question whether Fulton or Shreve was the greater inventor.

On the 24th of September, 1816, the steamer Washington passed successfully over the falls at Louisville, and made a suc- cessful trip to New Orleans, and returned to Louisville in November following. While the boat was lying at the wharf in New Or- leans, she was visited and carefully inspected by Edward Livingstone, who was in the

West, determined to assert in the courts the exclusive right of Fulton & Livingston to navigate all the waters of the United States, a right they claimed under their patents. After Livingston had inspected the Wash- ington, he addressed Capt. Shreve as follows: " You deserve well of your country, young man, but we [referring to Fulton & Living- ston's monopoly of all the rivers] shall be compelled to beat you [in the courts] if we can."

The Washington was compelled by ice to remain at the Falls all winter and on March 12, 1817, she commenced her second voyage to New Orleans. On her return she made the trip with a full cargo to Louisville in twenty-five days. And from this time all historians may date the real commencement of navigation. The wonderful feat of the boat produced almost as much excitement as did the battle of New Orleans, Louisville

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gave a public dinner to Capt. Shreve, and in a speech he predicted that the trip from New Orleans to Louisville would yet be made in ten days. People smiled with gen- tle incredulity at this, and were willing to forgive him that or almost anything else for what he had done. How soon after this it was made inside of five days Capt. Shreve lived to see and all the world knows full well. In 1852, the steamer Shotwell made the trip in a little over four days. In 1869, the Natchez and the R. E. Lee made their celebrated race from New Orleans to St. Louis. The record time to Cairo was the fastest ever made, but some stanch old river men claim that, including stoppages, etc., the J. M. White, built by Capt. Swan, a noted builder of noted boats, made the best record time ever yet marked between New Orleans and Cairo.

The most shocking steamboat accident in the world's history occurred in 1864, when the steamer Sultana exploded her boilers just above Memphis, when on her way from some point in Arkansas to Cairo. There were, it is estimated. 2,350 souls aboard- nearly all soldiers-and over 2,000 perished. It was in the night, and the explosion was the most terriffic and the wreck the most complete ever known. The explosion was followed by fire, which soon consumed the lit- · tle of the wreck remaining above water. Capt. J. C. Swann was killed.

The steamer Majestic, Capt. J. C. Swann and W. C. Kennett, Chief Clerk, William

. Ferree, Chief Engineer, on the 25th day of May, 1835, just as the wheel turned to round out from the wharf, exploded her boilers. She was on her way North, and was crowded with deck passengers, many of whom were Germans, and constituted some of the Ger- mans who settled in and around Belleville, Ill. The flues of the larboard boiler col-

lapsed, it is supposed, by the passengers all passing to the shore or starboard side of the vessel and thus careening the boat until the boiler on the opposite side became dry. The hot water and steam scalded about sixty of the deck passengers, about forty of whom died at once or within twenty-four hours, and were buried at Memphis. The injuries and fatalities were confined to the deck passengers, or those who happened to be there.

Among the survivors of that shocking catastrophe is William Lornegan, of Cairo, a gentleman well and long known to the people of the city. To look at Mr. Lor- negan we would be inclined to doubt that he was a real survivor of a steamboat ex- plosion which occurred over forty-eight years ago.

The circumstances were these: He was an infant at that time, a little more than one year old, and the father, mother and child constituted the family. In the wild din and horror following the explosion, Mr. Lor- negan ran to the yawl and pulling it up, jumped in. He then pulled the yawl up to the deck and the mother, wrapping the baby in a shawl, tossed it to the father, who stood up to catch it. The motion of the craft threw him just at the moment the baby was started and in this critical instant the father th ew up his feet and in this way protected the child's fall and saved it. He then drew up the yawl and the mother and several others were soon safely in it. Then there was a rush of the excited people, and they would unquestionably have swamped the yawl except for the forethought again of Mr. Lornegan, who cut the rope and the craft floated away. As there were no paddles in it, the occupants had to trust to the current, but the boat soon touched a sand bar on the Tennessee side, and all were safely landed. The steamer floated a short distance and also

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lodged on the Tennessee side, the damaged boiler repaired and she continued her route to St. Louis.

The fine steamer, J. M. White, referred to above, was sunk just below Cape Girar- deau, March 28, 1843.

CHAPTER IX.

THE CHURCH HISTORY -ST. PATRICK'S - GERMAN LUTHERAN - PRESBYTERIAN - BAPTIST- METHODIST AND OTHER DENOMINATIONS-THE DIFFERENT PASTORS-THEIR FLOCKS, TEMPLES, THE CITY SCHOOLS, ETC., ETC.

"How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the Gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things."

THE German Lutheran Church .- This church was organized in the year 1866, the Rev. J. Dunsing officiating. There were between fifteen and twenty members. It was named the Evangelical Lutheran Emanual Gemeinde of Cairo. The first pastor, Dun- sing, officiated from October, 1866, to Oc- tober, 1869, and was succeeded by Rev. Gustave P. Heilbig, who remained in charge until February, 1873. Then Rev. C. Durshner was placed in charge, and he remained pastor until January 1, 1879. During his administration, the congregation concluded to build a brick addition so as to enlarge the church facilities and provide a suitable school room. The entire building was enlarged and raised, and a brick base- ment added, and a part of the addition was fitted up for a store room, arranging the up- per rooms for the pastor's residence, etc. The expense of these additions to the building was $2,500 on the residence and business portions of the building, and from $1,000 to $1,500 expended on the church proper. In 1879, E. Knappe was installed as pastor of the church, and he remained in the faithful and efficient discharge of his duties until November, 1881. Since August, 1882, the pres-

ent able and efficient pastor, Rev. C. Sehuch- ard has filled the position of shepherd;to his flock with signal ability and the great satis- faction of his people.

The Sunday school of this church is in a flourishing condition, numbering from sev- enty-five to one hundred pupils in constant attendance. The pious pastor of the church was the Superintendent, assisted by Andrew Lohr, until 1880, when Andrew Lohr was elected Superintendent. Mr. Lohr remained in this position until the present year (1883), when he resigned, and the present pastor, Schuchard, again assumed his old place and continues the Superintendent and manager of the Sunday school.

The church also has a ladies' society, called the Freund and Jungfrauen Verein, that was organized in the year 1871, under the direction and control of the minister, Heilbig. The aims and purposes of this or- ganization are the good of the church and its flock. It has a membership averaging sixty good and efficient Christians.

The church grounds are two lots, and were purchased by the members of the church in 1878, of S. Staats Taylor, agent of the Cairo Trust Property, at the price of $100 per lot, and is situated on Thirteenth street, between Washington avenue and Walnut street.

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The present board of trustees consists of H. Schultz and Andrew Lohr.

The basement or brick portion of the church is now used, the front part as a school room, and the rear as a parsonage for the minister, and the entire upper or frame part of the building is dedicated to church purposes. There is a fine pipe organ in the main room, and from the main building as- cends the cupola, where hangs the church bell, that in deep, musical tones upon the holy Sabbath calls the people to " come to the house of God and worship."

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History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois, Part 22

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892? Publication date: 1883 Publisher: Chicago, Ill. ; O.L. Baskin & Co. Number of Pages: 948

Author: Perrin, William Henry, d. 1892?
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. ; O.L. Baskin & Co.
Number of Pages: 948