Biographical and historical memoirs of Mississippi, embracing an authentic and comprehensive account of the chief events in the history of the state and a record of the lives of many of the most worthy and illustrious families and individuals, Vol. II, Part 9

Author: Goodspeed Brothers
Publication date: 1891
Publisher: Chicago, Goodspeed
Number of Pages: 1314

USA > Mississippi > Biographical and historical memoirs of Mississippi, embracing an authentic and comprehensive account of the chief events in the history of the state and a record of the lives of many of the most worthy and illustrious families and individuals, Vol. II > Part 9

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BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL

"continued to encounter very rapid currents, which placed several of our boats under the necessity of hauling themselves up along the shore by means of ropes." His journal illus- trates the difficulties of transportation up the river at that time so well that it is here given entire, up to his arrival at the mouth of the Arkansas river:

"The 13th found us aboard at daylight, when we took the channel to the right, having on our left a small isle which lies at its head, and along which we were compelled to be towed, owing to the strength of the current. After much difficulty, we were compelled to sleep in our boats, two leagues above a channel called 'Couroit,' or 'Kourois,' so named from its being frequently visited by that nation.

"On the 14th we disembarked at daylight, to take breakfast at the foot of a small cliff. Each of the boats here provided itself with some ashwood, with which to shape some oars, which we all were more or less short of. Having, after dinner, taken up our route in the channel of a bank on the left, we found at the end that there was not sufficient water to pro- ceed, and were compelled to retrace our course. Having then succeeded in clearing the bar, we crossed to spend the night on the opposite side of the river, having merely landed a strong guard.

"On the 15th took all aboard as soon as there was sufficient light to permit it, and having gone three and three-fourths leagues that day, slept in our boats at the lower end of the island farthest toward the north, it being one of three which we had found on our course, and where we were joined by a boat coming down from our depot to meet Mons. de Bienville.

" On the 16th, having gotten aboard at the usual hour, we proceeded. One hour after- ward one of the boats sprung a considerable leak, a hidden stump having stove in the star- board bow. I immediately went to its assistance with another of our boats. We passed several hawsers beneath it to keep it afloat, and having discharged it of its load, I directed my boatswain to replace its side planks by new ones, which being done with but little delay, we reloaded it and pursued our course. We encamped in a grove at the extremity of a lengthy island, opposite that called 'Isle a la tete des morts' (the island with the heads of the dead).

"On the 17th October, all being embarked at dawn, we spent the subsequent night in our boats near the first island we had encountered that day, having made four leagues.

"On the 18th we set out with the early morn, and in the afternoon were compelled to make use of the tow-lines whilst rounding an extensive sand bank in a southerly direction, owing to the fierceness of the current. We crossed the end of the bar at sunset towards the right, and again passed the night aboard, at a distance of half a league above what is called 'the small Pointe Coupee.'

"On the 19th we set out before day, and having passed to the left of the islands, we encamped upon a large bank on our left for a short stay.

" On the 20th, being stationed on a bank over which there flew a large number of geese and ducks, we dispatched a large number from daybreak until seven in the morning, in which time we were met by a conveyance going down to New Orleans from the depot. From it we learned that our first convoy had arrived there on the 12th, the day after the arrival of the Canadians, who, including the Indians among them, were to the number of four hundred men. We also learned, from the same source, that the second convoy had lost six soldiers and one ensign.

" The 21st, after roll-call, we embarked one hour before day, and having passed to the left of the first island on our route, we slept in our boats that night one-half league beyond the island, no one having landed, owing to the fact that the landing was muddier than any previ-

MEMOIRS OF MISSISSIPPI.

ously met. We had observed, during all that day, that the waters having gone down from nine to ten feet, had caused a large diminution in the force of the current.

" The 22d we departed one hour before day, the river still falling, and encamped five in the afternoon on a bank to the right. Here we discovered the pirogue of four Arcancas Indians, who were on a hunting expedition, such being the sole occupation of all the nations in this vicinity.

"On the 23d we decamped one hour before day, and were joined soon after by a pirogue belonging to the convoy of Mons. de Bienville, from which we learned that the latter was only two leagues distant, on his way up to Arcancas, in the center channel of the three which we had discovered and was now ascending. We finally moored our vessels ashore, one-half a league further up to the left, each boat arriving separately and at intervals, owing to the violent currents which we had encountered. At ten o'clock at night we were joined by several boats belonging to the convoy of Mons. de Bienville, which soon left us to regain the latter on the opposite shore and a little above us.

"On the 24th we continued on our journey at five of the morning, and overtook Mons. de Bienville at eight o'clock. The wind being north, and the weather rainy and very threatening, both convoys set out together only after twelve. We slept two leagnes further, in our boats near each other, with a separate guard on shore, of which our own was to the right.

"On the 25th, at three in the morning, the roll was beat separately, and Mons. Bienville having started, we embarked, but, half an hour afterward, taking to the channel on the left of the first island on our course, we encamped to the number of twelve boats at the first mouth of Arcancas river.

"On the 26th we were overtaken at five in the morning by one of our boats which had been unable to keep up with the rest on the preceding day, and were, consequently, unable to proceed before eight o'clock. We passed the mouth of the Arcancas river on our left. This river appeared to me to run in a north-northwest direction. The lodges of the Arcancas nation are distant seven leagues from the Mississippi. It is of considerable size, and can furnish four hundred warriors, who have ever been much attached to the French. Passing to the left of two islands, we encamped on a bank on our left, one-quarter of a league from the last of the two."

This was in 1739, when no better means was known the world over. Besides these barges or bateaux were the flatboats and keelboats, the latter the more pretentious of the two, and more or less permanent, while the flatboats were made for one trip and used for lumber at the end of the route, for they were used on the down-stream voyage. The craft used for both directions were the keelboats and barges. The keelboat, the more common one, was long, narrow and pointed at the ends, with a gangway along the gunwale for boatmen, as they poled or warped up the stream, the oars being available only when in eddies. This kind of boat only needed to have added to it a long, low, house-like structure between the gangways to be the finest boat then afloat, and bearing the more luxurious name of barge. All these vessels had immense oars for steering, the flatboats having them fixed on the sides on pivots. These were the means of transportation, not only during the days before 1798, when Mississippi was made a territory of the United States, but all the rest of that and for ten years into the present century. It must be remembered that it was only in 1753 that the first steam motor of any kind appeared in this country, and it was only ten years before Mississippi was admitted into the Union, that Robert Fulton first succeeded in applying it to boat movement as a mere experiment on the Hudson river. It is difficult for us to realize that up to 1811 no steam craft of any kind had ever floated on the thickly dotted waters before Natchez and Vicksburg, but so it was.

BIOGRAPHIICAL AND HISTORICAL

Two years after the success of Mr. Fulton's Hudson river exploit, his friends began to consider its adaptability to Western streams, and especially the Mississippi, between New Orleans and Natchez, the latter being the only considerable settlement below the Ohio. It was proposed to build a boat at Pittsburgh for this purpose, and Nicholas J. Roosevelt, the inventor of the boat's vertical wheel, undertook the necessary investigation of the river, which, if favorable, would determine the building of it by Chancellor Livingston, Mr. Fulton and Mr. Roosevelt, the latter to superintend the building of the boat and engine and the oth- ers to furnish the capital. "He accordingly repaired to Pittsburgh in May, 1809," says a dis- tinguished Baltimore lawyer in an address before the historical society of his state. "The only means of conveyance to New Orleans, where his investigations were to terminate, were the keelboats, barges and flatboats," which have been described above. "None of those then in use were suited to Mr. Roosevelt's purpose, and as the accuracy of his examinations, rather than the speed of his voyage, was important, he determined to build a flatboat which should contain all necessary comforts for himself and wife, and float with the current of the Ohio and Mississippi from Pittsburgh to New Orleans. This he accordingly did, and with the excep- tion of some three weeks passed on the shore at Louisville, and some nine or ten days in a rowboat between Natchez and New Orleans, the flatboat was the home of Mr. and Mrs. Roos- evelt for the next six months. Cincinnati, Louisville and Natchez were then the only places of even the smallest note between Pittsburgh and New Orleans."

His difficulties and the remarkable incidents connected with the birth of steam power in this great valley, and for Mississippi's metropolis first, are so striking that the extract is con- tinued: "Furnished with letters of introduction to their leading men, the travelers were most kindly received and most hospitably entertained. Mr. Roosevelt's explanations were listened to respectfully, as he stated his purpose in visiting the West, and narrated what steam had accomplished on Eastern rivers. But he was evidently regarded as a sanguine enthusiast, engaged in an impracticable undertaking. From no one individual did he receive a word of encouragement. Nor was this incredulity confined to the gentlemen he met in society; it extended to the pilots and boatmen, who, passing their lives on the Ohio and Mississippi, possessed the practical information he wanted. They heard what he had to say of the expe- rience of Fulton and Livingston, and then pointed to the turbid and whirling waters of the great river as a conclusive answer to all his reasoning. That steam could be made to resist them they could not be made to understand. Nothing, however, shook the confidence of Mr. Roosevelt. He had made up his mind that steam was to do the work of the Western world, and his present visit was but for the purpose of ascertaining how best the work could be done upon its streams. The Ohio and Mississippi were problems that he had undertaken to study, nor did he leave them until he had mastered them in all their bearings. He gauged them; he measured their velocity at different seasons; he obtained all the statistical information within his reach, and formed a judgment with respect to the future development of the coun- try west of the Alleghanies that has since been amply corroborated. Not only did he do this, but finding coal on the banks of the Ohio, he purchased and opened mines of the mineral; and so confident was he of the success of the project on hand, that he caused supplies of the fuel to be heaped upon the shore, in anticipation of the wants of a steamboat whose keel had yet to be laid, and whose very existence was to depend upon the impression that his report might make upon the capitalists, without whose aid the plan would, for the present at least, have to be abandoned.

"Arriving at New York in the middle of January, 1810, Mr. Roosevelt's report, bearing on its face evidence of the thoroughness of his examination, impressed Fulton and Livingston

MEMOIRS OF MISSISSIPPI.

with his own convictions, and in the spring of that year he returned to Pittsburgh, to super- intend the building of the first steamboat that was launched on the Western waters.

"Pittsburgh, when Mr. Roosevelt took up his residence there in 1811, had but recently commenced the career which has now entitled it to the name of the Birmingham of America. On the Allegheny side, which was liable to overflow, there were but few buildings in 1811. Close by the creek, and immediately under a lofty bluff, called Boyd's hill, was an iron foundry, known as Beelen's foundry, and in immediate proximity to this was the keel of Mr. Roosevelt's vessel laid. The depot of the Pittsburgh & Connellsville railroad now occupies the ground I am speaking of.

"The size and plan of the first steamboat had been determined on in New York, and had been furnished by Mr. Fulton. It was to be one hundred and sixteen feet in length, and twenty-foot beam. The engine was to have a thirty-four-inch cylinder, and the boiler and other parts of the machine were to be in proportion.

"The first thing to be done was to obtain the timber to build the boat, and for this pur- pose men were sent into the forest, there to find the necessary ribs and knees and beams, transport them to Mouongahela, and raft them to the shipyard. White pine was the only material for planking that could be obtained without a delay that would be inadmissible. The sawing that was required was done in the old-fashioned and now long-forgotten saw-pits of 1811. Boat-builders, accustomed to build the barges of that day, could be obtained in Pittsburgh, but a ship-builder and the mechanics required in the machinery department, had to be shipped from New York. Under these circumstances, Mr. Roosevelt began the work. One of the first troubles that annoyed him was a rise in the Monongahela, when the waters backed into his shipyard, and set all the materials that were buoyant afloat. This occurred again and again, and on one occasion it seemed not improbable that the steamboat would be lifted from its ways and launched before its time. At length, however, all difficulties were overcome, by steady perseverance, and the boat was launched, and called, from the place of her ultimate destination, the New Orleans. It cost in the neighborhood of $38,000.

"As the New Orleans approached completion, and when it came to be known that Mrs. Roosevelt intended to accompany her husband on the voyage, the numerous friends she had made in Pittsburgh united in endeavoring to dissuade her from what they regarded as utter folly, if not absolute madness. Her husband was appealed to. The criticisms that had been freely applied to the boat by the crowds of visitors to the shipyard were now transferred to the conduct of the builder. He was told that he had no right to peril his wife's life, however reckless he might be of his own. But the wife believed in her husband, and in the latter part of September, 1811, the New Orleans, after a short experimental trip up the Monongahela, commenced her voyage.

"There were two cabins, one aft for ladies, and a larger one forward for gentlemen. In the former were four berths. It was comfortably furnished. Of this Mrs. Roosevelt took possession. Mr. Roosevelt and herself were the only passengers. There was a captain, an engineer named Baker, Andrew Jack (the pilot), six hands, two female servants, a man waiter, a cook and an immense Newfoundland dog. Thus equipped, the New Orleans began the voyage which changed the relations of the West -which may almost be said to have changed its destiny.

"The people of Pittsburgh turned out en masse, and lined the banks of the Mononga- hela, to witness the departure of the steamboat, and shout after shout rent the air, and hand- kerchiefs were waved and hats thrown up by way of God speed to the voyagers, as the anchor was raised, and, heading up stream for a short distance, a wide circuit brought tl:e

BIOGRAPHIICAL AND HISTORICAL

New Orleans on her proper course, and, steam and current aiding, she disappeared behind the first headland, on the right bank of the Ohio.

" Too much excited to sleep, Mr. Roosevelt and his wife passed the greater part of the first night on deck, and watched the shore, covered then with an almost unbroken forest, as reach after reach and bend after bend were passed at a speed of from eight to ten miles an hour. The regular working of the engine, the ample supply of steam, the uniformity of the speed, inspired at last a confidence that quieted at length the nervous apprehensions of the travelers. Mr. Jack, the pilot, delighted with the facility with which the vessel was steered, and at a speed to which he was so little accustomed, ceased to express misgivings and became as sanguine as Mr. Roosevelt himself in regard to the success of the voyage. The very crew of unimaginative men were excited with the novelty of the situation; and when the following morning assembled all hands on deck to return the cheers of a village whose inhabitants had seen the boat approaching down the long reach in the river, and turned out to greet her as she sped, it probably shone upon as jolly a set as ever floated upon the Ohio.

"On the second day after leaving Pittsburgh, the New Orleans rounded to opposite Cin- cinnati, and cast anchor in the stream. Levees and wharfboats were things unknown in 1811 *. Here, as at Pittsburgh, the whole town seemed to have assembled on the bank, and many of the acquaintances came off in small boats. 'Well, you are as good as your word; you have visited us in a steamboat,' they said; 'but we see you for the last time. Your boat may go down the river; but, as to coming up; the very idea is an absurd one.' This was one of those occasions on which seeing was not believing. The keelboatmen, whose shoulders had hardened as they pressed their poles for many a weary mile against the current, shook their heads as they crowded around the strange visitor, and bandied wit with the crew that had been selected from their own calling for the voyage. Some flatboatmen, whose ungainly arks the steamboat had passed a short distance above the town, and who now floated by with the current, seemed to have a better opinion of the new comer, and proposed a tow in case they were again overtaken. But as to the boat's returning, all agreed that that could never be.

"The stay at Cincinnati was brief, only long enough to take in a supply of wood for the voyage to Louisville, which was reached on the night of the fourth day after leaving Pitts- burgh. It was midnight on the 1st of October, 1811, that the New Orleans dropped anchor opposite the town. There was a brilliant moon. It was as light as day almost, and no one on board had retired. The roar of the escaping steam, then heard for the first time at the place where now its echoes are unceasing, roused the population, and, late as it was, crowds came rushing to the banks of the river to learn the cause of the unwonted uproar. A letter now before me, written by one of those on board at the time, records the fact, that there were those who insisted that the comet of 1811 had fallen into the Ohio and produced the hubub! "The morning after the arrival of the vessel at Louisville, Mr. Roosevelt's acquaintances and others came on board, and here the same things were said that had been said at Cincin- nati. Congratulations at having descended the river were, without exception, accompanied by regrets that it was the first and last time a boat would be seen above the falls of the Ohio. Still, so far, certainly, Mr. Roosevelt's promises had been fulfilled, and there was a public dinner given to him a few days after his arrival. Here any number of complimentary toasts were drank, and the usual amount of feeling on such occasions was manifested. Sed revocare gradum, however, was still the burden of the song.

"Not to be outdone in hospitality, Mr. Roosevelt invited his hosts to dine on board the

*Levees were known in New Orleans almost a hundred years before.

MEMOIRS OF MISSISSIPPI.

New Orleans, which lay at anchor opposite the town. The company met in the forward or gentlemen's cabin, and the feast was at its hight, when suddenly there were heard unwonted rumblings, accompanied by a very perceptible motion in the vessel. The company had but one idea. The New Orleans had escaped from her anchor, and was drifting toward the falls, to the certain destruction of all on board! There was an instant and simultaneous rush to the upper deck, when the company found, that, instead of drifting toward the falls of the Ohio, the New Orleans was making good headway up the river and would soon leave Louis- ville in the distance down stream. As the engine warmed to its work, and the steam blew off at the safety valve, the speed increased. Mr. Roosevelt, of course, had provided this means of convincing his incredulous guests, and their surprise and delight may readily be imagined. After going up the river for a few miles, the New Orleans returned to her anchorage.

"It had been intended, on leaving Pittsburgh, to proceed as rapidly as possible to New Orleans, to place the boat on the route for which it was designed, between that city and Natchez. It was found however, on reaching Louisville, that there was not a sufficient depth of water on the falls of the Ohio to permit the vessel to pass over them in safety. Nothing was to be done, therefore, but to wait, as patiently as possible, the rise in the river. That this delay might, as far as practicable, be utilized, to the extent, at least, of convincing the incredulous Cincinnatians, the New Orleans returned to that city, where she was greeted with an enthusiasm that exceeded even what was displayed on her descent from Pittsburgh. No one doubted now. In 1832," continues the address, "I was detained for several days in Cincinnati, on my return from a visit to the South. There were numbers, then alive, who remembered the first advent of steam, and from some of these I learned what is here stated in regard to the public feeling at the time-the universal incredulity at the first visit-the unbounded confidence inspired by the second.

" Returning to Louisville, the greater interest of all on board the New Orleans centered in watching the rise in the Ohio. Rain in the upper country was what was wanted, and of this there seemed small promise. There was nothing in the aspect of the heavens that indi- cated it. On the contrary, there was a dull, misty sky, without a cloud, a leaden atmosphere that weighed upon the spirits, and the meaning of which would have been better understood at Naples, under the shadow of Vesuvius, than on the banks of the Ohio. The sun, when it rose, looked like a globe of red-hot iron, whose color brightened at noon, to resume the same look when it sank below the horizon. All day long one might have gazed on it with unflinch- ing eyes. The air was still heated, and a sense of weariness was characteristic of the hours as they wore slowly by. At last, and when a nervous impatience affected every one on board, it was announced one morning that there had been a rise in the river during the night. Morning after morning the rise in the river during the night was reported, and finally, in the last week in November, it was ascertained that the depth of water in the shallowest portion of the falls exceeded by five inches the draught of the boat. It was a narrow margin, but the rise had ceased. There was no telegraph in those days to tell hourly what was the weather in the country drained by the Ohio, and Mr. Roosevelt, assuring himself, personally, of the condition of the falls, determined to take the responsibility and go over them if he could. It was an anxious time. All hands were on deck. Mrs. Roosevelt, whom her husband would willingly have left behind to join him below the falls, refused to remain on shore, and stood near the stern. The two pilots-for an extra one had been engaged for the passage through the rapids-took their places on the bow. The anchor was weighed. To get into the Indi- ana channel, which was the best, a wide circuit had to be made, bringing her head down stream, completing which, the New Orleans began the descent. Steerage way depended upon

BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL

her speed exceeding that of the current. The faster she could be made to go the easier it would be to guide her. All the steam the boiler would bear was put upon her. The safety valve shrieked; the wheels revolved faster than they had ever done before, and the vessel, speaking figuratively, fairly flew away from the crowds collected to witness her departure from Louisville. Instinctively each one on board now grasped the nearest object, and with bated breath awaited the result. Black ledges of rock appeared only to disappear as the New Orleans flashed by them. The waters whirled and eddied, and threw their spray upon the deck, as a more rapid descent caused the vessel to pitch forward to what at times seemed inevitable destruction. Not a word was spoken. The pilots directed the men at the helm by motions of their hands. Even the great Newfoundland dog seemed affected by the appre- hension of danger, and came and crouched at Mrs. Roosevelt's feet. The tension of the nervous system was too great to be long sustained. Fortunately the passage was soon made, and with feelings of profound gratitude to the Almighty, at the successful issue of the advent- ure, on the part of both Mr. Roosevelt and his wife, the New Orleans rounded to in safety below the falls. There was still the same leaden sky, the same dim sun during the day, the same starless night; but the great difficulty had been overcome, and it was believed that there would now be nothing but plain sailing to the port of destination. It was yet to be seen how far the expectation of those on board, in this respect, would be realized."

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Biographical and historical memoirs of Mississippi, embracing an authentic and comprehensive account of the chief events in the history of the state and a record of the lives of many of the most worthy and illustrious families and individuals, Vol. II, Part 9

Author: Goodspeed Brothers Publication date: 1891 Publisher: Chicago, Goodspeed Number of Pages: 1314

Author: Goodspeed Brothers
Publication date: 1891
Publisher: Chicago, Goodspeed
Number of Pages: 1314