Old Times on the Upper Mississippi
trip to St. Paul and return was made, and the freight checked out
with surprisingly few errors for a beginner. The cargo of wheat,
potatoes, etc., was correctly counted in, properly entered in the
books, and correctly checked out at Prairie du Chien and Dunleith.
The sick clerk did not rejoin the boat. The temporary appointment
by the captain and chief clerk was made permanent by the secretary
of the company at Dunleith, Mr. Blanchard, on the recommendation of
Mr. Hargus, my chief. We ran into Galena on our regular Thursday
afternoon time, and instead of creeping into a steaming, muddy
boiler, I walked out on to the levee and was introduced to the great
wholesalers who at that time made Galena their headquarters, as "Mr.
Merrick, our new second clerk", and the work of loading for a new
trip was taken up.
While the office of second clerk was a decided promotion from my
point of view, it was not so esteemed on the river. Leaving the
engine-room was leaving the opportunity to learn the profession
of engineering. Once learned, it was then assumed that the person
so equipped was guaranteed employment so long as he willed, with
a minimum amount of competition. Later developments revealed the
fallacy of this conception. Within ten years thereafter, steamboating
was practically dead on the upper Mississippi. The completion of one
or more railroads into St. Paul, ended the river monopoly. Thereafter
a dozen steamboats did the business formerly requiring a hundred. The
wages of engineers and pilots dropped to a figure undreamed of in the
flush times between 1850 and 1860; there were twenty men competing
for every berth upon the river.
My new berth was not silk-lined, however. There was an aristocracy
in the official family above decks. The captain and the chief clerk
represented the first class, and the mate and the second clerk the
other. The line between these was represented by the watches into
which all officers on the boat were divided for rounds of duty. The
captain and his mate, and the chief clerk and his second stood watch
and watch during the twenty-four hours (that is, six hours on and six
hours off) all the season. The pilots and engineers interposed a "dog
watch", to break the monotony. The captain and the chief clerk went
on watch after breakfast, at seven in the morning, and stood until
noon. At twelve o'clock they were relieved by the mate and the second
clerk, who ran the steamboat and the business until six o'clock in
the evening, when they were relieved. After supper, they turned in
until midnight, when they were called and relieved the captain and
the chief clerk, who retired and slept until morning. While each
class of officers was on duty the same number of hours each day, the
difference lay in the fact that the junior officers were compelled
by this arrangement to turn out at midnight throughout the season.
It was this turning out at midnight that made the mate's watch (the
port watch) very undesirable so far as personal ease and comfort
was concerned. A man can knock about until midnight very agreeably,
after a short nap in the afternoon, provided he can have a sound
sleep during the "dead hours" from midnight until six o'clock in the
morning. To turn out at midnight every night and work until six is an
entirely different matter.
The pilots and engineers on our boat--and so far as my experience
went, on all boats--stood a "dog-watch" from four in the morning
until seven, thus making five watches during the twenty-four hours,
bringing the men of the two watches on duty alternately at midnight,
and shortening the "dead hours" from midnight to four o'clock, and
from four until seven, so that one did not get so "dead" tired and
sleepy as he would in standing a watch beginning every night at
midnight.
It was believed on the river that more people die between midnight
and morning than during any other six hours in the twenty-four. I
think that I have heard physicians confirm this. My own experience in
going on watch at midnight continuously during six months is, that
there is less vitality and ambition available in that period than in
any other. In fact, I have no distinct recollection that there was
any ambition at all mixed up in the process of writing up delivery
books, checking out freight, measuring wood, and performing the
hundred other duties that fell to the lot of the officer on watch,
when done in the depressing atmosphere of early morning. It was a
matter of duty, unmixed with higher motives.
It was not only the turning out at unholy hours, that differentiated
between first and second clerk. The second clerk must have his
delivery book written up for all the landings to be made during his
off-watch. The chief clerk then made the delivery from the book,
upon which the receipts were taken. If, during the second clerk's
off-watch, there was a particularly large manifest for any landing,
the assistant was called to attend to the delivery, after which he
could turn in again, if he chose. Of course it took a river man but
a moment to go to sleep after touching his bunk; but his rest was
broken, and in the course of the season this began to tell on every
one. Under the stress of it, men became hollow-eyed and lost flesh
and strength.
When on watch, the second clerk not only attended to his own
particular duties, but he also assumed for the time those of the
chief clerk. He collected fares from passengers coming aboard during
his watch; assigned rooms, provided there were any left to assign,
or a mattress on the cabin floor if there chanced to be any space
left on the floor, whereon to place another mattress; collected
freight bills, paid for wood or coal, and performed any other duties
ordinarily performed by the chief clerk when on watch. It was not
considered good form to call the chief clerk during his off-watch;
in fact, to do so would be a confession of ignorance or inability,
which no self-respecting second clerk cared to exhibit, and but
rarely did. Many the close conference with the chief mate, his
companion as well as superior during the long night watches; and many
the smiles evoked in after days when recalling the well-meant but
somewhat impracticable advice tendered upon some such occasions by
the good-hearted autocrat of the "roof" and fo' castle.
Chapter VII
_Wooding Up_
As second clerk, I was early taught to hold my own with the pirates
who conducted the woodyards scattered along the river, from which the
greater part of the fuel used on old-time river boats was purchased.
There was a great variety of wood offered for sale, and a greater
diversity in the manner of piling it. It was usually ranked eight
feet high, with a "cob-house" at each end of the rank. It was the
rule on the river to measure but one of the end piles, if the whole
rank was taken, or one-half of one end pile if but a part of the
rank was bought. For convenience, the woodmen usually put twenty
cords in a rank, and allowed enough to cover the shortage caused by
cross-piling at the ends. Being piled eight feet high, ten lengths of
the measuring stick (eight feet long) equalled twenty cords, if it
were fairly piled. Woodmen who cared for their reputation and avoided
a "scrap" with the clerks, captains, and mates of steamboats, usually
made their twenty-cord ranks eighty-four feet long and eight feet
high. Such dealers also piled their sticks parallel to each other
in the ranks; they also threw out the rotten and very crooked ones.
When the clerk looked over such a tier, after having run his stick
over it, he simply invited the owner aboard and paid him his fifty or
sixty dollars, according to the quality of the wood, took him across
the cabin to the bar, and invited him to "have one on the boat",
shook hands, and bade him good night.
It took the "pirates" to start the music, however. When only scant
eighty feet were found in the rank, with rotten and green wood
sandwiched in, all through the tiers, and crooked limbs and crossed
sticks in all directions, it became the duty of the clerk to estimate
his discount. After running his rod over it, he would announce,
before the first stick was taken off by the deck hands, the amount
of wood in the rank--nineteen and a half cords, nineteen cords,
eighteen and a half cords, or in extreme cases only eighteen. When
the mate could stand behind the rank and see, through a cross-piled
hole, more than half the length of the steamboat, it was deemed a
rather acute case, calling for the eighteen-cord decision. When
this decision was made and announced, it was, on our boat at least,
always adhered to. We always took wood some time before our visible
supply was exhausted, in order to meet just such emergencies. The
owner might, and usually did, damn everybody and everything connected
with the craft in the most lurid terms. But the one question he had
to answer, and answer quickly, was: "Will you take it?" If "No",
the bell was struck and the boat backed off, while the woodman and
roustabouts exchanged a blue-streaked volley of vituperation. If, on
the other hand, a sale was made, the owner usually took his money and
the inevitable drink at the bar, and then went down to the main deck
and had it out with the mate, who was always a match, and more than
a match, for any merely local and provincial orator. His vocabulary
was enriched with contributions from all ports between St. Louis and
St. Paul, while that of the squatter was lacking in the elements of
diversity necessary to give depth and breadth to the discussion.
It would be unjust to class all woodyard men with squatters like the
foregoing specimens, of whom there were hundreds scattered along the
islands and lowlands bordering the river, cutting wood on government
land, and moving along whenever the federal officers got on their
trail. On the mainland were many settlers, opening up farms along
the river, and the chance to realize ready money from the sale of
wood was not to be neglected. In many places chutes had been built
of heavy planks, descending from the top of the bluff, from one to
two hundred feet above the river. The upland oak, cut into four-foot
lengths, was shot down to the water's edge, where a level space was
found to rank it up. These men were honest, almost without exception,
and their wood always measured true. The upland wood was vastly
superior to the lowland growth; steamboat captains not only paid the
highest price for it, but further endeavored to contract for all the
wood at certain yards. I remember one, run by a Mr. Smith, between
Prescott and Diamond Bluff, and another near Clayton, Iowa, that
always furnished the best dry oak wood, and gave full measure.
It was at the latter place that I nearly lost my berth, through a
difference with the "Old Man"--the captain. I had measured the rank
and announced the amount of wood as twenty cords. The captain was on
deck at the time, and watching the measurement. When the announcement
was made he ordered the wood remeasured. I went over it carefully,
measuring from the centre of the cross-pile at one end to the centre
of the cross-pile at the other end of the rank, and again reported
"twenty cords". Captain Faucette called down to "measure it again",
with an inflection plainly intimating that I was to discount it,
adding, "You measured both ends." The rank was full height, closely
piled, and the best of split white oak, and I had already taken out
one of the ends; further, I had already twice reported twenty cords
in the hearing of all the crew and many passengers, who were now
giving their undivided attention to this affair. I therefore did not
feel like stultifying myself for the sake of stealing a cord or two