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THE
LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF
CAPT. STEPHEN B. HANKS,
ROUGH LIFE ON THE EARLY UPPER RIVER
Oct 29, 1921
After we were well settled in the season’s run my wife came up
from Albany
to Galena and boarded at the De Soto House most of the summer,
the latter part being with the wife of one of the clerks whose
acquaintance we had made.
Some time in the early part of the summer, Cochran, our clerk,
was taken sick and left us for a time. It developed that he
had small pox but we did not know it until he returned to us
with a very much pitted face. None of the rest of us got the
disease and he thought it came from handling infected money.
We
had a number of experiences this summer. With the advent of
the railroad and the interest number of boats from St. Louis a
floating population was poured in on us much of which
seemingly was of the lowest of humanity. That of these most
of our deck’s crews were procured and many of them were Irish
and seemed possessed of the spirit of battle which was ever
ready to flame up at a moment’s notice. One row early in the
season was at Galena about breakfast time. The trouble came
from a disagreement between two Irish factions of Orangemen
and Fardowns, what ever that may have meant. Part were on
shore and part were on the boat and missiles were soon flying
in abundance and the din from them was nerve racking but I do
not recall there was any serious results and the affair was
quelled by the police and others of the boat in a short time.
Later at Read’s landing our crew and a lot of raftsman had a
row in which some of our officers took part. Our Captain was
struck by someone and I think knocked down. As we backed out
to go on up the river a man with a shot gun fired at us, the
bulk of the shot lodging in one of the derricks but some of
the shot broke some of the glass in the pilot house where I
was, none hitting me however. Our express messenger, who was
sitting in the outside door of his room, then fired with his
revolver at the man on shore hitting him about the stomach.
He immediately dropped his gun yelling that he was killed. We
learned later that the ball glanced around his body doing him
no particular harm more than burning the skin. Hearing that
we were going to be treated roughly the next time we landed at
Read’s our crew got out a small cannon we had for firing
salutes, loaded it and mounted it on the capstan. Doubtless
it looked wicked from the shore and any way we had no more
trouble there.
At
Hastings one time a raid was made on the boat apparently on
account of a woman who had come on board as a chambermaid.
Again rocks and missiles were thrown and one of our men who
was on shore was badly beaten and thought to be dead as we
backed out for self preservation. On our return trip next day
we stopped at a place a little above Hastings and found our
man there. He had crawled under a pile of lumber until after
night and then made his way to the landing above as he knew we
would stop there. He told us the gang intended to mob and burn
the boat when we reached Hastings. With this warning we again
fixed up our cannon and it or something had the desired effect
as we were not molested.
We
also had small rows at frequent intervals with the raft men,
especially at the head of Lake
Pepin and in the
river above to Prescott by reason of the crowded condition of
the river, the rafting industry having increased fully as
rapidly as the packet business. Many times there would be a
great congestion of rafts in this section of the river and the
logging interests were not at all particular to leave a right
of way for the steamboats and this resulted in plenty of
friction as we were often completely clocked which resulted in
delay, lengthening our trips and interfering with making our
time schedule. This engendered bad blood-between the
conflicting interests and as a result there were rows,
sometimes ending in fights but more generally ominous
threats. There is no question but that we often shook up the
rafts, sometimes breaking them and often breaking ourselves as
well. We were often in danger from loose logs and logs in
those days were much more formidable than those of today.
This reminds me of one particular incident that summer. A
boom above St. Anthony Falls broke and all the logs came down
the river and their number was immense. We met them on the up
trip one evening just above Hastings and soon found the river
so full our progress was very slow and as the night came on we
could only creep along thru the jam which at the heaviest was
about fifteen miles long. These logs bothered us more or less
for a long time, as they would show up around Lake
Pepin
when least expected, before they were gathered up by their
owners.
Sometimes previous to the close of navigation the Galena, was
laid up as the water was low. There was a large amount of
freight for St. Louis
and other places along the river and the Alhambra was brought
out to clean it up. Abe Mitchell
was her captain and I was put on as one of her pilots.
Mitchell was an Albany man and a neighbor for many years.
Owing to the low stage of water we had some peculiar
experiences on the rapids, especially the lower rapids. While
we drew not over two feet of water there were places where
there was not an inch to spare and occasionally there was even
less water then our drafts, nor was it a soft bottom, like the
river generally, nothing but rigid and sharp rock and the
water dropping from one step to another like a stairway.
Our
freight was on barges, some half dozen is all which were went
down along the shore. To get the boat over it was necessary
to lighten her to the fullest extent and sound and buoy a
route. I secured one of the best rapids pilots,
Wagener by name I believe,
and together we went in a yawl slowly down over the chains of
rock feeling our way and setting buoys at frequent intervals.
The water was very clear in those days and we could see the
rocks almost as well as if they were out of the water but
could not determine the depth by sight alone. This we got by
sounding and it was an all day job of hard work and we did not
get back to the boat at Nashville a little below the head of
the rapids, where we had the boat tied up, until night. The
next day we set out to take the boat over and it consumed
nearly the entire day as sometimes we would have to anchor and
do some more sounding. A good many times we scraped on the
rocks but we made headway slowly and finally got over all
obstructions, got our barges over readjusted our load and went
on to our destination with no more trouble. |
