_On the Levee at Prescott_
When we first knew it, Prescott was in many respects a typical river
town. But in one, it differed from all others with the possible
exception of Wacouta and Reed's Landing. "Towing through" had not
then been inaugurated. The great rafts of logs and lumber from
Stillwater and the upper St. Croix, were pushed to Prescott by
towboats from Stillwater, at the head of the lake. From there to Lake
Pepin they drifted. They were again pushed through that lake by other
boats, and from Reed's Landing, at the foot of the lake, drifted
to their destination at Winona, La Crosse, Clinton, Le Claire, or
Hannibal.
The necessary preparation for the trip down river was made at
Prescott. Stores of pork, beans, flour, molasses, and whiskey were
laid in. The hundreds of rough men who handled the great steering
oars on these rafts spent their money in the saloons which lined
the river front and adjacent streets, filling themselves with
noxious liquors, and often ending their "sprees" with a free fight
between rival crews. A hundred men would join in the fray, the city
marshal sitting on a "snubbing post", revolver in hand, watching the
affair with the enlightened eye of an expert and the enjoyment of a
connoisseur.
Prescott was also a transfer point for freight consigned to Afton,
Lakeland, Hudson, Stillwater, Osceola, and St. Croix Falls. The large
boats, unless they were heavily freighted for Stillwater and Hudson,
did not make the run of thirty miles up the lake. The freight was
put ashore at Prescott, and reshipped on the smaller boats plying
between Prescott and St. Croix River points. This made necessary
large warehouses in which to store the transshipped goods. My father,
L. H. Merrick, engaged in this business of storing and transshipping,
as well as dealing in boat-stores and groceries. Buying one
warehouse on the levee, he started a store in the basement, which
opened directly on to the levee. Moving his family into the two
upper stories, he began at once the erection of a second and larger
warehouse. These being insufficient for his business, he bought, in
1855, a third warehouse. These were filled, in summer, with goods in
transit, and in winter with wheat awaiting the opening of navigation
for shipment to Eastern markets, via Dunleith, Illinois, at that
time the nearest railroad connection on the river. The name of this
one-time prosperous city has, however, disappeared from the map, to
be replaced by East Dubuque.
From 1854 until 1858 the firm of L. H. Merrick & Co. (the company
being William R. Gates, my brother-in-law) did all the transfer and
storage business for the regular packets belonging to the Galena,
Dubuque, Dunleith & St. Paul Packet Company, commonly shortened to
Minnesota Packet Company, and also for such "wild" boats as did not
make the run up the lake.
The business was very profitable. Much of the freight consisted of
pork and beef in barrels, whiskey, sugar in hogsheads (refined sugar
was then scarcely known on the upper river), rice, soap, etc., which,
if there was no boat ready to receive it, could be covered with
tarpaulins on the levee, thus saving the cost of putting it in the
warehouses. The perishable freight and household goods were of course
stored under cover. A man was always on duty to meet incoming boats
at night, and to watch the freight piled on the levee. Sometimes,
when there was a large amount of such freight left outside, we
boys spent the night skylarking about the piles, keeping our eyes
open to see that the ubiquitous raftsmen did not surreptitiously
transfer some of the packages to the everpresent rafts. The transfer
agents paid the freight on the goods from the lower river points to
Prescott, and charged a commission of from five to twenty-five per
cent for such advance. In addition, a charge was made for storage,
whether the freight was actually placed in the warehouse or simply
covered and watched on the levee. If the goods were from Pittsburg
or St. Louis, the freight bills were usually large, and a five per
cent commission would produce a quite respectable income. If the
cargo were divided into small lots, so much the better. No package,
however small, escaped for less than a quarter ("two bits", as money
was then reckoned); and in addition to the commission on the money
advanced, there was an additional charge for storage, graduated,
as I have before stated, upon the value and perishability of the
freight handled. Altogether it was a very profitable occupation until
the year 1858, when there appeared a new bidder for the business,
knocking down the rates of commission and storage, as well as cutting
the business in two by getting the agency of many of the boats,
heretofore served by the old firm.
My brother and myself "bunked" in the garret of the warehouse in
which we had made our temporary home. There were two windows fronting
the river, and I feel sure that at night no steamboat ever landed
at the levee without having at least two spectators, carefully
noting its distinguishing characteristics. Was she a side-wheel
or stern-wheel? Was she large or small? Had she trimmings on her
smokestack, or about the pilot house, and if so of what description?
Had she a "Texas", or no "Texas"? Were the outside blinds painted
white, red, or green? What was the sound of her whistle and bell?
All of these points, and many others, were taken in, and indelibly
impressed upon our memories, so that if the whistle or bell were
again heard, perhaps months afterward, the name of the boat could be
given with almost unfailing accuracy. It was a part of the education
of the "levee rats", as the boys were called. A boy that could not
distinguish by ear alone a majority of the boats landing at the levee
from year to year, was considered as deficient in his education. Of
course every boy in town could tell what craft was coming as soon as
she whistled, if she was one of the regular "packets". Every boat
had a whistle toned and tuned so that it might be distinguished from
that of any other boat of the same line. The bells, which were always
struck as the boat came into the landing, also differed widely in
tone. There was one, the music of which will live in my memory so
long as life lasts. The tone of the "Ocean Wave's" bell was deep,
rich, sonorous, and when heard at a distance on a still, clear
night, was concentrated sweetness. Were I rich I would, were it a
possibility, find that bell and hang it in some bell-less steeple
where I might hear again its splendid tones, calling not alone to
worship, but summoning for me from the misty past pictures indelibly
printed upon boyish senses.
A picturesque and animated scene, was one of these night landings;
the discharge and taking on of freight, the shouting of orders, the
escaping of steam, and all the sights and sounds which for the time
transformed the levee from its usual quietude and darkness, broken
only by the faint glimmer of the watchman's lantern and the ripple of
the water upon the beach, into life, light, and activity.
The advent of the electric search-light has driven from the river one
of the most picturesque of all the accessories to such scenes as we
boys looked down upon, night after night, during the busy times of
1854 and 1855, before I myself became part and parcel of it all. The
torch, by the light of which the work went on by night, was within an
iron basket, about a foot in diameter and eighteen inches deep, swung
loosely between the prongs of a forked iron bar or standard, which
could be set in holes in the forward deck, leaning far out over the
water, so as to allow live coals from the burning wood to fall into
the river, and not upon deck.
When a landing was to be made at a woodyard or a town, the watchman
filled one or perhaps two of these torch baskets with split
"light-wood", or "fat-wood"--Southern pine full of resinous sap,
which would burn fiercely, making a bright light, illuminating the
deck of the boat and the levee for hundreds of feet around. As the
boat neared the landing the pine splinters were lighted at the
furnace door, the torch being carried to place and firmly fixed in
its socket. Then came out the attending demon who fed the burning,
smoking "jack" with more pine fatwood, and from time to time with a
ladle of pulverized rosin. The rosin would flare up with a fierce
flame, followed by thick clouds of black smoke, the melted tar
falling in drops upon the water, to float away, burning and smoking
until consumed. This addition to the other sights and sounds served
more than any other thing to give this night work a wild and weird
setting. We boys decided, on many a night, that we would "go on the
river" and feed powdered rosin and pine kindlings to torches all
night long, as the coal-black and greasy, but greatly envied white
lamp-boy did, night after night, in front of our attic windows on the
levee at Prescott. The cleaner and brighter, but very commonplace
electric light has driven the torch from the river; and if one is to
be found at all in these degenerate days it will be as a curiosity in
some historical museum.
And thus we grew into the very life of the river as we grew in
years. I finally attained an age when my services were worth
something in the economy of a steamboat's crew. My first venture
was made in company with one who afterward attained rank and honor
in the civil service of the state--the Honorable Sam. S. Fifield,
lieutenant-governor of Wisconsin. I have a letter written by Mr.
Fifield since I began writing these sketches, in which he says that
he recollects the writer as a "white-haired boy, full of all sorts of
pranks". I presume this description of how I looked and what I did is
correct; but forty years ago to have applied to him any such personal
description of his thatch would have been a _casus belli_ for which
nothing but blood could atone. It is white, now; at that time it was
a subdued brindle, with leanings toward straw, and a subject not
lightly to be discussed in the presence of its owner.
The stern-wheel steamer "Kate Cassell" wintered above the lake--that
is, above Lake Pepin--I think at Diamond Bluff, where at the close
of navigation she was caught in the ice. In the spring her captain
appeared, with an engineer, a pilot, a steward, and possibly some
other officers, and picked up the remainder of officers and crew
'longshore. I remember that one of my schoolmates, Nat. Blaisdell,
went as assistant engineer, Russ. Ruley as mate, and a number of
longshoremen from Prescott as deck hands, while Sam Fifield and I
were pantry boys. Sam got enough of it in a few trips between St.
Paul and Rock Island. I stayed through the season. We both were
printers. Sam went back to the case at once; I went to mine again in
the fall, after the close of navigation, and stuck type during the
winter, as I also did each returning season while on the river.
The next spring I engaged with "Billy" Hamilton, as a "cub" engineer.
Prior to starting out on the season's run the machinery of the
boat ("Fanny Harris") had to be put in order. There was a regular
blacksmith's forge on board. All river engineers were, perforce,
good blacksmiths, able to make anything pertaining to the machinery
which it was possible to make from wrought iron bars with an ordinary
forge and anvil, with a twelve-pound striking hammer and a two-pound
shaper. We made scores of extra "stirrups"--the double bolts,
with nuts, that clamp the "buckets" to the wheel-arms. We made
hog-chains and chimney guys, and, as needed, bent them into place.
The boilers, engines, and "Doctor"--the steam pump for feeding water
to the boilers, pumping out the steamer, etc.--were all overhauled
and put in perfect order. The engines were leveled and "lined up";
the eccentrics were carefully adjusted and securely fastened; the
"nigger" hoisting engine, for handling freight and warping the boat
over sand-bars was fitted up, and a hundred other minor but important
matters were attended to, so that when steam was raised and turned
on, the wheel would "turn over", and the boat go. Some wheels did not
at first turn over, and it was not to the credit of the man who had
lined the engines and set the eccentrics. Billy Hamilton's wheel,
however, turned over the first trial.
Had I followed up this line of activity under Billy's tutelage, no
doubt I would have become a capable engineer, for I liked the work
and took a genuine delight in handling machinery, a liking which
I have not yet outgrown. But there were decided drawbacks. The
reversing gear of a Mississippi River steamboat, in old times, was
like nothing else of its kind, anywhere under the sun. The engines
were of the lever and poppet-valve order, and the reversing gear was
heavy. The connecting-rod (cam-rod, we called it) weighed at least
fifty pounds, even though it was attached to the "rock-shaft" at one
end. In reversing, the end of the connecting-rod was lifted off its
hook at the bottom, the lever thrown over, in which operation two
heavy valve-levers were raised, the rod lifted about three feet, and
dropped on to the upper hook. It was all right when you did this once
or twice in making a landing; but in a piece of "crooked river", the
boat dodging about among reefs and bars, with the bells coming faster
than you could answer them, it was another matter, and became pretty
trying work for a stripling boy; his arms could not keep the pace.
Another drawback in the life of a "cub" engineer was the fact that
when in port there was no let-up to the work. In fact, the worst part
of it came then. As soon as the steamer reached her destination at
Galena, the pilots were at liberty until the hour of sailing; not so
with the engineers. We usually reached Galena Thursday evening or
night, and left for up river Friday evening. As soon as the boat was
made fast the "mud-valves" were opened, the fires drawn, the water
let out of the boilers, and the process of cleaning began. Being a
slim lad, one of my duties was to creep into the boilers through the
manhole, which was just large enough to let me through; and with
a hammer and a sharp-linked chain I must "scale" the boilers by
pounding on the two large flues and the sides with the hammer, and
sawing the chain around the flues until all the accumulated mud and
sediment was loosened. It was then washed out by streams from the
deck-hose, the force-pump being manned by the firemen, of whom there
were eight on our four-boiler boat.
Scaling boilers was what decided me not to persevere in the
engineering line. To lie flat on one's stomach on the top of a
twelve-inch flue, studded with rivet heads, with a space of only
fifteen inches above one's head, and in this position haul a chain
back and forth without any leverage whatever, simply by the muscles
of the arm, with the thermometer 90° in the shade, was a practice
well calculated to disillusionize any one not wholly given over to
mechanics. While I liked mechanics I knew when I had enough, and
therefore reached out for something one deck higher. The unexpected
disability of our "mud clerk", as the second clerk is called on the
river, opened the way for an ascent, and I promptly availed myself of
it.
[Illustration: PRESCOTT LEVEE IN 1876. Showing Steamer "Centennial"
and the little Hastings ferry, "Plough Boy." The double warehouse,
showing five windows in the second story and four in the third was
the building in which the author lived when a boy.]
[Illustration: PRESCOTT LEVEE IN 1908. But one business building--one
of the old Merrick warehouses, left intact. Dunbar's Hall gutted by
fire recently. The large steamboat warehouse next to it destroyed
some years ago. All the shipping business gone to the railroad, which
runs just back of the buildings shown.]