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[Illustration: Steve P. Holcombe.]
STEVE P. HOLCOMBE,
THE CONVERTED GAMBLER:
HIS LIFE AND WORK.
BY REV. GROSS ALEXANDER.
INTRODUCTION BY
_REV. SAM P. JONES._
LOUISVILLE:
PRESS OF THE COURIER-JOURNAL JOB PRINTING COMPANY.
1888.
COPYRIGHTED, 1888.
TO
Mrs. S. P. Holcombe,
THE PATIENT WIFE,
THE FAITHFUL MOTHER,
THE FRIEND OF PUBLICANS AND SINNERS,
THIS ACCOUNT OF
THE LIFE AND WORK OF HER HUSBAND
IS DEDICATED.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION BY SAM. P. JONES
LETTER FROM DR. J. A. BROADUS
LIFE AND WORK OF STEVE P. HOLCOMBE--
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
LETTERS TESTIMONIALS OF CONVERTS
SERMONS
PREFACE.
It has been thought and suggested by some of those having knowledge of
Mr. Holcombe's history, that an account of his life and work in
book-form would multiply his usefulness and do good. And since the
narration of his experiences by himself has been of such great benefit
to those who have been privileged to hear him, why may not others also
be benefited by reading some account of his uncommon career?
It is hoped that it will be of interest to the general reader as a
revelation and record of the workings and struggles of some human hearts
and the wretchedness and blessedness of some human lives. It is a sort
of luxury to read about and sympathize with wretchedness, as it is a joy
to see that wretchedness turned to blessedness. It will show to those
who are unwillingly the slaves of sin what God has done for such as
they. It will possibly interest and encourage those who are engaged in
Christian work. It may furnish suggestions as to practical methods to be
pursued in working among poor and needy classes, whether in towns or
cities. Even ministers of the Gospel may find encouragement and
instruction in the experience of Mr. Holcombe's life and the methods and
successes of his work.
What few letters of Mr. Holcombe's could be found are put in as showing
phases of this interesting character that could be shown as well no
other way, and some letters written _to_ him are selected out of
several hundred of like character to show how he touches all classes of
people.
The "Testimonies" are from men who have been rescued under Mr.
Holcombe's ministry, and will give some idea of the work that is being
done. These are only a few of the men who have been brought to a better
and happier life through Mr. Holcombe's efforts. If any should feel that
there is a sameness in these testimonies, which it is believed very few
will do, perhaps others will feel the cumulative effect of line upon
line, example upon example.
The sermons or addresses are inserted because they have been the means
of awakening and guiding many to salvation, and they may be of interest
and possibly of benefit to some who have not heard Mr. Holcombe. They
contain much of the history of his inner life in statements of
experience introduced by way of illustration. They are given in outline
only, as will be seen.
The book lays no claim to literary excellence. The position and work of
the man make his life worth writing and reading apart from the style of
the book.
The accounts here given of Mr. Holcombe's character and work are not
written for the purpose of glorifying him. Many of these pages are
profoundly painful and humiliating to him. But they are written that
those who read them may know from what depths he has been brought, and
to what blessedness he has been raised, through Jesus Christ, to whose
name the glory is given and to whose blessing the book is commended.
AUGUST, 1888.
INTRODUCTION.
BY REV. SAM P. JONES.
The author of this volume, the Rev. Gross Alexander, Professor of
Theology in Vanderbilt University, was surely the man to give to the
world the Life of Steve Holcombe. The warm heart and clear head of the
author, and the consecrated, self-denying life of the subject of the
volume, assure the reader ample compensation for the time given to the
book.
Mr. Alexander has known Brother Holcombe from the beginning of his
Christian life, and tells the story of his fidelity to Christ and
loyalty to duty as no other could.
I first met Brother Holcombe at Louisville, in the year 1882, when I was
preaching in the church of his pastor, Rev. J. C. Morris. It was from
Brother Morris that I learned of this consecrated layman. He often told
me with joy of many incidents connected with the conversion and work of
Brother Holcombe. My acquaintance with him soon grew into a warm
friendship. It has always been an inspiration to me to talk with him,
and a source of gratitude to me to know that I have his affection and
prayers.
The work he is doing now in the city of Louisville, Kentucky, is very
much like Jerry Macauley's work in New York City years ago. No man has
experienced more vividly the power of Christ to save, and no man has a
stronger faith in Christ's ability to save. Brother Holcombe's humility
and fidelity have made him a power in the work of rescuing the
perishing and saving the fallen. I have been charmed by the purity of
soul manifested by him on all occasions, and his continual efforts to
bring back those who have been overtaken in a fault. Hundreds of men who
have felt his sympathizing arms about them and listened to his brotherly
words have grown strong, because they had a friend and brother in Steve
Holcombe, who, in spite of their failures and faults, has clung to them
with a love like that which Christ Himself manifested toward those who
were as bruised reeds and smoking flax.
Brother Holcombe, rescued himself by the loving hand of Christ, has
extended the hand from a heart full of love for Christ and men, and has
done his best to save all who have come under his influence.
This volume will be especially instructive to those who are interested
in the salvation of the non-churchgoers of the great cities. For surely
Brother Holcombe's Mission is a place where the worst sinners hear of
Christ's power to save, and where they see, in Brother Holcombe himself,
with his rich experience, one of the greatest triumphs of the Gospel.
I heartily commend this volume to all Christian people, because it tells
of the life of a saved man. It tells also what a saved man can do for
others, and it will inspire many hearts with sympathy for such work and
prepare many hands to help in it. I heartily commend this book because
it is the biography of one whom I love and whom all men would love, if
they knew him in his devotion to God and duty. Brother Holcombe has
frequently been with me in my meetings and in my private room; I have
frequently been with him in his Mission, in his family circle, on the
streets of the great cities, and he is one man of whom it may be said:
"His conversation is in heaven." I frequently feel that my own life
would have been more successful with such a fervent consecration to my
work as Brother Steve Holcombe exemplifies.
The sermons contained in this volume will be read with interest. They
are his sermons. They come from his heart, and they have reached the
hearts of hundreds and thousands who have heard him gladly.
I bespeak for the book a circulation which will put it into the library
of all pastors and into thousands of homes.
SAM P. JONES.
CARTERSVILLE, GA., October 18, 1888.
LETTER FROM DR. JOHN A. BROADUS.
I have read with very great interest the "Life of Steve Holcombe," and
have carefully looked through the letters, testimonies and sermons to be
included in the proposed volume, and I rejoice that it is to be
published. Professor Alexander, who was Mr. Holcombe's first pastor, has
written the life with the best use of his fine literary gifts, and with
sound judgment and good taste. It is a wonderful story. I have long felt
interest in Mr. Holcombe and his work, for after beginning his Mission
he attended my seminary lessons in the New Testament through a session
and more; but this record of his life warms my heart still more toward
him and his remarkable labors of love. I think the book will be very
widely read. It will stir Christians to more hopeful efforts to save the
most wicked. It will encourage many a desperate wanderer to seek the
grace of God in the Gospel. Such a book makes a real addition to the
"evidences of Christianity." No one can read it without feeling that
Christian piety is something real and powerful and delightful. Much may
be learned from Mr. Holcombe's recorded methods and discourses, and from
the testimonies of his converts, as to the best means of carrying on
religious work of many kinds. The book will, doubtless, lead to the
establishment of like Missions in other cities, and put new heart and
hope into the pastors, missionaries and every class of Christian
workers. It will show that zeal and love and faith must be supported by
ample common sense and force of character, as in Mr. Holcombe's case,
if great results are to hoped for. Many persons can be induced to read
his brief outline sermons who would never look at more elaborate
discourses. As to two or three slight touches of doctrinal statement,
some of us might not agree with the speaker, but all must see that his
sermons are very practical, pervaded by good sense and true feeling, and
adapted to do much good.
JOHN A. BROADUS.
LOUISVILLE, KY., September 25, 1888.
LIFE AND WORK.
CHAPTER I.
Steve P. Holcombe, known in former years as a gambler and doer of all
evil, no less known in these latter days as a preacher of the Gospel and
doer of all good, was born at Shippingsport, Kentucky, in 1835. The
place, as well as the man, has an interesting history. An odd,
straggling, tired, little old town, it looks as if it had been left
behind and had long ago given up all hope of ever catching up. It is in
this and other respects in striking contrast with its surroundings. The
triangular island, upon which it is situated, lies lazily between the
Ohio river, which flows like a torrent around two sides of it, and the
Louisville canal, which stretches straight as an arrow along the third.
On its northeast side it commands a view of the most picturesque part of
La Belle Riviere. This part embraces the rapids, or "Falls," opposite
the city of Louisville, which gets its surname of "Falls City" from this
circumstance. In the midst of the rapids a lone, little island of bare
rocks rises sheer out of the dashing waters to the height of several
feet, and across the wide expanse, on the other side of the river, loom
up the wooded banks of the Indiana side, indented with many a romantic
cove, and sweeping around with a graceful curve, while the chimneys and
towers and spires of Jeffersonville and New Albany rise in the
distance, with the blue Indiana "Knobs" in the deep background beyond.
From this same point on the island, and forming part of the same
extensive view, one may see the two majestic bridges, each a mile in
length, one of which spans the river directly over the Falls and
connects the city of Louisville with Jeffersonville, Indiana, while the
other joins the western portion of Louisville with the thriving city of
New Albany. Across the canal from the island, on the south, lies the
city of Louisville with its near 200,000 population, its broad avenues,
its palatial buildings.
In the very midst of all this profusion of beauty and all this hum and
buzz and rush of commercial and social life, lies the dingy, sleepy old
town of Shippingsport with its three hundred or four hundred people, all
unheeded and unheeding, uncared for and uncaring. There are five or six
fairly good houses, and all the rest are poor. There is a good brick
school-house, built and kept up by the city of Louisville, of which,
since 1842, Shippingsport is an incorporated part. There is one
dilapidated, sad looking, little old brick church, which seldom suffers
any sort of disturbance. On the northeast shore of the island directly
over the rushing waters stands the picturesque old mill built by
Tarascon in the early part of the century. It utilizes the fine
water-power of the "Falls" in making the famous Louisville cement. Part
of the inhabitants are employed as laborers in this mill, and part of
them derive their support from fishing in the river, for which there are
exceptional opportunities all the year around in the shallows, where
the rushing waters dash, with eddying whirl, against the rocky shores of
their island.
There are, at this time, some excellent people in Shippingsport, who
faithfully maintain spiritual life and good moral character amid
surrounding apathy and immorality. "For except the Lord had left unto
them a very small remnant, they should have been as Sodom, and they
should have been like unto Gomorrah."
And yet, Shippingsport was not always what it is now. Time was when it
boasted the aristocracy of the Falls. "The house is still standing,"
says a recent writer in Harper's Monthly Magazine, "where in the early
part of the century the Frenchman, Tarascon, offered border hospitality
to many distinguished guests, among whom were Aaron Burr and
Blennerhasset, and General Wilkinson, then in command of the armies of
the United States." He might have added that Shippingsport was once
honored with a visit from LaFayette, and later also from President
Jackson. But in other respects also Shippingsport was, in former years,
far different from what it is to-day. In business importance it rivaled
the city of Louisville itself. In that early day, before the building of
the canal, steamboats could not, on account of the Falls, pass up the
river except during high water, so that for about nine months in the
year Shippingsport was the head of navigation. Naturally, it became a
place of considerable commercial importance, as the shrewd Frenchman who
first settled there saw it was bound to be. Very soon it attracted a
population of some hundreds, and grew into a very busy little mart.
"Every day," says one of the old citizens still living, "steamboats were
landing with products and passengers from the South, or leaving with
products and passengers from Kentucky and the upper country." The
freight which was landed at Shippingsport was carried by wagons and
drays to Louisville, Lexington and other places in Kentucky and Indiana.
This same old citizen, Mr. Alex. Folwell, declares that he has seen as
many as five hundred wagons in one day in and around the place. There
were three large warehouses and several stores, and what seems hard to
believe, land sold in some instances for $100 per foot.
The canal was begun in 1824, the first spadeful of dirt being taken out
by DeWitt Clinton, of New York. During the next six years from five
hundred to a thousand men were employed on it. They were, as a general
thing, a rough set. Sometimes, while steamboats were lying at the place,
the unemployed hands would annoy the workmen on the canal so that
gradually there grew up a feeling of enmity between the two classes
which broke out occasionally in regular battles.
In 1830, when the canal was finished, the days of Shippingsport's
prosperity were numbered. Thenceforth steamboats, independent of
obstructions in the river, passed on up through the canal, and
Shippingsport found her occupation was gone. The better classes lost no
time in removing to other places, and only the poorer and rougher
classes remained. Many of the workmen who had been engaged in building
the canal settled down there to live; unemployed and broken-down
steamboatmen gravitated to the place where they always had such good
times; shiftless and thriftless poor people from other places came
flocking in as to a poor man's paradise. Within easy reach of
Louisville, the place became a resort for the immoral young men, the
gamblers and all the rough characters of that growing city.
Such was the place to which Steve Holcombe's parents removed from
Central Kentucky in 1835, the year of his birth; and, though coming into
the midst of surroundings so full of moral perils, they did not bring
that strength of moral character, that fixedness of moral habit and that
steadfastness of moral purpose which were necessary to guard against the
temptations of every sort which were awaiting them.
The father, though an honest and well disposed sort of man and very kind
to his family, was already a drunkard. His son says of him: "My poor
father had gotten to be a confirmed drunkard before I was born, and
after he had settled at Shippingsport, my mother would not let him stay
about the house, so that most of his time was spent in lying around
bar-rooms or out on the commons, where he usually slept all times of the
year." It is not surprising that as a consequence of such dissipation
and such exposure he died at the early age of thirty-three, when his son
Steve was eleven years old. Dead, he sleeps in an unmarked grave on the
commons where formerly he slept when drunk and shut out by his wife from
his home.
Mrs. Holcombe, the mother of Steve, a woman five feet ten inches in
height and one hundred and ninety pounds in weight, was as strong in
passion as in physical power. "When aroused," says her son, "she was as
fierce as a tigress and fearless of God, man or devil, although she was
a woman of quick sympathy and impulsive kindheartedness toward those who
were in distress, and would go further to help such than almost any one
I have ever known." She was a woman of more than ordinary mind, though
entirely without education. In the government of her children she was
extremely severe. "Though my father," says Mr. Holcombe, "never whipped
me but once in my life, and that slightly, my mother has whipped me
hundreds of times, I suppose, and with as great severity as frequency.
She has, at times, almost beaten me to death. She would use a switch, a
cane, a broom-stick or a club, whichever happened to be at hand when she
became provoked. She whipped me oftener for going swimming than for
anything else, I believe. If I told her a lie about it she would whip
me, and if I told her the truth, she would whip me."
From neglect and other causes little Steve was very sickly and puny in
his babyhood, so that he did not walk till he was four years old; but
from the beginning his temper was as violent as his body was weak, and
from his earliest recollection, he says, he loved to fight. At the same
time he had his mother's tenderheartedness for those who were in
distress. Once a stranger stopped for a few days at the tavern in
Shippingsport, and the roughs of the place caught him out on one
occasion and beat him so severely that he was left for dead; but he
crawled afterward into an old shed where little Holcombe, between five
and six years old, found him and took him food every day for about two
weeks.
The boys with whom he associated in childhood were addicted to petty
stealing, and he learned from them to practice the same. When about
seven years old his mother, on account of their poverty, provided him
with a supply of cakes, pies and fruits to peddle out on the steamers
while they were detained in passing the locks of the canal. Instead of
returning the money to his mother, however, he would often lose it in
gambling with the bad boys of the place, and sometimes even with his
half-brothers, so that he seldom got home with his money, but always got
his beating.
At eight years of age he played cards for money in bar-rooms with grown
men. At ten he began to explore those parts of the river about the
falls, in a skiff alone looking for articles of various kinds lost in
wrecks, that he might get means for gambling. This, together with the
fact that his hair was very light in color, gained for him the
distinction of the "Little White-headed Pirate."
In 1842 Shippingsport was taken into the city of Louisville, and a
school was established, which he attended about three months during this
period of his life, and he never attended school afterward. The
brown-haired, black-eyed little girl who afterward became his wife,
attended this school at the same time. Her parents had lately removed to
Shippingsport from Jeffersonville, Indiana. They were people of
excellent character and were so careful of their children that they
would not allow them to associate with the children of Shippingsport any
farther than was necessary and unavoidable. But, notwithstanding these
restrictions, their little Mary saw just enough of Steve Holcombe in
school to form a strange liking for him, as he did also for her--an
attachment which has lasted through many and varying experiences up to
the present. At that time he had grown to be "a heavy set little boy,"
as Mrs. Holcombe describes him, and was "very good looking," indeed,
"very handsome," as she goes on to say, "with his deep blue eyes and his
golden hair." She did not know that she was in love with a boy who was
to become one of the worst of men in all forms of wickedness, and as
little did she know that she was in love with a boy who was to become
one of the best of men in all forms of goodness and usefulness. Nor did
he foresee that he was forming an attachment then and there for one who
was to love him devotedly and serve him patiently through all phases of
infidelity and wickedness, and through years of almost unexampled trials
and sufferings, who was to cling to him amid numberless perils and
scandals, who was to train and restrain his children so as to lead them
in ways of purity and goodness in spite of the father's bad example, who
was to endure for his sake forms of ill treatment that have killed many
a woman, and who was in long distant years to be his most patient
encourager and helper in a singularly blessed and successful work for
God and the most abandoned and hopeless class of sinful men, and to
develop, amid all and in spite of all and by means of all, one of the
truest and strongest and most devoted of female characters. A singular
thing it seems, indeed, that an attachment begun so early and tested so
severely should have lasted so late. And yet it is perhaps at this
moment stronger than ever it was before.
[Illustration: BIRTHPLACE OF MR. HOLCOMBE. SHIPPINGSPORT.]
Notwithstanding young Holcombe's lack of religious instruction and his
extraordinary maturity in wickedness, he declares that at times he had,
even before his tenth year, very serious thoughts. He says:
"I always believed there was a God and that the Bible was from God, but
for the most part my belief was very vague and took hold of nothing
definite. Hence, nearly all my thoughts were evil, only evil and evil
continually. I am sure, however, that I believed there was a hell. When
a child, I used to dream, it seems to me, almost every night, that the
devil had me, and sometimes my dreams were so real that I would say to
myself while dreaming, 'Now this is no dream; he has got me this time,
sure enough.' I remember that one text which I heard a preacher read
troubled me more than anything else, when I thought about dying and
going to judgment. It was this: 'And they hid themselves in the dens and
rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks, fall on us
and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne.' I always
had a fear of death and a dread of the future. The rattling of clods on
a coffin filled me with awe and dread. When I thought about my soul, I
would always say to myself, 'I am going to get good before I go into the
presence of God; but now I want to keep these thoughts out of mind so I
can do as I please and not have to suffer and struggle and fight against
sin--till I get consumption. When I get consumption I will have plenty
of warning as to death's approach and plenty of time to prepare for it.'
But I had gotten such an admiration for gamblers and such a passion for
gambling that I had a consuming ambition to become a regular blackleg,
as gamblers were called in those days. I made up my mind that this was
to be my business, and I began to look about for some way to get loose
from everything else, so I could do nothing but gamble, with nobody to
molest or make me afraid."
It is hard enough for a boy to keep from doing wrong and to do right
always, even when he has inherited a good disposition, enjoyed good
advantages and had the best of training. But our little friend, Steve
Holcombe, poor fellow, inherited from his father an appetite for drink
and from his mother a savage temper. To balance these, he had none of
the safeguards of a careful, moral or religious education, and none of
those sweet and helpful home associations which follow a man through
life and hold him back from wrong doing.
Thus unprepared, unshielded, unguarded, at the tender age of eleven
years he left home to work his own way in the world. No mother's prayers
had hitherto helped him, and no mother's prayers from henceforth
followed him. No hallowed home influences had blessed and sweetened his
miserable childhood and no tender recollections of sanctified home life
were to follow him into the great wicked world. On the contrary, he was
fleeing from his home to find some refuge, he knew not what, he knew not
where. He was going out, boy as he was, loaded down with the vices and
hungry with the passions of a man. He did not seek employment among
people that were good or in circumstances encouraging to goodness, but
just where of all places he would find most vice and learn most
wickedness--on a steamboat. One knowing his antecedents and looking out
into his future could easily have foreseen his career in vice and
crime, but would hardly have predicted for him that life of goodness and
usefulness which now for eleven wonderful years he has been leading.
He was employed on a steamboat which ran on the Tennessee river, and his
first trip was to Florence, Alabama. His mother did not know what had
become of him. He was employed in some service about the kitchen. He
slept on deck with the hands and ate with the servants. Hungry as he was
for some word or look of sympathy which, given him and followed up,
might have made him a different character, nobody showed him any
kindness. The steward of the boat on the contrary showed him some
unkindness, and was in the act of kicking him on one occasion for
something, when young Holcombe jumped at him like an enraged animal and
frightened him so badly that he was glad to drop the matter for the
present and to respect the boy for the future. On this trip he found
five dollars in money on the boat, and was honest enough to take it to
the steward for the owner.
When he returned home from this trip, strange to say, his mother so far
from giving him a severer beating than usual, as might have been
expected, did not punish him at all. She was probably too glad to get
him back and too afraid of driving him away again. But nothing could
restrain him now that he had once seen the world and made the successful
experiment of getting on in the world without anybody's help. So that he
soon went on another trip and so continued, going on four or five long
steamboat runs before he was fourteen years of age, and spending his
unoccupied time in gambling with either white men or negroes, as he
found opportunity.
After he was fourteen years old he went on the upper Mississippi river
and traveled to and from St. Louis. On the Mississippi steamers of those
days gambling was common, not only among the servants and deck-hands, it
was the pastime or the business of some of the first-class passengers
also. Sometimes when a rich planter had lost all his ready money in
gambling, he would put up a slave, male or female, that he might happen
to have with him, and after losing, would borrow money to win or buy
again the slave. Professional gamblers, luxuriously dressed and living
like princes, frequented the steamers of those days for the purpose of
entrapping and fleecing the passengers. All this only increased the
fascination of gambling for young Holcombe, and he studied and practiced
it with increasing zeal.
About this time, when he was in the neighborhood of fourteen years of
age, his mother, awaking all too late to his peril and to her duty, got
him a situation as office-boy in the office of Dr. Mandeville Thum, of
Louisville, hoping to keep him at home and rescue him from the perilous
life he had entered upon. Dr. Thum was much pleased with him, took great
interest in him, and treated him with unusual kindness. He even began
himself to teach him algebra, with the intention of making a civil
engineer of the boy. And he was making encouraging progress in his
studies and would, doubtless, have done well, had he continued.
During the time he spent in the service of Dr. Thum, he attended a
revival meeting held by the Rev. Mr. Crenshaw, at Shippingsport, and was
much impressed by what he heard. He became so awakened and interested
that he responded to the appeals that were made by this devoted and
zealous preacher and sought interviews with him. He tried his level
best, as he expresses it, to work himself up to a point where he could
feel that he was converted, a not rare, but very wrong, view of this
solemn matter. But he could not _feel_ it. While, however, he could not
get the feeling, he _determined_ to be a Christian, anyhow, a rarer and
better, but not altogether correct, view of the subject either. For a
week or ten days he succeeded in overcoming evil impulses, and in living
right, but he was led away by evil companions. Soon after this he tried
it again, and this time he succeeded for a longer time than before in
resisting temptations and following his sense of right, but was one day
persuaded to go on a Sunday steamboat-excursion to New Albany, with some
young folks from Shippingsport, which proved the occasion of his fall.
On returning home he and two other boys went part of the way on foot.
They heard a man, not far away, crying for water, and Holcombe's quick
impulse of sympathy led him to propose to go to the relief of the
sufferer. When they found he was not so bad off as they thought, the two
other boys began to abuse and mistreat the stranger. He was an unequal
match for the two, however, and as he was about to get the best of them,
young Holcombe knocked the poor man down, and they all kicked him so
severely over the head and face that when they left him he was nearly
dead. Holcombe went back the next day, and half a mile away he found the
coroner holding an inquest over the man. He was preparing to flee to
Indiana when he heard that the verdict of the jury was: "Death from
exposure to the sun."
This cowardly and wicked deed wrought in him such shame, such
self-loathing and such discouragement that he abandoned all hope and
purpose of living a better life. With a sort of feeling of desperation
and of revenge against his better nature for allowing him to yield and
stoop to such meanness, he left his position in Louisville and shipped
on a steamboat again for St. Louis. While the boat was lying at the
wharf at St. Louis he got into a difficulty with one of the deck-hands
who applied to him a very disgraceful name. Instantly young Holcombe
seized a heavy meat-cleaver and would have split the man's head in two
if the cook had not caught his arm as he swung it back for the stroke.
From St. Louis he went up the Missouri river to Omaha, engaging, as
usual, in gambling and other nameless vices.
On his second trip from Omaha to St. Louis he innocently provoked the
anger of the steward of the boat, who abused him in such a way that
Holcombe ran at him with an ice-pick, when the terrified man rushed into
the office and took refuge behind the captain. It was decided that
Holcombe should be discharged and put ashore. When the clerk called him
up to pay him off, he volunteered some reproof and abuse of the
seventeen-year-old boy. But, upon finding he was dealing with one who,
when aroused, knew neither fear nor self-control, he was glad to quiet
down and pay him his dues, as Holcombe remarked: "You may discharge me
and put me ashore, but you shall not abuse me." And they put him ashore
at Kansas City, then a small village. While waiting at Kansas City for
the next boat to St. Louis (all traveling being done in those days and
regions by water), he spent his time around bar-rooms and
gambling-houses. There he saw a different and more extensive kind of
gaming than he had ever seen before. Great quantities of money were on
the tables before the players, greater than he had ever seen, and he saw
it change hands and pass from one to another. Such a sight increased his
desire to follow such a life. So he put up his money, the wages of his
labor on the boat, and lost it--all. He spent the remainder of his stay
in Kansas City wandering around, destitute, hungry, lonely, with various
reflections on the fortunes and misfortunes of a gambler's life, till at
last he got deck-passage on a boat to St. Louis, and paid his fare by
sawing wood. During this trip his violent and revengeful temper led him
to commit an act that nearly resulted in murder. One of the deck-hands
threw down some wood which he had piled up, and Holcombe protested,
whereupon the deck-hand cursed him and said: "You little rat, I will
throw you overboard!" Mr. Holcombe replied: "I guess you won't," and
said nothing more at the time. After the man had lain down and gone to
sleep, Mr. Holcombe got a cord-stick, slipped upon him, and hit him on
the skull with all his might, completely stunning the man. "Now," says
Mr. Holcombe, speaking of this incident, "I can not understand how a man
could do so cruel a thing, but _then_ I felt I must have revenge some
way, and _I could not keep from it_."
At St. Louis he got a position on a boat for New Orleans, and soon after
arriving in that city he shipped on board a steamship for Galveston,
Texas, but returned immediately to New Orleans. Here, however, he soon
lost, in gambling, all the money he had made on the trip, and was so
entirely without friends or acquaintances that he could find no place to
sleep, and wandered about on the levee until one or two o'clock in the
morning. To add to the loneliness and dismalness of his situation, it
was during an epidemic of yellow fever in the city, and people were
dying so fast they could not bury them, but had to plow trenches and
throw the corpses in, as they bury soldiers on a battle-field. About one
or two o'clock, a colored man, on a steamboat seeing him walking around
alone, called him, and finding out his condition, took him on board the
steamer and gave him a bed. But Holcombe was so afraid the negro had
some design upon him, as there were no others on board, that he stole
away from the boat and wandered around, alone, all the rest of the
night.
On that awful night the great deep of his heart was broken up and he
felt a sense of loneliness that he had never felt before in his life. He
was in a strange city among a strange people. He had no friends, he had
no means. He had not where to lay his head. The darkness of the night
shut off the sight of those objects which in the day would have diverted
his mind and relieved his painful reflections; and the awful stillness,
broken only by the rattling of wheels that bore away the dead, made it
seem to him as if his thoughts were spoken to him by some audible voice.
His past life came up before him, but there was in it nothing pleasant
for him to remember. It had been from his earliest recollection one
constant experience of pain and sin. He was uneasy about himself. He was
frightened at the past, and the recollection of his hard, but vain,
struggle to get his evil nature changed and bettered, cast a dark cloud
over his future. What could he do? Where could he go? Who was there
could help him? Who was there that loved him? At his own home, if home
it could be called, there was nothing but strife and cruelty and sin.
Father, he had none. He that was his father had lived a drunkard's life,
had died a drunkard's death and was buried in a drunkard's grave. And
his mother--she had no power to help him or even love him as most
mothers love their children, and as on that lone dismal night he would
have given the world to be loved. Of God's mercy and love he did not
know, he thought only of his wrath, nor had he learned how to approach
him in prayer. Alone, alone, he felt himself to be shut up between a
past that was full of sin and crime and a future that promised nothing
better. But he did think of one who had loved him and who had said she
would always love him and he felt there was truth in her soul and in her
words. It was the brown-haired, sweet-faced, strong-hearted little girl
he had left in Shippingsport. He would go back to her. She alone of all
people in the world seemed able to help him and this seemed his last,
his only hope. If she had remained true to him, and if she would love
him, the world would not seem so dreary and the future would not seem so
dark, and maybe she could help him to be a better man. "On the next
day," says Mr. Holcombe, "an acquaintance of mine from Louisville ran
across me as I was strolling about the streets, took me aboard a steamer
and made me go home with him."
[Illustration: THE OLD MILL AT SHIPPINGSPORT.]