IV
AMERICAN EXPLORERS SERIES
=Early Steamboating on Missouri River=
_VOL. I._
[Illustration: CAPTAIN JOSEPH LA BARGE.]
HISTORY OF EARLY
STEAMBOAT NAVIGATION
ON THE
MISSOURI RIVER
LIFE AND ADVENTURES
OF
JOSEPH LA BARGE
PIONEER NAVIGATOR AND INDIAN TRADER
FOR FIFTY YEARS IDENTIFIED WITH THE COMMERCE OF THE
MISSOURI VALLEY
BY
HIRAM MARTIN CHITTENDEN
_Captain Corps of Engineers, U. S. A._
AUTHOR OF “AMERICAN FUR TRADE OF THE FAR WEST,” “HISTORY
OF THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK,” ETC.
_WITH MAP AND ILLUSTRATIONS_
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I.
NEW YORK
FRANCIS P. HARPER
1903
COPYRIGHT, 1903,
BY
FRANCIS P. HARPER.
=Edition Limited
to 950 Copies.=
TO
THE MEMORY
OF THE
=Missouri River Pilot=
CONTENTS.
PAGE
PREFACE, xi
CHAPTER I.
ANCESTRY OF CAPTAIN LA BARGE, 1
CHAPTER II.
CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH, 13
CHAPTER III.
ENTERS THE FUR TRADE, 22
CHAPTER IV.
CHOLERA ON THE “YELLOWSTONE,” 32
CHAPTER V.
FURTHER SERVICE AT CABANNÉ’S, 40
CHAPTER VI.
LAST YEAR AT CABANNÉ’S, 49
CHAPTER VII.
CAPTAIN LA BARGE IN “OPPOSITION,” 59
CHAPTER VIII.
THE MISSOURI RIVER, 73
CHAPTER IX.
KINDS OF BOATS USED ON THE MISSOURI, 90
CHAPTER X.
STEAMBOAT NAVIGATION ON THE MISSOURI RIVER, 115
CHAPTER XI.
THE STEAMBOAT IN THE FUR TRADE, 133
CHAPTER XII.
VOYAGE OF 1843, 141
CHAPTER XIII.
VOYAGE OF 1844, 154
CHAPTER XIV.
CHANGED CONDITIONS, 167
CHAPTER XV.
INCIDENTS ON THE RIVER (1845–50), 177
CHAPTER XVI.
INCIDENTS ON THE RIVER (1851–53), 189
CHAPTER XVII.
ICE BREAK-UP OF 1856, 200
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE HEAD OF NAVIGATION REACHED, 216
CHAPTER XIX.
FORT BENTON, 222
CHAPTER XX.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN ON THE MISSOURI, 240
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
_VOL. I._
CAPTAIN JOSEPH LA BARGE, _Frontispiece_
_Facing page_
CAPTAIN JOSEPH LA BARGE (when young), 1
A NEW “CUT-OFF” IN THE RIVER, 77
MAP OF THE MISSOURI RIVER CHANNEL, 79
SNAGS IN THE MISSOURI RIVER, 80
THE INDIAN BULLBOAT, 97
MISSOURI RIVER KEELBOAT, 102
THE FIRST “YELLOWSTONE,” 137
ALEXANDER CULBERTSON, 228
FORT BENTON LEVEE, 238
PREFACE.
In the summer of 1896 the author of this work, while engaged in
collecting data for a history of the American Fur Trade of the Far
West, met the venerable Missouri River pilot, Captain Joseph La Barge,
at his home in St. Louis. In the course of several interviews he became
deeply impressed with the range and accuracy of the old gentleman’s
knowledge of early Western history, and asked him if he had ever taken
any steps to preserve the record of his adventurous career. He replied
that he had often been urged to do so, but that lack of familiarity
with that kind of work had hitherto caused him to shrink from it, and
he presumed he should die without ever undertaking it. Believing that
his memoirs were well worth preserving, as a part of the history of the
West, the author proposed to prepare them for publication if he would
consent to dictate them. After some hesitation he concluded to try it,
and the work was forthwith begun. Full notes were taken in the rough,
and a clean copy was then submitted to Captain La Barge for revision.
He went through the whole with painstaking care, and the record was
left as complete as a memory of extraordinary power could make it. The
intention was, at the time, to put the notes into shape for publication
at once; but the Spanish-American war interfered with the author’s part
of the work, and before it could be resumed Captain La Barge died.
This event led to a material change in the plan of the work, and it was
decided to make it, not merely a narrative of personal experiences,
but a history of steamboat navigation on the Missouri River. Very
few people now have any conception of the part which this remarkable
business played in the upbuilding of the West. There is no railroad
system in the United States to-day whose importance to its tributary
country is relatively greater than was that of the Missouri River to
the trans-Mississippi territory in the first seventy-five years of the
nineteenth century. The business of the fur trade, the intercourse
of government agents with the Indians, the campaigns of the army
throughout the valley, and the wild rush of gold-seekers to the
mountains, all depended, in greater or less degree, upon the Missouri
River as a line of transportation.
[Sidenote: AN IMPORTANT BUSINESS.]
It is not alone from a commercial point of view that the record of
this business is an important one. From beginning to end it abounds
in thrilling incident, and the life which it fostered was full of
picturesque and even tragic details. The circumstances surrounding a
voyage up or down the Missouri, whether by canoe, mackinaw, keelboat,
or steamboat, were quite out of the line of ordinary experience. No
other river in this country has a record to compare with it.
Captain La Barge’s life embraced the entire era of active boating
business on the river. He saw it all--from the time when the Creole and
Canadian voyageurs cordelled their keelboats up the refractory stream
to the time when the railroad won its final victory over the steamboat.
He was on the first boat that went to the far upper river, and he made
the last through voyage from St. Louis to Fort Benton. He typified in
his own career the meteoric rise and fall of that peculiar business. He
grew up with it, prospered with it, and was ruined with and by it. He
saw and shared the wonderful metamorphosis that came over the Missouri
Valley in the space of fourscore years, and his reminiscences are a
succession of living pictures taken all along the line.
[Sidenote: HISTORICAL METHOD ADOPTED.]
It is hoped that the method adopted, of weaving the story which it is
here attempted to relate around the biography of its most distinguished
personality, will not detract from its value as historical material. It
is not the bare narration of events that gives history its true value,
but those intimate pictures of human life in other times that show what
people really did and the motives by which they were actuated. To this
end, biography, and even fiction, possess distinct advantages over the
ordinary method of historical writing.
[Sidenote: SOURCES OF INFORMATION.]
In the preparation of this work valuable personal aid has been received
from many sources, particularly from the Hon. Phil E. Chappelle of
Kansas City, Mo.; Messrs. N. P. Langford and J. B. Hubbell of St. Paul,
Minn.; Hon. Wilbur F. Sanders of Helena, Mont.; and General Grenville
M. Dodge of New York City.
[Illustration: CAPTAIN JOSEPH LA BARGE
(When a young man)]
HISTORY OF
EARLY STEAMBOAT NAVIGATION
ON THE MISSOURI RIVER
CHAPTER I.
ANCESTRY.
In the far-reaching operations of the French Government upon the
continent of America, by which its western empire at one time embraced
fully half of what is now the United States and Canada, two streams of
colonization flowed inward from the sea. The course of one was along
the valleys of the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes to the upper
Mississippi and its tributaries. That of the other was along the lower
Mississippi northward from the Gulf of Mexico. The two streams met at
the mouth of the Missouri, where their blended currents were deflected
westward toward the unknown regions of the setting sun. Near this place
of meeting there arose, more than a decade before the birth of the
American Republic, a village which has now become one of the greatest
cities in the western world. Here, in the early days, the Canadians
from the north and the Creoles from the south, kindred in language and
tradition, mingled in common pursuits and enterprises, and for many
years bore an important part in the great movement which proceeded
onward from this common starting-point.
Among the well-known families identified with this movement was one
whose ancestral line represented both the northern and the southern
blood, and was a pure type of their united quality. This was the family
of Captain Joseph La Barge, the subject of the present sketch. The
father of Captain La Barge was a typical representative of the French
peasantry of Quebec. His mother was a Creole descendant of both the
Spanish and French elements in the settlement of the Mississippi Valley.
[Sidenote: ROBERT LABERGE.]
On the paternal side the ancestors of Captain La Barge came from
Normandy, France. Robert Laberge was a native of Columbière in the
diocese of Bayonne, and was born in 1633. He came to America early in
life and settled in the county of Montmorency, below Quebec, where he
was married in 1663. He is said to have been the only person of the
name who ever emigrated to America. His descendants are now of the most
numerous family in the district of Beauharnois, if not in the entire
province of Quebec, where it has held important positions both in
Church and State. Its ramifications in the United States have likewise
become very extensive. The true spelling of the name was _Laberge_, and
this form still prevails in Quebec; but the St. Louis branch of the
family has for many years spelled the name in two words, _La Barge_.
[Sidenote: JOSEPH MARIE LA BARGE.]
Captain La Barge was of the sixth generation from his Norman ancestors.
His father, Joseph Marie La Barge, was born at Assomption, Quebec,
July 4, 1787.[1] He emigrated to St. Louis about 1808, just as he was
arriving of age. He traveled by the usual route, up the Ottawa River
and through the intricate system of waterways in northern Ontario which
leads to Georgian Bay and to Lake Huron. Thence he went by way of
Mackinaw Strait and Lake Michigan to Green Bay, and along the Fox and
Wisconsin rivers to the Mississippi, which he descended to St. Louis.
He used a single birch-bark canoe all the way, with only eight miles of
portaging.
The elder La Barge led a varied career in St. Louis, as did most of the
pioneers in those days, when fixed callings were few and men turned
their hands to whatever fell in their way. A good deal of information
has survived concerning him, and all to his credit. He was evidently
a man of good parts, of strict integrity, loyal in his business
relations, and a bold lover of the adventurous life which characterized
the early history of this new country.[2]
[Sidenote: IMPORTANT SERVICES.]
At the time when the Sac and Fox Indians were giving the government
so much trouble, and endangering human life all along the upper
Mississippi, La Barge senior was employed in the perilous business
of carrying dispatches to Rock Island, having volunteered for this
service when others refused to go. He served in the War of 1812, and
was present in the battle of the River Raisin, or Frenchtown, January
22, 1813, and was there shot in the hand, losing two fingers. He also
received a tomahawk wound on the head, and carried the scar through
life. He became naturalized as a result of this service in the army.
Although entitled to a pension under the laws of the United States, he
never asked for nor received any.
La Barge married in 1813, and some two years afterward acquired a
farm at Baden, a small village a few miles north of St. Louis, and
now within the limits of that city. His main business here was the
manufacture of charcoal, which he hauled to St. Louis for sale. He soon
moved to town, where he had gained quite an extensive acquaintance,
particularly among the Canadian voyageurs. Here he opened up a
boarding-house, which developed into a regular hotel or tavern, with
a livery attachment, at that time one of the most important in the
city. It was while engaged in this business that he served the English
traveler, James Stuart, already referred to.
[Sidenote: ENGAGED IN THE FUR TRADE.]
La Barge senior was, to a considerable extent, identified with the
early trapping business in the Far West, and has left his name on
geographical features in widely separated localities. There is a _La
Barge_ or _Battle Creek_, a tributary of the Missouri, which took its
name from some affair with the Indians in which La Barge bore a part;
but the details are apparently lost. The same is true of _La Barge
Creek_, a tributary of Green River in Wyoming, which was named before
1830. La Barge was present in General Ashley’s disastrous fight with
the Aricara Indians on the Missouri River in 1823, and was the man who
cut the cable of one of the keelboats so that it might drift out of
range of the fire of the Indians.[3]
[Sidenote: DEATH OF THE ELDER LA BARGE.]
La Barge senior lived to a good old age, and was sound and healthy to
the last. As a remarkable evidence of this, it was long remembered by
his acquaintances that he practiced in old age his favorite winter
pastime of skating. His death was the result of accident. He had heard
that a brother-in-law, Joseph Hortiz, was ill, and he resolved to go
to see him. It was a cold wintry day, and Captain La Barge tried to
dissuade him, but to no purpose. He slipped on the icy sidewalk at the
corner of Olive and Fourth streets, in St. Louis, struck the curb, and
received injuries from which he died two days later, January 22, 1860.
Many interesting anecdotes of the elder La Barge have come down to us,
some of which are worth relating as illustrating the character of the
man in different situations. One of these comes from General Harney,
who was long an intimate friend of Captain La Barge. In the later years
of General Harney’s life, when physical ailments prevented his leaving
the house, he used to send for Captain La Barge, if the latter happened
to be derelict in his visits, to come and talk over old times. On one
of these occasions, not long before his death, he gave the Captain the
following story:
[Sidenote: THE CAPTAIN AND THE LIEUTENANT.]
“Your father,” he said, “was the only man who ever scared me. We were
ascending the Missouri River on a keelboat laden with troops and
supplies, he in charge of the boat, and I, a lieutenant, on duty with
the soldiers. In one place the boat had to round a sharp point, where
there was an accumulation of driftwood. The current was very strong,
and it required the utmost efforts of the men to stem it. When we
reached the most difficult place, the Captain stimulated his men by
calling out to them (in the French language), ‘_Hale fort! Hale fort!_’
(‘Pull hard! Pull hard!’). I didn’t understand French, but thought I
detected in the Captain’s language something like the military command,
‘Halt.’ As some of the troops were on the line with the voyageurs,
and as they might not understand, I thought I could help the Captain
by repeating to them his command. This created some confusion, for
my men began to slacken while the Captain’s were pulling harder than
ever. Again he commanded, ‘_Hale fort!_’ and again I called to the
men to halt. The situation was extremely critical when the Captain
thundered a third time, ‘_Hale fort!_’ in a voice and manner not to be
misunderstood. The men all bent to the line and finally extricated the
boat from its perilous position. The Captain then came over to where
I was standing and told me that if I ever dared interfere again with
his management of the boat he would pitch me into the river. I knew
he meant what he said, and thereafter confined myself to my military
duties.”
[Sidenote: ASSAULT AND BATTERY.]
One fine morning in the early twenties a man called at the house of Mr.
La Barge, who met him at the door and asked him what he wanted. The man
said: “I applied to you a short time since for employment, having heard
that you were hiring men for the Ashley Expedition.[4] I was refused,
and I would like to know the reason.”
“Simply because you did not suit,” replied La Barge.
“I am as good a man as you are or any you have employed, and I take the
liberty of telling you so,” rejoined the six-footer.
“I want no trouble,” replied La Barge, “and therefore will request you
to get out, or I will be compelled to put you out.”
“Just what I want you to undertake,” was the retort. Scarcely were the
words out of his mouth when La Barge seized a rawhide riding whip and
started for the fellow and laid him about the back and shoulders so
vigorously that the man soon gave up the contest and took to his heels.
The next morning a constable came and arrested La Barge on the charge
of assault and battery, with directions to bring him at once before
Esquire Garnier, Justice of the Peace.
[Sidenote: FUN CHEAP AT FOUR DOLLARS.]
“Lead the way, and I will follow,” said La Barge, taking down his
rawhide and starting along with the constable. La Barge told the people
he met on the way to come and see the fun. In due course the trial came
off and La Barge was fined four dollars. He thanked the Justice, but
handed him eight dollars, saying that the fun was cheap at that price,
and he would give the fellow another dose. He then seized his whip and
started for him, chasing him out into the street, where he gave him a
second drubbing, to the great delight of the crowd, who stood around
shouting and setting him on.
[Sidenote: NOT A THIEF.]
Another incident, which occurred late in life, exhibits the sterling
integrity of the man who could withstand the temptations of wealth
rather than do the smallest act of injustice. About the time that the
elder La Barge was married he purchased from Joseph Morin, for the
sum of twenty-five dollars, a small tract of land on Cedar Street,
between Second and Third. Land was then of very little value, and
transfers were often made without deed and with no more formality than
in exchanging cattle or horses. In this way La Barge traded off his
lot on Cedar Street to Chauvin Lebeau for a horse, with which he moved
to his Baden farm, only recently purchased. Here, as already narrated,
he manufactured charcoal and hauled it to town, where he sold it to
Theodore Bosseron and Vilrais Papin, then the principal blacksmiths
of the village. Long years afterward, when these transactions were
almost forgotten, and the property had become very valuable, a lawyer
presented himself to the old gentleman and asked him if he had ever
owned any property on Cedar Street. La Barge replied in the affirmative
and described its locality. The lawyer then asked him when and how
he disposed of it. He could not at first recall, but Mrs. La Barge
remembered the circumstances and related them to the lawyer, at the
same time remarking to her husband that that was the way they got their
horse to set themselves up on the farm with. The lawyer then assured
La Barge that the title to this property was still in him, and that he
could hold it against all comers, for there was absolutely no record
of the conveyance in existence. The old gentleman, with a look of
indignation, asked the lawyer if he took him for a thief. “I traded
that land,” said he, “to Chauvin Lebeau for a horse, which was worth
more to me then than the land was. I shall stand by the bargain now.
If Chauvin Lebeau’s heirs have no title, tell them to come to me and I
will make them a deed before I die.”
Such are some of the glimpses we still have through the mists of time
of the father of Captain La Barge.
[Sidenote: MOTHER OF CAPTAIN LA BARGE.]
On the maternal side he was likewise descended from creditable
ancestry. Among the early mechanics in the village of Fort de
Chartres, near the mouth of the Ohio River, when to be a mechanic
was to be a leading citizen, were Gabriel Dodier and Jean Baptiste
Becquet, blacksmiths. The younger of these two men, Becquet, married
the daughter of the other. They had three children, the eldest being
a daughter, Marguerite Marianne. On the 27th of January, 1780, this
daughter was married to Joseph Alvarez Hortiz, who was the son of
François Alvarez and Bernada Hortiz, and was born in the town of
Lienira, in the Province of Estremadura, Spain, in the year 1753.
Alvarez was a private soldier in the military service of Spain, and
came to St. Louis after Spanish authority had been established there
in 1770. He attained the rank of sergeant, and being a man of some
education, was for several years detailed as military attaché to
the Governor. He finally became Secretary to the last two Spanish
Governors, Trudeau and Delassus, and had charge of the public archives
down to 1804. He had nine children, of whom the eighth was a daughter,
of the name of Eulalie. This daughter was married to Joseph Marie La
Barge in St. Louis, August 13, 1813.
[Sidenote: HISTORIC DATA.]
The parents of Captain La Barge thus represented the best traditions of
French and Spanish occupancy of the Mississippi Valley. Their marriage
took place after their country had become American territory, and
their offspring, the subject of our present inquiries, was born an
American citizen.[5]