Voyage to New Orleans.
About the first of December, 1831, I entered into an agreement in
Philadelphia with a large contractor, who had engaged to open a canal
from the city of New Orleans to Lake Ponekertrain. He had hired about
one hundred and fifty men, and chartered a brig to carry them to New
Orleans. We sailed about the sixth of December, and made our passage out
in twenty days. The captain of the brig was a young man who was but
little acquainted with that coast. As he found that I was more
experienced than himself, he was very civil to me. I gave him
information about this dangerous coast. On our arrival at New Orleans
we were conveyed to some large shantees, built for the accommodation of
the workmen. I was stationed in the store-room, with orders to weigh out
the provisions, keep a daily account of the expenditures, and make
weekly returns to the treasurer. This I found a very disagreeable
situation, as the men were constantly finding fault with their
provisions, although they were furnished with good tea, coffee, sugar,
smoked shoulders, potatoes, salt fish, wheat bread and butter every
Friday, fresh beef twice in the week, and eight glasses of whiskey per
day. Notwithstanding this good treatment, we had riots among the men
every few days, and all deficiency in stores or cooking was laid to my
charge, and they often threatened my life. There were two other
encampments on the same canal, one on the lake side, and one in the
middle station, where they murdered one cook, mortally wounded one
overseer, and severely injured many others.
A few months after they grew so riotous that the City Guards had to be
called out to suppress them, when they were discharged by the company,
and I was released from my contract. After they had spent all their
wages they returned to their work and were very orderly. This canal is
only six and a half miles long, and eight feet deep, but has added
greatly to the wealth of the city. There was an old canal, formed mostly
by nature, running nearly parallel with this new one, having about five
feet depth of water in it, but it was often so much out of repair as to
make it difficult to navigate, and as it did not answer the desired
purpose, the new one was made. I obtained employment in a little
schooner, which ran between New Orleans and Covington, through the old
canal, crossing the lake and ascending a small river called Chepunkee,
navigable some twenty-two miles. We sailed into the mouth of it about
three miles, and then took in our sails and towed her the remaining
distance to the little village called Covington. The river is so narrow
in many places that vessels have scant room to pass by each other; a
slight current sets down the river the whole time.
At Covington I found a number of steam sawmills, and abundance of sawed
timber and boards, a few hotels, boarding houses, stores, and a printing
office and several dwelling houses. This place is considered a healthy
resort in the sickly season. Many small vessels find employment here in
transporting lumber, brick, and cotton. We soon took in a cargo of
lumber and returned to New Orleans, where we discharged it; when I
entered on board of another schooner and made a trip to Mobile, which I
found a very handsome city. The houses are built in modern style, the
place has in it a number of large elegant hotels and stores, and many
handsome streets. I was much annoyed with musquittoes while we remained
in port, but soon left for New Orleans, where we landed after a passage
of two days. In a short time I started for another trip across the
lake. On my return I was taken sick. Finding that my small means would
not support me long at a boarding house, and also pay the doctor's
bills, I applied to the collector of the port, who gave me an order to
go to the Marine Hospital, supposing I had a just claim to go there
after paying hospital money to support such institutions over thirty
years. During my stay in the hospital I found it was a private
institution; that the collector and the keeper of it were kinsmen, and
that the collector paid the keeper seventy-five cents per day for the
board of every seaman he sent there. The daily rations allowed each man
were about eight or ten ounces of bread, and five or six ounces of fresh
meat, with the accompaniment of a small bowl of tea. The whole would not
cost per day over twelve cents per man.
A number of seamen remain here a long time after they are restored to
health, without receiving a discharge from the doctor, who is making
fifty cents per day, or more, for their board. These men leave the
hospital in the morning in pursuit of work, which they generally find,
purchase their dinners at eating houses, and return to the hospital at
night, where they receive their small rations and lodgings, the keeper
pocketing his seventy-five cents per day from government during their
stay here. They are left to decide for themselves when it is best to be
well. In consequence of this, many of the sick in the hospital are
crowded out of comfortable lodgings.
It will easily be seen that the greatest part of the tax collected from
the hard earnings of seamen is used to enrich political favorites. I
remained in this establishment about sixty days, during that time the
yellow fever raged there violently, causing a number of deaths in the
house. Many patients were brought there who were unable to walk or stand
on their feet, and were most of them soon cured.
After I left the hospital I found some light employment for a few days,
when I agreed to take another trip across the lake. Previous to my going
on board of the vessel I returned to the hospital, where I had left some
of my clothing, took with me such as I wanted, and left some of my heavy
articles in charge of a sailor named Daniel Dunn, with whom I had formed
a short acquaintance in the hospital, and proceeded over the lake, where
we remained a few days, and then returned to the city. On my return I
found the cholera had broken out and was raging to such an alarming
degree that the inhabitants were terror-struck. The returns of deaths
were over two hundred per day. Laborers wages for digging in the church
burying ground was seven dollars per day. Not being able to procure
laborers sufficient to dig single graves, they dug canals about one
hundred rods in length, of sufficient depth to place three coffins one
above the other, the water in the bottom of it being about eighteen
inches deep. All graves dug in New Orleans are half filled with water
before the coffins are deposited in them.
The morning after my return I proceeded to the hospital to see after my
clothing. On visiting the building I was much surprised on walking
through many of the rooms without seeing a living soul. In the back yard
I found eight or ten dead bodies laying on the ground in a putrid state.
I then searched the upper stories, and in a room called the small-pox
ward, I found one dead body laying on a bed covered with a woollen
blanket, in a very putrid state, the offensive gas rising through the
blanket like a dense fog. Some few were still alive, but suffering for
want of attendance. On descending the stairs I met the assistant
physician of the hospital, and asked him the cause of this great neglect
of the few who were still living. He told me that Doctor M'Farlane, the
proprietor, was very sick, and that the cook, steward, washer woman, and
the black man who conveyed the corpses to the grave, were all dead, and
that they could not procure any assistance. He asked me if I would try
to hire some help for him. I told him that I would use my best exertions
to procure him some, but if I could not obtain any I would assist him
myself. I then left him and returned to my lodgings. Just before I left
my boarding house to visit the hospital I heard one of the boarders, a
journeyman hatter, who had been on a drunken frolic for some days, say
that he had spent all his money and had not enough left to get his
bitters that morning. Knowing that the want of money in such
circumstances stimulate men to undertake unpleasant jobs sooner than go
without their bitters, I proposed his going to work with me at the
hospital, and rendering the doctor all the assistance in our power,
which he readily agreed to. When we arrived at the place I introduced
the doctor to the hatter. After the introduction was over my partner
showed a great anxiety to fix on the price of our day's work, which was
soon settled at five dollars each. The bargain being closed we were
presented with some antidote, which we were ordered to snuff up our
noses.
About this time three or four carts arrived at the door, when we were
requested to assist in carrying out the few sick persons that remained
in the building, which we found to be only sixteen, being all that were
left alive out of about sixty inmates that I left there some ten days
before.
The doctor showed us a number of rough boxes, called coffins, which were
placed in the back yard. Many of them were made very wide, that they
might hold two dead bodies. He requested us to harness up a poor old
half-starved horse, which we found on the premises. After a long search
we found the old harness scattered about the yard, which we gathered up,
both of us being ignorant of the way of putting it together. After a
long consultation we placed it on the horse's back, which was so sore
that he trembled badly during the operation. After we had rigged him and
the cart, we agreed to take on one of the double coffins for the first
load. We opened one of them and placed a large body in it, and then
hunted for a small one to crowd into the same box; when we had
accomplished this we attempted to lift the double coffin on to the cart;
finding that we were not able to accomplish it we were obliged to roll
it on. I asked the hatter if he would drive the horse to the grave-yard,
telling him I was unacquainted with that employment. He told me he was a
stranger to that business, and insisted upon it that I must be the
driver. I mounted the cart and proceeded towards the burying ground, on
the road we found the mud so deep that the cart wheels buried themselves
nearly up to the hubs. After driving nearly a mile we arrived at the
Catholic burying ground, where we found a long canal and twenty or
thirty men employed in digging and receiving dead bodies. Before our
arrival there, a board burst off from the coffin, which caused one arm
to hang out. The Irish laborers employed there commenced a quarrel with
us, swearing that they would be the death of us if we brought any more
coffins there in that situation, and we found some difficulty in
prevailing upon them to receive the present one. They at last agreed to
help lift it off the cart. It was then placed in the canal, where the
water was about two feet deep, two men stood upon it until they put
another coffin on the top of it, when they placed the third one on the
top of the second one, making the tier three deep, laying the coffins
crossways in the canal. When one tier was finished they hove large
quantities of lime upon it and commenced another.
We now returned to the hospital and took in two more bodies, enclosing
them in single coffins. This time we found a number of chickens busily
employed in the hospital yard picking maggots out of the eyes and ears
of the putrid bodies laying on the ground in the yard. The hatter and
myself had a long consultation about handling the putrid carcases, and
agreed between ourselves to pick out the soundest of them first. We
noticed some cartmen drawing a number of loads of wood and depositing
them on a vacant lot of ground near the hospital. A report was
circulated that the Mayor of the city had ordered the building to be
burned down that night. We proceeded back to the grave-yard, where we
met with a more peaceable reception. On our return we found the fowls
still busily engaged on the dead bodies, which had become more putrid
during our short absence. This was one of the most unpleasant scenes I
ever witnessed. We stopped on our way and took some refreshments, and
then conveyed two more loads to the burying ground, carrying two at each
load.
About sunset we unharnessed our old horse and put him in his place.
Having satisfied our employer we took our discharge. We agreed between
ourselves to stop at the hospital a short time and see what disposal was
to be made of the remaining dead bodies. Soon after sunset some eight or
ten men made their appearance and took up an old door and bored one or
two holes through it, and putting a rope through the holes, rolled two
of the putrid bodies upon it, and then took hold of the rope and dragged
it to a vacant lot near the hospital, which process they continued until
they had gathered them all into one heap, when they went to the various
rooms and took all the beds and bedsteads containing the dead bodies,
and carried them into the same yard and deposited them on the putrid
heap; they next broke down the fence to more readily kindle the fire on
this offensive mass, when they piled on the three cords of wood which
the Mayor had sent there for that purpose, set it on fire, and consumed
the whole of it.
On viewing the place, while passing it the next morning, I could not
discover a particle of bone larger than a man's finger-nail left.
The Cholera raged in New Orleans to a frightful degree for some months
after; the average number of deaths in the city was two hundred per day
for several weeks.
Soon after this I made a trip in a little schooner to St. Marks, and a
small port called Magnolia, in West Florida, and then returned to the
city, where I remained about two months, when I found employment as a
mate on board of a brig called the Commodore Barry, bound to New-York,
where I was to receive my wages and be discharged. We performed our
passage home without meeting with any occurrence worth recording.
New Orleans is one of the most immoral cities I ever visited. All kinds
of amusement are indulged in on Sundays: most of the military
companies, both foot and horse, are assembled on that day in a public
square in front of the Mayor's office and drilled. The Sabbath is the
day elected for sham fights. The piazzas of the largest hotels are
filled with bands of musicians, playing enchanting tunes to attract
customers. The doors of billiard rooms are thrown open to public view,
and large sums of money are often bet on the games. Strolling negro
musicians are found playing on their banjoes and tamborines at the
corners of the streets. On Sunday evenings, circuses, play-houses and
gambling rooms, attract a large collection of people.