|It is fashionable to preface what we have to say.
Some men build a large portico in front of the edifice they erect.
This may attract the eye of a stranger, but no real comfort can be
realized until we enter the house.
And then no display of fine furniture or studied form of manners can
equal a whole-soul, hearty welcome.
Besides, no long proclamation of the entertainment can equal in interest
the entertainment itself.
Without further preliminary ceremony, I will introduce you to the sad
experience of a living man:--
Born in the house of respectable parents, on the southern bank of the
beautiful Ohio, in the dawn of the nineteenth century, and educated in a
log school house, the first scenes of my manhood were upon the waters
of the great Mississippi river and its tributaries. Leaving home at an
early age, no hopeful boy was ever turned loose in the wide world more
ignorant of the traps and pit-falls set to catch and degrade the youth
of this broad and beautiful land.
At Vicksburg, Natchez, Under-the-Hill, and the Crescent City, with
armies of dissipation--like the Roman Cæsar--I came, I saw, I conquered.
I had been taught from my earliest infancy that a _thief_ was a
scape-goat--on the left-hand side of the left gate, where all the goats
are to be crowded on the last day. _And that saved me_.
For I soon discovered that the _gambler_ and the _thief_ acted upon the
same theory.
Having no desire to live through the scenes of my life again--I am not
writing my own history, but the history of some of the events in the
lives of others that I have witnessed or learned by tradition--in
the execution of the task I shall enter the palace like the log
cabin--without stopping to ring the bell.
Although I have been a diligent reader for more than forty years, my
greatest knowledge of human character has been drawn from observation.
For prudential reasons some fancy names are used in this story, but the
characters drawn are true to the letter. Local, it is true, but may
they not represent character throughout this broad continent? In 1492
Columbus discovered America--a Rough Diamond--a New World.
Our fathers passed through the struggle of life in the _rough_, and
the log cabin ought to be as dear to the American heart as the modern
palace. Emancipated from ideas of locality, I hope, and honestly trust
that the sentiments in the Rough Diamond will be treasured in the hearts
of the millions of my countrymen, and that no American character will
ever become so brilliant that it cannot allude with a nat've pride to
the Rough Diamond--our country a hundred years ago.
And with a thousand other ideas brought to the mind, and blended with
the Rough Diamond, may the good Angel of observation rest with the
reader as you peruse these pages.
Near the seat of the present town of Helena, Arkansas, old Billy Horner
and Henry Mooney made a race on two little ponies, called respectively
Silver Heels and the Spotted Buck.
The distance was one quarter of a mile, and the stake one hundred
dollars.
Wishing to obtain the signature of the Governor of Arkansas to a land
grant and title to a certain tract of land on the Mississippi river, I
determined to attend the races.
The ponies were to start at twelve o'clock, on the 15th day of May.
I forget the year, but it was soon after the inauguration of steam
navigation on the Mississippi.
On the 14th day of May I left Bush Bayou, twenty miles below Helena and
fifteen miles back from the river, where I was on a tour of surveying,
in company of two negro boys, from fifteen to twenty years of age, to
assist me. Our route was down the Bayou, which was evidently an old bed
of the great river. How long since the muddy and turbulent waters had
left this location and sought the present channel no human calculation
could tell. Trees had grown up as large as any in other localities in
the Mississippi bottoms, in some places extending entirely across the
Bayou; in other places there was an open space one hundred yards wide
and sometimes a mile long, but there were many places where the timber
extended from shore to shore for miles. In such places our only guide
was a blaze upon the trees, made by the first navigators of the Bayou.
We started in a canoe, eight feet long and eighteen inches wide, with
a large trunk, a number of tools, and three men. When all were on board
the top of our boat was only three-quarters of an inch above the water.
In this critical condition the negroes had to go as freight, for they
are proverbially too awkward to manage a nice thing. Near the close of
our journey we were attacked by an alligator. He was sixteen feet long,
and larger than our boat. His attack frightened the negroes so badly
that it was impossible to keep them still, and we came very near being
upset. I fired several times at the alligator, with a double-barreled
shot-gun, charged with twenty-four buckshot, but the shot only glanced
from his scales and fell into the water. At last, frightened by the loud
cries of the negroes, the animal left us.
When we arrived on the bank of the Mississippi the Western hemisphere
had blindfolded the eye of day; the river was bank full, the turbulent
waters bearing a large quantity of drift wood down the stream. Upon the
Arkansas shore there was no sign of civilization. On the Mississippi
shore, two miles below, there was a cabin, and the faint light of the
inmates was the only sign of civilization that met our view. To cross
the great river, in the dark, with its turbulent waters and drift wood,
with a barque so heavily laden, was worse than the encounter with the
alligator. I was young, brave and enthusiastic. Directing the negroes to
place themselves in the bottom of the boat, and not to stir hand or foot
at the risk of being knocked overboard with the paddle, I headed
our little barque for the light in the cabin, which gave us a course
quartering down stream. To have held her square across the stream, she
would have undoubtedly filled with water. The night was dark, but the
air was still as the inaudible breath of time.
Knowing that the perils of the sea, without wind, are abated one hundred
fold, I made the venture, and landed safely at the Mississippi cabin.
Eighteen miles below Helena, and on the opposite side of the river, I
passed the night, with a determination to be on the race ground the next
day at twelve o'clock. I was up early in the morning. As I passed out
the cot of my friend, in front of me the great father of waters rolled
on in his majesty to the bosom of the ocean.
On the background the foliage of the forest cast a green shade upon
the gray light of the morning. Every animal on the premises had sought
refuge in the cane brakes from the ravages of the green-head fly and
the gallinipper. Like Richard the Third--I was ready to cry, a horse--a
horse--my kingdom for a horse.
Through the dim distance, half concealed by the cane, I discovered a
mule, and was fortunate enough to bridle him. He was an old mule; some
said the first Chickasaw Frenchman that ever settled in St. Louis rode
him from the north of Mexico to the Mississippi river.
Others said that he was in the army of the First Napoleon, and had been
imported across the water. Be this as it may, he was a good saddle mule,
for I arrived upon the race ground fifteen minutes ahead of time.
I obtained the desired signature and saw the Spotted Buck win the
race. But many said it was a jockey race, and that Silver Heels was the
fleetest horse. The races continued through the evening. I had no desire
to bet, but if I had, I should have bet on the fast man and not the fast
horse.
After this event, and nearly half a century ago, I was standing on the
street in Vicksburg. It was early in the morning, and the city unusually
quiet. My attention was attracted in the direction of the jail by women
running indoors and men rushing along the street; I saw sticks, stones,
and bricks flying, and men running as in pursuit of some wild animal,
and as I caught a glimpse of the figure of the retreating man, the sharp
sound of a rifle gun rang out upon the morning air.
Following on to a spot on the street where a large crowd of men had
collected, I saw the face of a dead man as the body was being turned
over by one of the bystanders. The lineaments of the cold, marble face,
spoke in a language not to be mistaken--that the dead was, in life, a
_brave man_.
I soon learned that the name of the dead man was “Alonzo Phelps,” and
that he had been tried for the crime of murder and sentenced by the
court to be hanged by the neck until he was dead, and this was the day
for his execution; that he had broken, or found an opportunity to leave
the jail, and nothing would stop him but the rifle-gun in the hands of
an officer of the law.
I also learned that he had written a confession of his crimes, the
manuscript of which was then in the jail, for he had knocked the keeper
down with a stone ink-stand, with which he had been furnished to write
his confession.
By the politeness of the jailor I was permitted to examine the
confession, which closed with these remarkable words,
“_To-morrow is the day appointed for my execution, but I will not
hang._”
The confession was afterward published. I read it many times, but have
forgotten most of it. I remember he said the first man he ever murdered
was in Europe, and that he was compelled, for safety, to flee the
country and come to America. There was nothing so unusual in this, but
the manner in which he disposed of his victim was singular, and more
particularly the revelation he gave of his thoughts at the time.
He said he carried the body to a graveyard, and, with a spade that had
been left there, he shoveled all of the dirt out of a newly-made grave
until he came to the coffin. He then laid the body of the murdered
man on the coffin and refilled the grave. “I then,” says he, “left
the graveyard, and spent the balance of the night in reflections. How
strange, I thought, it would be for two spirits, on the last day, to
find themselves in the same grave.”
“I thought,” says he, “if the relatives of the rightful owner of the
grave should, in after years, conclude to move the bones of their
kinsman, when they dug them up there would be two skulls, four arms, and
so on, and how it would puzzle them to get the bones of their kinsman.”
After reading this confession I regretted very much that I had
never seen Alonzo Phelps while living, for there was blended in his
composition many strange elements. But that part of his confession
that gives interest to our story was the papers taken from the man he
murdered in Europe, of which we have spoken. He concealed the papers,
in a certain place, on the night he buried the man, and, as he was
compelled to flee the country, said papers were, a long time afterward,
discovered by reading his confession made in America.
With the settlement of the West, the navigation of the western waters
was one of the principal industries. Keel and flat bottom boats were
the first used. Keel boats were propelled against the stream with long
poles, placed with one end on the bottom of the stream and a man's
shoulder at the other end, pushing the boat from under him, and
consequently against the stream. Flat bottom boats only drifted with the
current, sometimes bearing large cargoes.
Louisville, Kentucky, was one of the principal points between Pittsburg
and New Orleans. Here the placid waters of the beautiful river rushed
madly over some ledges of rocks, called the falls of Ohio. Many
reshipments in an early day were performed at this point, and if the
boat was taken over the falls her pilot for the trip to New Orleans
was not considered competent to navigate the falls. Resident pilots, in
Louisville, were always employed to perform this task.
And few of the early boatmen were ever long upon the river without
having acquaintances in Louisville.
Beargrass creek emptied its lazy waters into the Ohio at a point called,
at the time of which we write, the suburbs of Louisville.
In a long row of cottages on the margin of Beargrass creek, that has
long since given place to magnificent buildings, was the home of a
friend with whom I was stopping.
Rising early one morning, I found the neighborhood in great excitement;
a woman was missing. It was Daymon's wife. She had no relatives known to
the people of Louisville. She was young, intelligent, and as pure from
any stain of character as the beautiful snow.
Daymon was also young. He was a laborer, or boat hand, frequently
assisting in conducting boats across the falls. But he was _dissipated_,
and in fits of intoxication frequently abused his wife.
All who knew Daymon's wife were ready to take the dark fiend by the
throat who had consigned her beautiful form to the dark waters of
Beamrass creek.
Everyone was busy to find some sign or memento of the missing woman.
A large crowd had gathered around a shop, where a large woden boot hung
out for a sign--a shoe shop. When I arrived on the spot a workman
was examining a shoe, and testified that it was one of a pair he had
previously made for Daymon's wife. The shoe had been picked up, early
that morning, on the margin of Beargrass creek. Suspicion pointed her
finger at Daymon, and he was arrested and charged with drowning his wife
in Beargrass creek.
Daymon was not a bad-looking man, and, as the evidence was all
circumstantial, I felt an uncommon interest in the trial, and made
arrangements to attend the court, which was to sit in two weeks.
On the morning of the trial the court room was crowded. The counsel for
the state had everything ready, and the prisoner brought to the bar. The
indictment was then read, charging the prisoner with murder in the
first degree. And to the question, are you guilty or not guilty? Daymon
answered _not guilty_, and resumed his seat. Silence now prevailed for
a few minutes, when the judge inquired, “is the state ready?” The
attorney answered, “yes.” The judge inquired, “has the prisoner any one
to defend him?” Daymon shook his head.
“It is then the duty of the court to appoint your defense,” said the
judge, naming the attorneys, and the trial proceeded. The witnesses for
the state being sworn, testified to the shoe as already described. In
the mean time Beargrass creek had been dragged, and the body of a woman
found. The fish had eaten the face beyond recognition, but a chintz
calico dress was sworn to by two sewing women as identical to one they
had previously made for Daymon's wife.
The state's attorney pictured all of this circumstantial evidence to the
jury in an eloquence seldom equaled.
But, who ever heard a lawyer plead the cause of a moneyless man? The
attorneys appointed to defend Daymon preserved only their respectability
in the profession.
And the jury returned their verdict _guilty_. Nothing now remained but
to pronounce the sentence, and then the execution.
The judge was a crippled man, and slowly assumed an erect position. Then
casting his eyes around the court room, they rested upon the prisoner,
_and he paused a moment_. That moment was silent, profound, awful!
for every ear was open to catch the first sound of that sentence. The
silence was broken by a wild scream at the door. The anxious crowd
opened a passage, and a woman entered the court room, her hair floating
upon her shoulders, and her voice wild and mellow as the horn of
resurrection. That woman was Daymon's wife.