rubbing my eyes, and wondering how much longer it would take us to get
through. All at once, I heard some one yell out to the driver, ‘Sit
still there, and hold up your hands!’ And just about that time, an
ugly-looking revolver came through the curtains of the coach, and a
fellow with a mask on stuck his head partly through. ‘Now, gentlemen,’
said this robber, ‘just step out here on the ground, and don’t go
putting your hands around your pockets. If you do, you will get shot.’
His manners were so fascinating that we could not resist. It was not
very light, but as he held that pistol under my nose, I could almost
swear that I could look down to the bottom of the barrel, and see the
bullet resting there. We stepped out, one by one, and as we did so,
there were two other fellows with masks on waiting to receive us.
[Sidenote: “PUT UP YOUR HANDS.”]
“‘Put up your hands,’ said the first robber to each of us, as we
stepped out of the coach. ‘Put up your hands, or you will get a bullet
through you!’
“I would rather put up my hands at any time without having a bullet
through me, and I put them up at once. They stood us up in a row,
with each fellow sticking his hands up in the air, like a class of
school-boys ready to answer questions. Then, when they got us all out,
two of them stood guard, and a third went through us. He went through
us first for our pistols, and took every one, and laid them in a pile
on the ground, right between the two robbers, and in such a way that
we could not get at them without being shot.
“They then went through us for watches and money, and they made a very
good haul. I did not have much—only just enough for my expenses; and
when I told them so, and they saw it, they told me I had better keep
it.
“There was one passenger, though, who had twelve hundred dollars in
coin. They took the whole lot, but generously gave him twenty dollars
to pay his expenses. ‘Nothing mean about us,’ said one of the robbers,
as he handed back the twenty-dollar gold piece. ‘We don’t want to be
rough with any of you, but we must make our living.’
“When they had cleaned us out, they let us go back into the stage.
They told us to keep still, or the first man that moved would get his
head shot off. One of the fellows stood by the door of the coach, to
see that we obeyed orders. He was not going to have any fluking.
“Then they made the driver and express messenger hand down the express
box. The box was heavy, as it had a considerable amount of money in
it. The messenger was reluctant to give up the money, but they finally
persuaded him to do so, by cocking a pistol so as he could hear it,
and putting the muzzle of it into his ear. The driver was obliged to
sit still, with his reins down and his hands up. The whole operation
did not take ten minutes, and when we were through, and ready to
start, we were a comical picture. All of us inside were holding up our
hands; the messenger had his hands up in the air, and the driver was
holding one hand in the air, and taking the reins in the other from
one of the robbers. The fellows stood there, with their pistols ready
to shoot, and told us to go ahead; and you bet we did go ahead.”
[Sidenote: EARLY NAVIGATION OF THE MISSISSIPPI.]
In the early days of navigation on the Mississippi and its
tributaries, before the construction of steamboats, there was a great
deal of piracy. Before the steamboat was invented, the navigation of
the great river was conducted with rafts and keel-boats. The raft was
built on the upper waters, freighted with produce, and floated down to
New Orleans, where both the raft and its cargo were sold. It floated
with the current. It would descend, but it could not be made to
ascend. The keel-boat was of better construction, and after floating
down the river with its cargo, it was loaded to ascend it.
A long time was required for this upward voyage. The current of the
Mississippi is very strong, running in many places four or five miles
an hour. Sails are of very little use, as the river is crooked, and
the wind is rarely strong. The keel-boats were propelled in two
ways—first, by “setting-poles;” and, secondly, by “cordelling.” In
propulsion by means of setting-poles, long poles are used, and set or
fixed temporarily in the bed of the river. There is a plank on which
men can walk along the edge of the boat. The man with his setting-pole
goes to the bow of the boat, fixes the pole, and then walks slowly
aft. In this way the boat is moved under his feet, and propelled up
stream.
Cordelling is a system of towing. The men walk along the banks of the
river, and tow the boat by main strength against the stream.
The advantages of steam over this old process of propulsion may
be well illustrated upon the Ohio River, between Cincinnati and
Louisville. The distance is about one hundred and fifty miles. In
1794 keel-boats made regular trips between the two cities, carrying
freight and passengers. For the round trip they required four weeks. A
steamboat now leaves Cincinnati at noon, and lands its passengers in
Louisville the next morning. By noon she is ready to return again, and
makes the round trip, with plenty of time in port, every two days.
The boatmen of the Mississippi in the olden time were a peculiar
class. Rough, hardy, uncouth fellows they were; ready at any time for
an adventure, generally delighting in a fight, and able to perform a
great deal of hard work. They were prompt at fairs, races, and all
other assemblages along the river banks; and when they landed in
a town, and concluded to clean it out, they generally did so. The
inhabitants being powerless, the boatmen had it all their own way.
The West is full of stories about these boatmen and their peculiar
lives. One of the most famous of the class was Mike Fink, whose
history has been made the theme of a popular story. A story is told of
a clergyman from the east travelling down the Ohio River, some years
ago, who was anxious to learn something about Mike Fink. Somebody told
him that the pilot of the boat on which he was travelling had been
acquainted with Mike. The clergyman approached him, and said,—
[Sidenote: MIKE FINK AND THE CLERGYMAN.]
“Do you know anything about Mike Fink?”
“Yes,” said the pilot; “knew him like a brother.”
“Can you tell me some peculiar incident of his life?” asked the
clergyman.
“Well, I don’t know,” replied the pilot, hesitatingly. “Yes, I can. He
ate a buffalo robe once.”
“Ate a buffalo robe!” said the clergyman, astonished.
“Certainly, a buffalo robe, with the hair on,” replied the pilot.
“Well, what did he do that for?”
“Why, you see,” said the pilot, resting a moment, to shift his quid
of tobacco, “you see, Mike drank so much whiskey that he destroyed
the coating of his stomach, and the doctor told him that before he
could get well, he would need a new coat for it. Mike thought the
thing over, and said, when he had a new coat for his stomach, he
would have one that would stand the whiskey; and he made up his mind
that a buffalo robe with the hair on it was just the thing, and so
he sat down, and swallowed it. He could drink any amount of whiskey
after that, and never so much as wink. Fact, now, as true as you are
standing here.”
The clergyman turned away, satisfied.
Besides such adventures as fighting with each other, and with the
inhabitants along the river, these men had conflicts with robbers.
There were many gangs of robbers living along the Ohio and Mississippi
Rivers, and they had places of resort known only to themselves.
Some of the limestone cliffs abound in caves, and here the robbers
generally had their concealment. They watched for the boats ascending
and descending the river, sometimes fired upon them from the bank,
and sometimes came out in skiffs to capture them. Many a boat, while
quietly anchored for the night, has thus been attacked, and its crew
murdered, and thrown into the river. The boat would then be drawn to
the spot most convenient for the robbers, plundered of its contents,
and set on fire; or it might be manned by a portion of the gang, taken
to New Orleans, and sold.
Such an occurrence was not unfrequent, as a rapid passage down the
river would enable them to sell the boat, and return again to their
place of concealment, before the officers of the law could go in
pursuit.
[Sidenote: THE DAYS OF THE FLAT-BOATMEN.]
There are many interesting stories in the robber history of the great
valley. One was told to me, some years ago, by an old steamboat-man,
who had worked in his younger days on board of keel-boats and
“broad-horns,” as the flat-boats were generally termed, and are now to
the present day. I give the story, as nearly as I can remember it, in
his own words.
“There used to be a famous place for robbers on the lower part of the
Ohio, down below Paducah. Many a boat has been captured there, and
the men on board of it were never heard of afterwards. They were a
desperate lot of fellows. These robbers did not mind killing a man
any more than you would mind killing a rat. I shipped on board a
broad-horn once, from Louisville, going to New Orleans. We had a load
of pork and corn, and the captain of the broad-horn owned about half
the boat and her cargo. We got along very well without any trouble
until we got down to the place where these robbers were, and just
there we ran on a sand-bar. It was a ticklish place. There we were
stuck; the river was falling, and if it left us on the bar, we would
have to stay there until the next rise—that is, if we did not die in
the mean time. We worked away all the afternoon, and all night, but to
no purpose. One after another, we had dropped off, and gone to sleep.
[Sidenote: FIGHT WITH RIVER PIRATES.]
“We were about a quarter of a mile from the shore, but the current was
not very strong. Towards morning, when I was on watch, I heard some
men on shore. A little while afterwards, I heard the sound of oars,
and saw a boat coming out of a little creek just above us. By the
sound of their oars I knew that the boat was coming towards us, and
I waked everybody. The captain got out his own rifle and every rifle
and pistol that was in the float, and prepared to make fight. When the
boat got within fifty or sixty yards, and we could just see it through
the mist, our captain yelled out to them to stop.
“‘Want to come aboard,’ said a voice from the boat. ‘We want to
buy some pork and corn. We are camped here, and have got short of
provisions.’
“‘Haven’t anything,’ said the captain; ‘not a thing. We have not a
pound of pork or corn on board.’
“‘What have you, then?’ came from the boat.
“‘We are taking a load of stone down to New Orleans, to
sell—limestone, first-rate limestone; you don’t want any of it.’
“The boat kept coming on, and somebody in it said, ‘Come to think of
it, now, we do want some limestone, and we will come and see how it
looks.’
“The captain saw that we were in for a fight, as the fellows were
determined to rob us. He brought his rifle up to his shoulder, but
before he fired, he said once more,—
“‘Now, I tell you, STOP!’
“The boat did not stop, but kept straight in our direction. The
current swung it a little down stream, or they would have been on
board of us before we could have done much against them; but luckily
their stern swung around, and they had to turn a little against the
current. The captain fired, and brought down one of the fellows in the
boat. There were six or eight of them, and only five of us. I had a
rifle, and I fired, and brought down another.
“The captain’s man fell into the bottom of the boat, but the one
I shot threw up his hands, and tumbled backward, so that he went
overboard. They began firing, but did not hit any of us—except one
ball, which clipped a corner of the captain’s ear.
“By this time they appeared to have had enough of it, and, besides,
our shooting deranged their rowing. We were reloading, and before they
could get up to the boat, we would have another round of shots for
them. They turned down stream, and that was the last we saw of them.
“In the morning we carried a line ashore, and tied it to a tree; and
with this line we managed to pull ourselves off. It was tough work,
that, and it was noon before we got away. We floated on down the
river, and got to New Orleans all right. We sold out our load, and
came home.
[Illustration: PIRATES OF THE MISSISSIPPI.]
[Sidenote: ANOTHER BATTLE.]
“The next year I went down again with the same captain, on another
broad-horn. When we got to this place where we had been aground,
we gave the sand-bar a wide berth, and avoided it; but we had
another fight with the robbers one night, when we were anchored.
They came upon us suddenly, when all but two of us were asleep.
They got possession of the boat. They killed the captain, and sent
me overboard. What they did with the other men I never knew, but I
suppose they killed them.
“The whole fight did not last three minutes, from the time they first
sprang aboard until I was in the river, and floating away on the
water. I must have gone down the stream three or four miles, keeping
my head above water; and at last I came to the shore, right under a
rocky cliff.
“I climbed up, and squeezed the water out of my clothes. By this time
it was morning. I looked around, and saw, a little way off, a curious
looking hole in the rock, and something like a path leading up to it.
I went up this path and into the rock.
“A fire was burning close by the entrance, and I thought somebody
must live there. It never occurred to me that the place might be a
robbers’ cave. I shouted, and nobody came out. Then I picked up a
brand out of the fire, and waved it until it blazed, so as to light me
into the rock.
[Sidenote: IN A ROBBERS’ CAVE.]
“After going about twenty feet along a narrow passage, I found myself
in a sort of room, thirty or forty feet square. It looked partly
natural and partly as if it had been dug out of a rock. There were
piles of stuff where the men slept, and there were goods of various
sorts lying around; but nobody was there. There was a bag of silver
dollars which my eye happened to rest upon, and I picked it up. I then
thought that I had got into the cave of the robbers, and that it was
the same crew that was in the boat. I went out of that place quick,
and it was well I did so.
“When I got outside, I could see the boat coming, not half a mile
away, and those fellows on board. If I had staid fifteen minutes more,
they would have caught me.
“There was no way of escaping up the face of the cliff without their
seeing me, so I crawled down to the water, and slipped in again. I
could swim well, and thought the best thing to do would be to float
down the river a few miles farther, and then get ashore wherever I saw
a house or a boat.
“I tried to keep the dollars, but they were too heavy—they weighted
me down, and I very soon dropped them, consoling myself with the
recollection that the robbers never would get them again. I floated
half a dozen miles down the stream, saw a house, and went ashore. Next
day a flat-boat came along with one hand short, and I shipped on her
to New Orleans. After that I had two or three fights with the river
pirates, but they never bothered me much.”
LXI.
BURIED TREASURES.
CAPTAIN KIDD.—HIS HISTORY.—HOW HE MADE HIS FORTUNE.—HIS MELANCHOLY
FATE.—JOINT STOCK IN THE ADVENTURE GALLEY.—SEARCHING FOR
TREASURES.—STORIES OF THE SEA-COAST.—TRADITIONS.—ADVENTURES OF
A TREASURE-HUNTER.—BILL SANBORN, AND WHAT HE DID.—JIM FOLLETT’S
DOG.—A PRACTICAL JOKER.—A MESSAGE FROM THE SANDS OF THE SEA.—BILL
SANBORN’S DREAM.—FINDING THE CHEST.—A SUPERNATURAL VISITOR.
A nautical ballad, with which many persons are familiar, narrates
the adventures of the celebrated Captain Kidd. It is composed in the
autobiographical form, and its first line runs as follows:—
“My name was Robert Kidd, as I sailed, as I sailed.”
[Sidenote: THE STORY OF CAPTAIN KIDD.]
Evidently the distinguished pirate travelled, like many other robbers,
under an alias; and it is interesting to know that his name was Robert
Kidd _as he sailed_, for he certainly was not Robert, but William,
Kidd when on shore and away from his marine wanderings. It is to be
noted that he draws particular attention to his alias, by repeating
the words _as I sailed_; obviously wishing to state his case plainly,
and guard against any imputation that he called himself _Robert_ when
on shore, or when his ship was at anchor or becalmed. It must have
been very inconvenient for the man of tender conscience to change
his name from William to Robert whenever his ship was in motion, and
from Robert to William again when from any cause she stopped. It
made things lively for him if he ever got into one of those peculiar
squalls of the Mozambique Channel, where for two or three days you
have a puff of wind one minute and a dead calm the next, so that your
sails are alternately filling and flapping, and flapping and filling,
about as fast as you can count. But, throwing speculation aside, it
is sufficient to say that William Kidd was born about the middle of
the seventeenth century, and followed the seas from his youth. About
1695 he was known as one of the boldest ship-masters sailing out of
New York, and he became so famous that he attracted the favorable
attention of the colonial government.
About the close of the century in which our hero was born, the
depredations of pirates upon British commerce were so extensive that
it was determined to send out privateers to attack the freebooters.
The owners of these privateers were reimbursed for their outlay by
the sale of the goods and ships captured from the pirates, and they
calculated that they could make a great deal of money, provided
they had a fair catch. One company, in which several noblemen
were shareholders, asked the governor of New York to recommend a
suitable person to command a privateer; and in consequence of his
recommendation, Kidd received a commission, signed by the king, and
addressed to “the trusty and well-beloved Captain Kidd, commander of
the ship Adventure Galley.”
The vessel thus put in charge of the enterprising William (not Robert)
carried thirty guns, was a fast sailer, and had a plentiful supply
of provisions, and a crew of about one hundred men. She sailed from
Plymouth, England, in April, 1696, and cruised off the American coast
for several months. She occasionally entered New York and Boston,
where the crew was recruited until it included more than a hundred and
fifty men. With this increased force Kidd finally sailed for the East
Indies and the east coast of Africa. While on the voyage, he concluded
that it would be much more profitable to turn pirate—at least so the
story goes; and finding that his crew were not averse to the project,
he became a freebooter of the most enterprising character. He captured
many ships, and after filling the Adventure Galley with gold and
diamonds, and all that kind of portable property, he returned, in
1698, to New York. According to tradition, he buried a large part of
his treasure on various parts of Long Island, Staten Island, and the
banks of the Hudson River, and then boldly sailed into Boston harbor,
under the impression that his royal commission would save him from
any charge of piracy. But, unluckily for him, the Earl of Bellamont,
governor of Massachusetts and New York, was a stockholder in the
Adventure Galley, and was disappointed at the failure to declare a
dividend. He had heard of Kidd’s indiscretions, and this knowledge,
added to the chagrin naturally attending the failure of the enterprise
as a financial speculation, caused him to arrest the gallant captain,
and send him to London for trial.
[Sidenote: HE MURDERED WILLIAM MOORE.]
At this day there are many persons who believe Kidd was innocent
of the charge of piracy, and they unhesitatingly say that he did
nothing more than carry out his orders. On his trial, which was most
unfairly conducted, the charge of piracy was abandoned, as it was
found impossible to prove it, and he was arraigned for killing one of
his crew,—William Moore,—in consequence of the mutinous conduct of
the latter. It was shown on the trial that Moore addressed insulting
language to his commander, and was knocked down by Kidd. The blow
which was delivered with a bucket, proved fatal, and the decision of
the court was against the prisoner, on the ground that a bucket was
not a proper weapon with which the commander of a ship should enforce
discipline. Had he prodded him with a sword, or perforated him with a
pistol, he might have been acquitted; but this assault with a bucket
was too much. Times have changed since then. At the present day we
have the spectacle of the successful defence of murderers, on the
ground that the weapons they used were not murderous. I may instance
the case of Foster, a conductor on a street railway in New York, who
killed Mr. Putnam with a “car-hook.” One of the strongest points made
in his favor was, that a car-hook is not a murderous weapon. Had Kidd
been tried in New York subsequent to 1870, he would have escaped the
notoriety he obtained.
There was an interesting performance at Execution Dock, in London, on
the 24th day of May, 1701. William Kidd and the executioner performed
a duet, which resulted in the death of the former, after an acrobatic
exercise of some fifteen or twenty minutes at the end of a rope. As a
warning to the rising generation, and for the amusement of the elders,
the ruins of the ex-pirate were left in chains at the end of a gibbet,
where they swung in the wind for several years. Pious fathers used to
take their sons to look at the pleasing spectacle, and counsel them
never to turn pirate, and come to such a rope’s end as befell the
once well-beloved Kidd. Evidently the warning was effectual, as none
of the London youths of that period were able to secure the command
of an Adventure Galley, and sail to the Indian Seas. The suppression
of piracy as a joint stock operation became unpopular, as it was not
found to be profitable.
[Sidenote: AS HE SAILED.]
Many of the incidents narrated in the touching poem, “My name was
Robert Kidd, as I sailed, as I sailed,” are altogether apocryphal.
According to history, Kidd left seven hundred and thirty-eight
ounces of gold, eight hundred and forty-seven ounces of silver, and
several bags of silver ornaments and precious stones. These were
secured by the Earl of Bellamont, but whether they were ever handled
by the unfortunate shareholders of the enterprise is not known. The
probability is, however, that they were all required for the expenses
of the arrest and trial of the pirate.
According to popular belief, the quantity above named was only a small
fraction of the wealth acquired by Kidd; and down to the present
time people have been searching localities on the New England coast
and along the Hudson River, in the hope of finding some of Kidd’s
abandoned wealth. Tradition has been exhausted, and the chief reliance
has been, especially of late years, upon dreams and the revelations of
spirits. Almost every year somebody dreams of a locality where Kidd’s
treasures have been found, and he frequently gets wrought up to such a
degree that he sets about digging for a fortune. Thousands of dollars
have been expended in these researches, and they have invariably
resulted in nothing. It is safe to say that nobody has yet found a
dollar buried by Captain Kidd, and it is equally safe to predict that
nobody ever will find one. The writer of this knew, in his boyhood
days, of several enterprises of this sort, and though he never dug
for Kidd’s treasures, he was acquainted with several persons who had
been in the business. Some had abandoned it in disgust, and some still
clung to the hope that they would one day be successful. They were
waiting for dreams and revelations that should indicate the precise
spot where they could dig for the iron-bound chest, which invariably
contained the wealth they sought. An oaken chest, with hoops of iron,
was somewhere concealed, that should one day be theirs.