THE MISSISSIPPI AND SOME OF ITS TRIBUTARIES.
St. Louis--Roman cathedral--Desecration of the
Sabbath--Golden sunsets--Sail up the Mississippi--The
meeting of the waters of the Missouri and the
Mississippi--Alton--The burning prairie.
_St. Louis, Tuesday Evening, July 4th._
This, unquestionably is destined in time to become THE GREAT CITY OF THE
WEST. Its location is pleasant, and from the manner in which the upper part
of the city is now building, I should think it would ultimately compete in
regularity and beauty with almost any city in the Union. Its most prominent
public buildings at present are the theatre and the Roman cathedral. One of
the priests politely showed us through the latter building. The interior
would be very grand and imposing, were it not for the gaudy paintings,
intended as scriptural illustrations, suspended around the audience room.
However much these may catch the attention and awaken the admiration of the
_ignobile vulgus_, they cannot fail to excite any thing but complacency in
minds accustomed to the more chaste productions of the pencil. In entering
the church, we passed through the basement, where are the confessional
boxes and a small altar, on which wax candles were burning. Here we saw
one of the sisters of charity, sitting in black vestments, in a solitary
dusky nook, as though absorbed in holy meditation. In the church we found
another priest, engaged, as far as we could understand, in preparing a
class of German boys for confirmation.
I learned from an intelligent source that Romanism is making little or no
progress among Protestants at St. Louis. They have found it necessary to
cut off, or conceal many of its offensive excrescences, so that a friend
remarked to me, that he thought that a reformation in spite of themselves,
silent and gradual, was going on in the Roman Catholic Church. The fact is,
that the great difficulty at St. Louis is, that the mass of the people
"care for none of these things." They are equally indifferent to every form
of religion. Of course iniquity abounds, and the institutions of God are
trampled in the dust. The following fact will illustrate this point. As I
went to church on Sunday morning, to my utter astonishment, in passing by
the new theatre, I saw some twenty or thirty men at work on it--masons,
house-carpenters, and painters. God's law, _Remember the Sabbath, to keep
it holy_, was to be of no account, because the people of St. Louis were
anxious to have their new theatre opened on the evening of the Fourth of
July! Each one of the usual denominations has a church here. From all I
could learn, however, I fear religion is at a very low ebb in St. Louis.
There are numberless discouragements to be encountered every where in the
West, calculated to weaken the hands and depress the spirits of the
ministers of religion. No one can understand the number or nature of these
discouragements, without being actually on the ground. A successful
missionary at the West must have great faith and patience, and be unwearied
in his labours. To animate his clergy, and cheer them on in their toil,
there could not be a better man than Bishop Kemper. He seems to throw
sunshine around him wherever he goes.
One thing struck me as remarkable at the West, and particularly at St.
Louis. I refer to the appearance of the heavens at sunset. Nothing can
exceed the richness and splendour of a western sunset. I have heard much of
an Italian sky, but my imagination never conceived such pictures of beauty
and indescribable glory, as are painted on the sky here at the decline of
day. The whole hemisphere seems flooded with unearthly radience. The clouds
piled up the western sky, appear more brilliant and gorgeous than any or
all the colours of earth can make them. And as you look at them, you see,
through the clouds, apertures, which seem like golden vistas, through which
you look almost into the heaven of heavens.
Our Fourth of July has been spent quietly here. There has not been half the
noise and disturbance I had anticipated.
_Wednesday Evening, July 5th._
We this morning left St. Louis about nine o'clock. Our progress up the
river has been slow. Some eighteen miles from St. Louis we witnessed one of
the most interesting sights in all our journey--_the meeting of the waters
of the Mississippi and the Missouri_! I cannot attempt description! The
imagination alone can conceive it. If I ever had feelings of sublimity
waked up in my bosom, it was when our boat stood off just abreast the
Missouri, and I looked up its mighty channel, and thought of its source
between two and three thousand miles distant, amid those mountains whose
tops are covered with eternal snow, and then thought of the sunny orange
groves, near where it empties its waters into the ocean!
We stopped a few hours at Alton, Illinois, just above the point where the
Missouri mingles its waters with the Mississippi. This is an interesting
town, fast rising into importance. It is destined to become a point of
great interest. Its present population exceeds two thousand. We passed
Marion City and Quincy, as we advanced up the river. Of the former we have
heard frequent descriptions. We stopped an hour or so at the latter, and
enjoyed from the high bluff on which it is built, a view of one of the most
magnificent prospects that ever stretched before the human eye. The
expanded waters of the Mississippi--the innumerable green islets that seem
to float on its bosom--the beautiful vistas opening between these--the
boundless ocean of forest stretching off to the south and west, and the
level, treeless, luxuriant prairie running back to an unknown distance--all
these lay at your feet, furnishing one of the most picturesque scenes upon
which the eye ever gazed. I regretted the shortness of our stay at Quincy,
not only on account of the enchanting loveliness of the spot, but more
particularly as it deprived me of the pleasure of paying a visit to Dr.
Nelson, the author of a popular work entitled, "_The cause and cure of
Infidelity_," a book of sterling excellence.
We had now passed over a long tract of river navigation since we embarked
at Pittsburgh. Our eyes had become almost wearied with tracing first the
endless sylvan beauties that clustered around the banks of the
smooth-flowing Ohio; and then the vast, unpenetrated, boundless forest
scenes that spread away on either side of us from the abrupt, muddy banks
of the Mississippi. Our ear had become wearied with the monotony of the
sharp, rough sound of the high-pressure engine, that was heard ceaselessly
day and night. Books scarcely any longer could interest us. The character
and conversation of most of those around us seemed exceedingly dull and
common-place. There was however one exception. This was found in the person
of one of our passengers--a man of almost herculean stature, who, we soon
learned, possessed great versatility and vigour of mind. His manners,
however, at first appeared so coarse, and his conversation so blunt, that
there seemed something exceedingly repulsive connected with his character.
But this impression soon wore away, and in a few days he became the centre
of almost universal attraction. He was a true Kentuckian of the old school;
he was born and brought up amid the stirring scenes connected with the
early settlement of his native state, and was perfectly familiar with all
the war legends, and every bloody fray from the first movement of Col.
Boone to the final expulsion of all the savage tribes from this their
ancient hunting ground. To use his own language, he was "born in an Indian
fort, and through childhood fed upon bear's meat, and clothed in buffalo
skins." His physical strength seemed enormous, and he bore evident marks of
being one of those brave, reckless characters that find pleasurable
excitement in facing danger and death in every form. Yet he was not
destitute of the softer and more kindly feelings of our nature, and withal
seemed to have a high and reverential regard for religion.
It was now just at the close of a long summer's day. Our steamer for many a
long weary hour had been pushing her slow course up the broad current of
the Mississippi, when there suddenly opened upon us a vast, far-extending
prairie. To me this was an object of thrilling interest, and the more so
because hitherto we had seen scarcely nothing upon either side of the river
but unbroken and boundless forests, stretching away as far as the eye could
reach to the distant horizon. But here was a vast expanse in which no tree,
nor stump, nor stone was visible. Naught met the eye but the tall grass,
waving in the breeze, bending, rising, and rolling to and fro like the
waves of the ocean after a tempest; and this grassy surface interspersed
with wild flowers of every colour, hue and form.
For a long time I watched this beauteous scene, till the shadows of evening
began to settle down upon it. While I continued still gazing upon the
prairie, the old Kentuckian, who stood near, was making his observations,
and at length remarked, "That prairie on fire would be a noble sight! I
have seen them burning in a dark night, while the wind sprung up and bore
on the flames like a sea of fire. I can tell you a good story and a true
one about a burning prairie, and a family who perished by the
conflagration."
We were urgent for him to proceed in the narrative. He began by giving an
account of the family that perished in this conflagration, with whose
history he seemed quite familiar. It was a beautiful and touching picture
of real life that he drew in describing this family as they lived somewhere
in the valley of Onion River, amid the sublime mountain scenery of Vermont.
He represented Mr. N----, the father, as a hardy, sensible, and pious New
England farmer. The family consisted of four children, two of whom, James
and Lydia, were grown up to adult age, while George, the next son, was
about thirteen years old, and the youngest daughter was only eight. Mr.
N---- had long toiled to accumulate a little property, but the increase had
been so slow, that in a fit of discouragement he sold his little farm, and
determined to emigrate to the Far West, where he learned he could purchase
land at a very low price, and procure the means of subsistence with very
little labour. He persuaded himself that by adopting this course he should
be doing more justice to his children than by remaining in a country where
property, and even the means of subsistence for a family, could be attained
only by years of persevering toil. There was only one heart made sad by
this determination, and that was the heart of his favourite and eldest
daughter. Lydia N---- was a girl of excellent sense, and some personal
attractions. She had interested the affections of a young man who had grown
up with her from childhood. His father owned an adjoining farm. The two
families were quite intimate, and many happy hours had Charles S---- and
Lydia passed together. This proposition of emigrating to the Far West
seemed to the young people a death-blow to all their long-cherished hopes,
as the circumstances of the young man did not warrant his forming a
marriage connexion at once. But true affection is ready to make any
sacrifices to attain its object. As soon as it was a settled point that Mr.
N---- was to leave, Charles S---- offered to accompany him in the capacity
of a hired man, if he would accept his services. Mr. N---- assented, and
every thing was arranged accordingly.
They were now on their way, moving in true western style. They expected to
be weeks and months on their journey before they reached their distant
home. The family and all the effects they bore with them, were carried in
two stout wagons, each one of which was drawn by three yoke of oxen. Mr.
N---- or his eldest son usually acted as the driver of one of these wagons,
while Charles S---- took charge of the other. They had already been on
their journey many weeks, and had penetrated so far into the western world
as to find it necessary to pitch their tents each night, and seek a
lodging-place wherever the shades of evening overtook them. They at length
entered the prairie country, and were for awhile almost spell-bound by the
wide tracts of plain that stretched around them. To them the wonders of the
boundless prairies appeared more amazing, because they had always been shut
up by lofty mountains in a narrow dell, and had never till now looked
abroad upon such amplitude and vastness of expanse.
They had now been travelling through prairie country for several days. It
was late in autumn, though the weather continued as bland as summer. The
day was bright and sunny; the wagons, each covered with a thick tow-cloth
awning, and drawn by three yoke of oxen, were moving slowly on through the
vast extended region of long grass, now sere and dry, which stretched
around them like a shoreless ocean, and gently bent and waved to and fro
in the autumnal breeze. No house, nor stone, nor hillock, nor solitary tree
were seen within the vast circle of the encompassing horizon. As the sun
declined, and the shadows began to lengthen, the tops of a small grove
began to be visible in the distance. The emigrants immediately determined
to seek a place of encampment for the night in the neighbourhood of this
grove; for they naturally concluded that they should there find a spring or
rivulet that would furnish water for their cattle and for their own use,
and fuel for cooking their evening meal. They had been successful this day
in shooting a large quantity of prairie hens, and were anticipating a
delicious repast.
Mr. N---- proposed that James and himself should go on ahead of the wagons,
and get every thing ready by the time they came up. They accordingly
started off, having left Charles S---- to drive the forward wagon in which
the family rode, and George to conduct the other. Mr. N---- and James,
however, had gone but a few yards before Lydia came bounding through the
long, sere grass, with the fleetness of a deer, bearing a tea-kettle in one
hand, and three or four prairie hens in the other. Lydia, as we have before
said, was full of sprightliness and vivacity, and she had too often
clambered up the steep and rough sides of the Green Mountains to think any
thing of a walk of two or three miles across the prairie. Her object in
accompanying her father and brother was to hasten the evening meal; and as
her father made no objection, the group moved on with quickened step
towards the distant woods. They had already proceeded full three miles when
they came to a beautiful spring of cool, clear water. Here they all sat
down, and with grateful hearts partook largely of nature's refreshing
beverage. In the mean time Mr. N---- drew his pipe from his pocket, and
having filled it with the dried Indian weed, a supply of which he always
carried with him, he soon ignited the same by means of his jack-knife and a
flint. They were now only a short distance from the woods, and having
filled a tea-kettle and a pail with water, they went forward and began to
cut up some wood and prepare for kindling a fire.
And now the sun had set, and the evening shades were gathering fast around
them. Beneath the covert of a large tree a fire was burning brightly, over
which was suspended the tea-kettle and all things were ready for the
arrival of the party on board of the wagons. Lydia ran out of the woods a
little way into the prairie to see if she could any where discover the
advancing party. She saw them about a half mile distant, moving slowly on,
but she saw at hand, and near the spring, what greatly alarmed her--a smoke
and flickering blaze. She ran back in great haste and said, "Father, I fear
in lighting your pipe you have set the prairie on fire!"
Mr. N---- started up as though a thunderbolt had fallen at his feet, and
rushed forward to ascertain the truth of Lydia's remark, James and Lydia
both following him. The moment they had emerged from the woods and got into
the open prairie, the awful certainty burst upon them in a moment! What a
sight then met their view! The prairie was indeed on fire. It was now quite
dusky, and the little flickering blaze which Lydia had seen had already
become a sea of fire! The wind drove the flames in the direction of their
friends, whose escape seemed impossible.
The long dry grass, which had waved so gracefully in the wind, now caught
every where like tinder, and sent up a long sheet of flame that widened and
expanded every moment, and mounted up with increasing brightness and
height, as though it would reach the very skies.
The feelings of this group were excited almost to agony in behalf of their
friends. The thought at length struck them that if they could only succeed
in getting them through the long line of flame, they might save them, as
the conflagration was evidently moving off from the place where they stood;
and as the column of flame seemed to extend more to the right than to the
left, they embraced the determination to make an effort to reach their
friends in that direction. Reckless of consequences, wild with despair,
they instantly rushed forward, and succeeded in getting in advance of the
fire in one place. But they soon saw that the enemy was coming upon them
with the speed and the fury of the whirlwind. Mr. N---- lifted up his voice
and shouted aloud, bidding the teams to move in this direction, but no
sound was returned save the awful crackling of the advancing flames.
Darkness, too, covered the whole vast prairie, save where this sweeping
column of fire spread its desolating track. They could no where discover a
single trace of the wagons; and now they began to see the peril of their
own situation. Already were they completely environed with the fire, and
all retreat seemed cut off. The only hope left them was to endeavour to
rush through the flames and get to the windward side of the conflagration.
Mr. N---- and James made their way for a while successfully through this
awful tempest of flame, the daring Lydia keeping close at their heels. At
length a point was gained which seemed to open the prospect of escape; not
a moment was to be lost, for already the fire raged around them like a
furnace. Mr. N----, drawing in his breath, dashed through this awful line
of flame, and reached a spot where the consuming element ceased to rage, it
having already swept away every vestige of combustible matter. Though
scorched and smarting in every limb, he could not but feel grateful to God
for this deliverance. He instantly turned to see what had become of his
children. At this instant he saw one bright, lurid sheet of fire mounting
up like a vast wave of the ocean, and completely overwhelming them! He
rushed back to assist them, but the flame, like a furnace seven times
heated, rolled its intense, fiery surge back upon him in such a manner that
he was obliged to retreat. At this moment he heard Lydia shriek--her dress
was all on fire, and her brother was trying to bear her through the raging
tempest. When it had in some slight degree abated, again the father rushed
forward--but another gust of wind swept such a torrent of fire over the
bodies of his children that it was impossible for him to reach the spot
where they were. When the burning waves had passed by, he strained his
eyes, but in vain, to catch a glimpse of these objects of his affection.
They were not visible. At length, as the fire marched on, he reached the
spot where he had seen his children struggling with this awful element, and
there he found them both, lying on the ground--their clothes nearly burnt
off, and their bodies half consumed by the devouring flame! His poor
daughter was gasping in death, and his son so dreadfully burned that he
could scarcely move a limb. The fire was still burning the roots of the
grass around and beneath them. A little distance, however, there was a spot
where the consuming element had exhausted itself; to this place he
endeavoured to remove his children. Poor Lydia almost expired in his arms.
As he laid her down on this black and scathed spot of earth, she faintly
said, "Christ is my hope! Jesus can make this resting-place 'soft as downy
pillows are!'" The father hastened to remove his son to the same spot. He
there laid him with his face turned towards his sister. He soon saw that
she was dead, and said to his father, "This is a sad night for us; Lydia is
gone, and I think I shall soon follow."
"This is an hour," replied his father, "in which all we can do is to look
to God. He has said 'when thou passest through the fire I will be with
thee.'"
"Will you pray with me, dear father?"
"I will," said the agonised father, and kneeling down on the blackened
earth, while bending over one child already dead, and another almost ready
to expire, he cried unto God for help and mercy. When he arose from his
knees he perceived that James's breathing was more rapid and embarrassed
than it had been before. A dreadful fever was burning through his veins.
"I shall soon be," said the dying son, "where the flame can no longer
kindle upon me; and I shall be able to bathe in the cool, refreshing stream
that flows from the throne of God and the Lamb."
"God grant," said the father, "that an entrance may be ministered unto thee
abundantly into his everlasting kingdom." "Amen," responded James, and
died. The chill of death had suddenly come over him, and his spirit fled to
the presence of his Maker and Judge.
The father sat for a long time on the ground gazing upon his dead children.
The curtain of darkness was drawn over the scene--but here and there
dissipated by the dying and reviving embers, and flickering flame that
still lingered on almost every spot over which the awful conflagration had
swept. An unsteady, lurid light, just sufficient to reveal the wide-spread
scene of desolation, was thus flung over the dark and blackened waste where
the consuming element had a few hours before rode on in his resplendent
car. At the distance of a few miles, and as far to the right and left as
the eye could reach, rose one vast extended column of flame, mounting up to
heaven amid the darkness of midnight, and marching on with the speed, and
fierceness, and fury of the whirlwind. It was an awful and sublime sight!
Here the father sat by the side of his lifeless and unbreathing children;
the stillness of solitude was around him;--and there, bursting up from amid
thick darkness, was this tremendous conflagration, which seemed so bright,
and fierce, and awful, that one could hardly refrain from thinking it would
burn up the world and melt the elements with its fervent heat.
But I ought before this to have told the reader the account the Kentuckian
gave of the fate of those who were connected with the advancing wagons.
They had seen the smoke of the fire that was to cook their evening meal
curling above the trees, and directed their course to that point as the
spot where they should meet their friends. They were not at all aware of
the coming of this awful conflagration, or of the approach of danger, till
they saw the whole prairie directly before them lit up with one extended
sheet of flame. No one can depict the terror, the anguish, the horror of
that moment! No one can depict the sublimity and grandeur of the scene that
at that moment burst upon their view! But fear and wild distraction took
complete possession of the whole company. The very cattle that drew the
wagons seemed to sympathise with them, and to discover at once that their
fate was sealed.
We have already remarked that the fire extended more rapidly in one lateral
direction than the other. This Charles S---- observed, and immediately
sought to take advantage of it, and if possible get to the windward of the
fire. But long before they reached the line of the flame, the fire had
extended miles in this very direction. It was too late--there was no
escape--the fire was every moment approaching them. Mrs. N---- clasped her
young daughter to her bosom and sat still in the wagon. The oxen, as the
flames advanced, became perfectly unmanageable. They rushed forward with
the fury of wild and maddened beasts into the thickest of the flames. The
one team took one direction, and the other, another, but both of them
continued to move on through the hottest column of flame, till at length
the cattle one after another fell down in the yoke, suffocated by the
flame, and bellowing as though in the agonies of death. Long before the
last ox had fallen, and the wagon had ceased to move, Mrs. N----, with her
youngest child clasped to her bosom, had given up the ghost. The tow awning
which covered the wagon in which she rode, took fire almost as soon as
they met the line of flame, and instantly all the combustible materials in
the vehicle were in flames. Escape seemed impossible, for already the oxen
were moving with the speed of the wind through the thickest of the flames,
and Mrs. N.----, clasping her child to her bosom, yielded to her fate,
committing all to God. Poor George, not able to keep pace with the team he
drove, as he saw the flame marching on, sought by running to escape from
the face of the devouring element, but the attempt was vain. The whirlwind
of fire soon overtook him, and like a resistless sea, rolled its burning
waves over him. When Charles S---- saw the team he drove could no longer be
controlled, and that in order to follow them he must encounter certain
death, he left them to take their own course, and sought to rush through
the line of flame--which had now become so expanded, that long before he
passed the fiery column, the flesh was almost burned from his bones, and he
at length fell down upon the burning earth, unable to move a step farther.
The fire still moved on with awful, unabated fury over the wide and
far-extended prairie. No one that looked upon that awful sight could have
failed to have exclaimed, "What a time it will be for the ungodly when this
whole world shall be on fire!"
When the morning came, a most melancholy spectacle was presented to view
over that blackened plain. One solitary living human form alone, was seen
slowly moving amid the scene of desolation--and that was Mr. N----. He
found Charles S---- just in the last agonies of death, from whom, however,
he learned the particulars above stated. This young man soon expired; and
Mr. N----, alone, of all that emigrant train, was left to tell the sad
story of THE BURNING PRAIRIE.