Shawneetown--Farm-houses on stilts--Cave-in-Rock--An island
night.
Half-Moon Bar, Thursday, June 7th.--A head-breeze prevailed all day,
strong enough to fan us into a sense of coolness, but leaving the
water as unruffled as a mill-pond; thus did we seem, in the vivid
reflections of the early morning, to be sailing between double lines
of shore, lovely in their groupings of luxuriant trees and tangled
heaps of vine-clad drift. It was a hazy, mirage-producing atmosphere,
the river appearing to melt away in space, and the ever-charming
island heads looming unsupported in mid-air. From the woods, the
piercing note of locusts filled the air as with the ceaseless rattle
of pebbles against innumerable window-panes.
At a distance, Shawneetown appears as if built upon higher land than
the neighboring bottom; but this proves, on approach, to be an optical
illusion, for the town is walled in by a levee some thirty feet
in height, above the top of which loom its chimneys and spires.
Shawneetown, laid out in 1808, soon became an important post on the
Lower Ohio, and indeed ranked with Kaskaskia as one of the principal
Illinois towns, although in 1817 it still only contained from
thirty to forty log dwellings. During the reign of the Ohio-River
bargemen,[A] it was notorious as the headquarters of the roughest
elements in that boisterous class, and frequently the scene of most
barbarous outrages--"the odious receptacle," says a chronicler of the
time, "of filth and villany."
In those lively days, which lasted with more or less vigor until
about 1830,--by which time, steamboats had finally overcome popular
prejudice and gained the upper hand in river transportation,--the
people of Shawneetown were largely dependent on the trade of the salt
works of the neighboring Saline Reserve. The salt-licks--at which
in early days the bones of the mammoth were found, as at Big Bone
Lick--commenced a few miles below the town, and embraced a district
of about ninety thousand acres. While Illinois was still a Territory,
these salines were rented by the United States to individuals, but
were granted to the new State (1818) in perpetuity. The trade, in
time, decreased with the decadence of river traffic; and Shawneetown
has since had but slow growth--it now being a dreary little place of
three thousand inhabitants, with unmistakable evidences of having long
since seen its best days.
The farmers upon the wide bottoms of the lower reaches now invariably
have their dwellings, corn-cribs, and tobacco-sheds set upon posts,
varying from five to ten feet high, according to the surrounding
elevation above the normal river level. At present we are, as a rule,
hemmed in by banks full thirty or forty feet in height above the
present stage. After a hard climb up the steps which are frequently
found cut into the clay, to facilitate access to the river, it is with
something akin to awe that we look upon these buildings on stilts, for
they bespeak, in times of great flood, a rise in the river of between
fifty and sixty feet.
Three miles above Saline River, I scrambled up to photograph a
farm-house of this character. In order to get the building within the
field of the camera, it was necessary to mount a cob-house of loose
rails, which did duty as a pig-pen. A young woman of eighteen or
twenty years, attired in a dazzling-red calico gown, came out on the
front balcony to see the operation; and, for a touch of life, I held
her in talk until the picture was taken. She was not at all averse to
thus posing, and chatted as familiarly as though we were old friends.
The water, my model said, came at least once a year to the main floor
of the house, some ten feet above the level of the land, and forty
feet above the normal river stage; "every few years" it rose to the
eaves of this story-and-a-half dwelling, when the family would embark
in boats, hieing off to the back-lying hills, a mile-and-a-half away.
An event of this sort seemed quite commonplace to the girl, and not
at all to be viewed as a calamity. As in other houses of the bottom
farmers of this district, there is no wall-paper, no plaster upon the
walls, and little or nothing else to be injured by water. Their few
household possessions can readily be packed into a scow, together with
the live-stock, and behold the family is ready, if need be, to float
away to the ends of the world. As a matter of fact, if they carry food
enough with them, and a rain-proof tent, their season on the hills
is but a prolonged picnic. When the waters sufficiently subside, they
float back again to their home; the river mud is scraped out of the
rooms, the kitchen-stove rubbed up a bit, and soon everything is again
at rights, with a fresh layer of alluvial deposit to fertilize the
fields.
Few of these small farmers own the lands they till; from Pittsburg
down, the great majority of Ohio River planters are but tenants. The
old families that once owned the soil are living in the neighboring
towns, or in other parts of the country, and renting out their
acres to these cultivators. We were told that the rental fee around
Owensboro is usually in kind,--fourteen bushels of good, salable corn
being the rate per acre. In "Egypt," as Southern Illinois is called,
the average rent is four or five dollars in money, except in years
when the water remains long upon the ground, and thus shortens the
season; then the fee is correspondingly reduced. The girl on the
balcony averred, that in 1893 it amounted to one-third the value of
the average yield.
The numerous huge stilted corn cribs we see are constructed so that
wagons can drive up into them, and, after unloading in bins on either
side, descend another incline at the far end. Sometimes a portion of
the crib is boarded up for a residence, with windows, and a little
balcony which does double duty as a porch and a landing-stage for
the boats in time of high water. Scattered about on the level are
loosely-built sheds of rails, for stock, which practically live _al
fresco_, so far as actual storm-shelter goes.
Usually the flooded bottoms are denuded of trees, save perhaps a
narrow fringe along the bank, and a few dead trunks scattered here and
there; while back, a third or a half-mile from the river, lies a dense
line of forest, far beyond which rises the low rim of the basin. But
just below Saline River (857 miles), a lazy little stream of a few
rods' width, the hills, now perhaps eighty or a hundred feet in
height, again approach to the water's edge; and henceforth to the
mouth we are to have alternating semi-circular, wooded bottoms and
shaly, often palisaded uplands, grown to scrub and vines much in the
fashion of some of the middle reaches. A trading-boat was moored
just within the Saline, where we stopped for lunch under a clump of
sycamores. The owner obtains butter and eggs from the farmers, in
exchange for his varied wares, and sells them at a goodly profit to
passing steamers, which will always stop when flagged.
Approaching Cave-in-Rock, Ill. (869 miles), the right bank is
for several miles an almost continuous palisade of lime-stone,
thick-studded with black and brown flints. In the breaking down of
this escarpment, popularly styled Battery Rocks, numerous caves have
been formed, the largest of which gave the place its name. It is a
rather low opening into the rock, perhaps two hundred feet deep, and
the floor some twenty feet above the present level of the river;
in times of flood, it is frequently so filled with water that boats
enter, and thousands of silly people have, in two or three generations
past, carved or painted their names upon the vaulted roof.[B] From
this large entrance hall, a chimney-like hole in the roof leads to
other chambers, said to be imposing and widely ramified--"not unlike
a Gothic cathedral," said Ashe, an early English traveler (1806),
who appears to have everywhere in these Western wilds sought the
marvellous, and found it. About 1801, a band of robbers made these
inner recesses their home, and frequently sallied thence to rob
passing boats, and incidentally to murder the crews. As for the little
hamlet of Cave-in-Rock, nestled in a break in the palisade, a few
hundred yards below, it was, between 1801 and 1805, the seat of
another species of brigandage--a land speculation, wherein schemers
waxed rich from the confusion engendered by conflicting claims of
settlers, the outgrowth of carelessly-phrased Indian treaties
and overlapping French and English patents. From 1804 to 1810, a
Congressional committee was engaged in straightening out this weary
tangle; and its decisions, ratified by Congress, are to-day the
foundation of many land-titles in Indiana and Illinois.
We are in camp to-night upon the Illinois shore, opposite Half-Moon
Bar (872 miles), and a mile above Hurricane Island. Towering above us
are great sycamores, cypress, maples, and elms, and all about a dense
jungle of grasses, vines, and monster weeds--the rank horse-weed being
now some ten feet high, with a stem an inch in diameter; the dead
stalks of last year's growth, in the broad rolling fields to our rear,
indicate a possibility of sixteen feet, and an apparent desire to
out-rival the corn. Cane-brake, too, is prevalent hereabout, with
stalks two inches or more thick. The mulberries are reddening,
the Doctor reports on his return with the Boy from a botanizing
expedition, and black-caps are turning; while bergamot and vervain are
among the plants newly added to the herbarium.
* * * * *
Stewart's Island, Friday, 8th.--We arose this morning to find the tent
as wet from dew and fog as if there had been a shower, and the bushes
by the landing were sparkling with great beads of moisture. The bold,
black head of Hurricane Island stood out with startling distinctness,
framed in rolling fog; through a cloud-bank on the horizon, the sun
was bursting with the dull glow of burnished copper. By the time of
starting, the fog had lifted, and the sun swung clear in a steel-blue
sky; but there was still a soft haze on land and river, which dreamily
closed the ever-changing vistas, and we seemed to float through an
enchanted land.
The approach to Elizabethtown, Ill. (877 miles), is picturesque;
but of the dry little town of seven hundred souls, with its rocky,
undulating streets set in a break in the line of palisades, very
little is to be seen from the river. Quarrying for paving-stones
appears to be the chief pursuit of the Elizabethans. At Rose Clare,
Ill., a string of shanties three miles below, are two idle plants of
the Argyle Lead and Fluor-Spar Mining Co. Carrsville, Ky., is another
arid, hillside hamlet, with striking escarpments stretching above and
below for several miles. Mammoth boulders, a dozen or more feet in
height, relics doubtless of once formidable cliffs, here line the
riverside. The palisaded hills reappear in Illinois, commencing at
Parkinson's Landing, a dreary little settlement on a waste of barren,
stony slope flanking the perpendicular wall.
Just above Golconda Island (890 miles), on the Illinois side, we
were witness to a "meet" of farmers for a squirrel-hunt, a favorite
amusement in these parts. There were five men upon a side, all
carrying guns; as we passed, they were shaking hands, preparatory to
separating for the battue. Upon the bank above, in a grove of cypress,
pawpaw, and sycamore, their horses were standing, unhitched from the
poles of the wagons in which they had been driven, and, tied to trees,
feeding from boxes set upon the ground. It was pleasant to see that
these people, who must lead dreary lives upon the malaria-stricken
and flood-washed bottoms, occasionally take a holiday with a spice of
rational adventure in it; although there is the probability that this
squirrel-hunt may be followed to-night by a roystering at the village
tavern, the losing side paying the score.
We reached Stewart's Island (901 miles) at five o'clock, and went into
camp upon the landing-beach of hard, white sand, facing Kentucky. The
island is two miles long, the owner living in Bird's Point Landing,
Ky., just below us--a rather shabby but picturesquely-situated little
village, at the base of pretty, wooded hills. A hundred and fifty
acres of the island are planted to corn, and the owner's laborers--a
white overseer and five blacks--are housed a half-mile above us, in a
rude cabin half-hidden in a generous maple grove.
The white man soon came down to the strand, riding his mule, and both
drank freely from the muddy river. He was a fairly-intelligent young
fellow, and proud of his mount--no need of lines, he said, for "this
yer mule; ye on'y say 'gee!' and 'haw!' and he done git thar ev'ry
time, sir-r! 'Pears to me, he jist done think it out to hisself, like
a man would. Hit ain't no use try'n' boss that yere mule, he's thet
ugly when he's sot on 't--but jist pat him on th' naick and say, 'So
thar, Solomon!' and thar ain't no one knows how to act better 'n he."
As we were at dinner, in the twilight, the five negroes also came
riding down the angling roadway, in picturesque single file, singing
snatches of camp-meeting songs in that weird minor key with which
we are so familiar in "jubilee" music. Across the river, a Kentucky
darky, riding a mule along the dusky woodland road at the base of
the hills, and evidently going home from his work in the fields, was
singing at the top of his bent, apparently as a stimulus to failing
courage. Our islanders shouted at him in derision. The shoreman's
replies, which lacked not for spice, came clear and sharp across the
half-mile of smooth water, and his tormentors quickly ceased chaffing.
Having all drunk copiously, men and mules resumed their line of march
up the bank, and disappeared as they came, still chanting the crude
melodies of their people. An hour later, we could hear them at the
cabin, singing "John Brown's Body" and other old friends--with the
moon, bright and clear in its first quarter, adding a touch of romance
to the scene.
[Footnote A: See Chapter XIII.]
[Footnote B: "Scrawled over by that class of aspiring travelers who
defile noble monuments with their worthless names."--Irving, in _The
Alhambra_.]