Flagg's The Far West, 1836-1837, part 1

Upon the first elevated land above the confluence stands the little town called America. This is the proposed terminus to the grand central railroad of the Internal Improvement scheme of Illinois, projected to pass directly through the state,50 uniting its northern extremity with the southern. The town is said to have been much retarded in its advancement by the circumstance of a sand-bar obstructing the landing. It has been contemplated to cut a basin, extending from the Ohio to a stream called "Humphrey's Creek," which passes through the place, and thus secure a harbour. Could this plan be carried into execution, America would soon become a town of importance.

Ohio River.

V

"The groves were God's first temples."Bryant."Oh! it's hame, and it's hame, it's hame wad I be,Hame, hame, hame, to my ain countrie."Cunningham."Those Sabbath bells, those Sabbath bells,I hear them wake the hour of prime."Lamb."She walks the waters like a thing of life."Byron.

It was late before we had passed the confluence of the Ohio with the dark-rolling tide of the "endless river," and the mellow gorgeousness of summer sunset had gently yielded to the duskiness of twilight, and that to the inky pall of night. The moon had not risen, and the darkness became gradually so dense that doubts were entertained as to the prudence of attempting to stem the mighty current of the Mississippi on such a night. These, however, were overruled; and, sweeping around the low peninsula of Cairo, our steamer met the torrent and quivered in every limb. A convulsed, motionless struggle ensued, in which the heavy labouring of the engine, the shrill whistle of the safety-valve, the quick, querulous crackling of the furnaces, the tumultuous rushing of the wheels, and the stern roar of the scape-pipe, gave evidence of the fearful power summoned up to overcome the flood. At length we began very slowly to ascend the stream. Our speed was about five miles an hour, and the force of the current nearly the same, which so impedes advancement that it requires as long to ascend from the confluence to St. Louis as to descend to the same point from the Falls, though the distance is less than half. All night our steamer urged herself slowly onward against the current, and the morning found us threading a narrow channel amid a cluster of islands, from whose dense foliage the night-mists were rising and settling in dim confusion. Near the middle of the stream, above this collection, lays a very large island, comprising eight or ten thousand acres. It is called English Island;51 is heavily timbered; huge vines of the wild grape are leaping like living things from branch to branch, and the wild pea flourishes all over the surface of the soil in most luxuriant profusion. The stream here expands itself to the breadth of four miles, and abounds with islands.

As the morning advanced the sun burst gloriously forth from the mists; and as I gazed with tranquillized delight upon the beautiful scenery it unrolled, I remembered that it was the morning of the Sabbath – the peaceful Sabbath. It is a sweet thing to pass the hours of holy time amid the eloquent teachings of inanimate nature. It is pleasant to yield up for a season the sober workings of reason to the warm gushings of the heart, and to suffer the homage of the soul to go up before the Author of its being unfettered by the chill formalities, the bustling parade, the soulless dissembling of the unbending courtesies of ordinary life. Amid the crowded assemblage, there is but little of that humbleness of spirit and that simple-hearted fervour of worship which it is in man to feel when communing within the shadowy solitudes of Nature with his God. There are moments, too, when the soul of man is called back from the heartlessness of life, and pours forth its emotions, gush upon gush, in all the hallowed luxuriance of its nature; when, from the fevered turmoil of daily existence, it retires to well up its sympathies alone beneath the covert of a lulled and peaceful bosom; and surely such a season is the calm, waveless hour of Sabbath sacredness. And it is a blessed appointment that, in a world whose quietude too often is disturbed by the untamed heavings of unholy feeling, there should yet be moments when the agitated events of the past are forgotten, when the apprehensions of the future are unthought of, and the generous emotions of the heart are no more repressed. Such moments are the crystal fount of the oasis, girt, indeed, by the sands and barrenness of the desert; yet laughing forth in tinkling melody amid its sprinkled evergreens, in all the sparkling freshness of mimic life, to bathe the languid lip of the weary one. Such moments are the mellow radiance of the departing sun when the trials of the day are over; and tenderly and softly do their influences descend upon the heart. Like the pure splendour of the star of even, how calmly does the sacred Sabbath-time beam out from the dark, unquiet firmament of life! 'Tis the blessed rainbow of promise and of consolation amid the rough storms of our pilgrimage, and its holy influences elicit all the untold richness of the heart. It is a season soft as the memorial of buried affection, mild as the melody of departed years, pure as the prayer of feebleness from the lip of childhood, beautiful as yon floating islet sleeping in sunset radiance on the blue evening wave. "Gone, gone for ever!" Another Sabbath is over, and from its gathering shades it is good to cast back a glance of reflection.

A company of emigrants, in course of the morning, were landed from our boat at a desolate-looking spot upon the Missouri shore; men, women, and little ones, with slaves, household stuff, pots, kettles, dogs, implements of husbandry, and all the paraphernalia of the backwood's farm heaped up promiscuously in a heterogeneous mass among the undergrowth beneath the lofty trees. A similar party from the State of Vermont were, during our passage, landed near the mouth of the Wabash, one of whom was a pretty, delicate female, with an infant boy in her arms. They had been deck-passengers, and we had seen none of them before; yet their situation could not but excite interest in their welfare. Poor woman! thought I, as our boat left them gazing anxiously after us from the inhospitable bank, little do you dream of the trials and the privations to which your destiny conducts, and the hours of bitter retrospection which are to come over your spirit like a blight, as, from these cheerless solitudes, you cast back many a lingering thought to your dear, distant home in New-England; whose very mountain-crags and fierce storms of winter, harsh and unwelcome though they might seem to the stranger, were yet pleasant to you:

"My native land! my native land!Though bare and bleak thou be,And scant and cold thy summer smile,Thou'rt all the world to me."

A few years, and all this will have passed away. A new home and new ties will have sprung up in the wilderness to soothe the remembrance of the old. This broad valley will swarm with population; the warm breath of man will be felt upon the cheek, and his tread will be heard at the side; the glare of civilization and the confused hum of business will have violated these solitudes and broken in upon their gloom, and here empire shall have planted her throne; and then, perchance, that playful boy upon the bosom may rise to wield the destinies of his fellows. But many a year of toil and privation must first have passed away; and who shall record their annals? A thousand circumstances, all unlooked for, will seize upon the feelings of the emigrant; the harshness of strangers, the cold regard of recent acquaintance, the absence of relatives and of friends long cherished, the distance which separates him from his native home, and the dreary time which must elapse between all communications of the pen. And then the sweet chime of the Sabbath-bell of New-England, pealing out in "angels' music"52 on the clear mountain-air, to usher in the hours of holy time, and to summon the soul of man to communion with its Maker; will this be heard amid the forest solitude? and all that quiet intermingling of heart with heart which divests grief of half its bitterness by taking from it all its loneliness? And the hour of sickness, and of death, and of gushing tears, as they come to all, may not be absent here; and where are the soothing consolations of religious solemnity, and the sympathies of kindred souls, and the unobtrusive condolence of those who alone may enter the inner temple of the breast, where the stranger intermeddleth not? Yes, it must be – notwithstanding the golden anticipations indulged by every humble emigrant to this El Dorado of promise – it must be that there will arise in his bosom, when he finds himself for the first time amid these vast forest solitudes, attended only by his wife and children, a feeling of unutterable loneliness and desertion. Until this moment he has been sustained by the buoyancy of anticipated success, the excitement of change, the enlivening influences of new and beautiful scenes; and the effect of strange faces and strange customs has been to divert the attention, while the farewell pressure of affection yet has warmly lingered. All this is over now, and his spirit, left to its own resources, sinks within him. The sacred spot of his nativity is far, far away towards the morning sun; and there is the village church and the village graveyard, hallowed by many a holy remembrance; there, too, are the playmates and the scenes of his boyhood-days; the trysting-place of youthful love and of youthful friendship, spots around which are twined full many a tendril of his heart; and he has turned from them all for ever. Henceforth he is a wanderer, and a distant soil must claim his ashes. He who, with such reflections, yearns not for the home of his fathers, is an alien, and no true son of New-England.

It was yet early in the morning of our first day upon the Mississippi that we found ourselves beneath the stately bluff upon which stands the old village of Cape Girardeau.53 Its site is a bold bank of the stream, gently sloping to the water's edge, upon a substratum of limerock. A settlement was commenced on this spot in the latter part of the last century. Its founders were of French and German extraction, though its structures do not betray their origin. The great earthquakes of 1811, which vibrated through the whole length of the Western Valley, agitated the site of this village severely; many brick houses were shattered, chimneys thrown down, and other damage effected, traces of the repairs of which are yet to be viewed. The place received a shock far more severe, however, in the removal of the seat of justice to another town in the county: but the landing is an excellent one; iron ore and other minerals are its staples of trade, and it is again beginning to assume a commercial character. The most remarkable objects which struck our attention in passing this place were several of those peculiarly novel mills put in motion by a spiral water-wheel, acted on by the current of the river. These screw-wheels float upon the surface parallel to the shore, rising or falling with the water, and are connected with the gearing in the millhouse upon the bank by a long shaft. The action of the current upon the spiral thread of the wheel within its external casing keeps it in constant motion, which is communicated by the shaft to the machinery of the mills. The contrivance betrays much ingenuity, and for purposes where a motive of inconsiderable power is required, may be useful; but for driving heavy millstones or a saw, the utility is more than problematical.

In the vicinity of Cape Girardeau commences what is termed the "Tyowapity Bottom," a celebrated section of country extending along the Missouri side of the stream some thirty miles, and abounding with a peculiar species of potter's clay, unctuous in its nature, exceedingly pure and white, and plastic under the wheel.54 This stratum of clay is said to vary from one foot to ten in depth, resting upon sandstone, and covered by limestone abounding in petrifactions. A manufactory is in operation at Cape Girardeau, in which this substance is the material employed. Near the northern extremity of this bottom the waters of the Muddy River enter the Mississippi from Illinois.55 This stream was discovered by the early French voyageurs, and from them received the name of Rivière au Vase, or Vaseux. It is distinguished for the salines upon its banks, for its exhaustless beds of bituminous coal, for the fertility of the soil, and for a singularly-formed eminence among the bluffs of the Mississippi, a few miles from its mouth. Its name is "Fountain Bluff," derived from the circumstance that from its base gush out a number of limpid springs.56 It is said to measure eight miles in circumference, and to have an altitude of several hundred feet. Its western declivity looks down upon the river, and its northern side is a precipitous crag, while that upon the south slopes away to a fertile plain, sprinkled with farms.

A few miles above the Big Muddy stands out from the Missouri shore a huge perpendicular column of limestone, of cylindrical formation, about one hundred feet in circumference at the base, and in height one hundred and fifty feet, called the "Grand Tower."57 Upon its summit rests a thin stratum of vegetable mould, supporting a shaggy crown of rifted cedars, rocking in every blast that sweeps the stream, whose turbid current boils, and chafes, and rages at the obstruction below. This is the first of that celebrated range of heights upon the Mississippi usually pointed out to the tourist, springing in isolated masses from the river's brink upon either side, and presenting to the eye a succession of objects singularly grotesque. There are said to exist, at this point upon the Mississippi, indications of a huge parapet of limestone having once extended across the stream, which must have formed a tremendous cataract, and effectually inundated all the alluvion above. At low stages of the water ragged shelves, which render the navigation dangerous, are still to be seen. Among the other cliffs along this precipitous range which have received names from the boatmen are the "Devil's Oven," "Teatable," "Backbone," &c., which, with the "Devil's Anvil," "Devil's Island," &c., indicate pretty plainly the divinity most religiously propitiated in these dangerous passes.58 The "Oven" consists of an enormous promontory of rock, about one hundred feet from the surface of the river, with a hemispherical orifice scooped out of its face, probably by the action, in ages past, of the whirling waters now hurrying on below. It is situated upon the left bank of the stream, about one mile above the "Tower," and is visible from the river. In front rests a huge fragment of the same rock, and in the interval stands a dwelling and a garden spot. The "Teatable" is situated at some distance below, and the other spots named are yet lower upon the stream. This whole region bears palpable evidence of having been subjected, ages since, to powerful volcanic and diluvial action; and neither the Neptunian or Vulcanian theory can advance a superior claim.

For a long time after entering the dangerous defile in the vicinity of the Grand Tower, through which the current rushes like a racehorse, our steamer writhed and groaned against the torrent, hardly advancing a foot. At length, as if by a single tremendous effort, which caused her to quiver and vibrate to her centre, an onward impetus was gained, the boat shot forward, the rapids were overcome, and then, by chance, commenced one of those perilous feats of rivalry, formerly, more than at present, frequent upon the Western waters, a race. Directly before us, a steamer of a large class, deeply laden, was roaring and struggling against the torrent under her highest pressure. During our passage we had several times passed and repassed each other, as either boat was delayed at the various woodyards along the route; but now, as the evening came on, and we found ourselves gaining upon our antagonist, the excitement of emulation flushed every cheek. The passengers and crew hung clustering, in breathless interest, upon the galleries and the boiler deck, wherever a post for advantageous view presented; while the hissing valves, the quick, heavy stroke of the piston, the sharp clatter of the eccentric, and the cool determination of the pale engineer, as he glided like a spectre among the fearful elements of destruction, gave evidence that the challenge was accepted. But there was one humble individual, above all others, whose whole soul seemed concentrated in the contest, as from time to time, in the intervals of toil, his begrimed and working features were caught, glaring through the lurid light of the furnaces he was feeding. This was no less a personage than the doughty fireman of our steamer; a long, lanky individual, with a cute cast of the eye, a knowing tweak of the nose, and an interminable longitude of phiz. His checkered shirt was drenched with perspiration; a huge pair of breeches, begirdling his loins by means of a leathern belt, covered his nether extremities, and two sinewy arms of "whipcord and bone" held in suspension a spadelike brace of hands. During our passage, more than once did I avail myself of an opportunity of studying the grotesque, good-humoured visage of this unique individual; and it required no effort of fancy to imagine I viewed before me some lingering remnant of that "horse and alligator race," now, like the poor Indian, fast fading from the West before the march of steamboats and civilization, videlicet, "the Mississippi boatman." And, on the occasion of which I speak, methought I could catch no slight resemblance in my interesting fireman, as he flourished his ponderous limbs, to that faithful portraiture of his majesty of the Styx in Tooke's Pantheon! though, as touching this latter, I must confess me of much dubiety in boyhood days, with the worthy "gravedigger" Young, having entertained shrewd suspicions whether the "tyrant ever sat."

But in my zeal for the honest Charon I am forgetting the exciting subject of the race. During my digression, the ambitious steamers have been puffing, and sweating, and glowing in laudable effort, to say nothing of stifled sobs said to have issued from their labouring bosoms, until at length a grim smile of satisfaction lighting up the rugged features of the worthy Charon, gave evidence that not in vain he had wielded his mace or heaved his wood. A dense mist soon after came on, and the exhausted steamers were hauled up at midnight beneath the venerable trees upon the banks of the stream. On the first breakings of dawn all was again in motion. But, alas! alas! in spite of all the strivings of our valorous steamer, it soon became but too evident that her mighty rival must prevail, as with distended jaws, like to some huge fish, she came rushing up in our wake, as if our annihilation were sure. But our apprehensions proved groundless; like a civil, well-behaved rival, she speeded on, hurling forth a triple bob-major of curses at us as she passed, doubtless by way of salvo, and disappeared behind a point. When to this circumstance is added that a long-winded racer of a mail-boat soon after swept past us in her onward course, and left us far in the rear, I shall be believed when it is stated that the steamer on which we were embarked was distinguished for anything but speed; a circumstance by none regretted less than by myself.

Mississippi River.

VI

"I linger yet with Nature."Manfred."Onward still I press,Follow thy windings still, yet sigh for more."Goethe."God's my life, did you ever hear the like!What a strange man is this!"Ben Jonson.

But a very few years have passed away since the navigation of the Mississippi was that of one of the most dangerous streams on the globe; but, thanks to the enterprising genius of the scientific Shreve, this may no longer with truth be said. In 1824 the first appropriation59 was voted by Congress for improving the navigation of the Western rivers; and since that period thousands of snags, sawyers, planters, sand-bars, sunken rocks, and fallen trees have been removed, until all that now remains is to prevent new obstacles from accumulating where the old have been eradicated. For much of its course in its lower sections, the Mississippi is now quite safe; and as the progress of settlements advances upon its banks, the navigation of this noble stream will doubtless become unobstructed in its whole magnificent journey from the falls of the "Laughing Water" to the Mexican Gulf. The indefatigable industry, the tireless perseverance, the indomitable enterprise, and the enlarged and scientific policy of Captain Shreve, the projector and accomplisher of the grand national operations upon the Western rivers, can never be estimated beyond their merit. The execution of that gigantic undertaking, the removal of the Red River Raft, has identified his history with that of the empire West;60 his fame will endure so long as those magnificent streams, with which his name is associated, shall continue to roll on their volumed waters to the deep.

These remarks have been suggested by scenes of constant recurrence to the traveller on the Mississippi. The banks, the forests, the islands all differ as much as the stream itself from those of the soft-gliding Ohio. Instead of those dense emerald masses of billowy foliage swelling gracefully up from the banks of "the beautiful river," those of the Mississippi throw back a rough, ragged outline; their sands piled with logs and uprooted trees, while heaps of wreck and drift-wood betray the wild ravages of the stream. In the midst of the mass a single enormous sycamore often rears its ghastly limbs, while at its foot springs gracefully up a light fringe of the pensile willow. Sometimes, too, a huge sawyer, clinging upon the verge of the channel, heaves up its black mass above the surface, then falls, and again rises with the rush of the current. Against one of these sawyers is sometimes lodged a mass of drift-wood, pressing it firmly upon the bottom, till, by a constant accumulation, a foundation is gradually laid and a new island is formed: this again, by throwing the water from its course, causes a new channel, which, infringing with violence upon the opposite bank, undermines it with its colonnade of enormous trees, and thus new material in endless succession is afforded for obstructions to the navigation. The deposites of alluvion along the banks betray a similar origin of gradual accumulation by the annual floods. In some sections of the American Bottom,61 commencing at its southern extremity with the Kaskaskia River, the mould, upward of thirty feet in depth, is made up of numerous strata of earth, which may be readily distinguished and counted by the colours.

About twenty miles above the mouth of the Kaskaskia is situated Ste. Genevieve, grand deposite of the lead of the celebrated ancient mines La Motte, and A'Burton, and others, some thirty miles in the interior, and the market which supplies all the mining district of the vicinity.62 It was first commenced about the year 1774 by the original settlers of Upper Louisiana; and the Canadian French, with their descendants, constitute a large portion of its present inhabitants. The population does not now exceed eight hundred, though it is once said to have numbered two thousand inhabitants. Some of the villagers are advanced in years, and among them is M. Valle, one of the chief proprietors of Mine la Motte, who, though now some ninety years of age, is almost as active as when fifty.63 Ste. Genevieve is situated about one mile from the Mississippi, upon a broad alluvial plain lying between the branches of a small stream called Gabourie. Beyond the first bottom rises a second steppe, and behind this yet a third, attaining an elevation of more than a hundred feet from the water's edge. Upon this elevated site was erected, some twenty years since, a handsome structure of stone, commanding a noble prospect of the river, the broad American Bottom on the opposite side, and the bluffs beyond the Kaskaskia. It was intended for a literary institution; but, owing to unfavourable reports with regard to the health of its situation, the design was abandoned, and the edifice was never completed. It is now in a state of "ruinous perfection," and enjoys the reputation, moreover, of being haunted. In very sooth, its aspect, viewed from the river at twilight, with its broken windows outlined against the western sky, is wild enough to warrant such an idea or any other. A courthouse and Catholic chapel constitute the public buildings. To the south of the village, and lying upon the river, is situated the common field, originally comprising two thousand arpens; but it is now much less in extent, and is yearly diminishing from the action of the current upon the alluvial banks. These common fields were granted by the Spanish government, as well as by the French, to every village settled under their domination. A single enclosure at the expense of the villagers was erected and kept in repair, and the lot of every individual was separated from his neighbour's by a double furrow. Near this field the village was formerly located; but in the inundation of 1785, called by the old habitans "L'annee des grandes eaux," so much of the bank was washed away that the settlers were forced to select a more elevated site. The Mississippi was at this time swelled to thirty feet above the highest water-mark before known; and the town of Kaskaskia and the whole American Bottom were inundated.