Morning journal and courier., 1880-08-12
Flat-boat Days.
Pioneer Experiences on the Ohio and
 Mississippi


 Mississippi.
 [From the Indianapolis JournaLJ
 The brave old warrior, Gen. William O. Butler, who died last Friday at the advanced age of 99, was something more than sol dier. He was poet and had at times given undoubted evidence of possessing the divine afhatus. His poem commencing
 70 Boatman, wind that horn again,
 For never did the listening air
 Upon it's lambent bosom bear
 So wild, so soft, so sweet strain," will long hold its place among the gems of American poetry. But the days when the on- ly means of transportation on our great Western rivers was the f1at-boat have passed away. It may almost be said to be thing of the past, and hence the fine flavor of Gen. Buffers poem is lost to great degree to generation who only know of it by tradi- ton.
 A voyage from Pittsburg to New Orleans by fat-b boat was enterprise once of greater peril than tour around the world is now It was certain to be full of adventure. It re- quired months for its accomplishment. A shot from the shore by some Indian or recl- less desperado might terminate abruptly the voyage and the lives of the navigators in blood. A moments neglect of the steersman might wreck the unshapely craft and all the hopes of it's owners, hundreds of miles from home, and in an inhospitable wilderness. There was danger everywhere-in the cur rents, eddies, whirlpools, bayous, and snags of the tortuous Father of Waters but there was no less danger from the half civilized dwellers on the banks. The outlawed crimi- nals and the desperate adventurers from civ ilization skulked about the shores or prowled with light canoes among the bayous and creeks, watching for chances to plunder, even if murder was necessary to aid them. flat boat voyage down the great rivers was peril ous enough from natural causes, even if mans inhumanity to man had not increased. the T-,& +1,n TN had not thought of g-boats, and the Missis- sippi was full of half-hidden dangers. The current was constantly changing. It was easy to be deceived into an old channel from which there was no return. Bayous were often traps-watery uls-de-sac-leading mo- where but to ruin. The organized river pi- rates and wreckers were always on the look out for unwary voyagers, so that slight mis- hap generally ended in complete disaster. If, under such circumstances, the hat-boatman reached his distant home, footsore and weary but penniless months after leaving it, he was lucky.
 In the early days of flat boating, q safe re- turn, even when the venture had not proved financially profitable, was grand event and the occasion of tumultuous joy. The busi- ness bred special class who sought it for it's adventure and danger as muc has for its prof it's. The river pirates met in the fat-boat- men of that early day, class ready, eager and willing for the fray-a class which, like the rancheros of the plains, accounted trip tame and spiritless if unattended with dan ger. They were rough and ready, careless and care free. Dreamily floating down the Ohio they whiled away with song and dance the lazy hours. The boatman's horn walked the echoes from distant hills more musical than steamboat whistle or that r-distracting horror, the calliope. It was romantic life, beftting the grand scenery and rude time. Ninety days on a slowly moving fat-boat, the scenery constantly changing, but ever wild and beautiful was thing never to be for gotten The spice of danger in it only gave it zest. An occasional adventure with river sharks only relieved the monotony and added interest
 It is difficult for one looking the Ohio river to realize that fat-boats, broad horns, the queerest craft that ever foated, once did all the transportation business from its head-waters to New Orleans. A hat-boat, scarce moving with rude arrangements for cooking on deck, almost under water, with long oars awkwardly attached to the sides, is a type of it's time almost as grotesque and odd as the Viking ship recently dug up in Norway Perhaps some day it will excite as much archaeological wonder, for it already recalls time we fail to understands condi- ton of society and of country we can scarcely appreciate. The Ieisure-loving de- iberate, slow-moving fat-boat was fast enough for it's day and people. There was luck in it's leisure. But the hat-boat has passed away, and the boatman never will wind his horn again. He sleeps as soundly as the warrior-poet and his ear is as dead to the sad, sweet music of the boatman's horn