The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1884-07-30
ON THE RIVER.
An Argus Reporter Interviews an Old
River Man---The Degenerativeness
of the Times.


ARGUS reporter saluted an old river man
this morning. Good morning. young
man, replied the old gentleman; ''busi
ness on the river now is pretty fair, but it
lacks a long ways of being what it was
years and years ago
That's just what I want to know
how business used to be on the river
in the sere and melancholy leaf" replied
the reporter, as he extended cigar to the
captain; fire away now and give me some
points that will be of interest to the
thousands of ARGUS readers"
CAN right, l will try and do so, but l
am an uneducated man, never having had
the opportunity to be given much book
learning, and all the education have has
been picked up. do not know anything
about books, but when it comes to expe-
rience, have saw a heap of it, and if l
had time | could tell you enough to fill a
book, but | won't do it this time, for am
busy this morning. l am getting ready to
go up the river after couple of RATS, and
as the water is low expect to have great
deal of trouble. have been engaged at
work on the river for nearly fortyeight
years now, and never saw the water in
the river so low. Well do remember the
first boat | ever worked on. 1t was the
Otter, and it was in '56 that engaged as
cabin boy. The boat was packet, and
ran between Cairo and New Orleans. The
Otter was great deal larger boat than
the St Paul All the travelling
that was done in those DAYS
was done on the river as there were not
many railroads in the country The Otter
had five other cabin boys besides
myself, right jolly time we cabin boys
had of it, The work we did was not so
arduous, neither was the pay large but
we did not care for this, because we gen
orally got lots Of money given US by the
passengers. In those days, most of the
people who travelled on boats were plants
ers or cotton factors. You don't know
what cotton factor is, do you? |
thought you didn't, and l will tell Won.
The cotton factor is man who is the
possessor of large sums of money. Some
times the planters stood in great need of
money, and they went to these cotton
factors and borrowed money of them,
giving as security lein on their cotton
and their cane crops. They would do
this before they put the seed in the
ground. If the planter raised a good
crop the cotton factor would get his
money back. and if he didn't raise a good
crop the cotton factor would take a cut
throat mortgage on the planters niggers.
Now you know what a cotton factor was
then, and is now for that matter. 1t was
no uncommon thing for some of the cabin
boys to get as much as $25 given them at
one time, generally as we were going up
to st. Louis. for that city was the mecca
of all the planters. As for gamblers they
were thicker than blackberries on the
bushes and they had fat picking off the
planters, who they would cheat and fleece
numerically. l have seen a number of
fights over the card table and
have seen men shot down or knlfed
over a game of cards. l could give you
several good sketches, but will reserve
| them for another time. | worked on the
Ottar for number of years, and from the
Otter | went to the War Eagle, where |
was soon promoted to first mate. There
experienced some river life. We had a
crew of about forty men, most of them
white men, who were meaner than the
niggers There were also a number of
niggers in the crew, and the white rous.~
abouts were continually Sinking and
making the niggers do most of the work,
until one day. | noticed them. and made
the whites get down to solid work. |
worked on the War Eagle for a number
of years until was offered situation as
captain on the Senator a boat the same
size the Centennial is now. | run on her
until she sank one night near Memphis,
Tennessee, Over twenty-five passengers
lost their lives that night. We were
running down the river when all at once
we struck snag and the boat went to the
bottom. The next boat l ran on was the
Tempest, then the Jenny Lind, and a
number of other boats that it is not nee,
cssary for me to name. Business on the
river in those times was good. The
| freight business was large, and do not
know of boat that ran on the river that
did not make money hand over fist How
sigh for those good old times now. The
river business now is but the shadow of
itself The railroads have come and
taken away from the boats not only
their passenger business, but a
great deal of their freight business.
| While it is true that the boats are making
some money, they are not making as
much as they ought to- Besides, business
on the river is getting poorer and poorer
every year. If it keeps on going down
the hill the way it has been doing in the
past few years, | don't know what the
boats are going TO do There are fewer
boats on the river now than Of any veal
that | know of and as said before they
are not making any too much money
| Leaving the old man to soliloquize by
himself, the scribe resumed his journey
in the search for news. wondering why il
boats used to pay they don't pay now. Il
is fact that the railroads have taken
| away great deal of the river business,