The Neihart herald. [volume] (Neihart, Mont.) 1890-1901, 1896-08-08
GOOD OLD RIVER DAYS.
Captain Reardon's Experience Extends
Over More Than Half a Century.

Captain J. E. Reardon of Shawnee
town, Ills, owns and commands the
Jessie Wilson, an Ohio river boat.
''It was in 1886 that I made my first
trip down the Wabash on a keel
boat" said the captain. II was only
IA then and was cook of the boat.
In those days we used to float keel
boats and fiatboats down the river
and pull them back. A crew general
" consisted of ~ men, and the cook
and captain, as we'll as the others,
had to do a good deal of pulling
sometimes. A stake was driven in
the ground on the shore above the
boat, if there was no tree near, and
we pulled ourselves up to it with
ropes. Before my day my father-in-
law owned ~ keelboats that ran
from Pittsburg to New Orleans, and
it took six months to make a round
trip. I worked on the Big Wabash,
the Little Wabash and the White
river. Sometimes we used oxen in
pulling up stream. Nor was it such
an easy matter to go down stream.
There were milldams, for example,
on the Little Wabash at Carmi and
New Haven. If the water was very
high, we jumped them without un-
loading, but the rule was to unload,
carry the freight below the dam and
Jump the dam with the empty boat
and then reload. There were no rail
roads in those days, and the farmers
of Illinois and Indiana had no other
way of marketing their produce.
Many of them built boats and foated
them to New Orleans loaded with
grain, cattle, hogs and vegetables.
Deer meat, too, was plentiful in
those days. I remember one hatboat
that was loaded with 90 tons Of
freight, and just about half of the
entire load consisted of venisor
hams"
9 Captain Reardon met Lincoln
Clay and other prominent men be
t fore the war, some of them fire
9 uuently. I'm the hard cider cam
Y paign of 1910 Lincoln came down t.
G our country on horseback" said tn
captain. He was a candidate TO
> elector on the Wing ticket and trav
eled with a man named Lambert.
heard him speak ct Shawneetown
/ New Haven and Carmi. The meet
d ings were held in log cabins, an
the hard cider and the coon were a
ways there. Douglas I saw severa
times in the fifties. Clay was a fro
, ouent visitor at Shawneetown, an
j Zach Taylor I met there also and q
Louisville. Clay I first met in Louis
ana. He had a cotton plantatio
III down there and occasionally visite
e. it. On one of these trips the boat b
A. was on, the Andrew Jackson, stol
re ped at Shawneetown, and the who
H. town went aboard to greet the pop'
lar statesman. Sam Marshall mac
a speech on behalf of the Shawne
towners, and Clay responded in
manner that made him still mo-
If popular in that part of the countr.
no When the time for separating cam
- he shook hands with a good MAJ
and kissed some of the girls. Near
as all the old ladies of Shawneetov
he today will tell you that Henry Cli
it kissed them at that reception half
he century ago"
a John A. Logan married in Sha'
ed neetown. John did most of /
is counting at my house." said CAPITA
Reardon. Miss Cunningham liv
49, near us and was generally there VIII
~ Logan came down from Bento
'"f where he was reading law, to S
ny her. Bob ~Ingersoll spent four yea
ar. about town reading law. In the
to days Bob had the most remarkal
his memory I ever knew. After readi
it an article in a newspaper he COT
repeat it almost word for word ;
st. Louis Globe-Democrat.