Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-01-05
THE REAL jim BLUDSOE.

The occasional rumor of the death in the
Mississippi valley or in the far west of the
alleged original Jim Bludsoe,'' who, ac-
cording to newspaper dispatches published
in recent years. must have been an exceed
ingly ubiquitous individual, has had an
other renascence recently in the obituary
notice, widely copied throughout the coun-
try, of one Captain w P. Lamothe, the
only truth in the notice probably being that
this doubtless estimable mariner of inland
waters no longer lives. There was only
one real Jim Bludsoe. engineer "of the
Prairie Belle" and 1t is a great many years
ago that the present secretary of state said
Of him:
Wall, no; I can't tell whar he lives;
Because he don't live, you see!
The real Jim Bludso who gave his life
that Others might live, was no mere fancy.
but a veritable hero, who persisted in a
burning steamer precisely as related in
one of the ~est-know poems in the English
tongue. These verses made their first APP
p%earance in the Tribune, and thence went
all over the world.
Secretary Hay knew the original Jim
Bludsoe of the Prairie Bell, and when years
afterWard he went on the editorial staff of
the Tribune, the son of Jim Bludsoe, Henry
Fairchild of New Orleans, called to see him
in his newspaper office and talked with him
over the incident. Oliver Fairchild, the en-
gineer, the father of the young man, had
lost his life under just such circumstance
as related in the poem, while sticking to
the engines of the steamer Fashion, plying
between Memphis and st. Louis. The
Fashion had independent horizontal en-
gines, each one driving such a huge paddle
wheel as is common on all of the western
and southern river steamboats,. This ar
rangement of independent wheels was
adopted in order that one could be stopped
or reversed, while the other was kept 60
ing ahead, the better to navigate the vessel
in the tortuous twistings of the eccentric
channels and bends of the rivers. TIL en-
gineer of such a steamer was second in i'm
p%ortance to the pilot alone, and it required
an active, resourceful man to fill the posi-
ton, especially in times of danger, or when
another steamer was overtaken and a race
ensued. Such a race with the Movastar, it
will be remembered, caused the catastro-
phe to the Prairie Belle when
She came tearing along that night,
The Oldest craft in the line
With a niger squat on her safety-ValVe
And her furnace rammed with rosln and
pine.
Every one is familiar with the skilful
word-picture of the flaming steamer max
ing for the willer bank on the right and
Jim's emphatic refusal to leave his post.
About the time that Mr.. Hay was tenn
porarily in charge of the Tribune, a contro-
versy arose between Mark Twain and aim
~incongruity in the little classic, Twain
holding that an engineer could not nave
! performed the heroism ascribed to him. as
the steering of the vessel was altogethei
the pilots duty, who would alone have hello
the steamers nozzle agin the bank till the
last g%aloot's ashore
Mark Twain's hypothesis, based upon ms
own extensive experience as a river plot
| might ordinarily have carried conviction
| had not Mr.. Hay had the unassailable argu'
ment of historical exactitude on his side
for, as a matter of fact, the s~teering-gea
of the Fashion had been quickly destroyed
almost at the beginning of the fire. The
tiller ropes had burned away as soon as the
flames from the overheated furnaces sWep'
upward through the vessel. and the engl
neer. in the fiery hell below, became The
sole human being possessed OF the power
to turn her toward the bank and keep hel
there. Secretary Hay veraciously described
the incident, even to the declaration that
Rludsoe's ghost went up alone
In the smoke of the Prairie Belle.
Every one else was saved but Oliver Fair
child, the engineer, and no real jim
| Bludsoe has lived since that night.