The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1916-11-09
LAST OF THE BOATNlEN.
A True Epic of the Mississippi Rivers
Homeric Era.

Homeric Fra.
1t will scarcely be credited that
less than a century ago, on the rivers
connecting Pittsburg. ST. Louis ana
New Orleans, there occurred adven-
lures and lived men like those pic
tured in the following extracts taken
from a book printed in 1884, of Gin
cinnati, under the title of The West
ern Pilot" by Samuel Cummings.
The battered and yellow volume was
recently unearthed in a St. Louis
home.
But for the resurrection of the
book all memory might have perished
of that Homeric breed of men, called
Boatmen, who f1ourished during the
80 years between the time when the
keel-barge supplanted the canoe, and
the steamboat established itself as a
practical success. Mark Twain has
immortalized the steamboat men, but
no novelist has written of their pre-
decessors, who could pole their heavy
craft against the current from New
Orleans to Pittsburg. and whose idea
of sport was to shoot tin cups on
wager from one another's heads. Will
liam Tell did the same thing, substi-
tuting an apple and bow and arrow,
and his memory is still green; but
the American boatment are forgot
ten. Of these heroes of an almost
legendary era Mike Fink was ac-
knowledged the leader, and it is with
his astonishing feats and appropriate
death that these "reminiscences are
chiefly concerned.
| embarked a few years since at
Pittsburg, for Cincinnati, on board d
teambcat-more with the view of
realizing the possibility of speedy
return against the current, than in
obedience to the call of either bust
ness or pleasure. 1t was voyage Of
speculation. l was born on the banks
of the Ohio, and the only vessels as
sociated with my early recollections
were the canoes of the Indian, which
brought to Fort Pitt their annual car
goes of skins and bears oil. The
fiat boat of Kentucky, destined only
to. float with the current, next ap-
peared; and after many years of in
terval, the keel boat of the Ohio and
the barge of the Mississippi were in
troduced for the convenience of the
infant commerce of the West.
In the period at which | have dat
ed my trip to Cincinnati, the steam
boat had made but few voyages back
to Pittsburg. We were generally
skeptics as to it's practicability. The
mind was not prepared for the
change that was about to take place
in the West. 1t is now consummat-
ed; and yet We look back with as
tonishment at the result:
The rudest inhabitant of our for
ests, the man whose mind is least of
all imbued with relish for the pic
turesQue-who would gaze with va
cant stare at the finest painting, list
en- with apathy to the softest mel
ody and turn with Indifference from
a mere display of ingenious mechan-
ism-is struck with the sublime pow
er and self-moving majesty of the
steamboat, fingers on the shore
where it passes, and follows its rapid
and almost magic course in silent
admiration. The steam engine in
five years has enabled us to antici-
pate a state of things which, in the
ordinary course of events, it would
have required century to have pro-
duced. The art of printing scarcely
surpassed it in it's beneficial conse-
quences.
When We left Pittsburg, the season
was not far advanced in vegetation.
But as we proceeded the change was
more rapid than the difference of lati-
tude justified. l had frequently OBJ
served it on former voyages, but it
never was so striking as on the pres
ent occasion. The old mode of trav-
cling in the sluggish flatboat seemed
to give time for the change of sea-
son, but a few hours carried us into
a different climate. We met spring
with all her laughing train of flow
ers and vendure, rapidly advancing
from the South.
A few hours brought us to one Of
those stopping points. known by the
name of "wooding places" 1t was
situated Immediately above Letart's
Falls. The boat, obedient to the