The news scimitar. (Memphis, Tenn.) 1907-1926, 1920-07-26
SHAREHOLDERS
| Of FORMER DAYS
ARE BUT MEMORY
Once Familiar Figures Along
Banks of Mississippi DiSap-
pear and Go Never to Re-
turn to Old HauntS.
BYE, C, HOLT.

I
The lining of the Ducks Nest is gone
There may be some OF the down scat
tered on the smaller tributaries of the
Mississippi. but the 'shanties' that not
SO many years ago nestled against the
giant bluffs of Memphis during the
fall winter and into the early spring
nave departed never to return again.
Yes, the Duck'e Nest is a matter of
history these days but the veteran
rats of the river look way off in
the direction of nowhere when mention
is made of the shanty boats.
AS the Indian and the bad man"
tell in front of the advance of civil
cation and the long arm of the law,
the shanty- boaters once prominent fig
ures on the Mississippi and other rivers,
departed with the advance of modern
civilization and its aides, education and
law.
Old-timers of Memphis can well re-
member the little colony that would
make its appearance in the local har-
Dor every fall apd when the first warm
winds from the south started to blow
In the early spring they would depart
to where, no one ever seemed TO know.
They just went and river men say that
their pilots did not know their desti-
nation but tied up at the first favor
able-looking spot along the bank.
''stevies" along the river front and a
veteran of A years on the Mississippi,
Ohio and Tennessee rivers mentioned
the vanishing" of the small transient
river crafts one morning last week and
when questioned regarding their dis
appearance told the history of the
shanties as he has known them dur
ing his time
According to Nick, any place that
offered warm shelter from the winter
winds was called the Ducks Nest for
the small boats were sure to tie up
nv 10
eral favorite locations on the Missis-
sippi and Ohio rivers but the Mem
phs harbor and a small creek near
Paducah, KY, seemed to hold the pref
erence of the transient river clan.
Using Nick's xpression, they. were
generally a 'wuthless lot" and never
seemed to care how they got by"
Some of them were supposedly wealthy
and had about all the comforts that
could be stored upon a IL by 20 foot
shanty boat The wealth is supposed
to have been CLEANED from pearllng IN
the mussel shoals and few of them
conducted merchandise stores on their
boats.
n A long time ago, before the railroads
were doing a rushing business into
Memphis, many of the boats would
roost in the creeks near Paducah and
in the spring they would load up with
merchandise and journey down the Mis-
sissippi river to this port where they
would tie up for a few days and then
sell out The remainder of the year
they lived a life of sublime leisure.
! Others were not so enterprising and
made their living by pillaging planta-
tions and boats along the rivers. These
We're the first to go as soon as law
and order took a hand in their des-
tiny The others just naturally dis
appeared when the railroads and big
steamboats, began to haul supplies to-
ward the South so much cheaper than
the shanty boats could hope to trans
port them. The high wages probably
had some effect in inducing them away
from the river life.
There are many reasons for their dis
appearance some of which are correct
and some which are not, but never
theless they are gone. Only a few
of them spot the river banks in this
day and they have ceased to be the
rovers that once made their ancestors
famous The ones that remain today
are mostly descendants of the old
shanty- boaters, who have been unable
to resist the call of the river, but the
Id-timers of the Memphis water front
predict that within a few years they
too will be gone.
Anyway, remarked Nick Weather
by 1.-The river amt the same since you
don't see 'em any more"