Chapter XXIV

_A Versatile Commander; Wreck of the "Equator"_

While some men were to be found on the Mississippi in the sixties

who did not hesitate to avow themselves religious, and whose lives

bore witness that they were indeed Christians, the combination of a

Methodist preacher and a steamboat captain was one so incongruous

that it was unique, and so far as I know, without a parallel on the

river. There appeared to be no great incompatibility between the two

callings, however, as they were represented in the person of Captain

Asa B. Green. He was a good commander, as I had personal opportunity

of observing at the time of the incident described in this chapter;

and a few years later, when the great drama of the Civil War was on,

I again had an opportunity to observe Captain Green in his alternate

rôle of minister of the gospel, he having been appointed chaplain

of the Thirtieth Wisconsin Infantry in which I served as a private

soldier. In this capacity he showed rare good sense and practical

wisdom. He preached to the boys when a favorable opportunity offered

on a Sunday, when there was not too much else going on; but his

sermons were short, and as practical as was the man himself.

Of his conversion, or early life, on the river as a missionary,

little seemed to be known by any one whom I ever met. He ran the

Chippewa in the early days, during the summer months, and in the

winter did missionary work among the lumbermen, following them to

their camps in the woods, preaching and ministering to them; not

as an alien, and in an academic fashion, but as one "to the manner

born". It is likely that his young manhood was passed on the river

and in the lumber camps, and when he was converted his thoughts

turned naturally to the needs of these particular classes, for none

knew better than he just how great their needs were. Of how or where

he was ordained to preach I know nothing; but as he was in good

standing with the Methodist conference there is no question as to the

regularity of his commission. His master's certificate authorizing

him to command a steamboat certified to his standing as a river man.

Probably he divided his time between commanding a steamboat and

preaching the gospel, two callings so dissimilar, because the river

work was quite remunerative, financially, while the other was quite

the reverse. It probably took all the money he earned during the

summer to support himself and his philanthropies during the winter.

If his expenditures among the boys in the lumber camps were as

free-handed as were his gifts to poor, sick, wounded, and homesick

soldiers during his service with the Thirtieth Wisconsin during the

war, it would easily require the seven months' pay of a river captain

to sustain the other five months' liberality of the quondam preacher.

Certain it is, that after three years' service as chaplain he came

out as poor as he went in--in money. If the respect and high regard

of his brother officers were worth anything; or better yet, if the

love and gratitude of hundreds of plain boys in blue, privates in

the ranks, might be counted as wealth, then Captain Green was rich

indeed. And that was what he did count as real wealth. To be hugged

by one of his "boys" at a Grand Army reunion, one whom he had nursed

back to life in an army hospital by his optimistic cheerfulness and

Christian hope and comfort--was to him better than gold or silver. He

has gone to his reward; and whether he now is telling the "old, old

story" to other men in other spheres, or pacing the deck of a spectre

steamboat on the River of Life--whichever may be his work--beyond a

peradventure he is doing that work well.

In the spring of 1858, in April, in his capacity as captain, Asa B.

Green was commanding the steamer "Equator". She was a stern-wheel

boat of about a hundred and twenty tons, plying on the St. Croix

between Prescott and St. Croix Falls. The lake opened early that

season, but the opening was followed by cold and stormy weather, with

high winds. There was some sort of celebration at Stillwater, and as

was customary in those days an excursion was organized at Hastings

and Prescott to attend the "blow-out". About three hundred people

crowded the little steamer, men, women, and children. She started

off up the lake in the morning, fighting her way against a high wind

right out of the north. Charley Jewell was pilot, the writer was

"cub", John Lay was chief engineer. I have forgotten the name of the

mate, but whatever may have been his name or nationality, he was the

man for the place. He was every inch a man, as was the captain on the

roof, and so in fact was every officer on the boat.

Everything went well until we had cleared Catfish bar, at Afton. From

there to Stillwater is about twelve miles, due north. The wind had

full sweep the whole length of this reach. The lake is two and a half

miles wide just above Catfish bar. The sweep of the wind had raised a

great sea, and the heavily-laden boat crawled ahead into the teeth of

the blizzard--for it began to snow as well as blow. We had progressed

very slowly, under an extra head of steam, for about three miles

above the bar, when the port "rock-shaft", or eccentric rod, broke

with a snap, and the wheel stopped instantly; in fact, John Lay had

his hand on the throttle wheel when the rod broke, and in an instant

had shut off steam to save his cylinders.

As soon as the wheel stopped the boat fell off into the trough of the

sea. The first surge caught her on the quarter, before she had fully

exposed her broadside, but it rolled her lee guards under water,

and made every joint in her upper works creak and groan. The second

wave struck her full broadside on. The tables had just been set for

dinner. As the boat rolled down, under stress of wind and wave, the

tables were thrown to leeward with a crash of broken glass and china

that seemed to be the end of all things with the "Equator". Women

and children screamed, and many women fainted. Men turned white, and

some went wild, scrambling and fighting for life preservers. Several

persons--they could hardly be called men--had two, and even three,

strapped about their bodies, utterly ignoring the women and children

in their abjectly selfish panic. The occasion brought out all the

human nature there was in the crowd, and some that was somewhat baser

than human.

As a whole, however, the men behaved well, and set about doing what

they could to insure the safety of the helpless ones before providing

for their own safety. It has always been a satisfaction to me that

I had this opportunity, while a boy, to witness and take part in

an accident which, while it did not result in the loss of a single

life, had every element of great danger, and the imminent probability

of the loss of hundreds of lives. It was an object lesson in what

constituted manhood, self-reliant courage, official faithfulness, and

the prompt application of ready expedients for the salvation of the

boat.

When the crash came, Mr. Lay called up through the speaking-tube,

stating the nature and extent of the accident. Mr. Jewell reported

it to Captain Green, who ordered him to go to the cabin and attempt

to allay the fright of the passengers, and to prevent a panic. As he

started, Jewell ordered me to remain in the pilot house and listen

for calls from the engine-room.

In the meantime the deck hands, or many of them, were in a panic,

some of them on their knees on the forecastle, making strong vows

of religious reformation should they come safe to land. This was a

commendable attitude, both of body and spirit, had there been nothing

else to do. In this particular province it would seem that much

might have been expected from a captain who was also a preacher. On

the contrary his manner of meeting the exigency was decidedly and

profoundly out of drawing with preconceived notions of what might

be expected from such a combination. An old man from Prescott, the

richest man in town, and also one of the meanest, nearly seventy

years old, crept up the companion way to the upper deck, and clasping

Captain Green about the legs cried: "Save me! for God's sake save me!

and I will give you a thousand dollars"!

"Get away you d----d cowardly old cur. Let go of me and get down

below or I will throw you overboard", was Captain Green's exhortation

as he yanked him to his feet by his collar and kicked him to the

stairway. Both the language and the action were uncanonical in the

extreme; but then, he was acting for the time in his capacity as

captain, and not as preacher. I didn't laugh at the time, for I was

doing some thinking on my own hook about the salvation business;

and my estimate of the chances for getting to the shore, two miles

away, in that wind and sea, was not flattering. I have laughed many

times since, however, and wondered what the old miser thought of the

orthodoxy of Chaplain Green when he answered his prayer.

The deck hands also met with a surprise from the mate, and that in

less than a minute. Men think fast in such an emergency, especially

those schooled amid dangers and quickened in mind and body by

recurring calls for prompt action. A dozen seas had not struck

the "Equator" before the mate was on the forecastle, driving the

panic-stricken deck hands to work. Dropping the two long spars to

the deck, with the assistance of the carpenter and such men as had

gathered their wits together, he lashed them firmly together at each

end. Then bending on a strong piece of line extending from end to

end, and doubled, he made fast the main hawser, or snubbing line,

to the middle, or bight of the rope attached to the spars, and then

launched the whole overboard, making a "sea-anchor" that soon brought

the bow of the vessel head to sea, and eased the racking roll of the

hull, steadying the craft so that there was little further danger

of her sinking. In the ten or fifteen minutes that it had taken to

get the drag built and overboard, the waves had swept over the lower

deck and into the hold, until there was a foot of water weighing her

down, which the bilge pumps operated by the "doctor" were unable to

throw out as fast as it came in. Had it continued to gain for fifteen

minutes longer, the boat would have gone to the bottom with all on

board. The drag saved the vessel; the coolness and quickness of the

mate and carpenter were the salvation of the steamer and its great

load of people.

In the meantime other incidents were occurring, that made a lasting

impression upon my mind. I did not witness them myself, but I learned

of them afterwards. All this time I stood at the side of the useless

wheel in the pilot house, listening for sounds from the engine-room.

Mr. Lay was doing all that was possible to remedy the break. He cut

off the steam from the useless cylinder, and with his assistant and

the firemen, was at work disconnecting the pitman, with the intent

to try to work the wheel with one cylinder, which would have been

an impossibility in that sea. In fact it would have been impossible

under any circumstances, for the large wheel of a stern-wheel boat

is built to be operated by two engines; there is not power enough

in either one alone to more than turn it over, let alone driving

the steamboat. When the crash came, Engineer Lay's wife, who was

on board as a passenger, ran immediately to the engine-room to be

with her husband when the worst should come. He kissed her as she

came, and said: "There's a dear, brave, little woman. Run back to

the cabin and encourage the other women. I must work. Good-bye". And

the "little woman"--for she was a little woman, and a brave little

woman, also--without another word gave her husband a good-bye kiss,

and wiping away the tears, went back to the cabin and did more than

all the others to reassure the frightened, fainting women and little

children--the very antithesis of the craven old usurer who had crept

on his knees begging for a little longer lease of a worthless life.

It took an hour or more to drift slowly, stern first, diagonally

across and down the lake to the shore above Glenmont, on the

Wisconsin side, where she struck and swung broadside onto the beach.

The men carried the women ashore through four feet of water, and in

another hour the cabin was blown entirely off the sunken hull, and

the boat was a total wreck. Her bones are there to-day, a striking

attestation of the power of wind and wave, even upon so small a body

of water as Lake St. Croix.

Big fires were built from the wreckage to warm the wet and benumbed

people. Runners were sent to nearby farm houses for teams, as well as

to Hudson, seven or eight miles way. Many of the men walked home to

Prescott and Hastings. Captain Green, who owned the boat, stayed with

his crew to save what he could from the wreck, in which he lost his

all; but he had only words of thanksgiving that not a life had been

lost while under his charge. Through it he was cool and cheerful,

devoting himself to reassuring his passengers, as soon as the drag

was in place, and giving orders for getting the women and children

ashore as soon as the boat should strike. His only deviation from

perfect equipoise was exhibited in his treatment of the old man, a

notoriously mean, and exacting money-lender, with whom he had no

sympathy at any time, and no patience at a time like this.