Chapter VIII

_The Mate_

In writing of life on the main deck of a Mississippi River steamboat

fifty years ago, a prefatory note may be in order. The reader must

bear in mind that times have changed; and men, in the mass, have

changed, and that for the better, in the years that have elapsed

between 1860 and 1908. Slavery then held sway on the west bank of

the river, from the Iowa line to the Gulf. On the east side in

the State of Illinois even, the slavery idea predominated; and

on the river there was no "other side" to the question. Slavery

was an "institution", as much to be observed and venerated as any

institution of the country. A black man was a "nigger", and nothing

more. If he were the personal property of a white man in St. Louis,

or below, he was worth from eight hundred to fifteen hundred dollars,

and was therefore too valuable to be utilized in the make-up of

a boat's crew running north. The inclemency of the weather, or

the strenuousness of the mate, might result in serious physical

deterioration that would greatly depreciate him as a chattel, to say

nothing of the opportunities offered him by the northern trip to

escape to Canada, and thus prove a total loss.

Of free negroes there were not enough to man the hundreds of

steamboats plying on the upper river. Thus it came about that the

cabin crews on some boats, and the firemen on others, were colored,

while the deck crews (roustabouts and stevedores) were white. So

marked was this division of labor that it came to pass that no

"nigger" was permitted by the white rousters to handle any freight,

on any boat. The modern unions take no greater exception to a

non-union workman than the white deck hands then expressed for a

"nigger" as a freight handler.

Another class distinction was, that nine-tenths of the deck crew

were Irishmen. In that day the poorer sort of that nationality were

the burden-bearers of this country. They dug the ditches, built the

railroad embankments, and toted the freight on the river. Since

that time they have wonderfully developed; in the present day, very

few even of the emigrants handle pick and shovel, and none handle

freight as river deck hands. They are the trainmen and policemen of

the country, and their sons are our mayors and aldermen, our judges

and law-makers. The dirt-handling on the railroads is passed on to

the Italians and the Huns, while the river freight-handling, what

little there is of it, is done by the lower class of negroes. The

abolition of slavery has prodigiously increased their numbers, as

well as amazingly cheapening them in value. All this has relevancy in

describing an old-time mate and his work.

There was a fellow feeling between the chief mate and the second

clerk. For one thing, they were both in the second rank, officially,

although that did not count for a great deal, I think, as neither

of them thought of it in just that way. My recollection is, that

both of them thought of it from the other point of view--they were

over so many men, and in command of so many things and situations,

rather than under the captain and the chief clerk. You will observe

at once that this put an entirely different construction upon the

question; and this was, after all, the only reasonable and practical

view to take of it, and the one that came nearest to meeting all

the conditions. In fact, no other view of the situation could be

taken. When the captain and the chief clerk were off duty and

asleep in their staterooms, or even off duty and awake, loitering

about the boat, the responsibility was immediately shifted to their

subordinates. Even though the captain might be sitting in the door

of his room in the forward end of the "Texas", while the mate stood

at the bell to make a landing, the amenities and traditions of

river life put him out of the game as completely as though he were

asleep in his berth. The same also was true of the chief clerk and

his subordinate. The chief might be smoking his after-dinner cigar

within ten feet of the office, or he might walk out on the levee and

talk with the agent; but until asked, he never took any part in the

distinctive business transactions of his subordinate, or in any way

interfered with his manner of transacting the business. He might,

later, if necessary, make suggestions looking to the betterment

of the methods of his second; but that would be a purely personal,

rather than an official, utterance.

It followed, therefore, that my acquaintance with Billy Wilson was

much closer than with the captain; and standing watch with him day

after day and night after night during a long season's run, I came

to know him intimately. He was born in Pennsylvania, the son of a

"Pennsylvania Dutchman." Beginning his professional life on the

Allegheny River, he worked down the Ohio, and when the great boom in

upper Mississippi traffic began in 1854, engaged in that trade. A

smooth-shaven, red-faced man, about five feet eight inches in height,

he weighed probably a hundred and sixty pounds. Occasionally he took

a drink of whiskey, as did all river men, but it was seldom. He

was well read, and ordinarily, a very quiet man, therefore all the

more to be feared and respected. He would hardly fill the bill as a

traditional Mississippi River steamboat mate; and were his prototype

shown on the stage it would be voted slow, uninteresting, and untrue

to type.

In the beginning of this chapter I endeavored to indicate what manner

of men composed our deck crew. Ours numbered forty men. Almost

without exception they were Irishmen of the lowest class, picked up

alongshore at St. Louis, Galena, Dubuque, and St. Paul, from the

riffraff of the levee. They would get drunk whenever they could get

whiskey; and as the boat carried hundreds of barrels of this liquor

each trip, it required eternal vigilance on the part of the mates and

watchmen to prevent the crew broaching a barrel and getting fighting

drunk and mutinous. When this happened, as now and then it did in

spite of all precautions, Billy Wilson was turned in an instant from

a quiet Pennsylvania Dutchman into a dangerous, if not devilish,

driver. He carried, on most occasions, a paddle made from a pork

barrel stave. This had a handle at one end, and the other, shaped

something like a canoe paddle, was bored full of quarter-inch holes.

When the case was one of mere sluggishness on the part of one of the

hands, a light tap with the flat part of this instrument was enough

to inspire activity. When the case was one of moroseness or incipient

mutiny, the same flat side, applied by his powerful muscles, with a

quick, sharp stroke, would leave a blood-blister for every hole in

the paddle; and when a drunken riot was to be dealt with, the sharp

edge of the paddle on a man's head left nothing more to be done with

that man until he "came to." With a revolver in his left hand and

his paddle in his right, he would jump into the middle of a gang of

drunken, mutinous men, and striking right and left would intimidate

or disable the crowd in less time than it takes to tell it. He never

used his pistol, and to my knowledge never called for assistance,

although that was ready if required, for all officers were usually at

hand and ready in case of necessity.

In a row that took place at Prairie du Chien one night, when the

men had sent up town and smuggled in a jug of whiskey, one man who

was hit on the head by the paddle went overboard on the upstream side

of the boat. He was instantly sucked under by the swift current, and

was never seen again. The coroner's jury in the case brought in a

verdict of "accidental death", and Wilson came back to work after a

week's sojourn with the sheriff, having won an added prestige that

rendered less necessary the use of the paddle.

Ordinarily his commands were given in a low tone of voice,

unaccompanied with the profanity which legend and story considered

due from the man and his office. When things went wrong, however,

the wide range and profundity of his language was a revelation to

the passengers who might chance to be within ear-shot. I recall an

outbreak, one April morning at about four o'clock, at a woodyard,

between Trempealeau and Winona. He had called, "All hands, wood

up!" It was a cold and rainy night, and many of the men had crawled

in under the boilers to dry their clothes and seek sleep. After

the first round or two, he found that ten or fifteen men were

missing--they were "soldiering." He went aft and ransacked the bunks

without finding the truants. He then dove under the boilers with his

paddle, striking in the dark, and feeling for some one to hit, at the

same time pouring out a torrent of profanity that in ordinary walks

of life, would be called monumental, but which in the more exacting

conditions of river life, probably was not above medium grade. The

next count found every man in line, toting his share of the wood.

It may be and was asked by Eastern people, unused to river life,

"Why do the men submit to such treatment? Why do they not throw the

mate into the river?" The answer is, caste. They were used to being

driven, and expected nothing else, and nothing better, and they

would not work under any other form of authority. As I stated at the

beginning, they were of the very lowest class. No self-respecting man

would ship as a deck hand under the then existing conditions. One

might now travel long and look in vain for a white crew driven as

these men then were. Their places have been taken by the freed negro;

he to-day is being driven as his white predecessors were then.

There is this distinction, however; now, most of the drivers are

Irishmen--the mates and watchmen on the river steamers. Then an

Irishman was of little service as a mate. Those officers were, as a

rule, Yankees or Southerners or Pennsylvania Dutchmen. We had for a

time a second mate, Con Shovelin, an Irishman, as you might suspect

from his name. He was six feet high, and big in every way, including

his voice. He roared and swore at the crew all the time, but put very

little spirit into them. A look out of the corner of Wilson's eye,

and a politely worded request that they "Get a hump, now!" was worth

a volume of Shovelin's exordiums. At that time an Irishman could not

handle an Irish crew; now, he can handle a crew of free negroes with

the expenditure of one-half the wind and oratory. If you wish to see

for yourself, take a trip on the river to St. Louis and return, and

see the Celt driving the Ethiopian, even as the Saxon drove the Celt,

fifty years ago.

[Illustration: ABOVE TREMPEALEAU, WISCONSIN. In the middle

foreground, at the head of the slough, is the site of the winter camp

of Nicolas Perrot, in the winter of 1684-5, as identified in 1888

by Hon. B. F. Heuston and Dr. Reuben Gold Thwaites of the Wisconsin

State Historical Society.]