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Harry G. Dyer
The Log of Harry G. Dyer: Steamboatman,
Upper Mississippi, 1881-1902 Excerpts from
Upper Mississippi River Rafting Steamboats
Edward G. Mueller, Ohio University Press,
1995.
1885 The DAN THAYER and CLYDE Race
After putting in about three months on the
towboat SMOKY CITY towing coal from
Pittsburgh to New Orleans, we were forced to
lay up in the "Duck's Nest" at the mouth of
the Tennessee River at Paducah, Kentucky,
March 30, 1885. Low water in the Ohio River
was the cause of the lay up. I went over to
St. Louis and soon shipped on the BART E.
LINEHAN, a Knapp Stout boat, William
Slocumb, master; Jack Bradley, second pilot;
William Eagan, chief engineer; Bob
Scritchfield, second engineer; and George
Langdon, mate.
Our work was to meet the other Knapp Stout
boats, the LOUISVILLE, HELEN MAR, and
MENOMONIE, take their rafts, and go to St.
Louis while they went back after another.
Captain Slocumb had more experience on the
"lower end" and was better acquainted with
the St. Louis landing than the other Knapp
Stout pilots. Mr. Langdon wasn't a mate, he
just thought he was. He wouldn't ship a
steamboat man if he could get anyone else.
At one time we had a crew of two "rivermen,"
my partner, Dick White, and myself, and five
men out of a St. Louis rolling mill. Nice
crew, all friends of the mate, but when he
tried to make Dick and I do their work, he
had trouble.
One trip we had to take four strings of
lumber down to Crystal City, Missouri, where
there was a big plate glass factory a short
distance up Crystal. We delivered the lumber
and were "taking off the kit." I was coiling
down the check line and Langdon came along
and said, "When you get that check line
coiled down, straighten up those breast
lines." When I got the check line coiled
down, Dick said, "Let's go up to the glass
factory a few minutes," that he knew some
fellows up there. The captain and clerk had
gone up, so we went. When we got back, I
went back on the guards and was washing out
one of the skiffs that was pulled up on the
guards. Langdon was sitting on the bits on
the forecastle and motioned to me to come
out there. I went out and he said, "I told
you to coil those breast lines and you went
off and paid no attention to it." I said, "I
supposed he had men that knew enough to coil
down a breast line besides me." He said,
"I'll fix you, you " and grabbed a sharp axe
out of the rack and came at me and if there
was ever murder in a man's eye, it was in
his. I was scared stiff and thought it was
all up with yours truly, but he tripped on
the breast line and pitched forward. I don't
know how I did it, but I grabbed him by the
throat and shoved him back onto the stairs
and I hit him right on the bridge of his
nose.
As soon as I got him down, two of his
rolling mills boys jumped on my back. An
"old-timer" named Kelley came along just
then, picked up the axe and said, "Hang on
to his wind, Harry, he'll squeal if you let
up, and if one of you rolling mill yaps put
a hand in this, I'll cut him in two." I
pounded him until I was tired and left him
laying there on the stairs. The captain came
aboard and there wasn't a man in sight. He
looked at Langdon lying there on the stairs.
Never asked a question and went up and
"backed her out." Langdon finally came to
and told me I had better get off the boat
and right now, but Dick White told him to go
up and get his gun and he would shoot it off
for him.
I got off when we arrived in St. Louis and
went to work the next day for Captain
Slocumb's nephew on the Knapp Stout landing.
The Knapp Stout boats all laid up Sundays
and sometimes when we were going up river
and happened to be forty or fifty miles from
some town where some of the crew lived, we
would run a few hours overtime so they could
have a Sunday at home. One Sunday we laid at
Canton, Missouri. Both engineers lived
there, also the watchman. That day engineer
Eagan's tenyear-old son had supper on the
boat. We had a cook that summer from the
lower river where he had been a packet cook.
Every case like this when one of the crew
brought a friend aboard at meal time, that
meal went down in the cook's little black
book. I don't know how Captain Slocumb heard
of it, but one day we were lying at St.
Louis all ready to go up the river and John
H. Douglas, Secretary of the Knapp Stout
Company, came down to the boat. Captain
Slocumb went out on the bank and walked up
to him and said, "Mr. Douglas, I don't care
whether I go up in the doghouse and back
that boat out or not, but that cook and I
don't go out on the same boat." They didn't,
but Captain Slocumb wasn't the one that got
off.
Fourth of July I found myself in Keokuk,
Iowa, and a few days after that I shipped on
the steamer DAN THAYER owned by the P. S.
Davidson Lumber Company, LaCrosse,
Wisconsin. I. H. Short was captain; Chas.
Short, second pilot; Chas. Burrell, chief
engineer; Jas. Ferguson, second engineer;
Dave Judson, mate. While on this boat I was
in the hottest race I was ever in on any
steamboat. The THAYER came out a new boat in
the fall of 1884. That same fall, Turner and
Hollingshead brought out the steamer CLYDE.
This company also owned two other boats, the
ABNER GILE and the LILY TURNER, and was
towing lumber to Hannibal, Missouri. The
THAYER was towing logs to Keokuk, Iowa.
In the spring of 1885, all the talk on the
river was of the race that was to be run
between the DAN THAYER and the CLYDE and the
chances for and against each boat. Finally,
the time came. The THA YER was on her way up
the river and we met the CLYDE going down
with a raft at the foot of Nine Mile Island,
below Dubuque. A short time before, perhaps
an hour, we had passed the ABNER GILE, also
on her way upstream. Captain Short knew that
the CLYDE would turn her raft over to the
GILE as they had been doing so all that
season. We went on up the river and landed
at Hurricane Island, eighteen miles above
Dubuque, and pretended to cut windlass
poles, really to wait for the CLYDE. We
didn't have long to wait and Short let her
go by and then pulled out after her. Before
we caught up with her, the CLYDE landed and
they claimed afterward that she "blew out a
joint" on her steam line. We went on up the
river and at Glen Haven, Wisconsin, rang
down to a slow bell. Then, with our wheel
barely rolling, we proceeded to get ready
for what was to come. In a short time, the
CLYDE came up alongside and her captain,
Jerry Turner, went up and took the wheel,
leaned out of the pilot house window and
said, "Now come on Short, I am ready for
you." When he ran the THAYER off the slow
bell, it seemed to me that she jumped about
one hundred feet before she hit the water
again.
For about ten miles, it was nip and tuck,
but the CLYDE was on the larboard side and
on the crossing below Clayton, Iowa, she got
a little behind and got into our stern
swells and could not get alongside again. I
looked at the steam gauge in the firebox and
it read 265 pounds, then I went back to the
engine room. Engineer Burrell stood there
with his hand on the throttle valve and he
said, "Harry, get out on the sharp end, she
is liable to come back in here any time."
His steam gauge showed 275 pounds. We were
allowed 165 pounds! At McGregor, Iowa, we
were about three miles ahead and we had to
land. Our "doctor," or boiler feed pump,
wasn't putting any water into the boilers
and about half of our wheel had been thrown
off. When we got to LaCrosse, Captain Short
hurried to the office of the LaCrosse paper
with his account of the race and I'll bet
that my partner and I pulled a skiff one
hundred miles on our next trip taking a copy
of the paper ashore to show to his friends.
Our next trip up the river he brought the
paper down and had me wrap a lump of coal up
in it. Then he said he would "run in close
at Port Byron, Illinois, and for me to throw
it ashore, where, a particular friend would
get it but I guess I only had one thickness
of paper on one side of the coal. I threw so
hard the coal went ashore and the paper
dropped in the river. Short was a good
pilot, but he spoiled it by always telling
how good he was.
We landed in Clinton, Iowa, one day on our
way up the river and he said we would be
there about two hours. I went uptown to mail
a letter and was gone about one-half hour,
but when I did get back, the boat was making
the crossing below Lyons and I didn't have a
coat, vest, or a cent and had to "railroad"
to LaCrosse. Nice man. He was one of a
family of five brothers, all pilots; Jerome
E., Allen M., George C., Chas. M., and Ira
H., better known as "Windy," all good pilots
and all have made "their last landing."
There were three of us left at Clinton and
it took us two days to "brush the bumpers"
and then had to nearly have a fight with Mr.
Holmes, the secretary of the company, to get
our money and then didn't get it all but if
they were satisfied, we were. We balanced
the books.
I was in LaCrosse one day and then shipped
on the good steamer DEXTER owned by McDonald
Brothers, LaCrosse, Wisconsin. John O'Connor
was captain; George Nichols, second pilot;
John Orait, chief engineer; Chas. Davidson,
second engineer; and John Mills, mate. Our
towing was logs to Quincy, Illinois and
Hannibal, Missouri. It was getting late in
the season, but I think I made three trips
on the DEXTER and to this day I can't tell
how she was kept afloat.
She was built at Osceola, Wisconsin, in 1867
and was dismantled at LaCrosse, Wisconsin,
in 1888 and twenty-one years is a long life
for a Mississippi raft boat with no more
repairs than the DEXTER got. She came into
LaCrosse late in 1888. Her kit was taken off
and she was taken up into Black River to
McDonald's boat yard and thirty-seven
minutes later she was sitting on the bottom
of Black River. The steam had gone down and
the siphons had quit and "Old Faithful" was
at rest. Peter O'Rourke, James Newcomb, Bony
Lucas, Andy Lambert, and "Lome Short" are
some of the pilots who did good work with
the DEXTER and Jack Orait, James, and Henry
Tully, Joseph, and Frank Dillon were some of
her engineers. Peace to her ashes.
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