Four Months in a Sneak-Box : a Boat Voyage of 2600 Miles Down The
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THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY ILLINOiS RISTORICAI SURVEY Four Months in a Sneak- Box. A BOAT VOYAGE OF 260O MILES DOWN THE OHIO AND MISSISSIPPI RIVERS, AND ALONG THE GULF OF MEXICO. BY NATHANIEL H. BISHOP, AUTHOR OF "a THOUSAND MILEs' WALK ACROSS SOUTH AMERICA,' ANU '"VoVAOE OK THE PAl'ER CANUii." BOSTON: LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS. NEW YORK: CHARLES T. DILLINGHAM. 1S79. COPYRIGHT, 1S79, By Nathaniel II. Bishop. Electrotyped at the Boston Stereotype Foundry, 19 Spring Laue. TO THE OFFICERS AND EMPLOYEES OF THE LIGHT HOUSE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE UNITED STATES Sbls ^ook is pcb'uatcb BY ONE WHO HAS LEARXED TO RESPECT THEIR HONEST, INTELLIGENT AND EFFICIENT LABORS IN SERVING THEIR GOVERNMENT, THEIR COUNTRYMEN, AND MANKIND GENERALLY. 1085S7 — INTRODUCTION. Eighteen months ago the author gave to the " public his Voyage of the Paper Canoe : — a geographical journey of 25oo miles from Ql'ebec to the Gulf of Mexico, during the YEARS 1874-5." The kind reception by the American press of the author's first journey to the great southern sea, and its republication in Great Britain and in France within so short a time of its appearance in the United States, have encouraged him to give the public a companion volume, "Four Months in A Sneak-Box," — which is a relation of the expe- riences of a second cruise to the Gulf of INIexico, but by a different route from that followed in the " Voyage of the Paper Canoe." This time the author procured one of the smallest and most com- fortable of boats — a purely American model, devel- oped bv the bay-men of the New Jersey coast of the United States, and recently introduced to the gunning V VI INTRODUCTION. fraternity as the Barnegat Sneak-Box. This curi- ous and stanch little craft, though only twelve feet in length, proved a most comfortable and serviceable home while- the author rovs^ed in it more than 2600 miles down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, until he reached the goal of his voyage — the mouth of the wild Suwanee River — which was the terminus of his "Voyage of the Paper Canoe." The maps which illustrate the contours of the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, like those in the other volume, are the most reliable ever given to the public, having been drawn and engraved, by con- tract for the work, by the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey Bureau. Lake George, Warren Co., New York State, September ist, 1879. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. THE BOAT FOR THE VOYAGE. Canoes for Shallow Streams axd FREquEXX Portages. — SXEAK-BOXES FOR DeEP WATERCOURSES. HiSTORY AXD Description of the Barxegat Sneak-box. — A Walk Dowx Eel Street to Maxahawken Marshes. — Hoxest George the Boat-builder.— The Buildixg of the Sxeak- Box "Cextexnial Republic." — Its Transportation to THE Ohio River i CHAPTER H. SOURCES OF THE OHIO RIVER. Description of the Monongahela and Alleghany Riv- ers. —The Ohio River. — Explorations of Cavelier de LA Salle. — Names given by Ancient Cartographers to the Ohio. — Routes of the Aborigines from the Great Lakes to the Ohio River 19 CHAPTER HI. FROM PITTSBURGH TO BLENNERHASSET'S ISLAND. The Start for the Gulf. — Caught in the Ice Raft. — Camping ox the Ohio. — The Grave Creek Mound. — An Indian Sepulchre. — Blennerhassets Island. — Aaron Burr's Conspiracy. — A Ruined Family ^9 vii — Vlll CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. FROM BLENNERHASSET'S ISLAND TO CINCINNATI. River Camps. — Tiie Shanty-Boats and River Migrants. — Various Experiences. — Arrival at Cincinnati. —The Sneak-box frozen up in Pleasant Run. — A Tailor's Family. — A Night under a German Coverlet 55 CHAPTER V. FROM CINCINNATI TO THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. Cincinnati. — Music and Pork in PoRKOPotis. The Big Bone Lick of Fossil Elephants. — Colonel Croghan's Visit to the Lick. — Portage around the "Falls" at Louisville, Kentucky. — Stuck in the Mud. —The First Steamboat of the West. — Victor Hugo on the Situa- tion. — A Freebooter's Den. — Whooping and Sand-hill Cranes. — The Sneak-box enters the Mississippi ... 79 CHAPTER VI. DESCENT OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. Leave Cairo, Illinois. — The Longest River in the World.—Book Geography and Boat Geography.— Chick- asaw Bluff. — Meeting with the Parakeets. — Fort Donaldson. — Earthquakes and Lakes. — Weird Beauty of Reelfoot Lake. —Joe Eckel's Bar. — Shanty-boat Cooking. — Fort Pillow. — Memphis. — A Negro Jus- tice. — "De Common Law ob Mississippi" 115 CHAPTER VII. DESCENT OF THE MISSISSIPPI TO NEW ORLEANS. A Flatboat bound for Texas. — A Flat-man on River Physics. — Adrift and Asleep. — Seeing the Earth's Little Moon. — Vicksburgh. —Jefferson Davis's Cot- CONTEXTS. IX TON Plantation, and its Negro Owner. — Dying in iiio Boat. — How to civilize Chinese. — A Swim of One Hun- dred and Twenty Miles ON THE Mississippi. — Twenty- four Hours IN THE Water. — Arrival in the Crescent City 150 CHAPTER VIII. NEW ORLEANS. Bienville and the City of the Past. — French and Span- ish Rule in the New World. — Louisiana ceded to the United States. — Captain Eads and his Jetties. — Transportations of Cereals to Europe. — Charles Morgan. — Creole Types of Citizens. — Levees and Crawfish. — Drainage of the City into Lake Pont- chartrain 195 CHAPTER IX. ON THE GULF OF T^IEXICO. Leave New Orleans. — The Roughs at Work. — De- tained AT New Basin. — Saddles introduces Himself. — Camping on Lake Pontchartrain. — The Light-House of Point aux Herbes. — The Rigolets. — Marshes and JMosquitoes. — Lmportant Use of the MosqyiTO and Blow-fly. — St. Joseph's Light. — An Exciting Pull TO Bay St. Louis. — A Light-keeper lost in the Sea. — Battle of the Sharks. — Biloxi. — The Water-cress Garden. — Little Jennie 209 CHAPTER X. FROM BILOXI TO CAPE SAN BLAS. Points on the Gulf Coast. — Mobile Bay. — The Hermit OF Dauphine Island. — Bon Secours Bay. — A Cracker's Daughters. — The Portage to the Perdido. — The Port- age from the Perdido to Big Lagoon. — Pensacola X CONTENTS. Bay. — Santa Rosa Sound. — A New London Fisher- man. — Catching the Pompano. — A Negro Preacher AND White Sinners. — A Day and a Night with a Mur- derer. — St. Andrew's Sound. — Arrival at Cape San Blas 240 CHAPTER XI. FROM CAPE SAN BLAS TO ST. MARKS. A Portage across Cape San Blas. — The Cow-Hunters. — A Visit to the Light-House. — Once more on the Sea. — Portage into St. Vincent Sound. — Apalachicola. — St. George's Sound and Ocklockony River. — Arrival at St. Marks. — The Negro Postmaster. — A Philan- thropist AND his Neighbors. — A Continuous and Pro- tected Water-Way from the Mississippi River to the Atlantic Coast 273 CHAPTER Xn. FROM ST. MARKS TO THE SUWANEE RIVER. Along the Coast. — Saddles breaks down. — A Refuge WITH the Fishermen. — Camp in the Palm Forest. — Parting with Saddles. — Our Neighbor the Alliga- tor. — Discovery of the True Crocodile in Florida. — The Devil's Wood-pile. — Deadman's Bay. — Bowlegs Point. — The Coast Survey Camp. — A Day aboard the "Ready." — The Suwanee River. — The End 2S8 ILLUSTRATIONS. Drawn by F. T. Merrill. Engraved by John Andrew & Son. PAGE Shanty-Boats. — The Champion Floaters of the West, Frontispiece. Diagram of Parts of Boat, 14 Indian in Canoe, 28 The Start. — Head of the Ohio River, 31 Indian Mound at Moundsville, West Virginia, ... 54 A Night under a German Coverlet, 78 Popular Idea of the Nesting of Cranes, in Stern-wheel Western Tow-Boat pushing Flatboats, 114 Meeting with the Parakeets, 125 Dying in his Boat, 177 BOYTON descending THE MISSISSIPPI, 1 87 New Orleans Roughs amusing Themselves, . .214 Arrival at the Gulf of Mexico. — Camp Mosquito, . 239 The Portage across Crooked Island, 269 Saddles breaks down, 292 Parting with Saddles, 30 -> Last Night on the Gulf of Mexico, 322 xi LIST OF MAPS DRAWN AND ENGRAVED AT THE UNITED STATES COAST AND GEODETIC SURVEY BUREAU, TO ILLUSTRATE N. H. BISHOP'S BOAT VOYAGES. PAGE I. General Map of Routes followed by the Au- thor DURING two Voyages made to the Gulf OF Mexico, in the Years 1874-6, , . Opposite i GUIDE MAPS OF ROUTE FOLLOWED in duck-boat "centennial republic," along the gulf of mexico, in 1 876. 2. From New Orleans, Louisiana, to Mobile Bay, Alabama, Opposite 209 3. From Mobile Bay, Alabama, to Cape San Blas, Florida, Opposite 247 4. From Cape San Blas, Florida, to Cedar Keys, Florida, Opposite 273 MAP SHOWING RIVER AND PORTAGE ROUTES across FLORIDA FROM THE GULF OF MEXICO to the atlantic ocean. 5. Route followed by the Author in Paper Canoe "Maria Theresa," in 1875, • • Opposite 319 xii FOUR MONTHS IN A Si\EAK-BOX. CHAPTER I. THE BOAT FOR THE VOYAGE. CAXOES FOR SHALLOW STREAMS AND FREQUENT PORTAGES. — SNEAK-BOXES FOR DEEP WATERCOURSES. — HISTORY AND DE- SCRIPTION OF THE BARNEGAT SNEAK-BOX. — A WALK DOWN EEL STREET TO MANAHAWKEN MARSHES. — HONEST GEORGE, THE BOAT-BUILDER. — THE BUILDING OF THE SNEAK-BOX "CEN- TENNIAL REPUBLIC." — ITS TRANSPORTATION TO THE OHIO RIVER. HE reader who patiently followed the au- T thor in his long "Voyage of the Paper Canoe," from the high latitude of the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the warmer regions of the Gulf of Mexico, may desire to know the rea- sons which impelled the canoeist to exchange his light, graceful, and swift paper craft for the comical-looking but more commodious and comfortable Barnegat sneak-box, or duck-boat. Having navigated more than eight thousand miles in sail-boats, row-boats, and canoes, upon the fresh and salt watercourses of the North American continent (usually without a compan- I I 2 FOUR MONTHS IN A SNEAK-BOX. ion), a hard-earned experience has taught me that while the light, frail canoe is indispensable for exploring shallow streams, for shooting rap- ids, and for making long portages from one watercourse to another, the deeper and more continuous water-ways may be more comfortably traversed in a stronger and heavier boat, which offers many of the advantages of a portable home.