Wooding Up on the Mississippi
As second clerk, I was early taught to hold my own with the pirates who conducted the woodyards scattered along the river, from which the greater part of the fuel…
From: 1854 C.E. To: 1863 C.E.
Location: Mississippi River
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
“Wooding Up” from Old Times on the Upper Mississippi: The Recollections of a Steamboat Pilot from 1854 to 1863 by George Merrick.
As second clerk, I was early taught to hold my own with the pirates who conducted the woodyards scattered along the river, from which the greater part of the fuel used on old-time river boats was purchased. There was a great variety of wood offered for sale, and a greater diversity in the manner of piling it. It was usually ranked eight feet high, with a "cob-house" at each end of the rank. It was the rule on the river to measure but one of the end piles, if the whole rank was taken, or one-half of one end pile if but a part of the rank was bought. For convenience, the wood-men usually put twenty cords in a rank, and allowed enough to cover the shortage caused by cross-piling at the ends. Being piled eight feet high, ten lengths of the measuring stick (eight feet long) equalled twenty cords, if it were fairly piled. Woodmen who cared for their reputation and avoided a "scrap" with the clerks, captains, and mates of steamboats, usually made their twenty-cord ranks eighty-four feet long and eight feet high. Such dealers also piled their sticks parallel to each other in the ranks; they also threw out the rotten and very crooked ones. When the clerk looked over such a tier, after having run his stick over it, he simply invited the owner aboard and paid him his fifty or sixty dollars, according to the quality of the wood, took him across the cabin to the bar, and invited him to "have one on the boat", shook hands, and bade him good night.
It took the "pirates" to start the music, however. When only scant eighty feet were found in the rank, with rotten and green wood sandwiched in, all through the tiers, and crooked limbs and crossed sticks in all directions, it became the duty of the clerk to estimate his discount. After running his rod over it, he would announce, before the first stick was taken off by the deck hands, the amount of wood in the rank—nineteen and a half cords, nineteen cords, eighteen and a half cords, or in extreme cases only eighteen. When the mate could stand behind the rank and see, through a cross-piled hole, more than half the length of the steam-boat, it was deemed a rather acute case, calling for the eighteen-cord decision. When this decision was made and announced, it was, on our boat at least, always adhered to. We always took wood some time before our visible supply was exhausted, in order to meet just such emergencies.
The owner might, and usually did, damn everybody and everything connected with the craft in the most lurid terms. But the one question he had to answer, and answer quickly, was: "Will you take it?" If "No", the bell was struck and the boat backed off, while the woodman and roustabouts exchanged a blue-streaked volley of vituperation. If, on the other hand, a sale was made, the owner usually took his money and the inevitable drink at the bar, and then went down to the main deck and had it out with the mate, who was always a match, and more than a match, for any merely local and provincial orator. His vocabulary was enriched with contributions from all ports between St. Louis and St. Paul, while that of the squatter was lacking in the elements of diversity necessary to give depth and breadth to the discussion.
It would be unjust to class all woodyard men with squatters like the foregoing specimens, of whom there were hundreds scattered along the islands and lowlands bordering the river, cutting wood on government land, and moving along whenever the federal officers got on their trail. On the mainland were many settlers, opening up farms along the river, and the chance to realize ready money from the sale of wood was not to be neglected. In many places chutes had been built of heavy planks, descending from the top of the bluff, from one to two hundred feet above the river. The upland oak, cut into four-foot lengths, was shot down to the water's edge, where a level space was found to rank it up. These men were honest, almost without exception, and their wood always measured true. The upland wood was vastly superior to the lowland growth; steamboat captains not only paid the highest price for it, but further endeavored to contract for all the wood at certain yards. I remember one, run by a Mr. Smith, between Prescott and Diamond Bluff, and another near Clayton, Iowa, that always furnished the best dry oak wood, and gave full measure.
It was at the latter place that I nearly lost my berth, through a difference with the "Old Man"—the captain. I had measured the rank and announced the amount of wood as twenty cords. The captain was on deck at the time, and watching the measurement. When the announcement was made he ordered the wood remeasured. I went over it carefully, measuring from the centre of the cross-pile at one end to the centre of the cross-pile at the other end of the rank, and again reported "twenty cords". Captain Faucette called down to "measure it again", with an inflection plainly intimating that I was to discount it, adding, "You measured both ends." The rank was full height, closely piled, and the best of split white oak, and I had already taken out one of the ends; further, I had already twice reported twenty cords in the hearing of all the crew and many passengers, who were now giving their undivided attention to this affair. I therefore did not feel like stultifying myself for the sake of stealing a cord or two of wood, and replied that I had already measured it twice, and that I had not measured both ends of the rank. The "Old Man" flew into a rage and ordered me to go to the office and get my money, and he would find a man who knew how to measure wood. There being nothing for it but to obey an order of this kind, I went aboard, hung up my measuring stick in its beckets, and reported at the office for my money. Mr. Hargus, my chief, was astonished, and asked for an explanation, which I gave him. He rushed out to the woodpile with the rod, ran over it in a flash, and reported to the captain on the roof, "Twenty cords, sir!" and came back to the office. He told me to go on with my work and say nothing, which I was ready enough to do. In the meantime, the crew were toting the wood aboard.
When the boat backed off, the captain sent for Mr. Hargus to meet him in his private room in the "Texas", where they had it out in approved style. Hargus only replied to Captain Faucette that if Merrick was discharged he would also take his pay and go ashore with him. Faucette was a new man in the line, from the far South, and a comparative stranger, while Hargus was a veteran with the company, a stockholder in the line, and backed by all the Dubuque stockholders, as well as by the officers and directors of the company; so the captain thought better of it and dropped the whole matter, never deigning to speak to the second clerk, either in way of apology, which was not expected, or of caution "not to let it occur again", which would have been an insult. The affair was "dropped overboard", as Hargus said, and the wood-measuring was thereafter left to the proper officer, without comment or interference.
With a crew of forty men looking on and hearing the whole colloquy, a change in the amount of wood reported at the suggestion of the captain, would have simply wiped out any respect they may have had for the authority of the boy officer; and his usefulness on that boat, if not on the river, would have ended then and there. It was one of the unwritten rules of the service that the officers were to stand by each other in every way; there was to be no interference while on duty, and each was held responsible for such duty. If there was cause for reprimand it was to be administered in the privacy of the captain's office, and not in the presence of the whole crew. It was not desirable to have either office or officer held in contempt.
As the steamboat business developed, and as immigration into the new Territory of Minnesota increased, there was necessity for getting as many trips into a season as possible. This led to the adoption of every device that might lessen the running time of steamers between the lower ports and St, Paul, Not the least of these innovations was the use of the wood-boat for the more ready transfer of fuel from the bank to the deck of the steamer. Flatboats, or scows, capable of carrying twenty cords of wood, and even forty, were loaded at the woodyards in readiness for the expected steamer. As the wood was worth more loaded in the scow, a higher price was given by steamboatmen, and contracts were made ahead; the date of arrival of the boat was determined, and the wood-boat was in readiness, day or night, with two men on board. It was the work of a few minutes only to run alongside, make fast the towlines, and while the steamer was on her way up river, thirty or forty men pitched or carried the wood aboard.
Ordinarily, the wood-boat was not in tow more than half an hour, which would take her five or six miles up river. When the wood was out, the towlines were cast off, a large sweep or steering oar was shipped up at each end of the scow, and it drifted back to be reloaded for the next customer. The steamboat, meanwhile, had lost practically no time in wooding, as the tow was so light as but slightly to impede her speed. The greatest danger in the transaction was that the great packet might swamp the scow by running at too great speed, towing her under by the head, as sometimes occurred. To avoid this contingency the wood was always taken first from the bow of the flatboat. As it was only the fast packets that patronized the wood-boats, this danger of towing under was always present, and the pilots were always very careful in the handling of their boats at such times. Flats were seldom towed downstream, for the reason that there was no way of getting them back, except to pay for a tow. And again, the packets were not in so much of a hurry when going down river, for then they had but few passengers to feed, and no fast freight.
Merrick, George Byron. Old Times on the Upper Mississippi: The Recollections of a Steamboat Pilot from 1854 to 1863. The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1909.
About TOTA
TOTA.world provides cultural information and sharing across the world to help you explore your Family’s Cultural History and create deep connections with the lives and cultures of your ancestors.
