Pen Pictures, of Eventful Scenes and Struggles of Life

by B. F. Craig

  Produced by David Widger from page images generouslyprovided by the Internet Archive

  PEN PICTURES

  Of Eventful Scenes and Struggles of Life

  By B. F. Craig

  Kansas City, Missouri

  1880

  [Ill cover]

  [Ill 0020]

  SCENE FIRST--INTRODUCTION.

  |It is fashionable to preface what we have to say.

  Some men build a large portico in front of the edifice they erect.

  This may attract the eye of a stranger, but no real comfort can berealized until we enter the house.

  And then no display of fine furniture or studied form of manners canequal a whole-soul, hearty welcome.

  Besides, no long proclamation of the entertainment can equal in interestthe entertainment itself.

  Without further preliminary ceremony, I will introduce you to the sadexperience of a living man:--

  Born in the house of respectable parents, on the southern bank of thebeautiful Ohio, in the dawn of the nineteenth century, and educated in alog school house, the first scenes of my manhood were upon the watersof the great Mississippi river and its tributaries. Leaving home at anearly age, no hopeful boy was ever turned loose in the wide world moreignorant of the traps and pit-falls set to catch and degrade the youthof this broad and beautiful land.

  At Vicksburg, Natchez, Under-the-Hill, and the Crescent City, witharmies of dissipation--like the Roman Cæsar--I came, I saw, I conquered.

  I had been taught from my earliest infancy that a _thief_ was ascape-goat--on the left-hand side of the left gate, where all the goatsare to be crowded on the last day. _And that saved me_.

  For I soon discovered that the _gambler_ and the _thief_ acted upon thesame theory.

  Having no desire to live through the scenes of my life again--I am notwriting my own history, but the history of some of the events in thelives of others that I have witnessed or learned by tradition--inthe execution of the task I shall enter the palace like the logcabin--without stopping to ring the bell.

  Although I have been a diligent reader for more than forty years, mygreatest knowledge of human character has been drawn from observation.For prudential reasons some fancy names are used in this story, but thecharacters drawn are true to the letter. Local, it is true, but maythey not represent character throughout this broad continent? In 1492Columbus discovered America--a Rough Diamond--a New World.

  Our fathers passed through the struggle of life in the _rough_, andthe log cabin ought to be as dear to the American heart as the modernpalace. Emancipated from ideas of locality, I hope, and honestly trustthat the sentiments in the Rough Diamond will be treasured in the heartsof the millions of my countrymen, and that no American character willever become so brilliant that it cannot allude with a nat’ve pride tothe Rough Diamond--our country a hundred years ago.

  And with a thousand other ideas brought to the mind, and blended withthe Rough Diamond, may the good Angel of observation rest with thereader as you peruse these pages.

  Near the seat of the present town of Helena, Arkansas, old Billy Hornerand Henry Mooney made a race on two little ponies, called respectivelySilver Heels and the Spotted Buck.

  The distance was one quarter of a mile, and the stake one hundreddollars.

  Wishing to obtain the signature of the Governor of Arkansas to a landgrant and title to a certain tract of land on the Mississippi river, Idetermined to attend the races.

  The ponies were to start at twelve o’clock, on the 15th day of May.I forget the year, but it was soon after the inauguration of steamnavigation on the Mississippi.

  On the 14th day of May I left Bush Bayou, twenty miles below Helena andfifteen miles back from the river, where I was on a tour of surveying,in company of two negro boys, from fifteen to twenty years of age, toassist me. Our route was down the Bayou, which was evidently an old bedof the great river. How long since the muddy and turbulent waters hadleft this location and sought the present channel no human calculationcould tell. Trees had grown up as large as any in other localities inthe Mississippi bottoms, in some places extending entirely across theBayou; in other places there was an open space one hundred yards wideand sometimes a mile long, but there were many places where the timberextended from shore to shore for miles. In such places our only guidewas a blaze upon the trees, made by the first navigators of the Bayou.We started in a canoe, eight feet long and eighteen inches wide, witha large trunk, a number of tools, and three men. When all were on boardthe top of our boat was only three-quarters of an inch above the water.In this critical condition the negroes had to go as freight, for theyare proverbially too awkward to manage a nice thing. Near the close ofour journey we were attacked by an alligator. He was sixteen feet long,and larger than our boat. His attack frightened the negroes so badlythat it was impossible to keep them still, and we came very near beingupset. I fired several times at the alligator, with a double-barreledshot-gun, charged with twenty-four buckshot, but the shot only glancedfrom his scales and fell into the water. At last, frightened by the loudcries of the negroes, the animal left us.

  When we arrived on the bank of the Mississippi the Western hemispherehad blindfolded the eye of day; the river was bank full, the turbulentwaters bearing a large quantity of drift wood down the stream. Upon theArkansas shore there was no sign of civilization. On the Mississippishore, two miles below, there was a cabin, and the faint light of theinmates was the only sign of civilization that met our view. To crossthe great river, in the dark, with its turbulent waters and drift wood,with a barque so heavily laden, was worse than the encounter with thealligator. I was young, brave and enthusiastic. Directing the negroes toplace themselves in the bottom of the boat, and not to stir hand or footat the risk of being knocked overboard with the paddle, I headedour little barque for the light in the cabin, which gave us a coursequartering down stream. To have held her square across the stream, shewould have undoubtedly filled with water. The night was dark, but theair was still as the inaudible breath of time.

  Knowing that the perils of the sea, without wind, are abated one hundredfold, I made the venture, and landed safely at the Mississippi cabin.

  Eighteen miles below Helena, and on the opposite side of the river, Ipassed the night, with a determination to be on the race ground the nextday at twelve o’clock. I was up early in the morning. As I passed outthe cot of my friend, in front of me the great father of waters rolledon in his majesty to the bosom of the ocean.

  On the background the foliage of the forest cast a green shade uponthe gray light of the morning. Every animal on the premises had soughtrefuge in the cane brakes from the ravages of the green-head fly andthe gallinipper. Like Richard the Third--I was ready to cry, a horse--ahorse--my kingdom for a horse.

  Through the dim distance, half concealed by the cane, I discovered amule, and was fortunate enough to bridle him. He was an old mule; somesaid the first Chickasaw Frenchman that ever settled in St. Louis rodehim from the north of Mexico to the Mississippi river.

  Others said that he was in the army of the First Napoleon, and had beenimported across the water. Be this as it may, he was a good saddle mule,for I arrived upon the race ground fifteen minutes ahead of time.

  I obtained the desired signature and saw the Spotted Buck win therace. But many said it was a jockey race, and that Silver Heels was thefleetest horse. The races continued through the evening. I had no desireto bet, but if I had, I should have bet on the fast man and not the fasthorse.

  After this event, and nearly half a century ago, I was standing on thestreet in Vicksburg. It was early in the morning, and the city unusuall
yquiet. My attention was attracted in the direction of the jail by womenrunning indoors and men rushing along the street; I saw sticks, stones,and bricks flying, and men running as in pursuit of some wild animal,and as I caught a glimpse of the figure of the retreating man, the sharpsound of a rifle gun rang out upon the morning air.

  Following on to a spot on the street where a large crowd of men hadcollected, I saw the face of a dead man as the body was being turnedover by one of the bystanders. The lineaments of the cold, marble face,spoke in a language not to be mistaken--that the dead was, in life, a_brave man_.

  I soon learned that the name of the dead man was “Alonzo Phelps,” andthat he had been tried for the crime of murder and sentenced by thecourt to be hanged by the neck until he was dead, and this was the dayfor his execution; that he had broken, or found an opportunity to leavethe jail, and nothing would stop him but the rifle-gun in the hands ofan officer of the law.

  I also learned that he had written a confession of his crimes, themanuscript of which was then in the jail, for he had knocked the keeperdown with a stone ink-stand, with which he had been furnished to writehis confession.

  By the politeness of the jailor I was permitted to examine theconfession, which closed with these remarkable words,

  “_To-morrow is the day appointed for my execution, but I will nothang._”

  The confession was afterward published. I read it many times, but haveforgotten most of it. I remember he said the first man he ever murderedwas in Europe, and that he was compelled, for safety, to flee thecountry and come to America. There was nothing so unusual in this, butthe manner in which he disposed of his victim was singular, and moreparticularly the revelation he gave of his thoughts at the time.

  He said he carried the body to a graveyard, and, with a spade that hadbeen left there, he shoveled all of the dirt out of a newly-made graveuntil he came to the coffin. He then laid the body of the murderedman on the coffin and refilled the grave. “I then,” says he, “leftthe graveyard, and spent the balance of the night in reflections. Howstrange, I thought, it would be for two spirits, on the last day, tofind themselves in the same grave.”

  “I thought,” says he, “if the relatives of the rightful owner of thegrave should, in after years, conclude to move the bones of theirkinsman, when they dug them up there would be two skulls, four arms, andso on, and how it would puzzle them to get the bones of their kinsman.”

  After reading this confession I regretted very much that I hadnever seen Alonzo Phelps while living, for there was blended in hiscomposition many strange elements. But that part of his confessionthat gives interest to our story was the papers taken from the man hemurdered in Europe, of which we have spoken. He concealed the papers,in a certain place, on the night he buried the man, and, as he wascompelled to flee the country, said papers were, a long time afterward,discovered by reading his confession made in America.

  With the settlement of the West, the navigation of the western waterswas one of the principal industries. Keel and flat bottom boats werethe first used. Keel boats were propelled against the stream with longpoles, placed with one end on the bottom of the stream and a man’sshoulder at the other end, pushing the boat from under him, andconsequently against the stream. Flat bottom boats only drifted with thecurrent, sometimes bearing large cargoes.

  Louisville, Kentucky, was one of the principal points between Pittsburgand New Orleans. Here the placid waters of the beautiful river rushedmadly over some ledges of rocks, called the falls of Ohio. Manyreshipments in an early day were performed at this point, and if theboat was taken over the falls her pilot for the trip to New Orleanswas not considered competent to navigate the falls. Resident pilots, inLouisville, were always employed to perform this task.

  And few of the early boatmen were ever long upon the river withouthaving acquaintances in Louisville.

  Beargrass creek emptied its lazy waters into the Ohio at a point called,at the time of which we write, the suburbs of Louisville.

  In a long row of cottages on the margin of Beargrass creek, that haslong since given place to magnificent buildings, was the home of afriend with whom I was stopping.

  Rising early one morning, I found the neighborhood in great excitement;a woman was missing. It was Daymon’s wife. She had no relatives known tothe people of Louisville. She was young, intelligent, and as pure fromany stain of character as the beautiful snow.

  Daymon was also young. He was a laborer, or boat hand, frequentlyassisting in conducting boats across the falls. But he was _dissipated_,and in fits of intoxication frequently abused his wife.

  All who knew Daymon’s wife were ready to take the dark fiend by thethroat who had consigned her beautiful form to the dark waters ofBeamrass creek.

  Everyone was busy to find some sign or memento of the missing woman.

  A large crowd had gathered around a shop, where a large woden boot hungout for a sign--a shoe shop. When I arrived on the spot a workmanwas examining a shoe, and testified that it was one of a pair he hadpreviously made for Daymon’s wife. The shoe had been picked up, earlythat morning, on the margin of Beargrass creek. Suspicion pointed herfinger at Daymon, and he was arrested and charged with drowning his wifein Beargrass creek.

  Daymon was not a bad-looking man, and, as the evidence was allcircumstantial, I felt an uncommon interest in the trial, and madearrangements to attend the court, which was to sit in two weeks.

  On the morning of the trial the court room was crowded. The counsel forthe state had everything ready, and the prisoner brought to the bar. Theindictment was then read, charging the prisoner with murder in thefirst degree. And to the question, are you guilty or not guilty? Daymonanswered _not guilty_, and resumed his seat. Silence now prevailed fora few minutes, when the judge inquired, “is the state ready?” Theattorney answered, “yes.” The judge inquired, “has the prisoner any oneto defend him?” Daymon shook his head.

  “It is then the duty of the court to appoint your defense,” said thejudge, naming the attorneys, and the trial proceeded. The witnesses forthe state being sworn, testified to the shoe as already described. Inthe mean time Beargrass creek had been dragged, and the body of a womanfound. The fish had eaten the face beyond recognition, but a chintzcalico dress was sworn to by two sewing women as identical to one theyhad previously made for Daymon’s wife.

  The state’s attorney pictured all of this circumstantial evidence to thejury in an eloquence seldom equaled.

  But, who ever heard a lawyer plead the cause of a moneyless man? Theattorneys appointed to defend Daymon preserved only their respectabilityin the profession.

  And the jury returned their verdict _guilty_. Nothing now remained butto pronounce the sentence, and then the execution.

  The judge was a crippled man, and slowly assumed an erect position. Thencasting his eyes around the court room, they rested upon the prisoner,_and he paused a moment_. That moment was silent, profound, awful!for every ear was open to catch the first sound of that sentence. Thesilence was broken by a wild scream at the door. The anxious crowdopened a passage, and a woman entered the court room, her hair floatingupon her shoulders, and her voice wild and mellow as the horn ofresurrection. That woman was Daymon’s wife.