Above the main deck toiled the cabin crew, an assortment of workers whose primary duty was to make the cabin passengers comfortable and keep them happy. As important as any members of the cabin crew were the chambermaids, usually the only female members of the steamboat’s complement of workers and usually numbering no more than two aboard an average size steamer. Not only did they keep the passengers’ staterooms clean and orderly — which included making up beds, emptying washbowls and refilling water pitchers — they also washed the bed linen, towels, tablecloths and napkins, and often the passengers’ and boat officers’ clothes. The washing was done in wooden tubs, and the items were hung up to dry along the rails or on the main deck. Whatever needed pressing the chambermaids ironed with irons heated on coal fires and when all items were clean and pressed, the chambermaids returned the clothes to the passengers and the boat’s linen to the steward. Working from early morning till late evening, chambermaids had good reason to believe the maxim that “woman’s work is never done.”
Their pay might run as high as twenty-five dollars a month, but they also received tips. Passengers tipped them for washing and ironing their clothes, for assisting women passengers with getting dressed and for other help. Slave workers ordinarily were not tipped, but passengers often couldn’t tell who was and who wasn’t a slave and tipped them regardless. One chambermaid, a free black woman, reported that she made six to seven dollars in tips on each trip between New Orleans and Natchez.
Like other members of the crew, chambermaids received what was in effect free room and board while working on the steamers. They slept on the floor of the main cabin, or saloon, after the cabin passengers had turned in for the night or, on trips when there were empty staterooms, they were allowed to sleep in the passengers’ berths.
Sexual abuse was an occupational hazard for chambermaids. They were vulnerable to unwanted advances and even assault from ordinary crewmen, passengers and the boats’ officers, including the captain. Slave women were particularly vulnerable, with little or no legal protection, but after the Civil War and the elimination of slavery, black women resorted to the courts to protect them and punish their abusers, not often with satisfactory results, however.
The boats’ porters carried the cabin passengers’ baggage aboard and off the boats, under the supervision of the clerk. They issued baggage-claim checks to passengers and stowed the bags that were not kept in the passengers’ staterooms. While the boats were in motion, the porters had little to do, but at every stop where cabin passengers came aboard or disembarked, they leaped into action to assist.
Waiters were almost a separate class of crew members. Their jobs, more so than the others, put them in continued contact with cabin passengers, which included the traveling elite of the times, and thus required of the waiters a certain poise, intelligence and appearance, as was the case with William Wells Brown. Appropriately dressed to serve the boats’ first-class passengers, waiters usually wore suits or dark pants and white coats. They set the dining tables, took food orders, served the food and drinks and bussed the tables. They also tended the coal stoves that warmed the saloon, set up cots in the saloon for cabin passengers who bought their tickets after the staterooms had already filled, sometimes helped the cooks with food preparation, ran errands for the steward and kept the saloon clean. They worked under the direction of the steward, who hired them. The job of steamboat waiter, along with that of steward and chief cook, carried prestige in the black communities along the river, and it often led to promotion, by the captain, to steward, a position highly prized and well rewarded.
Steamboat barbers were usually free blacks, though sometimes slaves, who contracted with the boat owner and rented space for their shops and worked for fees and tips. Bartenders, or barkeepers, were usually white, bright, young and personable. “ It was required by their employers,” George Merrick wrote, “that they be pleasant and agreeable fellows, well dressed, and well mannered. They must know how to concoct a few of the more commonplace fancy drinks affected by the small number of travellers who wished such beverage — whiskey cocktails for the Eastern trade, and mint juleps for the Southern.”9 Western men, Merrick claimed, took their whiskey straight, “four fingers deep.”
Merrick also claimed that “in the old days on the river”— before the Civil War — whiskey was considered a necessity, including aboard Mississippi River steamboats. “It was a saying on the river,” he wrote, “that if a man owned a bar on a popular packet, it was better than possessing a gold mine.... Men who owned life leases of steamboat bars willed the same to their sons, as their richest legacies.”10 It was not unusual for a person to hold leases on bars aboard several steamboats, hiring bartenders to operate them for him while he strictly supervised them. In the 1860s, Claiborne Greene Wolff, who had once been a steamboat steward, was the co-owner of the leases to bars on some thirty steamers.
Tending to confirm Merrick’s assertion of the popularity of whiskey on Mississippi River steamers was the practice of providing a free supply of it to crewmen as they worked. Like rum on sailing vessels, whiskey rations for crewmen on Mississippi River vessels, first keelboats and then steamers, were a means of attracting workers to burdensome jobs as well as a way to ease the pains of their tasks. “We always gave our men, black or white, as much as they wanted,” the captain of the Ben Sherrod admitted. “[We] kept a barrel of whiskey tapped on the boiler deck for them, have always done so, and let one of the watch draw for his mates. I have done the same for the last ten years.”11
After the Ben Sherrod caught fire during a race between New Orleans and Natchez in May 1837, that same captain, named Castleman, denied that whiskey was part of the cause. “My acquaintances will vouch for my discipline about drunkenness being severe,” he said. “Indeed I am generally blamed for being rigid with my hands.” He conceded the truth of reports that his firemen were singing and dancing when the fire broke out, but stated that “they always do when on duty,” apparently as a means of removing some of the hardness from the work.
• 10• Owners and Officers
On the Hudson and other rivers in the eastern United States steamboats were generally owned by companies, which paid captains to run them. Steamboats on the Mississippi and its tributaries, however, were in many cases owned by the captains who operated them. Alex Scott was one such Mississippi River owner-captain. He ordered a boat built and when it was put into service, running between St. Louis, Pittsburgh and New Orleans, he became Captain Scott and put himself to work at whatever tasks needed doing. When the boat was under way, he could usually be found on deck somewhere, often near the furnace doors, assisting the firemen. When the boat landed, he was up on the forecastle, assisting in one way or another the deckhands handling the freight. Ever alert to whatever was happening aboard his boat, he had a reputation for seldom sleeping while the boat was in operation.
On one rare occasion, though, he did fall asleep and became the victim of his crewmen’s practical joke. A mild-mannered, good-humored man (whose harshest expression was “by the Lord Harry!”), Scott was well liked by his crewmen, but they sometimes took advantage of his gentle nature. One night as his boat, the Majestic, was steaming up the Mississippi, Scott took a seat on the capstan, one of his favorite spots, and while sitting there, dozed off. Several crewmen noticed him sleeping and gingerly turned the capstan half way around so that instead of facing the jackstaff on the bow, Scott was facing the boilers while he slept. On a signal, the firemen opened all the fire doors at once, revealing the flames in the furnace, glowing brightly in the darkness, and at the same time they roused the captain. Seeing the light of the flames in front of him, he instantly concluded that another steamer was bearing down on his bow. He leaped from his seat on the capstan and yelled up to the pilothouse, “Stop her, Mister Pilot, or by the Lord Harry she will be into us!” When his crewmen broke into laughter, he realized his mistake and began laughing himself, enjoying the joke almost as much as the crew.
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Another steamboat entrepreneur was St. Clair Thomasson of Louisiana, who was a partner in a wholesale dry goods business and in 1843, with his business partner, Theo Shute, built the steamer Baton Rouge, which he captained and operated between New Orleans and Vicksburg.
Joseph Throckmorton was an owner-captain whose business career went the opposite way. He first owned several steamers that he operated on the upper Mississippi in the 1830s and 1840s, but around 1850 he decided to leave the river and try something else. He went into the insurance business in St. Louis and when that venture failed, he returned to what he knew best, steamboating. After he died in 1872 at age 72, a biographer poetically informed his readers that Throckmorton had “crossed the river that ferries but one way.”
In some cases owner-captains started their careers as boat-builders and knew steamboats from the inside out. James Ward first worked in a boatyard and from that job went to work as a carpenter on the steamer Ione and then on the Amaranth, operating out of St. Louis. In 1844 with three partners he built the steamer St. Croix and joined its crew as mate. He then sold his interest in the St. Croix and with two partners built the St. Peters, which he served as captain, running between St. Louis and Dubuque.
Many owner-captains in the 1830s and 1840s had first operated keelboats on the Mississippi and had then graduated to steamboats when they saw the steamers’ greater potential and superior working and living conditions. W.J. Koontz, born in Columbiana County, Ohio, in 1817, began his career on a keelboat that was owned by his brother. He later became a steamboat pilot, then a captain and then an owner-captain. He volunteered his services to U.S. general George B. McClellan during the Civil War, was made a commodore, posted to St. Louis and placed in charge of river transportation for Union troops.
L.T. Belt, born in St. Clair County, Illinois, in 1825, one of twelve children, was another owner-captain who advanced from keelboats to steamers. He and his brother Francis gave up keelboating and bought the steamer Planter in 1847 and operated it on the Mississippi between New Orleans and St. Louis. From that beginning Captain Belt eventually became president of the New Orleans and Bayou Teche Packet Company, operating steamers on Bayou Teche in Louisiana. Belt had other laudable accomplishments. For years he was superintendent of the Sunday school at the Rayne Memorial MethodistEpiscopal Church in New Orleans and was also, his biographer pointed out, an unusually dutiful son: “For the twenty years previous to her death, he never, but once, no matter how great the distance, failed to visit his aged mother on her birthday.”
Many other Mississippi River captains, of course, were not boat owners, but rather salaried employees of the companies that owned the steamers of which they were masters. Charles S. Rogers, born in New Hampshire in 1816, moved to St. Louis when he was 22 and got a job as clerk on a Mississippi River steamboat in 1842. From that job he rose over time to captain and later became president of Naples Packet Company, which operated twentythree steamboats and a number of barges and wharf boats. Henry W. Smith began his working life at a country store in Missouri in 1855, then took a job as second clerk on the General Lane, a Missouri River steamer. He advanced to captain of another Missouri River steamer and later became captain of a steamboat running between New Orleans and St. Louis. After the Civil War he became president of the St. Louis & Memphis Packet Company and distinguished himself for building the company’s steamboat fleet into one of the fastest and finest on the Mississippi.
One of the more unusual captains was William F. Davidson, who late in life became a Christian, got caught up in the temperance movement and thereafter banned bars on the several steamers he controlled, which operated between St. Paul and St. Louis. William Dean, whose career spanned thirty years as a pilot and captain, was so conscientious in his Christian beliefs that he would not operate his boat on a Sunday. Another unusual captain was Mortimer Kennett, who was something of a violin virtuoso and every evening played his violin for his passengers. “No navigation,” it was said of him, “was too difficult or night too dark to induce him to decline the very pleasant duty of entertaining his passengers with the sweet strains of his violin.”1
The tasks of the owner-captain were varied and many. He was constantly alert for anything that needed his attention. “He watched the work of his engineer in the care of the machinery and the purchase of fuel, oil and other supplies. He checked up [on] his steward in the matters of food, tableware, linen, and all the other things necessary to the operation of a passenger boat. Under his eye the mate attended to the loading, stowage, and unloading of freight. And with the clerk he went over the boat’s accounts, decided where he was making money and where he was losing, and regulated his policies accordingly.”2 He also set freight and passenger rates, processed claims and made out the boat’s schedules, along with taking care of a host of other things that needed doing, including receiving complaints from his crew.
David Hiner was a captain who, according to an old story told about him, had his own way of dealing with his crew’s complaints. Not long after taking command of a fine steamer, he was practically besieged by members of his crew asking for more or better than what they had. The mate wanted a new hawser. The steward wanted a new cooking stove. The engineer wanted a new doctor engine. The porter wanted a new badge for his hat. The chambermaid wanted a glass pane installed in the window of her stateroom. Fed up with the crew’s gripes, Captain Hiner decided that what he wanted was a new crew. He fired the old one and hired a whole new one.
The captain’s job required that he exhibit the sort of pleasing, outgoing personality that would let him easily meet and mingle with shippers and passengers. It was his ability to attract and keep customers — as well as his business ability — that determined the financial success of his boat. To the cabin passengers aboard his vessel he was a gracious host. In many cases he developed lasting relationships with passengers and shippers. He often got to know not only his shippers but their families. His customers in turn often developed a friendly interest in him and his boat and once becoming comfortable with both, they seldom took their business elsewhere.
One big reason for shifting their business to another boat was a rate cut by a rival steamer, an act usually aimed at putting a competitor out of business. Owners faced with such competition often abandoned their boat’s ordinary run and shifted their operations to another section of the river or to another river entirely rather than engage in a ruinous rate war. Others, though, accepted the challenge of the rival steamer and fought back, cutting their rates to match or beat the rival’s. Rate wars often continued until one of the boats went broke and had to be sold to satisf y the debts resulting from its losses. The owner-captain, however, was usually soon back in business with another boat.
To members of the crew the captain was “captain” or “sir” when they spoke to him, but they were more likely to refer to him as “the old man,” no matter his age, when speaking about him, out of his hearing. “The old man” was a term of respect, even endearment, earned through the captain’s deeds and words. Over the members of his crew he held complete authority. “After leaving port, the captain on the river was as autocratic as his compeer on the ocean,” according to veteran steamboat pilot George Byron Merrick. “He might without notice discharge and order ashore any officer or man on board, and he could fill vacancies en route to any extent ... subject to the approval of the owner or manager on arrival at the home port.”3
There were bou
ndaries, however, which the captain, even the ownercaptain, was loath to cross. Steamboat custom, tantamount to law, was that captains did not ever interfere with their pilots in the operation of the boat, even if the captain was himself a licensed pilot and was certain he knew better in certain situations than the man in the pilothouse. Neither was it a good idea to meddle with the mate during the performance of his duties or the engineer or the chief clerk during the performance of theirs. An emergency that threatened the safety of the boat was about the only good reason for the captain to interfere with those officers while they worked, and any captain who interfered without good reason suffered the loss of respect not only aboard his own boat but on others that plied the Mississippi. The captain might — and did — though, call an erring officer into his office and in private, away from the ears of crewmen and passengers, order him never to repeat whatever transgression had aroused the captain’s concern.
A visit to the captain’s quarters was not always an unpleasant experience. The captain’s cabin, or suite, was ordinarily the most spacious and best furnished of all the steamboat’s accommodations. It was usually at the forward end of the texas deck and it served as an office, sitting room, meeting room and private dining room; connected to that multi-purpose space was the captain’s bedroom. The captain used the multi-purpose space at times for conferences with his officers, for entertaining VIPs, or for merely dining, alone or with favored passengers. For passengers, an invitation to the captain’s quarters, to dine or be otherwise entertained, was a high honor and a special treat. The view there was spectacular. Large windows on the front and two sides of the multi-purpose room gave a panoramic vista of the river and the shore on both sides as the boat steamed ahead.
The Great American Steamboat Race Page 17