Canal Reminiscences Recollections of Travel in the Old Days on the James River & Kanawha Canal

It took two days to make the trip, yet no one complained, although there were many Methodist ministers aboard. Bro. Lafferty had not been born. I thought it simply glorious. There was an unnatural preponderance of preacher to boy,--nine of preacher to one of boy. That boy did not take a leading part in the conversation. He looked out of the window, and thought much about Richmond. And what a wonderful world it was! So many trees, such nice rocks, and pretty ruts in the red clay; such glorious taverns, and men with red noses; such splendid horses, a fresh team every ten miles, and an elegant smell of leather, proceeding from the coach, prevailing everywhere as we bowled merrily along. And then the stage horn. Let me not speak of it, lest Thomas and his orchestra hang their heads for very shame. I wish somebody would tell me where we stopped the first night, for I have quite forgotten. Any how, it was on the left-hand side coming down, and I rather think on the brow of a little hill. I know we got up mighty soon the next morning.

We drew up at the Eagle hotel in Richmond. Here again words, and time too, fail me. All the cities on earth packed into one wouldn’t look as big and fine to me now as Main street did then. If things shrink so in the brief space of a life-time, what would be the general appearance, say of Petersburg, if one should live a million or so of years? This is an interesting question, which you may discuss with yourself, dear reader.

Going northward, I remained a year or two, and on my return the “canell” was finished. I had seen bigger places than Richmond, but had yet to have my first experience of canal travelling. The packet-landing at the foot of Eighth street presented a scene of great activity. Passengers on foot and in vehicles continued to arrive up to the moment of starting. I took a peep at the cabin, wondering much how all the passengers were to be accommodated for the night, saw how nicely the baggage was stored away on deck, admired the smart waiters, and picked up a deal of information generally. I became acquainted with the names of Edmond & Davenport in Richmond, and Boyd, Edmond & Davenport in Lynchburg, the owners of the packet-line, and thought to myself, “What immensely rich men they must be! Why, these boats cost ten times as much as a stage-coach, and I am told they have them by the dozen.”

At last we were off, slowly pushed along under the bridge on Seventh street; then the horses were hitched; then slowly along till we passed the crowd of boats near the city, until at length, with a lively jerk as the horses fell into a trot, away we went, the cut-water throwing up the spray as we rounded the Penitentiary hill, and the passengers lingering on deck to get a last look at the fair city of Richmond, lighted by the pale rays of the setting sun.

As the shadows deepened, everybody went below. There was always a crowd in those days, but it was a crowd for the most part of our best people, and no one minded it. I was little, and it took little room to accommodate me. Everything seemed as cozy and comfortable as heart could wish. I brought to the table,--an excellent one it was,--a school boy’s appetite, sharpened by travel, and thought it was “just splendid.”

Supper over, the men went on deck to smoke, while the ladies busied themselves with draughts or backgammon, with conversation or with books. But not for long. The curtains which separated the female from the male department were soon drawn, in order that the steward and his aids might make ready the berths. These were three deep, “lower,” “middle” and “upper;” and great was the desire on the part of the men not to be consigned to the “upper.” Being light as a cork, I rose naturally to the top, clambering thither by the leathern straps with the agility of a monkey, and enjoying as best I might the trampling overhead whenever we approached a lock. I didn’t mind this much, but when the fellow who had snubbed the boat jumped down about four feet, right on my head as it were, it was pretty severe. Still I slept the sleep of youth. We all went to bed early. A few lingered, talking in low tones; and way-passengers, in case there was a crowd, were dumped upon mattresses, placed on the dining tables.

The lamp shed a dim light over the sleepers, and all went well till some one--and there always was some one--began to snore. _Sn-a-a-aw!_--_aw-aw-poof!_ They would turn uneasily and try to compose themselves to slumber again. No use. _Sn-a-a-aw_--_poof!_ “D---- that fellow! Chunk him in the ribs, somebody, and make him turn over. Is this thing to go on forever? Gentlemen, are you going to stand this all night? If you are, I am not. I am going to get up and dress. Who is he anyhow? No gentleman would or could snore in that way.”

After a while silence would be restored, and all would drop off to sleep again, except the little fellow in the upper berth, who lying there would listen to the trahn-ahn-ahn-ahn of the packet-horn as we drew nigh the locks. How mournfully it sounded in the night! what a doleful thing it is at best, and how different from the stage-horn with its cheery, ringing notes! The difference in the horns marks the difference in the two eras of travel; not that the canal period is doleful--I would not say that, but it is less bright than the period of the stage-coach.

To this day you have only to say within my hearing trahn-ahn-ahn, to bring back the canal epoch. I can see the whole thing down to the snubbing post with its deep grooves which the heavy rope had worn. Indeed, I think I could snub a boat myself with very little practice, if the man on deck would say “_hup!_” to the horses at the proper time.

We turned out early in the morning, and had precious little room for dressing. But that was no hardship to me, who had just emerged from a big boarding school dormitory. Still, I must say, being now a grown and oldish man, that I would not like to live and sleep and dress for twenty or thirty years in the cabin of a canal-packet. The ceremony of ablution was performed in a primitive fashion. There were the tin basins, the big tin dipper with the long wooden handle. I feel it vibrating in the water now, and the water a little muddy generally; and there were the towels, a big one on a roller, and the little ones in a pile, and all of them wet. These were discomforts, it is true, but, pshaw! one good, big, long, deep draught of pure, fresh morning air--one glimpse of the roseate flush above the wooded hills of the James, one look at the dew besprent bushes and vines along the canal bank--one sweet caress of dear mother nature in her morning robes, made ample compensation for them all. Breakfast was soon served, and all the more enjoyed in consequence of an hour’s fasting on deck; the sun came out in all his splendor; the day was fairly set in, and with it there was abundant leisure to enjoy the scenery, that grew more and more captivating as we rose, lock after lock, into the rock-bound eminences of the upper James. This scenery I will not attempt to describe, for time has sadly, dimmed it in my recollection. The wealth of the lowlands, and the upland beauty must be seen as I have seen them, in the day of their prime, to be enjoyed.

The perfect cultivation, the abundance, the elegance, the ducal splendor, one might almost say, of the great estates that lay along the canal in the old days have passed away in a great measure. Here were gentlemen, not merely refined and educated, fitted to display a royal hospitality and to devote their leisure to the study of the art and practice of government, but they were great and greatly successful farmers as well. The land teemed with all manner of products, cereals, fruits, what not! negroes by the hundreds and the thousands, under wise direction, gentle but firm control, plied the hoe to good purpose. There was enough and to spare for all--to spare? aye! to bestow with glad and lavish hospitality. A mighty change has been wrought. What that change is in all of its effects mine eyes have happily been spared the seeing; but well I remember--I can never forget--how from time to time the boat would stop at one of these estates, and the planter, his wife, his daughters, and the guests that were going home with him, would be met by those who had remained behind, and how joyous the greetings were! It was a bright and happy scene, and it continually repeated itself as we went onward.

In fine summer weather, the passengers, male and female, stayed most of the time on deck, where there was a great deal to interest, and naught to mar the happiness, except the oft-repeated warning, “_braidge!_” “_low braidge!_” No well-regulated packet-hand was ever allowed to say plain “bridge;” that was an etymological crime in canal ethics. For the men, this on-deck existence was especially delightful; it is such a comfort to spit plump into the water without the trouble of feeling around with your head, in the midst of a political discussion, for the spittoon.

As for me, I often went below, to devour Dickens’s earlier novels, which were then appearing in rapid succession. But, drawn by the charm of the scenery, I would often drop my book and go back on deck again. There was an islet in the river--where, exactly, I cannot tell--which had a beauty of its own for me, because from the moment I first saw it, my purpose was to make it the scene of a romance, when I got to be a great big man, old enough to write for the papers. There is a point at which the passengers would get off, and taking a near cut across the hills, would stretch their legs with a mile or two of walking. It was unmanly, I held, to miss that. Apropos of scenery, I must not forget the haunted house near Manchester, which was pointed out soon after we left Richmond, and filled me with awe; for though I said I did not believe in ghosts, I did. The ruined mill, a mile or two further on, was always an object of melancholy interest to me; and of all the locks from Lynchburg down, the Three-Mile Locks pleased me most. It is a pretty place, as every one will own on seeing it. It was so clean and green, and white and thrifty-looking. To me it was simply beautiful. I wanted to live there; I ought to have lived there. I was built for a lock-keeper--have that exact moral and mental shape. Ah! to own your own negro, who would do all the drudgery of opening the gates. Occasionally you would go through the form of putting your shoulder to the huge wooden levers, if that is what they call them, by which the gates are opened; to own your own negro and live and die calmly at a lock! What more could the soul ask? I do think that the finest picture extant of peace and contentment--a little abnormal, perhaps, in the position of the animal--is that of a sick mule looking out of the window of a canal freight-boat. And that you could see every day from the porch of your cottage, if you lived at a lock, owned your own negro, and there was no great rush of business on the canal, (and there seldom was) on the “Jeems and Kanawhy,” as old Capt. Sam Wyatt always called it, leaving out the word “canal,” for that was understood. Yes, one ought to live as a pure and resigned lock-keeper, if one would be blest, really blest.