Fifty Years In The Northwest: With An Introduction And Appendix Containing Reminiscences, Incidents And NotesFolsom, William H. C. (William Henry Carman)
History
Fifty Years In The Northwest: With An Introduction And Appendix Containing Reminiscences, Incidents And Notes
Folsom, William H. C. (William Henry Carman)
Minnesota -- History; Wisconsin -- History
handled dippers. They got ingloriously drunk; they rolled unsteadily
across the deck; they quarreled, they fought, they behaved like
Bedlamites, and how near shipwreck was the goodly brig from that day's
drunken debauch on Chicago free liquor will never be known. The vessel
toiled, the men were incapacitated for work, but notwithstanding the
tempest of profanity and the high winds, the wrangling of crew and
captain, we at last passed Saginaw bay. The winds were more favorable.
Thence to Mackinaw the sky was clear and bright, the air cold. The
night before reaching Mackinaw an unusual disturbance occurred above
resulting from the abundance of free liquor. The cook, being drunk,
had not provided the usual midnight supper for the sailors. The key of
the caboose was lost; the caboose was broken open, and the mate in the
morning was emulating the captain in the use of profane words. The
negro cook answered in the same style, being as drunk as his superior.
This cook was a stout, well built man, with a forbidding countenance
and, at his best, when sober, was a saucy, ill-natured and impertinent
fellow. When threat after threat had been hurled back and forth, the
negro jumped at the mate and knocked him down. The sailors, as by a
common impetus, seized the negro, bound him tightly and lashed him to
a capstan. On searching him they found two loaded pistols. These the
mate placed close to each ear of the bound man, and fired them off.
They next whipped him on the naked back with a rope. His trunk was
then examined and several parcels of poison were found. Another
whipping was administered, and this time the shrieks and groans of the
victim were piteous. Before he had not even winced. The monster had
prepared himself to deal death alike to crew and passengers, and we
all felt a great sense of relief when Capt. McKenzie delivered him to
the authorities at Mackinaw.
Antique Mackinaw was a French and half-breed town. The houses were
built of logs and had steep roofs. Trading posts and whisky shops were
well barred. The government fort, neatly built and trim, towered up
above the lake on a rocky cliff and overlooked the town, the whole
forming a picturesque scene. We remained but a few hours at Mackinaw.
There were ten cabin passengers, and these, with two exceptions, had
imbibed freely of the Chicago free liquor. They were also continually
gambling. Capt. McKenzie had fought a fist fight with a deadhead
passenger, Capt. Fox, bruising him badly. What with his violence and
profanity, the brutality of the mate and the drunken reveling of crew
and passengers, the two sober passengers had but a sorry time, but the
safe old brig, badly officered, badly managed, held steadily on its
course, and October 30th, fifteen days from Detroit, safely landed us
in Chicago.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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