SCENES IN THE BACK WOODS
The company had been playing at the Louisville Theatre, Louisville, Kentucky, for the week starting 31 December 1855, and had given their usual fare of The Crown Diamonds, Maritana, The Daughter of the Regiment, Fra Diavolo, and The Bohemian Girl. The last performance they gave before the diary opens was Louisa Pyneâs benefit performance of La Sonnambula on 5 January. The company then embarked on the steamer Thomas Swann,1 bound for New Orleans, at which point Reiffâs diary opens.
TUESDAY JANUARY 8th OHIO RIVER, BELOW LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY
[1] The ice getting very thick. Last night men were engaged repairing our wheel which had been broken badly, also the paddle box.2
Today two steamers passed going up the âT. C. Twichellâ3 and the âTecumobaâ4 it is quite an event for a vessel to pass the passengers rush out to see it as eagerly as if it was at sea.
After shoving through the ice till about twelve oâclock we stopped again tied the vessel to a tree in the forest, and on the riverâs bank, about twenty-Âtwo miles below Evansville at a place called Diamond Island Bend, Henderson County, Kentucky.5
Figure 2. Interior of the Main Cabin of the Steamboat Princess, 1861. The type and layout of the accommodation of the Princess on some preâCivil War paddlewheelers can be seen in this painting. The Princess, built in about 1855 in Cincinnati, Ohio, was the steamer that raced the Thomas Swann, in which Reiff was traveling out of New Orleans on the evening of 26 February 1856.
After dinner (as the sachem of the âAmerican Exploring Companyâ)6 I suggested we should explore the wilderness to which we had arrived. We started ashore, the ground was covered with snow about an inch in depth the bank is about twenty feet high and precipitous. Nothing but a magnificent forest to be seen. The trees very largeâsaw the trunk of one lying just on the shore which seems upon a rough guess (they call me Yankee7 here, so I am privileged to guess) to be about forty feet in circumference. Two immense sycamores looked not only astonishing large but exceeding picturesque. [2] After walking about half a mile we came to a corn field and three log cabins made of logs and clayâa rude sort of chimney at backâI bolted in immediately, my companions followingâwhere I found a perfect Aunt Chloe,8 a Negress slave called Aunt Polly, a young nigger about twenty, her son, and a frightened dog who no doubt thinking us ruffians so he gently retired behind the door.
The cabin was rude in the extreme; two beds but made cheerful by an immense fire in the capacious fireplace which contained about a half a load of wood (Cannousâ load in N.Y.).9 We duly appreciated the fire. Aunt Polly after biding us welcome, insisted upon âsomething coming out darâ which demand being reiterated two or three times, produced a large black head from under the bed, which she rapped with some considerable force with a good-sized stick. We found the head belonged to her next son (the brother of the first one we saw) about eighteen in years. He scrambled from under the bed and got out of the door in a wonderful expeditious manner, accelerated no doubt by the stick in his motherâs handâit was very amusing to us, but evidently no fun to the nigger. [3] We had scarcely been here half an hour âere a white lady (the mistress of Aunt Polly) came in and invited us into her cabin where was her sister a young lady named Mary and her husband. Their names were Mr and Mrs Rankins, Maryâs name being the same. She was evidently very glad to see three Single Gentlemen. She asked us almost immediately if we were married! We arrived here at twelve, and at three we knew the Rankins familiarly enough for them to call us by our christian names.10 We returned to our vesselâin fact, our home for how long, heaven only knows.
During the afternoon a steamer came up the river and hauled in about two hundred feet above us.11 Any quantity of gambling going on board the vessel.12 Even the Pynes & Harrison, Stretton and Captain Tilghman,13 set down to a gameâin the Ladiesâ Cabin.
During the evening a dance was got up, a fiddler and a guitarist being on board. They are awful dancers. I was in fact made Floor Master and entered upon the labours of my new role with all proper dignity.14 Turned in about one oâclock. Dreamt Father was deadâawoke and found that his son was nearly soâfrom extreme cold;15 the thermometer was at my feet about two hundred below zero. [5]16
WEDNESDAY JANUARY 9th OHIO RIVER
Very cold; thermometer 10 below zero. Called upon Rankins with Atherton & Horncastle then walked up the river road about a mile and a quarter. Stopped to a much more dignified looking cabin, where was a lady named Clay, a distant relative of Henry Clay17âher brother who was (we measured with a rule) six feet two and a half inches, but he was not as tall as the man whom I borrowed a hose from yesterday, and he says heâs ânothinâ to some folks around haar.â We returned by a circuitous route through the forest which is filled with most magnificent birds, one especially being entirely redâabsolutely beautiful. Many of the passengers are out huntingâthere is plenty of deer, birds, possum, squirrel, &c. There are droves of pigsâthey call them wild pigs, as they live continually in the forest.
Hounds are used to bring them in. We walked through the forestâabout four milesâit was certainly a beautiful walkâthe trees are very large and abounding in wild grape vines.
During the evening the âStarsâ sang some gleesâdancing, political discussions, card playing, story-telling, &c., filled up the balance of the evening. [6]
THURSDAY JANUARY 10th OHIO RIVER
Cold; five degrees less than yesterday. Frank Boudinot yesterday afternoon went to Rankins; they enquired particularly about Tony and George.18
We went there during the afternoon they gave us some hickory nuts very large ones, we...