WE had some talk about Captain Isaiah Sellers,now many years dead.
He was a fine man,a high-minded man,and greatly respected both ashore and on the river.He was very tall,well built,and handsome;and in his old age--as I remember him--his hair was as black as an Indian's,and his eye and hand were as strong and steady and his nerve and judgment as firm and clear as anybody's,young or old,among the fraternity of pilots.
He was the patriarch of the craft;he had been a keelboat pilot before the day of steamboats;and a steamboat pilot before any other steamboat pilot,still surviving at the time I speak of,had ever turned a wheel.
Consequently his brethren held him in the sort of awe in which illustrious survivors of a bygone age are always held by their associates.
He knew how he was regarded,and perhaps this fact added some trifle of stiffening to his natural dignity,which had been sufficiently stiff in its original state.
He left a diary behind him;but apparently it did not date back to his first steamboat trip,which was said to be 1811,the year the first steamboat disturbed the waters of the Mississippi.
At the time of his death a correspondent of the 'St.Louis Republican' culled the following items from the diary--
'In February,1825,he shipped on board the steamer "Rambler,"at Florence,Ala.,and made during that year three trips to New Orleans and back--this on the "Gen.Carrol,"between Nashville and New Orleans.It was during his stay on this boat that Captain Sellers introduced the tap of the bell as a signal to heave the lead,previous to which time it was the custom for the pilot to speak to the men below when soundings were wanted.
The proximity of the forecastle to the pilot-house,no doubt,rendered this an easy matter;but how different on one of our palaces of the present day.
'In 1827we find him on board the "President,"a boat of two hundred and eighty-five tons burden,and plying between Smithland and New Orleans.Thence he joined the "Jubilee"in 1828,and on this boat he did his first piloting in the St.Louis trade;his first watch extending from Herculaneum to St.Genevieve.
On May 26,1836,he completed and left Pittsburgh in charge of the steamer "Prairie,"a boat of four hundred tons,and the first steamer with a STATE-ROOM CABIN ever seen at St.Louis.
In 1857he introduced the signal for meeting boats,and which has,with some slight change,been the universal custom of this day;in fact,is rendered obligatory by act of Congress.
'As general items of river history,we quote the following marginal notes from his general log--'In March,1825,Gen.Lafayette left New Orleans for St.Louis on the low-pressure steamer "Natchez."'In January,1828,twenty-one steamers left the New Orleans wharf to celebrate the occasion of Gen.Jackson's visit to that city.
'In 1830the "North American"made the run from New Orleans to Memphis in six days--best time on record to that date.
It has since been made in two days and ten hours.
'In 1831the Red River cut-off formed.
'In 1832steamer "Hudson"made the run from White River to Helena,a distance of seventy-five miles,in twelve hours.
This was the source of much talk and speculation among parties directly interested.
'In 1839Great Horseshoe cut-off formed.
'Up to the present time,a term of thirty-five years,we ascertain,by reference to the diary,he has made four hundred and sixty round trips to New Orleans,which gives a distance of one million one hundred and four thousand miles,or an average of eighty-six miles a day.'
Whenever Captain Sellers approached a body of gossiping pilots,a chill fell there,and talking ceased.For this reason:whenever six pilots were gathered together,there would always be one or two newly fledged ones in the lot,and the elder ones would be always 'showing off'before these poor fellows;making them sorrowfully feel how callow they were,how recent their nobility,and how humble their degree,by talking largely and vaporously of old-time experiences on the river;always making it a point to date everything back as far as they could,so as to make the new men feel their newness to the sharpest degree possible,and envy the old stagers in the like degree.
And how these complacent baldheads WOULD swell,and brag,and lie,and date back--ten,fifteen,twenty years,--and how they did enjoy the effect produced upon the marveling and envying youngsters!
And perhaps just at this happy stage of the proceedings,the stately figure of Captain Isaiah Sellers,that real and only genuine Son of Antiquity,would drift solemnly into the midst.
Imagine the size of the silence that would result on the instant.
