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THE
LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF
CAPT. STEPHEN B. HANKS,
CAPT. HANK’S FIRST LAWSUIT
AND FIRST MUTINY
23
While in Stillwater this time John
Moore and I arranged to run a logging the coming winter, camp
soon after Mr. McKusick had a lumber raft ready and I
made the last trip of the season. We were late in starting
and it was late when we got back. I bought fifty barrels of
pork at St. Louis and a lot of flour at Rock mill in Bellevue
for which I paid three dollars a barrel. I stopped at Albany
and once more the chills and fever got me and I was laid up
for a couple of weeks. Soon as I was able I commenced buying
teams at Albany and got one yoke of oxen from Norman B.
Scelcythe, first settler in Portland township, Whiteside
county, Ill., and another from Deacon Crosby of Garden Plain,
paying for the latter the sum of fifty dollars in gold with
which he paid Uncle Sam for his homestead of forty acres, that
amount being just the government price. I have particular
reason to remember the transaction as I never met the Deacon
afterward as long as he lived without his alluding to it and
telling how overjoyed he was to get the price of his land in
good coin of the realm as those were the days of Wild Cat
money. Got a couple more yoke of oxen and five hundred
bushels of corn near Elkhorn Grove in Carroll county to be
delivered at Savanna, and a team of horses from Hopper and
Mcllvine at Albany. Among other things I had a barrel of
butter weighed some three hundred pounds that cost me five
cents a pound. This may be of interest as a contrast to the
price today. Finished purchasing our supplies, chiefly
groceries at Galena and went on to Stillwater and soon our men
and supplies were sent into the woods. Our crew was made up
of our summers rafting crew and in addition we had Edward
W. Durant, now one of Stillwater’s most prominent citizens
as our chief cook. He was from Albany and it was his first
trip North.
I did go north with the men as I was
far from well and remained at Stillwater for a time. Our camp
was on Mission Creek, five miles from Pokegema Lake and as it
had been built early in the fall was ready for the men on
arrival. By the time there was snow enough for hauling the
roads had been cut out and we were ready for work, which
commenced about December 1st.
We made the logs fly and our cut of
about three thousand logs was very satisfactory indeed and a
finer lot of logs I never saw, but they were shorter than the
average as the creek was a very small one and that was one
reason why this lot of timber had been passed by in former
years. However, there was lots of snow that winter and we had
god water and made a very successful drive to Snake river but
were not so fortunate after that. A boom company had been
organized which took charge of all the logs when delivered out
of the primary streams. It happened that our logs were behind
all the others out that winter and the Company did not get
them out until too late to sell them. I had sold the logs so
had to borrow a raft to fill my contract which was expensive
in interest charges and not satisfactory to any one. Later
the Boom Company sent us a bill for five hundred for boomage
although they had failed to deliver the logs to us. We
refused to pay and a suit was brought and we won in the spring
of 1849, a small amount of damage being allowed us. That was
my first and only lawsuit.
After getting everything ready for the
drive I went to Stillwater, and worked in the mill until we
got some rafts ready, which was some time in May 1848.
Getting a late start in the Spring made us late with the last
raft that season. Sandy McPhail started with this last
raft late in October and was to go until he met me and then I
was to take it. He did not get far, as I met him at catfish,
some ten miles form Stillwater. I was on the Otter, Capt.
Smith Harris, and the Captain very kindly towed us through
Lake St. --. We knew it was late to start a raft but Mr.
McKusick was anxious to have the lumber delivered so we
took a chance. The nights were cold, the days short and it
was impossible to make much of a run on any day. I shifted
the oars in the sides of the raft and we worked our way
through Lake Pepin by sheer strength. It was hard on the crew
but the men had agreed to take the trip and I did the best I
could.
At Dubuque we were detained by wind and
it was very cold with ice running. The men went up town and
when they came back, all more or less under the influence of
liquor, there were signs of trouble. They under took to make
me lay up the raft there and pay them off but I told them they
must live up to their agreement and make the trip or stay with
the raft until frozen and they would get no pay until the trip
was completed. One of them drew a jack knife and tried to
strike me but I struck him on the arm so hard that the knife
flew out of his hand out of sight. They were ordered to bed
and the next morning we pulled out with the dawn, the wind
having gone down. Thus ended my first mutiny. |
