Four miles up the Cooper River from
Calibogue Sound there is a passage through the
marshes from the Cooper to New River, which
is called Ram's Horn Creek. On the right of
its entrance a well-wooded hammock rises from
the marsh, and is called Page Island. About
midway between the two rivers and along this
crooked thoroughfare is another piece of upland.
called Pine Island, inhabited by the families of
two boat-builders.
While navigating Cooper River, as the heavy
mists rolled in clouds over the quiet waters, a
sail-boat, rowed by negroes, emerged from the
gloom and as suddenly disappeared. I shouted
after them: "Please tell me the name of the next
creek." A hoarse voice came back to me from
the cloud: "Pull and be d - -d." Then all was;
still as night again. To solve this seemingly
uncourteous reply, so unusual in the south
I consulted the manuscript charts which the
Charleston pilots had kindly drawn for my use,
and found that the negroes had spoken
geographically as well as truthfully, for Pine Island
Creek is known to the watermen as "Pull and
be d - -d Creek," on account of its tortuous
character, and chiefly because, as the tides head in
it, if a boat enters it from one river with a
favorable tide, it has a strong head current on the
other side of the middle ground to oppose it.
Thus pulling at the oars at some parts of the
creek becomes hard work for the boatmen;
hence this name, which, though profane, may
be considered geographical.
After leaving the Cooper River, the
watercourses to Savannah were discolored by red or
yellow mud. From Pine Island I descended
New River two miles and a half to Wall's Cut,
which is only a quarter of a mile in length, and
through which I entered Wright's River,
following it a couple of miles to the broad,
yellow, turbulent current of the Savannah.
My thoughts now naturally turned to the early
days of steamboat enterprise, when this river, as
well as the Hudson, was conspicuous; for though
the steamer Savannah was not the first
steam-propelled vessel which cut the waves of the
Atlantic, she was the first steamer that ever
crossed it. Let us examine historical data.
Colonel John Stevens, of New York, built the
steamboat Phoenix about the year 1808, and was
prevented from using it upon the Hudson River
by the Fulton and Livingston monopoly charter.
The Phoenix made an ocean voyage to the
Delaware River. The first English venture was
that of the steamer Caledonia, which made a
passage to Holland in 1817. The London Times
of May 11, 1819, printed in its issue of that date
the following item:
"GREAT EXPERIMENT. - A new vessel of three hundred tons
has been built at New York for the express purpose of carrying
passengers across the Atlantic. She is to come to Liverpool
direct."
This ship-rigged steamer was the "Savannah,"
and the bold projector of this experiment of
sending a steamboat across the Atlantic was Daniel
Dodd. The Savannah was built in New York, by
Francis Ficket, for Mr. Dodd. Stephen Vail, of
Morristown, New Jersey, built her engines, and
on the 22d of August, 1818, she was launched,
gliding gracefully into the element which was to
bear her to foreign lands, there to be crowned
with the laurels of success. On May 25th this
purely American-built vessel left Savannah, and
glided out from this waste of marshes, under
the command of Captain Moses Rogers, with
Stephen Rogers as navigator. The port of New
London, Conn., had furnished these able seamen.
The steamer reached Liverpool June 20th, the
passage having occupied twenty-six days, upon
eighteen of which she had used her paddles. A
son of Mr. Dodd once told me of the sensation
produced by the arrival of a smoking vessel on
the coast of Ireland, and how Lieutenant John
Bowie, of the king's cutter Kite, sent a boat-load
of sailors to board the Savannah to assist her
crew to extinguish the fires of what his Majesty's
officers supposed to be a burning ship.
The Savannah, after visiting Liverpool,
continued her voyage on July 23d, and reached St.
Petersburg in safety. Leaving the latter port on
October 10th, this adventurous craft completed
the round voyage upon her arrival at Savannah,
November 30th.
I pulled up the Savannah until within five miles
of the city, and then left the river on its south
side, where old rice-plantations are first met, and
entered St. Augustine Creek, which is the
steamboat thoroughfare of the inland route to Florida.
Just outside the city of Savannah, near its
beautiful cemetery, where tall trees with their
graceful drapery of Spanish moss screen from wind
and sun the quiet resting-places of the dead, my
canoe was landed, and stored in a building of the
German Greenwich Shooting Park, where Mr.
John Hellwig, in a most hospitable manner, cared
for it and its owner.
While awaiting the arrival of letters at the
Savannah post-office, many of the ladies of that
beautiful city came out to see the paper canoe.
They seemed to have the mistaken idea that my
little craft had come from the distant Dominion
of Canada over the Atlantic Ocean. They also
looked upon the voyage of the paper canoe as a
very sentimental thing, while the canoeist had
found it an intensely practical affair, though
occasionally relieved by incidents of romantic or
amusing character.
