REVIEWS The River's in My Blood: Riverboat Pilots Tell Their Stories, Jane Curry (University of Nebraska Press , Lincoln , 1985, 265pp, illus, $7.95pb). Long before America became a commercial and military power on the high seas in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, she was possessed of an extensive maritime history and culture. Although much of this was centered on the coasts, the story of America cannot be told without reference to the long and rich tradition on her lakes and rivers . Some of this history is revealed in Jane Curry 's The River's in My Blood. Although Curry makes extensive use of Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi, this book is about, and to a large extent by , the men and women pilots who span the time between the close of the steamboat age and today's diesel towboats . The author uses the approach of the cultural anthropologist and lets the people she interviews tell their own stories, giving the reader a feel for the personalities and characters of the riverboat pilot. This approach is not without its drawbacks, however, especially in a book of this size. The focus on the people leaves little room for technical explanation. Phrases such as " making up the tow " are used often, but the reader is not given a clear idea of what is involved. Also lacking is a broad , consistent view of life on the river and how its people have shaped, or been shaped by , the river. Curry's use of secondary sources is worth noting , and the bibliography is a good introduction to the materials available for further study of this maritime tradition . But by itself, The River's In My Blood opens a window onto a maritime tradition as rich and as varied as any to be found, and in the tales recorded here , the reader will surely find enjoyment. KENNETH BUTLER Mr . Butler, quondam Navy quartermaster, statistician and ship restorer, is also a stalwart in the Society's New York Harbor Curatorship . Steamboat in a Cornfield, John Hartford (Crown Publishers , New York, 1986, illus , $10.95hb). In the inclement year of 1910 , neither hulls nor husks bore any fruit on Williamson's farm below Willow Grove in Worthbottom, West Virginia . Why? A steamboat ran aground in high water 600 feet from the Ohio River in a cornfield. The severe economic penalty to both farmer (who could grow no com in his field) and the steamboat company (who couldn't stay afloat) made front page news in papers all along the Ohio. 42
John Hartford , a country singer well known for his song " Gentle on my Mind ," has turned this piece of Americana into a children's verse called Steamboat in a Cornfield. The book is wry and amusing , with lines such as ''The cornfield rose and came up for air and when the water started back down, the Virginia was sitting high and dry, draped on the fertile ground." An outstanding hand-painted jacket photo and inside period photographs printed in a duotone sepia document the event. The pictures are an archival coup and include an abundance of maps , photographs , old tickets and the like. But one is reminded of a grade school yearbook. The graphic cacophony of unconventional techniques does not always contribute to the readability of the story. The verse writing is appropriate for the funn y lines , but it does not narrate as clearly as it might. One has to read the end-notes , the foreword and then the coda to truly follow the plot. Yet if the narrative of Steamboat in a Cornfield may not be as clear as it can be , the book is as much fun as visiting a cluttered antique store to rummage through old postcards and sit at the knee of a kindly old river bard. And it is well worth the FRANCES MIDDENDORF effort! Ms. Middendorf is a free-lance visual journalist on the faculty of the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
Our Wherry in Wendish Lands, H.M . Doughty, fwd . John Leather (Ashford Press Publ., 1 Church Rd ., Shefield , Hants S03 2HN, 1985, 406pp, illus, ÂŁ14 .95hb). This fascinating Victorian travel book (with a modem introduction by John Leather, author of Barges and Spritsails and Lugsails) is a facsimile reprint of a book first published in 1891 which tells the adventures of an English family who spent their holidays for some two years cruising the waters of what is now East Germany . In 1890, Doughty and his family sailed their Norfolk wherry Gipsy by various canal routes into Germany via Emden and the River Ems. Having visited Bremen, a voyage of some fifty miles brought them to Bremerhaven and the River Elbe. Passing by Hamburg and Liineberg, they proceeded via the Neue Eide into the vast chain of lakes in Mecklenburg. From here, they continued southward via the River Havel to Spandau and Potsdam until they eventually rejoined the Elbe near Magdeburg. One can really appreciate the magnitude of their accomplishment, when it
is realized that the voyage was ac- . complished principally under sail-a tribute to the handiness and adaptability of the Norfolk wherry rig in its heyday. This is not to say that the whole journey was undertaken without assistance. Confronted by a strong current on the Elbe , they were obliged to be towed south by a chain steamer-a tug using a chain laid on the bed of the river between Hamburg and Bohemia. Regardless, when they arrived at Aussig-from which the party was able to visit Saxon Switzerland and parts of Bohemia by rail- Doughty could write with some satisfaction, "The Gipsy had now voyaged through the entire length of the German Empire. The Elbe flowed North from us nearly 500 miles to the German Ocean (North Sea), and only ten miles of its course were between us and the frontier of Austria.' ' Doughty writes throughout in a breezy entertaining style, with a fine eye for the country traversed, and he recounts many interesting episodes of local history and of places visited. It is unfortunate that it has not been possible to reproduce the maps included in the original , but this in no way detracts from the excellent and informative narrative. This is a typical Victorian travel story and well merits such an excellent reprint, since it casts great light on a happier and more peaceful Europe of I 00 years ago--an era very different from the hurly-burly of the preJAMES FORSYTHE sent day . Major Forsythe is President of the Norfolk Wherry Trust and Deputy Chairman of the World Ship Trust .
An American Treasure: The Hudson River Valley, photos by Ted Spiegel, text by Jeffrey Simpson (Sleepy Hollow Press , Tarrytown, NY , 1986, 135pp, illus, $14.95pb) . From its opening spread-a scene beloved in your reviewer's eyes of the towered island of Manhattan rising from the waters that embrace it, north on one side to Tappan Zee and on the other to Hell Gate and the beginnings of Long Island Sound-to the last quiet photograph of the Hudson River's headwaters at Lake Tear-in-the-Clouds, this splendid volume incorporating 139 color photographs swoops and soars over the mighty Hudson like a presiding tutelary spirit. Between are meandering marshland creeks , Colonial estates, a vintage aircraft rally, and the people of the valley in their variety-mimers, sidewalk sweepers, trotting horse racers, Hudson River Sloop sailors, children dancing from rock to rock in the water at Croton SEA HISTORY , SPRING 1987