Mr. Dickens's Water"Ways Tour by Philip R. Elmes Late in the afternoon of Saturday the 22nd of January 1842, the steam packet Britannia , e ightee n days out of the Coburg dock at Liverpool, drew up to the busy docks at Boston harbor bearing Her Majesty's mail s, a cargo of trade goods, and e ighty-six ex hausted but happy passengers. Perhaps not so much happy as relieved , for the crossing had been the stormiest in yea rs: the battered ship arrived in port with its damaged stack las hed in pl ace, the sidewhee l paddle box planking Lorn away , and shattered lifeboats dangling useless from the ir davits. Prominent among the arrivals was the celebrated British author Charles Dickens, undaunted by his journey and full of enthusias m for his American adventure. Di ckens, or " Boz" after the character of hi s first literary s uccess Sketches by Boz ( 1836), had come to America accompanied by hi s wife Catherine Hogarth to savor for himself hi s ideali zed view of American democracy. He had read Mrs. Trollope and Harriet Martineau and set out determined to correct the ir less than complimentary accounts of American life and manners. As one bi ographer has written , " Di ckens was convinced that he could understand , as neither of these ladies poss ibly co uld , a democrati c king less co untry freed from the shackles of class rule." In fiv e months, Dickens toured major
eastern c ities then turned west, by canal and river boat, down the Ohio River and up the Mi ss iss ippi to St. Louis; returning, the travelers booked passage briefl y on a lake steamer bound from Sandusky down Lake Erie by way of C leveland to Buffalo. Chastened by hi s ex perience, he faithfully reported hi s adventure in American Notes , publi shed soon after his return home(October 1842). As chock full of descripti ve detail, humor and satire as we mi ght ex pect, in American Notes we find Dickens di sillusioned with hi s image of the American Dream. Nevertheless, from an hi storica l perspective, the writer's accounts of the waterborne leg of hi s journey are of particular interest. Barely thirty in 1842, Dickens was already America 's best-selling author. Sketches by Boz was followed in quick success ion by Th e Posthumous Papers ofthe Pickwick Club, Oliver Twist( 1838), The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby ( 1839), and Th e Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge publi shed in book form in 184 1. As quick as the seriali zed novels were issued in the British press, pirated copies were ru shed on board fast steamers bound fo r the States and an eager American press. Ignoring British copyright conventions, newspapers across the country raced each other forthe latest Dickens piece. And America loved every word. As an observer and reporter, Di ckens
Mr. Dickens' water route from Harrisburg to St. Louis: Byca nal : - - - - - - - ri\'erboat: - - - - -
By
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was witho ut peer and , indeed, in the pages of hi s American Notes we find a viv id portrait of our country in the midi 9th century. Lionized by society at"Boz Balls" he ld in ci ty after city, and mobbed in the streets at every stop, Dickens's small entourage progressed from Boston to New York , then on to Phil adelphia, Baltimore and Washington . Much as he did at home, at every opportunity Dickens sought out pri sons, settl ement houses and factories , noting in deta il the living and working conditions of the lower classes and , inev itabl y, making compari sons with Britain. Sadly, given hi s he ightened ex pectation s, America suffered by the compari son. A confirmed abo liti oni st, Dickens felt compe ll ed to tour the South and its plantations but got no further than Richmond. Deeply moved by the deso lation of Virginia ' s agriculturally spent fi elds and bleak abandoned homes, all formerly worked by slave labor, Dickens turned to the West in the hope of findin g America's promi se of liberty and equality. By way of Baltimore, he headed for Pennsylvania and the Vall ey of the Ohio.
West by Canal and Steamboat At Harrisburg Dickens boarded a canal boat bound for Pittsburgh and the Ohio Ri ver, and in hi s brief sketch we glimpse the dubious comfo rts of canal travel at the he ight of America's 19th-century canal boom . Stimulated by the success of the Erie Canal (opened in 1825), a quartercentury of canal construction created a network of canals stretching from the Atlantic westward to the Missi ssippi valley, and north to the Great Lakes. Dug at great expense of labor and capital, this short-lived canal system was for several decades the great conveyor of trade and settlement to the American inte rior. Canal travel was surely no novelty to Dickens, for England, at the turn of the 19th century, possessed a mature canal system second to none . But thi s fact do ubtless served as little preparation for the rigors of the American frontier. Approaching the dock in Harri sburg, shoulders hunched against a cold March rain , Dickens described their transportation of choice as " a barge with a little house Th e route Charles Dickens followed by canal boat and steamboat on the inland waterways,from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania , west to St . Louis. SEA HISTORY 74, SUMMER 1995