John S1ohart' s rendering ofa small s1eamhoa1 making ils way on !he Mississippi in "Nigh! Run lo Friar' s Poin1. " This vessel appears 10 he 1hrow11 10ge1her hy !h e " varying las/es of a dozen men ," as Dickens described 1he Messenger.
pigs nearl y as good as many of the human quarters; broken w indows , patched w ith worn-o ut hats, o ld clo thes , o ld boards, fragments of blankets and pa per; and home-made dressers sta nding in the open air without the door, whe reon was ranged the ho useho ld store, not hard to count, of earthe rn j ars and pots." On the third day, the canal boat delivered its passengers to the foot of the A ll eghe ny mo untai ns, which were to be crossed by ra ilroad; o n the othe r side, the canal connection resumed , o n to Pittsburgh. Afte rthreedays' restthere, where they lodged at "a most exce lle nt hote l, and were admirabl y served ," the Dickens party embarked o n the river steame r Messenger. Adv ised that western hi ghpressure steamboats tended to bl ow up " one or two a week in season," Dickens was pleased to be accommodated in a tiny stateroom off the ladi es lounge in the stern of the vessel- because, he was adv ised, " the steam-boats generall y blew up forward. " Dickens con tinued to be asto ni shed by the very nature of American inland watercraft which he fo und "still mo re fo re ig n to all the ideas we are acc ustomed to en tertain of boats." Noting the absence of mast, cordage, tack le or ri gging, Dickens fou nd little abo ut the very shape of the vesse l " at all ca lc ul ated to remind one of a boat's head, ste rn , s ides, or keel. " There was no vis ible deckmerely a long, black roof, covered with burnt-o ut "feathe ry" sparks above which loomed two iron c himneys and a g lass steerage house. Below the roofdeck were the s ides, doors and windows of the staterooms, "j umbled as oddly togethe r as though they formed a small street, built by the varying tastes of a dozen me n: the whole is supported on beams and pillars resting on a dirty barge, but a few inches above the water's edge: and in the narrow space between thi s uppe r structure and this barge's deck, are the furnace fires and mac hine ry, open at the sides to every wind that blows, and every stonn of ra in it drives alo ng its path ." The Messenger, nevertheless , was a vast improve me nt in comfort over the canal boats of hi s acq uainta nce. Hi s fe llow passenge rs were anothe r matter. On board three days, he fo und the company do ur and uncommunicative; mea ltimes were s ilent affa irs conducted prima ril y for the purpose of eating. The spread included countless little dishes and plates with little of substance on them. There was no " socia lity" othe r than the silent
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fellowship round the stove when the mea l was over. Dicke ns's lively pe rsonality was surely subdued as he compared "the whole ma le portion of the compan y [with] the mela nchol y ghosts of departed book-keepers, who had fallen dead at the desk."
Cheerful Cincinnati Landing in Cincinnati was a great relief: he found it "a beautiful city; cheerful , thriving and animated." fnd eed, Cincinnati at this time was the Queen City of the West, wealthy, industrious and cultured, with a population of over fifty thousand, well paved streets, fine shops, lovely homes and excellent free public schools. In the weeks that follo wed , Louisville and St. Louis paled by comparison though, in decades to come, first St. Louis, then Chicago, would each in turn claim C incinnati' s early pre-eminence. Continuing down th e Ohio , th e Dickens party stopped briefl y in Loui sville (deemed dull and "over-built" though the hotel was excelle nt), the n boarded the steamboat Fulton , for St. Lo uis, the weste rnmost point of hi s itine rary. Approaching the joining of the Ohio and Mi ssissippi , Dickens noted the dreary aspect of low-lying land, vast mud fl ats simmering under a re lentless sun , and trees stunted by periodic inundatio n. At the very junction of the two rivers, Dic ke ns describes " a di smal swamp , on which half-built houses rot away ... and teeming, then , with rank unwhol esome vegetati o n, in whose bal eful shade the wretched wanderers who are te mpted hithe r, droop, and die, and lay their bones; . .. a place without one s ing le quality, in earth or air or water, to comme nd it: suc h is thi s di smal Cairo." And the Mi ss iss ippi itself, when compared with the c rys talline waters of the Ohio, he found nearly indescribable: " An enonnous ditc h, some times two or three mil es wide, running liquid mud, six miles an hour. " While on the rive r, they drank the muddy water "cons ide red wholesome by the natives . . . something more opaque than gruel. " After two days of laboring uprive r against the mighty current, the Fu/ ton delive red he r passengers at St. Lo ui s. And, after some days of ex ploring the c ity, the surrounding plains a nd quaint French-inflected villages, Dic kens turned back east a nd north to exp lore the Great Lakes and Canada. The publi cation of American Notes
late that year was well rece ived in Eng land and vilified in America. In hi s caricatures of po liticians and colorful fellow travelers along the way , and in hi s descriptions of the unfortunate condi tion s of the lowe r classes, hi s writing was pure Dicke ns. For thi s the American press found him an ungrate ful g uest, while Ameri can men of lette rs found hi s writing engaging and fundamentally true. Dic kens's satire and soc ial c ritici sm directed at English c ustom was ce le brated by hi s Ame rican reade rs; that same pen applied to American counterparts cut too close to the raw nerve e ndings of the young re public. G. K. Chesterton tell s us that while Dic kens came to America to savor its freedoms and ex tol them to the world, he ultimately found them wanting. He despi sed cant of every kind , and to find Americans so re le ntless ly self-congratulato ry, so convinced of the young nation 's sole possess ion ofl iberty, was more than he co uld co unte nan ce. "A merica ," Chesterton ex pla ins, " will always affect an Englishman as being soft in the wrong place and hard in the wrong place; coarse exactly where all civili zed me n are delicate, delicate exactl y where all grow nup me n are coarse." He had loved hi s trip, made many fri e nds, and was indeed awed by much that he saw. But as a true liberal , in the English radical tradition , with an absolute commitme nt to personal freedom , he left the States with grave mi sg ivings. He wrote a fri e nd: " I do fear that the heaviest blow ever dealt liberty will be dealt by thi s country, in the failure of its example on the earth." Dickens understood our nation ' s promise a nd loved us we ll enough to tell the truth . .1
Philip R . Elmes , MA , a lifelong resident of the Chicago area, is founder of the Chicago Maritime Society , an organization currently looking for a site. SEA HTSTORY 74, SUMMER 1995