Captain W. W. Withenbury's 1838–1842 "Red River Reminiscences"

13. At the Falls

The Reminiscences  81 hounds, whose eagerness for the chase could hardly be repressed, and their united, deep-toned baying caused the hills to echo to their music, till we all became filled with a desire to “hie to the hills away.” But “business first” was Captain Ross’ order, and we at once set about examining into the condition of the bayous above us, and deferred our sports till another day. The yawl was manned with an exploring party, and a party of stragglers on foot accompanied them along the bank; but I will reserve the results of the expedition for another time. OUTSIDER. Notes 1. The upward growth of the Red River raft caused water to be diverted to the western floodplain higher up when there was sufficient water for navigation , which inundated Caddo Prairie. 2. Harriet Potter in her “The History of Harriet A. Ames During the Early Days of Texas” indicates that the first steamboat on Caddo Lake went to a place that was soon to be known as Rives’ Landing. 13  At the Falls • The exploratory party went up to look at the conditions on Sewell’s Canal and at the falls, which extended from the head of Sewell’s Canal for a mile up Red Bayou and therefore was more appropriately called a rapids. The falls were caused by the fact that the water level in Red Bayou was higher than in Black Bayou. Sewell’s Canal and the im- 82  Red River Reminiscences provements to Red Bayou mentioned in the letter were part of Lt. Washington Seawell’s 1829 project. Most of the letter is devoted to a description of incidents that occurred after the exploratory party returned to the Relief at Erwin’s Bluff. The letter ends with a decision by Capt. Ross to go by skiff up Red Bayou and down Red River to the head of the raft, expecting to return in two days.  O ur exploring expedition, which was organized on the first morning after our arrival at Erwin’s Bluff, extended its researches to the head of “Stumpy Falls,” in Red Bayou, which falls were located in that part of the bayou where the canal connects it with Black Bayou. Here I must explain how this fall of about six feet—caused by the level of Red Bayou being so much above Black Bayou—has moved from Sewell’s Canal, where I located it, where Captain Crooks, the season before, built his slack-water dams to enable him to take the Hunter through. The canal was cut, following a little slough, through soft prairie soil, where there were no roots or stumps of trees, and as the current was very swift, the bottom of the canal in time washed out to the level of Black Bayou, and the same difference of level in the two bayous thus connected still remained, and it manifested itself at the point where Red Bayou was tapped by the canal and extended for nearly a mile in a perfectly “straight reach” up the bayou. This part of Red Bayou in its natural condition was but a mere narrow slough and full of the largest kind of cypress trees. These trees had been cut very close to the bottom of the slough, and everything done that could be except pulling up these immense stumps, to render the bayou in that particular part as good as it The Reminiscences  83 was in its general character; and until the canal washed out to the level of Black Bayou, the “Stumpy Falls” were not a very formidable obstruction to keel boat navigation. This information I got from Mr. Bale, who had helped “hook” the first keel-boats through this route to Upper Red River; and Captain Crooks once told me that his last dam in the canal, which was just one boat’s length below the upper end of it, backed the water nearly up to the head of “the reach” where “Stumpy Falls” for years after had delayed us all so many days and weeks, and caused us so much vexatious hard labor. Before we came in sight of the falls, we heard distinctly the rumbling of the water as it came rushing over, among and around these stumps, and our first look at this dreaded place satisfied us that any attempt to take the Relief over would be labor lost; and after making a minute...