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

1. Taking the Challenge

13 The Reminiscences 1  Taking the Challenge • In this first letter, Withenbury takes up the challenge of responding to the Picayune’s attacks on westerners (that is, midwesterners) as intruders in the trade of the Red and Ouachita rivers, as suggested by the letter signed “Bird of Passage.” Withenbury lays out an ambitious plan of response, which is never fulfilled. The intent was to start with the steamboats that began using the Red River from the time that the raft was first removed, rather than going back to the beginning (although Withenbury will make some valuable comments on activities during the keelboat/ flatboat period). The letter uses as initial examples of the importance of midwesterners in the development of the Red River trade Capt. Jonathan Hildreth (unnamed) of the Concord, Capt. Benjamin Crooks of the Hunter, Capt. Joseph Ross of the Relief, Capt. John Smoker of the Brian Boroihme, and himself (unnamed) as captain of the Lama. 14  Red River Reminiscences  I was pleased to see in your issue of this morning that somebody has seen fit to review the New Orleans Picayune on the point as to who has the right to navigate the “Red and Ouachita Rivers” and share in the results of legitimate competition for the fast increasing business of those two rivers of the South. I have frequently of late read articles from the Picayune breathing the same spirit as the one reviewed by your correspondent, and have wished that someone would take up the gauntlet so often of late thrown down by this mouth-piece of the New Orleans Association and the self-constituted exclusives who would shut out Western men and capital from participating in legitimate trade and commerce. And now, with your indulgence, I propose to take part in this discussion, as I know a few things of the past history of the navigation of Red and Ouachita Rivers, which, if brought to light, may serve to enlighten the Picayune and some of these newly fledged steamboatmen who seem to think the Southern rivers of the United States were made for their special use and benefit. I will first refer to the date when Shreveport was only known as Coat’s Bluff,1 when Captain Shreve, with the United States snagboats , penetrated the great Red River raft to that point, and finally succeeded in forcing a passage entirely through it to the clear and unobstructed navigable waters of a thousand miles in extent, and which, up to that time, had never been disturbed by the wheels of a steamboat. I will not raise the question as to whether Captain Shreve was a “Westerner” or a Southerner, inasmuch as he was employed by the Government, and had an undoubted right to go to Red River. But I will tell the Picayune the name of the first The Reminiscences  15 steamboat which followed in the wake of the Government snagboat through the Red River raft. That was the Concord, officered by “Westerners” and commanded by a citizen of Cincinnati; and here I will simply suggest that if any credit belongs to the enterprising pioneer of a trade which to-day assumes such proportions as to attract the attention of the whole people of the country, West and South, it certainly falls to the lot of “Westerners.” But for fear of making this communication too long, I would enter minutely into the history of those who followed close upon the heels of the Concord, and thus show conclusively that to Western men alone is that region of country indebted for its thrifty condition of to-day. I can not leave this interesting part of the history of the early navigation of Red River, without giving the names of a few of the adventurers who risked and well nigh lost their all in the experimental undertaking. Among those most prominent was Captain Benjamin Crooks, who spent more than a score of the best years of his life, and built and wore out a number of steamboats in the upper Red River, thus doing much to develop the resources of the country, and finally died leaving to his family nothing but his fame,2 on the banks of the Ohio, near Gallipolis; but to the South, all the benefits resulting from his perseverance in striving to establish a steamboat communication between the wilderness of upper Red River and the great commercial mart of the Mississippi Valley...