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When I was a boy, there was but one permanent ambition among my comrades
in our village on the west bank of the Mississippi River. That was, to
be a steamboatman. We had transient ambitions of other sorts, but they
were only transient. When a circus came and went, it left us all burning
to become clowns; the first negro minstrel show that came to our section
left us all suffering to try that kind of life; now and then we had a
hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates.
These ambitions faded out, each in its turn; but the ambition to be a
steamboatman always remained.
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Pilots' Association lapel pin from the Dave Thomson collection. Clemens wrote about the Pilots' Association in Chapter 15 of Life on the Mississippi |
I wish I was back there piloting up & down the river again. Verily,
all is vanity and little worth--save piloting. I am a person who would quit authorizing in a minute to go to piloting,
if the madam would stand it. I would rather sink a steamboat than eat,
any time. A pilot, in those days, was the only unfettered and entirely independent
human being that lived in the earth. Piloting on the Mississippi River was not work to me; it was play--delightful
play, vigorous play, adventurous play--and I loved it... |
...all men--kings & serfs alike--are slaves to other men & to circumstance--save
alone, the pilot--who comes at no man's back and call, obeys no man's orders
& scorns all men's suggestions. The king would do this thing, & would
do that: but a cramped treasury overmasters him in the one case & a seditious
people in the other. The Senator must hob-nob with canaille whom he despises,
& banker, priest & statesman trim their actions by the breeze of the
world's will & the world's opinion. It is a strange study,--a singular phenomenon,
if you please, that the only real, independent & genuine gentlemen in the
world go quietly up and down the Mississippi river, asking no homage of any
one, seeking no popularity, no notoriety, & not caring a damn whether school
keeps or not.
- Letter to Will Bowen, 8/25/1866
In
April 1909, Samuel Clemens declined an invitation to attend a celebration in
Natchez, Mississippi for the battleship Mississippi.His letter of regret was
sent to Natchez Mayor William G. Benbrook and was published in the Atlanta Constitution
on April 27, 1909:
| Redding, Conn., April, 1909. -- I know quite well what I am losing. Among
other things, I am losing the chance of seeing--for a blessed once in my
life--a Mississippi pilot in supreme and unchallengeable command of an American
battleship. I am losing the chance of hearing the executive officer say:
'Stand by, there, with the starboard lead,' and of hearing an affronted
voice from the pilot retort: 'I beg your pardon sir, but I'll call for the
leads when I want them.'
But I am old and indolent, and most humbly sacrifice my desires to my
necessities. |
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Steamboat
MISSOURI, (known as "The Big Missouri") the boat Ben Rogers impersonates
as he approaches Tom Sawyer during the fence whitewashing episode. Original
engraving for the Family Magazine 1850 was lithographed by Klaupreck &
Menzel in Cincinnati. The MISSOURI ran in the St. Louis-New Orleans trade
and was lost by fire in St. Louis on July 8, 1851.
- Photo
and history of the steamer MISSOURI courtesy of Dave Thomson.
Click here to see Clemens' Pilot
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