Perry County, Indiana - Chapter 7: Lafayette's Steamboat Wreck at Rock Island, 1916

A notably unique occurrence of international history about this period, which accidentally brought into Perry County the most renowned personage who ever set foot upon her soil, was the second visit of Lafayette to America during President Monroe's second administration, in response to an official invitation from the United States, placing at his disposal a government frigate for his transportation to our shores. Free passage was eagerly proffered also by each of the different packet lines crossing the Atlantic, but all such propositions were courteously waived.

Gilbert Motier Marquis de Lafayette, the aristocratic advocate of pure democracy, consistently embarked as a private passenger on board the vessel Cadmus, plying between Havre and New York, where he arrived Sunday, August 5, 1824, landing at Staten Island. The elaborate reception on the following day which tendered him the freedom of the city of New York, was but the prelude to a year of triumphant ovation bestowed upon a hero around whose name clustered the romantic tradition of half a century. Of him it was said : ''While Lafayette lived no one need mourn the age of chivalry as dead," and this sentiment may help us better to conceive the furore of excitement which swept over the country when Lafayette was actually once more in America.

Every one of the thirteen original Colonies was visited, and each vied with her sister States in paying honour to this supreme patriot, the invaluable friend of America, than whom none was dearer to the heart of Washington. While there was no lack of warmth or spontaneity in the tributes of New York or New England, it remained for the nation's first capital, Philadelphia, to accord him a welcome so enthusiastically brilliant in expression that it yet stands upon record as the most marvellous demonstration ever beheld in the staid Quaker City.

Lafayette's emotion on revisiting "Mount Vernon'^ was profound, and we are told upon the authority of John C. Calhoun (then Secretary of War) that as the General stood reverently uncovered before the tomb of Washington a magnificent eagle poised its flight in mid-air for several seconds directly above him. At "Monticello" Thomas Jefferson came forth with tottering steps to embrace with fond affection his friend of by-gone years, and no less cordial a reception was extended by James Madison at "Montpelier."

Passing on southward through the Carolinas and Georgia, a spirited tribute was paid at Fort Mitchell in the Indian country by a number of Indians who took out the horses from his traveling carriage and drew it themselves for several miles. The vivacious French population of New Orleans spared nothing that could show honour to the illustrious dignitary who seemed to personify the felicitous unity between France and America, and a similar element attended the welcome of St. Louis. From Missouri to Tennessee was the next step in the tour planned to include each of the newer commonwealths added to the original Union, and Lafayette became at Nashville the guest of Andrew Jackson at "The Hermitage."

Messengers were sent on horseback to inform the people in advance of his coming, Lafayette himself leaving Nashville, bound for Indiana and Kentucky, early in May, 1825, on board the steamer Mechanic, Captain Wyllys Hall commander, accompanied by Governor Carroll, of Tennessee, and a distinguished party. Among its members were Governor Coles, of Illinois, General O'Fallon and Major Nash, of St. Louis, be-

The trip down the Cumberland was uneventful, along the same route taken but recently from St. Louis to Nashville. Turning upward into the Ohio, however, Lafayette was quick to perceive the rare natural beauties of its scenery, warmly commending the sentiment of his fellow-countrymen, the explorers who had so long before conferred upon the stream its title of La Belle Rivie7X. The mouth of the Wabash was passed in their journey, and a hundred miles beyond, as Perry County was reached, the channel grew narrower, the bordering hills on either side higher, the rocky cliffs wilder and more precipitous.

Four or five miles above the present site of Cannelton, then virgin forest, a jagged island juts from the river in a bend of the channel and although now guarded by a warning government light is still a menace to navigation at almost all stages of water. Steamboat piloting was then in its infancy, and it is not strange that in the darkness toward midnight of Sunday, May 9, with a heavy rain falling, the Mechanic struck upon the outlying ledge of Rock Island, tearing a hole in her bow, and filled so rapidly with water that she went down in little more than ten minutes.

Every one felt the shock, Lafayette being aroused with the others from slumber, and amid great excitement Captain Hall had the yawl made ready to convey his passengers to the shore. In the confusion prevailing, as he attempted to descend into the skiff, Lafayette missed his footing and was precipitated into the river and might have been drowned but for the timely assistance of one of the deckhands. Despite his advanced years the General had not lost the art of swimming acquired in his youth, so was able to keep his head above water until help arrived.

All the passengers and crew were rescued, but every article of baggage and cargo was lost. Lafayette naturally suffered some inconvenience by the wreck and consequent loss of sundry personal belongings, including his carriage and eight thousand dollars in money; and while Captain Hall was devoting all his attention to safeguarding his passengers, his own desk, containing some thirteen hundred dollars, was lost overboard and never recovered. With characteristic philosophy, Lafayette declared himself perhaps a gainer through losing at the same time a vast quantity of unanswered letters and unacknowledged addresses.

Here were no triumphal arches, no bands of music, no carefully-conned speeches, to bid the nation's guest welcome to Indiana. Only the simple log cabin of a sturdy pioneer, James Cavender, offered shelter to the highborn nobleman who had slept under the palaceroof of Versailles, yet Hoosier hospitality gave of its best, then as today. News of the famous visitor spread like wildfire through the sparsely settled region, and sunrise after the storm found gathering a small but patriotic assemblage of farmers, their wives and children, many of whom had traveled miles on foot, over night, merely to touch the hand of him who had contributed so much toward our independent existence.

Among these was a ten-year-old lad who had walked with his parents from their home at Tobin's Point, Robert Tobin, son of Thomas and Sarah (Polk) Tobin. Fifty years later this boy had become a man of recognized mark and character in the community, representing Perry and Spencer Counties as joint Senator in the Legislatures of 1875 and 1877. The powerful impression made by Lafayette upon his childish mind, with other circumstantial details of the event, were cherished into old age by an accurate, retentive memory, and to his interesting personal recollections appreciative credit is here gratefully rendered, all his statements having been fully verified upon further research among contemporary authorities.

Troy's oft repeated claim that the wreck occurred there has been traced to the incident of the Mechanic's hull having become displaced during the flood of

1832, when it floated farther down the river, lodging a short distance above Troy, where it was visible for many years in its slow process of decay. Into this slight web of fact many threads of fancy were woven in after years by imaginative story-tellers, embellished by particulars wholly impossible to authenticate.

Very near to the Cavender cabin a never-failing spring issues from a cleft between two towering rocks, shaded then by an elm tree of primeval growth which endured into the present century. Here the courtly General received his rustic visitors. The same easy dignity of manner which had allowed him to be called the most polished gentleman in France, everywhere won for him all hearts, so his memory is kept alive and his name perpetuated in more than a few Perry County families, some of whose members were among the little throng who flocked about him in the sunshine of that spring morning.

The forenoon was spent in informal conversation, with many jests as to the discomforts of the preceding night, when only Lafayette and Governor Carroll had had the accommodation of a bed, and the boat's crew had of necessity camped out of doors, although this last was but an inconsiderable evil in the balmy Maytime of Southern Indiana.

Near mid-day the smoke of a descending steamer was descried, which upon approach proved to be the Paragon, bound for Memphis. Being hailed and acquainted with the circumstances of the accident, however, the captain at once agreed to return to Louisville with Lafayette and his party, all of whom parted from their kindly entertainers with genuine regret. The Paragon's fuel supply was to have been replenished at the Troy wood-yards, so it became necessary to land again only a few miles above Rock Island to procure wood, whereupon all the citizens within call lent cheerful aid to the steamer's crew, to expedite - in ever so humble a way - the General's interrupted journey.

May 11, 1825, the boat reached Portland (Louisville) where it was met at the shore by a military escort comprising the flower of the Corncracker State, and in the evening a grand ball was given to nearly four hundred guests. Among these not the least conspicuous was Governor James Brown Ray, of Indiana, probably the most eccentric man ever elected to the highest office in the state. He was very vain, always seeking in both dress and manner to attract wondering attention, fond of impressing everybody with a sense of his singular ability and lofty position. In public places he habitually registered his name "J. Brown Ray, Governor of Indiana" as if signing an official document, so it is safe to believe that when accompanied by his full staff at the ball in Louisville's Washington Hall, he was not the least spectacular feature of the occasion.

On the next day Lafayette was taken across to Jeffersonville aboard the steamer General Pike, and grandiloquently welcomed to Indiana by Governor Ray, although rain prevented his attending a large barbecue which had been arranged in his honour. With the further incidents of his stay in America Perry County had no part, and Indiana but little, save that one of her counties, organized 1834, the year of his death, and its county seat commemorate the title of his French chateau, La Grange, still occupied by his descendants, and a shrine much visited by Americans abroad.

Until the floods of the eighties the little log cabin had bravely weathered six decades of storm and sunshine, but is now only a memory, though the bubbling spring still pours forth its refreshing waters beside the winding turnpike road from Cannelton to Deer Creek.

A contemporary heirloom preserved in one of Cannelton's oldest homes is a quaint cream jug in "old blue" china, having an established catalogue value among collectors as the "Lafayette Pattern," and now used by the third generation in descent from its orig- inal owners, Joshua B. and Rebecca (Lang) Huckeby, who were married at Rome in the year of its manufacture, 1824. A picture of Lafayette's vessel landing at Castle Garden, New York, with the Battery guns belching forth a fiery salute, appears on the sides of the pitcher, the front showing a medallion inscription. The ware is much sought by china connoisseurs for its historic design no less than its rarity, as specimens are now seldom seen outside of art museums or prize cabinets.

Lafayette's love for America lasted with his life. Not only was his only son called George Washington, but Virginia and Carolina were names chosen for his daughters. Returning to his native land to die, it was yet his wish to repose in American soil, hence, at his request, when he bade a last farewell to these United States, the frigate Brandywine which bore him away carried also a hogshead of earth from the summit of Bunker Hill. It was taken from the very spot where General Warren fell, so the same ground which drank the blood of Warren surrounds today the ashes of another patriot-soldier, no less gallant, whose life was happily spared for a longer career of usefulness and bravery.