40 A RAFT PILOT'S LOG 



of the cabin and "lower deck" passengers were welcome 

 patrons as a rule. These raftmen had been patronizing 

 the bar quite liberally all the way up but the bartender 

 accustomed to handling them kept them in good humor 

 and within a safe limit; but while lying at Rock Island 

 and Davenport some of them drank a lot up-town after 

 the boat's bar was closed for the night. 



She left early in the morning and when these men 

 woke up after the night's debauch they wanted whiskey 

 and wanted it bad. 



The officers in charge should have been prepared to 

 take care of this matter. It was an awful mistake to put 

 a negro there to meet the situation. 



Deck passengers were not allowed to eat in the cabin 

 at all ; they got grub from the kitchen down on the main 

 deck. It was whiskey they wanted, not breakfast, and 

 it was no place for a negro in front to turn them back 

 f rorn the bar. 



I don't know what river these raftmen came from 

 but think they were from the Wisconsin, as the major- 

 ity of them were Irish; while on the Black, Chippewa 

 and Saint Croix rivers, the Canadians and Scandinavi- 

 ans were the most numerous. 



I never heard raftmen from Black river spoken of as 

 more belligerent than others; nor did I ever learn of a 

 single instance of a real raftman assaulting or injuring 

 a woman or a child. They would fight when in liquor, 

 and this was not unusual on shore in those days. 



When a boy I saw more fighting and more blood shed 

 on one Saturday night in the little town of Princeton 

 than I saw among raftmen during my twenty years 

 among them. 



The riot on the "Dubuque" was the only afifair of the 

 kind that happened during the seventy-five years of the 



