Originally published: 1874
Genres: Adventure
Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/201405508-the-island-pirate-a-tale-of-the-mississippi
Gutenberg link: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69036
Chapters:
Warning: This may include outdated and derogatory language and attitudes.
CHAPTER I
A PAYING PRISON
Many long years have elapsed since I first set foot in the valley of the Mississippi. I had strayed thither a young and enthusiastic traveler, with scarce any other aim than adventure.
I soon discovered that I had got into the very ground where such a taste could be gratified. Amid scenes of softness or sublimity, or tranquil solitude or stirring life—amid varied types of nationality, and strange contrasts of character—scarce a day passed without its incident, nor week wanting in some episode worthy of remembrance. Many of them have at least proved worthy of mine, and I now look back upon them with that romantic interest by which the past often reflects itself in the mirror of memory.
What I am about to record is of a mixed character—a drama in which there are scenes of pain as well as pleasure—both of real occurrence.
Whether interesting or not, they may be deemed improbable; though not by those who have studied the social characteristics of the Mississippi valley at the period to which they refer—before the "Far West" had commenced receding from the great river, and its settlements had refused to give shelter to those outcasts of society, who own no law but that of the lex talionis, and no lawyer but Lynch.
Unlike most travelers through Mississippian territory, I entered it from the south—by the mouth of its main river—making my first station in the city of New Orleans.
It was late in the spring when I arrived there. And soon after the red cross, beginning to show itself on the doors of the humbler dwellings that lay "swampward," warned me of the presence of that terrible epidemic, which there annually decimated the ranks of such strangers as were compelled to make their summer sojourn in the place.
Taking the hint, I bade a temporary adieu to New Orleans, intending to return to it after the first frost in the "fall."
Straying northward, here and there halting as chance or caprice directed, I was at length carried into the Ohio and up the Cumberland River to the capital of Tennessee.
By this time the forest foliage had become tinged with red, and the leaf was beginning to fall. My stay, therefore, in the "City of Rocks," though pleasant, was not prolonged; and I made preparations for leaving it: not by a steamboat, as I had come, but on horseback—a mode of traveling I much preferred, as, in fact, the only one by which such a country can be properly seen.
With a stout roadster between my thighs and a valise buckled to the croup behind me, I took the Franklin "pike," leading southward from the city.
I contemplated a long ride—so long, that were I to state the distance, it might test the credulity of my reader; as it did that of a traveler, who shortly after overtook me.
I had made some three miles along the dusty pike, and was nearly opposite a large pile of building, standing to the right of the road, when the traveler in question came gliding alongside.
He was upon a "pacer," and could soon have passed me; but instead of doing so, he checked his steed into a walk, and rode by my side. Glancing toward him, I saw that he was a young man, dressed in a white linen coat and trousers, with well-fitting boots upon his feet, and a Panama hat upon his head.
"A planter," was my reflection, "or the son of one;" for he did not appear to be over twenty years of age.
"The Penitentiary!" he said, seeing that my eyes were fixed upon the building. "You've been in there, I suppose?"
The question sounded so odd, that my first impulse was to answer it with a laugh, which I did; though with no idea that it had been put through any discourtesy.
My interrogator, perceiving the droll interpretation his speech permitted, joined me in the laugh.
"Pardon me!" he said, apologizing. "Of course, you know what I mean. I take you to be a stranger in these parts, and supposed you might like to know something of this State fortress of ours."
"A thousand thanks!" I rejoined. "You are right. I am a traveler, and as such not without curiosity. The State Penitentiary you say it is. I shall feel very much indebted to you for any information you may think proper to give me about it."
"Suppose you go with me inside? I know the governor and can get admittance. It will be worth your while if only to see Murrell."
"Murrell—who is he?"
"Oh! that of itself would tell you to be a stranger to Tennessee; else you would have heard of him. Murrell is the great pirate and robber of the Mississippi—long notorious upon the roads and rivers. He has committed scores of murders, it is said, and several have been proven against him. For all that, he is in for only ten years and has already served six of them. Would you like to have a look at him?"
"By all means."
"Come along, then!"
With this my new acquaintance wheeled his horse into the avenue leading up to the gate of the State Prison, whither, without another word, I followed him.
We were admitted and courteously conducted through what appeared far more like a vast manufacturing establishment than a place of penal imprisonment; a manufactory, too, comprising almost every trade known to the necessities of civilization. I there saw hatters, tailors, shoemakers, and carpenters; spinners and weavers, bakers and blacksmiths; all busy at their respective employments. Among the last-mentioned I saw the murderer Murrell—and through the coal grime on his face, I could see the countenance of a man that by no means belied his terrible reputation.
His history was given to me on the spot. By trade, originally, a blacksmith—the calling to which, like Vulcan, he was now condemned—he had forsaken it for the more profitable profession of piracy—not upon the high seas, as the term might seem to imply, but upon the rivers of the Mississippi valley—especially the great stream itself—his prey, instead of ships, being the "keels" and flat-boats descending, cargo-laden, to New Orleans, or their crews, returning along the up-river roads, and carrying the cash obtained for their commodities.
Murrell had been hard to catch, and harder still to convict. His confederates could be counted by the score—among them merchants, planters, justices of the peace, and even clergymen! The result was that he was sentenced to ten years in the Penitentiary, against at least ten times the number of highway robberies, and perhaps twice the count in horrid assassinations!
I shall never forget the disgust with which I contemplated this fiend in human shape. Not for long. I was only too glad to get out of the blacksmith's shop and lay my leg once more over the saddle.
But in that visit to the Tennessee State Prison, I became acquainted with some facts that in part compensated for its unpleasantness.
I there learned that crime may become its own cure; that the industry proceeding from it may be so applied as to remove its cause, or at all events to release the State from taxation!
This fact, first discovered in the Tennessee Penitentiary, did not so much strike me at the time. I was then but a careless student in the science of political economy.
Only in later years did I fully understand a statistic so astounding. Would that the bungling jailers of other and older States could comprehend its importance!
Σχόλια