The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #10783   Message #4164739
Posted By: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
09-Feb-23 - 10:22 PM
Thread Name: Origin: Way Down in Shawneetown (Dillon Bustin)
Subject: RE: Origin: Way Down in Shawneetown (Dillon Bustin)
Not sure where this fits in. Field & Hall were two-of-a-kind.

“There was water enough on the “Falls”; it was a bright day in spring, and at an early hour, all hands at their posts, Mike was guiding his clean and trim built “keel,” the Mary––still adhered to the name, and it had always been a charm to him, he said––through the rapids, below Louisville. There was not much peril in the passage, at the moment, and the exhileration was only of the pleasant kind.

“That's like a lady!” cried Mike, as, under the bold and skillful guidance of his sweeping stern oar, his craft a moment yielded to a powerful eddy, and then drew out again with a graceful curve.

“See how she puts her feet out! Dances like a fairy, by gracious!”

                “As we go as we go
                Down the O-hi-o,
                There's a tight place at Louisville,
                You know boys, know.”

“Jabe Knuckles!” shouted Mike, “one of them Philadelphy noospapers you've got sorted away, tells about a York feller that's got a steam fixin' to take boats up rivers without hand, hoss, or hawser! I reckon he'll never try 'ginst this water, eh?””
[Field, Last of the Boatmen, Half Horse Half Alligator: The Growth of the Mike Fink Legend, Blair, Meine eds., 1956]
Published in serial form by Field's own St. Louis Reveille c.1842
Joseph M. Field (1810–1856)