24–26 February 1855 • St. Louis, Mo. (Muscatine Tri-Weekly Journal, 9 Mar 55, UCCL 09994)
An arrangement has been made by which our California mails will go direct from St. Louis to San Francisco without being overhauled Ⓐemendationat New‐York as has heretofore been the caseⒶemendation. By the new plan, considerable delay will be avoided. Hereafter, our California mails will be made up and dispatched eastward on the 15th and last days of each month.1explanatory note
Washington’s Birth‐day passed off rather tamely here, a military parade and a speech or so, making up the transactions of the day.
A heavy Banking House will be opened in St. Louis in a few days, to be called the Missouri Savings Institution, by Messrs. Chouteau, Harrison, Valle, Pratte, BerthoudⒶemendation, Sam Gaty, Giles F. Filley and Chas. S. Kennet—all gentlemen Ⓐemendationof high standing and wealth. It is supposed that this Bank will Ⓐemendationwield a great influence in the commercial affairs of St. LouisⒶemendation.2explanatory note
Messrs. Smith, Kennedy & Co., who were fitting up an extensive clothing and furnishing store on fourth street, were arrested and committed to jail on the 22d, charged by their Philadelphia creditors with obtaining goods under false pretences. The goods were sold at auction on the day following for the benefit of the creditors.3explanatory note
A man was found lying on the side walk Ⓐemendationin Main Ⓐemendationstreet yesterday morning, badly frozen, and apparently in a dying condition. His nose, feetⒶemendation, ears and hands were entirely frozen. He was taken to the Police office, and from thence to the City Hospital. His name could not be ascertained.4explanatory note
It was reported yesterday that a riot was in progress among the laborers on the seventh section of the North Division Railroad, the result of a “strike” for higher wages. A Deputy Sheriff with a posse Ⓐemendationof policemen was dispatched to the spot to quell the disturbance; but finding that nothing serious had occurred, ten men were left to keep order, and the balance returned to the city.5explanatory note
A panorama of Australia, China, and the Japanese Expedition, is now on exhibition at Wyman’s Hall, which far exceeds any thing of the kind in beauty, interest, excellence, and truthfulness to nature, which it has ever been my good fortune to witness. One portion of this painting in particular, (and it was all good)—a sun‐set scene in China—was enchantingly Ⓐemendationbeautiful: even more so than Muscatine sun‐sets in summer.6explanatory note This is a home work. It was commenced, carried Ⓐemendationthrough, and finished, in ⒶemendationSt. Louis, by a St. Louis artist, Mr. Boneau, a worthy follower in the foot-steps Ⓐemendationof Pomarede and BanvardⒶemendation. If ever you have the opportunity, do not fail to visit the panorama.7explanatory note
The negro girl Chlo Ann Harris, who was arrested and brought before the Criminal Court Ⓐemendationas a runaway slave, some three weeks since, and discharged by that Court, on the ground that the proper forms of law were not carried out in making the arrest, was yesterday taken before the Law Commissioner’s Court on a writ of habeas corpus, tried, and again discharged. It was proved beyond a doubt that she was a free girl. She had entered the State without a license, and was passing as a slave to avoid the consequences of this breach of the law. She will doubtless be more careful in the future.8explanatory note
Highly Ⓐemendationimportant news was received from New Mexico this morning. The Indians are becoming worse and worse, and seem to have things pretty much their own way on the frontier. Fourteen men were butchered, and a number severely wounded at the Pueblo of Arkansas, and the women and children Ⓐemendationcarried off by the savages. The work was perfect, the whole settlement being broken up and the inhabitants murdered. The Utahs and ApachesⒶemendation, the tribe said to be the perpetrators of this massacre, seem determined upon the destruction of the whites, and unless a check is put upon them soon, terrible consequences will ensue. The people of Texas and New Mexico are greatly alarmed and excited, and a general breaking out of hostilities is anticipated.
Capt. Newell of the First Dragoons fought a band of Muscarilla Apaches at the Sacramento mountains, on the 20th ult. Four white men (Capt. H. W. Stanton and three privates,) and twelve Indians were killed in the skirmish.
General Garland has called into service against the Indians five companies of volunteers, for a term of six months, and has asked Congress to defray the expenses.
Maj. Cunningham, Paymaster at Santa Fe, was attacked in his quarters Ⓐemendationby robbers, who, after taking from him the key, unlocked the safe and took therefrom $40,000, Government money. A Mr. Chavis was also robbed of $2,000.9explanatory note
Our eastern mails are again delayed, on account of snow on the Chicago route.
st. louis market.
Very little produce in market. A little doing in wheat for future delivery. Not much flour in market—tending upward. It is said $9 were declined for a lot of city extra, to be delivered in thirty days. In bacon and buckwheat small sales are reported; 75 bales good undressed hemp sold at $100; 20 do prime $105 per ton. Galena lead, soft, $5 55, Missouri do, $5 50Ⓐemendation. Flour—sales at Ⓐemendation$9; $8 refused for city mills superfine; 25 bbls unbranded $7 50. Wheat $1 50a$1 65; corn—mixed 65; white 70c. Oats 50a60c. Whisky advancing—no sales. Bacon—shoulders 5c; ribbed sides 6c; hams 8c per poundⒶemendation. Hogs 4 1-2a5 3-4c. Freights to New Orleans—flour $7 1-2; pork $1 25; whisky $1 50; corn 60c per sack. Pound freight 45a55.—Stock $11.10explanatory note
Mail for California would no longer be held in New York for processing. The St. Louis mail of the fifteenth would leave New York on a San Francisco-bound steamer on the twentieth of the month; the end-of-month mail would leave New York on the fifth of the new month (“California Mails,” St. Louis Missouri Republican, 21 Feb 55, 2). Almost all of the items in this letter derived from St. Louis newspapers, primarily the Missouri Republican and the Evening News of 23 and 24 February.
The Missouri Savings Institution was presumably founded as a response to the financial panic that had followed the 13 January failure of Page and Bacon, a prestigious St. Louis banking firm. The organizers of the new bank were prominent industrialists, merchants, bankers, and civic leaders, including Pierre Chouteau, Jr., James Harrison, Jules Vallé, Bernard Pratte, Augustus N. Berthoud, Samuel Gaty, Giles F. Filley, and, probably, Luther M. Kennett (“New Banking House in St. Louis,” St. Louis Evening News, 23 Feb 55, 2; Conard, 1:590–91, 2:430–31, 3:9–10, 193, 528, 5:202; Knox, 13; Scharf, 2:1268–69, 1374–76).
A tangled affair, given confused coverage in the St. Louis newspapers. Three former partners in a Philadelphia firm had attempted to set up shop in St. Louis. The three, including a J. Smith Kennedy, were arrested on 22 February but released after a few hours. A reward was offered for a fugitive fourth man, who had victimized partners and creditors alike (St. Louis Missouri Republican: “Arrest of Fourth Street Merchants,” 23 Feb 55, 2; “The Fourth Street Case,” 25 Feb 55, 2; St. Louis Missouri Democrat: “Important Arrests and Important Charges and Discharges,” 24 Feb 55, 3).
Clemens summarizes “Man Frozen” (St. Louis Evening News, 23 Feb 55, 3) and “Frozen” (St. Louis Missouri Republican, 24 Feb 55, 2).
This riot occurred on the North Missouri Railroad and was dismissed by the St. Louis Evening News as an inconsequential “Irish shindy” (“The Railroad Riot,” 24 Feb 55, 3; “Railroad Riot,” 23 Feb 55, 3).
Clemens later praised Muscatine sunsets at greater length in chapter 57 of Life on the Mississippi (1883).
The artist Clemens admired was Edward Boneau (b. 1812), a native of Poland, listed in St. Louis directories as a “house and sign painter” and as a partner in a “painter shop” (Montague, 34; Knox, 17). The St. Louis Missouri Republican observed that Boneau’s work exhibited “a nicety and care of touch which a finished artist would bestow upon a portrait” (“Boneau’s Panorama,” 24 Feb 55, 2). After the closing of the St. Louis show on 24 March, the panorama was scheduled for a European tour, and in the spring of 1858 was exhibited in Baltimore. Leon Pomarede (1807–92), a French-born panoramist, landscape painter, and religious muralist, was well known in St. Louis for his decoration of the Mercantile Library Hall and several churches. He first showed his “Panorama of the Mississippi River and Indian Life,” reported to be as long as 1800 yards, in St. Louis in 1849. John Banvard (1815–91), a writer and painter, began exhibiting his famous “Panorama of the Mississippi,” said to cover three miles of canvas, in 1846 (Morrison, 28; Arrington, 261–73; McDermott 1949, 8–18; McDermott 1958, 18–31, 145–60; Samuels and Samuels, 20–21, 376).
The Missouri statutes of 1855 “in regard to free colored persons were very severe”:
No colored person could live in this State without a license, and these licenses were to be issued only to certain classes of them; moreover, bond, not exceeding a thousand dollars, had to be given in security for good behavior. The negro was not allowed to retain in his possession the license or other free papers, though he could obtain them in the event of his moving from one county to another, as they had to be filed with the clerk of the county court where he resided. No free negro or mulatto could emigrate into the State or enter the State unless in the service of a white man, or for the purpose of passing through. In either case the time that he could remain in the borders was limited. If he stayed longer he was liable to arrest, a fine of $10, and expulsion. If the fine was not paid he was further liable to not more than twenty lashes, and the court could either order that he immediately leave the State or else hire him out until the fine, costs and expenses of imprisonment had been paid for by his labor. (Conard, 5:604–5)
Chloe Ann Harris’s release came on 23 February when her papers arrived from Mount Pleasant, Ohio (St. Louis Evening News: “Slave Case,” 1 Feb 55, 3; “Interesting Slave Case,” 24 Feb 55, 3). Clemens probably had the 1855 laws in mind in 1876, while writing chapter 6 of Huckleberry Finn. There Pap Finn inveighs against the “govment” for refusing to sell “a free nigger” from Ohio “till he’s been in the State six months” (see HF , notes to 33–34).
This and the three preceding paragraphs derive from “Letter from Santa Fe” and “Late and Important from New Mexico” (St. Louis Missouri Republican, 24 Feb 55, 2).
Clemens appears to have adapted this report from “Semi-Weekly Review St. Louis Market,” dated 24 February (St. Louis Missouri Republican, 26 Feb 55, 2), indicating that he wrote at least this part of his letter as late as 26 February.
“Correspondence of the ‘Journal’,” Muscatine Tri-Weekly Journal, 9 Mar 55, 1, in the Historical Library, The State Historical Society of Iowa, Des Moines.
L1 , 50–53; Branch 1984, 4–5.
unknown. The file of the Muscatine Journal in the P. M. Musser Public Library, Muscatine, Iowa (IaMu), presumably the one kept by the publisher, does not include this issue.
More information on provenance may be found in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.