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Date Posted：02/17/2009 6:43 AMCopy HTML
Horace Ezra Bixby (1826-1912), was one of
the great steamboat pilots on both the
Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. His career
spanned more than six decades. He died
just two days after retiring.
In February of 1857, when he was 31 years
old, he met a young printer named Samuel
Clemens who was a passenger aboard the
Paul Jones when it left Cincinnati, Ohio; Bixby
was the pilot.
During the time that "The poor old Paul Jones
fooled away about two weeks in making the
voyage....to New Orleans," the pilot and printer
became acquainted. Clemens inquired if the
pilot knew the 3 Bowen brothers--all-respect-
ed pilots who grew up with Clemens in Hannibal
which Bixby did. Before landing in New
Orleans Bixby agreed to train the eager 21
year old Sam Clemens to be a pilot for $500.
On the return trip to St. Louis, Clemens
began his apprenticeship aboard the Colonel
Crossman, not the Paul Jones, as one would
surmise after reading Life on the Mississippi.
One of Bixby's first lessons began with the
query:
"What's the name of the first point above
New Orleans?"
Sam was gratified to be able to answer
promptly, by saying he didn't know.
Bixby said, "I don't know."
This manner jolted Bixby. Bixby then said,
"Well, you're a smart one." Then he replied
to Sam, "What's the name of the next point?"
Once more Sam stated he didn't know.
Bixby said, "Well this beats anything. Tell me
the name of any point or place I told you."
Sam studied a while and decided that he
couldn't give Bixby an answer.
Look here! Bixby stated, What do you start
from, above Twelve-Mile Point, to cross over?"
He knew that Sam had no answer for him,
so he asked Sam--"What do you know?"
He then stated, "By the great Caesar's
ghost, I believe you! You're the stupidest
dunderhead I ever saw or ever heard of, so
help me Moses! The idea of you being a pilot
--you! Why, you don't know enough to pilot
a cow down a lane."
Oh, but his wrath was up! He was a nervous
man, and he shuffled from one side of his
wheel to the other as if the floor was hot.
He would boil a while to himself, and then
overflow and scold me again.
"Look here! What do you suppose I told you
the names of those points for?"
Sam tremblingly considered a moment, and
then the devil of temptation provoked him to
say:--
"Well--to--to--be entertaining, I thought."
This was a red flag to the bull. He raged and
stormed so (he was crossing the river at that
time) that I judge it made him blind, because
he ran over the steering-oar of the trading-
scow. Of course the traders sent up a volley
of red-hot profanity. Never was a man so
grateful as Mr. Bixby was: because he was
brim full, and here were subjects who would
talk back. He threw open a window, thrust his
head out, and such an irruption followed as
I never had heard before. The fainter and
farther away the scowmen's curses drifted
the higher Mr. Bixby lifted his voice and the
weightier his adjectives grew. When he closed
the window he was empty. You could have
drawn a seine through his system and not
caught curses enough to disturb your mother
with. Presently he said to me in the gentlest
way--
"My boy, you must get a little memorandum
book, and every time I tell you a thing, put
it down right away. There's only one way to
be a pilot, and that is to get this entire river
by heart. You have to know it just like A B C.
Sam Clemens was the steersman for Horace
Bixby on the Crescent City, Rufus J. Lackland
and the William M. Morrison before Bixby
decided to transfer to the more demanding
but more lucrative Missouri River. Clemens
elected to stay on the more familiar Mississippi.
The last steamboat that cub pilot Clemens
steered for Bixby after his return to the
Mississippi was the Aleck Scott. It was for five
months, December 1858 to April 1859, when
Clemens acquired his pilots license.
It was on this steamboat (a 709-ton side-
wheeler)--all the boats that Sam Clemens
piloted were side-wheelers--that Horace
Bixby taught the cub pilot a lesson that he
would never forget.
During the Civil War Bixby was pilot of the
ironclad, Benton, the Union's Western
Flotilla flagship. He was the chief of the
Union River Service. In a notebook (April-
May 1882), Twain recounts Bixby's
experience in "A War Pilot".
Mark Twain returned to St. Louis on the
City of Baton Rouge; Bixby doing much of
the piloting with Twain occasionally sharing
the steering duties.
In taking this trip he saw an almost empty
river and he could not help but realize that
the sun had now set on those magnificent,
exciting days of steamboating.
The last time Mark Twain saw Bixby was
during his 1902 journey when he returned
to his home state to accept an honorary
degree from the University of Missouri.
Bixby was waiting for him at the St. Louis
railroad station. A huge crowd staged a
reception at his hotel and later he went with
Bixby to a gathering of pilots where more old
friends were in attendance.
Because of Life On The Mississippi Bixby be-
came a celebrity. He gave many interviews
and seemed to enjoy his status but he even-
tually grew irascible after repeatedly
answering the same questions.
Horace Bixby was married twice; Susan
Weibling of New Orleans (1860) and Mary
Sheble (1868). Both are interred with him
in the family lot.
Other interesting facts........
***Sam Clemens borrowed the first $100 from
his brother-in-law, William Moffett, and paid
the remainder in later wages.
At the time that Captain Bixby accepted
Clemens as his steerman, exorbitant
apprenticeship fees were common. Two
prominent St. Louis-New Orleans pilots,
Charles Scott and William Gallaher, publicly
condemned "the cupidity of several who were
in the habit of taking steersmen,
receiving....$500 for learning them."
***The following winter after piloting on the
Missouri Bixby returned to the Mississippi.
He was hired as a co-pilot on the Colonel
Crossman. Because of its advanced safety
features it was considered unsinkable. On
February 5, 1858, however, when its boilers
blew near New Madrid many passengers
were killed. Bixby, the off-duty pilot, person-
ally saved many lives.***It was during this period when Horace
Bixby was piloting on the Missouri
that Samuel Clemens was a cub pilot on the
Pennsylvania.
The image used on this page is from my own
personal collection. The information that I
have on this page was compiled through
genealogy research and some information was
taken from resources through the Bellefontaine
Cemetery records.
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