Blowed

By Tony Hays

Folklore is often the meat of history. While brittle, dry records tell us of our forebearer’s legal dealings, those yellowed pieces of paper generally fail to capture the blood, flesh, and bone, the hopes and fears, that indefinable something that made up those who have gone before. That’s where folklore comes in. Porchtalk, I call it, sitting around on the front porch and listening to the older generation tell about the Hardin County that used to be. I clearly remember my mother tell of Christmases over on Oak Street during the Depression, when stockings stuffed with apples, walnuts, and pecans were often the only gifts. During the last century, the men out in the different communities would gather and go hunting on Christmas day. In 1886, one such hunt saw 30 rabbits bagged.

As another holiday season closes in around us, I thought it fitting to retell an old Hardin County Christmas legend, one that came to me through the murky channels of folklore. I first heard the story over a decade ago from Dr. Frank B. Williams, a Savannah native and professor emeritus of history at East Tennessee State University. This is how it goes.

Steamboats started plying the Tennessee River in Hardin County back in the 1830s and 1840s. The river was the one, reasonably-dependable mode of transportation. Too many outlaws plied the Natchez Trace for it to be completely secure. Although the river held it’s own brand of danger, businessmen came to rely on it for the import and export of goods. All of the staple goods unobtainable off the farm, the non-perishables primarily since refrigeration was unknown in those days. Salt. Coffee. Sugar. Cloth. And, in return, the steamboats hauled the county’s cotton off to the bigger markets up north. The City of Savannah, the Clyde, the Silver Cloud were common names up and down the river well into the 20th century. And the steamers were an especially welcome sight during the Christmas season, bringing distant relatives home to visit family, sometimes after many years’ absence. But, Christmas time also brought a different kind of cargo as well.

According to Dr. Williams, one of the time-honored practices during the Christmas season back at the turn of the century centered around steamboats and the river landing at Savannah. It seems that a fair number of the men in the county would order their liquor (at least the storebought variety) once a year, and it would come in one batch on a steamer. Naturally, the arrival of that much spirits called for a celebration. And never let it be said that Hardin countians were not equal to the task. So, on the appointed day, men from all around the county would converge at the river landing, some toting the remainder of the previous year’s delivery, some making do with the homemade brands, as they waited for the new shipment to arrive, eagerly awaiting the sound of the deep-bellied whistle as the steamboat plowed into view.

At first, it seemed almost like an election day. Wrestling matches. Sitting around the fires talking politics. Whittling. Boasting. And, of course, draining the remaining jugs. After awhile, the wrestling, talking, and whittling gave way completely to the business of polishing off the last demi-jugs. As you might expect, sooner or later, all that celebrating took its toll, and, truth to tell, most of the participants nodded off. After the sun set across the river and the only light was the flickering yellow of the campfires, the scene resembled something more like a surreal painting of the aftermath at Shiloh than a party. Bodies were scattered all up and down the riverbank, some perfectly still, others moving slightly, an occasional groan rising above the crackle of the burning wood. Casualties, if you will, of the holiday season. But every so often, silhouetted against the fires, a head would rise and a voice would call out across the river in a plaintive cry, lonely as a peacock’s moan, asking a single, simple question. For, even in their disability, they stayed focused on their goal, their objective, and the haunting voice would ask: “Has the boat blowed yet?”

Dr. Frank once suggested to the National Endowment for the Humanities that a reenactment of the event might be a project worthy of funding from that August body. He proposed recreating the whole event complete with the Delta Queen and sponsored by the Jack Daniel Distillery. The only requirement for participation was proof that you had an ancestor living in Hardin County in 1900. Unfortunately, the NEH didn’t share Dr. Frank’s enthusiasm for the concept. There’s a killjoy in every crowd, I suppose.

Now, somebody is going to ask if it’s a true story. I haven’t the slightest idea. I will tell you that Dr. Frank lives by a simple axiom: Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

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