PADDLING ALL THE WAY ‘ D
U.S. President Lincoln’s story comes to life as you amble along the Mississippi
’yA know Liberace? He visited our plantation. I’d never seen anyone like him. I just remember wonderin’ how he ever played piano with all that metal on them fingers.’
Reminiscing about life in Natchez, Mississippi, our guide Garret switches into a Southern drawl. He ashamedly admits his forebears owned slaves, but brightens when he gets on to his favourite subject, President Lincoln.
We’re on a tour of Lincoln’s Presidential Museum and Library in Springfield, Illinois. Garret is such a fan that he even plays the part of Ward Hill Lamon, the former president’s friend and bodyguard, in re-enactments of his hero’s life.
‘D’ya know how many assassination attempts there were,’ he asked, going into character while shaking his head. ‘168. There were the poisoned peaches. Enough arsenic to kill a man ten times over. The 169th got him. I was away in Richmond. Can you imagine how I felt?’
I studied American history at school and university, but had to admit this was news to me. As were several things I discovered on this cruise along the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers on the American Duchess, a grand river boat with tall chimney stacks and a magnificent big, red paddlewheel.
I joined the boat in Ottawa ( Illinois, not Canada) for a seven- night cruise past the mostly flat, occasionally craggy, landscape of small town America that would end in Alton, Missouri. We dived into the life of President Lincoln along the way.
I learned about his courtship over high tea in Ottawa. The sleepy town was buzzing back in 1858, when 12,000 people turned out to hear a lawyer called Abraham Lincoln preach against slavery in his bid to be elected to the state legislature.
His opponent, Stephen Douglas, won, but just two years later Lincoln was elected President of the U.S.
My tour to Springfield included a visit to his house, presidential museum and tomb, and in Alton I saw the place where, in 1842, he nearly fought a duel (his opponent, James Shields, got cold feet when he saw Lincoln practising with his sword so they went for a drink instead).
Alton is another sleepy town, this time on the Mississippi, some 25 miles north of St Louis, where I joined a tour in the footsteps of Lincoln and met an actor playing an abolitionist called Elijah P. Lovejoy.
LOvEJOy was shot in 1837, two days before his 35th birthday, because he opposed slavery. Lincoln called him the first casualty of the American Civil War; 60 years later a 110ft monument was erected in Alton graveyard in his memory.
I thought the Americans on board (everyone except me and a couple from Israel) would be there for the Lincoln link.
But I met only one, Jeff, a cruise virgin, who had persuaded his wife Jane they had to learn about their 16th president. Duchess started life as a casino boat, was bought by AQSC, gutted and rebuilt as a luxurious hotel boat with big cabins and two-storey suites.
From Ottawa, we sailed to Peoria, the whisky capital of the world until prohibition put a spanner in the works, and a town called Havana that bears no resemblance to its Caribbean namesake.
‘your cruise director is going for a run around town; I asked what he is doing for the rest of the hour,’ Garret chuckled, as our coach left the port, bound for Springfield, about 50 miles away.
A lot is written and said about small-town America — and to discover it on board a paddlewheel boat is like stepping into the world of Mark Twain.
Fittingly, towards the end of the cruise we visited Hannibal, the Missouri town where Twain grew up. Hannibal is not exactly on the tourist trail. I would not have got there without the help of Duchess — and am mighty pleased I did.