I met loads of lumber which were going out for Buck
Gowdy's big house away out in the middle of his great estate; and other
loads for Lithopolis, where Judge Stone was making his struggle to build
up a rival to Monterey Centre. I reached Dubuque on the seventeenth of
July, and put up at a tavern down near the river, where they had room
for my stock; and learned that the next day the first train would arrive
at Dunlieth, and there was to be a great celebration.
It was the greatest day Dubuque had ever seen, they told me, with cannon
fired from the bluff at sunrise, a long parade, much speech-making, and
a lot of wild drunkenness. The boatmen from the river boats started in
to lick every railroad man they met, and as far as I could see, did so
in ninety per cent. of the cases; but in the midst of a fight in which
all my canal experiences were in a fair way to be outdone, a woman came
into the crowd leading four little crying children. She asked our
attention while she explained that their father had had his hand blown
off when the salute was fired in the morning, and asked us if we felt
like giving something to him to enable him to keep a roof over these
little ones. The fight stopped, and we all threw money on the ground
in the ring.
There were bridges connecting the main island with the business part of
the city, and lines of hacks and carts running from the main part of the
town to deep water. There were from four to six boats a day on the
river.
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