The Candle Buoy, Once Used by Mississippi River Pilots

1916

THE CANDLE BUOY

A Friend of the Mississippi Pilots In the Old Days.

QUEER LITTLE LIGHTSHIPS.

They Were Floated and Anchored in the Channel of the River on Dark Nights and Showed the Navigator on Down Trips Where Reefs Were Not.

In the old steamboat days on the Mississippi, before the government had undertaken the duty of marking and lighting the "crossings" where the channel swings over from one bank to the other, the river pilots had to devise their own means of finding their way through these difficult and dangerous places.

In the daytime it was not hard to do, and on moonlight nights the landmarks, which every pilot knew by heart, could be seen plainly enough to make the crossing possible. But there were many nights so dark or foggy that the shore marks were not visible; then the reefs had to be "candled."

Candling was resorted to only on the down trip. Going up the river the pilot might "feel" of the reef with his boat, and if he did not find the best water the first time he could back off and try again a little to one side or the other, wherever the soundings showed the deepest water to be.

In going down the river, however, that was impossible. The pilot had to find the channel the first time, for if the boat struck the current would drive her hard on the reef or else swing her broadside on the bar and in ten minutes imbed her in the very midst of it with tons of drifting sand.

To guard against such a disaster when nearing Pig's Eye, Beef Slough or Trempeleau bars — or any one of a dozen bars of equal difficulty — on a dark or hazy night the pilot stopped the boat at the head of the reef. With two men to row, a mate or watchman to steer, a "cub" pilot to manipulate the "candle buoys" and an older pilot to take soundings, the yawl was lowered and permitted to drop down the channel below the steamboat.

After the pilot had determined the best course by taking soundings the "cub," under his direction, anchored two, three or even four of the candle buoys, one after the other, in the center of the channel, and then the men let the yawl drop down below the reef, where it lay a little oarside the channel. Then one of the men swung a lantern — a signal at which the pilot on watch came ahead, steering for the tiny lighthouses and running over them, one by one, until the reef was passed.

The candle buoy was made of a piece of two inch light pine plank, beveled for four inches at the "bow" in order to prevent its "diving" as the current pressed against it. A tin "sconce" with three legs, three or four inches long, was tacked down to the plank. Half of a common candle was placed in each sconce, and after being lighted an oiled paper chimney, with a base corresponding to that of the candlestick, was placed over the light to protect it from the wind. The outer ends of the tin "legs" of the sconce were turned back over the base of the paper chimney to hold it in place, and the buoy was ready for launching.

A hole was bored about six inches from the end of the plank. Through the hole a small cord some ten or twelve feet in length was rove and knotted, and to this cord a lump of coal weighing perhaps ten pounds was tied. This served as an anchor to hold the buoy in its place in the center of the channel.

Such was the procedure fifty years ago or more. Since the government boats began patrolling the river and establishing permanent lights at all bad crossings it is seldom necessary for the pilots to go out in a sounding boat although it is not an unheard of proceeding even now.

But the candle buoy is a thing of the past. Probably there are scores of present day pilots who never even heard of the makeshift little lightships that their puzzled predecessors were wont to launch amid the darkness and doubt of former years. — Youth's Companion.