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■'.his reliability ;and honesty, Cap-’tain Leathers possessed.a wi.de;, streak of showmanship. For :amp!6, his tall smokestacks _wer6:" painted-a fiery-red, enabling anyone ■ to pick ‘6ut ’. the current Natchez from the (Orest of drab', smokestacks that usually lined the ..New Orleans waterfront.
' Captain Tom .was a .huge .man,
■	newly six feet'four and welshed over 2<W pounds. To the lmpres-
i siveness of his size, ,a heavy head of hair and a distinguished beard, were added his usual apparel of a white silk ruffled shirt, decoratr ..edwith.a diamond cluster pin.H and a suit of Confederate gray,
•	for, Captain. Leathers was a rabid R^bel. He refused to fly the Amer-
\,lcan.flag on any of his boats until' 1885, twenty years after the South surrehdered. In that year, in cele-, bration of a Democratic election victory, Captain Tom finally hoist-: i ed th6 Stars and Stripes and of-ficiaUy declared the War was ovel\. He would wave his cigar around like .a baton in giving orders, was respected by the roustabouts as
•	the “best'cusser on the Mississip-, .pi,’’, but was • the soul of coui>' tesy'"to his passengers and La-*
::K«iies.t.-,	'■	:
Captaiij Tom adopted Natchez, as 4 his horns‘town, naming seven., of-. his boats In its honor. There he - lived wheri ashore at Myrtle Grove, which had been built in 1844 and
■	■ bought by Captain Leathers in
1854. In contrast to his bulk Cap-•;taln Leathers married a beautiful, gracious, aristocratic young lady who barely weighed a hundred pounds; but she ruled her huge husband with the gentla goad of love,", It Is said that whenever ( Tom would begin to roar at home, _ V Mrs.'. Leathers would softly say ' “Now, Tom" and the big man would Immediately quiet down.
Back of ,his bluster** Captain Tom was' a generous “man, . almost',a' '$ott touch. There Is’ the' true tala of the woman who -approached him: at the Natchez landing, said .her husband had been stricken ill in an Ohio town and that she only . had two .dollars to pay. her fare. ;RThet Captain, listened, made up his, '.mind she was telling the truth, and ' promptly removed a male passen-. ger from one of the cabins and •i gave it to her. When they arrived upriver Captain Leathers paid her „rall faro from Cincinnati to the In* ’land town where her husband was ill and back to the river. There he later met her and her. husband, took them back to Natchez and snw that they arrived
down Dy u ’ scorcner wmcu was
“the nnfne for a'.hit-and-run bicy-, de rider in 1896 and shortly after- iv-v, '•Awards died of'his injuries, >; •. 1
an article by Leonard..V., Huber in American j,Heritage 'and Harnett Kane's ’ book Natchez, for
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