Illinois River

“ On this river is a large settlement of northern people, and many families from the State of New-Hampshire. Below this, the most material tributaries are the Vermillion and Sangamon from the east, and Spoon river from the west. Whatever others may say, I cannot call the Illinois a pleasant stream. It has a marsh on one side or the other from its mouth to its source, and is full of shoals and sand bars. I passed down the river in a boat that drew less than two feet water, but it often run aground. The worst bar is just below Beardstown. ”

“ Else will they be assuredly disappointed, and accuse me of indulging in a favorite amusement of travelers.
The Illinois, until you approach the Rapids, seems made on purpose for steam navigation, which is seldom, if ever, molested either by winds or waves. With the exception of points where the prairies approach the borders, the river is every where skirted by those magnificent forests which constitute one of the most striking and beautiful features of this new world; and completely sheltered from the storm, seems to glide along unconscious of the uproar of the elements around. ”

“ Progressing westward, the timbered prairie gradually changes to the grass-covered prairie, spreading everywhere a great ocean of fertility. Across the Wabash is the "Prairie State" of Illinois, its name coming from its principal river, which the Indians named after themselves. The word is a French adaptation of the Indian name "Illini," meaning "the superior men," the earliest explorers and settlers having been French, the first comers on the Illinois River being Father Marquette and La Salle. ”

“ Lasalle.—Besides the Illinois river, which passes through it, Fox river, Big and Little Vermillion, Crow, Au Sable, Indian, Mason, Tomahawk, and other creeks, water this county. They generally run on a bed of sand or lime rock, and have but little alluvial bottom lands. Deficient in timber, but has an abundance of rich, undulating prairie, beautiful groves, abundant water privileges, and extensive coal banks. ”

“ The Federal government completed in October 1907 the construction of a new canal, the Illinois & Mississippi, popularly known as the Hennepin, from Hennepin to Rock river (just above the mouth of Green river) , 7 ft. deep, 52 ft. wide (at bottom) , and 80 ft. wide at the water-line. This canal provides, with the Illinois & Michigan canal and the Illinois river, an improved waterway from Chicago to the Mississippi river, and greatly increases the commercial and industrial importance of the “twin cities” of Sterling and Rock Falls, where the Rock river is dammed by a dam nearly 1500 ft. ”

“ It enters the Illinois river on the easterly side, about one hundred and forty miles above its mouth.
The Kaskaskia river has a long course in the central part of the State, and the lands upon its borders are happily diversified with hill, vale, prairie and forest. On its banks are Kaskaskia, the former seat of government, and Vandalia, the present metropolis.
The region of Rock and Fox rivers is a beautiful and healthy portion of the State. The land is rich; [Pg 83] the prairies are high, dry and gently undulating and surrounded by excellent timber. ”

“ At that time the State of Illinois—as, indeed, the whole United States—was convinced that the future of the country depended on the opening of canals and railroads, and the clearing out of the rivers. In the Sangamon country the population felt that a quick way of getting to Beardstown on the Illinois River, to which point the steamer came from the Mississippi, was, as Lincoln puts it in his circular, "indispensably necessary." Of course a railroad was the dream of the settlers ”

“ By the Act of March 30, 1822, c. 14; 3 Stat. 659, Congress authorized Illinois to survey and mark, through the public lands of the United States, the route of a canal connecting the Illinois river with Lake Michigan, and granted certain lands in aid of the project. A further land grant was made in 1827. The canal was completed in 1848. The canal crossed the continental divide between the Chicago and Des Plaines rivers, on a summit level 8 feet above the lake, and then paralleled the Des Plaines river and the Upper Illinois river to La Salle, Ill., where it entered the latter stream. ”

“ There are also here steam flour mills, saw mills, breweries, distilleries, &c. A canal is projected here, to connect the Illinois with the Wabash, (which divides the state of Illinois from Indiana,) by means of the Sangamon and Vermillion{162} forks. While passing these towns one is surprised at their rapid growth, for when Schoolcraft rowed his canoe up this river twenty years since, it was a wilderness only inhabited by Indians. Opposite Havanna, the Spoon river enters the Illinois. Its Indian name is Amequeon, which means ladle, and is much prettier than its present name. ”

“ The Kaskaskia, in the S., notable for its variations in volume, and the Rock, in the N., are the other important rivers emptying into the Mississippi; the Embarrass and Little Wabash, the Saline and Cache in the E., are the important tributaries of the Wabash and Ohio rivers. The Chicago river, a short stream 1 m. long, formed by the union of its N. and S. branches, naturally flowed into Lake Michigan, but by the construction of the Chicago Drainage Canal its waters were turned in 1900 so that they ultimately flow into the Mississippi.
The soil of Illinois is remarkable for its fertility. ”

“ Nothing has done so much for the rapid growth of Illinois as her canal and railroads.
As early as 1833 several railroad charters were granted by the legislature; but the stock was not taken, and nothing was done until the year 1836, when a vast system of internal improvements was projected, intended "to be commensurate with the wants of the people,"—that is, there was to be a railroad to run by every man's door. About thirteen hundred miles of railroads were planned, a canal was to be built from Chicago to the Illinois River at Peru, and several rivers were to be made navigable. ”

“ The Michigan and Illinois Canal from Lake Michigan at Chicago to the Illinois River at La Salle, which had been under construction for twelve years or more, had been finished the year previous, and was open for traffic. ”

“ Those of whom I purchased my farms, and some others, are moved off to the Red River, 700 miles to the south-west, and, as I have said before, many of our neighbours are true backwoodsmen, always fond of moving: there are others, who wish to sell their land, with its improvements, to go to the Sagamond river, 150 miles towards the north-west. This river runs into the Illinois river, and the country near it is highly spoken of, as to soil, timber, and water. ”

“ Perhaps there is not to be found an inland navigation of equal extent, in any part of the world. Another large branch of the Illinois rises near the river Saint Joseph, passing south of Lake Michigan, where a portage may be easily formed. It is called the Theakiki river.
The banks of the Illinois are generally high. The bed of the river being a white marble, or clay, or sand, the waters are remarkably clear. It abounds with beautiful islands, one of which is ten miles long; and adjoining or near to it, are many coal mines, salt ponds, and small lakes. ”

“ An eddy of the rising water was beginning to eat away the peninsula which stood between the fort and the Mississippi. No engineer with definite plans for spiles, stone barriers, and dikes ever found more energetic helpers than Pauger in the folks on the Illinois.
Each day they labored on the levee. Every night some untoward accident happened to delay it. Tools were lost. Openings grew larger. The best logs rolled to the brink and floated away.
Said an Illinois chief in secret to Anthony: "The manitou of the waters is against us. He does not like to be turned from the path of his desire." ”

“ The city and its spires now fades away; and we station ourselves, in a favorable position for beholding this famous country. The Illinois shore is low, covered with forest, and is the rich part of the State, which was called by the Spaniards, American bottom, bottom land being the alluvion which is found upon the river shores between the water and the bluffs, and which is usually overflowed at high water. ”

“ There is no pretense that there is a nuisance of the simple kind that was known to the older common law. There is nothing which can be detected by the unassisted senses,-no visible increase of filth, no new smell. On the contrary, it is proved that the great volume of pure water from Lake Michigan, which is mixed with the sewage at the start, has improved the Illinois river in these respects to a noticeable extent. ”

“ There is a small settlement at the mouth of the Cumberland river, before which was a row of steamboats, which were in waiting for the rise of the river, to ascend to Nashville, in Kentucky, which lies upon this river. Illinois, as if wishing to leave a good impression upon us at parting, rises in masses of limestone, presenting every{216} variety of scene, overhanging cliffs, promontory, walls, and castellated appearances, being the foundation of the State, for at the summit the ground continues in a plain to the lakes. ”

“ The Indian sets the prairie afire, for the conveniency of hunting—the emigrant sets it afire, so that the fresh grass may spring up for his cattle; and so between [Pg 85] them both, they all get burnt over. And when once kindled, the fire goes where the wind happens to drive.
This State has great advantages for inland navigation by means of its rivers. On the east, it is washed by the Michigan lake and Wabash river; on the south, by the Ohio, and on the west, by the Mississippi. The most important river within the State is the Illinois. ”

“ The general term “prairie” comprises many varieties of open landscape. There are the level, alluvial prairies of Illinois, long since settled and colonized; there are the low, fertile prairies of the Red River, where the rich black mould, fallow under five months of snow, puts forth the rank luxuriance of a hot-bed during the half tropic heat of summer ”

“ The voyager passing down this stream experiences an indescribable sensation on looking upwards to the sky from a deep chasm hemmed in by lofty parapets. Among the other tributaries of the Ohio are the Great and Little Miami, Saline,11 Green river, Big Sandy, Kanhawa.
The Illinois rises in the north-eastern parts of the state of that name, not more than thirty-five miles from the south-western extremity of Lake Michigan, and interlocking by a morass with the river Chicago, which empties into that lake. Its two main head-branches are Plein and Kankakee. ”

“ There are more signs of cultivation visible, as we passed [Pg 86] along, on the Missouri than on the Illinois side. The banks as we proceed up the stream, occasionally rise into high bluffs—especially in Illinois—towering aloft, not unlike the palisades on the Hudson. Frequently one rock is piled upon another to such an elevation, that the summit of the bluff juts over the river, as though it were ready to tumble down upon the heads of those who were passing along on the quiet stream beneath. ”

“ Colleges are being erected, churches are building, and every thing for the comfort and refinement of life is here in progress. So if you have a mind to emigrate come to Illinois. We have to-day passed several villages upon each side of the river, possessing little of interest to write you, except Hoarsville upon the Kentucky shore, where we stopped a little while. There is a coal mine in its vicinity. The Indiana shore presents an elevated bank upon which we continually saw farms and cottages, but the opposite shore is low and subject to inundation, which gives it a lonely appearance. ”

“ The fertility of Illinois is such as to make it one of the finest farming states in the Union. It has few hills or mountains, being mainly rich prairies, while the river-bottoms, with a vegetable soil 40 feet in depth, have produced crops for many successive years without fertilizing. The extreme southern part of the state is warm, with mild winters, but the northern part has a severe climate. Sudden changes of temperature are frequent, and extremes of heat and cold are great. ”

“ Clair river. These lakes all lie in a valley which interposes between the primitive and secondary formations. The northern shores are granite rocks, sterile, and scarcely inhabited; while the southern is rich alluvion, covering sandstone and limestone.
The bustle of arrival aroused me from these reflections, and we were soon seated in the parlor of the Lake Hotel, in the famous state of Illinois, and town of Chicago. The rapid growth of this place you have heard of: in 1833 it could only count three frame{121} dwellings and two hundred and fifty inhabitants ”

“ In 1896 Congress made an appropriation 'for improving the Chicago river, in Illinois, from its mouth to the stock yards on the South branch and to Belmont avenue on the North branch, as far as may be permitted by existing docks and wharves, to be dredged to admit passage by vessles drawing sixteen feet of water.' Act of June 3, 1896, c. ”

“ By the close of 1828, Congress had donated to Illinois, for various purposes, chiefly for schools and internal improvements, 1,346,000 acres.361
The salt springs had been vested in the state of Illinois with the provision that no part of the reservations should be sold. Large reservations were made at the Saline River salt works and at the Vermilion saline near Danville, the object being to reserve a supply of wood for the making of salt. ”

“ The settlers on this river are almost entirely French people, who live principally in small villages. Where the land is cultivated, it yields large crops of almost every article they commit to the ground. It has been found that tobacco, indigo, hemp, and flax, can be raised here to much advantage.
Between the Illinois and the falls of Saint Anthony, a distance of about eight hundred and seventy miles, there are a large number of considerable streams, and some of them navigable rivers, which come from the eastward and discharge their waters into the Mississippi. ”