Illinois River

He had become acquainted with a man named Offutt, a trader and speculator who pretended to great business shrewdness, but whose chief talent lay in boasting of the magnificent things he meant to do.

Offutt engaged Abraham with his stepmother's son, John D. Johnston, and John Hanks to take a flatboat from Beardstown on the Illinois River to New Orleans, and all four arranged to meet at Springfield as soon as the snow should melt.

In March, when the snow finally melted, the country was flooded and traveling by land was utterly out of the question.

The boys, therefore, bought a large canoe and in it floated down the Sangamon River to keep their appointment with Offutt.

Surely no insignificant stream has had a greater influence on the history of a famous man.

It was a winding and sluggish creek, encumbered with driftwood and choked by sandbars, but it flowed through a country already filled with ambitious settlers, where the roads were atrociously bad, becoming in rainy seasons wide seas of pasty black mud and remaining almost impassable for weeks at a time.

After a devious course, the Sangamon found its way into the Illinois River, and that in turn flowed into the Mississippi.

Most of the settlers were too new to the region to know what a shallow, unprofitable stream the Sangamon really was, for the deep snows of 1830-1831 and of the following winter had supplied it with an unusual volume of water.

By the middle of the century, Southern economists noted the change, one of them, DeBough, lamenting that the great cities of the North have severally penetrated the interior with artificial lines until they have taken from the open and untaxed current of the Mississippi the commerce produced on its borders.

To this writer it was an astounding thing to behold the number of steamers that now descend the upper Mississippi River, loaded to the guards with produce as far as the mouth of the Illinois River and then turn up that stream with their cargoes to be shipped to New York via Chicago.

The Illinois Canal has not only swept the whole produce along the line of the Illinois River to the east, but it is drawing the products of the upper Mississippi through the same channel, thus depriving New Orleans and St. Louis of a rich portion of their former trade.

If to any shippers the broad current of the great river sweeping down to New Orleans offered easier means of physical communication to the sea than the canals and railways, the difference could be overcome by the credit which eastern bankers were able to extend to the grain and produce buyers in the first instance and through them to the farmers on the soil.

The acute southern observer just quoted, DeBeau, admitted with evident regret in 1852 that last autumn the rich regions of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois were flooded with the local banknotes of the eastern states advanced by the New York houses on produce to be shipped by way of the canals in the spring.

After a cold, dreary journey up the west coast of Lake Michigan, he was obliged, because of ill health, to pass the winter with two servants in a wretched cabin upon the Chicago River.

In the early spring he was able to proceed to some Indian villages upon the Illinois River, but soon was obliged by his ailment to return, this time intending to reach his old mission of Sainte Ignace on the Mackinac Straits.

Death overtook him while still two hundred and fifty miles from his destination.

He passed away on the eighteenth of May, sixteen seventy-five, upon the site of the present city of Ludington, Michigan.

As the summer weeks slowly wore on, the temperature and the mosquitoes became almost unbearable upon these malarial shores, and camping at night, often without fire, or sleeping in the anchored canoes in order to avoid surprise, with night fogs chilling them to the bone, were unhealthful conditions for any of these weary men.

To one of Marquette's rather delicate physique, it meant the collapse which soon followed.

As far as the Illinois River, the toilsome journey was accomplished without adventure, for they had learned where perils lurked, and by dint of extreme caution avoided them.

It was pleasant news to be told that the Illinois offered a shorter route to Lake Michigan than the Fox-Wisconsin waterway, and led past villages of Illinois Indians, whose apparent leaning toward Christianity had long ago won the heart of the black gown when he had met these people at La Pointe.

By the middle of the century, Southern economists noted the change, one of them, DeBough, lamenting that, the great cities of the North have severally penetrated the interior with artificial lines until they have taken from the open and untaxed current of the Mississippi the commerce produced on its borders.

To this writer it was an astounding thing to behold the number of steamers that now descend the upper Mississippi River, loaded to the guards with produce as far as the mouth of the Illinois River and then turn up that stream with their cargoes to be shipped to New York via Chicago.

The Illinois Canal has not only swept the whole produce along the line of the Illinois River to the east, but it is drawing the products of the upper Mississippi through the same channel, thus depriving New Orleans and St. Louis of a rich portion of their former trade.

If to any shippers the broad current of the great river sweeping down to New Orleans offered easier means of physical communication to the sea than the canals and railways, the difference could be overcome by the credit which eastern bankers were able to extend to the grain and produce buyers in the first instance and through them to the farmers on the soil.

The acute southern observer just quoted, DeBeau, admitted with evident regret in 1852 that, last autumn the rich regions of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois were flooded with the local banknotes of the eastern states, advanced by the New York houses on produce to be shipped by way of the canals in the spring.

Instances were not wanting in which he had given pretty strong evidence that he carried beneath that rugged and uncouth exterior a kinder and more gentle heart that is possessed by most men.

Upon one occasion he jumped at the imminent peril of his life from the bridge which spans the Illinois River just above the entrance to the lake and had fished up a drowning child from its depths and borne it to the shore in safety.

In doing so he had been compelled to swim through a swift and strong current which would have swamped any swimmer with one particle less strength, endurance, and pluck.

At another time hearing his landlady say at dinner that an execution was in the house of a sick man with a large family at the other end of town, he left his dinner untouched, trudged off to the place indicated, and though the debtor was an utter stranger to him, paid off the debt and costs in full without taking any assignment of the judgment or other security.

About the expiration of that time, however, his landlady, by his authority, at his request, and in his presence, made an announcement to the boarders assembled at the dinner table, which, I should think, must literally have taken away their breaths.

Gagtooth was going to be married.

I don't suppose it would have occasioned greater astonishment if it had been announced as an actual fact that the Illinois River had commenced to flow backwards.

It was surprising, incredible, but, like many other surprising and incredible things, it was true.

How about it? Jacob Fouts.

Jacob Fouts coming in and figuring out something really cool where the Illinois River comes in just above Kerr Lake and found some better water, some cooler water, and just outsmarted everybody.

Exactly.

And really, as we got deeper into the season, that was that I guess that was one of the coolest things to see is we kind of we kind of went through all the seasons, Tommy.