Rene-Robert Cavalier de La Salle (1643-1687)
I&M Canal Visitor Center, LaSalle
La Salle dreamed of creating a French fur trading empire in the Midwest. He came to North America in 1667 and traveled to Illinois in 1680. During the winter of 1682-83 he established Fort St. Louis atop Starved Rock for Protection from the Iroquois. This intrepid French explorer was one of the most dynamic characters to have passed through what is now Illinois.
La Salle was most famous for his voyage of exploration down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico in 1681-82. He claimed all of these lands, later known as the Louisiana Territory, for France. For the two years before his death he fruitlessly searched for the mouth of the Mississippi River from the Gulf of Mexico. He was killed by one of his own men in what is now Texas.
Boat Captain-John W. Connett (1812-1885)
Port of LaSalle, LaSalle
John Connett was one of the most popular packet boat captains on the I&M Canal. Born in western New York, he piloted a boat on the Erie Canal before moving to Chicago in 1848. One testimonial to Connett characterized him as, “one of the most experienced and successful navigators on the canal,
and his affableness and accommodating manners, make passengers, while on board, feel that they are in comfortable quarters.” An attentive and accommodating boat captain could make an uncomfortable passage more tolerable for harried passengers. On one of his last trips on the I&M, Connett’s boat the Prairie Queen struck ice and sank in the canal. After the railroads took away the canal’s passenger trade in 1853, Connett quickly found work as an agent for the Michigan Central Railroad.
Locktender – John Means Port of LaSalle, LaSalle
American canals developed a distinctive canal culture, including boat captains and crew, mule drivers, and locktenders. Relatively little is known about the working class men who labored to keep the boats moving through the locks. Locktenders were paid $300 per year and were on call 24 hours a day from April until December. Their slumber was often interrupted by the bleating of the boatman’s horn, announcing a boat that needed to be locked through.John Means was one of thousands who helped dig the I&M Canal, and in 1848 he was rewarded for his service by being appointed one of the original group of 13 locktenders on the I&M Canal. He manned locks 14 and 15 here in LaSalle. During peak periods Means was constantly employed in opening and closing the massive lock gates. The lock gates were operated manually, and often the tender’s entire family was involved in the process of locking boats through. Passengers often disembarked during the tedious process of letting the water enter the lock, so a tender’s wife and children sold fresh fruit or other edibles to passengers.
Mule Driver–Wild Bill Hickok (1837-1876)
Port of LaSalle, LaSalle
The most famous mule driver on the I&M Canal was James Butler (Wild Bill) Hickok. In the first recorded fight of his long career, Bill tangled with a fellow canal driver who had been abusing his mules. Incensed at this cruel treatment of animals, Bill tangled with Charles Hudson and both men tumbled into the canal. Bill eventually headed west, where he gained fame as a lawman and gunslinger. He scouted for Custer and met personalities like Calamity Jane and Buffalo Bill Cody. At the age of 39 he was bushwacked and killed in Deadwood, South Dakota.
Drivers were responsible for leading the mules or horses that pulled the boats along the canal towpath. They often walked 10-15 miles per day and also helped care for the mules. Canal drivers had to coax stubborn mules and occasionally attempt to rescue horses or mules that fell into the canal. Drivers were also responsible for noting breaches in the towpath, and they coordinated the sometimes-tricky maneuver when boats passed each other. A number of drivers drowned in the canal attempting to save mules or horses that had fallen in. The majority of drivers were boys or young men, although some were as old as thirty.
Canal Passengers-Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) and Family
Port of LaSalle, LaSalle
In the mid 1830s Abraham Lincoln, then a member of the Illinois State Legislature, voted in favor of construction of the I&M Canal. A staunch advocate of public works projects, Lincoln knew that the young state of Illinois desperately needed to improve its transportation system. As a member of the U. S. House of Representatives, Lincoln trumpeted the positive effects of the I&M Canal in the nation’s capitol.
While acknowledging that the I&M Canal was entirely within the confines of one state, he noted that its benefits extended far beyond those borders, reducing the cost of transporting goods, thus benefiting both buyers and sellers. “Nothing is so local as not to be of some general benefit,” wrote the future President. “The benefits of an improvement are by no means confined to the particular locality of the improvement itself.” During the canal’s opening year of 1848 Lincoln, his wife Mary and their two children Robert and Edward (ages 5 and 2, respectively) took a ride from Chicago to LaSalle on a canal packet. From here they transferred to a steamboat bound for Peoria, where they disembarked and boarded a stagecoach for the final leg of their trip to Springfield.
Canal Passenger-Shabbona (1775?-1859)
Port of LaSalle, LaSalle
A muscular bear of a man, Shabbona was born a member of the Ottawa tribe, but became a Potawatomi chief when he married a woman from that tribe. During the War of 1812 Shabbona fought with the British against the Americans, but he later became friends with early Illinois settlers. In 1832 Shabbona opposed Black Hawk’s War and warned white settlers in advance of attacks. After the war most Indians in Illinois were forced to settle west of the Mississippi River. Shabbona, however, was given a large tract of land in DeKalb County. Returning home after a long absence from a visit to his tribe, he found that his land had been stolen. Fortunately, sympathetic friends bought him a plot of land near Seneca. He died at the age of 84 in 1859, and is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Morris.
Imagine Chief Shabbona’s astonishment on a visit to Chicago in the summer of 1852. Visiting with his old friend John H. Kinzie, the collector of I&M Canal tolls at Bridgeport, Shabbona stood in “wonder and admiration” at the remarkable changes that had taken place in sixteen years. In a few years Chicago had risen from a tiny military outpost to a thriving city of nearly 40,000.
Canal Passengers-Clara & Olivia Matteson
Port of LaSalle, LaSalle
Women seemed to dislike packet travel more than men. Sarah Norris took a 22-hour trip from LaSalle to Chicago, after which she said “I can’t tell you how pleased I was to leave the canal boat, a little, low, crowded place, moving along at a snail’s pace in comparison with steamboats.” Emily Chandler took a packet from LaSalle to Chicago in September 1851, writing her sister that the trip was “a thing which I can not describe, though not very pleasant at night when crowded.” Traveling with her older sister Olivia, Clara Matteson, the nine year old daughter of Illinois Governor Joel Matteson, exclaimed that the voyage was ” so crude that I cannot understand how people submitted to it.”
While canal packets moved slowly compared to river steamboats, many enjoyed traveling via the canal. As one commentator on an eastern canal wrote, “To the lover of nature, the canal is an ideal method of travel. Rocks and trees, birds and flowers on the shore can be studied leisurely in detail, and every landscape is indelibly photographed on the memory as it slowly vanishes in the distance.” Some preferred the canal over the railroads, as, “there was no danger of collision, of misplaced switch, of scalding steam, of crushing timbers, or any other dreadful disaster.”
Canal Passenger-Gurdon S. Hubbard (1802-1886)
Port of LaSalle, LaSalle
Over the course of his long and eventful life Gurdon Hubbard helped transform Chicago from an uninhabited swamp into the fastest growing city in the US. He first came to Illinois as a fur trader in 1818, and Native Americans dubbed him Swift Walker. “He wore a buckskin shirt and carried a knife and tomahawk. . . and let his hair grow long.” With the close of the fur trade Hubbard made Chicago his permanent home in 1834. He served as one of the original I&M Canal Commissioners speaking at the groundbreaking in July 1836.
Hubbard became a business tycoon, dabbling in meatpacking, real estate, and insurance. With financial interests in various places along the canal, including nearby Utica, Hubbard was among the first to see the entire canal corridor as a cohesive business unit. The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 bankrupted him, but his life spanned an epoch in Chicago’s history, from the fur trade to the rise of a major city of the American heartland.
Canal Passenger-Father John O’Reilly (1802-1862)
Port of LaSalle, LaSalle
Catholicism came to LaSalle in 1838 when missionaries were sent here to serve the spiritual needs of hundreds of young Irish canal diggers. Within weeks the two priests had to face a devastating epidemic and labor violence on the canal. Despondent, one of them wrote his superiors that he would rather be sent west with the Indians than stay in LaSalle.Father John O’Reilly arrived in LaSalle in October 1848 and quickly became a beloved figure among the large Irish population. Talented and energetic, O’Reilly was a compelling speaker who ministered wisely to his flock and encouraged further Irish immigration to America.
O’Reilly had his hands full in wide open LaSalle, known for its many saloons. A friend described O’Reilly as a “champion of the oppressed, a disciplinarian, a sworn enemy to rowdyism, which he fought with forcible and scathing invectives, irrespective of creed, and did his best to cleanse the town of such questionable element.” During his nearly ten years in LaSalle, O’Reilly broke up countless barroom fights but he also helped to raise the morals and manners of its citizens.
Canal Passenger-Grenville M. Dodge (1831-1916)
Port of LaSalle, LaSalle
Grenville M. Dodge is perhaps the most famous person to record his I&M Canal packet boat experience. He later gained fame as a Union General in the Civil War and as chief engineer of the transcontinental railroad. His account gives some idea of the rough and tumble nature of many canal towns in the 1850s. “There was a curious crowd aboard this packet and, as we passed through Joliet, nearly all the passengers were up on deck shooting at the bull snakes that lay on the shelving rocks through which the canal had been cut. The shooting was very bad; it was very seldom they hit a snake. Being a pretty good shot myself, I thought I would try my hand and went down into the cabin and got my pistol. At the first shot I laid out a snake and that fixed my reputation on that boat from there to LaSalle.”
Dodge soon experienced the rough and tumble nature of canal towns. “When I got off the boat I found that Peru, the place I was destined for, was a mile away. I stepped up to Captain Wheeler to ask him how I could get there. He was talking excitedly to a man when another man stepped up and shot the man who was talking to Capt. Wheeler. It did not seem to create much excitement.”