School children are taught that Chicago owes its greatness to its strategic location at the head of the Great Lakes. Nowadays we forget much of the importance of lakes and rivers as highways of travel. Chicago lies on one of the main highways of travel between the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence system and the Mississippi River. The early French colonists, taking possession of the St. Lawrence valley, found themselves in command of a highway into the heart of the continent. Almost at once they proceeded up the river to the Great Lakes, but here their advance rested for some time. Not until the last quarter of the seventeenth century, following a great outburst of exploring activity, the French gained the headwaters of the Mississippi and followed this stream to its outlet.

Between the Great Lakes basin and the Mississippi there were five main avenues of travel, one of which was the Chicago Portage, which led from the foot of Lake Michigan, by way of the Chicago River and the Des Plaines, down the Illinois. From the earliest days of French exploration almost to this very day the exact location of the Portage has been the subject of unending dispute. Recently, however, the researches of Dr. Lucius H. Zeuch and Mr. Robert Knight have made it possible to locate accurately both ends of the Portage. It is now planned to mark these points by bronze tablets. Each tablet will show a map of Chicago with the Portage indicated, and probably the following inscription:

THE CHICAGO PORTAGE 1673-1836

This tablet is placed upon the carrying or connecting place uniting the waters of the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes with those of the Mississippi River, its tributaries and the Gulf of Mexico, the earliest factor in determining Chicago's commercial supremacy, an artery of travel used by the aborigines in their migrations, and later by Joliet, Marquette, LaSalle, Tonti and the fur traders of New France. An early strategical point in the wars incident to the winning of the Northwest for the settlers. Discovered by Joliet and Marquette in 1673.

Erected by the Chicago Historical Society in pursuance of a plan to give posterity the facts of Chicago's early history. A. D. 1923.

It is not surprising that there should have been disputes even among the first travelers as to the location of the Portage. None of the other great highways between the two water systems was subject to such extreme changes in character, changes which varied not only with the seasons, but apparently from year to year. The dispute goes back to the beginnings of French exploration. When Joliet returned to Quebec, from his expedition down the Mississippi in 1673, he seems to have given out an unduly optimistic account of the ease of transportation between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi. What he actually said we do not know, for his records were later lost, but there are at least two reports of his oral statements to Frontenac, then governor of New France. According to Father Dahlon, Joliet said that a bark could go from Lake Erie to the Gulf of Mexico if a canal of a league and a half were dug at Chicago. Joliet, to be sure, was only a hurried traveler through this region, and was not particularly qualified to hand down to posterity a description of the Portage except at the time of the one trip he made through the region.

LaSalle, who visited Chicago several years later, challenged Joliet's description. According to LaSalle, goods brought to Chicago in barges must be transferred to canoes, for only canoes could navigate the Des Plaines for a distance of forty leagues. After a later visit LaSalle gives the first detailed description now existing of the Chicago Portage, which we extract from Dr. Quaife's book: "From the lake one passes by a channel formed by the junction of several small streams or gullies, and navigable about two leagues to the edge of the prairie. Beyond this at a distance of a quarter of a league to the westward is a little lake a league and a half in length, divided into two parts by a beaver dam. From this lake issues a little stream, which after twining in and out for half a league across the rushes, falls into the Chicago River, which in turn empties into the Illinois." The channel to which LaSalle referred was the main part and the south branch of the Chicago River as we know it today. What LaSalle called the Chicago is the modern Des Plaines.

LaSalle further pointed out that the surface of Lake Michigan was about seven feet lower

than that of Mud Lake, which naturally overflowed into the larger lake after heavy spring or summer rains. At such times of high water, a canal of half a league, as proposed by Joliet, would have been long enough to connect the two channels, but in the dry summer months LaSalle pointed out that the Des Plaines was not navigable above Starved Rock, where he had built Fort St. Louis. Certain it is that the Des Plaines was subject to fluctuation to an exceptional degree. Dr. Quaife says that the length of the carry varied from nothing at all to 50 miles, or even twice that distance.

Quite aside from their importance as bearing on the Joliet-LaSalle controversy as to the length of the portage, the accounts of later travelers are often of interest in themselves. Marquette passed the winter of 1674-75 in camp on the South Branch, whence he had no difficulty, except from floating ice, in passing down the Des Plaines. Similar testimony is given by other travelers at a much later date. Gurdon Hubbard states that in 1819 the passage up the river from Starved Rock to Cache Island was difficult against the heavy current, but from Cache Island, with a strong wind behind them, they hoisted sail and passed rapidly up the Des Plaines and across the Portage "regardless of the course of the channel". Two years later another traveler, Ebenezer Childs, made the same trip in a small canoe and reported that he was unable to find any signs of a portage between the two rivers; when he ascended the Des Plaines to a point where he thought the portage ought to begin, he set his course in a northeasterly direction and after a few miles found himself carried along by the current of the Chicago River. At that time, which Childs expressly says was after a period of heavy rains, there was not less than two feet of water at any point on the portage.

So much for the portage in flood times. After the spring floods, the river was so low as to be practically unnavigable, even for the small boats used by the traders, except after an occasional heavy rain. LaSalle said, in fact, that except after the spring floods, it would be easier to transport goods from Lake Michigan to Fort St. Louis by horseback than by boats. Perhaps the most interesting account of such a land trip is that of Gurdon

Hubbard in 1818. Hubbard for a number of years was one of the Illinois "brigade" of the American Fur Company which made the trip each fall from Mackinac by way of Lake Michi

gan and the Chicago Portage to the Lower Illinois River. Leaving Chicago on their first trip, Hubbard and his companions, comprising about a dozen boat crews, camped for a day on the South Branch in preparation for the hard passage through Mud Lake. Hubbard says that only in very wet seasons was there enough water to float an empty boat; the mud was very deep and the lake was surrounded by an almost impenetrable growth of wild rice and other grasses. In the channel from the

South Branch to Mud Lake there were a few spots where the bottom was hard, where the empty boats were placed on short rollers and were pushed along. Water was scarce, too, in Mud Lake, but the mud was deep and thick. Four men stayed in each boat, while six or eight or even more plowed through the mud. The men in the boats used long poles to push against the tussocks of grass and roots, while the men outside lifted and shoved. The mud was frequently up to the men's waists, and now and then was over their heads. Bloodsuckers by day and mosquitoes by night made life miserable for everybody, but finally, after three days of toil, all the boats were launched in the Des Plaines River. A few years later, when Hubbard was placed in charge of all the Illinois River posts of the fur company, he changed the method of transportation. The boats were unloaded at Chicago on their return from Mackinac and were scuttled in the swamp, and goods and furs were carried on pack horses between Chicago and the hunting grounds.

Cache Island, or Isle la Cache, mentioned above, took its name from one of those incidents of frontier life which seem trifling or amusing a century after the event, but really needed only a slight error in judgment to turn them into tragedies. A trader named Sara or Cerré, with loaded canoes traveling from Montreal to St. Louis, camped at the island, not far above the confluence of the Kankakee and the Des Plaines. A band of Indians demanded tribute for the privilege of passing down the river. This was refused, whereupon the Indians held a council and determined to seize what they wanted by force if necessary. That night Cerré and his men buried (cached) most of his goods in a grove about a mile away on the prairie. At daybreak, each man fully armed, the party started down the river. At the Indian village Cerré asked for a parley, which was granted. Cerré told the Indians that he would defend his goods, and that the Great Father, the King of France,

would send an army to destroy the Indians if any harm should come to him. To support his claim that he was authorized to go to the Ohio River, he waved before the Indians some sort of parchment, with elaborate red seals. The effect on the Indians was magical. They begged to be excused for their rudeness, said that they were very poor and needed clothing and tobacco. Cerré gave them a bale, prepared for the purpose and ornamented with ribbons and sealing wax, purporting to come from the Great Father. In it were a few pieces of calico, powder and shot, tobacco and flints, and steels for striking fire. After some further parley, and by promise of a similar bale, Cerré actually persuaded the band to help him and his men recover the goods they had cached, and loaned him horses to carry the goods to the confluence of the Kankakee and the Des Plaines, where the water was deep enough to permit loading of the canoes. Mr. Hubbard closed his account of the incident with the statement that the Indians were both surprised and amused at Cerré's strategy.

canoe.

In the year 1820, one John Tanner was traveling from Mackinac to St. Louis in a birchbark In spite of discouraging reports to the effect that the water in the Illinois was very low, Tanner determined to go on. At Chicago he hired a Frenchman, who had just returned from a similar trip, to haul his boat across the portage. The Frenchman agreed to journey at least 60 miles, and if his horses would hold out, 120 miles, which was the full length of the portage at that stage of water. But before the first 60 miles had been completed, the Frenchman fell ill, and returned to Chicago, leaving Tanner and a companion to proceed alone. The water in the river was so low that the two men walked in the water, one at the bow and one at the stern, pushing the canoe between them. After walking three miles in this fashion, they met a Pottawatomie Indian, whom they persuaded to take the baggage on horseback, while the men pushed the canoe, now greatly lightened, as before. At the mouth of the Yellow Ochre (probably the Vermilion) River, the water became deep enough to make passage possible with the canoe loaded again.

The Frenchman whom Tanner engaged is not named in the latter's narrative, but it was undoubtedly Antoine Ouilmette, whose name is preserved in the suburb Wilmette. It seems probable that the transporting of travelers across the portage was Ouilmette's chief occupation for some years, just as it was part of John Kinzie's business. Kinzie's account books contain a number of entries showing that he had helped traders over the portage. At least one of these trips, in 1806, extended to the "forks" of the Illinois, and several were made from Mount Joliet. Tanner's trip, if his own account is trustworthy, is the extreme distance, a portage of 120 miles.

In the summer of 1821 a pair of distinguished travelers came up the Illinois River in a large canoe. They were Lewis Cass, governor of Michigan, and Henry R. Schoolcraft, then a young man of twenty-seven, interested chiefly in geology, but later one of the leading ethnologists in the United States. Schoolcraft left a detailed description of the Illinois River, and duly recorded that his party had to desert their canoes at Starved Rock, and proceed thence on horseback to Chicago. On the way he met a number of traders who reported the river navigable for canoes as far as Mount Joliet; but he was properly doubtful about their testimony, especially after his own troubles many miles below. In any case, he thought it best to call attention to the error of those who claimed that a canal only eight or ten miles long would provide a water highway between Lake Michigan and the Illinois. The agitation for such a canal, whatever its length, was merely one of the many popular demands for "internal improvements”, an era of expansion which came to a bitter climax in 1837. Construction work on the Illinois and Michigan Canal was begun in 1836, and was completed twelve years later. Even without the canal, however, the end of the Chicago Portage was doomed by the coming advance of white settlement, and especially by the coming of the railroad. But the coming of the railroad is several jumps ahead of the story, and must be saved for a future BULLETIN.

CHRONICLE AND COMMENT

On October 18, Dr. J. Paul Goode of the University of Chicago, spoke at the Society's building before the Municipal Employees Association on "Chicago, the City of Destiny." Dr. Goode repeated this lecture for members of this Society on the evening of November 15.

On October 26 took place the long delayed presentation to the Historical Society of the portrait of Thomas Jefferson, painted by Bass Otis in 1818. The portrait was one of the most highly prized in the Gunther collection, and is deserving of more attention than members of this Society have thus far given it. The formal presentation was made by Dr. Frank W. Hall, president of the Iroquois Club, through the generosity of whose members the painting becomes the property of this Society. Dr. Hall handed the formal deed of gift, duly signed and sealed, to Mr. Burley, who accepted it on behalf

was delivered by Mr. Thomas F. Donovan, who eulogized Jefferson. Governor Trinkle of Virginia, who happened to be in the city, made an eloquent appeal for the preservation of Monticello as a national shrine, and ex-Governor Fifer of Illinois spoke most interestingly on "Jefferson and American Doctrines." The larger part of the audience was composed of members of the Iroquois Club and their friends. The members of the Historical Society apparently stayed at home with the comforting reflection, in the farewell words of St. Paul to the elders of Ephesus, that "It is more blessed to give than to receive."

Throughout the winter months it is planned to open the Society's collections to the public on Sunday. Members of the Society will act as a reception committee, and four students in the history and civics classes at Lake View High School will act as guides and guards.

The celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of the World's Columbian Exposition, under the auspices of the Chicago Historical Society, has been followed by a variety of evidence testifying to the general interest it aroused. Various members of the Society have contributed personal recollections of special interest. The Society of Midland Authors recently gave a World's Fair costume dinner, and there is talk of a World's Fair costume ball.

YELLOW HAWK

Yellow Hawk is an old Sioux chief. He is at least seventy, perhaps seventy-five. More than half his life he has spent on a reservation in the Northwest. Until this year he had not left the reservation. He had never seen a railroad train or a street car, an elevator or an electric light, or a building more than two stories high. Then he heard of the Indian celebration to be held at Deer Grove, near Palatine. in September. He was stirred as he had never before been stirred. Many hours he gave to pondering his problem and time and again he talked to his old wife about it. This was Yellow Hawk's argument: he was old and soon to die; never had he seen any of the wonders of the white man's civilization; here was a chance to see life as the white man lived it, and also to revive memories of his own past. But alas, Yellow Hawk was not officially invited, and he had not the ghost of a chance of getting permission to go. So he and his wife "jumped" the reservation, knowing well that when they returned they would have a term