Farmers Weekly Review

By Sandy Vasko

What could be more pleasant than a trip on the river. Soft breezes blowing, your best gal or guy at your side – it all made for a romantic excursion. This was not lost on the folks of the 19^th century. Today we take a trip to Wilmington during the time when she was a canal town.

During the 1870s, Wilmington was a canal town, with connections to the I & M Canal through the Feeder Canal and through the aqueduct over the Des Plaines River, about where Harborside Marina is now. We will be looking at the life of one canal boat, the Mohawk Belle.

In 1871, the third of the improvements to the Kankakee River was completed, allowing canal boats up river from the point where the Feeder Canal joined the river, all the way upstream to about where Warner Bridge Road touches the Kankakee.

One of the first boats to take advantage of this was the Mohawk Belle, owned by the Small family. She was a propeller-driven steam boat and frequently towed an unpowered barge behind her for additional cargo space. The first we hear of the Belle was in the People’s Advocate on April 20, 1872:

“We learn the steamboat ‘Mohawk Belle’ will run this season between Wilmington and Chicago, on the Kankakee Company’s navigation, commencing the first of May, and making two round trips a week.

“The ‘Belle’ will do a general freight business, leaving Wilmington every Monday and Thursday P.M., and return, leaving Chicago Wednesdays and Fridays. She will carry 2,000 or more bushels of lime each trip, from the new lime kilns eight miles above our city, to help build burnt-out Chicago. This will be an excellent dispatch line, the running time between the two points being but fourteen hours.”

By June of 1872 we read: “The Mohawk Belle and barges laden with lumber for Small’s lumberyard on the Island, is enroute for this port, and will arrive on tomorrow. Navigation is now thoroughly complete to a point ten miles above this city.”

Typical of Wilmington citizens, they found another use for the Belle besides hauling freight – a party boat. We read in July of 1872: “According to announcement by posters on Monday morning, the ‘Mohawk Belle’ was fitted up for an excursion trip on Monday evening, and at an early hour a large and fashionably attired assemblage of ladies, gentlemen, and children too passage “’or Rockville and return,’ in anticipation of spending a pleasant evening.”

At 6:15 p.m., the Belle was loaded and shoved anchor, headed for Rockville. Things went well until they reached Horse Creek, when the weather turned dark very quickly. The captain turned her around, but it was too late. The lightning and thunder hit, and the rain fell in torrents.

The following bit of poetry describes the trip in rhyme:

Ye Excursionist

We were crowded on the main deck,

Not a friend would dare to treat,

There was darkness up on Horse Creek

And a storm o’er took our fleet.

Tis an awful thing in summer

To “fix up” and then get wet,

And to hear a boat load murmur,

“I’m just soaking through – you bet!”

So we shivered there at once,

For the stoutest held his breath –

While the boys below were smoking

And the ladies looked like Death.

And while thus we sat in darkness

With the beaux and belles in pairs,

“We are sold!” the captain shouted,

“We had better say our prayers.”

Then a little maiden whispered,

As the engine blew off steam,

“I’ve got plenty of excursion – I

would it were a dream.”

Then we went for Fisher’s ice cream

For we felt in better sheer,

And we anchored in the dam lock

Just in time for lager beer!

Moral

We should learn at least one lesson,

On excursion, boat, or train,

Tho we wear our finest feathers,

We should go prepared for rain

The Belle was a hard worker, having very little “down time.” We read on May 9, 1874 in the Wilmington Advocate: “The Mohawk Belle and Messenger, from Chicago, arrived on Monday evening with lumber, and within 24 hours both boats started to return, laden with grain.”

Those were not the only cargos the Belle carried. We read in the July 16, 1875 Wilmington Advocate: “This looks some like business. On a late trip Small’s Mohawk Belle brought to this city the following freight: 292 packages merchandise and machinery, 233 barrels and sacks of flour, 105,000 ft. lumber, 60,000 bundles lathe and 1 side bar fancy trotting buggy.”

She must have been a fast little thing with a good captain, because we read a month later: “The Mohawk Belle made three quick round trips last week, between this city and Chicago, using her barge on the first trip only. Within the seven days she brought a total of 280,000 feet of lumber and sixty tons of merchandise. River men consider the above to be quick work.”

By 1879, she had lost none of her pep. We read in the June 6^th edition, “From the log of the Mohawk Belle it appears that the total time consumed in going to Morris, on Wednesday, was 5 1/2 hrs. Taking 45 minutes for the detention at the first lock, and 15 minutes at Aux Sable waiting for the ‘Peerless’ to lock through reduces the time to 4 1/2 hrs; then take 40 minutes for time consumed in locking through four locks; we find the actual running time made in making the distance – 20

miles – to be 3 hours and 55 minutes. (or about 5 miles per hour)

In 1880, we get the idea that the Belle was starting to show her age: “The propeller Mohawk Belle – Andy Snite, captain – after some slight repairs and painting at Lockport, will come out as good as new.”

All that summer, the Belle was used for river excursions, but we do not read of her hauling any more freight. Then on Oct. 29, 1880, what was to become her obituary, appeared in the Advocate: “The propeller Mohawk Belle, of this city, was advertised for sale in the Times this week.”

That is the last time any mention of the Belle can be found. Eight short years of life was all she had – but she made the most of them.