Facing west across the river. 1890s Lewis University Canal and Regional History Collection Three photographs. Scan across to the right ------->

Arthur Cunynghame (1850) "On Sunday evening, the 12th of October, about five, P.M., I embarked on board the canal boat, the "Queen of the Prairies," bound for LaSalle, a town situated south-west of Chicago, about 100 miles distant, and at the head of the navigable portion of the Illinois river. The cabin of this canal boat was about 50 feet in length, 9 feet wide, and 7 high. We numbered about ninety passengers in this confined space, in which we were to sleep, eat, and live; the nominal duration of our passage was twenty hours, but it eventually proved to be twenty-five; our baggage was secured on the roof of the boat, and covered with canvass[sic] to screen it from the effects of the weather. A sort of divan surrounded the cabin, the portion appropriate to the ladies being screened off during the night with a curtain.
For the first few miles we, in company with three more canal boats, were towed by a small steamer [down the Chicago River to Bridgeport], but having passed the locks, not very distant from Chicago, three horses were attached, which towed us smoothly along at the rate of five miles an hour". (Cunynghame A Glipse at the Great Western Republic London: Richard Bently, 1951. p76)Updated March 1, 2000
duffy ingram