Somewhere in a large swampland, about fifty miles east of the southern end of Lake Michigan, the early French explorers found the beginning of the river. A thread-like current crept through a maze of oozy depressions, quagmires, seeping bogs and little pools, among patches of sodden brush, alders and rank grass. With many intricate windings, the vagrant waters, swollen by numberless springs and rivulets, emerged from the tangled morass, became a living stream, and began its long and tortuous journey toward the southwest, finally to be lost in the immensity of unknown floods beyond.
The explorers called the stream the Theakiki. In the changing nomenclature of succeeding years it became the Kankakee. It was the main confluent of the Illinois, and one of the first highways of the white man to the Mississippi.
The crude topographic charts of the early voyagers on the river naturally differ much in detail and accuracy, but, in comparing them with our modern maps, we wonder at their keen observation and the painstaking use of their limited facilities.
16The annals of their journeys are replete with description, legend, romance, disheartening hardship, and unremitting battle at the barriers of nature against her would-be conquerors.
The name of LaSalle, that resplendent figure in the exploration of the west, will be forever associated with the Kankakee. There are few pages of historic lore more absorbing and thrilling to the admirer of unflinching fortitude and dauntless heroism than the dramatic story of this knight errant of France, and his intrepid followers. Among the woods and waters, and on the desolate frozen wastes of a strange land, they found paths that led to imperishable renown. They were avant-coureurs of a new force that was to transform a wilderness into an empire, but an empire far different from that of their hopes and dreams.
LaSalle’s little band had ascended the St. Joseph, and had portaged their belongings from one of its bends about five miles away. They launched their canoes on the narrow tide of the Theakiki and descended the river to the Illinois. The incentives of the expedition were to expand the dominions of Louis the XIV, to extend the pale of the cross, and to find new fountains that would pour forth gold.
For gold and power man has scarred the earth he lives upon and annihilated its creatures since the dawn of recorded time, and for gold and power will he struggle to the end, whatever and wherever the end may be, for somewhere in the scheme of creation 17it is so written. The moralist may find the story on the Vanishing River, as he may find it everywhere else in the world, in his study of the fabric of the foibles and passions of his kind.
The old narratives mention a camp of Miami Indians, visible near the source of the river, at the time of LaSalle’s embarkation. We may imagine that curious beady eyes peered from the clustered wigwams in the distance upon the newcomers, the wondering aborigines little knowing that a serpent had entered their Eden, and thenceforth their race was to look only upon a setting sun.
The river flowed through a mystic land. With magnificent sweeps and bends it wound out on open fertile areas and into dense virgin forests, doubling to and fro in its course, widening into broad lakes, and moving on to vast labyrinths of dank grass, rushes, lily pads, trembling bogs and impenetrable brush tangles. The main channel often lost itself in the side currents and in mazes of rank vegetation. Here and there were little still tarns and open pools that reflected the wandering clouds by day and the changing moons at night.
There were great stretches of marshy wastes and flooded lowlands, where millions upon millions of water fowl found welcome retreats and never failing food. During the migrating seasons in the spring and fall, vast flocks of ducks were patterned against the clouds. They swooped down in endless hordes. Turbulent calls and loud trumpetings heralded the coming of serried legions of geese, 18swans and brant, as they broke their ranks, settled on to the hospitable waters and floated in gentle contentment.
The wild rice fields were inexhaustible granaries, and intrusion into them was followed by hurried beating of hidden wings. A disturbance of a few birds would start a slowly increasing alarm; soon the sky would be darkened by the countless flocks swarming out of miles of grasses, and the air would be filled with the roar of fleeing pinions. Gradually they would return to enjoy their wonted tranquility.
The feathered myriads came and went with the transient seasons, but great numbers remained and nested on the bogs among the rushes, and on the little oak shaded islands in the swamps.
Coots, grebes, rails, and bitterns haunted the pools and runways among the thick sedges. Sudden awkward flights out of concealed coverts often startled the quiet wayfarer on the currents and ponds of the swamps. The solitary loon’s weird calls echoed from distant open waters.
Swarms of blackbirds rose out of the reeds and rice, and, after vicarious circlings, disappeared into other grassy retreats, enlivening the solitudes with their busy clamor.
In the summer and autumn the flowers of the wet places bloomed in luxuriant profusion. Limitless acres of pond lilies opened their chaste petals in the slumberous airs. Harmonies of brilliant color bedecked the russet robes of autumn, and far over 19the broad fenlands yellow and vermillion banners waved in the soft winds of early fall.
In these wild marshlands was the kingdom of the muskrat. The little villages and isolated domiciles—built of roots and rushes, and plastered with mud—protruded above the surface over the wide expanses, and were concealed in cleared spaces in the high, thick grasses. The pelts of these prolific and industrious little animals were speedily converted into wealth in after years.
The otter and the mink hunted their prey on the marshes and in the dank labyrinths of brush and wood debris along the main stream. Beavers thrived on the tributary waters, where these patient and skilful engineers built their dams and established their towns with the sagacity and foresight of their kind.
On still sunshiny days the tribes of the turtles emerged from their miry retreats and basked in phlegmatic immobility on the sodden logs and decayed fallen timber that littered the course of the current through the deep woodlands. The muddy fraternity would often seem to cover every low protruding object that could sustain them. At the passing of a boat the gray masses would awake and tumble with loud splashings into the depths.
The fish common to our western streams and lakes were prolific in the river. Aged men sit in hickory rocking chairs and enliven the mythology of their winter firesides with tales of mighty catfish, bass, 20pike and pickerel that once swam in the clear waters and fell victims to their lures.
The finny world has not only supplied man with invaluable food, but has been a beneficent stimulant to his imaginative faculties.
The choruses of the bull frogs in the marshes and bayous at night are among the joys unforgettable to those who have listened to these concerts out on the moonlit stretches among the lily pads and bending rushes. The corpulent gossips in the hidden places sent forth medleys of resonant sound that resembled deep tones of bass viols. They mingled with the rippling lighter notes of the smaller frog folk, and all blended into lyrics of nocturnal harmonies that lulled the senses and attuned the heart strings to the Voices of the Little Things.
Colonies of blue herons nested among the sycamores and elms in the overflowed bottom lands bordering on the river. A well known ornithologist has justly called this stately bird “the symbol of the wild.” Visits to the populous heronries were events long to be remembered by lovers of bird life. Sometimes eight or ten of the rudely constructed nests would occupy one tree, and within an area of perhaps twenty acres, hundreds of gawky offspring would come forth in April to be fed and guarded by the powerful bills of the older birds.
These nesting retreats were often accessible from the river, and a canoe floating into the placid and secluded precincts roused instant protest from the ghostly forms perched about on the limbs. The 21great birds would circle out over the trees with hoarse cries, but if the intruder became motionless they would soon return and resume their family cares.
The perfect reflections in the clear still waters, with the inverted tracery of the tree tops against the skies below, decorated with the statuesque figures of the herons, pictured dreamlands that seemed of another world, and tempted errant fancy into remote paths.
The passenger pigeons came in multitudes to the river country in the fall and settled into the woods, where the ripe acorns afforded abundant food. The old inhabitants tell wondrous tales of their migrations, when the innumerable flocks obscured the clouds and the sound of the passing of the gray hosts was that of a moaning wind. The gregariousness of these birds was their ruin. They congregated on the dead trees in such numbers as to often break the smaller limbs. Owls, hawks, and four-footed night marauders feasted voraciously upon them. They were easy victims for the nets and guns of the pot hunters and the blind destructiveness of man wherever nature has been prodigal of her gifts. For years these beautiful creatures have been extinct, but the lesson of their going is only now beginning to be heeded.
The black companies of the crows kept watch and ward over the forests and winding waters. Their noisy parliaments were in constant session, and few vistas through the woods, or out over the open landscapes, 22were without the accents of their moving forms against the sky.
Among the many feathered species there are none that appear to take themselves more seriously. They are ubiquitous and most curious as to everything that exists or happens within the spheres of their activities, and are so much a part of our great out of doors that we would miss them sadly if they were gone.
Wild turkeys and partridges were plentiful in the woods and underbrush. Eagles soared in majestic flight over the country and dropped to the waters and into the forests upon their furtive prey.
In the spring the woodlands were filled with melodious choirs of the smaller birds. Their enemies were few and they thrived in their happy homes.
Deer were once abundant. Elk horns have been found, and there are disputed records of straggling herds of buffalo. Panther tracks were sometimes seen, and the black bear—that interesting vagabond of the woods—was a faithful visitor to the wild bee trees. Wolves roved through the timber. Wild cats, foxes, woodchucks, raccoons, and hundreds of smaller animals, dwelt in the great forests.
In this happy land lived the Miami and Pottowattomie Indians. Their little villages of bark wigwams and tepees of dried skins were scattered along the small streams, the borders of the river, and on the many islands that divided its course.
They sat in spiritual darkness on the verdant banks until the white man came to change their gods 23and superstitions, but the region teemed with fish, game and wild fruits, and, with their limited wants, they enjoyed the average contentment of humankind. Whether or not their moral well being improved or deteriorated under the teachings and influence of the Franciscan and Jesuit fathers and the protestant missionaries, is a question for the casuists, but the ways of the white man withered and swept them away. Unable to hold what they could not defend, they were despoiled of their heritage and exiled to other climes.
Their little cemeteries are still found, where the buried skeletons grimly await the Great Solution, amid the curious decayed trappings of a past age that were interred for the use of the dead in mystical happy hunting grounds. Their problem, like ours, remains as profound as their sleep. Occasionally curious delvers into Indian history have unearthed grisly skulls, covered with mould, and fragments of bones in these silent places.
Many thousands of stone weapons, flint arrowheads, implements of the red men’s simple agriculture, and utensils of their rude housekeeping, have been found in the soil of the land where once their lodges tapered into the green foliage.
Traces remain of the trails that connected the villages and threaded the country in every direction.
The relations between the first settlers and the Indians seem to have been harmonious, but friction of interests developed with the continued influx of the whites, until the primitive law of “might makes 24right” was applied to the coveted lands. Sculptured monuments have now been erected to the red chieftains by the descendants of those who robbed them—empty and belated recognition of their equities.
Many hunters and trappers came into the wild country, lured by the abundant game and fur. The beavers and muskrats provided the greater part of the spoil of the trappers.
Gradually the pioneer farmers began clearing tracts in the forests, where they found a soil of exuberant fertility.
With improved methods and firearms the annihilation of the wild life commenced. Many hundreds of tons of scattered leaden shot lie buried in unknown miry depths, that streamed into the skies at the passing flocks. The modern breech loader worked devastating havoc. The water fowl dwindled rapidly in numbers with the onward years, for the fame of the region as a sportsman’s paradise was nation wide.
The inroads of the trappers on the fur bearing animals practically exterminated all but the prolific and obstinate muskrat, destined to be one of the last survivors.
In later years the trappers lived in little shacks, “wickyups” and log cabins on the bayous, near the edges of the marshes, and on the banks of the tributary streams. Many of them were strange odd characters. The almost continual solitude of their lives developed their baser instincts, without teaching 25the arts of their concealment possessed by those who have social and educational advantages.
With the increasing markets for wild game they became pot hunters and sold great quantities of ducks and other slaughtered birds.
The rude habitations were often enlarged or rebuilt to accommodate visiting duck shooters and fishermen, for whom they acted as guides and hosts. They began to mingle in the life of the little towns, and occasional isolated cross road stores, that came into being at long distances apart, where they went to dispose of their pelts and game.
Queerly clad, long haired and much bewhiskered, they were picturesque figures, standing in their sharp pointed canoes, which they propelled with long handled paddles that served as push poles in shallow water. Dogs that were trained retrievers and devoted companions, often occupied the bows of the little boats. In the middle of the craft were piled wooden decoys, dead birds, muskrats or steel traps, when they journeyed to and from the marshes, where they appeared in all weathers and seasons except midsummer. During the hot months they usually loafed in somnolent idleness at the stores, puttered about their shacks, or did odd jobs on the farms.
There are tales of lawlessness in the country characteristic of the raw edges of civilization in a sparsely settled region. Horse stealing appears to have been a favorite industry of evil doers, and timber thieves were numerous. In the absence of convenient jails and courts the law of the wild was administered 26without mercy to these and other miscreants when they were caught.
Moonshiners, whose interests did not conflict with local public sentiment, were seldom interfered with. The infrequent investigations of emissaries of the government met with little sympathy except when they were looking for counterfeiters.
The Kankakee of old has gone, for the lands over which it spread became valuable. A mighty ditch has been excavated, extending almost its entire course, to deepen and straighten its channel, and to drain away its marshes. The altered line of the stream left many of the rude homes of the old trappers far inland. Their occupations have ceased and they sit in melancholy silence and brood upon the past. For them the book is closed. They falter at the threshold of a new era in which nature has not fitted them to live.
Ugly steam dredges, with ponderous iron jaws, came upon the river. Hoary patriarchs of the forest were felled. Ancient roots and green banks, mantled with vines, were ruthlessly blasted away. The dredge scoops delved into mossy retreats. Secret dens and runways were opened to the glaring light and there were many rustlings of furtive feet and wings through the invaded grasses.
The limpid waters reflected Mammon’s sinister form. The despoiler tore relentlessly through ferny aisles in the green embowered woods and across the swamps and flowery fens. The glittering lakes, the meandering loops and bends disappeared, 27and the fecund marshlands yielded their life currents. The thousand night voices on their moon flooded stretches were stilled. The wild life fled. Wondering flocks in the skies looked down on the strange scene, changed their courses and winged on.
The passing of the river leaves its memories of musical ripplings over pebbly shoals, murmurous runes among the fallen timber, tremulous moon paths over darkened waters, the twinkling of wispy hosts of fireflies in dreamy dusks, blended perfumes of still forests, heron haunted bayous, enchanting islands, with their profusion of wild grapes and plums, and the glories of afterglows beyond the vast marshes.
The currents that once widened in silvery magnificence to their natural barriers, and wandered peacefully among the mysteries of the woods, now flow madly on through a man-wrought channel. In sorrow the gloomy waters flee with writhing swirls from the land where once they crept out over the low areas and rested on their ways to the sea. In the moaning of the homeless tide we may hear the requiem of the river.
Fields of corn and wheat stretch over the reclaimed acres, for the utilitarian has triumphed over beauty and nature’s providence for her wild creatures. The destruction of one of the most valuable bird refuges on the continent has almost been completed, for the sake of immediate wealth. The realization of this great economic wrong must be left to future generations. The ugly dredges are 28finishing the desecration on the lower reaches of the stream.
The Vanishing River moves on through a twilight of ignorance and error, for the sacrifice of our bird life and our regions of natural beauty is the sacrifice of precious material and spiritual gifts.
In the darkness of still nights pale phantom currents may creep into the denuded winding channels, guided by the unseen Power that directs the waters, and fade into the dim mists before the dawn.
Under the brooding care of the Great Spirit for the departed children, ghostly war plumes may flutter softly among the leaves and tassels of the corn that wave over the Red Man’s lost domain, when the autumn winds whisper in the star-lit fields, for the land is peopled with shadows, and has passed into the realm of legend, romance and fancy.