It is evident, then, that the chief factor in determining the character and length of the Chicago Portage was the Des Plaines River, and that during a large part of the year the portage that must be made extended much farther than simply from the Chicago to the Des Plaines. Schoolcraft and Cass in 1821 were compelled to abandon their canoe at Starved Rock, almost one hundred miles from Chicago. The traders whom they met in the course of their horseback journey were apparently planning to put their boats into the Des Plaines at Mount Joliet, after a portage of thirty miles. Whether, in view of Schoolcraft's own experience, they succeeded in entering the river at this point may well be doubted. The transcript of names from the account books kept by John Kinzie at Chicago[32] contains several entries of charges for assisting traders over the portage; some of these show that the portage was made from Mount Joliet, while one, in June, 1806, shows that it extended to the "forks" of the Illinois. Tanner's experience presents the extreme example, if his statement of distances can be relied on, of a portage of one hundred and twenty miles.[33] The varying length of the portage necessary at different seasons is well described in an official report made in 1819 by Graham and Phillips.[34] At one season there is an uninterrupted water communication between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi; at another season a portage of two miles; at another a portage of seven miles, from the Chicago River to the Des Plaines; and at still another, a portage of fifty miles, extending to the mouth of the Des Plaines.
[32] Barry, Rev. Wm., Transcript of Names in John Kinzie's Account Books, MS in the Chicago Historical Society library. This will be cited henceforth as the Barry Transcript.
[33] If, as suggested above, the Yellow Ochre was the same stream as the Vermilion River, the distance from Chicago to its mouth was about one hundred miles.
[34] State Papers, Doc. No. 17, 16th Congress, 1st Sess. Senator Benton claimed in 1847 that he had written this report from data supplied him by Graham and Phillips (Niles' Register, LXXII, 309).
These fluctuations in the state of the Des Plaines and in the length of the portage influenced materially the plans of the traders and travelers who had occasion to traverse this route. For obvious reasons in times when the Des Plaines was known to be low and the portage correspondingly long the Chicago route would be avoided if practicable. Thus Charlevoix preferred the Kankakee to it in 1721. A hundred years later, the Indians who had set out with Tanner upon learning of the low stage of the water in the Illinois, abandoned the journey and returned to their homes. St. Cosme's party in 1698 sought to reach the Illinois from Lake Michigan by the Root and Fox rivers, desisting from the effort only under the belief that this would necessitate a portage of forty leagues. Compelled to follow the Chicago route, the prospect of the long and difficult passage down the Des Plaines to navigable water on the Illinois induced them to leave all of their goods but one boat-load at Chicago in charge of a member of the party. This made necessary a return from the lower Mississippi for them the following spring, but even this was preferred to the arduous undertaking of transporting them over the long portage at Chicago in the dry season.
More significant, perhaps, is the fact that those who had occasion to cross the Chicago Portage, and were informed concerning the seasonal fluctuations of the Des Plaines, planned their business so as to take advantage, as far as possible, of the seasons of high water. Colonel Kingsbury, who in 1805 conducted a company of soldiers from Mackinac to the Mississippi by way of the Illinois River to establish Fort Belle Fontaine, was ordered to proceed to Chicago with them on the first vessel in the spring.[35] The Illinois River traders in the employ of the American Fur Company in the period from 1818 to 1824 so planned their business as to bring their boats laden with furs up the Des Plaines in the season of the spring flood.
[35] Cushing to Lieutenant-colonel Kingsbury, February 20, 1805. This letter belongs to the collection of letter books, letters, and other papers of Jacob Kingsbury in the Chicago Historical Society library. Kingsbury was in command of Detroit, Mackinac, and other northwestern posts from 1804 on, and for a time was the superior authority in charge of a group of posts including Fort Wayne, Fort Dearborn, Mackinac, and Detroit. His letters and papers constitute a source of prime importance for this period of northwestern history. They will be cited henceforth as the Kingsbury Papers.
La Salle had early contended that it was more feasible to transport goods between Chicago and Starved Rock with horses than by boats on the river. There arose very early a demand for another means of transportation between the two places at such times as the use of the Des Plaines in boats was impracticable, whether from excess or from deficiency of water. Lahontan represents, in his famous narrative of his Long River expedition,[36] that he returned by way of the Illinois River and Chicago Portage. To lessen the drudgery of "a great land carriage of twelve great leagues," he engaged four hundred Indians to transport his baggage from the Illinois village to Lake Michigan, "which they did in the space of four days." Historians have long agreed in denouncing the pretended Long River discovery as fraudulent, but there is nothing improbable about the statement of the necessity of a land carriage of twelve great leagues at the Chicago Portage.
[36] Lahontan, Voyages, I, 167 ff.
Whether Lahontan ever in fact employed four hundred Indians to transport his baggage over the Chicago Portage may well be doubted; but that other travelers employed Indians in a similar capacity is certain. The companions of Cavelier, La Salle's brother, who passed from Fort St. Louis to Lake Michigan in September, 1687, employed a dozen Shawnee Indians to carry their goods to the lake, because there was no water in the river at this season of the year.[37] Unable to make their way from Chicago to Mackinac they returned to the fort to pass the winter. In this same autumn of 1687, some Frenchmen en route from Montreal to Fort St. Louis with three canoes loaded with merchandise and ammunition were halted at Chicago on account of lack of water in the Des Plaines.[38] Upon information of this being brought to Tonty he engaged the services of forty Shawnee Indians, women and men, by whom the goods were transported to the fort.