Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 98, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 March 1918 — DOWN IROQUOIS AND UP THE KANKAKEE [ARTICLE]

DOWN IROQUOIS AND UP THE KANKAKEE

Fred Hemphill, Charles Pefiey and Landy Magee started Sunday morning on a very pleasant motorboat trip to Water Valley, in the former's boat. They went down the Iroqouis through Foresman and Brook, thence to Iroquois, Watseka and Waldron, Illinois, at which latter place they struck the Kankakee, up which they went to Water Valley, reaching that place Tuesday morning at about 8:45 o’clock. The entire distance is in the neigh-

borhood of 125 to 150, miles, following the windings of the streams. At Waldron there is a ten or fifteen foot dam in the Kankakee, and as the Iroquois empties into the latter stream below this dam it was necessary for them to take their boat around the dam through the race, into the Kankakee. Waldron is but three or four miles southeast of Kankakee, and the boys reached Waldron Sundaj- evening at about 7 o’clock and were driven over to Kankakee by auto, wheie they stayed all night, going back to Waldron next morning and taking their boat around the dam and launching it in the Kankakee river. They found the current very strong in places in the Kankakee but the little boat made very good progress indeed up stream. They stopped at ■ Momence and other points along the river and Monday night stayed at Burton’s, on the

Kankakee, over in Newton county. Tuesday morning they pulled out for Water Valley, where they left their boat for use on the upper Kankakee during the hunting and fishing season, and returned home on the 11:20 train Tuesday morning. They had not the slightest engine trouble on the entire trip and, though it was somewhat chilly on the water, they enjoyed the trip very much,. Comparatively few people in Jasper county know where or into what stream the Iroquois river empties. After passing through Watseka on the north and west, the Iroquois twists around through many bends for several miles west of Watseka, after which it bears back almost directly north for about twenty-five miles, to what is called Shannon’s Point, at Waldron. Where it empties into the Kankakee it is a considerably larger stream than the Kankakee itself.