Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 56, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 March 1904 — When We Did Have High Water [ARTICLE]

When We Did Have High Water

No one ever remembers so big «n ioe gorge in the river, nor suoh high water resulting from a gorge, ;por probably such high water in the river through town from any oause,' for the pust quarter of a century an now. Be that as it may however there are those who Remember higher water here than now, and when there was no ioe gorges eit.ier, but purely from the vast quanties of raia Had melted suow. Thus W. F. Powers, who has been on constantly intimate terms with the old Iroquois for the past 60 years, remembers early one spriug when he was just a “good chunk of a boy,” and Tom Spitier, long since deceased, was another good chunk of a boy. The elder Spitler’s horses had wanderipd off and Tom had been sent to try to find them, and he ooaxed Powers to go with him. and withBilly’s parents’ knowledge. And it was the “all fired” good thrashing his father gave him when be got home, that makes the oiroumstinoe still fresh in his memory. At that time what is Aow the Alfred Thompson residence property aoross the river, was surrounded by a board fence, and the river was so high, that the water reached some distance through the fenoe and into the tyard. There was no gorge at all, at that time, and whioh was better than fifty years ago.