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Passenger Travel on the
Canal
With the opening of the
I&M Canal in 1848, people in northeastern Illinois experienced a
revolution in travel. In April of that year passenger boats began
making the 96-mile trip from Bridgeport to LaSalle, and vice versa. For
five years, before railroads paralleled the route of the I&M Canal,
thousands of people experienced the joys and travails of traveling via
canal packet boats. Indeed, the I&M Canal ushered in a new era in trade
and travel for the entire nation. As the final link in a series of
waterways, the I&M gave travelers the option of taking an all water
route that connected Buffalo, Chicago, St. Louis, and New Orleans.
These water highways provided a mud and dust-free alternative to
overland travel.
In the nineteenth
century, boats that traveled a regular route and carried passengers and
mail were called packet boats. (The term packet originally meant a
parcel of letters.) There are numerous accounts of travel on American
canal packet boats, by esteemed literary figures such as Charles
Dickens, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Nathaniel Hawthorne.
In general, people
enjoyed traveling on packet boats during the day. In fair weather one
could loll about on the deck, enjoying the passing scenery. Some played
cards or backgammon, while others sang or read the latest newspapers.
Since a trip on the I&M took anywhere from 17-24 hours, meals were also
served. The sleeping arrangements aboard packets, however left much to
be desired. As many as 120 people were crammed into the small cabin.
Children slept on the floor, while wooden shelves served as beds for the
adults. The fear of malaria meant that all windows were ordered closed,
making for a long hot night in close quarters. Thus, we can conclude
that travel on packet boats was something of a Jekyll and Hyde
experience: pleasant during the day, much less so at night.
Even chief engineer
William Gooding recorded some of the calamities that overtook him on a
canal packet trip. The German canal driver complained of one horse in
the team “vot wouldn’t go,” but Gooding laconically remarked that the
driver was “as obstinate as the horse and a great deal less sensible.”
The captain and crew were ‘hard cases” who seemed in no hurry, to the
consternation of the passengers. The “villainous smell” of whiskey and
tobacco constantly permeated the closed cabin, but Gooding reached the
end of his endurance when he discovered that the boat contained no food,
“except a little ginger bread, which a poor, half-starved, cadaverous
looking passenger had thoughtfully stuffed into his pockets.”
By the end of 1852 the
Chicago And Rock Island Railroad paralleled the canal, effectively
ending the I&M canal packet boat. But the canal’s role in changing the
face of travel did not go unrecognized. One local historian noted the
impact of the packet boat trade. “As the horses drawing them trotted
along through the country, it seemed a decided improvement to the
settlers over the old ox team, beset by mosquitoes, and moving at a
snail’s pace, without mentioning the inconveniences incident to camping
in all kinds of places, as well as hunting stray oxen in the morning…
The change from the ox team to the packets was as great to the early
settlers, as that of the boat to the palace [Pullman railroad] cars has
been to later generations.”
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