1925 - Part 3 Continued - Across the Continent by Motor Boat (with Evinrude Big Twins)

The following day we got an early start because we knew we faced the ordeal of getting over the unworkable lock at Lockport.  

 The run of five miles from Joliet to Lockport was made in an hour despite the swift opposing current.  Still in waters polluted to the Nth degree we faced one of the most difficult labor jobs of the entire transcontinental cruise.  

We came up below the dismantled lock in a rock walled canyon where the banks were from 8 to 20 feet high and practically perpendicular.  Hunt as we would for a place where the boat could be pulled out, the best place we could find was an opening under a railroad trestle where it would be necessary to lift the hull a perpendicular 8 feet with almost no place for men to stand while conducting the operation.  If we could lift the boat out at that point, we could set it down on a railroad push car, haul it to the end of the powerhouse tail race, and manhandle it up the bank into the Drainage Canal.  Around the power house, the lock and there whole portion of the canal where construction work of all kinds was going on, there were derricks, cranes and machinery to lift anything from a bag of meal to a box car - but not a single piece of this machinery was in a location where we could use it.  It was a case of using man power or quitting right there.  We were still on our way to Hoboken, so I went ashore, and recruited twenty men to help us get the boat over the lock.

Below: 

VIEW OF EXTERIOR LOCK WALL, POWERHOUSE, DAM, AND CANAL FROM OLD LOCK.
LOOKING NORTHWEST. - Illinois Waterway, Lockport Lock, Dam and Power House

Powerhouse

Powerhouse

After getting motors, camping outfit, and all our gear deposited on the bank of the Drainage Canal above the lock, we got a rope under the stern of the boat and by shear brute strength hauled the boat up onto the railroad trestle.  We got the boat up onto the railroad push car, tracked it through the power house, manhandled it out the door at the other side, up the steep bank, and to the edge of the canal above.  There was a fifteen foot perpendicular wall on the edge of the canal above the power house, but that was a mere detail because there was a crane there.  We merely slung the boat, picked it up with the crane, and swung it down into the canal.  In another hour we were under way again.

I think this might be the track going through the power house Hoag speaks of in the paragraph above.
The photo is from the Library of Congress.

After all the filth we had come through in the Illinois River and the Illinois and Michigan canal, we had contemplated the Chicago Drainage Canal with horror.  But, strange as it may seem we did not find it by one one hundredth part as bad as the polluted waters we had previously traveled.  The odor of sewage is almost imperceptible.  The water appears to be quite clean, and there is scarcely any indication of the indescribable pollution we'd experienced further down the state.  The reason for this condition was quite apparent.  In the drainage canal the sewage has no chance to become stagnant.  The canal is 226 feet wide, 23 feet deep, and flowing at the rate of three to four miles per hour. The sewage is thus so diluted with an abundant flow of pure Lake Michigan water that the pollution is virtually lost.  It is down state further when the current decreases, where the sewage becomes stale and stagnant that the real pollution begins.  However, we were pleasantly surprised to have our preconceived ideas of the Drainage Canal changed.

Although it was nearly four o'clock in the afternoon before we got under way from Lockport, and the heavy current in the canal retarded our speed, we entered the outskirts of the Chicago industrial district about sundown.  We were anxious to get into the city, so once more we violated all our solemn vows against night traveling.  When darkness closed down around us, we lighted our running lights and pushed on.  Presently we were scooting under bridges too numerous to mention, dodging tugs and barges, and sliding past great industrial plants, grain elevators,  and all the assembly of dingy structures, smells, dirt, grime and noise that it takes to make the least attractive section of the nation's second largest city.

 Below: 12th Street Bascule Bridge, Chicago, Illinois, circa 1900.

This picture was complete, even to an occasional cinder or pinch of dirt in our eyes long before we passed out of the Drainage Canal into the Chicago River.  Our night run through the Chicago River from the point we entered it beside the Bridewell City Prison was another nightmare of nocturnal navigation.  For six miles we forged ahead against the current  with millions of lights dazzling our eyes, both motors roaring - shooting blue fire out the exhaust ports, and the river itself as dark as a cave in the banks of the Styx.  The river was full of every manner of driftwood and debris, and with bridges every few hundred yards where only Stygian blackness between the red lights of the bridge piers indicated the open water spaces for which we should steer.  

This is the Western Avenue swing bridge they went under.  The canal was drained temporarily for construction.
For more fantastic pictures go to this Chicago Tribune site!

All the Chicago bridges were high enough to let the Transcontinental under, although many a time we bore down upon some dimly silhouetted mass of steel without being real sure whether we were going under or not.  Under every bridge, street cars, taxi-cabs, and a hub-bub and jam of motor traffic, shook clouds of dirt down upon us, to keep us wheezing and rubbing our eyes.  

It was with somewhat of a feeling of relief that we went under the Wabash Avenue bridge, and came in sight of the handsome structure that spans the river at Michigan Avenue in the full glare of the floodlights illuminating the Wrigley Building and the massive tower of the Chicago Tribune.

The municipal landing at Michigan Avenue beside the Wrigley Building was where we had planned to tie up.  The spot was as light as day.  We were delighted to find a group of newspaper reporter friends, and plain curiosity seekers, there to meet us.  Among the crowd there was also a representative from the Evinrude Motor Company of Milwaukee, whom the factory had dispatched to Chicago to see that anything the factory might do for us was doe.  The flashlights boomed, and by the time we got through with the handshaking and the interviewing, it was midnight before we got to a hotel. I got a bath, got to bed and asleep, only to be routed out by the jangling of the telephone, and the operator saying - "Milwaukee is calling you."  It was H. Biersach, General Manager of Evinrude Company on the wire _ wanting to know what he might do to help us along, and requesting me to hurry along to Milwaukee. He was holding up a meeting of the company's board of directors until I could get in to give them every possible suggestion as to how a better outboard motor might be built.

Chicago Harbor Light

Although we felt rather hollow eyed and sleepy the next day, and as if we'd enjoy staying in Chicago for a few days, time was getting to be an important factor if we were to put the boat into New York ahead of winter weather and the usual fall storms on the Great lakes. 

So, at nine o'clock in the morning instead of remaining in bed where we'd have preferred being, we were off through the Chicago River heading for the lighthouse at the end of the breakwater and the broad expanse of Lake Michigan beyond.



Our introduction to Lake Michigan was anything but cordial and friendly.  We rounded the end of the breakwater to go slithering up the side of a green mountain of water, and over the top just as the peak curled into a rooster's tail of white spray.  Most of the spray came down on top of us.  We made a sickening descent down the other side of the wave.  Then the boat buried her nose in a trough at the bottom, and we took a geyser of water over the forward deck as it washed back, struck the combing around the cockpit, and shot skyward.  The first wave, of course, was followed by another one just like it, and then another, and another, and another.  

By this time we'd gone into slicker coats and sou'westers, and were heading up the lake with the weather pounding us on an angle of about thirty-five degrees on our starboard bow. We were shipping far more water than was good for us from the standpoint of safety.  Every time we went down a wave the bow of the boat seemed to head pretty well for Davy Jones' Locker before it would rise again.  After having tried the craft out in some very heavy weather in the Pacific Ocean off Los Angeles Harbor it was apparent to me that we were at least six hundred pounds over loaded.  This deduction was made giving due consideration to the fact that most of my boating experience has been in salt water where the waves do not develop the short, choppy, quickness, that characterizes the surface undulations of these inland fresh water seas.

When it became necessary to throttle the motors to keep the boat from swamping, I decided the most discreet thing to do was to go ashore and unload about a quarter of a ton of excess baggage before we put the whole outfit in the bottom of the lake.  The most convenient place to do this was the Chicago Yacht Club's basin in the Lincoln Park Lagoon.  We therefore changed our course, and wallowed along in three miles of seething water until we reached the quiet water beyond the opening of the lagoon.  Meanwhile the wind seemed to have  been increasing in violence. Water had been lapping over our stern before we got into the yacht basin.  But when we got there I went out on the beach, and took a look at Lake Michigan it seemed incredible that our overloaded cockleshell could have lived for a single minute in such a sea.

After pulling out about 800 pounds of miscellaneous gear that we felt could be dispensed with to better advantage on shore than in the lake, we took the boat out again for a trial run, and to observe results.  By this time the lake was much rougher than when we came in, but we found out the boat rode like a different craft.  Instead of wallowing down into the waves like a pig going under a fence, she rose on top of them like a cork.  But, she pounded so badly and the lake was was running such a furious sea that it seemed utterly foolish for us to attempt traveling until more favorable weather.  Accordingly, we spent the rest of the day getting our surplus equipment boxed and shipped.  Accordingly, we spent the rest of the day getting our surplus equipment boxed and shipped.  Getting turned back by the weather, however, was not entirely without its compensations.  That evening I got a home cooked dinner, and a real night's rest at the home of friends in Chicago - something I had contemplated during the forenoon as an impossibility only to be wished for.

Next morning we found the lake still rough enough to satisfy anybody who might have been looking for a thrill in a small boat, but not nearly so angry as it had been the previous afternoon.  If it got no worse, there was every indication that we'd be able to knock a fair portion of the run from Chicago to Milwaukee.  So, we shoved off getting under way at 8:30.  We took a lunch aboard, and for the rest of the day watched the shores of Illinois and Wisconsin slip along past our port side.  After we'd been under way for about two hours, the lake began to calm down to a gentle rolling sea free from white caps. Naturally this helped our speed.  

We lunched in the boat as Waukegan slid past about three miles abeam of us.  As the lake continued to become more placid during the afternoon we increased our distance from the shore.  This took us safely outside the several bad reefs that are charted along this portion of the Illinois and Wisconsin shores, and also reduced the distances which were materially increased if we were compelled to follow the long sweeping curves of the shore line.  At four o'clock in the afternoon Kenosha, Wisconsin, was visible in the dim distance abeam of us.  Then, we changed our course, and began heading for Racine.  At five thirty we put-putted into the harbor, tied up for the night, and flagged a taxi to take us to a hotel.

A telephone call to Milwaukee put us in touch with the officials of the Evinrude Company to inform them we'd be in the Milwaukee River at noon the following day.  It also resulted in a pleasant little surprise for us.  Leaving Racine at nine o'clock next morning we found the lake fairly calm.  We rounded wind point, the long point above Racine keeping about three miles out at sea.  But that time we could see the smoke and dim outline of Milwaukee in the distance.

Wind Point Lighthouse - Source: U.S. Coast Guard

State St. Bridge on Milwaukee River

About ten miles south of Milwaukee we espied a tug that seemed to be prowling around looking for something.  That something proved to be us.  Little jets of of white vapor began shooting up from the tug's smokestack, and above the roar of our motors we could hear a faint - "toot-toot-toot-toot" of her whistle.  
When the tug came nearer we could see that her forward deck was festooned with men, and in the bow waving like a human semaphore the field glasses picked out the countenance and spectacles of Fred O'Neil, Vice President of the Evinrude Motor Company, Ed Wehe, Manager of the Service Department, and a few other familiar faces.  After coming alongside of us and exchanging greetings, the tug led the way into the Milwaukee River with Transcontinental trailing her astern like a Mother Carey's Chicken following a ship. 

Somebody around the Evinrude establishment had done a good job of press agenting.  The newspapers had been kept full of the story of the Transcontinental for several days.  That morning the papers carried pictures of the boat, and a news story to the effect that the craft was due to arrive in the Milwaukee River at noon.  Moreover, it was Saturday.  Hence, when we came up the river trailing the tug, and the tug captain blowing an extra head of steam out of his boilers through the whistle, most of Milwaukee, it seemed, hurried to the waterfront.  The banks of the river were jammed with people.  There was a grand rush for standing room on the approaches of the various bridges - all of which had to be opened to let the tug pass.  Every window in every building facing the Milwaukee River became a frame for a living picture of humanity peering out to get a look at the first boat attempting to cross North America, and now more than 3,500 miles on its way.

After doing our little grand stand stunt in the Milwaukee River, we proceeded to the Milwaukee Yacht Club, where the club was virtually turned over to us, and we were met by the usual crowd of newspapermen and a delegation from the Evinrude Motor Company.  The yacht club on a Saturday afternoon would have been a lovely place to loaf around - doing nothing.  But there was important work to be done.   We lunched at the club, and by that time a truck was waiting outside to move Transcontinental, and our entire outfit to the Evinrude plant.  While the boat and motors seemed to be in excellent shape, we still had 2,000 miles to go.  The motors have been run from Astoria, Oregon, to Milwaukee.  They had run at full throttle from 8 to 10 hours per day - day after day, and week after week - without ever having been pulled down for an overhauling, and without the replacement of a single part except the underwater mechanism which had been consumed by the silt in the Missouri River.  The Evinrude engineers desired to measure the pistons, cylinders, and other parts for wear.  And, from our standpoint, with the Evinrude plant and boatworks available for any necessary repairs or alterations we'd have overlooked a rare opportunity had we gone out of Milwaukee without having everything right.

1929

In our little run of 80 miles from Chicago to Milwaukee, we'd gained some profitable experience as to the type of boat best suited to Great Lakes weather.  While Transcontinental had lived up to most of our expectations both as a river and deep water craft, certain alterations were desirable.  For one thing we had learned that we could get along better in the Great Lakes with one motor than we could with two.  Two motors, of course, gave us greater speed and more power to buck the headwinds or currents.  But, against this advantage was the disadvantage of being compelled to throttle down in very rough water even when driving with one motor.  The use of two motors also doubled gasoline consumption, and the weight of the second motor made the stern a little sluggish in rising over a heavy sea - especially when running before the weather. 
 Although we had a full 18 inches of freeboard astern - ample for the roughest river work we'd encountered, we found it was none too generous for the infamously choppy seas of the Great Lakes.  Some sort of spray hood over the bow of the cockpit was also desirable.  The boat had not leaked a drop since first put in the water, but she had begun to look as if a coat of paint wouldn't do her any harm.  

So, we hauled the boat out to the Evinrude plant where the most skilled mechanics and carpenters who could be mustered into service for a Saturday afternoon and Sunday job were put to work.  Never have I seen any group of men who worked so carefully.  Every man of them seemed to feel that the success of their company's product in driving the first boat across America depended entirely upon him.  While the carpenters were sawing out boards to make an 8-inch spray combing around the stern, and the after six feet of the cockpit; the mechanics in the service department dissected LEWIS and CLARK.  Meanwhile an awning maker was stitching a heavy canvas together to form a curved hood over the forward end of the cockpit to keep the Great Lakes from climbing aboard.  

The motors, however, gave us the biggest surprise.  In spite of the terrific punishment they had received, a systematic "micrometering" of parts yielded no appreciable wear.  There was not a single part to be replaced - nothing to be done but put them together again and touch them up with a new coat of paint.  In selecting a stock of spare parts for the remainder of the cruise we also profited from past experience.  We had no more Missouri Rivers to cruise, hence there was no necessity whatever for taking along a stock of stuff that probably would never be used for anything but ballast to be chucked overboard in case of squally weather.  So, the stock of parts we took along was no more than could have been carried in one's hat.  Of course, we had two motors, and never intended to use but one until we reached the Trent Waterways in Ontario.  This gave us a whole motor in reserve, and to rob parts from it if necessary.

By Tuesday morning the paint on the hull of the Transcontinental was sufficiently dry to permit launching other boat again, so we trucked her to the Milwaukee Yacht Club, and into the water.  A trial run into the lake, out beyond the Milwaukee Light Ship, in a sea that was far from calm revealed that we were much better fitted for deep water cruising than we had been when we entered Milwaukee.  During our stay in the city that malt beverage made famous prior to Mr. Volstead's essay on enforced temperance, we got acquainted with Captain William Kincaide, commander of the United States Coast Guard Station at Milwaukee. 

The Milwaukee light ship. She was in service until 1932.

During this time we had been considering the feasibility of attempting to cross the lake to the Michigan side instead of carrying out our original plan of going up the west side of the lake to the Straits of Mackinac.  This plan of crossing the lake seemed attractive because it would shorten the distance for us, and restore several days to our much belated schedule.  When we discussed it with Captain Kincaide he promptly frowned upon it.  "Too dangerous," was his only comment.  

The thing appeared so to me, and I would have been cold-footed on the subject from the start but from having observed the tremendous number of ships that ply up and down the entire length of Lake Michigan. It seemed to me impossible to cross the the lake and be out of sight of a ship at any time.  Moreover, most of the ships are slow freighters, with very little, if any more speed than we had.  With fair weather, it seemed reasonable that we would be able to get across the lake in a daylight day and without the slightest difficulty.  Of course, if we got caught in a squall out in the middle of the lake, our predicament would be anything but safe or comfortable.  But, if we did get caught by unfavorable weather, it seemed certain that we could count on being close enough to a ship to permit going alongside and yelling for help.  



So, after much careful thought we decided to attempt the dash across the lake at daylight the following morning - providing weather indications were favorable.  We got everything ready, and then spent most of the night around the coast guard station grabbing every weather report and watching the barometer.  When the first rays of daylight began to show in the east every weather indication appeared to be in our favor.  We were about ready to shove off when Captain Kincaide came down, and stood on the shore watching our preparations.  He stood there stroking his chin as if in deep thought.  Finally, he spoke saying: "Boys, if your'e going to try it, I'm going to go with you."  He handed me a telegram - an authorization from the Commandant of the Coast Guard Service at Washington for the Captain and a crew of men in a motor life boat to accompany us safely across to the Michigan side of the lake.  I thanked the Captain for his his spirit of kindly cooperation.  To this he replied: "Well, me and the boys would like to take a little trip anyway.  There hasn't been much doing on the lake this summer.  Besides, I'd rather go WITH you, than to come out AFTER you.  Shove off whenever you are ready, and we'll catch you with the life boat a few miles beyond the light ship.

This sudden and wholly unexpected co-operation on the part of the Coast Guard was thoroughly appreciated, for it took out the element of uncertainty, and about 99 per cent of the risk out of us getting across Lake Michigan.  We shoved off from Milwaukee feeling much less uneasy as to what we might encounter on the run of 98 miles of open water between there and Ludington.  In a few minutes we were outside the breakwater with Transcontinental burying her nose  in the choppy sea of a morning breeze.  Half an hour later we cruised pass the lonely Milwaukee Light Ship took our course from the compass, and headed straight out across the lake.  The shores of Wisconsin were getting somewhat hazy and dim in the distance when a tiny white speck coming up astern of us loomed in the field glasses as Captain Kincaide's life boat.  The life boat had scarcely half a knot more speed than we did.  Consequently, the scenery consisted of sky and water before the convoy caught up with us.

By rare good luck, the favorable weather that had been forecast turned out to be even better than we'd hoped for. By the time we'd been out of Milwaukee two hours the wind died down completely.  It became unbearably hot, not a breath of air stirring, the lake flattened out like a bowl of soup.  It was one of those rare days to be expected about once in an average human life time on Lake Michigan.  Luck was certainly with us.  We cruised much of the time within twenty feet of the convoy, often talking with Captain Kincaide and his men through a megaphone, or using the megaphone as an ear trumpet to pick up voices from the other boat over the roar of our engine.  

At noon we took our position, found we were approximately in the middle of the lake, and with a mill pond surface as the prospect for the rest of the day.  The barometer remained absolutely stationary.  The torrid weather we were experiencing out on the lake gave us sympathy for the heat sufferers in Milwaukee and Chicago that day. 



   

About one o'clock in the afternoon a chipping sparrow came fluttering down out of the sky, landed on the bow of the Transcontinental.  After roosting there for a while, apparently recovering his breath, he hopped off and went aboard Captain Kincaide's boat.  The appearance of this small land bird called attention to the fact the Great Lakes are a death trap for billions of of land birds and insects every year.

Numerous flies, flying beetles, and butterflies were observed in the air and on the water.  They came aboard in such numbers as to become an intolerable nuisance.  We put on several active fly drives, swatted flies right and left, and shooed them overboard, but only to pick up a new cargo of the pests within the next fifteen or twenty minutes.  We saw butterflies, and other insects go fluttering down into the water, apparently so exhausted they could remain in the air no longer.  It is very evident that these flying creatures get carried by the air currents out into the Great Lakes, dropping to their doom when they can remain a-wing no longer.  

While we were usually trailing our convoy, we really had no more need for it than the average man would have for a hundred hats.  The weather remained the same across the lake, and there was never a minute during the entire day that we were not in sight of from one to a dozen different ships.  Al this, of course,  while the fine weather lasted.  We were just as well satisfied to have the convoy with us.

About the time the sun dropped big and red into the world of water around us we began to smell land.  A peculiar haze also appeared in the east, indicating the presence of land.  But, darkness settled down around us, and still no land was in sight.  About nine o'clock in the evening a little light bobbed up on the eastern horizon, and began to blink at us.  I glanced at the chart, and thought I identified the light as Little Sable Point - just south of Ludington.  

Cruising on for another half hour three more lights appeared in the east, but to save our lives we couldn't make the various lights jibe with the charts.  Presently a great cluster of lights came into view indicating a town - evidently Ludington.  During the entire day we left most of our navigation problems to Captain Kincaide because we reckoned with his large binnacle and steadier boat, his reckoning was apt to be more accurate than ours.  About the time the lights of the town came into view Captain Kincaide's boat suffered a breakdown.  We went alongside asking if he needed a tow, but he assured us he'd be under way in just a few minutes, and suggested we cruise on.  So, we went on towards the town, but still deeply puzzled over our inability to identify the various lighthouses on the shore and check them with our chart.

At midnight we pulled in between a couple of breakwaters.  Our harbor chart of Ludington was broken out, but the whole scheme of lights and landscape ashore seemed to be askew with our charts.  Several years ago I had been in Ludington, and I still had something of a mental picture of the town and its harbor.  But, this place, into which we poked the bow of Transcontinental after sixteen hours of steady traveling, was nothing that I'd ever set eyes upon.  

We pulled in between the breakwaters, and when I espied a man on sore, I shut down the motor, and called out: "What port is this-please?"  "Manistee," came back the reply.  "Manistee. Holy cats," I exclaimed.  "NO wonder we have been sixteen hours getting here."

We'd cruised 120 miles that day instead of the 98 miles we expected to cover from Milwaukee to Ludington, and we were about 25 miles nearer to New York than we expected to be.

Presently, Captain Kincaide joined us, and I ventured to ask him if he knew what port we were in.  "Sure I do," was his answer.  "This is Manistee. I've been heading for it all day.  When I saw the kind of weather we had on the lake today, I knew you wouldn't object to getting lured along a little farther on your route."  With that the Captain burst into an uproar of laughter, and we joined by the crews of both boats.  The biggest part of the joke on us was that our compass had been off about half a point all day.  We'd been heading for Manistee when we thought we were headed for Ludington.  We were only 25 miles off on a course of 120 miles - just a mere detail for a trio of landlubbers trying to navigate the Great Lakes in an 18-foot put-put.

While we were delighted to be in Manistee that evening in preference to Ludington, the unintentional alteration of our route cost me about ten dollars for telegrams.  When we  left Milwaukee, the Milwaukee newspapers carried the report that we had struck out for Ludington.  When we failed to show up at Ludington,  a couple of reporters who'd been mastheaded on the breakwater all evening, drew the logical conclusion that we were LOST.  Forthwith, the report went out on the wires that we - "were lost in Lake Michigan without food or water."  It would certainly be a terrible thing to be lost on Lake Michigan without any drinking water - especially on a hot day.  Nevertheless, I had to get out a handful of telegrams to our relatives and  friends to let them know the report was grossly exaggerated.  I learned later that Mrs. Hoag read the report in the Los Angeles paper, laughed over it, and ten minutes later received my wire announcing our arrival in Manistee.

It was a good thing for us we got across Lake Michigan on the day we did rather than to have attempted it the following day.  We got a short night's rest in Manistee, and were on the job for a dash up the lake next morning - but we didn't go anywhere the next day.  We came out of the hotel to find a violent gale blowing from the northwest.  Captain Kincaide, with his non-capsizable, non-sinkable life boat was preparing to shove off for Milwaukee.  He advised us to remain in port, but time was getting to be such a precious element with us that we

1960 breakwater at Manistee

decided to travel if it might be possible.  Due to the direction of the storm, we'd get set on the beach if we came to grief, and the nature of the shore for sixty miles or more north from Manistee is such that a small boat could be beached with little difficulty.  Leaving Captain Kincaide at the Manistee Coast Guard Station, we struck out down the Manistee River, and around the breakwater.

Lake Michigan was literally boiling.  Never in all my travels have I seen such a mess of green mountains and white froth as we encountered that day.  The first wave that struck us all but capsized us bow over stern, and for an instant I couldn't see the sky for the water going over the top of us.  When we climbed the green wall of water and topped the summit we went hull out of the lake completely - dropping with a sickening thud into the foaming aquatic chasm below.  Every time we went up the muffler of the motor went under with a loud hiss and gurgle.  Then we'd go careening skyward again, take to the air, and drop like a thousand bricks.  Meanwhile we could scarcely see for the spray, and our gimbel-mounted compass was doing flip-flops like a foundry tumbler.  Water was coming aboard about as fast as our double-action bilge pump could put it overboard.  Although Transcontinental was a mighty staunch and seaworthy little hull, it was obvious to me that no boat ever built could stand that sort of punishment very long.  It was obvious too, that we could take the punishment of pounding around all day in that sort of sea, battling to stay afloat, and have nothing but bruises and strained nerves to show for it at the end of the day.

In an hour of ceaseless hammering, we'd made just about two miles up the Michigan shore from the Manistee breakwater.  At this juncture we came to the agreement that live cowards get more out of life than dead heroes - and there's a vast difference between and adventurer and a fool.  We decided to put about, and run for Manistee.  Just how we ever got turned around in that sea without swamping is something I'll never be able to explain, but somehow we did it, although while we were making the turn water was coming aboard by the bucketful.  In another instant we went yawing off down the tail race of a green mountain of water.  Then we stood still - wallowing between waves slowly climbing to the next foaming summit, taking the spray, and yawing off again.  We managed to get back to the opening between the breakwaters in a series of yaws, wallows and dousings.  
When we reached the Coast Guard Station we found Captain Kincaide still there. 
 "Decided to take my advice - eh?"  
"Aye, Captain" we responded.  
"Well, you show good judgement."

(To be continued)

1925 - Part 3 - Across the Continent by Motor Boat (with Evinrude Big Twins)

Lots going on in Part 3!  I wonder where all the photos are that were taken on the cruise.  So few were used here it is a bit annoying.  Somewhere (hopefully) is an archive with the photos but I can't find it.  You can identify the original photos as they have the photo description as part of the image.

The cover of the March 1926 issue :-)

1924

We kept our schedule into St. Louis.  Although most of the morning was consumed making photographs around camp and overhauling our equipment, we got under way at 10:30 in the morning.  The run down the Mississippi was only a matter of 18 miles, aided by a 4 mile per hour current, so that we pulled up in front of the Municipal Landing Barge sharply at noon.  There we were welcomed by the usual delegation of newspaper men and photographers.  After getting properly mugged and reported, we were taken in tow by William H. Dees, Sales Manager for the Canvas Products Company, of St. Louis.  Mr. Dees' firm manufactures the Peerless Auto Tent, which we had found to be a very satisfactory article for motor boat use, and which had been our home during the cruise when we were not actually under way with the boat.

St. Louis riverfront in 1927.

Source: http://maps.slpl.org/ctc.html

We spent that afternoon, and the following day in St. Louis, getting started for Hoboken again about 9 o'clock on the morning of August the second.  

Notwithstanding the fact the Mississippi from St. Paul Minnesota to New Orleans, is a rather sluggish stream, we found the current dragged heavily upon a boat having no greater speed  and engine power than Transcontinental had.    But, we had plenty of headway left after overcoming the current even though we played safe and bucked right up the middle of the steamboat channel which is marked with a veritable fence of buoys and shore day marker targets.  

The run of 18 miles back up the Mississippi to the mouth of the Missouri was made in three hours, ands at one o'clock in the afternoon we tied up at Alton, Illinois, to go ashore for lunch.

It was a tremendous relief to be away from the nerve racking strain of dodging sand bars and snags in the Missouri, and just to have clear water to cruise in was a pleasure we had not known since leaving the Columbia.

While the Mississippi River above the mouth of the Missouri might not be considered clear by persons who are used to streams and lakes of crystal clearness, it is sufficiently clear that the tip of an oar blade is visible about four feet below the surface.

Below the mouth of the Missouri, however, it's quite a different story.  The writer is inclined to share the views of certain geographers who have always maintained  that a grave mistake was made when the Missouri was named as a tributary of the Mississippi.  It has been claimed that the Mississippi really flows into the Missouri, and that the Missouri is one river from the point in Montana where it is formed by the junction of the Madison, Gallatin, and Jefferson Rivers - right straight through to the Gulf of Mexico.  The question will probably always remain debatable, but it is an incontrovertible fact that - there is no Mississippi River below the mouth of the Missouri.  he Mississippi most assuredly loses its identity after the Missouri pours its torrent of silt and mud down to mingle with the waters of the Mississippi.  The Mississippi is swallowed by the Missouri just as the Missouri is swallowed up in North Dakota where it meets the Yellowstone.

(I added the red dashes on top of almost invisible faded out route markings.)

The scenery along the Mississippi, especially on the Illinois side of the river between Alton and the mouth of the Illinois River at Grafton, Illinois, was without doubt some of the most beautiful we had seen since leaving the bad lands of Montana.  Along this portion of the river the shore like terminates at the water's edge in the form of great, rocky, almost perpendicular bluffs.  These rocky formations appear to be very old, much weathered and waterworn, and with patches of vivid green vegetation growing out of the cracks and canyons that break through the rocky walls.  For the first time on this entire cruise we found ourselves on this portion of the run in the company of other motor boatmen.  Motor boats of all descriptions appeared along the river.  Boats bearing such distant ports of registry as Peoria, St. Paul, and Des Moines, indicated that we were not the only outfit doing a bit of long distance travel.

 Traveling on up the Mississippi that afternoon we arrived at Grafton, Illinois, at the mouth of the Illinois River at six o'clock in the evening.

Grafton is a quaint little townof less than a thousand population, but it seems to typify the many little communities that dot the shores of the Mississippi from Lake Itaska to the Gulf of Mexico.

It is one of those villages in which we still find the unspoiled Americanism of two or three decades ago - people who work six days a week, go to church on Sundays, maintain the standards of living that were those of our great grandparents, lead simple wholesome lives, and don't walk up the backs of each other's neck in the present day scramble for the elusive dollar.

It is one of the few remaining towns where the hostelry sells a night's lodging in a nice clean room with a bed and a wash bowl for a dollar, and meals at fifty cents each. At mealtime they load the food onto the tables, go outside and toll the bell - the signal to those who are hungry to come and get it. To one who has spent most of his recent years in the commercial tread-mill of the modern American city, a visit to Grafton or any of the many Graftons along the Mississippi, is deliciously refreshing.

Fourteen years ago the writer canoed down the Illinois River from Peoria to the Mississippi River.  I was at that time a student of biological science at the University of Illinois.  The canoe cruise was made with the joint cooperation of the University  College of Natural History and the United States Bureau of Biological Survey.  It was for the purpose of taking a census of the bird life along the river, and making analysis of the stomach and crop contents of birds to determine their economic relation to agriculture.

Turning the bow of the Transcontinental into the Illinois River in August, 1925, I found a very different river from the stream I had roamed with the canoe in 1911.  The river has been transformed in those fourteen years from one of the most beautiful streams of the entire nation - rich and bird and fish life, to a foul-smelling, filthy, open sewer.  The blame for this condition must be placed squarely where it should go, and that is upon the city of Chicago.  Anyone who travels up the Illinois River today, and sees the condition that the pollution from Chicago's sewage has caused, may righteously accuse the city of slovenliness, greed, selfishness, and an utter disregard for the rights of the people living down the Illinois and Mississippi River Valleys.  

The writer believes that if a representative lot of Chicago citizens could be taken down the river and shown what the city has done, then go back to Chicago and clean house with the city government from cellar to roof, if that might be necessary to accomplish an ending of the imposition the community has inflicted upon its neighbors.  In justice to Chicago, however, it should be stated that steps are now being taken to put a stop to the pollution which the Chicago Drainage Canal has caused the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers.  The task is a complicated engineering task that will require at least five years for realization.

Years ago, someone who was evidently a skillful, paid propagandist, set in motion the theory now widely credited that - running water purifies itself after flowing a certain distance.  But, to anyone who is sufficiently gullible to accept that theory, I would say: Take a look at the liquid pouring out of the Illinois River into the Mississippi.  Nineteen-twentieths of it is said to be pure uncontaminated water from Lake Michigan that flows down the Chicago Drainage canal.  The remaining twentieth is sewage  and the comparatively small amount of water which the Illinois River accumulates from a number of tributaries.  In spite of the fact that the water flows 325 miles from Chicago to the mouth of the Illinois River, it pours into the Mississippi as an evil-smelling mass of filth that is utterly indescribable.  



If that water has purified itself, or is in any way improved by reason of the distance it has flowed one's optical and olfactory nerves would have to be paralyzed to permit him to believe it.  Moreover, if it is fit for human use by the time it mixes with the Mississippi and is pumped up by the municipal waterworks at St. Louis, I'm ready to phone the insane asylum and tell them to get me a room ready.

While the Illinois River is still just as beautiful a stream to the eye as it was fourteen years ago, one needs a gas mask or a clothes pin on his nose in order to appreciate the appreciate its shores.  The boat channel has a minimum depth of about seven feet, and is well buoyed and lighted.  From the standpoint of navigation it was one of the easiest streams we traveled on the entire cruise.  But, at the end of our first day's cruising on the Illinois we were cured of the camp habit.  Instead of attempting to camp in an atmosphere that was nauseating enough during the days, we tied up in front of a town each night.  If the town had more than one hotel we selected the one farthest from the river.

After driving up the Illinois on runs that averaged 50 to 60 miles a day using both motors to increase our speed against the drag of the current, we launched at noon on August seventh at Pekin, Illinois, and the shoved off up the river for Peoria.  A few miles up the river a huge dirigible airship soared down out of the sky and began maneuvering around above us.  Then came a couple airplanes, and later a speedboat down the river.  The speedboat circled us, came alongside, and throttled down.  About that time the idea dawned upon us that all this demonstration was a reception committee from Peoria.  The men in the speedboat beckoned to me to come aboard, so I left Wilton at the wheel and Woodbury at the engines, and made a flying transfer without stopping either boat.  The speedboat contained A. T. Griffith, Peoria yachtsman and editor of Boating, and a group of newspaper men representing the Peoria and Chicago papers.





We then proceeded to the Illinois Valley Yacht Club in Lake Peoria, where the members of the club and its officers gathered around it and insisted that we should make their club our headquarters as long as we could remain with them.  

Much we  would have liked to have availed ourselves of the hospitality of the IVY Club, our sojourn there had to be made as brief as possible.  We were already weeks behind the schedule we had originally planned for the coast to coast cruise.  Weather conditions, however, compelled us to remain a day in Peoria.  The weather had been hot but fair all the way from Kansas City to Peoria.  The day after our arrival in Peoria, about the time we had arranged to leave, it began raining as if the skies were attempting to give the state a year's supply of moisture in one deluge.  So, off went another day from our already badly wrecked schedule.

It is sixty-two miles from Peoria to the entrance of the Illinois and Michigan Canal near La Salle, Illinois, but by getting an early start the next morning, we believed we could be in La Salle that evening. We cruised steadily all day, stopping at Lacon for half an hour for lunch.  Then for the rest of the afternoon we kept Lewis and Clark turning at full throttle without ever being shut down.  

This is the steamboat, Marion.  First boat down the Hennepin Canal in 1907.

About six o'clock we passed the mouth of the Hennepin Canal, the water route between the headwaters of the Illinois and the Mississippi Rivers, and cruised on up the river.  The farther up the stream we progressed the worse the pollution became.  A few miles below Peru, Illinois we found ourselves in liquid that was as black as ink, with masses of black muck floating upon the surface.  

This part of the river is nothing but a flowing cesspool.  Gas bubbles are constantly rising from the bottom, and the aroma is enough to stagger a billygoat.  Until Chicago solves her sewage problem in some less slovenly manner every living thing except the germs of pestilence must shun the Illinois River, especially the upper portions of it.  We traveled through it merely to get from the Mississippi into the Great Lakes.  A portage of this route would have been justified.

Up to this point of the narrative, I have scarcely touched upon the subject of night navigation.  We never made a practice of traveling after dark except when absolutely necessary.  But, in spite of our efforts to eliminate night running we came in for more than our share of it.  We frequently found it necessary to keep going after darkness had fallen in order to get to a landing, a camp site, or some other designated objective.  And, as I think of it now it was the worst nightmare of the entire ocean to ocean journey.  Rapids, snags, sand bars, falling cut banks, rough water, and all the factors that constantly menaced the expedition pale in to insignificance compared with the utter feeling of helplessness and impending disaster which threatened us with every run we ever made after dark.

Cruising through unknown waters, often with swift currents to contend with, and with darkness so black that a blind man at the wheel would have an advantage over us, lacked much of being conducive to peace of mind and security of body.   It was not the disaster we ever met while running at night, but the disaster we constantly and momentarily expected, that caused us discomfort.  It was like walking along on the edge of a cliff blindfolded - and wondering what instant one might step off into space and to destruction.  Every time we ran at night - and without meeting disaster, we solemnly swore we'd never doit again.  But, as surely as we made our vows, it was only to break them, possibly the following day.

Although we had repeatedly sworn off on night cruising, we found ourselves cruising the upper Illinois River in the vicinity of Peru, Illinois, through a night as dark as the proverbial cat.  We scraped the shore several times, dodged a million rocks and deadheads that were either real or imaginary, passed above the twinkling lights of Peru, and thought we detected the entrance to the Illinois and Michigan Canal on the left bank of the river. 

That effort to get into the canal without being able to see it came nearer to ending the transcontinental cruise than any other mishap of the entire journey.  Steering for the faintly silhouetted opening which we believed to be the canal, we ran aground on a slimy mud flat.  Just as we struck, the whole aft end of the cockpit burst into flames with a preliminary gasoline vapor explosion that all but blew us out of the boat.  Instantly the fire began shooting skyward, and it seemed that we were doomed to pile overboard - making for shore the best we could through the filthy water, and leaving the boat and its thousands of dollars' of equipment to the flames. Mr. Woodbury, who was in the stern end of the boat at the time, grabbed the heavy canvas cockpit cover, and chucked it over the fire.  He was wildly tucking the corners over the tongues of escaping flame when I got aft with the Pyrene.  In less time it takes to tell it the flames were out.

Following the flare of the fire the blackness of night seemed tremendously intensified. We rubbed the singed lashes out of our eyes, and began hunting for the cause of the near-disaster with a pocket flashlight.  

We found it in the form of a leaking gasoline line from the main tank amidships.  The fuel had run out on top of the bilge and under the floor grating of the after cockpit.  The swirling vapor of the liberated gasoline had been apparently set off by having made its way into one of the kerosene running lights. 

 The leading gasoline line was closed off at the tank.  We sponged up all the loose fuel we could find, extinguished the running lights, and poled the boat off the mud flat.

Making our way to shore, we landed to discover that the opening we had tried to enter was the Illinois and Michigan Canal - or rather the ditch where the canal used to be.  There was no water in it - nothing but slimy mud, and clouds of mosquitoes swarming over it.   

The mosquitoes drove us back to the boat, where we started the motors, and got under way - but not sure where we were going, or even where we wanted to go.  To all appearances we were in the head end of a blind ally.  The only course open to us seemed to be to go on up the river, attempt to reach La Salle, and there obtain information as to whether we might be able to get through the Illinois and Michigan Canal or not.

Abraham Lincoln was very involved with getting support for this project. See more.

The Illinois ceases to be a navigable river above the entrance to the canal. The current becomes very swift, and all aids to navigation are lacking. Thus we found ourselves battling up the river in total darkness for about two miles until the lights of La Salle came into view. We discerned the dim outline of two bridges, and battled the current under them without hitting anything. Five hundred yards above the second bridge we ran aground on a mud flat and in a field of submerged or semi-submerged stumps. Meanwhile we had noted the river seeming to swing away from the town, and certainly with no indication of going any nearer. Under the circumstances, the only thing sensible thing for us to do was to get off the mud flat and run back down the river to Peru.

Getting off the flat, however, was no easy task.  When we attempted to pole off, the poles went down in the soft black muck of the river bottom without exerting any appreciable push.  

This action dislodged clouds of bubbles from the mud that all but gassed us out of the boat. A ten minute effort with the oars finally got us clear of the mud flat.  We started one motor and began feeling our way down the river.  

We got through the swift waters between the bridge piers again without hitting anything, eventually landing at Peru against a retaining wall that seemed to be the back end of a freight yard.  No sooner were we ashore when we were overhauled by the Irish policeman assigned to that particular beat.  We were glad to meet him.  The officer had heard of us through the press and seemed to feel he'd gain a rare privilege in being able to render even a small service.  He promised he'd let seven varieties of daylight through any prowler who might attempt to molest our boat or outfit.   Then he went to his call box and ordered a taxi for us.

Telephone calls to Joliet and Chicago next morning revealed the fact that heavy rains earlier in the season had caused some breaks in the levees of the Illinois and Michigan Canal.  The canal was dry between Ottawa and the Illinois River - a distance of 15 miles.  The remainder of the canal, from Ottawa to Joliet had a little water in it, but was closed to navigation.  A fifty-foot lock at Joliet; the lock that when in operation handles traffic from the end of the Illinois and Michigan Canal into the Chicago Drainage Canal was hopelessly out of commission.  The superintendent, however, stated that we might attempt to navigate the canal AT OUR OWN RISK.  He also generously offered to instruct all canal employees to lend us every possible assistance.  The superintendent assured us we would find a minimum depth of 20 inches of water between Ottawa and Joliet, which with the Transcontinental draft of 18 inches was sufficient to let us through.  

But, we faced a difficult problem in getting the boat into the canal at all with 15 miles of dry land at the west end of the canal.  There were just two ways this problem could be solved.  One was to portage to the water at Ottawa.  The other was an attempt to navigate up the unnavigable Illinois River to Ottawa, go up the Fox River to the point where it flows under the aqueduct that  carries the Illinois and Michigan Canal over the Fox River, and then manhandle the boat into the canal from the Fox River.

We chose the latter method for the sole reason we were out to cross the continent by water, with only one portage.  We had already made one unanticipated portage of three miles around the Cascade Rapids in the Columbia River, and no desire to make additional portages whether they might be long or short.  

So, with this far from rosy prospect ahead of us we set out from Peru, Illinois, that Sunday morning, August ninth, to attempt getting up the Illinois River, and into the Fox River at Ottawa.  The pollution of the river above Peru is utterly indescribable.  The water is as black as India ink, full off masses of floating sewage, with a stench that assails to high heavens.  This is the river, once one of the most beautiful and lovely streams in the state which now flows past the Illinois State Park, and around the base of Starved Rock - the cradle of history of the commonwealth of Illinois, La Salle would turn over in his grave, hold his nose and shudder, if he could see the river today that he so valiantly explored.  

These two postcards are from roughly 15 years before this story. 

 Undoubtably, too, the valiant Indians who starved to death on the summit of Starved Rock rather than surrender to their enemies, would prefer death by starvation to seeing their once glorious domain transformed into a cesspool of filth that white men have made of it.  

A few miles above Peru, Woodbury consigned breakfast to horrors of the polluted river, while Wilton and I gagged and bore it, attempting to get some measure of physical relief by tying wet towels over our mouths and noses.  Here, Wilton, who was forever experimenting with mechanical improvisations, turned his sun visor eye shade upside down under his nose.  He claimed it deflected the rising gas from the river away from his nostrils.  Although he wore it that way until we reached Ottawa, and declared it a success, my own opinion is that it formed an eddy where an eddy was least likely to be desired.




In spite of the horrible pollution of the river we found Starved Rock festooned with people, the shores in the vicinity lined with automobiles, and excursion boats thronged with people whose desire to visit this birthplace   of state history was as strong as their stomachs.

We encountered very swift water around the base of Starved Rock, and a mile above it came to a rapid where we could barely move against the current.  Nowhere did we find more than 20 inches of water, and more often it was difficult to find sufficient depth to keep Transcontinental off the bottom.  The bed in the river in the vicinity is nothing but rock, and when we grounded, as we frequently did, it was usually to lose a shear-off pin, or knock a propeller out of shape against the rocks.  It is 18 miles from Peru to Ottawa by way of the unnavigable river, we put-putted into the Fox River at Ottawa about four o'clock that afternoon.  Although we went aground several times in attempting to get up the Fox River to the Illinois and Michigan Canal aqueduct crossing, it was such a relief to get into clean water that going aground on a sand bottom was a mere detail.  

BELOW: 

DETAIL OF UNDERSIDE OF RAIL AND CANAL, SOUTH SIDE OF WEST END - 

Illinois & Michigan Canal, Fox River Aqueduct, Ottawa, La Salle County, IL

Source: Library of Congress

Arriving at our destination for the day, I found it impossible to recruit the necessary men to attempt juggling Transcontinental out of the Fox River and into the canal.  It being Sunday every able bodied man in town seemed to be out on holiday.  Monday morning, however, with the aid of Mr. Brown, canal toll house keeper, we got a crew of men together, and be shear brute strength awkwardness yanked the boat out of the river, yo-heaved-it up the sixty foot embankment and set it down in the canal.

The Illinois and Michigan Canal is 63.6 miles in length, and in this distance are eleven locks.  Due to the canal being officially closed to navigation, the keeper at Ottawa could not assure us we'd get lock service unless we provided it ourselves.  The same thing applied to the numerous low bridges that span the canal between Ottawa and Joliet.  He promised us, though, that he'd get busy on the phone, and endeavor to round up as many of the bridge and lock keepers as possible.  We found later he had fair success with the lock keepers, but very little with the bridge tenders. We took down the bows, and removed everything removable to give the boat the lowest possible clearance under the bridges.  Then, as luck would have it, the two tenderless bridges that we failed to clear sufficiently high to let us under by loading a few rocks aboard the boat to depress her hull.  

We found the lock keepers on the job at the first four locks and got through the dilapidated old wooden structures with a minimum of delay.  But we found the fifth lock deserted.  Inquiries about the neighborhood revealed the lock keeper had motored off to Joliet, and there was no telling when he would return.  None of us had ever had any experience in operating a lock, but the job didn't seem to appear past the mastery of ordinary human intelligence, so we went to work to lock ourselves through.  We got the lower gate open, the boat into the lock, then the sluice gates open above.  When the water level failed to rise, we discovered that the water was running out of the rickety lower gate as fast as it ran in from above.  

Thereupon I borrowed a hammer and a few nails from a nearby farm house, fished several driftwood boards out of the canal, and nailed the boards over the leaks in the lower gate.  With the worst of the leaks partially stopped the water in the lock began to rise.  Half an hour later we still lacked six inches of having the levels equal in the lock and in the upper canal.  The water was going out of the lower end so fast that the lock level would rise no higher, and the pressure from above made it impossible to open the upper gate.  After all efforts to open the gate had failed, the farmer from whom I had borrowed the hammer and nails, brought a block and a fall.  Then with all hands tugging on the rope we managed to pry the upper gates open.  The two water levels equalized almost immediately, and we got the boat of the lock.  But, before leaving we were careful to close the upper gate again.  We didn't want to take a chance on  letting the whole canal run out if the lower gate collapsed, as it appeared to be in grave danger of doing at any minute.

From Ottawa to Lock No. 6 the Illinois and Michigan Canal for a distance of 34 miles, is fed by a number of small creeks and streams that eventually flow to the Illinois River.  This portion of the canal is therefore clean water - the first clean and odorless water we'd been in since leaving the Mississippi, with the exception of our little two mile run in the Fox River.  Just the pleasure of being in clean water again was ample compensation for offsetting the other difficulties we experienced in the canal.  

But, a cruel surprise awaited us at Lock No. 6.  There we found the lock keeper on the job, with the lower lock gate open.  We drove right into the lock - and instantly became aware of where the water used on that portion of the canal came from.  Mirable dictu - it was like driving from clean water into a cesspool.  And the worse luck - it was a case of remaining in the boat while we were locked over, or attempting to climb out up the slime smeared walls of the lock.  A real description of that locking couldn't be printed.

Lock No. 6 -VIEW OF SOUTH SIDE OF LOCK WITH NORTH LOCK WALL AND LOOKING NORTHEAST - Illinois & Michigan Canal, Lift Lock No. 6   Source: Library of Congress 

VIEW OF WEST SIDE OF LOCK TAKEN FROM DOWNSTREAM LOOKING EAST;
LOCK TENDER'S HOUSE TO THE LEFT -
Illinois & Michigan Canal, Lift Lock No. 6, Source: Library of Congress

The remainder of the Illinois and Michigan Canal into Joliet contained the same variety of fluid as Lock No. 6.  Thus, we negotiated the last few miles as we did the upper Illinois River - with wet towels over our mouths and noses, and Wilton wearing a wet towel plus his inverted sun visor.  We arrived at Joliet about seven o'clock that evening.  Leaving the boat in care of the collector of the port, we hailed a taxi, and told the driver to take us to the best hotel that was the farthest away from river and canal.

The following day we got an early start because we knew we faced the ordeal of getting over the unworkable lock at Lockport.  

Part 3 to be continued...

____________________________

The Illinois and Michigan Canal opened in 1848. Its function was largely replaced by the wider and shorter Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal in 1900, and it ceased transportation operations with the completion of the Illinois Waterway in 1933.

This is a fun historic map of the states our boys covered. 
Go HERE and poke around on a bigger version at the  David Rumsey Map Collection. 
Notice the little size slider hovering on the map to make it bigger when you go there.