ON THE ILLINOIS CANAL

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It is not often I devote a post to a comment from a reader. I would, however, like to clear up the small matter of the Illinois Canal.
You were quite right, RJ in taking me to task for failing to mention that national heritage. It was just that the canal is so famous that I sort of took it for granted - if you know what I mean.

In fact, as devotees of folk music will be aware, the canal has been immortalised in song by that doyen of the American folk scene, Long John Jackson (a formative influence on the young Bob Dylan). I myself have a record made at a live performance by Long John at a concert in Chicago in 1950.

There are seven verses, but I will just give the first verse and the chorus:

ON THE ILLINOIS CANAL.

It was on the Illinois Canal,
My wife sailed off, with my best pal;
I can't recall her name, but Joe,
My bosom friend,
I miss him so.

Chorus

With a half hitch, a half hitch,
And a bowline on a bight,
We're bound for old Chicago -
We'll be there by Friday night.


What many people do not know is the the canal was never intended as such. The 'Ditch' as it was originally called, came about as a sort of early YTS scheme to provide employment and get the youth of Chicago off the streets.

The intention was that, once it had been dug, it was to be filled in again. But the Friday of its completion was followd by a weekend of heay rain. When president Polk, who happened to be in Chicago at the time, saw the waterlogged ditch, he had a brainwave: "We could float boats on that, and we've got a cheap transport system." he exclaimed. "Of course we will need more water but the Great Lakes aren't that far away, are they?"

Of course it wasn't quite as simple as that. But with a few locks here and there, and American ingenuity, the Illinois Canal was born.

And it was this famous canal that gave the British the idea for a series of (much smaller) canals, criss-crossing the country and providing transport for coal and such like.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE