INDIAN ISLAND 



/Aomence, Illinois, and other points along the 

 river where there was sale for their product. The 

 island is about one hundred rods from the river 

 and in order to get the steamer and flat boats 

 from the island to the river they had to dig a 

 canal eighteen feet wide and four feet deep. 

 Father was put on the job as superintendent and 

 with a gang of men with shovels dug what was 

 known then and is to this day as the Bissell- 

 Cornell steamboat canal. Adison E. Buck, of 

 Hecron, Indiana, was the master boat builder. 

 For several trips up and down the river Father 

 was the pilot and John Bissel, captain. The 

 freighting business on the Kankakeedid not pan 

 out just as expected and in the early seventies 

 the steamer and flat boats or scowes, as they 

 were called, were sold to a /Aomence party and 

 fitted out for a pleasure boat. In '71 Father 

 bought the Bissel stock in the I. I. 5. A. Com- 

 pany which contained two-fifths of the shares in 

 the company. The reader remembers that it 

 was here where I left them in the opening chap- 



136 



