HENNEPIN CANAL 



2769 



HENRY 



made its way through lakes Erie, Huron and 

 Michigan, until they came to the Saint Joseph 

 River. Up this they paddled in canoes, which 

 also bore them down the Kankakee to the 

 Illinois River. 



Here they built Fort Crevecoeur, near the 

 present city of Peoria, at which place Henne- 

 pin parted from La Salle, to proceed down the 

 Illinois to the great "Father of Waters." Cap- 

 tured by the Indians and carried far up the 

 Mississippi, he and his followers were the first 

 white men to look upon Saint Anthony's Falls 

 and the Minnesota region thereabout. This 

 experience discouraged Hennepin, who returned 

 shortly afterward to France, and though his 

 superiors in the Church ordered him to return 

 to America, he refused. After La Salle's death 

 Hennepin published a New Discovery of a Very 

 Great Region Situated in America, in which 

 he assumed the credit for many of La Salle's 

 discoveries. Some of his assumptions were 

 proved false, but his story was enthusiastically 

 read and widely translated. 



HENNEPIN CANAL, or the ILLINOIS AND 

 MISSISSIPPI CANAL, the only small-boat canal 

 constructed in the United States since 1850, 

 extends from the Illinois River near Henne- 

 pin to the Mississippi, three miles below Rock 



ILLINOIS CANALS 

 (a) Hennepin; (b) Illinois and Michigan. 



Island. After fifteen years' work it was com- 

 pleted in 1907 at a cost of $7,500,000 and is now 

 used principally for the transportation of coal 

 from the Illinois fields. The canal is seventy- 

 five miles long, fifty-two feet wide at the bot- 

 tom and seven feet deep, and has thirty-two 

 locks. Another canal nearly thirty miles in 

 length, of the same width and depth, enters the 

 Hennepin near Sheffield and serves as a feeder, 

 the water being forced into the main canal by 

 a dam a quarter of a mile long at Sterling. In 

 connection with the Illinois and Michigan 

 Canal (which see), this affords a short route 

 for light boats going from Lake Michigan to 

 the Upper Mississippi. 

 174 



HENRY, hen'ri, a name famous in English 

 history, borne by eight sovereigns who have 

 worn the crown of England. 



Henry I (1068-1135), the third of the Norman 

 line of kings, was the youngest son of William 

 the Conqueror. Because of his studious habits 

 he has received the surname Beauclerc, which 

 means good scholar. He caused himself to be 

 proclaimed king in 1100, on the death of his 

 brother, William Rufus, who was killed while 

 hunting, in the New Forest. Henry's right to 

 the throne was contested by his elder brother, 

 Robert, Duke of Normandy, and in the wars 

 which followed Henry not only established his 

 claim to the royal title, but wrested from Rob- 

 ert all of his possessions in Normandy. 



To win the favor, of his Saxon subjects, he 

 married Matilda, daughter of Malcolm III of 

 Scotland; their daughter, the Princess Matilda, 

 was named by her father as his successor to the 

 throne. During Henry's reign great progress 

 was made in the unifying of his Saxon and 

 Norman subjects, and the wars he waged 

 against the Normans in France greatly stimu- 

 lated the feeling of English nationality. Like 

 his illustrious father, Henry consistently op- 

 posed the powerful feudal lords, and made 

 himself the champion of the common people. 



Henry II (1133-1189), the son of Matilda, 

 Henry I's daughter, and of Geoffrey Plantag- 

 enet, Count of Anjou, was the first of four- 

 teen English rulers of the Plantagenet line. 

 On the death of Henry I in 1135, the throne 

 was seized by Stephen of Blois, a grandson of 

 William the Conqueror, and after several years 

 of warfare an agreement was made whereby 

 Stephen was to retain the crown and Henry 

 was to be his successor. The latter's corona- 

 tion took place in 1154, and his long reign of 

 thirty-five years was memorable. 



Henry continued the policy of his predeces- 

 sors in checking the power of the great nobles, 

 and he also attempted to make the Church 

 submit to the civil power. As a result of his 

 struggle with the clergy, Thomas a Becket, 

 the archbishop of Canterbury, was murdered. 

 During his reign circuit courts were estab- 

 lished, the financial system was reorganized and 

 roads were built. In this period also the Eng- 

 lish gained their first supremacy over the 

 Scotch, while the foundation for the present 

 Greater Britain was laid by the king's conquest 

 of Ireland. Henry's last years were embittered 

 by the disloyalty and rebellion of his sons, 

 among whom were Richard the Lion-heart and 

 John, the next two sovereigns of England. 



