Fire Island on the Mississippi

Description

The morning of March 22 dawned clear and bright according to Prince Maximilian, who noted in his journal that the river had risen three inches since the previous midnight. The steamer approached the Chester Islands around nine o'clock "in about six feet of water" and the mouth of St. Mary's River, on the right, flowing into the Mississippi from between densely wooded banks. At noon it approached the Kaskaskia River and the site of an old French-Indian trading post approximately six miles upstream, described by Maximilian as a settlement "as old as Philadelphia." The inscription on this sketch of Fire Island is dated this same day, and indicates that it was "the first of the Chester Islands" on the Mississippi below Ste. Genevieve.