IAGenWeb - Scott County
MISSISSIPPI RIVER FOLK BACKGROUND
JOHN HANLEY Writer's Experience as a Riverman
In the chapter preceding this one, referring to the le Claire boys, that the good people of Stillwater looked upon as tramps and bums in the spring of 1867. I failed to mention that many of those same boys are today our most prominent river men and are numbered with the pilots and engineers. The next boat from the south after the Canada brought another installment of Le Claire boys into Stillwater. It appears that John Elliott, John Hanley, Fritz Peterson, Walt Henderson and Herb Rutledge, had been walking down at la Crosse, but business being rather dull they came up to Stillwater for the purpose of rafting, so the place was well represented. You could have stood on a street corner and seen them all almost any time of the day.
Source: Old Times on the Mississippi, J.D. Barnes, Port Byron Globe, 04 Apr 1935.