The Spring of 1849 was remarkable for the greatest flood known since the settlement of the country. There had been heavy rains in the month of January which raised the river out of its banks, overflowing all the bottoms. The weather changed to cold suddenly and froze the waters, in many places from bluff to bluff, into a broad crystalline Lake. Such was the case on the bottom above the town, which was covered with a sheet of ice for nearly six miles, to Utica. This mass of intercepted water, together with all the country drained by the head branches of the river, was afterwards covered with a heavy mass of snow. About the first of March the weather again suddenly became warm, and heavy rains set in, which soon loosened the accumulations of snow and ice. Every creek and run contributed a flood, and every ravine and slough a torrent to the swelling river, which on the 9th of March was twenty-five feet, or more, above low water. Its sudden rise loosened the heavy masses of ice spread over the bottoms above, without breaking them up. One of these came down, miles in extent, entirely filling the space between the bluffs, and crushed everything in its course. Trees, indicating a growth of centuries, were as reeds in its path, producing no check to its resistless and majestic motion. The Ware House, heretofore mentioned as being built by Mr. Brewster, then occupied by Brewster and Beebe, was crushed like an egg shell. It was nearly filled with wheat, flour and merchandise, a portion of which had been hastily removed, and a portion was destroyed. The waters soon subsided and the river became very low before the close of navigation in the fall. This was the greatest freshet which has taken place since the settlement of the country by the Whites, but the Indians related to the early settlers accounts of still higher waters. They have asserted that the present site of Ottawa has been submerged within the memory of those now living. Shabone, an Indian well known in Northern Illinois, is reported to have said that he has passed over it in a canoe. In 1844, the great freshet occurred in the Mississippi, raising the waters in the lower part of the Ill. still higher than they afterwards were in 1849. This was not the case with the upper portion of the river. An idea is current in this part of the country, that great freshets recur, continuing throughout the greater portion of the summer, once in seven years. This notion is justified by the recurrence of protracted freshets in 1830, 1837, 1844, 1851 and 1858. Mr. Meginness, in his "Otzinachson" or "History of the West Branch of the Susquehanna," mentions that the same impression prevailed in that region concerning freshets, only that theirs recurred once in fourteen years. CHAPTER VII.