History of Vermilion County, together with historic notes on the Northwest, gleaned from early authors, old maps and manuscripts, private and official correspondence, and other authentic, though, for the most part, out-of-the-way sources, Part 2

Author: Beckwith, H. W. (Hiram Williams), 1833-1903
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Chicago : H. H. Hill and Company
Number of Pages: 1164

USA > Illinois > Vermilion County > History of Vermilion County, together with historic notes on the Northwest, gleaned from early authors, old maps and manuscripts, private and official correspondence, and other authentic, though, for the most part, out-of-the-way sources > Part 2

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Passing westward on Lake Ontario one hundred and eighty miles a second river is reached. A few miles above its entry into the lake, the river is thrown over a ledge of rock into a yawning chasm, one hundred and fifty feet below; and, amid the deafening noise and clouds of vapor escaping from the agitated waters is seen the great Falls of Niagara. At Buffalo, twenty-two miles above the falls, the shores of Niagara River recede and a second great inland sea is formed, having an average breadth of 40 miles and a length of 240 miles. This is Lake Erie. The name has been variously spelt,-Earie, Herie, Erige and Erike. It has also born the name of Conti.+ Father Hennepin says : " The Hurons call it Lake Erige, or Erike, that is to say, the Lake of the Cat, and the inhabitants of Canada have softened the word to Erie ;" vide " A New Discovery of a Vast Country in America," p. 77; London edition, 1698.

Hennepin's derivation is substantially followed by the more accurate and accomplished historian, Father Charlevoix, who at a later period, in 1721, in writing of this lake uses the following words: " The name it bears is that of an Indian nation of the Huron language, which was formerly settled on its banks and who have been entirely destroyed by the Iroquois. Erie in that language signifies cat, and in some accounts this nation is called the cat nation." He adds : "Some modern maps have given Lake Erie the name of Conti, but with no better success than the names of Conde, Tracy and Orleans which have been given to Lakes Huron, Superior and Michigan."#

At the upper end of Lake Erie, to the southward, is Maumee Bay, of which more hereafter ; to the northiward the shores of the lake again

* Ontario has been favored with several names by early authors and map makers. Champlain's map, 1632, lays it down as Lac St. Louis. The map prefixed to Colden's "History of the Five Nations" designates it as Cata-ra-qui, or Ontario Lake. The word is Iluron-Iroquois, and is derived, in their language, from Ontra, a lake, and io, beantiful, the compound word meaning a beautiful lake ; ride Letter of DuBois D'Avaugour, August 16, 1663, to the Minister: Paris Documents, vol. 9, p. 16. Baron La Hontan, in his work and on the accompanying map, calls it Lake Frontenac; ride "New Voyages to North America," vol. 1, p. 219. And Frontenac, the name by which this lake was most generally designated by the early French writers, was given to it in honor of the great Connt Frontenac, Governor-General of Canada.

+ Narrative of Father Zenobia Membre, who accompanied Sieur La Salle in the voyage westward on this lake in 1679; ride "Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi," by Dr. John G. Shea, p. 90. Barou La Hontan's "Voyages to North America," vol. 1, p. 217, also map prefixed : London edition, 1703. Cadwalder Col- den's map, referred to in a previous note, designates it as " Lake Erie, or Okswego."

# Journal of a Voyage to North America, vol. 2, p. 2; London Edition, 1761.

THE LAKES.

approach each other and form a channel known as the River Detroit, a French word signifying a strait or narrow passage. Northward some twenty miles, and above the city of Detroit, the river widens into a small body of water called Lake St. Clair. The name as now written is incorrect : " we should either retain the French form, Claire, or take the English Clare. It received its name in honor of the founder of the Franciscan nuns, from the fact that La Salle reached it on the day con- secrated to her."* Northward some twelve miles across this lake the land again encroaches upon and contracts the waters within another narrow bound known as the Strait of St. Clair. Passing up this strait, northward about forty miles, Lake Huron is reached. It is 250 miles long and 190 miles wide, including Georgian Bay on the east, and its whole area is computed to be about 21,000 square miles. Its magnitude fully justified its early name, La Mer-douce, the Fresh Sea, on account of its extreme vastness.t The more popular name of Huron, which has survived all others, was given to it from the great Huron nation of Indians who formerly inhabited the country lying to the eastward of it. Indeed, many of the early French writers call it Lae des Hurons, that is, Lake of the Hurons. It is so laid down on the maps of Hen- nepin, La Hontan, Charlevoix and Colden in the volumes before quoted.

Going northward, leaving the Straits of Mackinaw, through which Lake Michigan discharges itself from the west, and the chain of Manitoulin Islands to the eastward, yet another river, the connecting link between Lake Huron and Superior, is reached. Its current is swift, and a mile below Lake Superior are the Falls, where the water leaps and tumbles down a channel obstrueted by boulders and shoals, where, from time immemorial, the Indians of various tribes have resorted on account of the abundance of fish and the ease with which they are taken. Previous to the year 1670 the river was called the Sault, that is, the rapids, or falls. In this year Fathers Marquette and Dablon founded here the mission of "St. Marie du Sault " (St. Mary of the Falls), from which the modern name of the river, St. Mary's, is derived .¿ Recently the United States have perfected the ship canal ent in solid rock, around the falls, through which the largest vessels can now pass, from the one lake to the other.

Lake Superior, in its greatest length, is 360 miles, with a maximum breadth of 140, the largest of the five great American lakes, and the most extensive body of fresh water on the globe. Its form has been

* Note by Dr. Shea, " Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi," p. 143.

+ Champlain's map, 1632. Also "Memoir on the Colony of Quebec," August 4, 1663 : Paris Documents, vol. 9, p. 16.

+ Charlevoix' "History of New France, " vol. 2, p. 110; also note.

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

poetically and not inaccurately described by a Jesuit Father, whose account of it is preserved in the Relations for the years 1669 and 1670 : " This lake has almost the form of a bended bow, and in length is more than 180 leagnes. The southern shore is as it were the cord, the arrow being a long strip of land [Keweenaw Point] issuing from the south- ern coast and running more than 80 leagues to the middle of the lake." A glance on the map will show the aptness of the comparison. The name Superior was given to it by the Jesuit Fathers, " in conse- quence of its being above that of Lake Huron .* It was also called Lake Tracy, after Marquis De Tracy, who was governor-general of Canada from 1663 to 1665. Father Clande Allouez, in his "Journal of Travels to the Country of the Ottawas," preserved in the Relations for the years 1666, 1667, says: "After passing through the St. Mary's River we entered the upper lake, which will hereafter bear the name of Monsieur Tracy, an acknowledgment of the obligation under which the people of this country are to him." The good father, however, was mistaken : the name Tracy only appears on a few ancient maps, or is perpetuated in rare volumes that record the almost for- gotten labors of the zealous Catholic missionaries; while the earlier name of Lake "Superior " is familiar to every school-boy who has thumbed an atlas.

At the western extremity of Lake Superior enter the Rivers Bois- Brule and St. Louis, the upper tributaries of which have their sources on the northeasterly slope of a water-shed, and approximate very near the head-waters of the St. Croix, Prairie and Savannah Rivers, which, issuing from the opposite side of this same ridge, flow into the upper Mississippi.

The upper portions of Lakes Huron, Michigan, Green Bay, with their indentations, and the entire coast line, with the islands east ward and westward of the Straits of Mackinaw, are all laid down with quite a degree of accuracy on a map attached to the Relations of the Jesuits for the years 1670 and 1671, a copy of which is contained in Bancroft's History of the United States,t showing that the reverend fathers were industrious in mastering and preserving the geographical features of the wilderness they traversed in their holy calling.

Lake Michigan is the only one of the five great lakes that lays wholly within the United States,- the other four, with their connect- ing rivers and straits, mark the boundary between the Dominion of Canada and the United States. Its length is 320 miles ; its average breadth 70, with a mean depth of over 1,000 feet. Its area is some

* Relations of 1660 and 1669. + Vol. 3, p. 152; fourth edition.

LAKE MICHIGAN.

22,000 square miles, being considerably more than that of Lake Huron and less than that of Lake Superior.

Michigan was the last of the lakes in order of discovery. The Hurons, christianized and dwelling eastward of Lake Huron, had been driven from their towns and cultivated fields by the Iroquois, and scat- tered about Mackinaw and the desolate coast of Lake Superior beyond, whither they were followed by their faithful pastors, the Jesuits, who erected new altars and gathered the remnants of their stricken follow- ers about them ; all this occurred before the fathers had acquired any definite knowledge of Lake Michigan. In their mission work for the year 1666, it is referred to " as the Lake Illinouek, a great lake adjoin- ing, or between, the lake of the Hurons and that of Green Bay, that had not [as then] come to their knowledge." In the Relation for the same year, it is referred to as " Lake Illeaouers," and " Lake Illiniones, as yet unexplored, though much smaller than Lake Huron, and that the Outagamies [the Fox Indians] call it Maehi-hi-gan-ing." Father Hen- nepin says : " The lake is called by the Indians, 'Illinouck,' and by the French, 'Illinois,'" and that the "Lake Illinois, in the native lan- guage, signifies the 'Lake of Men.'" IIe also adds in the same para- graph, that it is called by the Miamis, " Mischigonong, that is, the great lake." * Father Marest, in a letter dated at Kaskaskia, Illinois, November 9, 1712, so often referred to on account of the valuable his- torical matter it contains, contracts the aboriginal name to Michigan, and is, perhaps, the first author who ever spelt it in the way that has become universal. He naïvely says, " that on the maps this lake has the name, without any authority, of the ' Lake of the Illinois,' since the Illinois do not dwell in its neighborhood." +

* Hennepin's "New Discovery of a Vast Country in America," vol. 1, p. 35. The name is derived from the two Algonquin words, Michi (mishi or missi), which signifies great, as it does, also, several or many, and Sagayigan, a lake; vide Henry's Travels, p. 37, and Alexander Mackenzie's Vocabulary of Algonquin Words.

t Kip's Early Jesuit Missions, p. 222.

CHAPTER II.

DRAINAGE OF THE ILLINOIS AND WABASH.

THE reader's attention will now be directed to the drainage of the Illinois and Wabash Rivers to the Mississippi, and that of the Maumee River into Lake Erie. The Illinois River proper is formed in Grundy county, Illinois, below the city of Joliet, by the union of the Kanka- kee and Desplaines Rivers. The latter rises in southeastern Wisconsin ; and its course is almost south, through the counties of Cook and Will. The Kankakee has its source in the vicinity of South Bend, Indiana. It pursues a devious way, through marshes and low grounds, a south- westerly course, forming the boundary-line between the counties of Laporte, Porter and Lake on the north, and Stark, Jasper and Newton on the south ; thence across the dividing line of the two states of Indi- ana and Illinois, and some fifteen miles into the county of Kankakee, at the confluence of the Iroquois River, where its direction is changed northwest to its junction with the Desplaines. The Illinois passes westerly into the county of Putnam, where it again turns and pursnes a generally southwest course to its confluence with the Mississippi, twenty miles above the mouth of the Missouri. It is about five hun- dred miles long ; is deep and broad, and in several. places expands into basins, which may be denominated lakes. Steamers ascend the river, in high water, to La Salle; from whence to Chicago navigation is contin- ued by means of the Illinois and Michigan Canal. The principal trib- utaries of the Illinois, from the north and right bank, are the An Sable, Fox River, Little Vermillion, Bureau Creek, Kickapoo Creek (which empties in just below Peoria), Spoon River, Sugar Creek, and finally Crooked Creek. From the south or left bank are successively the Iro- quois (into the Kankakee), Mazon Creek, Vermillion, Crow Meadow, Mackinaw, Sangamon, and Macoupin.

The Wabash issues out of a small lake, in Mercer county, Ohio, and runs a westerly course through the counties of Adams, Wells and Huntington in the state of Indiana. It receives Little River, just below the city of Huntington, and continues a westwardly course through the counties of Wabash, Miami and Cass. Here it turns more to the south, flowing through the counties of Carroll and Tippe- canoe, and marking the boundary-line between the counties of Warren

THE MAUMEE AND PORTAGES.

and Vermillion on the west, and Fountain and Park on the east. At Covington, the county seat of Fountain county, the river runs more directly south, between the counties of Vermillion on the one side, and Fountain and Parke on the other, and through the county of Vigo, some miles below Terre Haute, from which place it forms the boundary- line between the states of Indiana and Illinois to its confluence with the Ohio.

Its principal tributaries from the north and west, or right bank of the stream, are Little River, Eel River, Tippecanoe, Pine Creek, Red Wood, Big Vermillion, Little Vermillion, Bruletis, Sugar Creek, Em- barras, and Little Wabash. The streams flowing in from the south and east, or left bank of the river, are the Salamonie, Mississinewa, Pipe Creek, Deer Creek, Wildcat, Wea and Shawnee Creeks, Coal Creek, Sugar Creek, Raccoon Creek, Otter Creek, Busseron Creek, and White River.

There are several other, and smaller, streams not necessary here to notice, although they are laid down on earlier maps, and mentioned in old " Gazetteers " and " Emigrant's Guides."

The Maumee is formed by the St. Joseph and St. Mary's Rivers, which unite their waters at Ft. Wayne, Indiana. The St. Joseph has its source in Hillsdale county, Michigan, and runs southwesterly through the northwest corner of Ohio, through the county of De Kalb, and into the county of Allen, Indiana. The St. Mary's rises in Au Glaize county, Ohio, very near the little lake at the head of the Wabash, before referred to, and runs northwestwardly parallel with the Wabash, through the counties of Mercer, Ohio, and Adams, Indiana, and into Allen county to the place of its union with the St. Joseph, at Ft. Wayne. The principal tributaries of the Manmee are the Au Glaize from the south, Bear Creek, Turkey Foot Creek, Swan Creek from the north. The length of the Manmee River, from Ft. Wayne northeast to Maumee Bay at the west end of Lake Erie, is very little over 100 miles.

A noticeable feature relative to the territory under consideration, and having an important bearing on its discovery and settlement, is the fact that many of the tributaries of the Mississippi have their branches interwoven with numerous rivers draining into the lakes. They not infrequently issue from the same lake, pond or marsh situated on the summit level of the divide from which the waters from one end of the common reservoir drain to the Atlantic Ocean and from the other to the Gulf of Mexico. By this means nature herself provided navig- able communication between the northern lakes and the Mississippi Valley. It was, however, only at times of the vernal floods that the 2

HISTORIC NOTES OF THE NORTHWEST.

communication was complete. At other seasons of the year it was interrupted, when transfers by land were required for a short distance. The places where these transfers were made are known by the French term portage, which, like many other foreign derivatives, has become anglicized, and means a carrying place ; because in low stages of water the canoes and effects of the traveler had to be carried around the dry marsh or pond from the head of one stream to the source of that beyond.

The first of these portages known to the Enropeans, of which accounts have come down to us, is the portage of the Wisconsin, in the state of that name, connecting the Mississippi and Green Bay by means of its situation between the Wisconsin and Fox Rivers. The next is the portage of Chicago, uniting Chicago Creek, which empties into Lake Michigan at Chicago, and the Desplaines of the Illinois River. The third is the portage of the Kankakee, near the present city of Sonth Bend, Indiana, which connects the St. Joseph of Lake Michigan with the upper waters of the Kankakee .. And the fourth is the portage of the Wabash at Ft. Wayne, Indiana, between the Maumee and the Wabash, by way of Little River.

Thongh abandoned and their former nses forgotten in the advance of permanent settlement and the progress of more efficient means of commercial intercourse, these portages were the gateways of the French between their possessions in Canada and along the Mississippi.

Formerly the Northwest was a wilderness of forest and prairie, with only the paths of wild animals or the trails of roving Indians leading. through tangled undergrowth and tall grasses. In its undeveloped form it was withont roads, incapable of land carriage and could not be traveled by civilized man, even on foot, without the aid of a savage gnide and a permit from its native occupants which afforded little or no security to life or property. For these reasons the lakes and rivers, with their connecting portages, were the only highways, and they invited exploration. They afforded ready means of opening up the interior. The French, who were the first explorers, at an early day, as we shall hereafter see, established posts at Detroit, at the mouth of the Niagara River. at Mackinaw, Green Bay, on the Illinois River, the St. Joseph's of Lake Michigan, on the Maumee, the Wabash, and at other places on the route of inter-lake and river communication. By means of having seized these strategical points, and their influence over the Indian tribes, the French monopolized the' fur trade, and although feebly assisted by the home government, held the whole Mississippi Valley and regions of the lakes, for near three quarters of a century, against all efforts of the English colonies, eastward of the Alleghany ridge, who, assisted by England, sought to wrest it from their grasp.

CHICAGO PORTAGE.

Recurring to the old portage at Chicago, it is evident that at a com- paratively recent period, since the glacial epoch, a large part of Cook county was under water. The waters of Lake Michigan, at that time, found an outlet through the Desplaines and Illinois Rivers into the Mississippi .* This assertion is confirmed from the appearance of the whole channel of the Illinois River, which formerly contained a stream of much greater magnitude than now. The old beaches of Lake Michigan are plainly indicated in the ridges, trending westward several miles away from the present water line. The old state road, from Vincennes to Chicago, followed one of these ancient lake beaches from Blue Island into the city.

The subsidence of the lake must have been gradual, requiring many ages to accomplish the change of direction in the flow of its waters from the Mississippi to the St. Lawrence.

The character of the portage has also undergone changes within the memory of men still living. The excavation of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, and the drainage of the adjacent land by artificial ditches, has left little remaining from which its former appearance can now be recognized. Major Stephen H. Long, of the U. S. Topo- graphical Engineers, made an examination of this locality in the year 1823, before it had been changed by the hand of man, and says, con- cerning it, as follows : "The south fork of Chicago River takes its rise about six miles from the fort, in a swamp, which communicates also with the Desplaines, one of the head branches of the Illinois. Hav- ing been informed that this route was frequently used by traders, and that it had been traversed by one of the officers of the garrison,-who returned with provisions from St. Louis a few days before our arrival at the fort,-we determined to ascend the Chicago River in order to observe this interesting division of waters. We accordingly left the fort on the 7th day of June, in a boat which, after having ascended the river four miles, we exchanged for a narrow pirogue that drew less water,- the stream we were ascending was very narrow, rapid and crooked, presenting a great fall. It so continued for about three miles, when we reached a sort of a swamp, designated by the Canadian voy- agers under the name of 'Le Petit Lac.' + Our course through this swamp, which extended three miles, was very much impeded by the high grass, weeds, etc., through which our pirogue passed with diffi- culty. Observing that our progress through the fen was slow, and the day being considerably advanced, we landed on the north bank, and continued our course along the edge of the swamp for about three

* Geological Survey of Illinois, vol. 3, p. 240.

+ What remains of this lake is now known by the name of Mud Lake.

HISTORIC NOTES OF THE NORTHWEST.

miles, until we reached the place where the old portage road meets the current, which was here very distinct toward the south. We were delighted at beholding, for the first time, a feature so interesting in itself, but which we had afterward an opportunity of observing fre- quently on the route, viz, the division of waters starting from the same source, and running in two different directions, so as to become feed- ers of streams that discharge themselves into the ocean at immense dis- tances apart. Lieut. Hobson, who accompanied us to the Desplaines, told us that he had traveled it with ease, in a boat loaded with lead and flour. The distance from the fort to the intersection of the port- age road is about twelve or thirteen miles, and the portage road is about eleven miles long ; the usual distance traveled by land seldom exceeds from four to nine miles ; however, in very dry seasons it is said to amount to thirty miles, as the portage then extends to Mount Juliet, near the confluence of the Kankakee. Although at the time we visited it there was scarcely water enough to permit our pirogue to pass, we could not doubt that in the spring of the year the route must be a very eligible one. It is equally apparent that an expendi- ture, trifling when compared to the importance of the object, would again render Lake Michigan a tributary of the Gulf of Mexico." *

* Long's Expedition to the Source of the St. Peter's River, vol. 1, pp. 165, 166, 167. The State of Illinois begun work on the construction of a canal on this old portage on the 4th day of July, 1836, with great ceremony. Col. Guerdon S. Hubbard, still living, cast the first shovelful of earth out of it on this occasion. The work was completed in 1848. The canal was fed with water elevated by a pumping apparatus at Bridgeport. Recently the city of Chicago, at enormous expense sunk the bed of the canal to a depth that secures a flow of water directly from the lake, by means of which, the navigation is improved, and sewerage is obtained into the Illinois River.

CHAPTER III.

ANCIENT MAUMEE VALLEY.

WHAT has been said of the changes in the surface geology of Lake Michigan and the Illinois River may also be affirmed with respect to Lake Erie and the Maumee and Wabash Rivers. There are peculiari- ties which will arrest the attention, from a mere examination of the course of the Maumee and of the St. Joseph and St. Mary's Rivers, as they appear on the map of that part of Ohio and Indiana. The St. Joseph, after running southwest to its union with the St. Mary's at Ft. Wayne, as it were almost doubles back upon its former course, taking a northeast direction, forming the shape of a letter V, and after having flowed over two hundred miles is discharged at a point within less than fifty miles east of its source. It is evident, from an exami- nation of that part of the country, that, at one time, the St. Joseph ran wholly to the southwest, and that the Maumee River itself, instead of flowing northeast into Lake Erie, as now, drained this lake southwest through the present valley of the Wabash. Then Lake Erie extended very nearly to Ft. Wayne, and its ancient shores are still plainly marked. The line of the old beach is preserved in the ridges running nearly parallel with, and not a great distance from, the St. Joseph and the St. Mary's Rivers. Professor G. K. Gilbert, in his report of the "Surface Geology of the Maumee Valley," gives the result of his examination of these interesting features, from which we take the following valuable extract .*

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History of Vermilion County, together with historic notes on the Northwest, gleaned from early authors, old maps and manuscripts, private and official correspondence, and other authentic, though, for the most part, out-of-the-way sources, Part 2

Author: Beckwith, H. W. (Hiram Williams), 1833-1903 Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Chicago : H. H. Hill and Company Number of Pages: 1164

Author: Beckwith, H. W. (Hiram Williams), 1833-1903
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Chicago : H. H. Hill and Company
Number of Pages: 1164