USA > Indiana > St Joseph County > A history of St. Joseph County, Indiana, Volume 1 > Part 8
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a. The point where La Salle built his fort at the mouth of the St. Joseph river is one of the rare historic spots in the United States. This point is on the lake bluff, at the junction of a deep ravine, seventy or eighty rods southwesterly from the present bank of the river. In 1902 the Daugh- ters of the American Revolution marked the place with a gneiss boulder set upon a granite foun- dation. On a bronze plate, inserted in the face of the boulder, is the following legend: "This
glacial boulder, found in the bed of the Saint Joseph river, was erected, in 1902, by the Algon- quin Chapter, Daughters-American Revolution, to commemorate the landing of René Robert Cavelier Sieur de La Salle, and building on this point Fort Miamis, 1679."
the lakes to the Mississippi, including this by the St. Joseph-Kankakee portage. It was the discoveries of Marquette that fired the ambi- tion of La Salle. The missionary, on his first voyage to the west, had piloted the way down the Mississippi; and now, on his last voyage from the west, we may well believe, he piloted the way up the Illinois and Kankakee, across the portage and down the St. Joseph. It is not a little remarkable that on this first effort to reach the great river La Salle, with his fleet of frail eanoes, should have erossed from Michilimaekinae to the west coast of Lake Michigan, passed the Green Bay route, which Marquette had first followed, passed the Chi- cago river route, by which Marquette had returned from his first trip, should have coasted the southern extremity of the lake, and even turned north again on the east coast, until he reached the mouth of the St. Joseph river. He did not take this long trip around the lake without cause. If, however, he be- lieved there was a southern eurrent on the west coast and a northern eurrent on the east coast; and, particularly, if he had in- formation that Marquette's last and easiest journey was by the St. Joseph-Kankakee port- age, the reasons for his choice of route are perfectly elear. Marquette's fame and his pathetie death were fresh in the minds of his religious brethren at the northern end of the lake: and also in the minds of those Indians who had journeyed with him in his last ill- ness and those others who had even more recently sought out his grave and removed the revered body to St. Ignaee. All these Indians were known to La Salle; and from them he certainly knew all the particulars eoneerning the whole history, and particular- ly the last journey, of his illustrious prede- eessor. Going up the St. Joseph, therefore, we may well conelude, La Salle was but re- traeing the route so lately taken down the river by Marquette.
It was on December 3rd, 1679, that the eventful voyage up the river was begun by La Salle and his party, leaving a small garri-
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HISTORY OF ST. JOSEPH COUNTY.
son to defend the fort and to await the return of the Griffin. The boat, however, did not return, nor was it ever heard of again. The loss of his ship and supplies was a severe blow to the hopes of La Salle, and interfered greatly with the success of his plans. But he never knew discouragement. The fleet up the river consisted of eight canoes, with La Salle in command. His lieutenant was Tonti, who had served in the French army, where he had lost one of his hands. He was a son of the distinguished financier who gave his name to the tontine system of life insurance. Father Lonis Hennepin was also with the party, as likewise were Fathers Gabriel de la Ribourde and Zénobe Membré. As guide La Salle had brought with him a Mohegan Indian named Nika, or the White Beaver, a most faithful follower. There were about thirty men in addition.ª
SCENE ON ST. JOSEPH RIVER BELOW LA SALLE LANDING.
The beautiful St. Joseph, as we know it, was called by La Salle the river of the Miamis, from the great Indian tribe which then occu- pied its banks. The party expected to reach the portage from this river to the The-a-ki-ki (from theak, a wolf), a name insensibly
a. "The St. Joseph-Kankakee Portage," the valuable paper already referred to, read before the Northern Indiana Historical Society by its secretary, George A. Baker.
changed to Kankakce. This portage was known to be seventy or seventy-five miles from the mouth of the river of the Miamis; but it was passed without discovery by the flect of canoes. The Mohegan guide had left the boats to hunt for game along the banks; and without his aid it was not easy to discover the old passageway up the high banks under the trees, particularly when covered with new fallen snow. The point where the trail starts from the river is at a sharp bend of the stream to the west, about two miles below the present limits of the city of South Bend and within the boundaries of River View Cemetery.
In Parkman's "Discovery of the Great West," the missing of the portage and the incidents which resulted from that accident are referred to as follows: "When they ap- proached the site of the present village of South Bend, they looked anxiously along the shore on their right to find the portage or path leading to the headquarters of the Illi- nois. The Mohegan was absent, hunting, and, unaided by his practiced eye, they passed the path without seeing it. La Salle landed to search the woods. Hours passed, and he did not return. Hennepin and Tonti grew un- easy, disembarked, bivouacked, ordered guns to be fired, and sent out men to scout the country. Night came, but not their lost leader. Muffled in their blankets and pow- dered by the thick falling snow-flakes, they sat ruefully speculating as to what had be- fallen him; nor was it until four o'clock of the next afternoon that they saw him ap- proaching along the margin of the river. His face and hands were besmirched with charcoal ; and he was further decorated with two opos- sums, which hung from his belt, and which he had killed with a stick as they were swinging head downwards from the bough of a tree, after the fashion of that singular animal. He had missed his way in the forest, and had been forced to make a wide circuit around the edge of a swamp, while the snow, of which the air was full, added to his perplexities. Thus he pushed on through the rest of the
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HISTORY OF ST. JOSEPH COUNTY.
day and the greater part of the night, till about two o'clock in the morning he reached the river again and fired his gun as a signal to his party. Hearing no answering shot, he pursued his way along the bank, when he pres- ently saw the gleam of a fire among the dense thickets elose at hand. Not doubting that he had found the bivouac of his party, he hastened to the spot. To his surprise no human being was to be seen. Under a tree beside the fire was a heap of dry grass im- pressed with the form of a man who must have fled but a moment before, for his eouch was still warm. La Salle called out in several Indian languages; but there was dead silence all around. He then, with admirable coolness, took possession of the quarters he had found, shouting to their in- visible proprietor that he was about to sleep in his bed; piled a barricade of bushes around the spot, rekindled the dying fire, warmed his benumbed hands, stretched himself on the dried grass and slept undisturbed till morn- ing."
Father Louis Hennepin has left us a detailed account of this interesting incident, as also some observations on the journey up the St. Joseph, across the portage and down the Kan- kakee": "We embarked." says his narrative, "on the 3rd of December with thirty men in eight canoes and ascended the river of the Miamis, taking our course to the southeast for about twenty-five leagues.b We could not make out the portage which we were to take with our canoes and all our equipage in order to go and embark at the source of the river, The-a-ki-ki," and as we had gone higher up in a eanoe without discovering the place where we
a. "Description de la Louisiane." Translation by Dr. John Gilmary Shea.
b. The French league was about three miles. Charlevoix estimates the distance from the mouth of the river to Fort St. Joseph, near Niles, at twenty leagues, sixty miles, which is very nearly correct; making the distance by the river from South Bend to Lake Michigan between seventy and seventy-five miles.
The Kankakee, which, together with the Illinois, was called by La Salle the Seignelay, in honor of the son of the great Colbert.
were to march by land to take the other river which runs by the Illinois, we halted to wait for the Sieur de La Salle, who had gone ex- ploring on land, and as he did not return we did not know what course to pursue. I begged two of our most alert men to penetrate into the woods and fire off their guns. so as to give him notice of the spot where we were waiting for him. Two others ascended the river, but to no purpose, for the night obliged them to retrace their steps. The next day I took two of our men in a lightened eanoe, to make greater expedition, and to seek him by ascending the river, but in vain; and at four o'clock in the afternoon we perceived him at a distance; his hands and face all black with the coals and wood that he had lighted during the night, which was cold. He had two animals" of the size of muskrats hanging to his belt, which had a very beanti- ful skin, like a kind of ermine, which he killed with blows of a stick without these little ani- mals taking flight, and which often let them- selves hang by the tail from branches of trees ; and as they were very fat our canoe men feasted on them. He told us that the marshes that he met with obliged him to make a wide sweep, and as moreover he was hindered by the snow, which was falling rapidly, he was unable to reach the bank of the river before two o'clock at night. He fired two gun-shots to notify us, and no one having answered him, he thought the canoes had gone ahead of him, and kept on his way along and up the river. After marehing in this way more than three hours he saw fire on a mound, which he ascended brusquely, and after calling two or three times: but instead of finding us asleep, as he expected, he saw only a little fire among some brush. and under an oak tree the spot where a man had been lying down on some dry herbs, and who had appar- ently gone off at the noise which he had heard. It was some Indian. . . IIe called to him in two or three languages, and at last, to show him that he did not fear him. he cried that he a. Opossums.
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HISTORY OF ST. JOSEPHI COUNTY.
was going to sleep in his place. He renewed the fire, and. after warming himself well, he took steps to guarantee himself against sur- prise by cutting down around him a quantity of bushes, which, falling across those that re- mained standing, blocked the way so that no one could approach him without making con- siderable noise and awakening him. He then extinguished his fire and slept, although it snowed all night. Father Gabriel and I begged the Sieur de La Salle not to leave his party as he had done, showing him that the whole success of our voyage depended on his presence. Our Indian had remained behind to hunt, and not finding us at the portage he went higher up and came to tell us that we would have to descend the river. All our canoes were sent with him, and I remained with Sieur de La Salle, who was very much fatigued, and as our cabin was composed only of flag-mats, it took fire and would have burnt us had I not promptly thrown off the mats, which served as a door to our little quarters, and which was all in flames. We joined our party the next day at the portage, where Father Gabriel had made several crosses (blazes) on the trees that we might recognize it. We found there a number of buffalo horns and the carcasses of those animals, and some canoes that the Indians had made of buffalo skin to eross the river with their load of meat. This place is situated on the edge of a great plain.ª at the extremity of which, on the western side, is a village of Miamis, Mascoutens and Ouiaton (Weas) gathered to- gether. The river Seignelay (Kankakee). which flows to the Illinois, rises in a plain in the midst of much boggy land, over which it is not easy to walk. This river is only a league and a half distant from that of the Miamis, and thus we transported all our equipage and our canoes by a road which we marked for the benefit of those who might come after us,
a. Portage Prairie.
b. This village was located on the prairie at and about the high ground now known as Monnt Pleasant. See note on p. 28, following.
after leaving at. the portage of the Miamis river, as well as at the fort which we had built at its mouth. letters, which were hung on the trees at the pass to serve as a guide to them who were to come and join us by the barque," to the number of twenty-five. The river Seignelay is navigable for canoes to within a hundred paces of its source, and it increases to such an extent in a short time that it is almost as broad and deeper than the Marne. It takes its course through vast marshes, where it winds about so, though its current is pretty strong. that after sailing on it for a whole day we sometimes found that we had not advanced more than two leagues in a straight line. As far as the eye could reach nothing was to be seen but marshes full of flags and alders. For more than forty leagues of the way we could not have found a camping ground, except for some hummocks of frozen earth upon which we slept and lit our fire."b
Sec. 4 .- AT THE VILLAGE OF THE MIAMIS .- La Salle continued his voyage down the Kan- kakee and Illinois, past the great village on the north side of the river, opposite Starved Rock, until, on January 4, 1680, he reached a point on the Illinois, near the site of the present city of Peoria, where on a bluff or rising ground he erected a fort. Owing to anxiety for the loss of the Griffin and the des- perate straits to which he was thereby re- duced, he named the fort Crevecoeur (Broken Heart). The winter wore away. and with discontent among his followers and danger from the Iroquois of New York. who were constantly threatening war upon the friendly Illinois, La Salle found it necessary to return to Canada for additional help. He sent Father Hennepin with a small party to ex- plore the upper Mississippi, placed Tonti in charge of the little garrison of Crevecœur : and, on the first of March, 1680, started on
a. The barque was the Griffin, for whose safety La Salle still had hopes.
b. See also Thompson's Stories of Indiana. pp. 35-37.
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HISTORY OF ST. JOSEPH COUNTY.
foot on his journey of twelve hundred miles, taking with him three companions, including the faithful Mohegan. After reaching Can- ada he found, as he had expected, everything in confusion ; the Griffin was lost; his agents had cheated him, and his creditors had seized npon his goods. But La Salle knew neither fear nor despair, and by midsummer he was on his way to rejoin the little band on the Illinois. His ill fortune, however, was not ended. On arriving at his posts he found them deserted. The Iroquois had come all the way from New York to harass the friendly Indians of the prairies; and Tonti and his few followers had with difficulty escaped north toward the lakes. Bitterly disappointed, but with hopes not yet extinguished, the he- roic La Salle, in January, 1681, was com- pelled to return to Fort Miamis, at the month of the St. Joseph.ª
"There was," says Mr. Dunn, in his his- tory of Indiana,b "something almost touch- ing the supernatural in the courage and reso- lution of La Salle. At that rude fort on the bank of the St. Joseph, in the discomforts of a severe winter, hundreds of miles from the French settlements, his faithful Tonti carried captive, killed, or a fugitive, he knew not which, his remaining comrades disheartened, his colony swept from the face of the earth, his credit shattered, his means dissipated by disasters of flood and field, this man calmly reconstructed his plans and prepared to re- new his enterprise on a more extended basis than before. He determined to refound his colony on the Illinois, and surround it with a confederation of the northwestern tribes that would be strong enough to repel any army the Iroquois could bring against it. His first converts were the warriors of a little band of Abenakis and Mohegans, driven from their New England homes in the border wars of the English colonists. These refugees had
a. Perkins' Annals of the West.
b. "Indiana, A Redemption from Slavery," Jacob P. Dunn, Jr., Sec'y Indiana Historical So- ciety, pp. 26-28.
found no resting place till they reached the clear waters of the St. Joseph. They gladly allied themselves to the white chief who prom- ised to interpose the strong arm of the French king for their protection. Scarcely were they won when a Shawnee chief, from a village on the Ohio, appeared and asked protection from the Iroquois. La Salle with easy confidence promised what was asked: 'The Chaonan- ousª are too distant ; but let them come to me at the Illinois and they shall be safe.' The ` chief promised to join him in the succeeding autumn, and kept his word.
"As soon as the weather began to moderate La Salle started west on foot, with twenty men, to seek communication with the Illinois, who were necessary factors in his plan. The first Indians found were some Outagamies, from whom he received the glad tidings that Tonti was safe with the Pottawatomies near Green Bay. Soon after they found a band of Illinois, to whom La Salle, after making presents and lamenting their misfortunes, submitted his plan. They heard him with sat- isfaction, and departed to carry the proposal to the remainder of the tribe. Membre says that La Salle visited other tribes at this time, but he does not name them. His journey was not long, for carly in the spring he was at Fort Miamis. and, taking with him ten men, went from there up the river to the Miamis, at the village above the portage. It was a propitious season for approaching them. In the late conflict they had remained neutral, but they were now beginning to realize that the intentions of the Iroquois towards them were none of the best. They had murdered a band of Miamis the preceding summer, and not only had refused to make reparation, but also had stationed parties of warriors in the
a. The Shawnees.
b. This great Village of the Miamis was located at and about Mount Pleasant, west of the site of South Bend. The territory covered, as near as can be determined, extended along the St. Joseph about two miles, from the Portage to Mosquito Glen, and west to Chain Lakes and the confines of the Kankakee. The visit of La Salle was made in May, 1681.
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HISTORY OF ST. JOSEPHI COUNTY.
Miami country, who assumed the air of con- querors and held up to contempt the power of the French. La Salle found one of these bands of Iroquois at the village. He at once con- fronted them, threatened them with punish- ment for their attack on Tonti, and chal- lenged them to repeat in his presence their insults to the French. The Iroquois had not forgotten the former commander of Fort Frontenae, and in his presence their courage oozed away. During the following night, much to the astonishment of the Miamis, they stealthily left the village. With so much of prestige, and by the aid of a band of refugee Indians from the east who were wintering at the point and who at once made alliance with La Salle, the Miamis were easily won. On the second day after the flight of the Iroquois they declared their determination to become brothers of the Illinois and children of the French king, and celebrated the new order of things with feasting and dances."
The scene of this treaty with the Miamis, in their famous village at Mount Pleasant on Portage Prairie, one of the most important events in the history of St. Joseph county, is thus graphically described in "La Salle in the Valley of the St. Joseph," by Charles II. Bartlett and Richard H. Lyon :
"To check the Iroquois and to provide for the common defense of the native inhabitants, La Salle sought to form a coalition of all the western tribes and to move the principal bands to the vicinity of Starved Rock," on the Illinois river. He had matured such a plan while spending the winter at his stronghold, Fort Miamis, at the mouth of our St. Joseph river. He had retreated to this place for safety after having witnessed the desolation of the Illinois town. Ile found the various tribes favorable to such a plan of defense against the enemy from the east; but its permanent success could not be assured until he had won
a. "Fort St. Louis was located on what was then called Le Rocher, now Starved Rock, on the south side of the Illinois river, opposite the town of Utica." Dunn's History of Indiana, p. 32.
the powerful Miamis to the support of the cause. The Iroquois, however, were subtle enough to discover what was going on and, anticipating the movements of the French, they laid siege to the hearts of the Miamis with such success as to strongly incline them toward the English. At this critical moment, La Salle, with ten companions, visited the town of the Miamis on our Portage Prairie and in the Chain Lakes region, and invited these Indians to a couneil. They consented to hear what La Salle might have to say. They would hold a council at the lodge of their head chief on a certain day and when the sun stood at a certain height in the heavens.
"This chief was a very remarkable man. Both the Jesuit missionary, Father Dablon, and also Nicholas Perrot, the most famous of all voyageurs, have left tributes to his mem- ory. They represent him as kind-hearted and gentlemanly and possessing great intellectual penetration. So just and wise was he that he was held in great esteem, even among other tribes more or less hostile to the Miamis, as was shown in the delegations which such tribes were constantly sending to consult this wilder- ness law-giver concerning their own affairs. Father Dablon says that he was a savage only in name. Yet this priest was probably the first white man that the chief had seen. When the hour for the council arrived some of the mats were lifted from the lodge of this head chief and the tent poles moved to one side. so that the people might see the council and might hear the discourse and understand the nature of the transactions that were going forward. The prominent warriors of the tribe were arranged in a semi-cirele on either side of their great leader, and before them stood La Salle with his companions around him.
"The seene was one well worthy the brush of some great artist. The little prairie over which their glances swept from time to time, and through which the portage path then ran, is spoken of by the early traveler as a place of great beauty. Its eastern margin reaches in
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HISTORY OF ST. JOSEPH COUNTY.
one spot almost to the landing on the St. Joseph, where the Frenchmen had drawn their canoes out of the water, and after rising by gentle swells to the high point where these lodges of the Miamis then stood, the plain sinks gradually to the west. From the elevated spot at the center, the vision easily includes many miles along the charm- ing valley of the St. Joseph on the east, the tract where Sonth Bend now stands. In that
LA SALLE.
day, sylvan avenues replaced our streets and gigantic forest trees our dwellings, trees that stood far apart and lifted their lowermost branches thirty to forty feet from the ground. Beneath, no undergrowth was allowed to sur- vive. but everywhere was spread a soft. thick turf, while here and there in the park-like vistas could be seen the antlered buck or the does with their fawns.
"But when those who had assembled for this council turned their eyes to the south and the west, they beheld the great fens and marshes of the Kankakee land sweeping far away with the river's onward course to the plains of Illi- nois and the Mississippi. Glistening pools everywhere dotted this vast area, pools that were the homes of countless millions of water- fowls. Flocks of plover and snipe swept around the borders of the marsh land. while
the cranes stood in a row in the shallow water, or rising on slow and ponderous pinions, filed off in a never varying line toward the sky's silver edge. A veritable cloud of ducks and geese and swans, coming in from the swift cold waters of the St. Joseph, fell into the silent pools with splash and clamor and con- fusion of buffeting wings. The unaccustomed eye of the guest in this Indian encampment must have given more than a passing glance to this endless whirl of happy life that flut- tered over the marshes. But the red skinned host fixed his gaze not on the water fowls, not on the hundreds of hawks that patrolled the vast fields of wild rice. but upon the great war eagles that rose on slanting pinions, 'elimb- ing their airy spirals to the clouds.' Happy the Indian whose brave deeds were such that his tribe would allow him to fasten to his hair the plumes of the war eagle. Each feather is an historical record. The first one stands for the brave act in which this hero overcame his people's foe at the ford near the portage land- ing. The next marks the time when he re- pulsed the Kickapoos that lay in the tall grasses along the Kankakee to ambush a Miami hunter. And this third feather stands for the victory which he won when the young men of his tribe contended with the Ottawas on this very prairie in the famous ball play.
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