USA > Indiana > Montgomery County > History of Montgomery County, together with historic notes on the Wabash Valley; gleaned from early authors, old maps and manuscripts, private and official correspondence, and other authentic sources > Part 2
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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
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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 Maumee are the Au Glaize from the south, Bear Creek, Turkey Foot Creek, Swan Creek from the north. The length of the Maumee 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
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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 Europeans, 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 South 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.
Though abandoned and their former uses 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 pathis of wild animals or the trails of roving Indians leading, through tangled undergrowth and tall grasses. In its undeveloped form it was without roads, incapable of land carriage and could not be traveled by civilized man, even on foot, without the aid of a savage guide 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 month 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.
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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.'t 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.
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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 .*
"The upper (lake) beach consists, in this region, of a single bold ridge of sand, pursuing a remarkably straight course in a northeast and southwest direction, and crossing portions of Defiance, Williams and Fulton counties. It passes just west of Hicksville and Bryan ; while Williams Center, West Unity and Fayette are built on it. When Lake Erie stood at this level, it was merged- at the north with Lake Huron. Its southwest shore crossed Hancock, Putnam, Allen and Van Wert counties, and stretched northwest in Indiana, nearly to Ft. Wayne. The northwestern shore line, leaving Ohio near the south line of Defiance county, is likewise continued in Indiana, and the two converge at New Haven, six miles east of Ft. Wayne. They do not,
* Geological Survey of Ohio, vol. 1, p. 550.
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HISTORIC NOTES OF THE NORTHWEST.
however, unite, but, instead, become parallel, and are continued as the sides of a broad watercourse, through which the great lake basin then discharged its surplus waters, southwestwardly, into the valley of the Wabash River, and thence to the Mississippi. At New Haven, this channel is not less than a mile and a half broad, and has an average depth of twenty feet, with sides and bottom of drift. For twenty-five miles this character continues, and there is no notable fall. Three miles above Huntington, Indiana, however, the drift bottom is replaced by a floor of Niagara limestone, and the descent becomes comparatively quite rapid. At Huntington, the valley is walled, on one side at least, by rock in situ. In the eastern portion of this ancient river-bed, the Maumee and its branches have cut channels fifteen to twenty-five feet deep, without meeting the underlying limestone. Most of the inter- val from Ft. Wayne to Huntington is occupied by a marsh, over which meanders Little River, an insignificant stream whose only claim to the title of river seems to lie in the magnitude of the deserted channel of which it is sole occupant. At Huntington, the Wabash emerges from a narrow cleft, of its own carving, and takes possession of the broad trough to which it was once an humble tributary."
Within the personal knowledge of men, the Wabash River has been, and is, only a rivulet, a shriveled, dried up representative in comparison with its greatness in pre-historic times, when it bore in a broader channel the waters of Lakes Erie and Huron, a mighty flood, south- ward to the Ohio. Whether the change in the direction of the flow of Lakes Erie, Huron and Michigan toward the River St. Lawrence, instead of through the Wabash and Illinois Rivers respectively, is because hemispheric depression has taken place more rapidly in the vicinity of the lakes than farther southward, or that the earth's crust south of the lakes has been arched upward by subterraneous influences, and thus caused the lakes to recede, or if the change has been produced by depression in one direction and elevation in the other, combined, is not our province to discuss. The fact, however, is well established by the most abundant and conclusive evidence to the scientific observer.
The portage, or carrying place, of the Wabash,* as known to the early explorers and traders, between the Maumee and Wabash, or rather the head of Little River, called by the French "La Petit Rivière," commenced directly at Ft. Wayne ; although, in certain seasons of the year, the waters approach much nearer and were united by a low piece
* Schoolcraft's Travels in the Central Portions of the Mississippi Valley," in the year 1821, pp. 90, 91. In this year, Mr. Schoolcraft made an examination of the locality, with a view to furnish the public information on the practicability of a canal to unite the waters of the Maumee and the Wabash. It was at a time when great interest existed through all parts of the country on all subjects of internal navigation.
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PORTAGE OF THE WABASH.
of ground or marsh (an arm or bay of what is now called Bear Lake), where the two streams flow within one hundred and fifty yards of each other and admitted of the passage of light canoes from the one to the other.
The Miami Indians knew the value of this portage, and it was a source of revenue to them, aside from its advantages in enabling them to exercise an influence over adjacent tribes. The French, in passing from Canada to New Orleans, and Indian traders going from Montreal and Detroit, to the Indians south and westward, went and returned by way of Ft. Wayne, where the Miamis, kept carts and pack-horses, with a corps of Indians to assist in carrying canoes, furs and merchandise around the portage, for which they charged a commission. At the great treaty of Greenville, 1795, where General Anthony Wayne met the several Wabash tribes, he insisted, as one of the fruits of his victory over them, at the Fallen Timbers, on the Maumee, the year before, that they should cede to the United States a piece of ground six miles square, where the fort, named in honor of General Wayne, had been erected after the battle named, and on the site of the present city of Ft. Wayne; and, also, a piece of territory two miles square at the carrying place. The distinguished warrior and statesman, “Mishe- kun-nogh-qual" (as he signs his name at this treaty), or the Little Turtle on behalf of his tribe, objected to a relinquishment of their right to their ancient village and its portage, and in his speech to General Wayne said : "Elder Brother,-When our forefathers saw the French and English at the Miami village - that 'glorious gate' which your younger brothers [meaning the Miamis] had the happiness to own, and through which all the good words of our chiefs had to pass [that is, messages between the several tribes] from north to south and from east to west, the French and English never told us they wished to purchase our lands from us. The next place you pointed out was the Little River, and said you wanted two miles square of that place. This is a request that our fathers the French or British never made of us ; it was always ours. This carrying place has heretofore proved, in a great degree, the subsistence of your brothers. That place has brought to us, in the course of one day, the amount of one hundred dollars. Let us both own this place and enjoy in common the advantages it affords." The Little Turtle's speech availed nothing .*
The St. Joseph of Lake Michigan, a fine stream of uniform, rapid current, reaches its most southerly position near the city of South Bend, Indiana,- the city deriving its name from the bend of the river ;
* Minutes of the Treaty of Greenville: American State Papers on Indian Affairs. vol. 1, pp. 576, 578.
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HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.
here the river turns northward, reënters the State of Michigan and dis- charges into the lake. West of the city is Lake Kankakee, from which the Kankakee River takes its rise. The distance intervening be- tween the head of this little lake and the St. Joseph is about two miles, over a piece of marshy ground, where the elevation is so slight "that in the year 1832 a Mr. Alexander Croquillard dug a race, and secured a flow of water from the lake to the St. Joseph, of sufficient power to run a grist and saw mill." *
This is the portage of the Kankakee, a place conspicuous for its historical reminiscences. It was much used, and offered a choice of routes to the Illinois River, and also to the Wabash, by a longer land- carriage to the upper waters of the Tippecanoe. A memoir on the Indians of Canada, etc., prepared in the year 1718 (Paris Documents, vol. 1, p. 889), says: "The river St. Joseph is south of Lake Michi- gan, formerly the Lake of the Illinois ; many take this river to pass to the Rocks [as Fort St. Louis, situated on 'Starved Rock' in La Salle county, Illinois, was sometimes called], because it is convenient, and they thereby avoid the portages 'des Chaines' and 'des Perches,'"- two long, difficult carrying places on the Desplaines, which had to be encountered in dry seasons, on the route by the way of Chicago Creek.
The following description of the Kankakee portage, and its adjacent surroundings, is as that locality appeared to Father Hennepin, when he was there with La Salle's party of voyagers two hundred years ago the coming December : "The next morning (December 5, 1679) we joined our men at the portage, where Father Gabriel had made the day before several crosses upon the trees, that we might not miss it another time." The voyagers had passed above the portage without being aware of it, as the country was all strange to them. We found here a great quan- tity of horns and bones of wild oxen, buffalo, and also some canoes the savages had made with the skins of beasts, to cross the river with their provisions. This portage lies at the farther end of a champaign ; and at the other end to the west lies a village of savages,- Miamis, Mascoutines and Oiatinons (Weas), who live together. "The river of the Illinois has its source near that village, and springs out of some marshy lands that are so quaking that one can scarcely walk over them. The head of the river is only a league and a half from that of the Mi- amis (the St. Joseph), and so our portage was not long. We marked the way from place to place, with some trees, for the convenience of those we expected after us ; and left at the portage as well as at Fort
* Prof. G. M. Levette's Report on the Geology of St. Joseph County: Geological Survey of Indiana for the year 1873, p. 459.
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THE KANKAKEE.
Miamis (which they had previously erected at the mouth of the St. Joseph), letters hanging down from the trees, containing M. La Salle's instructions to our pilot, and the other five-and-twenty men who were to come with him." The pilot had been sent back from Mackinaw . with La Salle's ship, the Griffin, loaded with furs; was to discharge the cargo at the fort below the mouth of Niagara River, and then bring the ship with all dispatch to the St. Joseph.
" The Illinois River (continues Hennepin's account) is navigable within a hundred paces from its source,- I mean for canoes of barks of trees, and not for others,- but increases so much a little way from thence, that it is as deep and broad as the Meuse and the Sambre joined together. It runs through vast marshes, and although it be rapid enough, it makes so many turnings and windings, that after a whole day's journey we found that we were hardly two leagues from the place we left in the morning. That country is nothing but marshes, full of alder trees and bushes; and we could have hardly found, for forty leagues together, any place to plant our cabins, had it not been for the frost, which made the earth more firm and consistent."
CHAPTER IV.
RAINFALL.
AN interesting topic connected with our rivers is the question of rainfall. The streams of the west, unlike those of mountainous dis- tricts, which are fed largely by springs and brooks issuing from the rocks, are supplied mostly from the clouds. It is within the observa- tion of persons who lived long in the valleys of the Wabash and Illinois, or along their tributaries, that these streams apparently carry a less volume of water than formerly. Indeed, the water-courses seem to be gradually drying up, and the whole surface of the country drained by them has undergone the same change. In early days almost every land-owner on the prairies had upon his farm a pond that furnished an unfailing supply of water for his live stock the year around. These never went dry, even in the driest seasons.
Formerly the Wabash afforded reliable steamboat navigation as high up as La Fayette. In 1831, between the 5th of March and the 16th of April, fifty-four steamboats arrived and departed from Vin- cennes. In the months of February, March and April of the same year, there were sixty arrivals and departures from La Fayette, then a village of only three or four hundred houses ; many of these boats were large side-wheel steamers, built for navigating the Ohio and Mississippi, and known as New Orleans or lower river boats .* The writer has the concurrent evidence of scores of early settlers with whom he has con- versed that formerly the Vermilion, at Danville, had to be ferried on an average six months during the year, and the river was considered low when it could be forded at this place without water running into the wagon bed. Now it is fordable at all times, except when swollen with freshets, which now subside in a very few days, and often within as many hours. Doubtless, the same facts can be affirmed of the many other tributaries of the Illinois and Wabash whose names have been already given.
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