USA > Indiana > Allen County > Fort Wayne > Valley of the upper Maumee River, with historical account of Allen County and the city of Fort Wayne, Indiana, Volume I > Part 5
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The importance of maps, in tracing doubtful questions in history, is frequently overlooked. It may be said, without fear of dispute, that when we find a map upon which the site of habitations and the rivers and other topographical features are delineated even with a reasonable degree of exactness, that region has been visited by some one who care- fully noted his discoveries, and was skilled in the work he sought to ac- complish; and it is from such a map, that we know that the site of Fort Wayne was known at an earlier date than any recorded history has given.
In 1657, Sanson, who was the royal geographer of the French king, prepared a map of " Le Canada, ou Nouvelle France," on which Lake Erie is displayed, with a river flowing into it from the southwest, for a distance, and from a direction, clearly representing the Maumee in its course from the site of Fort Wayne to the lake. The St. Mary's and the St. Joseph are not represented, indicating that their courses had not yet been explored. In this map we have indubitable evidence that the Maumee had been traversed by intrepid French explorers prior to 1657.
On the 8th of August, 1660, Father Claude Allouez set out on a mission to the far west, and for many years thereafter was the spiritual adviser and saintly father of the Miamis, beloved by them, and devoting his life to their temporal and spiritual welfare. He found them between Green Bay and the head of Lake Superior. Two years later, he returned to Quebec, and urged the establishment of permanent missions among the western tribes, and succeeded so well that on his return in 1668 he was accompanied by Fathers Claude Dablon and James Marquette, then recently from France.
In 1669, Monsieur Talon, the intendant of justice, etc., for the prov- ince of New France, having visited France, and received instructions
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from the king to push the discoveries into the interior, appointed Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, a man of wonderful energy, sagacity, bravery and discretion, with instructions " to penetrate further than has ever been done, * * to the southwest and south"; to keep a journal of his adventures in all instances, and on his return to reply to the written instructions embraced in his commission. These instructions required, also, that he take possession of all the new territory discov- ered, in the king's name, displaying the arms of France and issuing proces verbaux to settlers to serve as titles. Reporting this appointment to the king, he remarked: " His Majesty will probably have no news of him before two years from this, and when I shall return to France." At the same time, with like instructions, Sieur de St. Lusson was ap- pointed to penetrate to the west and northwest.
Subsequently, in February, 1671, M. Colbert, the king's secretary, in a communication addressed to the intendant, says: "The resolution you have taken to send Sieur de La Salle toward the south, and Sieur de St. Lusson to the north, to discover the South sea passage, is very good; but the principal thing to which you ought to apply yourself in discoveries of this nature, is to look for the copper mine."
As a part of the annual report to the king, in November of the same year, he makes this announcement: "Sieur de La Salle has not yet returned from his journey to the southward of this country. But Sieur de Lusson is returned, after having advanced as far as 500 leagues from here (Quebec), and planted the cross and set up the king's arms in presence of seventeen Indian nations, assembled on this occasion, from all parts, all of whom voluntarily. submitted themselves to the dominion of His Majesty, whom alone they regard as their sovereign protector." This meeting was held at the Falls of St. Mary, north of Lake Michigan. He reports, also, that "according to the calculations made from the reports of the Indians and from maps, there seems to remain not more than 1,500 leagues of navigation to Tartary, China and Japan. Such discoveries must be the work either of time or of the king." The route pursued by La Salle in his adventure is, to some extent, a matter of conjecture, since no record made by himself is now known to be extant, except so much as relates to his starting out on such an expedition with Messrs. Dollier and Gallinee; and becoming dissatisfied with the pro- posed plans of these two gentlemen, to his pursuing a route more in accord with his own judgment. Having thus separated from them, after a short period of silence, we hear of him a few leagues to the southward of Lake Erie, approaching the head-waters of the principal tributary of the Ohio, the Alleghany, no doubt, which he descends until met by a great fall in the river, understood to be the Falls of the Ohio, at Louisville. Here the direct narrative ends, and we are left to a con- sideration of pertinent circumstances for tracings of him during the succeeding two or three years. This was in the fall of 1669.
The correspondence of the government officials, from time to time, during the period of his absence, show that he had not yet returned.
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Indeed, it was stated in the beginning that his return was not expected until the expiration of two years, at least; and later that he returned accordingly -all these facts tending to show that his movements were fully known by the authorities aforesaid, and were in compliance with instructions. Such being the conditions, let us examine, from the context, whether he retraced his steps, as some have affirmed, or took a different route to reach the point contemplated. This objective purpose was to find the outlet of the great river supposed to run to the southwest or south and fall into the Vermilion Sea (Gulf of California), on the western border of the continent. Animated with a desire to accomplish his mind's ideal of a more direct route to China and Japan, such as seemed to control his actions about the time of his separation from his companions in the vicinity of Lake Erie, is not presumable even, that he was so easily discouraged as to turn back after having reached the Falls of the Ohio, almost in direct line with his contemplated route. The less objectionable probability is that he either continued thence down the Ohio river to the Mississippi, the great " Father of Waters," or started overland toward the line of northern lakes, which might dis- charge an outlet to the westward. Or, again, he may have so far retraced his steps as to enable him to ascend one of those larger tributaries of the Ohio, the Scioto or Miami, toward the western extremity of Lake Erie, whence, proceeding northward, he may have traversed the strait to Lake Huron, and along the eastern boundary of the peninsula of Michigan to the strait of Michillimackinac; thence, passing to the westward around Green Bay and down the west side of Lake Michigan to its southern border. Leaving this point, his route seemed to lie in the direction of the Illinois, crossing which, he is said to have traced its course to the Mississippi, and, perchance, descended its muddy channel. This route is in part conjectural, but not wholly so, since the nearest approach to an account of his travels yet produced, incidentally refers to that portion of his travels after leaving Lake Erie, at a period subsequent to his passage down the Ohio.
Taking into consideration all the facts pertinent to the issue, thus far developed, the more probable route, after leaving the Falls of the Ohio, at Louisville, was down that river to the mouth of the Wabash, since, on a manuscript map, drawn in 1673, and still extant, exhibiting the area of discovery at that date, the Mississippi river is not shown, but the Ohio is traced a short distance below the Falls, and a part of eastern and northern Illinois delineated thereon. From this, the inference is natur- ally and reasonably drawn that, with the information manifestly in the possession of the compiler of that map, who must have been, at the same time, cognizant of the movements of M. de La Salle, if not a com- panion, it is highly probable that if the Mississippi had been then discov- ered, or La Salle had descended the Ohio below the mouth of the Wabash, these additional areas of discovery would have been repre- sented also. "And this," says Mr. Parkman (who is the possessor of this map), in his account of M. de La Salle's proceedings at that time,
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" is very significant, as indicating the extent of La Salle's exploration of the following year, 1670."
Accepting this probability as true - and there seems to be little reason to doubt it -that he ascended the Wabash, where did he leave that stream? The obvious answer is, that if he subsequently embarked on the western extremity of Lake Erie, and ascended the strait to Lake St. Clair and beyond, as we have seen, he must have traversed it to "the carrying-place " on " La Riviere du Portage," or Little river, and thence, by the portage, to the river "de la Roche " (Maumee), at Kekionga, and down that river until it debouches into Lake Erie. This is the more probable, too, in view of the further fact that, being a trader as well as a discoverer, the greater inducement was in favor of the central or chief village of the Miamis, not only the principal arena of trade, but the great converging point of all the sources of informa- tion, as stated by Little Turtle in his address to Gen. Wayne at the treaty of Greenville; and his statement was not mere speculation, but founded on the traditions of his fathers from time immemorial. Hence, the route was practical, since it offered the means of acquiring more complete and accurate information than was obtainable from any other source, concerning what he most desired to know.
That this theory is correct, is strongly supported by his own claim, as we shall see hereafter, that he discovered the route by way of the Maumee to the Wabash, and by the account he gave of his later move- ments in 1676, when he built a fort at Crevecœur, " for the protection of the trade in those countries," as he had already done for several years, in the rivers Oyo, Ouabache and others in the surrounding neighborhood, which flow into the Mississippi, * * adding, " the countries and rivers of the Oyo and Ouabache were inhabited by our Indians, the Chouanons, Miamis, and Illinois." If he had traversed the Wabash, and traded along it several years prior to 1676, at what time is it prob- able these voyages were made and the trading done ? At what other time than in the fall of 1669, and during the years 1670 and 1671 ? If not within that period, when ? for we have no account of his having done so between the years 1672 and 1676, the date at which the above ac- count commences. Furthermore, if he was trading at that time on the Wabash, then his articles of traffic passed up La Riviere du Portage, were transported over "the carrying-place " to the St. Mary's, reshipped and taken down the Maumee to Lake Erie. What more probable route? What more natural point for the location of a fort, palisaded according to the necessities for protection and defense, than that at the head of the portage, on the St. Mary's ? Without direct proof to the contrary, the propositions will be accepted as true, that he traded along the upper Wabash in 1669-71, visited Kekionga and perhaps established there one of his fortified trading posts, and used it as a base for his operations in that region.
The mission at Sault Ste. Marie was permanently established in 1668, and, the year following, Father Marquette having succeeded Allouez at
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La Pointe, the latter then established himself at Green Bay, whence that earnest Father began to enlarge his field of labor, visiting the countries to the southward and westward of Lake Michigan. Although we have no direct account of the exact period when the mission was established among the Miamis, yet in view of the direction pursued by Allouez about this time, it is fair to presume that Kekionga was vis- ited by one or more of these priests as early as 1669 or 1670, for, in May, 1671, a grand council of all the adjacent tribes, including the Miamis, previously visited or communicated with, was held at Sault Ste. Marie, in whose presence and with whose consent the governor general of New France took " possession, in the name of His Majesty, of all the lands lying between the east and west, and from Montreal to the south, so far as it could be done."
Meanwhile, Allouez had been pursuing his labors among the Miamis, and extending the beneficent influence of his holy faith; but it appears to have been reserved to Marquette to establish a mission among them, and erect there the standard of the cross, in the year 1673. On the 18th of May, 1675, Marquette died near the river that has since taken his name, near the margin of the lake, in western Michigan. Allouez died also, soon after, in the midst of his labors among the Miamis.
As early as 1672, so considerable a trade had grown up about the head-waters of the Maumee that the attention of the provincial govern- ment was drawn to the necessity of establishing and maintaining a military post for its protection. That such a post was established seems proven by the fact that in the account of transactions during 1696-7, it appears that Frontenac ordered the Sieur de Vincennes to the command of this post, and in a like report for 1704, it appears that he was again sent to command the same post by reason of his formerly having been stationed there, as appears from the statement as follows:
" Dispatched Father Valliant and Sieur de Joncaire to Seneca, and I sent Sieur de Vinsiene to the Miamis with my annexed order and mes- sage to be communicated to them.
" Sieur de Vinsiene, my lord, has been formerly commandant at the Miamis (1697), by whom he was much beloved; this led me to select him in preference to any other to prove to that nation how wrong they were to attack the Iroquois - our allies and theirs - without any cause; and we - M. de Beaucharnois and I - after consultation, permitted said Sieur de Vinsiene to carry some goods and to take with him six men and two canoes."
Again, in a communication from Vandrueil to Pontchartrain, dated October 19, 1705, the following further statement occurs: " I did my- self the honor to inform you last year that I regarded the continuance of the peace with the Iroquois as the principal affair of this country, and as I have always labored on that principle, it is that also which obliged me to send Sieur de Joncaire to the Senecas and Sieur de Vinsiene to the Miamis."
In 1680, the route to the Mississippi by way of the Maumee and the
P.S. Robertson
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Wabash is clearly alluded to by Pere Allouez, who says: "There is at the end of Lake Erie, ten leagues below the strait, a river by which we can traverse much of the road to the Illinois, being navigable to canoes about two leagues nearer than that by which they usually go there," i. e., by way of the St. Joseph of the Lake, and the Kankakee.
That the great, lion-hearted, but unfortunate La Salle, the grandest character among the early American explorers, knew of, and had him- self discovered this route, can hardly be doubted in the light of some fragments of his writings, though the records which he always carefully kept of his explorations of this particular region were probably lost when his transports were wrecked, and their contents engulfed in the St. Lawrence, as he was returning to Quebec. In 1681, as he was about to start on his second expedition to the Mississippi, he drew up a will, in which he made the following devise; "I do give, cede and transfer, to the said Sieur Pleet, in case of my death, * all my * rights over the country of the Miamis, Illinois, and others to the south- ward, with the settlements among the Miamis." In a report made by him to Frontenac in 1682, he mentions the route by the Maumee and Wabaslı to the Mississippi as the most direct. Notwithstanding this fact, the early explorers and traders long continued to go around by the route through the lakes to the site of Chicago, and thence to the Father of Waters, sometimes by the way of Green Bay, and the Illinois and Fox rivers, or by the head of Lake Michigan up the St. Joseph of the Lake, to the site of the present city of South Bend, thence by portage to the Kankakee, and down that river. Why they should so long travel by these tedious and difficult routes, when a shorter and easier one was well known, was long a mystery to the historian, until a hitherto unpub- lished letter of La Salle threw a flood of light upon the subject, and cleared away the mystery.
It is well known that about the time of the advent of the white man, the great Iroquois confederacy was waging a war of extermination against the Algonquin tribes, of which the Miamis and the Illinois were a part, and that their savage forays left a bloody trail through all this section of the country to the banks of the Mississippi. It was by reason of these murderous sallies, and the fact that the lower and shorter route was infested by roving bands of these savage warriors, enemies of the French, as well as of the Algonquins, that the longer route was followed. La Salle himself says, in a letter dated October, 1682, " Because I can no longer go to the Illinois but by the Lakes Huron and Illinois (Michigan), the other ways which I have discovered by the head of Lake Erie, and by the western coast of the same, becoming too dangerous by frequent encounters with the Iroquois." This letter is important, because it not only proves that he had traversed this route prior to that date, but also that he actually discovered it, and that his feet have trod the ground upon which a populous city now stands, when there was nothing to meet his view but a small cluster of Indian wigwams, and the unbroken forest surrounding it. We may consider
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this disputed question as proven, for La Salle was noted for stating none but exact facts, and when he says " I have discovered the route," it may be accepted as the truth.
When did he discover it? is the question which yet remains un- solved.
Hennepin says: "From this lake [Erie] to the Mississippi they have three different routes. The shortest by water is up the river Miamis or Ouamis, on the southwest of Lake Erie, on which river they sail about one hundred and fifty leagues without interruption, when they find themselves stopped by another landing of about three leagues, which they call a carrying-place, because they are generally obliged to carry their canoes overland in those places to the next river, and that where they next embark is a very shallow one, called La Riviere du Portage; hence they row about forty leagues to the river Ouabach, and from thence about one hundred and twenty leagues to the river Ohio, into which the Ouabach falls, as the river Ohio does about eighty leagues lower into the Mississippi, which continues its course for about three hundred and fifty leagues directly to the Bay of Mexico."
It is not only of interest, but importance, to trace briefly the move- ments of the great La Salle, for they were of weightier bearing upon the future of this region than those of any other explorer. Dur- ing the period of the explorations of La Salle, he seemed to have been surrounded not only by the ordinary dangers which beset him on his journeys among savage tribes, but by greater dangers arising from the machinations of envious persons or rivals for fame among his own nationality. The tongue of malice and the hand of treachery always followed him wherever he went, and finally brought him to an untimely death, at the hands of a traitorous assassin. Much of this he attrib- uted to the machinations of a rival order of the church, and there is doubtless much to prove that his worst enemies were the priests who belonged to an order different from that of which he was a devout and conscientious member, and these envious rivals had much to do in mak- ing his great work of discovery more dangerous, and in hindering his . efforts to Christianize and civilize the Indian tribes of this region. In December, 1679, he left the fort of the Miamis of St. Joseph and went up that river to the Miami town where South Bend now stands. Five miles from there was one of the heads of the Kankakee by which he was to proceed to the Illinois. When he arrived at their village near Peoria, and was endeavoring to win their favor, he was met by intrigue. A Mascoutin chief named Monso, attended by several Miamis, reached the village and denounced him as a spy of the Iroquois. This La Salle attributed to Father Allouez, and in a letter to Frontenac, written in 1680, he states his conviction that Allouez, who was then stationed with the Miamis, had induced them to send Monso and his companions on their sinister errand. There had long been a jealousy between the Mi- amis and the Illinois, although they were kindred and neighbors, and the Iroquois, with deep cunning, strove to foment the Miamis to make war
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EARLY EXPLORATIONS.
upon the Illinois, at a time when it is believed that they intended to make the Miamis their next victims, and Membre states that the ene- mies of La Salle intrigued successfully among the Miamis for the same end.
In 1681, La Salle, in order to defeat the purposes of conquest of the Iroquois, tried to gather about him at Fort Miamis, the Shawnees, the Illi- nois and the Miamis, and to reconcile the latter, and teach the Miamis the folly of their league with the Iroquois. In this effort he had little success, until a band of Iroquois, returning from the massacre of the Tamaroes, a sept of the Illinois, on the Mississippi, met and slaughtered a band of Miamis near the Ohio, and not only refused satisfaction, but remained and established themselves in three forts in the heart of the Miami country. La Salle went among the Illinois and succeeded in gaining their good will and returned to Fort Miami, and thence to the village at the portage between the Kankakee and the Saint Joseph. Here he found some emissaries from the Iroquois, whom he boldly rebuked and threatened in such manner that they secretly left. This convinced the Miamis of the deceit that had been practiced upon them by the Iroquois, and gave La Salle great standing and influence among them. He met here several bands of Indians lately come from the east, from Rhode Island, New York and Virginia, whence they had migrated on account of the encroachments of the whites. These he called to a council, and promised them protection and new homes in the west. They, in return, promised their aid in reconciling the Miamis with the Illinois. The next day the Miamis met in grand council, and were won over by the grace and eloquence of La Salle, and a bond of amity and defense was entered into.
In 1682, the Iroquois were preparing to renew their warfare upon the western tribes, particularly upon their late allies, the Miamis. La Salle determined to assist the latter, and gathered them and their allies into one great camp at Fort St. Louis on the Illinois river. There were the Illinois, numbering 1,200, the Miamis, from the St. Joseph and Kankakee, numbering 1,300, the Shawnees, Weas, Piankeshaws, and others, to the number in all, of 3,800 warriors. The Iroquois hesitated, and that summer passed in peace, but in March, 1683, they besieged the place for six days, when, finding their enemies well prepared, and under the command and direction of so able a leader as La Salle, they at length withdrew. In 1712, the Miamis were found again on the Maumee and the Wabash, and the Illinois were located on the river of that name. Both were much reduced by their long warfare with the Iroquois, and had dwindled so much that Father Marest, who then visited them, found but three villages, though Father Rasles, who visited them in 1723, found eleven. This difference in the number of villages found, may have arisen by reasons of the visits being made at different seasons, as they scattered in summer for hunting and fishing, and gathered in villages in winter for feasting and merrymaking.
During the period between La Salle's attempt to gather them into a
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confederacy, and this period, little mention is found in history of the use of the route from the mouth of the Maumee to the Wabash, doubtless because of its being shunned on account of the murderous forays of the Iroquois, but the author of Western Annals states that in 1716 a route was established to the Mississippi, up the Maumee to the site of Fort Wayne, thence by a portage to the Wabash, and thence by way of the Wabash and Ohio, to the Mississippi.
Colden's History of the Five Nations, published in 1745, contains a map showing the portage from the St. Mary's to the "Ouabache," one from the St. Joseph of the Maumee to Huakiki" (Kankakee), and one from the Kankakee to the St. Joseph of Lake Michigan. Parkman says: "at the middle of the 18th century * two posts on the Wabash, and one on the Maumee made France the mistress of the great trading highway from Lake Erie to the Ohio." History and tradition inform us that a French fort was destroyed here in 1747. If this be true, it must soon have been re-established, for in 1749, Captain Bienville de Celeron, a chevalier of the order of St. Louis, was sent by the Marquis de Gallissoniere, then governor of Canada, with orders to descend the Ohio and take possession of the country in the name of the French king. He descended the Ohio to the mouth of the great Miami, burying inscribed leaden plates at various points on his route, thence up the Miami to about Fort Loramie, thence across the portage and down the St. Mary's to the head of the Maumee. His party com- pleted the portage on the 25th of September, and arrived at Kiskakon, then the Indian name for the site of Fort Wayne. It was then a French post, under the command of M. de Raymond. It was called Kiskakon from a branch of the Ottawas that removed here from Michillimackinac, where they had resided as late as 1682. Here de Celeron provided pirogues and provisions for the descent of the Maumee to Lake Erie. The Miami chief, " Pied Froid," or Cold Foot, resided in the village. He appears not to have been very constant in his allegiance either to the French or the English. Leaving Kiskakon on the 27th of September, part of the expedition proceeded overland to Detroit, and the remainder descended the river by canoe.
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