The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-07-12

Their cheeks are blanched, but their hearts fail
them not After it is all over men will tell you
how thoseservice men at st. Joe
Faced their fate on that furious night
Faced the mad pillows with hunger white"
Men Will talk of the passengers and sailors,
the sea; of the daring act by which, at the last
moment some child left behind was rescued;
and, with bated breath, of the noble fellow, No.
-, United States Life-saving Service, who, stiff
with cold, wasshaken from the side of the plung-
ing ship, and went down never to rise in life.
Yes, you will fall into serious mood as you
think af these things
But there may be those who are interested in
none of these things; yet if such
feel any particular enthusiasm for the
early history of the West, they, too,
should by all means go to st. Joe, How old is it,
In 1879, La Sale, after urging his canoe down
the west side and around the head of the lake,
came at length to the mouth of the St Joseph
river. Here he halted to await the arrival of
Tonty and certain others who were working
their way down the east shore. La Sales plan
was to ascend the St Joseph to the portage
about mile from the present city limits of
South Bend there to cross over to the Kanka
kee, then to drop down to the Illinois, and, if
possible, thus to come at last to the Mississippi.
His followers, being already in a mutinous state
OF mind, insisted upon pushing up the river
without waiting for their companions, "La
Sale was inexorable. If they should all desert
he said, he, with his Mohegan hunter and the
three friars would still remain and wait for
Tonty. The men grumbled, but obeyed; and, to
divert their thoughts, he set them to building a
fort of timber on a rising ground at the
mouth of the river. Remember this was in 1879
mission house sprang up at once by the side of
the fort. These two structures, the one for the
protection of the voyageur and the defense of
such treasures as he could gather in the wilder
ness, the other for the propagation of the faith
became henceforth the center from which went
out the first influences of civilization in the West
1871 Where then were Detroit, Chicago, Fort
Wayne, Vincennes, any of those cities whose
first beginnings lead us back far into the pastl
st. Joseph has in all the West but one contem-
porary surviving from that period St Ignace,
at the Strait of Mackinaw. The latter place
antedates the former though less than year
according to some authorities. The site of La
Sales fort is known and pointed out, and the old
mission house was standing until within few
years. The red man still clings to his ancient
haunts Every winter the remnant Of an Otta.
wa tribe makes its way down from the north OF
the State, where many Indians spend most of
the year and takes up its quarters at this point
in a hollow, between the sand-h1lls
A very primitive wigwam is sufficient
protection in the snug little pocket formed
by the silicious rampant They subsist upon
fish caught through holes cut in the ice and
upon such small game as they can trap along
the banks of the st. Joe and Pawpaw creek.
The harbor-one of the best on the great
lakes until ruined by a railroad bridge built
ACROSS 1t near GH0 uOutH-Illttu0 tllAo oil ILL
portant commercial point at an early day. AS
one stands upon the bluff and looks down upon
the peaceful haven he cannot but call to mind
the time when La Sale sounded its depths to
determine whetherit would float his little ship,
''The Griffin" whose arrival he awaited so long
and so anxiously at this place. He had heard
of the Kankakee and thought to sail up to the
Portage transport his vessel to that stream and
thus move down to the great Father of Waters,
which Marquette had found few years before.
The Griffin never came. But since that day
innumerable craft of innumerable forms have
dropped the crooked fuke" in their quiet depths
and lain at rest in the safe moorings.
The inhabitants have been, from the first very
sanguine in their hopes concerning the future of
their harbor and their city. They held on to
their corner lots, and-have them yet. We be.
lieve it mistake to suppose that the place will
ever amount to anything, except as pleasure
resort but we can see no reason why, in such a
capacity, it should not be an unqualified success.
OF course, those luxuries which many people re-
gard as Indispensable are not there and will not
be there for some time to come. Nature and
accident, and the government have done about
all that has been done for St Joseph, but they
have certainly done great deal,
ST. JOSEPH Mich. July TO-