The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-05-16
GREAT RIVER
THE WABASH AND ITS IMPORTANT
AND PICTURESQUE HISTORY.
French Settlements, COureurs Des
Bots and Early Traffie-The Keep
ers of the "G~IOriOus Gate.~

uments that bear upon early Indiana his
tory is struck by the fact that a great and.
in soTe poets. a peculiar interest at
taches Wabash river and the region
that i .ers. Next to the Mississippi and
Ohio a. more than any other Western
stream, seems to have commanded the at
tention of old-time travellers, its relation TO
the st. Lawrence water system giving it an
Importance hardly appreciated to-day by
those who are net students of history and
of former conditions.
A glance at the map will show the mag
nitude of the Wabash, as compared with
other indian rivers. Traversing the State
in a great arc from the northeast part to
the southwest extremity 1t covers, counting
its bends. more than five hundred miles.
When we reflect that its valley is a tract
of that extent, in some places many miles
wide, and originally of unsurpassed fertil-
ity, we can realize its ultimate agricultural
Importance; but long before that day the
river itself had a supreme value Along it's
course were the very beginnings of Indiana
history, and for reasons that are intimately
inwoven with the larger history of the
country. Reference to the map will further
show, at the head-waters of the stream, a
peculiar interlocking of the river systems,
the most curious feature Of which is that
the St. Mary's and the st. Joseph rivers,
after trending westward. as if belonging
to the Wabash drainage, suddenly meet n
double on themselves, and. as the Maumee.
return eastward to Lake Erie. Originally,
it is conjectured, these streams did belong
to the Wabash, but a low. glacial moraine
deposited across the valley determined the
narrow divide. The rivers on either side are
naNip1hlA for small hnafG u1rpaGf ns
quite - the points of nearest APP
proach, and a portage of some
nine miles transferred the voyager
from one to the other. Thus the East was
connected with the West-the great lakes
and the St. Lawrence with the Mississippi
and the Gulf of Mexico, and of the vari-
Gus routes used by the old Frenchmen his
was the most direct. In days when the riv-
ers were invaluable as highways through
the wilderness this determined much.
Through three successive periods the
French, the English and the Americans
commanded this portage with military
posts, and the spot came to be known as
the key to the Northwest subsequently
it came to ave a commercial value which
made the early growth of Fort Wayne, and
before the white mans advent his dusky
predecessors had pitched their lodges there
for similar reasons, the city just named
being antedated by a Miami village known
as Kekionga. Little Turtle, the great Mi
ami war chief, in a speech at the treaty of
Greenville, in 1895, pleaded ~strenuously for
possession of the portage. This region. he
contended, had always belonged to the Mi
amis, and in his speech he speaks of it as
1.-THE glorious gate . > = through which
all the good words of our chiefs had to
pass from the North to the South, and
from the East to the West. This
carrying place." he continued, has hereto
fore proved, in a great degree, the sub
sistence Of your younger brothers. That
place has brough to us, in the course of
one day, the amount of one hundred dol
lars The explanation of this is. that the
~Twightwees, or Miamis proper. the domi-
nant tribe of the great Miami confederacy.
held many councils here with visiting tribes
hence, the glorious gate . . . through
which all the good words of our chiefs had
to pass" while for the use of the portage
by traders the holders exacted tribute or
toll. thus levying what may be called the
first tariff on imports. General Wayne, in
answering this part of Little Turtles plea,
used an argument not altogether unknown
at the present day. LET us inquire he
odlu5 WHO, III TACT, pHtu THIS HedVN cOntfl-
button. 1t is true the traders bore it In the
first instance; but they laid it on the goods,
and the Indians of the Wabash really and
finally paid 1t; therefore, 1t is the Little
Beaver, the Soldier, the Sun and their
tribes who have actually been so highly
taxed" Another interesting fact in con-
nection with this portage was the utilizing
of beaver dams on Little river. When the
UatoP uraa IouY fhaco Vtara hroIxav, -
the boats of the voyagers carried dow
with the increased floods. The witless ami
mails would industriously repair the
breaches thus made, quite unconscious Of
the part they were playing In the worlds
traffic.
NEW PHASE.
With the coming of the explorer and the
fur trader the Wabash begins a new phase
of history. Just when the first white mans
canoe traversed it's winding miles is a mat
ter of speculation. Some historians have
put it as early as 1850, and some as late
as 1895, and even 1850. Some of the earlier
chart-makers confused it with the Ohio,
and on one French map, dated 1920, VIE find
a stream rising in a good-sized lake near
the east end of Lake Erie, flowing thence
through what is now northern Ohio, and
finally t~rending southwest to the Mlssis-
sippi. This is called "Ouabache autrernt
appellee Ohio gu Belle Riviere." BY 1912 the
two are differentiated, but flow parallel
with each other, net very far apart, and by
1884 the Wabash is laid down with tolerable
accuracy. The river was at one time chris
tened st. Jerome, and is so called on a few
Of the maps, but the name did not stick
and it was generally designated as the
''Ouabache." This was the French spelling
of an Indian word derived from an old AL
g~onquin stem, wabi or wapi, which meant
white. In time II became anglicised into
Wabash, which is not far removed from
the Indian "Wabba-Shikka, that is at
tached to it in Hough's indian map.
Hard after the first explorers came the
French fur traders. The most lucrative and
most Immediate returns promised by the
wilderness of the new world were in the
skins Of their wild denizens. and capitalists
were swift TO draw upon this source of
wealth. Large companies were formed and
these established their agents along with
the military posts which France planted
across her vast new territory from the
lakes to the gulf. Three of these settle
ments, military and commercial, were To-
Gated on the Wabash-one at the Miami
village of Kekionga, where Fort Wayne
now stands; one called ouiatenon, among
the Wea Indians, below the present site OF
Lafayette, and one among the PiaHke-
shaws, eventually known as Vincennes. To
these posts the Indians from far and near
brought their peitries, exchanging them for