The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser., 1906-03-23

What tue Hudson is to eastern New
York, and the Susquehanna to Penn
sy.vania, the Wabach is 10 Indiana
About it cluster the legends OF Indians
who occupied the country for years,
possibly centuries, before the F.ench
made their first incursions into the
Middle West, and all the tales of TO-
nance and history of the first white
men who mingled among the Miamis
and the Weas. Its beauty is of the
western type, but just as charming in
its way as the wonderful scenery of its
eastern rivals.
To the traveller the Wabash is in
deed, an interesting stream. Its fame
has been perpetuated in song, and the
deeds upon it's banks have furnished
The historical novelist with material
out of which he has wrought wonder
full stories. The Indiana stream was
first used by the Indians, then by
traders and explorers who reached the
Mississippi from the Great Lakes by
crossing the portoge of the Maumee
to the head waters of the Wabash has
been the scene of some of the most
stirring events of American history.
The scant properties of early In
diana settlers were transported up the
Wabash on rude keel boats, then, with
the evolution of the steamboat, the
river became a great commercial high
way. Fast railroads soon afterward
drove the slow, plodding steamers cut
Of business; and today the river is like
big play ground, famed for its history
and the beautiful scenery along it's
banks, where picnickers may finu the
happiest diversions, where boatmen
may 81 end profitable day with their
small steamers, and where the time
honored fisherman may fish until his
patience and bait are exhausted.
Intent upon seeing the sights of the
old river, an interesting trip may be
taken in light draft boat, starting
say, at Huntington, where the river
is merely big creek, and floating
down stream, in and out of the tortu-
Gus yet beautiful windings to the
broad Ohio, where the waters of the
Wabash lose their identity and travel
onward to the sea. Just such a trip
as this marked the discovery of the
Wabash late in the seventeenth cen.
tury, when the French traders invad.
ed the unbroken wilds of what is now
Indiana in search of skins and pelts.
A few years later Monsieur DeAu.
bry, with 400 French and Indians, fol-
lowing the route described by the trad.
ers, padeled from Raskaskia on the
Mississippi up the Wabash, crossed
the Maumee portage, and, in frail lit.
tie boats, eventually reached the
French stronghold at Quebec
The visitor today may see traces of
the old portage, and it takes no very
vivid imagination to picture The scenes
connected with this early voyage on
the St. Jerome, as Louis XIV decreed
the Wabash should be called. But
the modern traveller makes the trip in
his naptha launch, and goes sany
miles day, while the Frerch traveller
in light birch btrk canoes, or dugouts,
and their speed depended upon the
strength of the oarsmen.
Passing the mouth of the Eel River,
and the city of Logansport located
there, seventy five miles below the
traveller reaches Lafayette, the city
built close to the site of the Tippeca
noe battle-ground. Here, in 1911,
Gen William Henry Harrison, after
ward President, def ated The Prophet,
brother of the great Tecumseh, in one
of the fercest Ind; an battles fought in
.he Ohio Valley. The old battle
ground has been converted into park
and its historic interest justifes the
wide fame it enjoys.
From Tippecanoe it is short trip