The Republican journal., 1906-02-15


west until they struck the Mississippi
river at the present site of Memphis,
Tenn, where they built a fort and spent
the winter of 154l. The following sum
mer De Soto died and his body was
sunk i'll the Mississippi by his com
rades, of whose number more than half
had died since leaving Tampa Two years
before. The remainder, having become
discouraged at the death of their lead
er, constructed rude boats in which
they descended the Mississippi to its
mouth and out INTO the ocean, where,
as near as ! can learn, nothing more
was heard of them. From that time
no white man looked upon the waters
of the great Mississippi until after the
lapse of nearly one hundred and forty
years. In 1913 Marquette and Joliet,
two French explorers, visited these
shores passing from Quebec up to and
across the great lakes and descending
the Wisconsin river to the Mississippi,
bit went no farther. Nine years later
La Sale, another FIencb explorer
with large following, left Quebec and
followed the route traversed by Mar
quette and Joliet until they reached
the Mississippi, then continued on
down that river to its mouth, taking
possession of the territory i'll the name
of the King of all the French, from
whom our title to the Louisiana pur-
chase was derived.
After discovering and exploring the
Mississippi to its several mouths, La
Sale and his followers returned to
Quebec by the same route, and on their
arrival there La Sale returned to
France, and two years later returned
70 Of
French colonists for the purpose of es-
mouth of the Mississippi river. But
made a mistake in his calculations
as to the correct latitude of the mouths
of the river, making it one degree far
Their south than it really was, the ships
made a poor landfall and first sighted
land in the vicinity of Sabine, Pass,
which is in latitude about 29o As n.
while the Southwest Pass at the mouth
of the Mississippi is in latitude about
the same as is the Sabine and at least
80 miles to the eastward. Just how
they passed the mouth of the MISSISSIPPI
pi without seeing 1t is a mystery to me.
After making the land by his reckon
ing he was still at the mouth of the
river instead of the southwest and as
the trend of the land was to the south
west he kept on up the coast. But
soon finding that the coast line trended
more to the south he saw his error, and
requested the captain to turn to the
north. This the captain refused to do
and kept on to the south, and in two
days time entered Matagorda Bay, to
the great disappointment of La Sale.
They landed there and started a colony,
but it was unsuccessful. The ships
| returned to France, and the next year
LaSalle, not being satisfied with the
situation of affairs, took thirty of his
| men and started out to re-discover the
Mississippi river. Ill luck attended
them, and after wandering about aim
lessly for time they got into a
wrangle and La Sale was stabbed and
killed by one of his men. The remand
er of the party found their way back to
Quebec. Just what end the remaining
portion of the colony met at Matagorda
l have been unable to learn, but when
a French ship called there two years
later not vestige of them could be
found.
This brings me to Corpus Christi,
which being interpreted means The
Body of Christ. 1t lays near the Dor
der of Mexico and the Rio Grande
river and came into popular notice by
reason of its being the base of sup
plies for the U. S. Army during our
war with Mexico. 1t was here that
/ Gen. Taylor landed with 5000 men, and
crossing the Rio Grande into Mexico,
captured both the cities of Matamoras
and Monterey in so short time that
it made old Santa Annals head swim.
JOHN O. JOHNSON,