One Township's Yesterdays Chapter IX  

THE EXPLORER COMES EXPLORING

"In it, said he, came a people, In the great canoe with pinions Came, he said, a hundred warriors; Painted white were all their faces And with hair their chins were covered!"

... Henry Wadsworth Longfellow NOW CAME THE PALEFACE INTO THE PICTURE, came from far distant lands the white explorer, seeking new domains to annex to the old.

Who it was among white men first to cast eyes on our own fair region, today confined within township boundaries, no one knows. Perhaps it matters not a great deal who the Columbus of Union Township might have been. But whoever he was, he was the discoverer of a mighty fine land!

An empty niche awaits him in our Township Hall of Fame, should he ever take a notion to show up.

History tells us that there came a gallant French explorer to this country. His name was LASALLE. He opened the way, making two memorable journeys into the wilderness of this then far western territory.

Over two centuries ago, Indiana had neither name nor boundary. This was just a big expanse of country claimed by France but as yet unexplored by her. Then, in 1669, LA SALLE appeared upon the scene. In a diminutive flotilla of frail canoes, said to be as few as four, he and his little band of followers, whose numbers. were estimated at from fourteen to around thirty, came safely through from Montreal bound for the Ohio, the great river he had heard about while up in the Canadian country. La Salle was seeking a route to the Oriental spice lands, to the Far East where the riches of China and Japan beckoned him on. He thought he would find that route by coming this way.

Followed Waterways.

To Lake Ontario came the adventurers, then to its westernmost point. Portaging to one of the branches of the Ohio, they descended it to the Ohio proper. Their canoes went down-river far enough for the white men to see the land that was to become the State of Indiana. They returned to Montreal, and La Salle prepared to go adventuring again, to discover more, and, according to his aim, to extend New France vastly more than it had been extended previously. For his next trip, LA SALLE built a ship with sails, the "Griffin," a "canoe with wings." (No, it wasn't the "White Swan" or any relation to that noble craft!)

In 1679-80, LA SALLE again reached the region that is now Indiana. With eight canoes and thirty-three men (or maybe it was more), he entered the St. Joseph River from Lake Michigan, and portaged from where South Bend now is situated, to the Kankakee.

It was in this region that LaSalle, searching for the portage path, lost his way in the Indiana woods, and was separated from his party all one night. There is an unconfirmed rumor that he was out on a private expedition of his own, maybe in search of the fabled Maxinkuckee Moonshine, which could have been found not so very many leagues onward. At any rate, when he returned in the morning, history has nothing to say about a red nose, but he actually did bring into camp two opossums (one for himself and one for the cook) that he had killed with a club as they hung by their tails (foolish notion!) from the boughs of trees by the wayside.

Indian as Guide.

The journey was continued, with an Indian to guide, over the portage-trail, which was reported to be from two to five miles long (depending no doubt on the amount of baggage, canoe, etc., the estimator was obliged to carry), and so on down the Kankakee, the Illinois, and the Mississippi. By these stages progressed the La Salle expedition of 1680. One account of La Salle's journeys says that he faced westward finally in 1681 with sleds and canoes and forty-four persons: Not being certain as to which of his several trips was meant, we shall conclude that he faced westward, by all means, and got there, also quite a bit southward, ultimately.

The famous Father HENNEPIN was with La Salle on the Kankakee, and contributed a large share to the history of exploration in this part of the world. Then came other explorers, among them Marquette and Joliet. Still other intrepid priests followed the streams of Indiana and Illinois. And "many of them grew old and died at their mission posts among the Indians."

It is very much within the range of probability that one or another of these brave and venturesome French priests may have been the first to discover the region, inland not far from the navigable rivers, that today is known as Union Township.