One Township's Yesterdays Chapter X
WHITE MAN'S PAGEANT
"Westward the course of empire takes its way."
... Bishop Berkeley. |
THE PAGEANT OF THE WHITE MAN BEGAN.
They came, dramatic figures in a procession that for picturesqueness and romantic charm has scarcely, perhaps never, been paralleled
in the history of any other nation: explorer, Jesuit missionary, coureur-de-bois, voyageur, adventurer, chasseur and huntsman,
trapper, and trader; Protestant missionary, traveler, government agent, surveyor, land speculator, and pioneer settler. Onward they
pressed, beyond the early frontier, into the wilderness of the red man, claiming and winning a vast new domain for the white man's
civilization.
Each of these, in his coming and his passing, impressed and left an indelible mark upon the pages of the history of the great
Mid-West that is today. Each contributed, in his own peculiar manner, to the making of the history of those political units, later
to become part and parcel of the United States of America. Each, also, was an essential to the theme, of which we hear but the
echoes that have come down to us through the chasms of Time. Each as a part, and all as a whale, we find in that historical
background of a township in which we are concerned.
The pageant of the white man is a part of our township history. Romantic as this may seem, it is nevertheless true. And, while we
prefer to think of history as the truth, we prefer history sprinkled through with the glamour of romance.