The portage route between the rivers stretched about 4 miles crossing mostly prairie grass and woods. The trail, long ago erased by farming and residential development, was well known among 17th-century trappers, who learned of it from Indian guides.
Because Jolliet placed the St. Joseph River on a map in 1674, historians suspect he knew of the portage and may have chosen that route when he accompanied an ailing Marquette from Illinois back to the Great Lakes in 1675.
“The question of who was first may not ever be answered without qualification,” Bennett said.
This much is definite. The French beat the English to Indiana — some of them merely passing through on their way elsewhere and others setting up forts or hunting for beaver in the lucrative fur trade. In the 17th and 18th centuries, France’s North American empire stretched from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, and two northern Indiana rivers held a strategic position.
Andrea Neal is a teacher at St. Richard’s Episcopal School in Indianapolis and adjunct scholar with the Indiana Policy Review Foundation. Contact her at firstname.lastname@example.org.