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PORTAGE PATHS

1760. Here General Anthony Wayne built a fortress in 1794 which controlled all traffic over the old pathway as had its predecessors.

Passing further west, two forts, at least, guarded well-known portages: Fort St. Joseph's (1712), located a little below South Bend, Indiana, guarding the Kankakee–St. Joseph portage; and Fort Winnebago (1829) guarding the Fox–Wisconsin portage. The post Ouiatanon founded on the Wabash in 1720 was the first military establishment within what is now the state of Indiana. It was located eighteen miles (by the river) below the mouth of the Tippecanoe and near the city of Lafayette. Many writers have located this historic site incorrectly—a mistake it is impossible to make when the actual meaning of the post is understood. It guarded the key of the upper Wabash, for this point "was the head of navigation for pirogues and large canoes, and consequently there was a transfer at this place of all merchandize that passed over the Wabash."[1]

Coming down to the Revolutionary period, the battles fought upon these por-

  1. Dunn's Indiana, p. 50.