History of Berrien and Van Buren counties, Michigan. With ... biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers.

INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.

47

The lake coast of Van Buren and Berrien Counties has
proved a dangerous one to navigators, as is shown by the
great number of wrecks with which it has been strewed
during the past half-century. A few of the earliest disasters occurring here were, the loss of the steamer " Pioneer,"
before mentioned; of the large schooner " Bridget," Capt.
Peter Druyea, which foundered eighteen miles north of the
mouth of the St. Joseph and was lost, with all hands (fourteen in number, including passengers), in the fall of 1834;
the wreck (but not total loss) of the schooner " Juliet," in
the same year, just north of the mouth of the St. Joseph;
the drowning of the captain, four sailors, and a passenger
of the schooner "Austerlitz," in attempting to land at St.
Joseph in 1833; the total loss of the steamer " Champlain,"
on the coast of Berrien, in 1838; the wrecking of the
three-masted schooner " Laporte," Capt. Webster, at the
entrance of South Haven harbor, in the fall of 1838; and
the loss of the schooner " Florida," near the same place,
in 1842. If the various disasters on this section of the
coast, from that time to the present, were enumerated in
detail, the list would be a long and formidable one. One
of the most heartrending of the disasters was the loss of
the steamer " Hippocampus" on her passage from St. Joseph to Chicago, in 1868. The loss of this vessel is more
fully mentioned in the history of St. Joseph.
CHAPTER VII.
INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.
Early Routes of Travel-The River Highway-Indian Trails-Roads
cut by Pioneers-The "Chicago Road"-Territorial Roads-State
Roads-Plank-Roads-Stage Routes —Railroads-The Detroit and
St. Joseph Railroad Company-The Michigan Central RailroadThe Michigan Southern-Kalamazoo and South Haven RailroadThe Constantine and Niles Canal or Railroad Company-St. Joseph
Valley Railroad Company-Elkhart and Lake Michigan RailroadChicago and West Michigan Railroad-Paw Paw Railroad-Toledo
and South Haven Railroad-Michigan Air-Line Railroad.
IN all countries and regions where the first settlers are
of the Anglo-Saxon race, their earliest labors are directed
to the securing of practicable routes of travel; and the
opening of these, however rude and primitive they may be,
is the first step in the direction of public internal improvement. The immigrant, in traveling towards his prospective
home in the wilderness, must bestow some labor-be it more
or less-in opening a route over which to reach it with his
filmily and the few household necessaries which he brings
with him. In heavily-timbered countries-such as was a
large part of the region to which this history has especial
reference-this task is often a heavy one, while it is comparatively trifling in such a country as was found in other
portions of Berrien and Van Buren Counties,-a country
more thinly wooded, where access could be had to almost
any spot through the convenient openings. But even in
these parts the new-comers were obliged to have frequent
recourse to the axe to open a path through intervening

thickets, or to fell a few trees to make a solid way across
streams or marshy places. And this work, though light
and insignificant, was road-building,-an improvement

which it was necessary to make before the settler could
reach the spot where his cabin was to be reared.
Those who came to settle in the valley of the St. Joseph,
entering the country from the south and southeast, found a
practicable highway in the river, down which they could
float in pirogues and other light craft, and thus reach their
destinations (if these chanced to be in the vicinity of the
stream) with comparative ease. But this was the case with
only a small proportion of the settlers even in Berrien,
while in Van Buren County, nature had prepared no such
convenient water-way, and routes of travel could only be
had by opening them through the heavy forest-growth
which sprang fiom the fertile soil.
The first land highways were the Indian trails, of which
there were several passing through this region. One of
these, coming from the Ottawa settlements at L'Arbre
Croche (at Little Traverse Bay), passed southward through
the wilderness to the rapids of the Grand River, and thence
through the present counties of Kent, Allegan, and Van
Buren to the villages of the I'ottawattamies, on the St.
Joseph. Another, starting from Saginaw, passed up the
Saginaw and Shiawassee Rivers, and through the forests to
Ionia (or where Ionia now is), and thence southwestwardly
through Barry and Van Buren Counties to the Pottawattamie headquarters. These trails, branching, led both to the
mouth of the St. Joseph and to the more numerous villages in the vicinity of Niles. There were other trails
leading from the dominion of old Topinab6 in various directions, including those running south to the Wabash and
eastwardly to the Kalamazoo and the head-waters of the
Grand and Huron Rivers. But the principal one-the one
over which there was more Indian travel than any, and
probably more than on all the others-was that which, leading southward from Green Bay and the rivers of Wisconsin, passed round the head of Lake Michigan, thence northeasterly by way of Pokagon's village in the southeast part
of Berricn, and on through the wilderness to the Detroit
River. It was over this trail that from time immemorial
the warriors of the Sauk, Outcgamnie, Winnebago, and
other tribes had passed in their expeditions, and it was
along this great path that for many years following 1815
almost entire tribes-men, women, and children-traveled
on their way from the northwest to Malden, in Canada,
where once a year the British government disbursed the
annuities (a small sum per capita to Indians of both sexes
and all ages), promised in payment of the services rendered
by the savages in the war of 1812. The route of this
ancient Indian highway was almost identical with that of
the later " Chicago road,"* over which many of the early
immigrants passed on their way to places of settlement in
Southwestern Michigan.
By act of Congress, passed April 30,1824, the President
of the United States was authorized "to cause the necessary surveys, plans, and estimates to be made of the routes
of such roads and canals as he may deem of national importance in a commercial or military point of view, or
' Article VI. of the treaty held at Chicago in 1.821 provides that

"the United States shall have the privilege of making and using a
road through the Indian country, from Detroit and Fort Wayne, respectively, to Chicago."