Chapter VII: Appendix: B

ON THE IDENTIFICATION OF CLARK'S PLACE OF CROSSING THE "TWO WABASHES"[162]

Mr. Draper founds his conclusion that the "two Wabashes" were the Little Wabash and the Fox wholly on present-day (1878-90) reports[163] of the nature of the country at the Little Wabash above the mouth of the Fox and above the mouth of the Big Muddy. The reports he received from residents of the neighborhoods carry evidence that the ground between the Little Wabash and Fox most nearly agrees with Clark's and Bowman's descriptions of the crossing-place.[164] This is true, and is of importance. But Clark's and Bowman's use of the word "heights" was merely relative; Mr. Draper's correspondents speak of high grounds and low grounds as the land lies today. With water but three or four feet deep, a few acres of land might have been uncovered, though not sufficiently elevated today to be termed a hill or even high ground. There is a point on the Little --abash above the mouth of the Fox that can be made to answer in a general way Clark's and Bowman's descriptions--going on the doubtful supposition that their descriptions were entirely accurate. In order to find a spot where Clark saw nearly five miles of water before him, Mr. Draper suggests a point about two miles above the mouth of the Fox, where there is a wide bottom on the west of the Little --abash, another bottom between that stream and the Fox, and another east of the Fox.[165] The possibility that the distance was exaggerated by Clark (who said Vincennes was two hundred and forty miles from Kaskaskia when it was not over one hundred and seventy-five) is not considered. As a matter of fact, the whole plan of finding today five miles of low ground from any point west of the Little --abash to the east of either the Fox or the Big Muddy, is overthrown by Clark's statement in the _Memoir_ that (on the western side of the Little Wabash) "we formed a camp on a height which we found on the bank of the river." Mr. Draper's objection to the Little Wabash and Big Muddy crossing-place was because the high ground on the bank of the Little Wabash (seemingly here referred to by Clark) prevented there being five miles of low ground to the opposite side of the Big Muddy.[166] If Clark and Bowman gave the distance of width of water correctly, the crossing-place was two miles above the mouth of the Fox, and Clark's statement of forming a camp on a height on the river bank is totally inexplicable--for there is no height at this point to answer such a description. If, by "nearly" five miles, Clark meant three miles, misjudging distance on water inversely with the usual way, his camp could have been on the immediate high bank of the Little Wabash above the mouth of the Big Muddy.[167]

Certain other considerations have a tendency to influence the present writer in believing that the crossing-place was here--above the mouth of the Big Muddy. It was exceedingly wet from the day Clark left Kaskaskia; even on the watersheds he found deep standing water. On reaching the Petit Fork he found the rivers at flood-tide. By turning north to the Clay County route he would strike the Little Wabash at a more northerly point, and would almost completely head the deep little Bonpas which lay between the Fox and the Big Wabash. The Clay County route was in one sense, then, a watershed route, compared with the Wayne County route. It is difficult to believe that Clark's guides would ignore this after having been compelled to cross the Petit Fork on felled trees. Again, on the second day out from the crossing-place of the Little Wabash, Bowman records: "16th. Marched all day through rain and water; crossed Fox river." If this entry is correct, of course the Little Wabash and Big Muddy crossing-place is completely established. Mr. Draper, holding that the Fox was crossed simultaneously with the Little Wabash on the fifteenth, suggests that Bowman meant Bonpas for Fox.[168] Choosing between possible errors, the present writer finds it easier to believe that Bowman misjudged the width of water crossed on the fifteenth, than that he called the Bonpas the Fox. For on the seventeenth the heads of the Bonpas are specifically accounted for by Bowman as follows: "17th. Marched early; crossed several runs, very deep." Mr. Draper does not account for these, and it is difficult to do so if they were not the heads of the Bonpas. For, if Clark crossed the Little Wabash just above the mouth of the Fox, his route, after crossing the Bonpas, was northeast, and would, without any sort of question, have been on watersheds between little tributaries, first of the Bonpas, and then of the Embarras. Again, by every account, it is sure Clark and Bowman expected to strike the Embarras, and strike it at about seven or eight miles due west from Vincennes. If, as Draper believed, they were pursuing an old trail, which, it is well known,[169] ran from the crossing-place of the Little Wabash two miles above the mouth of the Fox to the Wabash just below the mouth of the Embarras, how can it be explained that the army reached, or ever intended to reach, the Embarras seven or eight miles above its mouth? The very name would warn them away and it seems highly improbable that, if what was later known as the southern route was traversed, the army would ever have seen the Embarras.