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 military post at this mission. Charlevoix, in a letter dated 'River St. Joseph, Aug. 16, 1721,' writes, describing his approach to the fort from Lake Michigan: 'You afterward sail up twenty leagues in it [up the St. Josephs River] before you reach the fort, which navigation requires great precaution.' The evidence is ample, that the fort on the St. Josephs, from about 1712 to its final destruction during the Revolutionary war, guarded the portage between the river of that name and the Kankakee, on the east bank of the St. Josephs, in Indiana, a short distance below the present city of South Bend."

The Kankakee–St. Joseph route was a favorite one for travelers returning from Illinois to the Great Lakes and Canada. The favorite early "outward" route was from the western shore of Lake Michigan into the Illinois River. Here were two courses: by way of either the Calumet or the Chicago River to the Des Plaines branch of the Illinois. The latter portage was