Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 142, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 December 1903 — Jasper’s Early History. [ARTICLE]

Jasper’s Early History.

As a Part of France. i —-j ; Our free hold is a merger o! thw poseession of tbe red men and a discovery of the French. Marquette and Joliet in the antnmn of 1673 for tbe first time oast wistful eyes on what is now Indiana,.from their boats passing up the Kankakee. It is inscribed on a tablet near the Knox county oonrt bouse that the first settlement was in 1702. ’ This French pest was named for a priest’s lieutenant, Morgan Vincennes, whose last words were from the fire of the Chiokasaws, “be true to country and religion.” The three early trading poets, where tbe French exchanged religion, liqnor and trinkets for peltries and game were Detroit, Kaskaskia and Vincennes. In 1682 LaSalle passed from Kaskaskia to the mouth of the Great River and there proclaimed tbe entire valley a part of France and named it Louistaud or Louisiana in honor of Louis IV. reoognized as Indian's land was 1 was 118 years before what were still called Indiana. In 1718 the whole valley was rented for a period of i fourteen years and that portion j north of the Ohio, then took the ' name of Illinois and retained the same until 1783. Its capital was Kaskaskia. How little we know of that anoient seat of government. As a side trip, it is proposed that visitors at the oeming exposition look upon tbe rains of the old metropolis of the Mississippi ; Valley. At the dose of the war between the Frenoh and British in 1762, Franoe deeded to Great Britain all of Louisians east of tbs great river Tetakting -oaly New Orleans. It was hot forty-two years later when Napoleon sold the residue to onr oountry, so far as the title by discovery went. Tbe discovered valley was united as a part of France for ninety years and in 1804 again united as a part of onr own country. We can go to of the purchase of tbe west half claiming a sort of kinship because we live in tbe east half. There is no more p'easant or useful study than onr own history end no better ‘‘mellowing of occasion” than before yon visit the Exposition as yon will try to do. Let as be prepared to intelligently ask and answer questions as to times and places of which we ongbt to know or learn,"' 8. P. Thompson, Deo. 16,1903.