Note I-17 — Chapter I · ITINERARY: ST. LOUIS TO ST. PAUL, AUGUST 9TH-SEPTEMBER 21ST, 1805.

For the origin of this name, involving a spurious etymology by association with Trappist monks, see Lewis and Clark, ed. 1893, p. 20. The always careful and accurate Nicollet made the matter quite plain: see his Rep. 1843, p. 22. Some form of the old Indian name is used by the earliest French travelers in these parts. One of the oldest maps I have seen, dressée par J. B. Franquelin dans 1688 pour être presentée à Louis XIV., letters R. des Moingana, and marks the Indian village of Moingoana. One of Joliet's maps has Moeng8ena. Joliet and Marquette passed its mouth going down the Miss. r. in 1673, on or about June 25th; Accault, Auguelle, and Hennepin passed it going up the Miss. r. early in 1680. Besides the many early variants of the phrase which settled into Des Moines, we find R. of the Outontantas, 8tantas, 8t8ntes, Otentas, etc., R. of the Peouareas, Paotes, etc., R. of the Maskoutens, etc., Nadouessioux, etc. This is the largest river Pike has come to since he left the Illinois, and the only tributary of the Missouri which he charts with any detail; he lays it down with 20 of its branches, and marks the positions on it of old Forts Crawford and St. Louis. We observe that he calls it De Moyen; and this gives occasion for a blunder not less amusing than to call it Trappist r. would be. For our hero was ambitious of French scholarship, and on consulting his dictionary to find out about moyen, he set the stream down as Means r. in his French-English vocabulary of geographical names. Another author, or his printer, got it Demon r. Beltrami, 1828, renders Le Moine and Monk r. Pike's editor of the early text, 1807, has des Moines, p. 4. The stream is a large and very important one, too much so to be entered upon in a mere note like this; but I may observe that it is historically less significant than those of similar extent on the Illinois and Wisconsin side of the Mississippi, because several of the latter were highways during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The mouth of the Des Moines became of course the scene of early settlement, but not all the places started there survived. Nicollet's map shows three—Keokuck, Montebello, Warsaw. Owen's, somewhat later, has also Nassau and Churchville, immediately at the debouchure, where there came to be also a Buenavista. Publishing in 1847, but having written of 1835, the always entertaining Featherstonhaugh speaks of "a sorry settlement on the left bank, called Keokuk, after a celebrated Sauk chief, inhabited altogether by a set of desperados"—a diagnosis which will no doubt be better relished by the Hamiltonians, Varsovians, and Alexandrians than by the present polished Keokukites. He should have made one exception, however, for he found there the famous George Catlin, Nov. 4th, 1835: see his book, II. p. 42. Besides Keokuk, Lee Co., Ia., at the foot of the rapids above the mouth of the Des Moines, the three places which have grown into urban reality are: Hamilton, Hancock Co., Ill., directly opposite Keokuk; Warsaw, Hancock Co., Ill., 2 m. below the mouth, and directly opposite this, Alexandria, Clark Co., Mo. Three States as well as three counties thus met here. Pike continues with Illinois on his right, but now has Iowa instead of Missouri on his left.

Fort Edwards was a position of importance for some years. This military post was built on the east side of the Mississippi, 3 m. below the foot of the rapids, and directly opposite the two islands which divided the outlet of the Des Moines into three channels. Half a mile S. W. from the fort was Cantonment Davis, its precursor, abandoned when the works were completed. The locality is practically Warsaw. A full description of this establishment, as it was at the time of Long's visit in August, 1817, is given in his report, as printed in Minn. Hist. Col., II. Part 1, 1860; 2d ed. 1890, pp. 77-80. It had been building since June, 1816, and was not quite finished in 1817.