Note I-55 — Chapter I · ITINERARY: ST. LOUIS TO ST. PAUL, AUGUST 9TH-SEPTEMBER 21ST, 1805.

Three of Pike's river-miles beyond La Crosse bring him to La Crescent, Houston Co., Minn., close to the border of Winona Co.—not that he says he camped on the W. side, but he would naturally select that side in preference to the other, where the various outlets of La Crosse and Black rivers make such a snicarty. La Crescent is curiously so called, apparently in rivalry with La Crosse, and perhaps by some individual who thought he knew what La Crosse means, and was minded to suggest by the Turkish emblem that the star of the new place was in the ascendant and the town bound to grow. Thus far, however, it has been more of an excrescence from La Crosse than a crescence of itself. Crosse, in French, does not mean "cross," but the game of hockey, shinny, or bandy, and the crooked stick or racket with which it is played. Pike describes the game beyond, under date of Apr. 20th, 1806. The F. word for "crescent" is croissant. The beautiful Prairie à la Crosse was so called by the French because the Indians used to play ball there when they felt safe; and when the enemy appeared they could scoop holes in it and scuttle into them in a few minutes. The river which laves this ball-ground on the N. became La Rivière de la Prairie à la Crosse, which we naturally shorten into La Crosse r. Pike says la Cross and le Cross, usually. I have seen it spelled Crose. Lewis and Clark's map of 1814 letters "Prairie La Crosse R." Long has in one place Prairie de la Cross. Featherstonhaugh turns the phrase into Ball Game r. It was probably by accident that Long once gave it as La Croix r.; for he is careful in his statements, and his editor, Keating, is scholarly. This slip is particularly unlucky, as it is liable to cause confusion with St. Croix, name of the large river higher up on the same side. The city of La Crosse was started on the edge of the plain, immediately over the river, and gave name to the county of which it became the seat. Two of the islands which the city faces are Grand and La Plume, respectively 1¼ and ¾ m. long. Close above La Crosse r.—in fact, connected with one of its mouths at the place where the town of North La Crosse was planted—is Black r. This has a long history. La Salle speaks of it as R. Noire and Chabadeba [Beaver], in his letter of Aug. 22d, 1682; R. Noire appears on Franquelin's map, 1688; Hennepin has it under the Sioux name Chabedeba or Chabaoudeba, and the like, translated Beaver r. Franqulin locates a certain Butte d'Hyvernement, or wintering-hill, at the mouth of R. Noire; Menard and Guerin are said to have ascended the latter in 1661. The most remarkable things about the mouth of Black r. are the extraordinary length of its delta and the great changes which this has experienced within comparatively few years. The waters of Black r., though it is not a very large stream, have found their way into the Mississippi from La Crosse upward for 12 m. or more. There are now a number of openings, though the principal one is the lowermost, nearest La Crosse. Nicollet, writing about 1840, gives this as the "new mouth" of the Sappah or Black r. (Sapah Watpa of the Sioux), and calls the next one Broken Gun channel. This is rendered by F. Casse-Fusils in Beltrami, II. p. 178, who recites the gun-breaking incident. This channel now opens opposite the mouth of Dakota cr., which falls in under Mineral bluff, at a place called Dakota. The main former debouchment seems to have been at a point about 12 m. direct above La Crosse, through what is now known as Hammond's chute. In Pike's time the mouth was evidently high up, for he does not pass it till the 13th. The present (or recent) channel is turbid and sloughy for some miles up from its contracted opening into the Mississippi, reminding one of the similar but more pronounced expansion of St. Croix r. above its mouth. The width of the delta, or its extent sideways from the Mississippi, averages between 3 and 4 m., inclusive of a higher piece of ground it incloses, called Lytle's prairie or terrace; this is 4¼ m. long and 20-30 feet above high-water mark; Half Way cr. comes around its lower end. The vicissitudes of Black r. may be among the reasons why exact identification of some places about its mouth in the early French writers is not easy. Speaking with reserve, and ready to stand corrected by anyone who knows more than I do about it, I do not see why the traditional Butte d'Hyvernement may not have been Mt. Trempealeau. As for the extent of the Black River basin, this is long enough to begin in Taylor Co., where waters separate in various directions, and to run through Clark and Jackson cos.; thence the river separates La Crosse from Trempealeau Co. till it reaches the town of New Amsterdam; after which the river enters its delta in La Crosse Co., and the county line runs 5 or 6 m. to the Mississippi on a parallel of latitude.