He married Clara Louise Norton on Mar. Griswold was also one of the founders of the Fort Wayne Engraving Co. In addition to his newspaper and advertising work, he engaged in research and writing on the history of the Fort Wayne area. He died in Fort Wayne on Mar. W HEN, three centuries ago, the naked, painted savage, paddling his bark canoe with the flow of the St. Mary's turned his course into the counter-current of the St. Joseph, and there greeted his feather-bedecked brother approaching from the northward, he displayed in triumph the fruits of the hunt and challenged the other to show evidence of superior skill with the bow.
The illustration of the "coureur de bois," or wood-ranger, is after a drawing by Frederick Remington, which appears in Vol. The first white man to paddle his canoe along the south shore of Lake Erie and thence up the unexplored Maumee was doubtless of this reckless, adventurous type. With simultaneous movement, each nimble-witted son of the forest grasped his weapon and turned in alarm to behold a sight new and terrifying. To the southward, rounding a bend in the Maumee, scarce an arrow-shot distant, appeared a strange canoe.
The Kiskakons 1 โfor they were of that ancient clanโwere not concerned in the movements of the two red men at the paddles of the mysterious craft. It was the third man whose appearance brought the quick heartbeat and threw over them a spell of silence. Slowly the canoe lessened the distance which separated it from the attentive Kiskakons.
Suddenly the watchers were brought to a sense of danger; but the savages in the page: 18 [View Page 18] Switch to Image Mode CLOSE Page 18 approaching canoe dispelled momentary fears by standing, with outstretched arms, while they proclaimed in resounding calls that the mission of the visitors was one of peace and friendship. The people of the Kiskakon village, startled by the commotion, approached cautiously and marvelled at the sight of the stranger.
He was clothed in garments of unknown material; he carried in his hand a thing of steel and woodโhis substitute for bow and arrowโbut, above all, he was of a strange and unknown race. His face seemed white in comparison with those of his inspectors, and his light brown hair and blue eyes proclaimed him to be a visitor from afar. At lastโafter the lapse of untold centuriesโThe First White Man had arrived! To the wild people of the forest he appeared as a messenger from the gods.
