Before 1700

Before 1700 4 dated mentions

1. 1679
   The Mission Era: Priests and Missionaries on the River, 1679–1857

   In December 1679 René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, came down the St. Joseph River and crossed the St. Joseph–Kankakee portage at the river's bend — the passage the tribes leg carries whole.

2. 1686
   The post that was not here: Fort St. Joseph at Niles, and the empty rapids

   In 1686 King Louis XIV granted land to the Jesuits for the Mission de Saint-Joseph, where Father Claude Allouez ministered to the Potawatomi.

3. 1691
   Fort St. Joseph at Niles: the fort that governed the valley

   The post: On the south side of present Niles, Michigan, where the lower St. Joseph River passes the crossing of the Sauk Trail and the Grand River Trail, near the portage that joins the Great Lakes watershed to the Mississippi's, the French in 1691 built Fort St. Joseph beside the Jesuit mission that already stood there…

4. 1691
   The fort beat: one fort for the valley, none for this ground, and the treaties that closed its era

   The founding, without a dedication: The valley's fort was founded as an act of administration, not ceremony: the French sent soldiers to the Saint-Joseph mission in 1691 to expand the fur trade and solidify their Native relations, and Fort St. Joseph — mission, garrison and trading post together — stood from that year at present Niles.