Chronicles of Notre Dame du Lac
Edward Sorin, CSC -- Translated by John M. Toohey, CSC, 1895

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1841-1842

pg 18             Thence they proceeded to Toledo by a steamboat on Lake Erie, 
             and they had a great deal to suffer for nearly thirty-six hours.  
             On their arrival at Miami, a short distance from Buffalo, they 
             were greatly embarrassed, as none of them spoke any English; it 
             was harder for them to understand than to make themselves 
             understood.
                  From Miami, they went on to Providence, where the steamer 
             ended its trip, and they had to hire two carriages for themselves 
             and their baggage in order to reach the Miami canal, which was 
             not finished that far.  It was especially during this portion of 
             the journey, which lasted two days, that they had occasion to 
             remember the care that heaven took of them.  The roads were 
             terrible amongst those forests, whose centenarian trees were 
             sometimes thrown across the way, so that the drivers were often 
             obliged to make a new path.  Every turn of the wheel in those 
             sloughs and ditches appeared to them as a new evidence of 
             protection from on high, and called forth new expressions of 
             gratitude.  Finally, they reached Junction, and then Fort Wayne, 
             the first Catholic station in the diocese of Vincennes.
                  There they visited the good Mr. Hammion, whom they found 
             dying.  He was a saintly missionary: God grant that he may have 
             already received his reward.