Vermilion County, Illinois - Chapter 6: Early Discoveries, 1879

Chapter 6: Early Discoveries

Having given a description of the lakes and rivers, and noticed some of the more prominent features that characterize the physical geography of the territory within the scope of our inquiry, and the parts necessarily connected with it, forming, as it were, the outlines or ground plan of its history, we will now proceed to fill in the framework, with a narration of its discovery. Jacques Cartier, as already intimated in a note on a preceding page, ascended the St. Lawrence River in 1535. He sailed up the stream as far as the great Indian village of Hoc Lelaga, situated on an island at the foot of the mountain, styled by him Mont Royal, now called Montreal, a name since extended to the whole island. The country thus discovered was called New France. Later, and in the year 1598, France, after fifty years of domestic troubles, recovered her tranquillity, and, finding herself once more equal to great enterprises, acquired a taste for colonization. Her attention was directed to her possessions, by right of discovery, in the new world, where she now wished to establish colonies and extend the faith of the Catholic religion. Commissions or grants were accordingly issued to companies of merchants, and others organized for this purpose, who undertook to make settlements in Acadia, as Nova Scotia was then called, and elsewhere along the lower waters of the St. Lawrence ; and, at a later day, like efforts were made higher up the river. In 1607 Mr. De Monts, having failed in a former enterprise, was deprived of his commission, which was restored to him on the condition that he would make a settlement on the St. Lawrence. The company he represented seems to have had the fur trade only in view, and this object caused it to change its plans and avoid Acadia altogether. De Monts' company increased in numbers and capital in proportion as the fur trade developed expectations of profit, and many persons at St. Malo, particularly, gave it their support. Feeling that his name injured his associates, M. De Monts retired ; and when he ceased to be its governing head, the company of merchants recovered the monopoly with which the charter was endowed, for no other object than making money out of the fur trade. They cared nothing whatever for the colony in Acadia, which was dying out, and made no settlements else- where. However, Mr. Samuel Champlain, who cared little for the fur trade, and whose thoughts were those of a patriot, after maturely examining where the settlements directed by the court might be best established, at last fixed on Quebec. He arrived there on the 3d of July, 1G08, put up some temporary buildings for himself and company, and began to clear off the ground, which proved fertile.*

The colony at Quebec grew apace with emigrants from France; and later, the establishment of a settlement at the island of Montreal was undertaken. Two religious enthusiasts, the one named Jerome le Royer de la Dauversiere, of Anjou, and the other John James Olier, assumed the undertaking in 1636. The next who joined in the movement was Peter Chevirer, Baron Fancamp, who in 1640 sent tools and provisions for the use of the coming settlers. The projectors were now aided by the celebrated Baron de Renty, and two others. Father Charles Lalemant induced John de Lauson, the proprietor of the island of Montreal, to cede it to these gentlemen, which he did in August, 1640 ; and to remove all doubts as to the title, the associates obtained a grant from the New France Company, in December of the same year, which was subsequently ratified by the king himself. The associates agreed to send out forty settlers, to clear and cultivate the ground ; to increase the number annually ; to supply them with two sloops, cattle and farm hands, and, after five years, to erect a seminary, maintain ecclesiastics as missionaries and teachers, and also nuns as teachers and hospitalers. On its part the New France Company agreed to transport thirty settlers. The associates then contributed twenty-five thousand crowns to begin the settlement, and Mr. de Maisonneuve embarked with his colony on three vessels, which sailed from Rochelle and Dieppe, in the summer of 1641. The colony wintered in Quebec, spending their time in building boats and preparing timber for their houses ; and on the 8th of May, 1642, embarked, and arrived nine days after at the island of Montreal, and after saying mass began an intrenchment around their tents.f tFrom Dr. Shea's valuable note on Montreal, on pages 129 and 130, vol. 2, of his translation of Father Charlevoix' History of New France. Mr. Albach, publisher of "Annals of the West," Pittsburgh edition, 1857, p. 49, is in error in saying that Montreal was founded in 1613, by Samuel Champlain. Champlain, in company with a young Huron Indian, whom he had taken to and brought back from France on a previous voyage, visited the island of Montreal in 1611, and chose it as a place for a settlement he designed to establish, but which he did not begin, as he was obliged to return to France; vide Charlevoix' " History of New France," vol. 2, p. 23. The American Clyclopedia, as well as other authorities, concur with Dr. Shea, that Montreal was founded in 1642, seven years after Champlain's death.

Quebec Founded

destruction of its people from raids of the dreaded Iroquois Indians, the French colonies grew until, according to a report of Governor Mods. Denonville to the Minister at Paris, the population of Canada, in 1686, had increased to 12,373 souls. Quebec and Montreal became the base of operations of the French in America ; the places from which missionaries, traders and explorers went out among the savages into countries hitherto unknown, going northward and westward, even beyond the extremity of Lake Superior to the upper waters of the Mississippi, and southward to the Gulf of Mexico ; and it wras from these cities that the religious, military and commercial affairs of this widely extended region were administered, and from which the French settlements subsequently established in the northwest and at New Orleans were principally recruited. The influence of Quebec and Montreal did not end with the fall of French power in America. It was from these cities that the English retained control of the fur trade in, and exerted a power over the Indian tribes of, the northwest that harassed and retarded the spread of the American settlements through all the revolutionary war, and during the later contest between Great Britain and the United States in the war of 1812. Indeed, it was only until after the fur trade was exhausted and the Indians placed beyond the Mississippi, subsequent to 1820, that Quebec and Montreal ceased to exert an influence in that part of New France now known as Illinois and Indiana.

Father Claude Allouez, coasting westward from Sault Ste. Marie, reached Chegoimegon, as the Indians called the bay south of the Apostle Islands and near La Pointe on the southwestern shore of Lake Superior, in October, 1665. Here he found ten or twelve fragments of Algonquin tribes assembled and about to hang the war kettle over the tire preparatory for an incursion westward into the territory of the Sioux. The good father persuaded them to give up their intended hostile expedition. He set up in their midst a chapel, to which he gave the name of the " Mission of the Holy Ghost," at the spot afterward known as " Lapointe du Saint Esprit," and at once began his mission work. His chapel wras an object of wonder, and its establishment soon spread among the wild children of the forest, and thither from great distances came numbers all alive with curiosity, - the roving Pottawatomies, Sacs and Foxes, the Kickapoos, the Illinois and Miamis, - to whom the truths of Christianity were announced.*

Three years later Father James Marquette took the place of Allouez, and while here he seems to have been the first that learned of the Mississippi. In a letter written from this mission by Father Marquette to his Reverend Father Superior, preserved in the Relations for 1669 and 1670, he says: "When the Illinois come to the point they pass a great river, which is almost a league in width. It flows from north to south, and to so great a distance that the Illinois, who know nothing of the use of the canoe, have never as yet heard tell of the mouth ; they only know that there are great nations below them, some of whom, dwelling to the east-southeast of their country, gather their Indian-corn twice a year. A nation that they call Chaouanon (Shawnees) came to visit them during the past summer; the young man that has been given to me to teach me the language has seen them ; they were loaded with glass beads, which shows that they have communication with the Europeans. They had to journey across the land for more than thirty days before arriving at their country. It is hardly probable that this great river discharges itself in Virginia. We are more inclined to believe that it has its mouth in California. If the savages, who have promised to make me a canoe, do not fail in their word, we will navigate this river as far as is possible in company with a Frenchman and this young man that they have given me, who understands several of these languages and possesses great facility for acquiring others. We shall visit the nations who dwell along its shores, in order to open the way to many of our fathers who for a long time have awaited this happiness. This discovery will give us a perfect knowledge of the sea either to the south or to the west."

These reports concerning the great river came to the knowledge of the authorities at Quebec and Paris, and naturally enough stimulated further inquiry. There were three theories as to where the river emptied ; one, that it discharged into the Atlantic south of the British colony of Virginia ; second, that it flowed into the Gulf of Mexico ; and third, which was the more popular belief, that it emptied into the Red Sea, as the Gulf of California was called ; and if the latter, that it would afford a passage to China. To solve this important commercial problem in geography, it was determined, as appears from a letter from the Governor, Count Frontenac, at Quebec, to M. Colbert, Minister of the navy at Paris, expedient " for the service to send Sieur Joliet to the country of the Mascoutines, to discover the South Sea and the great river - they call the Mississippi - which is supposed to discharge itself into the Sea of California. Sieur Joliet is a man of great experience in these sorts of discoveries, and has already been almost to that great river, the mouth of which he promises to see. We shall have intelligence of him, certainly, this summer.* Father Marquette was chosen to accompany Joliet on account of the information he had already ob- tained from the Indians relating to the countries to be explored, and also because, as he wrote Father Dablon, his superior, when informed by the latter that he was to be Joliet's companion, " I am ready to go on your order to seek new nations toward the South Sea, and teach them of our great God whom they hitherto have not known."

The voyage of Joliet and Marquette is so interesting that we introduce extracts from Father Marquette's journal. The version we adopt is Father Marquette's original journal, prepared for publication by his superior, Father Dablon, and which lay in manuscript at Quebec, among the archives of the Jesuits, until 1852, when it, together with Father Marquette's original map, were brought to light, translated into English, and published by Dr. John G. Shea, in his " Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi." The version commonly sanctioned was Marquette's narrative sent to the French government, where it lay unpublished until it came into the hands of M. Thevenot, who printed it at Paris, in a book issued by him in 1681, called " Eeceuil cle Voyages." This account diners somewhat, though not essentially, from the narrative as published by Dr. Shea.

Before proceeding farther, however, we will turn aside a moment to note the fact that Spain had a prior right over France to the Mississippi Valley by virtue of previous discovery. As early as the year 1525, Cortez had conquered Mexico, portioned out its rich mines anions: his favorites and reduced the inoffensive inhabitants to the worst of slavery, making them till the ground and toil in the mines for their unfeeling masters. A few years following the conquest of Mexico, the Spaniards, under Pamphilus de Narvaez, in 152S, undertook to conquer and colonize Florida and the entire northern coast-line of the Gulf. After long and fruitless wanderings in the interior, his party returned to the sea-coast and endeavored to reach Tampico, in wretched boats. Nearly all perished by storm, disease or famine. The survivors, with one Cabeza de Vaca at their head, drifted to an island near the present state of Mississippi; from which, after four years of slavery, De Vaca, with four companions, escaped to the mainland and started westward, going clear across the continent to the Gulf of California. The natives took them for supernatural beings. They assumed the guise of jugglers, and the Indian tribes, through which they passed, invested them with the title of medicine-men, and their lives were thus guarded with superstitious awe. They are, perhaps, the first Europeans who ever went overland from the Atlantic to the Pacific. They must have crossed the Great River somewhere on their route, and, says Dr. Shea, " remain in history, in a distant twilight, as the first Europeans known to have stood on the banks of the Mississippi." In 1539,

Hernando de Soto, with a party of cavaliers, most of them sons of titled nobility, landed with their horses upon the coast of Florida. During that and the following four years, these daring adventurers wandered through the wilderness, traveling in portions of Florida, Carolina, the northern parts of Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, crossing the Mississippi, as is supposed, as high up as White Itiver, and going still westward to the base of the Rocky Mountains, vainly searching for the rich gold mines of which De Vaca had given marvelous accounts. De Soto's party endured hardships that would depress the stoutest heart, while, with fire and sword, they perpetrated atrocities upon the Indian tribes through which they passed, burning their villages and inflicting cruelties which make us blush for the wickedness of men claiming to be christians. De Soto died, in May or June, 1542, on the banks of the Mississippi, below the mouth of the Washita, and his immediate attendants concealed his death from the others and secretly, in the night, buried his body in the middle of the stream. The remnant of his survivors went westward and then returned back again to the river, passing the winter upon its banks. The following spring they went down the river, in seven boats which they had rudely constructed out of such scanty material and with the few tools thev could command. In these, after a three months' vovage, they arrived at the Spanish town of Panuco, on the river of that name in Mexico.

Later, in 1565, Spain, tailing in previous attempts, effected a lodgment in Florida, and for the protection of her colony built the fort at St. Augustine, whose ancient ruin, still standing, is an object of curiositv to the health-seeker and a monument to the hundreds of native Indians who, reduced to bondage by their Spanish conquerors, perished, after years of unrequited labor, in erecting its frowning walls and gloomy dungeons.

While Spain retained her hold upon Mexico and enlarged her possessions, and continued, with feebler efforts, to keep possession of the Floridas, she took no measures to establish settlements along the Mississippi or to avail herself of the advantage that might have resulted from its discovery. The Great River excited no further notice after De Soto's time. For the next hundred years it remained as it were a sealed mystery until the French, approaching from the north by way of the lakes, explored it in its entire length, and brought to public light the vast extent and wonderful fertility of its valleys. Resuming the thread of our history at the place where we turned aside to notice the movements of the Spanish toward the Gulf, we now proceed with the extracts from Father Marquette's journal of the vovage of discovery down the Mississippi.

Chaptee Vii Joliet And Marquette'S Voyage

The clay of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin, whom I had always invoked, since I have been in this Ottawa country, to obtain of God the grace to be able to visit the nations on the River Mississippi, was identically that on which M. Jollyet arrived with orders of the Comte de Frontenac, our governor, and M. Talon, our intendant, to make this discovery with me. I was the more enraptured at this good news, as I saw my designs on the point of being accomplished, and myself in the happy necessity of exposing my life for the salvation of all these nations, and particularly for the Illinois, who had, when I was at Lapointe du Esprit, very earnestly entreated me to carry the word of God to their country."

" "We were not long in preparing our outfit, although we were embarking on a voyage the duration of which we could not foresee. Indian corn, with some dried meats, was our whole stock of provisions. With this we set out in two bark canoes, M. Jollyet, myself and five men, firmly resolved to do all and suffer all for so glorious an enterprise."

" Our joy at being chosen for this expedition roused our courage and sweetened the labor of rowing from morning to night. As we were going to seek unknown countries, we took all possible precautions that, if our enterprise was hazardous, it should not be foolhardy ; for this reason we gathered all possible information from the Indians who had frequented those parts, and even from their accounts, traced a map of all the new country, marking down the rivers on which we were to sail, the names of the nations and places through which we were to pass, the course of the Great River, and what direction we should take when we got to it."

"Above all, I put our voyage under the protection of the Blessed Virgin Immaculate, promising her that, if she did us the grace to discover the Great River, I would give it the name of the conception ;

* St. Ignatius was not on the Island of Mackinaw, but westward of it, on a point of land extending into the strait, from the north shore, laid down on modern maps as "Point St. Ignace." On this bleak, exposed and barren spot this mission was established by Marquette himself in 1671. Shea's Catholic Missions, p. 364.

and that I would also give that name to the first mission I should establish among these new nations, as I have actually done among the Illinois."

After some days they reached an Indian village, and the journal proceeds : " Here we are, then, at the Maskoutens. This word, in Algonquin, may mean Fire Nation, and that is the name given to them. This is the limit of discoveries made by the French, for they have not yet passed beyond it. This town is made up of three nations gathered here, Miamis, Maskoutens and Kikabous.* As bark for cabins, in this country, is rare, they use rushes, which serve them for walls and roofs, but which afford them no protection against the wind, and still less against the rain when it falls in torrents. The advantage of this kind ,of cabins is that they can roll them up and carry them easily where they like in hunting time."

" I felt no little pleasure in beholding the position of this town. The view is beautiful and very picturesque, for, from the eminence on which it is perched, the eye discovers on every side prairies spreading away beyond its reach interspersed with thickets or groves of trees. The soil is very good, producing much corn. The Indians gather also quantities of plums and grapes, from which good wine could be made if they choose."

" No sooner had we arrived than M. Jollyet and I assembled the Sachems. He told them that he was sent by our governor to discover new countries, and I by the Almighty to illumine them with the light of the gospel ; that the Sovereign Master of our lives wished to be known to all nations, and that to obey his will I did not fear death, to which I exposed myself in such dangerous voyages ; that we needed two guides to put us on our way ; these, making them a present, we begged them to grant us. This they did very civilly, and even proceeded to speak to us by a present, which was a mat to serve us on our voyage."

" The next day, which was the 10th of J une, two Miamis whom they had given us as guides embarked with us in the sight of a great crowd, who could not wonder enough to see seven Frenchmen, alone in two canoes, dare to undertake so strange and so hazardous an expedition."

" We knew that there was, three leagues from Maskoutens, a river emptying into the Mississippi. We knew, too, that the point of the compass we were to hold to reach it was the west-southwest, but the

* The village was near the mouth of Wolf River, which empties into Winnebago Lake, Wisconsin. The stream was formerly called the Maskouten, and a tribe of this name dwelt along its banks.

Marquette'S Voyage

way is so cut up with marshes and little lakes that it is easy to go astray, especially as the river leading to it is so covered with wild oats that you can hardly discover the channel ; hence we had need of our two guides, who led us safely to a portage of twenty -seven hundred paces and helped us transport our canoes to enter this river, after which they returned, leaving us alone in an unknown country in the hands of Providence."*

" We now leave the waters which flow to Quebec, a distance of four or five hundred leagues, to follow those which will henceforth lead us into strange lands.

" Our route was southwest, and after sailing about thirty leagues we perceived a place which had all the appearances of an iron mine, and in fact one of our party who had seen some before averred that the one we had found was very rich and very good. After forty leagues on this same route we reached the mouth of our river, and finding ourselves at 42^° N. we safely entered the Mississippi on the 17th of June with a joy that I cannot express."!

* This portage has given the name to Portage City, Wisconsin, where the upper waters of Fox River, emptying into Green Bay, approach the Wisconsin River, which, coming from the northwest, here changes its course to the southwest. The distance from the Wisconsin to the Fox River at this point is, according to Henry R. Schoolcraft, a mile and a half across a level prairie, and the level of the two streams is so nearly the same that in high water loaded canoes formerly passed from the one to the other across this low prairie. For many miles below the portage the channel of Fox River was choked with a growth of tangled wild rice. The stream frequently expanding into little lakes, and its winding, crooked course through the prairie, well justifies the tradition of the Winnebago Indians concerning its origin. A vast serpent that lived in the waters of the Mississippi took a freak to visit the great lakes ; he left his trail where he crossed over the prairie, which, collecting the waters as they fell from the rains of heaven, at length became Fox River. The little lakes along its course were, probably, the places where he flourished about in his uneasy slumbers at night. Mrs. John H. Kinzie's Waubun, p. 80.

t Father Marquette, agreeably to his vow, named the river the Immaculate Conception. Nine years later, when Robert La Salle, having discovered the river in its entire length, took possession at its mouth of the whole Mississippi Valley, he named the river Colbert, in honor of the Minister of the Navy, a man renowned alike for his ability, at the head of the Department of the Marine, and for the encouragement he gave to literature, science and art. Still later, in 1712, when the vast country drained by its waters was farmed out to private enterprise, as appears from letters patent from the King of France, conveying the whole to M. Crozat, the name of the river was_ changed to St. Lewis. Fortunately the Mississippi retains its aboriginal name, which is a compound from the two Algonquin words missi, signifying great, and sepe, a river. The former is variously pronounced missil or michil, as in Michilimakinac ; michi, as in Michigan ; missu, as in Missouri, and missi, as in the Mississeneway of the Wabash. The variation in pronunciation is not greater than we might expect in an unwritten language. "The Western Indians," says Mr. Schoolcraft, " have no other word than missi to express the highest degree of magnitude, either in a moral or in a physical sense, and it may be considered as not only synonymous to our word great, but also magnificent, supreme, stupendous, etc." Father Hennepin, who next to Marquette wrote concerning the derivation of the name, says : " Mississippi, in the language of the Illinois, means the great river." Some authors, perhaps with more regard for a pleasing fiction than plain matter-of-fact, have rendered Mississippi "The Father of Waters;" whereas, nos, nonsscif and nosha mean father, and neebi, >iipi or nepee mean water, as universally in the dialect of Algonquin tribes, as does the word missi mean great and sepi a river.

" Having descended as far as 41° 28', following the same direction, we find that turkeys have taken the place of game, and pisikious (buffalo) or wild cattle that of other beasts.

" At last, on the 25th of June, we perceived foot-prints of men by the water-side and a beaten path entering a beautiful prairie. We stopped to examine it, and concluding that it was a path leading to some Indian village we resolved to go and reconnoitre ; we accordingly left our two canoes in charge of our people, cautioning them to beware of a surprise ; then M. Jollyet and I undertook this rather hazardous discovery for two single men, who thus put themselves at the mercy of an unknown and barbarous people. We followed the little path in silence, and having advanced about two leagues we discovered a village on the banks of the river, and two others on a hill half a league from the former. Then, indeed, we recommended ourselves to God with all our hearts, and having implored his help we passed on undiscovered, and came so near that we even heard the Indians talking. We then deemed it time to announce ourselves, as we did, by a cry which we raised with all our strength, and then halted, without advancing any farther. At this cry the Indians rushed out of their cabins, and having probably recognized us as French, especially seeing a black gown, or at least having no reason to distrust us, seeing we were but two and had made known our coming, they deputed four old men to come and speak to us. Two carried tobacco-pipes well adorned and trimmed with many kinds of feathers. They marched slowly, lifting their pipes toward the sun as if offering them to it to smoke, but yet without uttering a single wTord. They were a long time coming the little way from the village to us. Having reached us at last, they stopped to consider us attentively.

" I now took courage, seeing these ceremonies, which are used by them only with friends, and still more on seeing them covered with stuffs which made me judge them to be allies. I, therefore, spoke to them first, and asked them who they were. They answered that they were Illinois, and in token of peace they presented their pipes to smoke. They then invited us to their village, where all the tribe awaited us with impatience. These pipes for smoking are all called in this country calumets, a word that is so much in use that I shall be obliged to employ it in order to be understood, as I shall have to speak of it frequently.

;' At the door of the cabin in which we were to be received was an old man awaiting us in a very remarkable posture, which is their usual ceremony in receiving strangers. This man was standing perfectly naked, with his hands stretched out and raised toward the sun, as if he wished to screen himself from its rays, which, nevertheless, passed through his fingers to his face. When we came near him he paid us this compliment : ' How beautiful is the sun, O Frenchman, when thou comest to visit us ! All our town awaits thee, and thou shalt enter all our cabins in peace.' He then took us into his, where there was a crowd of people, who devoured us with their eyes but kept a profound silence. We heard, however, these words occasionally addressed to us : ' Well done, brothers, to visit us ! ' As soon as we had taken our places they showed us the usual civility of the country, which is to present the calumet. You must not refuse it unless you would pass for an enemy, or at least for being very impolite. It is, however, enough to pretend to smoke. While all the old men smoked after us to honor us, some came to invite us, on behalf of the great sachem of all the Illinois, to proceed to his town, where he wished to hold a council with us. We went with a good retinue, for all the people who had never seen a Frenchman among them could not tire looking at us ; they threw themselves on the grass by the wayside, they ran ahead, then turned and walked back to see us again. All this was done without noise, and with marks of a great respect entertained for us.

" Having arrived at the great sachem's town, we espied him at his cabin door between two old men ; all three standing naked, with their calumet turned to the sun. He harangued us in a few w7ords, to congratulate us on our arrival, and then presented us his calumet and made us smoke ; at the same time we entered his cabin, where we received all their usual greetings. Seeing all assembled and in silence, I spoke to them by four presents which I made. By the first, I said that we marched in peace to visit the nations on the river to the sea ; by the second, I declared to them that God, their creator, had pity on them, since, after their having been so long ignorant of him, he wished to become known to all nations ; that I was sent on his behalf with this design ; that it was for them to acknowledge and obey him ; by the third, that the great chief of the French informed them that he spread peace everywhere, and had overcome the Iroquois ; lastly, by the fourth, we begged them to give us all the information they had of the sea, and of nations through which we should have to pass to reach it.

" When I had finished my speech, the sachem rose, and laying his hand on the head of a little slave whom he was about to give us, spoke thus : ' I thank thee, Black-gown, and thee, Frenchman,' addressing M. Jollyet, ' for taking so much pains to come and visit us. Never has the earth been so beautiful, nor the sun so bright, as to-day ; never has our river been so calm, nor so free from rocks, which your canoes have removed as they passed ; never has our tobacco had so fine a flavor, nor our corn appeared so beautiful as we behold it to-day. Here is my son that I give thee that thou mayest know my heart. I pray thee take pity on me and all my nation. Thou knowest the Great Spirit who has made us all ; thou speakest to him and hearest his word ; ask him to give me life and health, and come and dwell with us that we may know him.'' Saying this, he placed the little slave near us and made us a second present, an all mysterious calumet, which they value more than a slave. By this present he showed us his esteem for our governor, after the account we had given of him. By the third he begged us, on behalf of his whole nation, not to proceed farther on account of the great dangers to which we exposed ourselves.

" I replied that I did not fear death, and that I esteemed no happiness greater than that of losing my life for the glory of him who made us all. But this these poor people could not understand. The council was followed by a great feast which consisted of four courses, which we had to take with all their ways. The first course was a great wooden dish full of sagamity, - that is to say, of Indian meal boiled in water and seasoned with grease. The master of ceremonies, with a spoonful of sagamity, presented it three or four times to my mouth, as we would do with a little child ; he did the same to M. Jollyet. For the second course, he brought in a second dish containing three fish ; he took some pains to remove the bones, and having blown upon it to cool it, put it in my mouth as we would food to a bird. For the third course they produced a large dog which they had just killed, but, learning that we did not eat it, withdrew it. Finally, the fourth course was a piece of wild ox, the fattest portions of which were put into our mouths.

" We took leave of our Illinois about the end of June, and embarked in sight of all the tribe, who admire our little canoes, having never seen the like.

"As we were discoursing, while sailing gently down a beautiful, still, clear water, we heard the noise of a rapid into which we were about to fall. I have seen nothing more frightful ; a mass of large trees, entire, with branches, - real floating islands, - came rushing from the mouth of the river Pekitanoiii, so impetuously that we could not, without great danger, expose ourselves to pass across. The agitation was so great that the water was all muddy and could not get clear.*

* Pekitanoiii, with the aboriginals, signified " muddy water," on the authority of Father Marest, in his letter referred to in a previous note. The present name, Missouri, according to Le Page du Pratz, vol. 2, p. 157, was derived from the tribe, Missouris, whose village was some forty leagues above its mouth, and who massacred a French garrison situated in that part of the country. The late statesman and orator, Thomas A. Benton, referring to the muddiness prevailing at all seasons of the year in the Missouri River, said that its waters were "too thick to swim in and too thin to walk on."

Plot Against Marquette'S Life

"After having made about twenty leagues due south, and a little less to the southeast, we came to a river called Ouabouskigou, the mouth of which is at 36° north.* This river comes from the country on the east inhabited by the Chaouanons, in such numbers that they reckon as many as twenty-three villages in one district, and fifteen in another, lying quite near each other. They are by no means warlike, and are the people the Iroquois go far to seek in order to wage an unprovoked war upon them ; and as these poor people cannot defend themselves they allow themselves to be taken and carried off like sheep, and, innocent as they are, do not fail to experience the barbarity of the Iroquois, who burn them cruelly.'

Having: arrived about half a league from Akansea (Arkansas River), we saw two canoes coming toward us. The commander was standing up holding in his hand a calumet, with wThich he made signs according to the custom of the country. He approached us, singing quite agreeably, and invited us to smoke, after which he presented us some sagamity and bread made of Indian corn, of which we ate a little. We fortunately found among them a man who understood Illinois much better than the man we brought from Mitchigameh. By means of him, I first spoke to the assembly by ordinary presents. They admired what I told them of God and the mysteries of our holy faith, and showed a great desire to keep me with them to instruct them.

" We then asked them what they knew of the sea ; they replied that we were only ten days' journey from it (we could have made the distance in five days) ; that they did not know the nations who inhabited it, because their enemies prevented their commerce with those Europeans ; that the Indians with fire-arms whom we had met were their enemies, who cut off the passage to the sea, and prevented their making the acquaintance of the Europeans, or having any commerce with them ; that besides we should expose ourselves greatly by passing on, in consequence of the continual war parties that their enemies sent out on the river ; since, being armed and used to war, we could not, without evident danger, advance on that river which they constantly occupy.

" In the evening the sachems held a secret council on the design of some to kill us for plunder, but the chief broke up all these schemes, and sending for us, danced the calumet in our presence, and then, to remove all fears, presented it to me.

*The Wabash here appears, for the first time, by name. A more extended notice of the various names by which this stream has been known will be given farther on.

covery that we had made. After having attentively considered that we were not far from the Gulf of Mexico, the basin of which is 31° 40' north, and we at 33° 40'; so that we could not be more than two or three days' journey oft"; that the Mississippi undoubtedly had its mouth in Florida or the Gulf of Mexico, and not on the east in Virginia, whose sea-coast is at 34° north, which we had passed, without having as yet reached the sea, nor on the western side in California, because that would require a west, or west-southwest course, and we had always been going south. We considered, moreover, that we risked losing the fruit of this voyage, of which we could give no information, if we should throw ourselves into the hands of the Spaniards, who would undoubtedly at least hold us as prisoners. Besides it was clear that we were not in a condition to resist Indians allied to Europeans, numerous and expert in the use of tire-arrns, who continually infested the lower part of the river. Lastly, we had gathered all the information that could be desired from the expedition. All these reasons induced us to return. This we announced to the Indians, and after a day's rest prepared for it.

"After a month's navigation down the Mississippi, from the 42d to below the 34th degree, and after having published the gospel as well as I could to the nations I had met, we left the village of Akansea on the 17th of July, to retrace our steps. We accordingly ascended the Mississippi, which gave us great trouble to stem its currents. We left it, indeed, about the 3Sth degree, to enter another river (the Illinois), which greatly shortened our wray, and brought us, with little trouble, to the lake of the Illinois.

" We had seen nothing like this river for the fertility of the land, its prairies, woods, wild cattle, stag, deer, wild-cats, bustards, swans, ducks, parrots, and even beaver ; its many little lakes and rivers. That on which we sailed is broad deep and gentle for sixty-five leagues. During the spring and part of the summer, the only portage is half a league.

" We found there an Illinois town called Kaskaskia, composed of seventy-four cabins ; they received us well, and compelled me to promise them to return and instruct them. One of the chiefs of this tribe, with his young men, escorted us to the Illinois Lake, whence at last we returned in the close of September to the Bay of the Fetid (Green Bay), whence we had set out in the beginning of June. Had all this voyage caused but the salvation of a single soul, I should deem all my fatigue well repaid, and this I have reason to think, for, when I was returning, I passed by the Indians of Peoria. I was three days announcing the faith in their cabins, after which, as we were embarking, they brought me, on the water's edge, a dying child, which I baptized a little before it expired, by an admirable providence for the salvation of that innocent soul."

Count Frontenac, writing from Quebec to M. Colbert, Minister of the Marine, at Paris, under date of November 14, 1674, announces that " Sieur Joliet, whom Monsieur Talon advised me, on my arrival from France, to dispatch for the discovery of the South Sea, has returned three months ago. He has discovered some very line countries, and a navigation so easy through beautiful rivers he has found, that a person can go from Lake Ontario in a bark to the Gulf of Mexico, there beingonly one carrying place (around Niagara Falls), where Lake Ontario communicates with Lake Erie. I send you, by my secretary, the map which Sieur Joliet has made of the great river he has discovered, and the observations he has been able to recollect, as he lost all his minutes and journals in the shipwreck he suffered within sight of Montreal, where, after having completed a voyage of twelve hundred leagues, he was near being drowned, and lost all his papers and a little Indian whom he brought from those countries. These accidents have caused me great regret."*

Louis Joliet, or Jolliet, or Jollyet, as the name is variously spelled, was the son of Jean Joliet, a wheelwright, and Mary d'Abancour; he was born at Quebec in the year 1645. Having finished his studies at the Jesuit college he determined to become a member of that order, and with that purpose in view took some of the minor orders of the society in August, 1662. He completed his studies in 1666, but during this time his attention had become interested in Indian affairs, and he laid aside all thoughts of assuming the " black gown." That he acquired great ability and tact in managing the savages, is apparent from the fact of his having been selected to discover the south sea by the way of the Mississippi. The map which he drew from memory, and which was forwarded by Count Frontenac to France, was afterward attached to Marquette's Journal, and was published by Therenot, at Paris, in 1681. Sparks, in his " Life of Marquette," copies this map, and ascribes it to his hero. This must be a mistake, since it differs quite essentially from Marquette's map, which has recently been brought to public notice by Dr. Shea.

Joliet's account of the voyage, mentioned by Frontenac, is published in Hennepin's " Discovery of a Vast Country in America." It is very meagre, and does not present any facts not covered by Marquette's narrative.

well-drawn maps at Quebec show that his office was no sinecure. Afterward, he made a voyage to Hudson's Bay in the interest of the king; and as a reward for the faithful performance of his duty, he was granted the island of Anticosti, which, on account of the fisheries and Indian trade, was at that time very valuable. After this, he signed himself Joliet d'Anticosty. In the year 1697, he obtained the seignorv of Joliet on the river Etchemins, south of Quebec. M. Joliet died in 1701, leaving a wife and four children, the descendants of whom are living in Canada still possessed of the seignorv of Joliet, among whom are Archbishop Taschereau of Quebec and Archbishop Tache of Red River.

Mount Joliet, on the Desplaines River, above its confluence with the Kankakee, and the city of Joliet, in the county of Will, perpetuate the name of Joliet in the state of Illinois.

Jacques Marquette was born in Laon, France, in 1637. His was the oldest and one of the most respectable citizen families of the place. At the age of seventeen he entered the Society of Jesus; received orders in 1666 to embark for Canada, arriving at Quebec in September of the same year. For two years he remained at Three Rivers, studying the different Indian dialects under Father Gabriel Druillentes. At the end of that period he received orders to repair to the upper lakes, which he did, and established the Mission of Sault Ste. Marie. The following year Dablon arrived, having been appointed Superior of the Ottawa missions : Marquette then went to the " Mission of the Holy Ghost " at the western extremity of Lake Superior ; here he remained for two years, and it was his accounts, forwarded from this place, that caused Frontenac and Talon to send Joliet on his voyage to the Mississippi. The Sioux having dispersed the Algonquin tribes at Lapointe, the latter retreated eastward to Mackinaw ; Marquette followed and founded there the Mission of St. Ignatius. Here he remained until Joliet came, in 1673, with orders to accompany him on his voyage of discovery down the Mississippi. Upon his return. Marquette remained at Mackinaw until October, 1674. when he received orders to carry out his pet project of founding the " Mission of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin " anions; the Illinois. He immediatelv set out, but owing to a severe dysentery, contracted the year previous, he made but slow progress. However, he reached Chicago Creek, December 4, where, growing rapidly worse, he was compelled to winter. On the 29th of the following March he set out for the Illinois town, on the river of that name. He succeeded in getting there on the 8th of April. Being cordially received by the Indians, he was enabled to realize his long deferred and much cherished project of establishing the " Mission of the Immaculate Conception." Believing that his life was drawing to a close, he endeavored to reach Mackinaw before his death should take place. But in this hope he was doomed to disappointment ; by the time he reached Lake Michigan " he was so weak that he had to be carried like a child." One Saturday, Marquette and his two companions entered a small stream - which still bears his name - on the eastern side of Lake Michigan, and in this desolate spot, virtually alone, destitute of all the comforts of life, died James Marquette. His life-long wish to die a martyr in the holy cause of Jesus and the Blessed Virgin, was granted. Thus passed away one of the purest and most sacrificing servants of God, - one of the bravest and most heroic of men.

The biographical sketch of Joliet has been collated from a number of reliable authorities, and is believed truthful. Our notice of Father Marquette is condensed from his life as written by Dr. Shea, than whom there is no one better qualified to perform the task.