Allegan County, Michigan - Chapter 4: From 1671 to 1707, 1880

French Enterprise - Marquette and Joliet discover the Mississippi - Marquette's Mission to the Illinois - His Keturn along the Edge of Allegan County - His Death - La Salle - The " Griffin" - The Port of the Miamis - La Salle's Return to Canada on Foot - His Misfortunes - Passage and Repassage along the Eastern Shore of Lake Michigan - His Subsequent Career - French Dominion - Forts in Eastern Michigan - Fear of Iroquois by VFestern Indians - Denonville's Expedition - Founding of Detroit - Pottawattamies occupy St. Joseph Valley - Ottawas and Pottawattamies jointly occupy the Territory of Allegan and Barry Counties.

After 1671 the French pushed rapidly forward in various directions, and under various leaders, to make good their possession of the lands over which they had so proudly proclaimed their sovereignty. The intrepid Jesuit, Father Jacques Marquette, inspired by zeal for his religion, was one of the foremost of these bold explorers of the Northwest. In 1 672, in company with the adventurous trader, Louis Joliet, already mentioned, he went up Green Bay into Wisconsin, and the following spring he proceeded up Fox River and down the Wisconsin, discovering the Mississippi at Prairie du Chien on the 17th of June, 1673, and exploring it for a long distance southward. Returning to Green Bay, he remained there until the autumn, when he set out to found a mission among the Illinois. He was detained by sickness near the .site of Chicago through the succeeding winter, but in the spring of 1675 he reached the Illinois, located on the river of the same name, and preached to them with all his wonted zeal.

Finding his health rapidly failing, however, he set out for Mackinaw, making his way with two or three companions in a small boat along the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. This is the first definite account we have observed of white men even skirting the shore of Allegan County, though it is not improbable that French missionaries had previously tried their eloquence on the wandering Ottawas or Miamis along its shore, nor that French fur-traders had made their way up the Kalamazoo in their eager search for valuable peltry.

Marquette's health continuing to fail, he and his companions landed on the 19th of May, and that same night he died. The place of his death is described as being " at the mouth of a small river, some distance south of Sleeping Bear Point." It has generally been supposed to have been at the mouth of Pfere Marquette River, on the site of the present town of Ludington, which was also long known by the name of P6re Marquette, but the locality is now believed to have been farther north.

But a still greater explorer than Marquette was about to traverse the lakes and lands of the Great West, though, unlike Marquette, he did not subordinate all other objects to the spread of his religion. In the month of August, 1679, the wonder-stricken savages on the shores of the Detroit River saw what seemed to them a huge canoe, with immense wings, stemming the powerful current, without the aid of oars or paddles, and swiftly traversing the placid sheet of water now known as Lake St. Clair. This was the " Griffin," a schooner of sixty tons burden, built the preceding winter and spring on the shore of the Niagara, just above the great cataract, and which on the 7th of August had set forth on the first voyage ever made by a sail-vessel over the waters of the upper lakes. Its commander was Robert Cavelier de La Salle, the most hardy and adventurous of all the gallant Frenchmen who explored the wilds of North America, and the one whose discoveries did the most to extend the dominions of his royal master.

The only portrait which has been preserved of La Salle represents him as a handsome, blue-eyed cavalier with blonde ringlets, apparently better fitted for the salons of Paris than the forests of America, but a thousand evidences show not only the courage, but the extraordinary vigor and hardihood, of this remarkable man. He was accompanied by Tonty,* a gallant Italian, who was his second in command, by Father Hennepin, a Franciscan monk, who became the historian of the expedition, and by about thirty sailors, voyageurs, hunters, etc.

The " Griffin'' passed on over the waters of Lake Huron, stayed but a brief period at the post of Mackinaw, where Tonty stopped with some of the men, and then proceeded to the mission at the head of Green Bay. Thence it was sent back with a part of its crew and a cargo of furs, while the intrepid La Salle, with a score of men, remained to explore the vast empire which lay spread before him. He and his comrades coasted around the western shore and the head of Lake Michigan in birch-bark canoes, and in the month of October reached the mouth of the St. Joseph River. To this stream he gave the name of River of the Miamis, from the Miami Indians whom he found in that vicinity, and on the site of the village of St. Joseph he built a fortified tradingpost, which he called the Fort of the Miamis.

This was the first post built on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, and its erection, together with the appearance of a French vessel in the upper lakes, was another important step in the work of subjecting the great Northwest, and especially the southwestern portion of Michigan, to French rule.

La Salle and his companions waited several weary weeks at the Fort of the Miamis for the return of the " Griffin," and also for the arrival of Tonty from Mackinaw. About the 20th of November, Tonty, with ten men, made his way in boats along the western shore of Allegan County, having left ten more men to supply the common larder by hunting a little farther north. The gallant Italian had lost an armf on a European battle-field, but was always ready to meet the greater dangers of the American wilderness or the stormy lakes with unflinching eye, and was still more distinguished for his fidelity than his courage among the many faithless followers of La Sallo. He joined his chief at the Fort of the Miamis at the time just mentioned, and was soon followed by the hunters who had been left behind.

But the " Griffin," the pioneer vessel of Lake Michigan, was never heard of after leaving Green Bay. It probably went to the bottom in a storm with all its men, but it min-ht possibly have been captured at anchor by jealous savao-es the crew butchered, and the vessel itself destroyed.

Despairing of the return of his vessel. La Salle went with the greater portion of his men to a point on the Illinois River, where he built a post to which he gave the expresive name of Fort Crevecoeur, - Broken Heart. His courage was by no means exhausted, however, and in order to obtain reinforcements and supplies he and three companions performed the remarkable feat of returning from Crevecoeur to Fort Frontenac (on the site of Kingston, Ontario) on foot, depending on their guns for support. Having once more made his way to the West he was met with new disappointment, for both the Fort of the Miamis and Fort Crevecoeur had been destroyed, and all his men, save Tonty and a few others, had deserted to join the savages or the scarcely less lawless voyageurs.

Nevertheless the intrepid explorer again re-established his posts, passing, in the autumn of 1680, along the western shore of Allegan County, and thence down the lake to Mackinaw, where he obtained twelve men, with whom he returned by the same route to the fort on the Illinois. The subsequent career of this adventurous explorer is not especially connected with the history of this region, and must be dismissed in a few words. After many other exploits and hardships he descended the Mississippi to the sea, in 1682, being the first to traverse the lower part of that stream and to prove that it; emptied into the Gulf of Mexico. He took possession of the country in the name of King Louis the Fourteenth, and called it Louisiana. Returning to France, he astonished and gratified the court of that monarch with the story of his discoveries, and in 1684 was furnished with a fleet and several hundred men to colonize the new domain. The fleet, however, through the blunders of the naval commander, landed in Texas instead of Louisiana, and after innumerable misfortunes the indomitable La Salle set out for Canada, in 1687, on foot, to seek assistance, but was assassinated while still in Texas by two of his own men.

But, notwithstanding the unfortunate end of the great discoverer, his achievements had extended the dominion of France more widely than had those of any of his compatriots, and from that time the Bourbon kings maintained an ascendency more or less complete throughout all the vast region extending from Quebec to New Orleans, until compelled to resign it nearly a century later by the prowess of the British. French vessels circled around the Great Lakes on the track of the ill-fated " Griffin," French forts and trading-posts were erected in the ' wilderness, and French missionaries bore the cross among the heathen with redoubled zeal. French adroitness succeeded in establishing and continuing friendly relations with nearly all the Indians of the Northwest, and members of nearly all the tribes found their way to Fort Frontenac, and even to Montreal, with packages of furs to sell to the children of their great father across the sea.

The English, busily engaged in building up a powerful but compact empire along the coast, scarcely attempted to rival their Gallic competitors in gaining control over the immense interior. The Indians would doubtless have rejected with scorn the idea of French ownership in the lands which they and their ancestors had so long occupied, but, as between the English and French, it was substantially understood that the dominion of the former extended from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to that of the Mississippi, the only question being where the boundary,line should be drawn between the two domains.

In 1686 Fort St. Joseph was erected near the site of the city of Port Huron, where the waters of Lake Huron enter the river St. Clair, to aid in the maintenance of French dominion over the Northwest. Soon after, a post called Fort Detroit was established near the site of Detroit. Fort St. Joseph, however, was destroyed two years after its erection, by the French themselves, and about the same time a fort bearing the same name was erected at the mouth of the St. Joseph River, on the site of La Salle's Fort of the Miamis.

The Indians of the upper lakes were the more ready to court the French, in order to obtain from them arms and ammunition with which to combat the dreaded Iroquois. In 1687 volunteers were obtained from almost all the tribes of the Northwest to join the expedition of the Marquis de Denonville, Governor-General of Canada, against those fierce confederates. Tonty led one band of about two hundred from Illinois to Detroit, while the main body, consisting of Oltawus, Pottawattamies, Chrppewas, and others, assembled at Mackinaw. Their conduct was somewhat doubtful, but La Durantaye, the French commander, waylaid and captured some English boats which were on their way with goods to be traded with the savages, distributed their contents among the latter, gained their zealous friendship, and led them to Fort Detroit.

Thence they all proceeded to the southern shore of Lake Ontario, where they assisted Denonville to defeat the Senecas in battle, but without materially diminishing their power or thit of their brother Iroquois. A few prisoners were captured, and Denonville wrote about the atrocities committed by " our rascally Ottawas," whom he also accused of cowardice in the fight.

Fort Detroit was soon after abandoned, and for many years the only French posts in Michigan were those at Saut Sainte Marie, Mackinaw, and the mouth of the St. Joseph River. The Miamis continued a great part of the time on the latter river, but they were absent for about ten yeaw after 1681, and in 1697 a large number of them were massacred by the Sioux, and many, but not all, of the remainder fled the country. The territory of Allegan and Barry Counties remained a debatable .ground between the Miamis and Ottawas, unoccupied save by winter huntingparties, but to all appearances more fully under the control of the Ottawas than of any other tribe.

In 1701, La Motte Cadillac, who had been for several years the commandant at Mackinaw, established a permanent post on the " detroifc," or strait, between Lakes Erie and St. Clair, which was at first known as Fort Ponchartrain, but soon received the appellation of Detroit, which, as post, village, and city, it has retained to this day. Cadillac immediately made strenuous efi'orts to induce all the various tribes of the Northwest who were friendly to the French to locate themselves around Fort Ponchartrain, evidently desirous to have them well in hand, so that the French commanders could more easily lead them on warlike expeditions against the English and Iroquois. A portion of the Ottawas accepted his invitation, while the remainder continued to keep their headquarters at IMackinaw, and to occupy their hunting-grounds on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. About 1707 the Miamis, who were located on the St. Joseph River, removed to Detroit. Their place was supplied almost immediately by the warlike Pottawattamies, who established their chief seats along the lower St. Joseph, and whose hunting-parties roamed northward until they met those of their friends and allies, the Ottawas, in or near the territory of Allegan and Barry Counties. The Ottawas and Pottawattamies occupied the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, including the counties of Allegan and Barry, nearly one hundred and thirty years, and the account of their dominion must be reserved for another chapter.