Fillmore County, Minnesota - Footprints of Civilization Toward the Extremity of Lake Superior, 1882

Footprints of Civilization Toward the Extremity of Lake Superior

Hinn«so(a'k Ceotrml Podition. - D'Avagour's Prediction. - Nioolot's Visit to Green Bay. - rir»t White Men in Minnesota - ^Ifoticei of Groselliers and Radiaiion. - llfmoM Fleo to Minneuta. - Visited by FVrnchmen. - Father Menard Disappears. - Onwel Iters Visits Hudson's Bay. - Father Alloaei Describes the Sioux Mission at La Pointe. - Father Marquette. - Sioux at Sault St. Marie. - Jesuit Miskioos FhII. - Groselliers Visits England. - Captain Giliam, of Boston, atHai!- aoo'i Bay, - Letter of Mother Superior of Visulines., at Quebec. - Death of OnoMlliers.

The Dakotahs, called by the Ojibways, Kaclowaysioux, or Sioux (Sees), as abbreviated by the French, used to claim superiority over other people, because, their sacred men asserted that the mouth of the Minnesota River was immediately over the centre of the earth, and below the centre of the heavens.

While this teaching is very different from that of the modem astronomer, it is certainly tiiie, that the region west of Lake Superior, extending through the valley of the Minnesota, to the Missouri River, is one of the mo^t healthful and fertile regions beneath the skies, and may prove to be the centre of the republic of the United States of America. Baron D'Avagour, a brave officer, who was killed in fighting the Turks, while he was Governor of Canada, in a dispatch to the French Government, dated August 14th, 1663, after referring to Lake Huron, wrote, that beyond " is met another, called Lake Superior, the waters of wliich, it is believed, flow into New Spain, and this, accoi'ding to general opinion, aught to he the centre of tlie country,

As early as 1635, one of Champlain's interpreters, Jean Nicolet (Nicolay), who came to Canada in 1618, reached the western shores of Lake ^lichigan. In the summer of 1634 he ascended the St. Lawrence, with a party of Ilurons, and pi-obably during the next winter was trading at Green liay, in Wisconsin. On the ninth of December, 1635, he had returned to Canada, and on the 7th of October, 1637, was married at Quebec, and the next month, went to Three Rivera, where he lived until 1642, when he died. Of him it is said, in a letter written in 1640, that he had penetrated farthest into those distant countries, and that if he had proceeded " three days more on a gi'eat river which flows from that lake [Green Bay] he would have found the sea."

The first white men in Mumesota, of whom we have any record, were, according to Gameau, two persons of Huguenot aflinities, Medard Chouart, known as Sieur Groselliers, and Pierre d'Esprit, called Sieur Radisson.

Groselliers (pronoimced Gro-zay-yay) was bom near Ferte-sous-Jouarre, eleven miles east of Meaux, in France, and when about sixteen years of age, in the year 1641, came to Canada. The fur trade was the great avenue to prosperity, and in 1646, he was among the Huron Indians, who then dwelt upon the eastern shore of Lake Huron, bartering for peltries. On the second of September, 1647, at Quebec, he was married to Helen, the widow of Claude Etienne, who was the daughter of a pilot, Abraham Martin, whose baptismal name is still attached to the suburbs of that city, the "Plains of Abraham," made famous by the death there, of General Wolfe, of the Enghsh army, in 1759, and of General Montgomery, of the Continental armv, in December, 1775, at the commencement of the " War for Independence." His son, Medard, was bom in 1657, and the next year his mother died. The second wife of Groselliers was Marguerite Ilayet(nayay) Radisson, the sister of his associate, in the exploration of the region west of Lake Superior.

Radisson was bom at St. Malo, and, while a boy, went to Paris, and from thence to Canada, and in 1656, at Three Rivers, married Elizabeth, the daughter of Madeleine Hainault, and, after her death, the daughter of Sir David Kirk or Kerkt, a zealous Huguenot, became his wife.

The Iroquois of New York, about the year 1650, drove the Hurons from their villages, and forced them to take refuge with their friends the Tinontates, called by the French, Petims, because they cultivated tobacco. In time the Hurons and their allies, the Ottawas (Ottaw- waws), were again driven by the Iroquois, and after successive wanderings, were found on the west side of Lake Michigan. In time they reached the Mississippi, and ascending above the Wisconsin, they found the Iowa River, on the west side, which they followed, and dwelt for a time with the Ayoes (loways) who were very friendly ; but being accustomed to a country of lakes and forests, they were not satisfied with the vast prairies. Returning to the Mississippi, they ascended this river, in search of a better land, and were met by some of the Sioux or Dakotahs, and conducted to their villages, where they were well received. The Sioux, delighted with the axes, knives and awls of European manufacture, which had been presented to them, allowed the refugees to settle upon an island in the Mississippi, below the mouth of the St. Croix River, called Bald Island from the absence of trees, about nine miles from the site of the present city of Hastings. Possessed of firearms, the Hurons and Ottawas asserted their superiority, and determined to conquer the country for themselves, and having incurred tlie hostility of the Sioux, were obliged to flee from the isle in the Mississippi Descending below Lake Pepin, they reached the Black River, and ascending it, foimd an unoccupied country around its sources and that of the Chippeway. In this region the Hurons established themselves, while their allies, the Ottawas, moved eastward, till they foimd the shores of Lake Superior, and settled at Chagouamikon (Sha-gah-wah-mik-ong) near what is now Bayfield. In the year 1659, Groselliers and Radisson arrived at Chagouamikon, and determined to visit the Hurons and Petuns, vdih whom the former had traded when they resided east of Lake Huron. After a six days' journey, in a southwesterly direction, they reached their retreat toward the sources of the Black, Chippewa, and Wisconsin Rivers. From this point tliey journeyed north, and passed the winter of 1659-60 among the " Nadouechiouec," or Sioux villages in the Mille Lacs (Mil Lak) region. From the Hurons they learned of a beautiful river, wide, laige, deep, and comparable with the Saint LawTence, the great Mississippi, which flows through the city of Minneapolis, and whose sources are in northem Minnesota.

Northeast of Mille Lacs, toward the extremity of Lake Superior, they met the '* Poualak," or Assiniboines of the prairie, a separated band of the Sioux, who, as wood was scarce and small, made fire with coal (charbon de terre) and dwelt in tents of skins ; although some of the more industrious built cabins of clay (terre grasse), like the swallows build their nests.

The spring and summer of 1660, Groselliers and Radisson passed in trading around Lake Superior. On the 19th of August they returned to Montreal, with three hundred Indiaais and sixty canoes loaded with " a wealth of skins."

The citizens were deeply stirred by the travelers' tales of tlie vastness and richness of the region they had visited, and their many romantic adventures. In a few days, they began their return to the far West, accompanied by six Frenchmen and two priests, one of whom was the Jesuit, Rene Menard. His hair whitened by age, and his mind ripened l)y long experience, he s-eemed the man for the mission. Two hours after midnight, of the day before departure, the veneiable missionary penned at Three Rivers," the following letter to a friend :

'Reveuend Father: " The peace of Christ be with you : I write to you probably the last, which I hope will be the seal of our friendship mi til etemity. Love whom the Lord Jesus did not disdain to love, though the greatest of sinners; for he loves whom he

Father Menard Lost In Wisconsin

" In three or four months you may remember me at the memento for the dead, on accoimt of my old age, my weak constitution and the hardships I lay under amongst these tribes. Nevertheless, I am in peace, for I have not been led to this mission by any temporal motive, but I think it was by the voice of God. I was to resist the grace of God by not coming. Eternal remorse would have tormented me, had I not come when 1 had the opportunity.

" We have been a little surprized, not being able to pro\dde ourselves with vestments and other things, but he who feeds the httle birds, and clothes the lilies of the fields, will take care of his serv^ants; and though it should happen we should die of want, we would esteem ourselves happy. I am burdened with business. What I can do is to recommend our journey to your daily sacrifice, and to embrace you with the same sentiments of heart as I hope to do in eternity. " My Beverend Father,

On tlie 16th of October, the party with which he journeyed reached a bay on Lake Superior, where he found some of the Ottawas, who had fled from the Iroquois of New York. For more than eight months, surrounded by a few French voyageurs, he lived, to use his words, " in a kind of small hermitage, a cabin built of fir branches piled one on another, not so much to shield us from the rigor of the season as to correct my imagination, and persuade me I was sheltered."

During the summer of 1661, he resolved to visit the Ilurons, who had fled eastward from the Sioux of Minnesota, and encamped amid the marshes of Northern W isconsin. Some Frenchmen, who had been among the Hurons, in vain attempted to dissuade him from the journey. To their entreaties he replied, I must go, if it cost me my life. I can not suffer souls to perish on the ground of saving the bodily life of a miserable old man like myself. What! Are we to serve God only when there is nothing to suffer, and no risk of hfe?"

Upon De I'Isle's map of Louisiana, published nearly two centuries ago, there appears the Lake of the Ottawas, and the Lake of the Old or Deserted Settlement, west of Green Bay, and south of Lake Superior. The Lake of the Old Plantation is supposed to have been the spot occupied by the Hurons at the time when Menard attempted to visit them. One way of access to this secluded spot was from Lake Superior to the headwater of the Ontanagon River, and then by a portage, to the lake. It could also be reached from the headwaters of the Wisconsin, Black and Chippewa Rivers, and some have said that Menard descended the Wisconsin and ascended the Black River.

Perrot, who hved at the same time, writes: Father Menard, who was sent as missionary among the Outaouas [Utaw-waws] accompanied by certain Frenchmen who were going to trade with that people, was left by all who were with him, except one, who rendered to him until death, all of the services and help that he could have hoped. The Father followed the Outaouas fUtawwaws] to the Lake of the Illinoets [lUino-ay , now Michigan] and in their flight to the Louisianne, [Mississippi] to above the Black River. There this missionary had but one Frenchman for a companion. This Frenchman carefully followed the route, and made a portage at the same place as the Outaouas. He found himself in a rapid, one day, that was carrying him away in his canoe. The Father, to assist, debarked from his own, but did npt find a good path to come to him. He entered one that had been made by beasts, and desiring to return, became confused in a labyrinth of trees, and was lost. The Frenchman, after havmg ascended the rapids with great labor, awaited the good Father, and, as he did not come, resolved to search for him. With all his might, for several days, he called his name in the woods, hoping to find him, but it was useless. He met, however, a Sakis [Sauk] who was carrying the camp-kettle of the missionary, and who gave him some intelligence. He assured him that he had found his foot -prints at some distance, but that he had not seen the Father. He told him, also, that he had found the tracks of several, who were going towards the Scioux. He declared that he supposed that the Scioux might have killed or captured him. Indeed, several years afterwards,

Groselliers (Gro-zay-yay), while Menard was endeavoring to reach the retreat of the Hurons^ which he had made known to the authorities of Canada, was pushing through the country of the Assineboines, on the northwest shore of Lake Superior, and at length, probably by Lake Alempigon, or Nepigon, reached Hudson's Bay, and early in May, 1662, returned to Montreal, and surprised its citizens with his tale of new discoveries toward the Sea of the North.

The Hurons did not remain long toward the sources of the Black Eiver, after Menard's disappearance, and deserting uheir plantations, joined their allies, the Ottawas, at La Pointe, now Bayfield, on Lake Superior. While here, they determined to send a war party of one himdred against the Sioux of Mille Lacs (Mil Lak) region. At length they met their foes, who drove them into one of the thousand marshes of the water-shed between Lake Superior and the Mississippi, where they hid themselves among the tall grasses. The Sioux, suspecting that they might attempt to escape in the night, cut up beaver skins into strips, and himg thereon little bells, which they had obtained from the French traders. The Hurons, emerging from tbeir watery hiding place, stumbled over the unseen cords, ringing the bells, and the Sioux instantly attacked, killing all but one.

About the year 1665, four Frenchmen visited the Sioux of Minnesota, from the west end of Lake Superior, accompanied by an Ottawa chief, and in the summer of the same year, a flotilla of canoes laden with peltries, came down to Montreal. Upon their return, on the eighth of August, the Jesuit Father, AUouez, accompanied the traders, and, by the first of October, reached Chegoimegon Bay, on or near the site of the modem town of Bayfield, on Lake Superior, where he foimd the refugee Hurons and Ottawas. While on an excursion to Lake Alempigon, now Nepigon, this missionary saw, near the mouth of Saint Louis Biver, in Mimiosota, some of the Sioux. He writes : " There is a tribe to the west of this, toward the great river called Messipi.

They are forty or fifty leagues from here, in a country of prairies, abounding in all kinds of game. They have fields, in which they do not sow Indian com, but only tobacco. Providence has provided them with a species of marsh rice, which, toward the end of summer, they go to collect in certain small lakes, that are covered with it. They presented me with some when I was at the extremity of Lake Tracy [Superior], where I saw them. They do not use the gim, but only the bow and arrow with great dexterity. Their cabins are not covered with bark, but with deerskins well dried, and stitched together so that the cold does not enter. These people are above all other savage and warlike. In our presence they seem abashed, and were motionless as statues. They speak a language entirely unknown to us, and the savages about here do not understand them."

The mission at La Pointe was not encouraging, and Allouez, " weary of their obstinate unbelief," departed, but Marquette succeeded him for abrief period.

There are certain people called Nadoussl, dreaded by their neighbors, and although they only use the bow and arrow, they use it with so much skill and dexterity, that in a moment they fill the air. After the Parthian method, they tum their heads in flight, and discharge their arrows so rapidly that they are to be feared no less in their retreat than in their attack.

"They dwell on the shores and aroimd the great river Messipi, of which we shall speak. They number no less than fifteen populous towns, and yet they know not how to cultivate the earth by seeding it, contenting themselves with a sort of marsh rye, which we call wild oats.

" For sixty leagues from the extremity of the upper lakes, towards sunset, and, as it were, in the centre of the westem nations, they have all imited their force by a general league, which has been made against them, as against a conmion enemy.

" They speak a peculiar language, entirely distinct from that of the Algonquins and Hurons, whom they generally surpass in generosity, since they often content themselves with the glory of

Qboselliers And Badisson In The English Service

" Our Outouacs of the Point of the Holy Ghost [La Pointe, now Bayfield] had to the present time kept np a kind of peace with them, but affairs having become embroiled during last winter, and some murders having been committed on both sides, our savages had reason to apprehend that the storm would soon burst upon them, and judged that it was safer for them to leave the place, which in fact they did" in the spring."

Marquette, on the 13th of September, 1669, writes : " The Nadouessi are the Iroquois of this country. * * * they lie northwest of the Mission of the Holy Ghost [La Pointe, the modem Bayfield] and we have not yet visited them, having confined ourselves to the conversion of the Ottawas."

Soon after this, hostilities began between the Sioux and the Hurons and Ottawas of La Pointe, and the former compelled their foes to seek another rusting place, toward the eastern extremity of Lake Suiierior, and at length they pitched their tents at Mackinaw.

In 1674, some Sioux warriors came down to Sault Saint Marie, to make a treaty of peace with adjacent tribes. A friend of the Abbe de Gallinee wrote that a council was had at the fort to which "the Nadouessioux sent twelve deputies, and the others forty. During the conference, one of the latter, knife in hand, drew near the breast of one of the Nadouessioux, who showed surprise at the movement ; when the Indian with the knife reproached him for cowardice. Tlie Nadouessioux said he was not afraid, when the other planted the knife in his heart, and killed him. All the savages then engaged in conflict, and the ^Nadouessioux bravely defended themselves, but, overwhelmed by numbers, nine of them were killed. The two who survived rushed into the chapel, and closed the door. Here they found munitions of war, and fired guns at their enemies, who became anxious to bum down the chapel, but the Jesuits would not permit it, because they had their skins stored between its roof and ceiling. In this extremity, a Jesuit, Louis Le Boeme, advised that a cannon should be pointed at the door, which was discharged, and the two brave Sioux were killed.'' at the occurrence, and in a letter to Colbert, one of the Ministers of Louis tlie Fourteenth, speaks in condemnation of this discharge of a cannon by a Brother attached to the Jesuit Mission.

From this period, the missions of the Church of Kome, near Lake Superior, began to wane. Shea, a devout historian of that church, writes: " In 1680, Father Enjalran was apparently alone at Green Bay, and Pierson at Mackinaw ; the latter mission still comprising the two villages, Huron and Kiskakon. Of the other missions, neither Le Clerq nor Hennepin, the Recollect, writers of the West at this time, makes any mention, or in any way alludes to their existence, and La Hontan mentions the Jesuit missions only to ridicule them."

The Pigeon River, a part of the northem boundary of Minnesota, was called on the Frencli maps Grosellier's River, after the first explorer of Minnesota, whose career, with his associate Hadisson, became quite prominent in connection with the Hudson Bay region.

A disagreement occurring between Groselliers and his partners in Quebec, he proceeded to Paris, and from thence to London, where he was introduced to the nephew of Charles L, who led the cavalry charge against Fairfax and Cromwell at Naseby, afterwards commander of the English fleet. The Prince listened with pleasure to the narrative of travel, and endorsed the plans for prosecuting the fur trade and seeking a northwest passage to Asia. The scientific men of England were also full of the enterprise, in the hope that it would increase a knowledge of nature. The Secretary of the Royal Society wrote to Robert Boyle, the distinguished philosopher, a too sanguine letter. His words were : " Surely I need not tell you from hence what is said here, with great joy, of the discovery of a northwest passage; and by two Englishmen and one Frenchman represented to his Majesty at Oxford, and answered by the grant of a vessel to sail into Hudson's Bay and channel into the South Sea."

The ship Nonsuch was fitted out, in charge of Captain Zachary Gillam, a son of one of the early settlers of Boston ; and in this vessel Groselliers and Radisson left the Thames, in Jime, 1668, and in September reached a tributary of Hudson's Bay. The next year, by way of Boston, they returned to England, and in 1670, a trading corn-

It was about this time that a Frenchman of our Touraine, named des Groselliers, married in this country, and as he had not been successful in making a fortune, was seized with a fancy to go to New England to better his condition. He excited a hope among the English that he had found a passage to the Sea of the North. With this expectation, he was sent as an envoy to England, where there was given to him, a vessel, with crew and every thing necessary for the voyage. With these advantages, he put to sea, and in place of the usual route, which others had taken in vain, he sailed in another direction, and searched so wide, that he found the grand Bay of the North. He found large population, and filled bis ship or ships >vith peltries of great value. * * *

He has taken possession of this great region for the King of England, and for his personal benefit A publication for the benefit of this French adventurer, has been made in England. He was a youth when he arrived here, and his wife and children are yet here."

Talon, Intendent of Justice in Canada, in a dispatcli to Colbert, Minister of the Colonial Department of France, WTote on the 10th of November, 1670, that he has received intelligence that two English vessels are approaching Hudson's Bay, and adds : " After reflecting on all the nations that might have penetrated as far north as that, I can alight on only the English, who, under the guidance of a man named Des Grozellers, formerly an inhabitant of Canada, might possibly have attempted that navigation."

After years of service on the shores of Hudson's Bay, either with English or French trading companies, tlie old explorer died in Canada, and it has been said that his son went to England, where he was living in 1696, in receipt of a pension.

Eably Mention Of Lake Sijpetuob Copper

!%afimrd, A. D. 1688, on Copper Minw. - Bonohw, A. D. 1040, Deschbcit I^ik<?Snpo rior Copper. - J«uit B«lationt, A. D. - Copper on Isle Royals. - Half- Breed Yoyaireur Oo«i to Fraae« with TaJon. - Jolhet and Perrot Search for Cupper. - St. Ltuson Flanta the French Arms at Sault St. Marie. - Copper at Ontanagon and Head of Lake Superior.

Before white men had explored the shores of Lake Superior, Indians had brought to the trading posts of the St. Lawrence River, specimens of copper from that region. Sagard, in liis IIistor>' of Canada, published in 1636, at Paris, writes : " There are mines of copper which might be made profitable, if there were inhabitants and workmen who would labor faithfully. That would be done if colonies were established. About eighty or one hundred leagues from the llurons, there is a mine of copper, from which Truchemont Bmsle showed me an ingot, on his return from a voyage which he made to the neighboring nation."

Rerre Boucher, grandfather of Sieur de la Yerendrye, the explorer of the lakes of tlie northern boundary of Minnesota, in a volume published A. D. 1640, also at Paris, writes : " In Lake Superior there is a gi-eat island, fifty or one hundred leagues in circumference, in which there is a very beautiful mine of copper. There are other places m those quarU3i*s, where there are similar mines ; so I learned from four or five Frenchmen, who lately returned. They were gone three years, mthout finding an opportunit}' to retxim; they told me that they had seen an ingot of copper all refined which was on the coast, and weighed more than eight hundred poimds, according to their estimate. They said that the savages, on passing it, made a fire on it, after which they cut olf pieces with their axes."

In the Jesuit Relations of 1666-67, there is this description of Isle Royale : Advancing to a place called the Grand Anse, we meet with an island, three leagues from land, which is celebrated for the metal which is found there, and for the thunder which takes place there; for they say it always, thunders there.

But farther towards tlie west on the same north sliore, is the island most famous for copper, Minong (Isle Royale). This island is twenty-five leagues in length it is seven from the mainland, and sixty from the head of the lake. Nearly all around the island, on the water's edge, pieces of copper are found mixed "v^ith pebbles, but especially on tlie side which is opposite the south, and principally in a certain bay, which is near the northeast exposure to the great lake. * *

'^Advancing to the heiid of the lake (Fon du Lac) and retuming one day's journey by the south cofuit, there is seen on the edge of the water, a rock of copper weighing seven or eight hundred pounds, and is so hard that steel can hardly cut it, but when it is heated it cuts as easily as lead. Near Point Chagouamigong [Sha - gah - wah - mikong, near Bayfield] where a mission was established rocks of copper and plates of the Siune metal were found. * * * Returning still toward the mouth of the lake, following the coast on the south a:i twenty leagues from the place last mentioned, we enter the river called Nantaouagan [Ontonagon] on which is a hill where stones and copper fall into the water or upon the eai'th. They are readily found.

" Three years since we received a piece which wfis brought from this place, which weighed a hundred pounds, and we sent it to Quebec to Mr. Talon. It is not certain exactly wliere this was broken from. We think it was from the forks of tlie river ; others, that it was from near the lake, and dug up."

Taloii, Intendent of Justice in Canada, visited France, taking a half-breed voyageur with him, and while in Paris, wrote on the 26th of February, 1669, to Colbert, the Minister of the Marine Department, " that this voyageur had penetrated among the western nations farther than any other Frenchman, and had seen the copper piine on Lake Huron. [Superior VJ The jnan offers to go to that mine, and explore, either by sea, or by lake and river, the communication supposed to exist between Canada and the South Sea, or to the regions of Hudson's Bay."

As soon as Talon returned to Canada he commissioned Jolliet and Pere [Perrot] to search for the mines of copper on the up^er Lakes. Jolliet received an outfit of four himdred livres, and four canoes, and Perrot one thousand livres. Minisister Colbert wrote from Paris to Talon, in February, 1671, approving of the search for copper, in these words : " The resolution you have taken to send Sieur de La Salle toward the south, and Sieur de St. Lusson to the north, to discover the South Sea passage, is very good, but the principal thing you ought to apply yourself in discoveries of this nature, is to look for the copper mine.

On the 14th of June, 1671, Saint Lusson at Sault St. Marie, planted the arms of France, in the presence of Nicholas Perrot, who acted as interpreter on tlie occasion ; the Sieur Jolliet ; Pierre Moreau or Sieur de la Taupine ; a soldier of the garrison of Quebec, and several other Frenchmen.

Talon, in announcing Saint Lusson 's explorations to Colbert, on the 2d of November, 1671, wrote from Quebec : '* The copper which I send from Lake Superior and the river Nantaouagan [Ontonagon] proves that there is a mine on the border of some stream, which produces this material as pure as one could wish. More than twenty Frenchmen have seen one lump at the lake, which they estimate weighs more than eight hundred pounds. The Jesuit Fathers among the Outaouas [Ou-taw-waws] use an anvil of this material, which weighs about one hundred i)ounds. There will be no rest until the source from whence these detached lumps come is discovered.

between two high hills, the plain above which feeds the Isikes, and receives a great deal of snow, which, in melting, forms torrents which wash the borders of this river, composed of solid gravel, which is rolled down by it.

" The gravel at the bottom of this, hardens itself, and assmnes different shapes, such as those pebbles which I send to Mr* Bellinzany. My opinion is that these pebbles, rounded and carried off by the rapid waters, then have a tendency to become copper, by the influence of the sun's rays which they absorb, and to form other nuggets of metal similar to those which I send to Sieur de Bellinzany, found by the Sieur de Saint Lust on, about four hundred leagues, at some distance from the mouth of the river.

"He hoped by the frequent journeys of the savages, and French who are beginning to travel by these routes, to discern the source of uroduction."

Governor Denonville, of Canada, sixteen years after the above circumstances, wrote : " The copper, a sample of which I sent M. Amou, is found at the head of Lake Superior. The body of the mine has not yet been discovered. I have seen one of our voyageurs who assures me that, some fifteen months ago he saw a lump of two hundred weight, as yellow as gold, in a river which falls into Lake Sui)erior. Wlien heated, it could be cut with an axe ; but the superstitious Indians, regarding this boulder as a good spirit, would never permit him to take any of it away. His opinion is that the frost undermined this piece, and that the mine is in that river. He has promised to search for it on his way back."

In the year 1730, there was some correspondence with the authorities in France relative to the discovery of copper at La Pointe, but, practically, little was done by the French, in developing the mineral wealth of Lake Superior.

Da Lath's RdatiTOs. - Raadin l^ts Kxtremity of Lake Superior. - Dn Lnth Plftnta King's Arms. - Post at Kaministigoya. - Pierre MoreoF, alias Ia Tatipino.

Interpreter. - Descent of the River St. Croix. - Meets Father Hennepin. - Critin-srd by Ia Salle. - Trades with New Enirlnnd. - Visits France. - In Coniiiisind at Mackinaw. - Frenchmen Murdered at Keweenaw. - Du Luth Arrwilfi and Shfinli Xnrdcrers. - Builds Fort above Detroit. - With Indian Allies in the Seneca War. - Du Lnth's Brother. - Cadillac Defends the Brandy Traile. - Du Luth DiiM|iprovrs of Selling Brandy to the Indians. - In Command at Fort Frontenae. - Death. ^

In the year 1678, several prominent merchants of Quebec and Montreal, with the support of Governor Frontenac of Canada, formed a con»- pany to open trade with the Sioux of Minnesota, and a nephew of Patron, one of these merchants, a brotlier-in-law of Sieur de Lusi^y, an officer of the Governor's Guards, named Daniel Greysolon Du Luth [Doo-loo], a native of St. Germain en Laye, a few miles from Paris, although Lahontan speaks of him as from Lyons, was made the leader of the expedition. At the battle of Seneffe against the Prince of Orange, he was a gendarme, and one of the King's guards.

Du Luth was also a cousin of TIenry Tonty , who had been in the revolution at Naples, to throw off the Spanish dependence. Du Lutlfs name is variously spelled in the documents of his day. Hennepin writes, "Du Luth;" others, "Dulhut," " Du Lhu," " Du Lut," " De Luth," " Du Lud."

The temptation to procure valuable furs from the Lake Superior region, contrary to the letter of the Canadian law, was very great ; and more than one Governor winked at the contraband trade. Bandin, who visited the extremity of Lake Superior, distributed presents to the Sioux and Ottawas in the name of Governor Frontenac, to secure the trade, and after his death, Du Luth was sent to complete what he had begun. With a party of twenty, seventeen Frenchmen and three Indians, he left Quebec on the first of September, 1678, and on the fifth of April, 1679, Du Luth writes to Governor Frontenac, that he is in the woods, about nine miles from Sault St. Marie, at the entrance of Lake Superior, and adds that : he " will not stir from the Nadoussioux, until further orders, and, peace being concluded, he will set up the King's Arms ; lest the English and other Europeans settled towards California, take possession of the country."

On the second of July, 1679, he caused his Majesty's Arms to be planted in the great village of the Nadoussioux, called Kathio, where no Frenchman had ever been, and at Songaskicons and Houetbatons, one hundred ami twenty leagues distant from the former, where he also set up the King's Arms. In a letter to Seignalay, published for the first time by Ilarrisse, he writes that it was in the village of Izatys [Issati]. Upon Franquelin's map, the Mississippi branches uito the Tintonha [Teeton Sioux] country, and not far from here, he alleges, was seen a tree upon which was this legend: " Arms of the King cut on tliis tree in the year 1679."

He established a post at Kamanistigoya, which was distant fifteen leagues from the Grand Portage at the western extremity of Lake Superior ; and here, on the fifteenth of September, he held a council with the Assenipoulaks [Assineboines] and other tribes, and urged them to be at peace with tlie Sioux. During this summer, he dispatched Pierre Moreau, a celebrated voyageur, nicknamed La Taupine, with letters to (Governor Frontenac, and valuable furs to the merchjuits. His arrival at Quebec, created some excitement. It was charged that the Governor corresponded with Du Luth, and that he passed the beaver, sent by him, in the name of merchants in his intei-est. The Intendant of Justice, Du Chesneau, wrote to the Minister of the Colonial Department of France, that " the man named La Taupine, a famous coureur des bois, who set out in the month of September of last year, 1678, to go to the Outawacs, with goods, and who has always been interested with the Governor, having returned this year, and I, being advised that he had traded in two days, one hundred and fifty beaver r()])eB in one village of this tribe, amounting? to nearly nine hundred beavers, whidi is a matter of public notoriety ; and that he left with l)u Lnt two men whom he had witli him, considered myself bound to have him arrested, and to interrogate him ; l)ul having presented me with a license from the Govenior, permitting him and his comrades, named Lamonde and Dupuy, to repair to the Outawac, to execute his secret ordei*s, I had him set at liberty : and immediately on his going out, Sieur Prevost, Town Mayor of Quebec, came at the head of some soldiers to force the prison, in case he was still there, pui-suant to his orders from the (rovemor, in these terms : Sieur Prevost, Mayor of Quel)ec, is ordered, in case the Intendant arrest PieiTe Moreau alias La Taupine, whom we have sent to Quebec as bearer of our dispatches, upon pretext of his having been in the bush, to set lum forthwith at liberty, and to employ ever>' means for this pun^ose, at his peril. Done at Montreal, theoth September, 1679/'

La Taupine, in due time returned to Lake Superior with another consignment of merchandise. The interpreter of Du Luth, and trader with the Sioux, was Faffart, who had been a soldier under La Salle at Fort Frontenac, and had deserted.

La Salle was commissioned in 1678, by the King of France, to explore the West, and trade in Cibola, or buffalo skins, and on condition that he did not traffic with the Ottauwaws, who carried their beaver to Montreal.

On the 27th of August, 1679, he arrived at Mackinaw, in the Griffin," the fii*st sailing vessel on the great Lakes of the West, and from thence went to Green Bay, where, in the face of his commission, he traded for beaver. Loading his vessel with peltries, he sent it back to Niagara, wlule he, in canoes, proceeded with his expedition to the Illinois River. The ship was never heard of, and for a time supposed to be lost, but La Salle aftenvard learned from a Pawnee boy fourteen or fifteen years of age, wiio was brought prisoner to his fort on the Illinois by some Indians, that the pilot of the " Griffin " had been among the tribes of the Upper Missouri. He had ascended the Mississippi with four others in two birch canoes with goods and some hand grenades, taken from the ship, with the intention of jom ing Du Luth, who had for months been trading

\\ith the Sioux ; and if their efforts w^ere imsuccessful, they expected to push on to the English, at Hudson's Bay. While ascending the Mississippi they were attacked by Indians, and the pilot and one other only survived, and they were sold to the Indians on the Missouri.

In the month of Jime, 1680, Du Luth, accompanied by Faffart, an intei*preter, with four Frenchmen, also a Chippeway and a Sioux, witli two canoes, entered a river, the mouth dt which is eight leagues from the head of Lake Superior on the South side, named Kemitsakouat. Eeaching its head waters, by a short portage, of half a league, he reached a lake which was the source of the Samt Croix Biver, and by this, he and his companions were the fii-st Europeans to journey in a canoe from Lake Superior to the Mississippi.

La Salle WTites, that Du Luth, finding that the Sioux were on a hunt in the Mississippi valley, l)el()W the Saint Croix, and that Accault, Augelle and Ilennepui, who had come up from the Illinois a few weeks before, were with them, descended until he found them. In the same letter he disregards the truth in order to disparage his rivfil, and writes:

Thirty-eight or forty leagues above the Chippeway they found the river by which the Sieur Du Luth did descend to the Mississippi. He had been three years, contrary to orders, with a company of twenty coureurs du bois" on Lake Superior; he had borne himself bravely, proclaiming everywhere that at the head of his brave fellows he did not fear the Grand Prevost, and that he would compel an amnesty.

" Wliile he was at Lake Superior, the Nadouesioux, enticed by the presents that the late Sieur Bandin had made on the part of Count Frontenac, and the Sauteui-s [Ojibways], who are the savages who carry the peltries to Montreal, and who dwell on Lake Superior, wishing to obey the repeated orders of the Count, made a peace to unite the Sauteurs and French, and to trade with the Nadouesioiix, situated about sixty leagues to the west of Lake Superior. Du Luth, to disguise his desertion, seized the opportmiity to mak© some reputation for himself, sending tw^o messengers to the Count to negotiate a truce, during which period their comrades negotiated still better for beaver.

done >sioii\', and as he needed an interpreter, he led off one of mine, named Faffart, formerly a soldier at Fort Frontenac. During this period there were frequent visits between the Sauteurs [Ojil)- ways] and Nadouesioux, and supposing that it might increase the number of beaver skins, he sent Faffart by land, with the Nadouesioux and Sauteurs [O jib ways]. The young man on his return, ha\ing given an account of the quantity of beaver in that region, he wished to proceed thither himself, and, guided by a Sauteur and a Nadouesioux, and four Frenchmen, he ascended the river Nemitsakouat, where, by a short poilage, he descended tliat stream, whereon he passed through forty le^igues of rapids [Upper St. Croix River], and findmg that the Xadouesioux were below ^\^th my men and the Father, who had come down again from the village of the Nadouesioux, he discovered them. They went up again to the village, and from tlience they all together came down. They returned by the river Ouisconsing, and came back to Montreal, where Du Luth insults the commissaries, and the deputy of the 'procureur general,' named d'Auteuil. Count Frontenac had him arrested and imprisoned in the castle of Quebet;, with the intention of returning him to France for the amnesty accorded to the coureurs des bois, did not release him."

Du Lutli, during the fall of 1681, was engaged in the beaver trade at Montreal and Quebec. Du Chesneau, the Intendant of Justica for Canada, on the 13th of November, 1681, wrote to the ilarquLs de Siegnelay, in Paris : " Not content with the profits to be derived from the countries under the King's dominion, the desire of making money everywhere, has led the Governor [Frontenac], Boisseau, Du Lut and Patron, his uncle, to send canoes loaded with peltries, to the English. It is said sixty thousand livres' worth has l)een sent thither;" and he further stated that there was a very general report that withm five or six days, Frontenac and liis associates had divided the money received from the beavers sent to New England.

At a conference in Quebec of some of the distinguished men in that city, relative to difliculties with the Iroqucis, held on the 10th of October, 1 «82, Du Luth was i)resent. From thence 1 le went to Franco, and, early in 1683, consult*»d with the Minister of Marine at Versailles relative to the interests of trade in the Hudson's Bay and Lake Superior region. Upon his return to Canada, he departed for Mackinaw. Governor De la Barre, on the 9th of November, 1683, wrote to the French Government that the Indians west and north of Lake Superior, " when they heard by expresses sent them by Du Lhut, of his arrival at Missilimakinak, that he was coming, sent him word to come quickly and they would unite with him to prevent others going thither. If T st<ip that pass as I hope, and as it is necessary to do, as the English of the Bay [Hudson's] excite against us the savages, whom Sieur Du Lhut alone can quiet."

AVhile stationed at Mackinaw he was a participant m a tnvgic occurrence. During the summer of 1683 Jacques le Maire and Colin ^Jerthot, while on their way to trade at Keweenaw, on Lake Superior, were surprised by three Indians, robbed, and murdered. Du Luth was prompt to arrest and punish the assassins. In a letter from Mackinaw, dated April 12, 1684, to the Governor of Canada, he WTites: "Be pleased to know, Sir, that on the 24th of October last, I was told that Folle Avoine, accomplice in tlie murder and robbery of the two Frenchmen, had arrived at Sault Ste. Marie with fifteen families of the Sauteurs [Ojibways] who had fled from Chagoamigon [La Pointe] on account of an attack which they, together with the people of the land, made last Spring upon the Nadoiiecioux [Dakotahs.]

" He believed himself safe at the Sault, on account of the number of allies and relatives he had there, llev. Father Albanel informed me that the French at the Saut, being only twelve in number, had not arrested him, behevmg themselves too weak to contend with such numbers, especially as the Sauteurs had declared that they would not allow the French to redden the land of their fathers with the blood of their brothers.

" On receiving this information, I immediately resolved to take with me six Frenchmen, and embark at the dawn of the next day for Sault Ste. Marie, and if possible obtain possession of the murderer. I made known my design to the Rev. Father Engalran, and, at my request, as he liad some business to arrange with llev. Father Albanel, he placed himself in my canoe.

of the Sant, the Kev. Father, the Chevalier de Fourcille, CardonnieiTe, and I disembarked. I caused the canoe, in which were Bariband, Le Mere, La Fortune, and Macons, to proceed, while we went across the wood to the house of the Rev. Father, fe^iring that the savages, seeing me, might suspect the object of my visit, and cause Folle Avoine to escape. Finally, to cut the matter short, I arrested him, and caused him to be guarded day «and niglit by six Frenchmen.

" I then called a council, at which I re(iuested all the savages of the place to be present, where I repeated what I had often said to the Ilurons and Ottawas since the departure of M. Pere [Perrot], giving them tlie message you ordered me, Sir, that in case there should be among them any spirits so evil disposed as to follow the example of those who have murdered the French on Lake Superior and Lake Michigan, they must separate the guilty from the innocent, as I did not wish the whole nation to suffer, unless they protected the guilty. * * * The savages held several councils, to which I was in\ited, h\t their only object seemed to be to exculpate the prisoner, in order that I might release him.

"'All united in accusing Achiganaga and his childi-en, assuring themselves with the belief that M. Pere, [Perrot] with his detachment would not l)e able to arrest them, and wishing to persuade me that they apprehended that all the Frenchmen might be killed.

" I answered them, * * * ' As to the anticipated death of M. Pere [Perrot], jis well as of the other Frenchmen, that would not embarrass me, since I believed neither the allies nor the nation of Achiganaga would wish to have a war w ith us to sustain an action so dark as that of which w^e were speaking. Having only to attack a few murderers, or, at most, those of their own family, I was certain that the French would have them dead or alive.'

This was the answer they had from me during the three days that the councils lasted ; after wliich I embarked, at ten o'clock in the morning, sustained by only twelve Frenchmen, to show a few unruly persons who boasted of taking the prisoner away from me, that the French did not fear them.

Kiaonan [Keweenaw] under pretext of going to war in the spring against the Kadouecioux, to avenge the death of one of his relatives, son of Ouenaus, but really to protect himself against us, in case we should become convinced that his children had killed the Frenchmen. This precaution placed me between hope and fear respecting the expedition which M. Pere [Perrot] had undertaken.

''On the 24th of November, [1683], he came across the wood at ten o'clock at night, to tell me tliat he had arrested Achiganaga and four of liis children. He said they were not all guilty of the murder, but had thought proper, in this affair, to follow the custom of the savages, which is to seize all the relatives. Folle Avoine, whom I had arrested, he considered the most guilty, being without doubt the originator of the mischief.

" I immediately gave orders that Folle Avoine should be more closely confined, and not allowed to speak to any one ; for I had also learned that he had a brother, sister, and imcle in the village of the Kiskakons.

'' M. Pere informed me that he had released the youngest son of Achiganaga, aged about thirteen or fourteen years, that he might make known to their nation and the Sauteurs [Ojibways], who are at Kocke and in the neighborhood, the reason why the French had arrested his father and brothers. M. Pere bade him assure the savages that if any one wished to complain of what he bad done, he would wait for them with a firm step ; for he considered himself in a condition to set them at defiance, having found at Kiaonau [Keweenaw] eighteen Frenchmen who had wintered there.

" On the 2oth, at daybreak, M. Pere embarked at the Sault, with four good men whom I gave him, to go and meet the prisoners. He left them four leagues from there, under a guard of twelve Frenchmen ; and at two o'clock in the afternoon, they arrived. I had prepared a room in my house for the prisoners, in which they were placed under a strong guard, and were not allowed to converse with any one.

" On the 26th, I commenced proceedings; and this, sir, is the course I pursued. I gave notice to all the chiefs and others, to appear at the council which I had appointed, and gave to Folle Avoine the privilege of selecting two of his rela;

Indians Condemned To Be Shot

" The council being assembled, I sent for Folle Avoine to be interrogated, and caused his answers to be written, and afterwards they were read to liim, and inquiry made whether they were not, word for word, what he had said. He was then removed imder a safe guard. I used the same form with the two eldest sons of Achiganaga, and, as Polle Avoine had indirectly charged the father with being accessory to the murder, I sent for him and also for Folle Avoine, and bringing them into the council, confronted the four.

" Folle Avoine and the two sons of Achiganaga accused each other of committing the murder, without denying that they were participators in the crime. Achiganaga alone strongly maintained that he knew nothing of the design of Folle Avoine, nor of his children, and called on them to say If he had advised them to kill the Frenchmen. They answered, ' No.'

" This confrontation, which the savages did not expect, surprised them; and, seeing the prisoners had convicted themselves of the murder, the Chiefs said: 'It is enough; you accuse yourselves; the French are masters of yourlxxlies.'

" The next day I held another council, in which I said there could be no doubt that the Frenchmen had been murdered, that the murderers were known, and that they knew what was the practice among themselves upon such occasions. To all this they said nothing, which obliged us on the following day to hold another coimcil in the cabin of Brochet, where, after having spoken, and seeing that they would make no decision, and that all my councils ended only in reducing tobacco to ashes, I told them that, since they did not wish to decide, I should take the responsibility, and that the' next day I would let them know the determination of the Freni;h and myself.

" It is proper. Sir, you should know that I observed all these forms only to see if they would feel it their duty to render to us the same justice that they do to each other, having had divers examples in which when the tribes of those who had committed the murder did not wish to go to war with the tribe aggrieved, the nearest relations of the murderers killed them themselves; that is to say, man for man.

the French that were here, and, after the interrogations and answers of the accused had been read to them, the guilt of the three appeared so evident, from their own confessions, that the vote was unanimous that all sliould die. But as the French who remained at Kiaonan to pass the winter had written to Father Engalran and to myself, to beg us to treat the affair with all possible leniency, the savages declaring that if they made the prisoners die they would avenge themselves, I told the gentlemen wlio were with me in council that, this being a case without a precedent, I beUeved it was expedient for the safety of the French who would pass tlie winter in the Lake Superior country to i)ut to death only two, as that of the third might bring about grievous consequences, while the putting to death, man for man, could give tlie savages no comphiint, since this is their custom. M. de la Tour, chief of the Fathers, who had served much, sustained my opinions by strong reasoning, and all decided that two should be shot, namely, Folle Avouie and the older of the two brothers, while the younger should be released, and hold his life. Sir, as a gift from you.

*'I then returned to the cabin of Brochet with Messrs. Boisguillot, Fere, De Repentigny, De Manthet, De la Feile, and Macons, where were all the chiefs of the Outawas du Sable, Outawiis Sinagos, Kiskakons, Sauteurs, D'Achiliny, apart of the Ilurons, and Oumamens, the chief of the Amikoys. I infoimed them of our decision *

* * that, the Frenchmen having been killed by the different nations, one of each must die, and that the stune death they had caused the French to suffer they must also suffer. * * * This decision to put the murderers to death was a hard stroke to them all, for none had believed that I would dare to inidertake it. * * * I then left the council and asked the Rev. Fathers if they wished to baptize the prisoners, wliicli they did.

"An hour after, I put myself at the head of forty-two Frenchmen, and, in siglit of more than four hundred savages, and within two hundred paces of their fort, I caused the two murderers to be shot. Tlie impossibility of keeping them until spring made me hasten their death. * they answered that they were almost all concealed. He proceeded to the place of concealment, and was very much snrprised, as were a!:>o the French with him, to lind them, in fifteen or twenty different places. By the carelessness ( the savages, the tobacco and powder were entirely destroyed, having been placed in the pinery, imder the roots of trees, am! being soaked in the water cansed by ten or twelve days' contiimons rain, which innndated all the lower country. Tlie season for snow and ice having come, they liad all the trouble in the w^orld to get out the bales of cloth.

They then went to see the bodies, but could not remove them, these misei*able wretches having throwm them into a marsh, and thrust them down hito holes wiiich they liad made. Xot satisfied with this, tliey had also piled branches of trees up(m the bodies, to prevent tliem from fioating when the water should rise in the spring, hophig by this precaution the French would find no trace of those who were killed, but would think them drowned; as they reported that they had found in the lake on the other side of the Portage, a boat with the sides all broken in, wiiich they believed to be a French boat.

Those g(XKls wiiich the French were able to secure, they took to Kiaonau [Keweenaw], where were a number of Frenchmen wiio had g(me there to ptiss the whiter, who knew n()thing of the death of Colin Berthot and Jacques le Maire, until M. Pere arrived.

''The ten who formed M. Pere's detachment ha,ving conferred together concerning the means they should take to prevent a toUil loss, decndcd to sell the goods to the highest bidder. The sale was made for 1100 livres, which was to be paid in beavers, to M. de la Chesiiaye, to whom I send the names of the purchsers.

The savages who were present when Achiganaga and his children w ere arrested wished to pass the calumet to JM. Pere, and give him caiv tives to satisfy him for the murder committed on the two Frenchmen; but he knew their intention, and would not accept their offer. He told them neither a hundred ciiptiv(\s nor a hundred packs of beaver would give back tlie blood of his I rothers; that the murderers must be given up to me, and I would see what I would do.

coimcil, that in future the savages need not think by presents to save those who commit similar deeds. Besides, sir, M. Pere showed plainly by his conduct, that he is not strongly inclined to favor the savages, Jis was reported. Indeed, I do not know any one whom they fear more, yet who fiattei's them less or knows them l)etter.

" The criminals being ir^ two different places, M. Pere l)eing obliged to keep four of them, sent Messrs. de Keiientigny, Manthet, and six other Frenchmen, to arrest the two who were eight leagues in the woods. Among others, M. de Repenti'gny aiid M. de Manthet showed that they feared nothing when their honor called them.

M. de la C'hevrotiere has also served well in person, and by his advice, having pointed out where the prisoners were. Achiganaga, who had atlopted him as a son, had told him where he should hunt during the winter. * * * « It still remained for me to give to Achiganaga and his three children the means to return to his family. Their home from which they were taken was nearl y twei i ty-six leagues from here. Knowing their necessity, I told them you would not be satisfied in giving them life ; you wished to preserve^ it, by giving them all that was necessary to prevent them from dying with hunger and cold l)y the way, and that your gift was made by my hiuids. I gave them blankets, tobacco, meat, hatchets, knives, twine to make nets for l^eavers; and two bags of corn, to supply them till they could kill game.

They departed two days after, the most contented creatm*es in the world, but God was not ; for when only two days' journey from here, the old Achiganaga fell sick of the quinsy, and died, and h is ch i Idren rlurned. AVhen the news of his death arrived, the greater part of the savages of this place [Mackinaw] attributed it to the French, saying we hail caused him to die. I let them talk, and laughed at them. It is only about two months since the children of Achiganaga retumei to Kiaonan.''

8<>nj(? of those opposed to Du Luth and Frontenac, ]>rejudiced the King of France relative to the transiiction Ave have described, and in a letter to the (iovenior of Canada, the King writes : "It appeal s to me that one of the principal causes of the war arises from one Du Luth having caused two to be killed who had assassinated two French- men on Lake Superior ; and you suaieieiitly see now much tliis man's voyage, which can not produce any advantage to the colony, and which was permitted only in the interest of some private persons, has contributed to distract tlie peace of the colony."

In June, 1684, Governor De la Barre sent Guilletand Hebert from Montreal to request DuLuth and I>urantaye to bring down voyageurs and Indians to assist in an expedition against the Iroquois of New York. Early in September, they reported on the St. Lawrence, ^vith one hundred and fifty coureurs des bois and three hundred and fifty Indians ; but as a treaty had just been made with the Senecas, they returned.

De la Barrels successor, Governor Denonville, in a dispatch to the French Government, dated November 12th, 1685, alludes to Dii Luth being in the far West, in these words : " I likewise sent to M. De la Durantaye, who is at Lake Superior under orders from M. De la Barre, and to Sieur Du Luth, who is also at a great distance in another direction, and all so far beyond reacli that neither the one nor the other can hear news from me this year ; so that, not being able to see them at soonest, before next July, I considered it best not to think of imdertaking any tiling during the whole of next year, especially as a great number of our best men are among the Outaouacs, and can not return before the ensuing summer. * * * In regard to Sieur Du Luth, I sent him orders to repair hei'e, so that 1 may leani tlie number of savages on whom 1 may depend. He is accredited among them, and rendered great serv ices to M. De la Barre by a large number of savages he brought to Niagara, who would have attacked the Senecas, was it not for an express order from M. De la Barre to the contrary."

In 1686, while at Mackinaw, lie was orderea to establish a post on the Detroit, near Lake Erie. A portion of the order reads as follows : " After having given all the orders that you may judge necessary for the safety of this post, and having well secured the obedience of the Indians, you will return to Michilimackinac, there to await Rev. Father Engelran, by wiiom I will communicate what I wish of you, there."

The design of this post was to block the passiige of the Euglisli to. the upi)er lakes. Before it was established, in the fall of 1086, Thomas Eoseboom, a daruig trader from Albany, on the Hudson, had found his way to the vicinity of Mackinaw, and by the proffen* of brandy, weakened the allegiance of the tribes to the French.

A canoe coming to Mackinaw with dispatches for the French and their allies, to march to the Seneca coiuitry, in Xew York, perceived this New York trader and associates, and, giving the alarm, they were met by three hiuidred coureurs du bois and captured.

In the spring of 1687 Du Lutli, Durantaye, and Tonty all left the vicinity of Detroit for Niagara, and as they were coasting along Lake Erie they met another English trader, a Scotchman by birth, and by name Major I'atrick McGregor, a person of some influence, going with a niunber of traders to Miickinaw. Having taken him prisoner, he was sent with Rosebooni to :Montreal.

Du Luth, Tonty, and Durantaye arrived at Niagara on tlie 27th of Jime, 1687, with one hundred and seventy French voyageui*s, besides Indians, and on the lOth of July joined the army of Denonville at the mouth of tlie Genestee lliver, and on the 13th Du Luth and his a,ssociates had a skirmish near a Seneca village, now the site of the town of Victor, twenty miles southeast of the city of Ilochester, New York. Governor Denonville, in a report, writes: On the 13th, about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, having passed through two dangerous defiles, we aiTived at the third, where we were vigorously attacked by eiglit hundred Senecas, two hundred of whom iired, wishing to attack our rear, while the r(»st would attack our front, but the resistance, nijule produced such a great consternation that they saf)n resolved to fly. * * * We witnessed the painful sight of the usual cruelties of the savages, who cut the dead into quarters, as is done in slaughter houses, in order to put them into the kettle. The greater number were opened while still warm, that the blood might be drunk. Our rascally Otaoas distinguished themselves particularly by these barbarities. * * * We had Ave or six men killed on the spot, French and Indians, and about twenty wounded, among the first of whom was the Rev. Fatlier Angelran, superior of all the Otiioan Missions, by a very severe gun-shot. It is a great

In the order to Du Luth assigning him to duty at the post on the site of the modem Fort Gratiot, above the city of Detroit, the Governor of Canada said: ' ' If you can so arrange your affairs that your brother can be near you in the Spring, I shall be very glad. He is an intelligent lad, and might l>e a great assistance to you; he might also be very serviceable to us."

This lad, Greysolon de la Tourette, during the winter of 1686-7 was trading among the Assinaboines and other tribes at the west end of Lake Superior, but, upon receiving a dispatch, hastened to his brother, journeying in a canoe without any escort from Mackinaw. He did not arrive mitil after the battle with the Senecas. Governor Denonville, on the 25th of August, 1687, wrote:

" Du Luth's brother, who has recently arrived from the rivers above the Lake of the Allempigons [Nipegon], assures me that he saw more than fifteen himdred pei-sons come to trade with him, and they were very sorry he had not goods sufficient to satisfy them. Tliey are of the tribes accustomed to resort to the English at Port Xelson and Kiver Bourbon, where, they s«iy, they did not go this year, througii Sieur Du Lhu's iiitiuence."

After the battle in the vichuty of Rochester, New York, Du Luth, with his celebrated cousin, Henry Tonty, returned together as far as the post above the present city of Detroit, Michigan, but tills point, after 16S8, was not again occupied.

From tliis period Du Luth becomes less prominent. At the time when the Jesuits attempted to exclude brandy from the Indian country a bitter controversy arose between them and the traders. Cadillac, a Gascon by birth, commanding Fort Buade, at Mackinaw, on August 3, 1695, \vrote to Count Frontenac: . "Now, what reason c^m we assign that the savages should not drink brandy bought with their own money as well as we? Is it prohibited to prevent them from becoming intoxicated? Or is it because the use of brandy reduces them to extreme .misery, placing it out of their power to make war by depriving them of clothing and arms? If such representations in regard to the Indians have been made to the Count, they are very false, as every one knows who is acquainted with the ways of the sfivages. * * * It is bad faitli to represent to the Count that the sale of brandy reduces the savage tt> a state of nudity, aifd by that means places it out of his power to make war, since he never goes to war in any other condition. * * * Perhaps it will be said that the sale of brandy makes the labors of tlie missionaries imfruitf ul. It is necessary to examine this proposition. If the missionaries care for only the extension of commerce, pursuing the course they have hitherto, I agree to it; but if it is the use of brandy that hhiders the advancement of the cause of God, I deny it, for it is a fact which no one can deny tliat there are a great number of savages who never drink bi-andy, yet who are not, for that, better Christians.

" ^Vll the Sioux, the most numerous of all the tribes, who inhabit the region along the shore of Lake Superior, do not even like the smell of brandy. Are they more advanced in religion for that? They do not wish to have the subject mentioned, and when tlie missionaries address them they only laugh at the fooUshness of preaching. Yet these priests boldly fling before the eyes of Europeans, whole volumes filled with glowing descriptions of the convei*sion of souls by thousands in this coinitry, causing the iK)or missionaries from Europe, to run to martyrdom as flies to sugar and honey."

Du Luth, or Du Lhut, as he wrote his name, during this discussion, was found upon the side of order and good morals. His attestation is as follows : " I certify that at different periods I have lived about ten years among the Ottawa nation, from the time that 1 made an exploration to the Nadouecioux i>eoi)le until Fort Saint Joseph was established by order of the Monsieur Marquis Denonville, (Jovernor General, at the head of the Detroit of Lake Erie, which is in the Iroquois country, and which I had the honor to command. During this period, 1 have seen that the trade in eau-de-vie (brandy) produced great disorder, the father kilUng the son, and the son throwhig his mother hito the fire; and I maintain that, morally speaking, it is impossible to export brandy to the wcH)ds and distant missions, without danger of its leading to misery."

Governor Frontenac, in an expedition against the Oneidas of New York, arrived at Fort Frontenac, on the 19th of July, 1695, and Captain Du Luth was left in command with forty soldiers.

Du Luth Afflicted With Gout

and masons and carpenters, with orders to erect new buUdings. In about four weeks he erected a building one hundred and twenty feet in length, containing officers' quarters, store-rooms, a bakery and a chapel. Early in 1697 he was still in command of the post, and in a report it is mentioned that " everybody was then in good health, except Captain Dulhut the commander, who was unwell of the gout."

It was just before this period, that as a member of the Boman Catholic Church, he was firmly impressed that he had been helped by prayers which he addressed to a deceased Iroquois girl, who had died in the odor of sanctity, and, as a thank offering, signed the following certificate : "I, the subscriber, certify to all whom it may concern, that having been tormented by the gout, for the space of twenty-three years, and with such severe pains, tliat it gave me no rest for the spac of three months at a time, I addressed myself to Catherine Tegalikouita, an Iroquois virgin deceased at the Sault Saint Louis, in the reputation of sanctity, and I promised her to visit her tomb, if God should give me health, through her intercession. I have been as perfectly cured at the end of one novena, which I made in her honor, that after five months, I have not perceived the slightest touch of my gout. Given at Fort Frontenac, this 18th day of August, 1696."

As soon as cold weather returned, his old malady again appeared. He died early in A. D. 1710. Marquis de Vaudreuil, Governor of Canada, under date of first of May of that year, wrote to Coimt Pontchartrain, Colonial Minister at Paris, " Captain Du Lud died this winter. He was a very honest man."