Houston County, Minnesota - Chapter 1: Footprints of Civilization Toward the Extremity of Lake Superior, 1882

Chapter 1: Footprints of Civilization Toward the Extremity of Lake Superior

Minn«»ot*'i Central Position. - D'Avagour's Prediction. - Nicolet's Visit to Green Bar. - First White Men in Minnesota. - Notices of Orosetliers and Radisson. - Hurona Flee to Minnesota. - Tisited by Frenchmen. - Father Menard Disappears. - <Jroselliers vuits Hudson's Bay. - Father Allouez Describes the Sioux Mission at La Pointe. - Father Marquette. - Sioux at Sault St. Marie. - Jesuit Missions Fail. - Orosetliers Visits England. - Captain Oillara, of Boston, at Hudson's Bay. - Letter of Mother Superior of Ursulines., at Quebec, - Death or Groselliers.

The Dakotahs, called by the Ojibways, Nadowaysioux, or Sioux (Soos), 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 modern astronomer, it is certainly true, that the region west of Lake Superior, extending through the valley of the Minnesota, to the Missouri River, is one of the most 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 Ganada, 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 which, it is believed, flow into New Spain, and this, according to general opinion, ought to be the centre of the country."

As early as 1635, one of ChamplahVs interpreters, Jean Nicolet (Nicolay), who came to Canada in 1618, reached the western shores of Lake Michigan. In the summer of 1634 he ascended the St. Lawrence, with a party of Hurons, and probably during the next winter was trading at Green Bay, 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 Rivers, 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 u three days more on a great river which flows from that lake [Green Bay] he would have found the sea."

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

Groselliers (pronounced Gro-zay-yay) was born 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 English 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 born in 1657, and the next year his mother died. The second wife of Groselliers was Marguerite Hayet (Hayay) Radisson, the sister of his associate, in the exploration of the region west of Lake Superior.

Radisson was born 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, Petuns, 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 (Ioways) 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 the 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, found 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 found 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, with 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 they 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, large, deep, and comparable with the Saint Lawrence, the great Mississipi#, which flows through the city of Minneapolis, and whose sources are in northern 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 Indians and sixty canoes loaded with " a wealth of skins."

The citizens were deeply stirred by the travelers' tales of the 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 by long experience, he seemed the man for the mission. Two hours after midnight, of the day before departure, the venerable missionary penned at " Three Rivers," the following letter to a friend :

'Reverend 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 until eternity. 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 account 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 I had the opportunity.

"We have been a little surprized, not being able to provide ourselves with vestments and other things, but he who feeds the little birds, and clothes the lilies of the fields, will take care of his servants; 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 Reverend Father,

On the 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 Hurons, who had fled eastward from the Sioux of Minnesota, and encamped amid the marshes of Northern Wisconsin. 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 life?"

Upon De l'lsle'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 headwaters 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 lived 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 [Illino-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 not 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 having 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 Kiver, after Menard's disappearance, and deserting their 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 hundred 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 hung thereon little bells, which they had obtained from the French traders. The Hurons, emerging from their 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, Allouez, accompanied the traders, and, by the first of October, reached Chegoimegon Bay, on or near the site of the modern town of Bayfield, on Lake Superior, where he found the refugee Hurons and Ottawas. While on an excursion to Lake Alempigon, now Xepigon, this missionary saw, near the mouth of Saint Louis River, in Minnesota, 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 corn, 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 gun, 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 a brief period.

"There are certain people called Nadoussi, 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 turn 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 around 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 western nations, they have all united their force by a general league, which has been made against them, as against a common 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

Groselliers And Babisson In The English See Vice

" Our Outouacs of the Point of the Holy Ghost [La Pointe, now Bayfield] had to the present time kept up 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 modern 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 arid Ottawas of La Pointe, and the former compelled their foes to seek another resting place, toward the eastern extremity of Lake Superior, 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. The 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 burn down the chapel, but the Jesuits would not permit it, because tbey 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 the 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 Home, 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 northern boundary of Minnesota, was called on the French maps Grosellier's River, after the first explorer of Minnesota, whose career, with his associate Radisson, 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 I., 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 June, 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 his ship or ships with 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 dispatch to Colbert, Minister of the Colonial Department of France, wrote 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, the 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.