Washington County, Minnesota - Chapter 9: Verendrye, Tiie Explorer of Northern Minnesota, and Discoverer of the Rocky, 1881

Chapter 9: Verendrye, Tiie Explorer of Northern Minnesota, and Discoverer of the Rocky

CoQverulioa of Verendrya with Father De Conor. - Parentage and Early Life - Old ludian Map Preserved. - Yerendrye'* Son and Nephew Explore Pigeon River and Reach Rainy lake. - Father Meaoaycr a Companion. - Fort St. Pierre Established. - Lake of the Woods Reached and Fort St. Charles Built. - De la Jeiueraye's Map - Kurt on the Assiuahoiite River. -Verendr) a s Son, Father Oune&u and Auw idn Killed by Sioux, on Maaaacre Isle, in Lake of the Woods - Fort La Heine - Verendrjr's Eldest Son, with Others, Reaches the Missouri River. - Discovers the Rocky Mountains. - Keturua to lake of the Woods. - Exploration of Saskatchewan Rixer. - Sieur de la Veretidrye Jr. - Yerendrye the Father, made Captain of the Order of Si l,ouis. - His Death. - The Swedish Traveler, Kalin, Notices Yerendrye.* lion gain vi lie DcwriUs Yrrcndryc'a KxplorathNU. - Leganlcur de St. Picric at Fort la Heine - F»*rt Jon«|uicrc lished. - De la Corn# Succeeds St. Picric. - St. Pierre Meets Washington ut French Creek, in Pennsylvania. - Killed in Battle, near Lake George.

Early in the year 1728, two travelers met at the secluded post of Mackinaw, one was named De Gonor, a Jesuit Father, who with Guignas, had gone with the expedition, that the September before had built Fort Beauhamois on the shores of Lake Pepin, the other was Pierre Gualtier Vareunes, the Sieur dela Yerendrye the commander of the post on Lake Nepigon of the north shore of Lake Superior, and a relative of the Sieur de la Perriere, the commander at Lake Pepin.

Verendrye was the son of Rene Gualtier Varennes who for twenty-two years was the chief magistrate at Three Rivera, whose wife was Ma¬ rie Boucher, the daughter of his predecessor whom he had manned when she was twelve years of age. lie became a cadet in lb97, and in 1704 accompanied an expedition to New England. The next year he was In Newfoundland and the year following he went to France, joined a regi¬ ment of Brittany and was in the conflict at Malplaquet when the French troops were defeated by the Duke of Marlborough. When he returned to Canada lie was obliged to accept the position of ensign notwithstanding the gallant manner in which he had behaved. In time lie became iden¬ tified with the Lake Superior region. While at Lake Nepigon the Indians assured him that there was a communication largely by water to the Pacific Ocean. One, named Ocliagaclis, drew a rude map of the country, which is still preserved among the French archives. Pigeon River is marked thereon Mantohavagane, and the River St. Louis is marked U. fond du L. Sujierior, and the Indians appear to have passed from its head¬ waters to Rainy Lake. Ui>on the western ex¬ tremity is marked the River of the West.

De Gonor conversed much upon the route to the Pacific with Verendrye, and promised to use his influence with the Canadian authorities to advance the project of exploration.

Charles De Beauhamois, the Governor of Can¬ ada, gave Yerendrye a respectful hearing, and carefully examined the map of the region west of the great lakes, which had been drawn by Ocbagaclis (Otchaga), the Indian guide. Orders were soon given to fit out an expedition of fifty men. It left Montreal in 1731, under the conduct of his sons and nephew De la Jemeraye, he not joining the party till 1733, in consequence of the deten¬ tions of business.

In the autumn of 1731, the party reached Rainy Lake, by the Nantouagan, or Groselliere river, now called Pigeon. Father Messayer, who laid lieen stationed on Lake Superior, at the Groselliera river, was taken as a spiritual guide. At the foot of Rainy Lake a post was erected and called Fort St. Pierre, and the next year, having crossed Minittie, or Lake of the Woods, they es¬ tablished Fort St. Charles on its southwestern bank. Five leagues from Lake Winnipeg they established a post on the Assinalioine. An un¬ published map of these discoveries by De la Jem¬ eraye still exists at Paris. The river Winnipeg, called by them Maurepas, in honor of the minis¬ ter of France in 1734, was protected by a fort of the same name.

About this time their advance was stopped by the exhaustion of supplies, but on the 12th of April, 1735, an arrangement was made for a sec¬ ond equipment, and a fourth son joined the expe¬ dition.

Discovery Of The Rocky Mountains

tion were camped upon an isle in the Lake of the Woods, they were surprised by a band of Sioux hostile to the French allies, the Cristinaux, and all killed. The island, upon this account, is cnlled Massacre Island. A few days after, a jwirty of five Canadian voyageurs discovered their dead bodies and scalped heads. Father Ouneau, the missionary, was found upon ono knee, an ar¬ row in his head, his breast baro, his left hand touching the ground, and the right hand raised.

Among the slaughtered was also a son of Verendryo, who had a tomahawk in his back, and his body adorned with garters and bracelets of porcu¬ pine. The father was at the foot of the Lake of the Woods when he received the news of his son's murder, aud about the same time heard of the death of his enterprising nephew, Dufrost de la Jemeraye, the son of his sister Marie Heine de Varennes, and brother of Madame Youville, the foundress of the Hospitaliers at Montreal.

On the 3d of October, 1738, they built an ad¬ vanced ]K)st, Fort La Heine, on the river Assiniboels, now Assinaboine, which they called St Charles, and beyond was a branch called St. Pierre. These two rivers received the baptismal name of Verendrye, which was Pierre, and Gov¬ ernor Beaulmrnois, which was Charles. The post became the centre of trade and point of departure for explorations, either north or south.

It was by ascending the Assinaboine, and by the present trail from its tributary, Mouse river, they reached the country of the Mantanes, and in 1741, came to the upper Missouri, passed the Yel¬ low Stone, and at length arrived at the Rocky Mountains. The party was led by the eldest son and his brother, the chevalier. They left the Lake of the Woods on the 29th of April, 1742, came in sight of the Rocky Mountains on the 1st of January, 1743, and on the 12th ascended them. On the route they fell in with the Beaux Ilommcs, I'ioya, Petits Itenards, and Arc tribes, and stopped among the Snake tribe, but could go no farther in a southerly direction, owing to a war between the Arcs and Snakes.

On the 19th of May, 1744, they had returned to the upper Missouri, and, in the country of the Petite Cerise tribe, they planted on an eminence a leaden plate of the arms of France, and raised a monument of stones, which they called Beauhaniois. They returned to the Lake of the Woods on the 2d of July.

North of the Assiniboine they proceeded to Lako Dauphin, Swan's Hake, explored tho riv¬ er " Des Biches," and ascended even to the fork of the Saskatchewan, which they called l'oskoiac. Two forts were subsequently established, one near Lake Dauphin and the other on the river "des Biches," called Fort Bourbon. Tho northern route, by tho Saskatchewan, was thought to have some advantage over tho Missouri, be¬ cause there was no danger of meeting with the Spaniards.

Governor Beauhamois having been prejudiced against Verendrye by envious persons, De Noyelles was appointed to take command of the posts. During these difficulties, we find Sieur de la Verendrye, Jr., engaged in other duties. In August, 1747, he arrives from Mackinaw at Mon¬ treal, and in the autumn of that year he accom¬ panies St. Pierre to Mackinaw, and brings back the convoy to Montreal. In February, 1748, with five Canadians, five Cristenaux, two Ottawas, and one Sauteur, he attacked the Mohawks near Schenectady, and returned to Montreal with two scalps, one that of a chief. On June 20th, 1748, it is recorded that Chevalier de la Verendrye del>arted from Montreal for the head of Lake Supe¬ rior. Margry states that he perished at sea in November, 1704, by the wreck of the " Auguste."

Fortunately, Galissioniere the successor of Beauhamois, although deformed and insignifi¬ cant in api>earance, was fair minded, a lover of science, especially botany, and anxious to push discoveries toward the Pacific. Verendrye the father was restored to favor, and made Captain of the Order of St. Louis, and ordered to resume explorations, but he died on Decemlier 0th, 1749, while planning a tour up the Saskatchewan.

The Swedish Professor, Kahn, met him in Can¬ ada, not long before his decease, and had inter¬ esting conversations with him about the furrows on the plains of the Missouri, which he errone¬ ously conjectured indicated the former abode of an agricultural people. These ruts are familiar to modem travelers, and may l>e only buffalo trails.

Verendrye, says that they first met the Mantanes, and next the Brockets. After these were the Gros Ventres, the Crows, the Flat Heads, the Black Feet, and Dog Feet, who were established on the Missouri, even up to the falls, and that about thirty leagues beyond they found a narrow pass in the mountains.

Bougainville gives a more full account: he says: " He who most advanced this discovery was the Sieur de la Venuiderie. He went from Fort la Heine to the Missouri, lie met on the banks of this river the Mandans, or White Beards, who had seven villages with pine stockades, strength¬ ened by a ditch. Next to these were the Kinongewiniris. or the Brochets, in three villages, and toward the upper part of the river were three villages of the Mahan tas. All along the mouth of the Wabeik, or Shell River, were situated twenty-three villages of the Fanis. To the south¬ west of this river, on the banks of the Ouanaradeba, or La Graisse, are the Ilectanes or Snake tribe. They extend to the base of a chain of mountains which runs north northeast. South of this is the river Karoskiou, or Cerise Felee, which is supposed to flow to California.

" lie found in the immense region watered by the Missouri, and in the vicinity of forty leagues, the Mahantas, the Owiliniock, or Beaux Hom¬ ines, four villages; opposite the Brochets the Black Feet, three villages of a hundred lodges each; op. positethe Mandans are theOspekakaerenousques, or Flat Ilea Is, four villages; opposite the Fanis are the Arcs of Cristinaux, and Utasibaoutchatas of Assiniboel, three villages; following these the Makesch, or Little Foxes, two villages; tho Fiwassa, or great talkers, three villages; the Kakokoschena, or Gens de la Fie, five villages; the Kiskipisounouini,, or the Garter tribe, seven vil¬ lages."

Galassoniere was succeeded by Jonquiere in the governorship of Canada, who proved to be a grasping, peevish, and very miserly person. For the sons of Verendrye he had no sympathy, and forming a clique to profit by their father's toils,

Father Coquard, one of the companions of Ve¬ rendrye, was consulted as to the probability of finding a pass in the Rocky Mountains, through which they might, in canoes, reach the great lake of salt water, perhaps Fuget's Sound.

The enterprise was at length confided to two experienced oflieers, Lumarque de Marin and Jacques Legardeur de Saint Fierre. The former was assigned the way, by the Missouri, and to the latter wsis given the more northern route; but Saint Fierre in some way excited the hostil¬ ity of the Cristinaux, who attempted to kill him, and burned Fort la Heine. His lieutenant, Bou¬ cher deNiverville, who hail been sent to establish a post toward the source of the Saskatchewan, failed on account of sickness. Some of his men, however, pushed on to tho Rocky Mountains, and in 1763 established Fort Jonquiere. Henry says St. Fierre established Fort Bourbon.

In 1753, Saint Fierre was succeeded in the command of the posts of the West, by de la Come, and sent to French Creek, in Fennsylvania. He had been but a few days there when he received a visit from Washington, just entering upon manhood, bearing a letter from Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia, complaining of the en croachments of the French.

Soon the clash of arms between France and England began, and Saint Fierre, at the head of the Indian allies, fell near Lake George, in Sep¬ tember, 1755, in a battle with the English. After the seven years' war was concluded, by the treaty of Faris, the French relinquished all their posts in the Northwest, and the work begun by Veren¬ drye, was, in 1805, completed by Lewis and Clarke; and the Northern Facific Railway is fast approaching the passes of the Rocky Mountains, through the valley of the Yellow Stone, and from thence to the great land-locked bay of the ocean, Fuget's Sound.

Effect Of The English And French War

EnfUsh Inflame* Inereaiin*. - L* Dae Robbed at Lake Superior. - 8t. Pierre at Mackinaw. - Eaeape of Indian rriionen. - URonde and Yerrndrjre. - InSnrne* of Siaur Marin. - St. Pierre Recalled from Wlnnlpef Refion. - Interriew with Waahlncton. - Langlade Urge* Attack Upon Troops of Braddoek. - Saint Pierr* Killed in Battle. - Marin's RoldnaM. - Roger*, a Partisan Ranter, Commands at Mackinaw. - At Ticonderof*. - French Deliver up the Peats In Canada -Capt. Balfour Take* Foeaetainn of Mackinaw and Green Bay. - Lieut. Gorrell in Com. raand at Green Bay. - Sioux Vialt Green Bay. - Pennenaha a French Trader Antony the 8loux. - Treaty of Pari*.

English influence produced increasing dissatis¬ faction among the Indians that were beyond Mackinaw. Not only were the voyageurs robbed and maltreated at Sault St. Marie and other points on Lake Superior, but even tke commandant at Mackinaw was exposed to insolence, and there was no security anywhere.

On the twenty-third of August, 1747, Philip Le Due arrived at Mackinaw from Lake Superior, slating that he had been robbed of his goods at Kamanistigoya, and that the Ojibways of the lake were favorably disused toward the English. The Dahkotahs were also becoming unruly in the absence of French officers.

In a few weeks after Le Due's robbery, St. Pierre left Montreal to become commandant at Mackinaw, and Vercheres was appointed for the post at Green Bay. In the language of a docu¬ ment of the day, St. Pierre was 44 a very good officer, much esteemed among all the nations of those parts ; none more loved and feared." On his arrival, the savages were so cross, that he ad¬ vised that no Frenchman should come to trade.

By promptness and boldness, he secured the Indians who had murdered some Frenchmen, and obtained the respect of the tribes. While the three murderers were being conveyed in a canoe down the St. Lawrence to Quebec, in charge of a sergeant and seven soldiers, the savages, with characteristic cunning, though manacled, suc¬ ceeded in killing or drowning the guard. Cutting their irons with an axe, they sought the woods, and escaped to their own country. "Thus," writes Galassoniere, in 1748, to Count Maurepas, was lost in a great measure the fruit of Bieur St. Pierre's good management, and of all the fatigue I endured to get the nations who surrendered these rascals to listen to reason."

Under the influence of Bieur* Marin, who was in command at Green Bay in 1763, peaceful re¬ lations were in a measure restored between the French and Indians.

As the war between England and France deep¬ ened, the officers of the distant French posts were called in and stationed nearer the enemy. Legardeur St. Pierre, was brought from the Lake Winnipeg region, and, in December, 1763, was in command of a rude post near Erie, Pennsylvania. Langlade, of Green Bay, Wisconsin, arrived early in July, 1756, at Fort Duquesne. With Beauyeu and De Lignery, who had been engaged in fight¬ ing the Fox Indians, he left that fort, at nine o'clock of the morning of the 9th of July, and, a little after noon, came near the English, who had halted ou the south shore of the Monongahela, and were at dinner, with their arms stacked. By the urgent entreaty of Langlade, the western half-breed, Beauyeu, the officer in command or¬ dered an attack, and Braddoek was overwhelmed, and Washington was obliged to say, " We have been beaten, shamefully beaten, by a handful of Frenchmen."

Under Baron Dieskau, St. Pierre commanded the Indians, in September, 1756, during the cam¬ paign near Lake George, where he fell gallantly fighting the English, as did his commander. The Rev. Claude Coquard, alluding to the French defeat, in a letter to his brother, remarks:

" We lost, on that occasion, a brave officer, M. de St. Pierre, and had his advice, as well as that of several other Canadian officers, been followed, Jonckson [Johnson] was irretrievably destroyed,

Other otllcers who had been stationed on the borders of Minnesota also distinguished them¬ selves during the French war. The Marquis Montcalm, in camp at Ticonderoga, on the twen¬ ty-seventh of July, 1757, writes to Vaudreuil, Governor of Canada:

" Lieutenant Marin, of the Colonial troops, who has exhibited a rare audacity, did not consider himself bound to halt, although his detachment of about four hundred men was reduced to about two hundred, the balance having been sent back on account of inability to follow. He carried off a patrol of ten men, and swept away an ordinary guard of fifty like a wafer; went up to tiie en¬ emy's camp, under Fort Lydias (Edward), where he was exposed to a severe fire, and retreated like a warrior. lie was unwilling to amuse himself making prisoners; he brought in only one, and thirty-two scalps, and must have killed many men of the enemy, in the midst of whose ranks it was neither wise nor prudent to go in search of scalps. The Indians generally all behaved well. * * * The Outaouais, who arrived with me, and whom I designed to go on a scouting party towards the lake, had conceived a project of administering a corrective to the English barges. * * * On the day before yesterday, your brother formed a detachment to accompany them. I arrived at his camp on the evening of the same day. Lieuten¬ ant de Corbiere, of the Colonial troops, was re¬ turning, in consequence of a misunderstanding, and as I knew the zeal and intelligence of that officer, I made him set out with a new instruc¬ tion to join Messrs de Langlade and Ilertel de Chantly. They remained in ambush all day and night yesterday; at break of day the English ap¬ peared on Lake St. Sacrament, to the number of twenty-two barges, under the command of Sieur Parker. The whoops of our Indians impressed them with such terror that they made but feeble resistance, and only two barges escaped."

After De Corbiere 's victory on Lake Cham¬ plain, a large French army was collected at Ti¬ conderoga, with which there were many Indians from the tribes of the Northwest, and the Ioways appeared for the first time in the east.

Pierre, Lusignan, Marin, Langlade, and others, became the pioneers of the British, a few years afterwards, in the occupation of the outposts of the lakes, and in the exploration of Minnesota.

Rogers, the celebrated captain of rangers, sub¬ sequently commander of Mackinaw, and Jona¬ than Carver, the first British explorer of Minne¬ sota, were lwth on duty near Lake Champlain, the latter narrowly escaping at the battle of Fort George.

On Christmas eve, 1757, Rogers approached Fort Ticonderoga, to fire the outhouses, but was prevented by discharge of the cannons of the Fren li.

He contented himself with killing fifteen beeves, on the horns of one of which he left this laconic and amusing note, addressed to the commander of the post:

'-I am obliged to you, Sir, for the repose you have allowed me to take; I thank you for the fresh meat you hare sent me, I request you to present my compliments to the Marquis du Montcalm.''

On the thirteenth of March, 1758, Durantaye, formerly at Mackinaw, had a skirmish with Rog¬ ers. Both had been trained on the frontier, and they met " as Greek met Greek." The conflict was fierce, and the French victorious. The In¬ dian allies, finding a scalp of a chief underneath an officer's jacket, were furious, and took one hundred and fourteen scalps in return. When the French returned, they supposed that Captain Rogers was among the killed.

On the eighth of September, 1760, the French delivered up all their posts in Canada. A few days after the capitulation at Montreal, Major Rogers was sent with English troops, to garrison the posts of the distant Northwest.

On the eighth of September, 1761, a year after the surrender, Captain Balfour, of the eightieth regiment of the British army, left Detroit, with a detachment to take possession of the French forts at Mackinaw and Green Bay. Twenty-five soldiers were left at Mackinaw, in command of Lieutenant Leslie, and the rest sailed to Green Bay, under Lieutenant Gorrell of the Royal

Pennenstia Writes A Letter For The Sioux

Americans, where they arrived on the twelfth of October. The fort had been abandoned for sev¬ eral years, and was in a dilapidated condition. In charge of it there was left a lieutenant, a cor¬ poral, and fifteen soldiers. Two English traders arrived at the same time, McKay from Albany, and Goddard from Montreal.

" On March 1,1763, twelve warriors of the Sous came here. It is certainly the greatest nation of Indians ever yet found. N ot above two thousand of them were ever armed with firearms ; the rest depending entirely on bows and arrows, wliich they use with more skill than any other Indian nation in America. They can shoot the wildest and largest beasts in the woods at seventy or one hundred yards distant. They are remarkable for their dancing, and the other nations take the fashions from them. ***** This nation is always at war with the Chippewas, those who destroyed Mishamakinak. They told me with warmth that if ever the Chippewas or any other Indians wished to obstruct the passage of the traders coming up, to send them word, and they would come and cut them off from the face of the earth ; as all Indians were their slaves or dogs.

I told them I was glad to see them, and hoped to have a lasting peace with them. They then gave me a letter wrote in French, and two belts of wampum from their king, in which he expressed great joy on hearing of there being English at his i>ost. The letter was written by a French trader whom I had allowed to go among them last fall, with a promise of his behaving well ; which ho did, better than any Canadian I ever knew. ***** With regard to traders, I would not allow any to go amongst them, as I then understood they lay out of the government of Canada, but made no doubt they would have traders from the Mississippi in the spring. They went away extremely well pleased. June 14th, 1763, the traders came down from the Sack coun¬ try, and confirmed the news of Landsing and his son being killed by the French. There came with the traders some Puans, and four young men with one chief of the Avoy [loway] nation, to demand tradeis. *****

" On the nineteenth, a deputation of Winnebagoes, Sacs, Foxes and Menominees arrived with a Frenchman named Pennensha. This Pennensha is the same man who wrote the letter the Sous brought with them in French, and at the same time held council with that great nation in favour of the English, by which he much promo¬ ted the interest of the latter, as appeared by the behaviour of the Sous. He brought with him a pipe from the Sous, desiring that as the road is now clear, they would by no means allow the Chippewas to obstruct it, or give the English any disturbance, or prevent the traders from coming up to them. If they did so they would send all their warriors and cut them off."

By the treaty of Paris of 1763, Fiance ceded to Great Britain all of the country east of the Mis¬ sissippi, and to Spain the whole of Louisiana, so that the latter power for a time held the whole region between the Mississippi River and the Pa¬ cific Ocean, and that portion of the city of Min¬ neapolis known as the East Division was then governed by the British, while the West Division was subject to the Spanish code.