USA > Illinois > Chapters from Illinois history > Part 17
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taguiette set forth from Fort Chartres with all his force, on a morning in February, making a brave show as the fleet of bateaux and canoes floated down the Mississippi. This first invasion of southern soil by soldiers from Illi- nois, comprised nearly all of the garrison of the fort, a company of volunteers from the French villages, almost the whole of the Kaskaskia tribe, and a throng of Indian warriors who had flocked to the standard even from the far-away Detroit. Chicago led the Illinois and the Miamis, and at the mouth of the Ohio, the Chevalier Vinsenne joined the expedition, with the garrison from the post on the Wabash, and a number of Indians, includ- ing a party of Iroquois braves. Landing, and marching inland, they reached the Chickasaw villages at the appointed time, but the troops from New Orleans, who were to meet them there, failed to appear. Compelled to fight or retreat, D'Artaguiette chose the former, and was at first successful, but the tide turned, when he fell, covered with wounds. De Coulanges, released from dur- ance that he might redeem his fame, and many other offi- cers, were slain, most of the Indians fled, and D'Artagui- ette, Vinsenne, the Jesuit Senat, and young St. Ange, son of the Illinois commandant, were taken prisoners by the unconquered Chickasaws, who burned them at the stake, and triumphantly marched to the Georgia coast to tell their English allies there of the French defeat. The broken remnants of the little army, under the leadership of a boy of sixteen, pursued by the savages for five and twenty leagues, regained the river, and slowly and sadly returned to the fort. On the sorrow caused there by the mournful news, the masses that were said in the little church for the repose of the souls of the slain, and the deep grief felt throughout the country of the Illinois, in
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cabin and wigwam alike, we will not dwell. The impression made by the life and death of D'Artaguiette was so abiding, that his name remained a household word among the French for years; and well into the present century the favorite song among the negroes along the Mississippi was one of which the oft-repeated chorus ran :
" In the days of D'Artaguiette, Ho! Ho! In the days of D'Artaguiette, O ho!"
Three years later La Buissonière, who succeeded him, led an expedition from Fort Chartres, composed of Frenchmen and natives, to take part in another campaign against the dauntless Chickasaws. Soldiers from Quebec and Montreal, with recruits from all the tribes along their route, overtook him on the way, and the northern forces joined the troops under Bienville, newly reinforced from Paris, near the site of the city of Memphis. The domin- ions of the King of France, in the Old World and the New, were laid under contribution to concentrate this army at the rendezvous, but not a blow was struck. White and red men lay in camp for months, apparently unwilling to risk an encounter, and at length a dubious peace was arranged, and all marched home again, with- out loss or glory. Hardly had the Fort Chartres detach- ment returned when a boat, going from New Orleans to the Illinois, was attacked by the Chickasaws, above the mouth of the Ohio, and all on board were killed, save one young girl. She had recently arrived from France, and was on her way to join her sister, the wife of an officer at the fort. Escaping by a miracle to the shore, she wan- dered through the woods for days, living on herbs, until, sore spent and ready to die, she chanced to reach an ele- vation from which she caught a glimpse of the flag float-
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ing over Fort Chartres, and, with new hope and strength, struggled onward, and came safely to the friends who had mourned for her as dead.
Among the few original documents relating to this pe- riod which are still preserved, is a deed executed at Fort Chartres by Alphonse de La Buissonière, commandant at the Illinois, and Madame Thérèse Trudeau, his wife. During his governorship were the halcyon days of the French settlers at the Illinois. The Indians were kept in check, the fertile soil yielded bounteous harvests, two convoys laden with grain and provisions, went each year to New Orleans, and lower Louisiana became almost entirely dependent upon them for supplies. Other vil- lages had grown up near the fort. Prairie du Rocher, five miles away, was situated upon a grant made by the India Company to Boisbriant, and by him transferred to his nephew, Langlois, who conveyed it by parcels to the settlers, reserving to himself certain seignorial rights according to the customs of Paris. And Renault, on a portion of his grant above the fort, established the village of St. Philippe, which became a thriving place. These were laid out after the French manner, with Commons and Common Fields, still marked upon the local maps, and in some cases held and used to this day under the provi- sions of these early grants. In each of the villages was a chapel, under the jurisdiction of the parent church of Ste. Anne of Fort Chartres. To the colony came scions of noble families of France, seeking fame and adventure in that distant land, and their names and titles appear at length in the old records and parish registers. Among them was Benoist St. Clair, captain of a company detached from the marine service, who followed La Buis- sonière in the chief command, and held it for a year or
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more. He found little to do in those piping times of peace, made an occasional grant of land, and sought other service early in 1742.
The Chevalier de Bertel, who describes himself as major commanding for the King, took charge in his stead. The parish register of Ste. Anne, in his time, is extant, and the title page of the volume, then newly opened, bears the following inscription :
"Numbered and initialed by us, Principal Secretary of the Marine and Civil Judge at the Illinois, the present book, containing seventy-four leaves, to serve as a Reg- ister of the Parish of Ste. Anne, of Baptisms, Marriages, and Deaths. Done at Fort Chartres the Ist of August, 1743.
"CHEVALIER DE BERTEL, "Major Commandant.
"DE LA LOIRE, "FLANCOUR."
The pages which remain, by their careful numbering and joint initials, show how important it was deemed to preserve and identify this register. It was soon to con- tain the record of the sudden death of Flancour himself, the civil judge at the Illinois. One of his last acts was to grant to the village of Prairie du Rocher, a tract of land for commons, from which it now derives a revenue. And with Bertel he executed a deed to a young man at St. Philippe, for the reason that he was the first one born in Illinois to marry and settle himself. And to another, who asked the gift of a farm, because he had seven chil- dren, they granted a tract of land for each child. Ren- ault made his last conveyance of a lot at St. Philippe by deed, executed in his rooms at Fort Chartres, September 2, 1740, and, three years later, returned to Paris, after a residence in the Illinois country of nearly a quarter of
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a century. In the same season, Governor Bienville went to France, finally resigning his trust to the Marquis de Vaudreuil. And here a word may be spoken of the first royal Governor of the province, of which Illinois was a part, and in whose administration Fort Chartres was con- structed. Le Moyne de Bienville, a Canadian born, was one of an illustrious family. His father was killed in battle in the service of his country, seven of his brothers died naval officers, and of the three others, then surviv- ing, one was Governor of Montreal, one captain of a ship of the line, and one a naval ensign. He distinguished himself at the capture of Port Nelson from the English, and in a brilliant naval engagement in Hudson's Bay; was one of the founders of Louisiana; and chose the site of the city of New Orleans. He served as Lieutenant- Governor and Governor of the province for nearly forty years, and won the reputation of being the bravest and best man in the colony. His portrait, which adorns the mansion, at Longueil, in Canada, of Baron Grant, the representative of the family, shows a martial figure, and a noble face, in keeping with his record; and his intimate connection with its early history would make it fitting to preserve a copy of this original in the State of Illinois.
The Chevalier de Bertel had a difficult part to play. France and England were at war, because Frederick the Great and Maria Theresa could not agree, and this dis- turbed the settlements at the Illinois. Some English- men, found on the Mississippi, were arrested as spies, and confined in the dungeon at Fort Chartres, and whis- pers of an English attack were in the air. The fort was out of repair, and poorly supplied, and a number of its soldiers, tiring of the confinement of the garrison, deserted, to try the free life of the woods and prairies.
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The old-time Indian allies were won over by the British, and agreed to destroy the French post during the moon of the fall of the leaf, but they were thwarted by the skill and address of De Bertel. Many anxious thoughts he had as he paced the enclosure of Fort Chartres, and many an earnest epistle he addressed to his superior officers, assur- ing them that it was only by great good fortune that he could hold his post, which must be reënforced and strengthened. The abandonment of the fort was at one time contemplated. This plan, however, was given up when the Marquis de Galissonière, Governor-General of Canada, presented a memorial on the subject to the home government. He says, "The little colony of Illinois ought not to be left to perish. The King must sacrifice for its support. The principal advantage of the country is its extreme productiveness, and its connection with Canada and Louisiana must be maintained." The peace of Aix la Chapelle came in time to give both parties a breathing space, in which to prepare for the sterner con- test soon to follow. Chevalier de Bertel, knowing that his wise counsels had borne fruit, transferred the com- mand again to Benoist St. Clair, who signalized his return by wedding the daughter of a citizen of Kaskaskia, in January, 1750. The same year De Galissonière once more urged upon the King the importance of preserving and strengthening the post at the Illinois, describing the country as open and ready for the plough, and traversed by an innumerable multitude of buffaloes. "And these animals," he says, "are covered with a species of wool, sufficiently fine to be employed in various manufacto- ries!" And he further suggests, and, doubtless, correctly, that "the buffalo, if caught and attached to the plow, would move it at a speed superior to that of the domestic ox!"
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In the succeeding autumn the Chevalier de Makarty, a major of engineers, with a few companies of troops, arrived from France, under orders to rebuild the citadel of the Illinois country. Other detachments followed, until nearly a full regiment of French grenadiers answered to the roll-call at Fort Chartres. They toiled busily to transform it from a fortress of wood to one of stone, under the skillful guidance of the trained officer, whose Irish blood, as well as his French commission, made hos- tile preparations against Britain a labor of love to him. You may see, to this day, the place in the bluffs to the eastward of the fort, where they quarried the huge blocks, which they carried in boats across the little lake lying between. The finer stone, with which the gateways and buildings were faced, was brought from beyond the Mississippi. A million of crowns seemed to the King of France but a reasonable expense for this work of recon- struction, which was to secure his empire in the West. And hardly was it completed when the contest began, and the garrison of Fort Chartres had a hand in the opening struggle. In May, 1754, the young George Washington, with his Virginia riflemen, surprised the party of Jumon- ville at the Great Meadows, and slew the French leader. His brother, Neyon de Villiers, one of the captains at Fort Chartres, obtained leave from Makarty to avenge him, and with his company went by the Mississippi and the Ohio to Fort du Quesne, where he joined the head of the family, Coulon de Villiers, who was marching on the same errand. Together, with " a force as numerous," said the Indians, " as the pigeons in the woods," they brought to bay "Monsieur de Wachenston," as the French dispatches call him, at Fort Necessity, which he surrendered on the 4th of July. The capture of this
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place by the French is one of the causes assigned by George the Second for the declaration of hostilities by Britain; and thus the Old French War began. The little detachment, with its bold leader, returned, flushed with victory, to celebrate, at Fort Chartres, the triumph of Illinois over Virginia. Soon the demands upon this post for supplies and men grew constant, and the veteran Makarty labored steadily to keep pace with them. The commandant at Fort du Quesne, whose communications with Canada were interrupted by the British, writes him: "We are in sad want of provisions. I send to you for flour and pork." The Governor-General of Canada, in an epistle to the Minister of Marine, observes: "I knew the route from the Illinois was as fine as could be desired. Chevalier de Villiers, who commands the escort of pro- visions from there, came up with a bateau of 18,000 weight. This makes known a sure communication with the Illinois whence I can derive succor in provisions and men." Nor did our garrison confine itself to commissary work. The tireless De Villiers, hardly resting from his escort duty, crossed the Alleghenies with his men, and captured Fort Granville, on the Juniata. The Marquis de Montcalm, writing to the Minister of War, thus pleas- antly alludes to this little attention paid by Illinois to Pennsylvania: "The news from the Beautiful River is excellent. We continue to devastate Pennsylvania. Chevalier de Villiers, brother of Jumonville, who was assassinated by the British, has just burned Fort Gran- ville, sixty miles from Philadelphia." The next year, Aubry, another of the Fort Chartres captains, was sent by Makarty, with 400 men, to reënforce Fort du Quesne, then threatened by the British. The morning after his arrival he sallied out and routed Major Grant and his
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Highlanders, and, a few days later, surprised the British camp forty-five miles away, captured their horses, and brought his party back mounted. Soon, however, the approach of a superior force, with Washington and his riflemen in the van, compelled the abandonment of Fort du Quesne. By the light of its burning stockade, the Illinois troops sailed down the Beautiful River, and sadly returned to their homes.
The British star was now in the ascendant, yet still the French struggled gallantly. Once more the drum beat to arms on the parade ground at Fort Chartres, at the command to march to raise the siege of Fort Niagara. All the Illinois villages sent volunteers, and Aubry led the expedition by a devious route, joining the detach- ments from Detroit and Michillimackinac, on Lake Erie. As they entered the Niagara River Indian scouts reported that they were "like a floating island, so black was the stream with their bateaux and canoes." The desperate charge upon the British lines failed, Aubry, covered with wounds, fell into the hands of the enemy, and the bul- letin reads, "Of the French from the Illinois, many were killed and many taken prisoner." Despair and gloom settled upon the fort and its neighborhood, when the sor- rowful news came back. Makarty writes to the Gov-
ernor-General: "The defeat at Niagara has cost me the flower of my men. My garrison is weaker than ever. The British are building bateaux at Pittsburg. I have made all arrangements, according to my strength to receive the enemy." And the Governor-General replies, "I strongly recommend you to be on your guard." The surrender, at Montreal, of the Canadas, fol- lowed upon the victory on the plains of Abraham, but still the Illinois held out for the King. Neyon de Vil-
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liers received his well-earned promotion, and assumed command at Fort Chartres. And the fine old soldier, Makarty, doubtless regretting that he had not had the opportunity to test the strength of the goodly stone walls he had builded, sheathed his sword, twirled his mus- tache, made his bow, and departed.
The village at the fort gate, which, after the rebuild- ing, was called New Chartres, had become a well-estab- lished community. The title records quaintly illustrate its ways of transacting business, as when, for instance, the royal notary at the Illinois declares that he made a cer- tain public sale in the forenoon of Sunday, after the great parochial mass of Ste. Anne of New Chartres, at the main door of the church, offering the property in a high and audible voice, while the people were going out in great numbers from said church. And the parish register, which, briefly and drily, notes the marriages of the com- mon people, spares neither space nor words in the record of the weddings in the families of the officers at the fort. When Jean la Freilé de Vidrinne, officer of a company, is married to Elizabeth de Moncharveaux, daughter of Jean François Livernon de Moncharveaux, captain of a company, and when the Monsieur André Chevalier, royal solicitor and treasurer for the King at the country of the Illinois, weds Madeleine Loisel, names and titles, and ancestry are set forth at length, and Makarty, the com- mandant, Buchet, the principal writer, Du Barry, a lieu- tenant, all the dignitaries of fort and village, and all the relatives, subscribe the register as witnesses. The ladies sign with a careful deliberation, indicating that penman- ship was not one of their recreations; the gentlemen with flourishes so elaborate that they seem to have been hardly able to bring them to a close. These entries
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appear in a separate volume, the last in date of the par- ish books, entitled; "Register of the Marriages made in the Parish of Ste. Anne, containing seventeen sheets, or sixty-eight pages, numbered and initialed by Mr. Buchet, principal writer and judge." (Signed) Buchet. And in the Baptismal register of the chapel of St. Joseph, at Prairie du Rocher, appears an entry which has a strangely familiar sound. For it recites that several persons, adults and children, were baptized together, in the "presence of their parents, brothers, uncles, mutual friends, their sis- ters, their cousins, and their aunts." This, palpably, is the germ of "Pinafore," which Illinois may therefore take the credit of originating, long before our era!
New Chartres, and the other villages in the neighbor- hood, and the fort, rested secure in the belief that, although Canada had surrendered, Louisiana, with the Illinois country, would still be preserved by the King, who might thence reconquer his lost possessions. Hence, like a thunder-clap, came the news that on the Ioth of February, 1763, Louis XV had ratified the treaty trans- ferring them to the British government. The aged Bien- ville, then living in Paris, with tears in his eyes, begged that the colony, to which he had given the best years of his life, might be spared to France, but in vain. With a stroke of his pen the weak King ceded to Great Britain the Canadas, the Illinois, and all the valley of the Missis- sippi east of the river. While at Fort Chartres they were in daily expectation of news of the coming of British troops to take possession, an expedition arrived from New Orleans to settle at the Illinois. It was headed by Pierre Laclede, the representative of a company of mer- chants engaged in the fur trade. Learning here of the treaty of cession, he at once decided to establish a new
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post in the territory, west of the Mississippi, supposed to be still French ground. Neyon de Villiers permitted him to store his goods and quarter his company at the fort, and Laclede, after an exploring tour, selected a fine bluff, sixty miles to the northward, for the site of his colony. He foresaw something of its future importance, and, returning to Fort Chartres for the winter, discoursed with enthusiasm upon its prospects, and took possession in the spring. This was the beginning of the city of St. Louis. Many of the French from the Illinois followed him, even transporting their houses to the other shore, so great was their desire to live under their own flag. And terrible was their disappointment when the secret treaty with Spain was made known, by which their faith- less King ceded all his dominions beyond the Mississippi to the nation which had so long disputed with France her foothold there. Many more of the unhappy colonists descended the Mississippi, with Neyon de Villiers, in the belief that lower Louisiana was to remain under French control, and that their condition would be bettered there, only to be bitterly disappointed. Those who remained felt their hopes revive, as time passed on and the red- coats came not.
The veteran St. Ange, who had returned from Vin- cennes to play the last sad act of the drama, with a little garrison of forty men, still held the fort, although it was the only place in North America at which the white flag of the Bourbons was flying. All else had been ceded and surrendered, but the way to the west was not yet open, for Pontiac was a lion in the path. The British victory was not complete until that flag was lowered, and repeated efforts to accomplish this were made. Again and again were they thwarted by the Forest Chieftain.
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Major Loftus, ascending the Mississippi with a force to take possession of Fort Chartres, was greeted with a vol- ley at the bluffs, still called Loftus' Heights, and retreated to Pensacola. Captain Pittman, seeking to find his way from Mobile in the guise of a trader, gave up the attempt as too hazardous. Captain Morris, sent from Detroit to arrange for the surrender of the fort, was met by Pontiac, who, squatting in front of him, opened the interview by observing that the British were liars, and asked if he had come to lie to them like the rest. Attentions much less courteous were received from indi- viduals of the Kickapoo persuasion, and Morris turned back, while still several hundred miles from his destina- tion. Lieutenant Frazer, pushing down the Ohio, reached Kaskaskia, where he fell into Pontiac's hands, who kept him all one night in dread of being boiled alive, and at daybreak shipped him to New Orleans by canoe express, with the cheerful information that the kettle was boiling over a large fire to receive any other Englishmen who came that way. Frazer could only console himself for his otherwise fruitless voyage down both the Ohio and the Mississippi, with the thought that he had been nearer to the objective point than any other officer, and had seen a great deal of the country. George Croghan, Sir Wil- liam Johnson's interpreter, following Frazer on the same errand, was waylaid by the Shawnees on the Ohio and sent to the Indian villages on the Wabash, whence he took Morris' route to Detroit. The French and Spanish officers in Louisiana laughed at the British failures to reach a fort they claimed to own, and suggested that an important party had been omitted in the treaty of cession, and that a new one should be made with King Pontiac. Meanwhile that sovereign was ordering into service some
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Illinois Indians, assembled near Fort Chartres, and when they showed a reluctance to engage in hostilities against their new rulers, said to them : "Hesitate not, or I destroy you as fire does the prairie grass. Listen, and recollect these are the words of Pontiac!" Their scruples vanished with amazing rapidity, and they did his bidding. Then with his retinue of dusky warriors, he led the way through the tall gateway of Fort Chartres, and greeting St. Ange, as he sat in the government house, said; "Father, I have long wished to see thee, to recall the bat- tles which we fought together against the misguided In- dians and the English dogs. I love the French, and I have come here with my warriors to avenge their wrongs." But St. Ange plainly told him that all was over; Onontio, their great French father, could do no more for his red children; he was beyond the sea and could not hear their voices; and they must make peace with the English. Pontiac, at last convinced, gave up the contest, and made no opposition to the approach from Fort Pitt, by the Ohio, of a detachment of the 42d Highlanders, the famous Black Watch, under Captain Stirling, to whom St. Ange formally surrendered the fort on the 2d of October, 1765. The lilies of France gave place to the red cross of St. George, and the long struggle was ended. At Fort Chartres the great empire of France in the New World ceased forever.
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