History of Chicago. From the earliest period to the present time, Part 11

Author: Andreas, Alfred Theodore
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Chicago, A. T. Andreas
Number of Pages: 1340

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If " the bluffs," where Marquette was detained by the weather, were at the present site of Milwaukee.

* Marquette cendenly ant two copies of his journal. One of the w. Transmitted ta Imais, Imi not offerta pritt-het, the Hanir Keinst. : - lin.

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where they were more abrupt and lofty, perhaps, than at any other point, Pierre must have passed " through the woods " to the present site of Racine, "twenty leagues from the portage," and Marquette must have reached the place by entering Root River. It was the 27th of November before Marquette again em- barked, being detained by the wind. Nine miles farther. and he was again detained " by a wind from the shore. immense waves that came from the lake, and the coldl." On the 4th of December they again " started " to reach " Portage River." He does not say what day they arrived there, but they remained at the mouth of the river a few days, during which time his men killed con- siderable game. On the 12th they began to draw their luggage up the river, and on the 14th were settled in a cabin some five miles from the mouth of the river, "near the portage," and in the route to an Illinois village, six leagues further on. Here Marquette was obliged to remain all winter on account of a severe illness. This cabin, it would seem, belonged to two French traders, Pierre Moreau (La Toupine), and his companion who was not only a trader but a surgeon as well, and who were then at their winter hunting-ground, about fifty miles from the portage, and not very far distant from a village of Illinois Indians. These traders were expect- ing a visit from Marquette and his companions at their cabin at the hunting-ground, and had made due prepa- ration to receive them by laying in an extra store of provisions. Marquette says that "some (person; in- formed La Toupine and the surgeon that we were here 'at the portage , and unable to leave their cabin." and that as soon as the two Frenchmen knew that ill- ness prevented his " going to them," the surgeon visited him, brought him provisions, and stopped with him for a time "to attend to his duties." In fact, Marquette says "they did and said everything that could be expected of them." They " gave the Indians to under- stand " that the cabin belonged to Marquette, and he remained in it through the winter unmolested. When the surgeon had finished his visit, Jacques accompanied him to his wintering ground, and returned with more provisions, sent by the Frenchmen to the sick priest. Marquette, in turn, repaid their kindness by doing all in his power to influence the Indians to deal fairly with the traders, wbo, he.says, "do not rob them (the Indians , in getting furs in the country, so great is the hardship. - they experience in getting them." It is not probable that these were the only traders in the country of the Illinois at this time, or that they were the only ones who had crossed the portage to the interior and returned. bringing their furs to Lake Michigan in the spring, when ready to embark for their trip to the St. Lawrence. When Marquette went, in the spring, to the Kaskaskia village, he met the " surgeon," on the way, coming up the Desplaines with his furs. " but." he says: " the cold being too severe for men who have to drag their canoe through the water, 'e made a cache fur his beaver." and turned back with Maranette toward the Kaskaskia village.

Marquette continued sick in his cabin through the winter of 1074-75. Toward spring, through the special interpretation of the Blessed Virgin, as he believed. hi- sukne - almed, and before March he was alde to leave his calm and observe the peculiarities of the country. In the latter part of March the Desplaines River bruke up and downled the prairie which fornell the portage. He describes the spentin this :

Hope .. we del thirty wil pigens, which I found wetter than

EARLY EXPLORATIONS.

Those below (Quebec), but smaller, both young and off. On the 2Sth the ice broke, and choked above us On the Both, the water was so high that we had barely time to uacabin in haste. put our things on trees, and try to find a place to sleep on some hillock. the water gaining on us all night : but having frozen a little, and having fallen, as we were near our luggage. the dyke burst, and ice went down ; and as the waters are aga:" ascending already, we are going to embark to continue var route."

The " portage," where Marquette passed the winter of 1674-75, and which he says, in his letter to Dablon, is the same he crossed with Joliet, eighteen months be- fore, is described in a letter written by LaSalle to Fron- tenac, which was published by Margry, in one of his volumes, and republished in the Magazine of American History. Joliet visited LaSalle at Fort Frontenac, on his return to Canada from his Mississippi voyage, in the spring of 1674, and at that time, it is presumed, told LaSalle of the Checagou portage. LaSalle visited the same place in January, 1682, and was detained there several days by the snow. Joliet had affirmed, in a communication to the authorities in Canada, that it would be possible to go from Lake Erie to the Missis- sippi " in boats," and, "by a very good navigation," saying that " there would be but one canal to make, by cutting half a league of prairie to pass from the Lake of the Illinois into St. Louis River,* which empties into the Mississippi." LaSalle, on examining the place in 1682, did not believe the scheme practicable. He speaks disdainfully of Joliet's " proposed ditch," and says he " should not have made any mention of this communi- cation " . the canal spoken of , " if Joliet had not pro- posed it without regard to its difficulties." He thus de- scribes the portage mentioned by Joliet, which he calls the " Portage of Checagou ":

" This is an isthmus of land at 41 degrees. 50 minutes north - latitude. at the west of the Islinois Lake.t which is reached by a . channelt formed by the junction of several rivulets or meadow ditches. It is navigable for about two leagues to the edge of the prairie, a quarter of a mile westward. There is a little lake, di- vided by a causeway, made by the beavers, about a league and a half long, from which runs a stream, which. after winding about a half league through the rushes. empties into the river Checagou. § and thence into that of the Illinois. This lake | is filed by heavy summer rains. or spring freshets, and discharges also into the chanel which leads to the lake of the Islinois, the level of which is seven feet lower than the prairie on which the lake is. The river of Checagou does the same thing in the spring when its channel is full. It empties a part-of its waters by this little lake into that of the Islinois ( Lake Michigan), and at this season, Joliet says, forms in the summer time a little channel for a quarter of a league from this lake to the basin which leads to that of the Isti- nois, by which vessels can enter the Checagou and descend to the Sea.

Marquette remained at the portare described above until the 30th of March, when, as he relate -. in the pas- sage quoted from his journal, the south wind had caused a thaw, the breaking up of the ice in the Destaines, and the flooding of the prairie portage. On the zoth. taking advantage of the high water. he had embarks i probably on Mud Lake and had proceeded nine tailes on his journey by the 3ist, and arrived _: abur: the place where he and Joliet were obliged to leave their canoes and commence the portage in the fa : of to;s. when the water was low. St. Co-me, who passed to the Missis- sippi by the portage of Chicago; In october. 100. gives a similar account of the compathave Length : the port- age in spring and fall-nine mies in the f_il and less than a mile in the spring. He-8.

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" We started from Chicago on the 29th, and put up for the night about two leagues off. in the little river which is then lost in the prairies. The next day we began the portage, which is about three leagues long when the water is low, and only a quar- ter of a league in the spring, for you embark on a little lake that empties into a branch" of the river of the Illinois ; but when the waters are low you have to make a portage to that branch."

Marquette, as the waters were certainly high when he started, must have embarked on this little lake " going up " to the Desplaines, " without finding any portage," as the waters of that river through the lake spoken of, were now rushing down to the Lake of Michigan.t The distance of "half an arpent "t which they were obliged to drag their canoes, might have been from the high ground where they slept on the night of the 29th to the place where they embarked on Mud Lake.

After having passed nine miles from the point where he embarked, being then in the Desplaines, he says : " Here we Joliet and himself; began our portage more than eighteen months ago." He was now in what he justly called an " outlet " of the Illinois, for the Desplaines was such in the spring until much later than Marquette's time. He evidently knew also of the other branch of the Illinois-the Teakikis of the Jesuits-by which he could reach the St. Joseph and the lake-and by which " outlet," as he calls it, he probably returned to Mackinac.

Marquette was eleven days on his way to Kaskas- kia village, arriving on the 8th of April. He was re- ceived by the Indians "like an angel from heaven." After preparing the minds of the chiefs for what he wished to accomplish, he called a grand council of the nation in the beautiful prairie near the town.| Five hundred chiefs and old men, and fifteen hundred youths assembled, besides a great crowd of women and chil- dren. He explained the object of his visit, preached to them and said mass. Three days later, on Easter Sun- day, the Indians again assembled on the prairie, when Marquette again said mass before them, "took posses- sion of that land in the name of Jesus Christ, and gave this mission the name of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin."

His illness not permitting him to remain among the Illinois, he soon left them to return to Michilimackinac, promising to come again to the Illinois, or send another to take his place. So much had he attached these sim- ple Indians to himself. that a large number of the tribe escorted him nearly a hundred miles on his return jour -. ney, or nearly to the point at which he wished to strike Lake Michigan on his return to his mission, down the eastern shore of the lake. Sick and weary when he embarked, his-strength rapidly failed as his journey was continued, and on the 19th of May he felt that death was near As he reached the mouth of a small river. he requested his companions to land, and there in a hot of bark, which they built for him, the good missionary died that night. They dug a grave on the bank of the river, and leaving him resting there, made their way to . the Mission of St. Ignace. In the winter of 1676, the bone of Marquette were taken from the grave, by a party of Kiskakin Indians, carefully placed in a box of birch bark. and carried to St. Ignace, where they were buried. with solemn ceremonies, beneath the floor of the mission.

Doubtless the site of Chicago had been visited by

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HISTORY OF EARLY CHICAGO.

Canadian voyageurs, and it may be that the more lawless courier, De Bois, had also passed to the interior by this route before Marquette and Joliet returned from their expedition to the Mississippi, in the fall of 16;3, and for the first time gave to the world a written account of the route from the Illinois River to Lake Michigan by way of the Chicago portage .*

It has been related,t too, that Nicholas Perrot, in the year 1671, left Sault Ste. Marie and visited " at Chi- cago," "Tetenchoua," the principal chief of the Miamis,

* Prof. A. D. Hager, after long and car 'ul study, has arrived at a con- clusion in regard to the return route of Joliet and Marquette and the locality where Marquette subsequently spent the winter of 1674-75, essentially different from that commonly received. His views on the subject are given at length, in succeeding pages of this work. The writers of this History have followed the accepted theory of Shea, Parkman and other acknowledged authorities on early Northwestern American history. They. however, acknowledge, by the inser- tion of Mr. Hager's article, both the merits of his argument, and their apprecia- tion of the value of his new theory concerning the early settlement of the Northwest

+ Charlevoix.

who " never moved without a guard of forty warriors, who kept watch, night and day, about his cabin." The object of this visit of Perrot was to induce this power- ful chief to enter into an alliance with the French. Fathers Allonez and .Dablon met this same " Teten- choua," with three thousand braves, at a Mascoutin vil- lage in Wisconsin, in 16;4-the Miamis and the Mas- coutins having joined against their common enemy, the Sioux.

On the death of Marquette. Father Claude Allouez was appointed to the Illinois mission, to which he made several visits ; the nrst in the spring of 1677, when he was met by an Illinois chief and eighty Indians at the mouth of the Chicago River, and conducted by them to the Illinois village. The second was made in 1678, when he remained until 1680. He again visited Chi- cago in 1684, with Durantaye, and it was probably at this time that the fort was built at Chicago by the latter.

EARLY CHICAGO, AND THE NORTHWEST. BY ALBERT D. HAGER.

In the interest of historical truth, the writer pre- pared a paper which he read before the Chicago His- torical Society, in June, 1880.

In that paper he attempted to show, among other things, that Father Marquette was not the first white man who visited the present site of Chicago, and that the Miami Indians never made this site their home, as has been usually asserted by those who have written concerning early Chicago.

Additional testimony from the early explorers of the Northwest, in connection with early maps, corrobor- ated by official documents, will be here presented to confirm the foregoing propositions and also to contro- vert what the writer believes to be other erroneous state- ments concerning Marquette and Joliet and the history of the Northwest.

Nearly every writer, who alludes to early Chicago, intimates that Marquette was the first white man who navigated the Chicago. River, and-some assert that. he built a log cabin and was its " first civilized settler."

In none of Marquette's writings, nor on either of his maps, does he use the word Chicago. Charlevoix, a Jesuit priest, who visited the Northwest in 1721, was the first writer to couple the names of Marquette and Chicago. He says :* "On arriving at Chicagou. on Lake Michigan, they separated. Father Marquette remained among the Miamis, and Joliet went to Quebec. The missionary was well received by the great chief of the Miamis. He took up his abode in the chief town of these Indians, and spent the last years of his life in announcing Jesus Christ to them.

These statements were made from hearsay testi- mony. He had not seen the manuscript journal- of Marquette. They were at that time in the Jesuit Col- leye at Quebec.t The very modest and apparently truthful record- made in there journals by Marquette, dispone-every . statement quoted from -the writing- of Charlevoix, a- will appear farther on. Jofiet's journal and map, made for the Government of France, Were list, by the upsetting of his canbe in the rapide of the st. Lawrence, just before reaching Montreal. Mar- quette had died at the age of thirty-eight. His journal,

or a copy of it, and a map of the trip he made with Joliet, were sent to France, but the Government took no official action in relation to them. New explorations were made not long after Marquette's death. Those belonging to the order of Recollet missionaries were " chosen almost always as chaplains to the troops and forts, and were to be found at every French post. ** They were " the fashionable confessors, and were sta- tioned at trading points. In this way they became involved in disputes, and, favored by and favoring Fron- tenac, found themselves arrayed, in a manner, against the rest of the clergy. A general charge, made about that time, seems to have been, that the Jesuits had really made no discoveries, and no progress in converting the natives."t The Recollets were more " liberal " than the Jesuits. A jealousy, and at times, it would seem, an animosity, existed between them and the Jesuits. What purported to be a published narrative of Marquette, by M. Thevenot, in Paris, 1681, was "derided, called a fable, or narrative of a pretended voyage," etc .;

In most, if not all the narratives made during the forty years subsequent to -Marquette's death, his name is not mentioned . except by Jesuits. . Joliet is but occa- sionally alluded to, Father Douay, a Recollet mission- ary who accompanied LaSalle in 1687, says:

" It was at this place Cape St. Anthony) only, and not further, that the Sieur Joliet descended in 1673. They were taken, with their whole party. in the Manso- pela. These Indiar- having told them that they would be killed if they went any farther, they turned back, not having descended lower than thirty or forty leagues below the mouth of the ILinois River. I had brought with me the printed book of this pretended discovery, and I remarked all along my route that there was not a word of truth in it."s

A copy of this "printed book " is in the library of the Chicago Historical Society. It is entitled, " Recenil de Voyages" in whi hi there is a map of the Mississippi Valley. The map .- wonderfully accurate. considering the circumstances under which it was made. It has been suggested by some well informed historians, that the map was not male br Marquette, but was the one which Joliet drew ir en me nory. a.I sent to the French Government after he lost his onismal. This seemed

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THEVENOT'S MAP, 1673,

Thevenot's map (1673), as originally drawn, bore the title " Map of the New Discovery that the Jesuit Fathers made in the year 1672, and continued by Father Jacques Marquette, of the same Society, accompanied by several Frenchmen in the year 1673," etc. It was first published in 1681, by Thevenot, ir. his Recueil de voyages, in connection with Marquette's Découvertes dans l'Amerique Septentrionale. The names of the Illinois and other Indian villages west of the Mississippi generally correspond with those laid down on Marquette's map, but the Kaskaskia village on the Illinois River, which Marquette mentions, is not represented here. The frequent mention of mines-iron, copper, coal, etc -with the names Lac de Michigami, Puans Pewarca; and notably the word Blood Stones, which also appears on Joliet's map of 1674, indicate that the above was made from his descriptions, or by himself, although errors in the map seem to refute such a supposition.

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HISTORY OF EARLY CHICAGO.

quite plausible. It is quite unlike the map found with Marquette's manuscript, a fac-simile of which was first published by Mr. Shea, in 1852. The workmanship and skill in drawing, exhibited in the former, is much super- ior to that of the latter. The circumstances under which they were drawn were probably very different. Marquette was at the mission of St. Francis, near Green Bay, thirteen months after making the first trip before he commenced the second. He had ample time to make a finished map. The one copied by Mr. Shea, evidently was, like his journal, unfinished, and made during his journey.

The recent discovery of the original map of Joliet, which Frontenac sent to the French Government, a fac- simile of which may be seen in this book, settles the long vexed question, and reflects upon Marquette the honor of being the author of the first published map of the upper Mississippi Valley - the one here re-produced. Mr. Jared Sparks regarded the map in Thevenot's book as genuine, whether it were made by Joliet or Marquette, and says : " It is valuable as confirming the genuineness of the narrative. It was impossible to construct it without having seen the principal objects delineated."*

It was not till about fifty years ago that the genuine- ness of the narrative of Marquette, published by Theve- not, was established, except as above suggested. In the Hotel Dieu, at Quebec, thirty-seven pages of manu- script were found, essentially the same as the published narrative. By comparing these with the parish records made by Marquette, at Boucherville, in 1668, their au- thorship was established. With these manuscripts there were twenty-three pages more of manuscript and a map in the same hand-writing, that gave an unfinished account of Marquette's last trip to the Illinois. Mr. Shea published the latter in 1852. They will again be refer- red to.

Father Marquette was a good, unselfish, truthful, modest man. "He relates what occurs and describes what he sees, without embellishment or display. He writes as a scholar, and as a man of careful observation and practical sense. There is no tendency to exaggerate nor to magnify the difficulties he had to encounter, or the importance of this discovery."t He had what might seem a morbid desire to suffer privations and endure hardships, and says he " esteemed no happiness greater than that of losing his life for the glory of Him who made all." He wished "to die in a wretched cabin amid the forests, destitute of all human aid."$ He was born in France, and came to this country in 1668. The Most Rev. Alexander Tache, the Archbishop of Manitoba, and a great-grandson of Joliet; the discoverer, kindly sent the writer a photographic copy of the first entry made by Marquette in this country, in the Boucherville, Canada, Parish Records, May 20, 1668. It is now in the library of the Chicago Historical Society.

From Boucherville, or Quebec, Marquette was sent to the mission on the south shore of Lake Superior. He soon returned from thence to Sault Ste. Marie, where a mission was established. This he soon left for La Pointe, on Lake Superior, and from thence back to Michilimacki- nac. In none of these missions did he seem contented, nor were his labors attended with marked success. Dur- ing his seven years' residence in this country, unfavor- able circumstances and ill health seemed to wither his hopes and defeat his good intentions. The last entry he made in his journal after finishing his journey with Joliet, is more despondent than assuring. He says :

* Spark-'s life of Margin tte. p. 205.

+ Spark-'s Life of Marquette. p. 295.

: Die. Miss Valley. p. : 4.

$ Ibid., p. f ...

" Had all this voyage caused but the salvation of a single soul. I should deem all my fatigue well repaid. And this I have reason to think, for, when I was return- ing, I passed by the Indians of Peoria ; I was three days announcing the faith in all their cabins, after which, as we were embarking, they brought me," on the water's edge, a dying child, which I baptized a little before it expired, by an admirable Providence for the salvation of that innocent soul." **

The journals of Marquette have internal evidence of being more truthful and reliable than the writings of most of the other missionaries and explorers of the North- west. The latter abound in self-praise, exaggeration and evident misstatements. Some of the writers, as has been well said, " seem to tell the truth by accident, and fic- tion by inclination,"t

Marquette's journals and official documents, when obtainable, will therefore be used to corroborate doubt- ful statements or establish historical facts for this paper.

It would be a difficult task, if not impossible, to de- termine who was the first civilized explorer of the North- west and the discoverer of the Mississippi Valley. In 1541, De Soto crossed the Mississippi above the mouth of the Arkansas, and in 1543, his successor, Moscoso, sailed down the great river to. the opening gulf.t

In 1639, Sieur Nicolet, after having spent ten years of his life with the Indians. visited the Winnebagoes, who then resided on 'and near Winnebago Lake and Fox River, Wisconsin, and " reached the waters of the Mis- sissippi."$

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History of Chicago. From the earliest period to the present time, Part 11

Author: Andreas, Alfred Theodore Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Chicago, A. T. Andreas Number of Pages: 1340

Author: Andreas, Alfred Theodore
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Chicago, A. T. Andreas
Number of Pages: 1340