History of Chicago. From the earliest period to the present time, Part 14

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

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Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

If that is so, LaSalle's people must have traveled in those three days, in January, 1682, one hundred and fifteen miles-the distance from St. Joseph to Chicago. It seems more probable that they traveled sixty miles to the mouth of the Grand Calumet, which as can be seen upon the map reproduced by Margry, was, in 1679-82, called the Chekagou. But farther on, in this letter, La- Salle speaks of the Checagou River in a manner that places beyond a doubt that he means the Desplaines. In speaking of the Teatiki Kankakee , he says, " It is found to receive on the left. in its descent, another river, nearly as large, which is called the river of the Iroquois and thence continuing * it receives on the right bank that of Checagou. This river flows from the Bay of Puans, and is a torrent rather than a river, although it has a course of more than sixty leagues," etc.

So it appears that he referred to two Chicago rivers. Of the one emptying into the lake he, in speaking of opening the mouth of the river by the removal of the sand bar, says : "1 doubt, even if it be a complete suc- ress, whether a vessel could resist the great freshets caused by the currents in the Checayou in the spring. which are much heavier than those of the Rhone. More- over. it would only be serviceable for a short time, and att most, for fifteen or twenty days each year, after which there would be no more waters," etc.

This would hardly suttice for a description of the sluggish stream, in which there is at all times a plenti- ful supply of stagnant water, now called Chicago River.

·AV. Col, vol. o. p 175; Jour. Historique, Lettre IX.

+ \ 1 :. 1 1 : 2 trom vid. 2 of Margry .

He speaks of a " Portage of Chicago," and says " This is an isthmus of land at 41º and 50' north lati- tude, at the west of Illinois Lake, which is reached by a channel formed by the junction of several rivulets, or meadow ditches." The latitude given would make the portage and isthmus north of west of the court-house in Chicago, which is in latitude 41º 26'-too far north for the South Branch portage. There may have been a . portage from the North Branch over an isthmus to the Desplaines, but as far as is known to the writer, no one has ever thought there was one. It may be that there is a mistake in this latitude by typographical error or otherwise.

LaSalle did not like the Chicagou route to the I!li- nois. His first trip was by the St. Joseph and Kanka- kee. He did not wish to experiment with a new route. On the map. made in his day, and probably from data furnished by him or his men, the Grand Calumet was named Chekagoue. He would be obliged to go by boat sixty miles from the mouth of the St. Joseph to Grand Calumet, instead of going up the St. Joseph as he had done on his first journey. In some other early maps the name Checagou may have been applied to the forked river on the west side of the lake-the Chicago River of to-day. But no Miamis appear to have been there. The map-makers in the old world were doubtless as much perplexed to locate the Chicago of one hundred and fifty years ago, as an American map-maker would be to accu- rately locate some of the towns and rivers of unpro- nounceable names in Central Africa reported by Stanley and other explorers of that region. It seems very doubt- ful whether the parties at the treaty of Greenville, in 1795, fully understood the location and history of Chi- cago. They described the thirty-six miles of land that were ceded at " the mouth of a river where a fort for- merly stood." There is no record, nor even tradition, . that a fort ever stood at the mouth of Chicago River, prior to 1803. Tradition says one was built by a French trader named Garay, upon the North Branch, and that the branch was called Garay Creek. It is probable that forts, or more probably stockades, as places for the stor- age of fu.s, were erected at the mouths of many rivers and near portages. The earthworks around the remains of one of these are said to exist on the north side of the " sag," before alluded to, in the town of Palos, Cook County, and its ruins are thus described by Dr. V. A. Boyer, of Chicago :

"I have many times visited, when on hunting excursions. the remains of an old fort, located in the town of Palos, Cook County, Ill., at the crossing of the old sag trail, which crossed the .Ausa- gaunashkee swamp, and was the only crossing east of the Des- plaines River, prior to the building of the Archer bridge" in 1836. The remains of the fort, situated north of the sag and near the cross- ing, were on the elevated timber land, commanding a view of the -ur- rounding country, and as a military post would well command and guard the crossing. * * * I have never been able to find any ac- count of the building of this fort in any historical works. I first saw it in 1833, and since then have visited it often in company with other persons, some of whom are still living. I feel sure that it was not built during the Sac War, from its appearance. # # # It seems probable that it was the work of French fur-trailers or explorers, as there were trees a century old growing in its environs. It was evi- dently the work of an enlightened people, skilled in the science of warfare. * As a strategetie point it most completely com- manded the surrounding country and the crossing of the swamp .

The manuscript from which the above is taken, is in the library of the Chicago Historical Society, and with it is a map showing the location of the "fort " in the western part of Section 15 of the town of Palos. It is reported that near that place, and near the point where the sag enters the Desplaines, many relics of

* Fg bridge, near the Desplaines River.

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Indians and those evidently made by a more civilized people have been found. If the sag was the thorough- fare of the early French explorers and traders, it is reasonable to suppose that many relics of theirs will be found when that part of the county is settled and - the land plowed .* It was a habit of the traders to cache their furs and other articles which they wished to hide from the view of strangers who might pass that way.

One other point and this paper will be brought to a close. It is frequently asserted that Marquette was the discoverer of the Mississippi River. Joliet's name in connection with the discovery is often ignored. By referring to the report of Count Frontenac to M. Col- bert, Minister at Paris, under date of November 2, 1672, it will be seen that Louis Joliet was commissioned to go "to the country of the Mascoutins to discover the South Sea and the great river they call the Mississippi, which is supposed to discharge itself into the sea of California. He is a man of great experience in these sorts of discoveries; and has already been almost at that Great River, the mouth of which he promises to see."

In another communication, dated November 14, 1674, the Count writes to Minister Colbert; as follows :

"Sieur Joliet * * * has returned three months ago, and dis- covered some very fine countries, and a navigation so easy through the beatiful rivers he has found, that a person can go from Lake Ontario and Fort Frontenac in a bark to the Gulf of Mexico. there being only one carrying-place, half a league in length, where Lake Ontario communicates with Lake Erie. * * * He has been within ten days' journey of the Gulf of Mexico. * * * I send you by my secretary the map he has made of itt and the observa- tions he has been able to recollect, as he has lost all his minutes and journals in the shipwreck suffered within sight of Montreal. where after having completed a voyage of twelve hundred leagues, he was near being drowned, and lost all his papers and a little Indian whom he brought from those countries. These accidents have caused me great regret. He left with the Fathers of Sault Ste. Marie in Lake Superior, copies of his journals : these we can not get before next year. You will glean from them additional particulars of this discovery, in which he has very well acquitted himself."

In consideration of the great services Joliet had ren- dered the French Government he obtained a grant of

* Since the foregoing was written the writer has received a letter from Alexander Reid, of Sag Bridge P. O., who says that, about thirty-seven years ago wben plowing a piece of land on the south side of the sax, at the depth of ten or twelve inches, he found, as he expresses it. "about a bushel-basket full of arrow fints, and I think about sixty or seventy-five stone axes, of all sizes * * * about three or four rods from the margin of the sag.'

+ See fac-simile of Joliet's map in this work.

+ Paris Docs., .N. Y. Col., vol. 9, p. 121 ; also p. 793.

the island Anticosti. in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, " as a reward for having discovered the country of the Illinois. whereof he has transmitted a map to my Lord Colbert, and for a voyage he made to Hudson's Bay in the public interests." ** Thus it appears that Joliet was the person employed and the one paid for having made the discov- ery so often ascribed to Marquette. That the latter ac- companied Joliet and saw what he saw, and that he re- mained in the country and took a second trip to the Illinois, is true. He evidently bore the same relation to Joliet that the army chaplain does to his superior officers. Many a chaplain, upon his return from the war, has written an account of the campaign better than the colonel, under whom he served, could have done. It may have been that Marquette was a closer observer and better writer than Joliet. But this has not been proved. The original journals of Joliet were lost. The copies which he left with the Fathers at Sault Ste. Marie, as reported by Count Frontenac, have not been made pub- lic. No data are at hand to enable one to determine the character and merits of Joliet's journals. If they still exist, it is to be hoped that some person, with the enthusiasm and industry of a Margry, will search the French archives and the depositories of the Jesuits ano other missionaries, and do for the memory of Joliet what has been so well done for LaSalle.

That Joliet was the head of the expedition is clearly proven. Soon after his return to his native city, Quebec. he married Miss Claire F. Bissot, of that city, October 7, 1675. He led a very active life in attending to his own private business, in addition to faithfully and effi- ciently discharging governmental duties that were en- trusted to him. He died at about fifty-six years of age, . leaving a wife and seven children, viz .: Louis, Maric Charlotte, François, Jean Baptiste, Claire, Anne, and Marie Geneveive.

In closing, it may be said that the expedition - of Joliet and Marquette was particularly disastrous. Joliet lost his records and maps, and Marquette lost his life. .It was just two years and one day after Marquette started from Mackinac that he died. He was sick at the Mission of St. Francis, and in his cabin, " near the port- age," nearly seventeen months-leaving him less than eight months in which to do all his work of discover : and missionary labors in the Mississippi Valley.

* N. Y. Col., vol. 9, p. 668.

EARLY EXPLORATIONS.

EARLY EXPLORATIONS (CONTINUED).

LA SALLE. - It is believed by many students of northwestern history, that before Joliet and Marquette had visited this region, another great explorer had passed up the Chicago River to the Illinois, if not even to the Mississippi. This was the famous Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle. LaSalle was the son of a wealthy and aristocratic merchant of Rouen. He was born in 1643, and received a thorough education in his native country. Born a Catholic, he became early connected with the Jesuits. This connection, although severed in his early manhood, debarred him from any portion of the inherit- ance of his father, and at the age of twenty-three he sailed for Canada to seek his fortune. The little settle- ment of Montreal, which he had selected as his desti- nation, was then governed by the Seminary of St. Sul- pice, a corporation of priests, who held it and the sur- rounding country by seignorial rights. This post, being the most advanced settlement on the St. Lawrence, was in constant danger from the attacks of the neighboring Iroquois, and its proprietors were willing and glad to grant their lands, on easy terms, to any person brave enough to venture still farther up the St. Lawrence, and advance the line of settlement toward the enemy. La- Salle was both fearless and ambitious, and accepted a grant of land at the La Chine Rapids, equally danger- ous as a place of residence, and convenient as a place of trade. The divided waters of the St. Lawrence unite be- low the island on which Montreal is built, and form the Bay of St. Louis. On the southern shore of the bay was the seigniory of LaSalle. He at once commenced the improvement of his domain, which gave him an op- portunity of frequent intercourse with the Seneca Iro- quois. From them he heard of the Ohio, and also of another great river in the west, which he conceived must flow into the California Sea. After a residence of seven or eight years in Canada he had become thoroughly fa- miliar with several Indian dialects, and with the man- ners and characteristics of the surrounding tribes. He was restless and adventurous, and desired to penetrate farther into the magnificent country he had adopted as his home, and conceived the design of himself exploring the Ohio, and perhaps the " sea " into which the Indians said it flowed. Proceeding to Quebec, he gained the consent of Courcilles and 'T'alon to his proposed plan, but no aid toward carrying it out. He accordingly sold his grant to raise the necessary sum, and the proprietors of Montreal desiring also to explore these regions, the two contemplated expeditions were merged in one. The combined party consisted of twenty-four men and seven canoes, with two priests of St. Sulpice as the leaders of the Montreal party. There were two additional canoes for the Senecas, who acted as guides as far as their vil- lage on the southern shore of Lake Ontario. These Seneca guides here left the party, and with one Indian whom they found at the head of the lake and induced to act in that capacity, they proceeded on their journey. On reaching the Indian village at Niagara they found Joliet, who had reached that point on his return from the copper mines of Lake Superior. He had made a map of the region he had traversed ; and his description of the country, of the spiritual needs of the Indians, and. possibly, of the influence the Jesuits were gaining over them, induced the two priests of St. Sulpice to change the direction of their voyage to the north. The party separated at Niagara, the priests to go to Lake Superior, and LaSalle to continue his journey toward the south. This was in the last of September, 1669. His move- ments during the following year are not clearly traced.

From an unpublished memoir entitled " Histoire de Monsieur de la Salle," which is said to be a narrative of his explorations, as related by himself to the Abbe Ren- audot, at the time of his visit to Paris in 1678 to lay his plans for proposed discovery before King Louis XIV., and Colbert, Prime Minister, it is inferred that he reached the Ohio, and descended it to the falls below Louisville, when his voyageurs deserted him, and he was compelled to retrace his route alone, returning dur- ing 1669. The narrative continuies :

"Some time thereafter he made a second expedition to the same river, which he quitted below Lake Erie-made a porlage of six or seven leagues toembark on that lake, traversed it toward the north, ascended the river out of which it flows, passed the Lake of Dirty Water, entered the fresh water sea, doubled the point of land that cuts this sea in two (Lakes Huron and Michigan), and de- scended from north to south, leaving on the west the Bay of the Puans (Green Bay), discovered a bay infinitely larger, at the bot- tom of which, toward the west, he found a very beautiful harbor. and at the bottom of this he found a river, which runs from the east to the west, which he followed ; and having arrived at about the 2So°* of longitude, and the 39th of latitude, he came to another river which uniting with the first, flowed from the northwest to the southeast. This he followed as far as the 36thº of latitude, where he found it advisable to stop, contenting himself with the almost certain hope of some day passing by way of this river even to the Gulf of Mexico. Having but a handful of followers, he dared not risk a further expedition in the course of which he was likely to meet with obstacles too great for his strength."

From the passage quoted above, Pierre Margry, a noted French savant, has formed the opinion that La- Salle, in :670, before the voyage of Joliet, entered the Chicago, and passed thence to the Illinois and Missis- sippi rivers, and that he therefore must be regarded as the first white man who saw the prairie and stream forming the site of the wonderful city of 1883. Whether LaSalle passed what he calls " the division line called Checagou," as early as 1670, is problematical, but his later visits to the locality, during the years of his weary journeys between the St. Joseph and the Illinois rivers. and his detailed and accurate description of the old " portage " as it was in 1682, have almost as thoroughly identified his name with the history of "Checagou " as with the " Rock of St. Louis " or " Crevecœur."

In 1673, Frontenac, the Governor of Canada, re- solved to establish a frontier post at Quinte Bay, on Lake Ontario, which should not only hold in check the Iroquois, but also secure to its holders a monopoly of the fur trade of the upper lakes, which the English and Dutch of New York were making strong efforts to secure. 'T'he career of LaSalle is clearly traced from this period. Frontenac recognized in him the qualities he desired in his agents-determination, unresting energy and persistency. LaSalle found in Frontenac a man who was equally ambitious with himself, and equally daring in the accomplishment of his designs. The fort on Lake Ontario would be not only a source of imme- dliate profit, but a step toward the Mississippi, the wealth of Quivira and the lands of the Cibola of the Span- iards. LaSalle was deputed by Frontenac to visit Onondaga, the principal town of the Iroquois, and invite the chiefs to meet the Governor at the Bay of Quinte, where a council should be held in regard to the pro- posed fort. LaSalle, believing the mouth of the Cat- aragua the present Kingston ) the better site, Fron- tenac changed the place of the council to that locality. Frontenac, escorted by one hundred and twenty canoe- and four hundred men, proceetled from Quebec to the appointed place, arriving July 12, 1673. The council was held, and resulted according to the desires and plans of the Governor. A palisaded fort was con- structed by his men, which was called Fort ('ataragua :

* 29. east of the Island of Ferro, which was reskemed are west of Part.

HISTORY OF EARLY CHICAGO.

and Frontenac, leaving there a sufficient garrison, re- turned to Quebec.

In the autumn of 1674, LaSalle went to France with letters of recommendation from Frontenac, both to the King and his powerful minister, Colbert. La- Salle petitioned the court of France for a patent of nobility, in consideration of his services as an explorer, and also for a grant of seigniory, of the fort on lake Ontario, which was now called Fort Frontenac. Both his petitions were granted, and he returned to Canada a noble, and proprietor of one of the most valuable grants in the colony. He took immediate, possession of his domain, replaced the hastily constructed fort of pali- sades by a substantial stone building, well fortified and garrisoned. Around this grew up quite a village, com- posed of the cabins of the French laborers and Indian employés of the proprietor, who was only strengthening and fortifying this post as a base for further operations, the exploration of the Mississippi and the countries to the west of it, being now the object of his desire. Again he sailed to France for aid, and again returned successful, reaching Canada early in the fall of 1678, with permission from the Government to pursue his proposed discoveries in new countries, to build forts and take possession of such countries in the name of France ; and he was also granted, for his private benefit, a monopoly of the trade in buffalo skins. He brought with him, from France, supplies, laborers and personal followers ; chief among whom was Henri de Tonty, his ever-after faithful friend and supporter. A fort at the mouth of the Niagara River which would command the upper lakes, and a vessel with which to navigate their waters, were the next steps to be accomplished. After many vexatious delays, and much and serious loss, the fort, or a depot of supplies, was completed. The equipment and stores for the vessel were carried from the foot of the rapids in the Niagara River, around the falls to the quiet water above-a portage of about twelve miles. This work was accomplished by the 22nd of January, and the carpenters set to work to build the first vessel that entered the great lakes of the Northwest. It is believed that the " Griffin " was built at the mouth of Cayuga Creek, and for the immediate design of carry- ing materials to the Illinois River, wherewith to con- struct another vessel for the navigation of the Missis- sippi to its mouth. The vessel was launched in the spring of 1679, Tonty having the superintendence of the work during the absence of LaSalle, who had been obliged to return to Fort Frontenac for fresh supplies, and who returned in August, bringing with him three Flemish friars; two of whom-Fathers Membre and Ribourde-were, after Marquette and Allouez, the earii- est missionaries in Illinois. By the 7th of August the " Griffin " had been towed up the Niagara River to the shore of Lake Erie, and on that day the voyage was fairly commenced which brought LaSalle and Tonty to Crevecœur and the Rock of St. Louis. The entire party on board the vessel consisted of thirty-four, including the sailors and laborers. The capacity of the " Griffin " was forty-five tons. Early in September they arrived at one of the islands at the entrance of Green Bay, where LaSalle disembarked his cargo, con- sisting principally of materials wherewith to build an- other vessel on the Illinois River ; and, reloading the "Griffin " with furs, wherewith to pay his creditors in Canada, sent her back to the Niagara in charge of the pilot, with orders to bring her to the head of Lake Michigan, as soon as her cargo was discharged. La- Salle, with fourteen men, among whom were the Fathers Membre. Ribourde and Hennepin, embarked in four

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History of Chicago. From the earliest period to the present time, Part 14

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