History of Cook County, Illinois From the Earliest Period to the Present Time, Part 9

Author: Andreas, A. T. (Alfred Theodore), 1839-1900
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Chicago : A.T. Andreas
Number of Pages: 875

USA > Illinois > Cook County > History of Cook County, Illinois From the Earliest Period to the Present Time > Part 9

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).

* Starved Rock, in LaSalle County.

tion was visible,-no sign of human life. A little farther, and the site of the Indian village of the Kaskas- kias was reached. No village greeted the eyes of the horrified voyagers ; but the torn and mangled corpses which strewed the prairie, and the horrible skulls which grinned from the charred poles of the burned cabins, bare silent evidence that the Iroquois had done their evil work, and that the friendly tribe on which he relied for protection and assistance was scattered, if not totally destroyed. Finding nothing among the mutilated re- mains that caused him to believe that Tonty or any white man was among the slain, LaSalle resolved to push on and rescue his faithful followers if they were still alive. He left three of his men secreted on an island near the site of the ruined village, and with the remaining four de- scended the river to the Mississippi, finding no trace of Tonty, but, all along, signs of the fearful havoc commit- ted by the invaders. The disappointed and almost dis- heartened commander rejoined his followers at the deso- lated village, and the united party retraced their path to the junction of the Kankakee with the Desplaines. He entered the latter river, and had proceeded but a short distance, when he found, in a bark cabin on its bank, a bit of sawed wood, and from this slight token of the pres- ence of civilized man, believed that Tonty must have passed up the stream to safety. This was true, Tonty, with the two friars Membre and Ribourde, the young officer Boisrondet, and two men of the Crevecoeur garri- son, escaped the Iroquois massacre, and ascended the Illinois to the junction of the two branches. Father Ribourde, wandering from the rest of the party, was slain by a band of. Kickapoos, Tonty and his companions continued their journey up the Desplaines until the canoe could be used no longer, and then crossing the "Checa- gou portage" to Lake Michigan, traversed its western shore to Green Bay, where they arrived the last of No- vember, and spent a part of the winter at the village of a friendly Pottawatomie chief, and the remainder at the mission of St. Francis Xavier.

In the meantime, LaSalle, after finding a trace of the presence of Tonty on the Desplaines, struck across the northern part of Illinois, and arrived at his fort on the St, Joseph about midwinter, where he remained until spring, and during that time learned of the safety of Tonty and where he was, from a band of wandering Outagamies, or Foxes. Before spring he had formed a plan, and taken measures to carry it out, for uniting the western tribes in a common league, and of colonizing them around a French fort in the valley of the Illinois, which should be a center of trade and a safe point from which to extend his ex- plorations to the south and west. In May, 1681, he went to Mackinac, where he met Tonty and Father Membre, who had already arrived there from Green Bay. Together they proceeded to Fort Frontenac, and once more made arrangements for the exploration of the Mississippi. It was autumn when LaSalle again reached the month of the St. Joseph, and not until the latter part of De- cember was he ready to leave Fort Miamis. The party which he gathered for this expedition consisted of twen- ty-three Frenchmen and cigliteen Mohegans and Abna- kis, ten of whom took along their squaws, "to cook for them, as their custom is." There were also three children. Among the Frenchmen were Tonty, Membre, Dantrey, and Prudhomme. LaSalle sent a portion of his party from the St. Joseph, on the 21st of December, remaining himself to attend to the supplies necessarily left behind at the fort. Father Membre, of the advance party, says :

" On the 21st of December (1681), I embarked with the Sieur de Tonty and a part of our people on Lake Dauphin (Michigan).

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HISTORY OF EARLY CHICAGO.

to go toward the Divine River, called by the Indians, Checagou," in order to make necessary arrangements for our voyage. The Sieur de la Salle joined us there with the rest of his troops, on the 4th of January, 1682, and found that T'onty had had sleighs made lo put all on and carry it over the Checagou, which was frozen ; for Though the winter in these parts is only two months long, it is, nolwithstanding, very severe."

LaSalle tells the story of the journey by way of the Checagou to the Illinois, but does not quite agree with Membré on dates. He says, in a communication to Frontenac :

"I sent M. de Tonty (from the S). Joseph) in advance with all my people, who, after marching three days along the lake, and reaching the division line called Checagou, were stopped, after a day's march along the river of the same name, which falls into the Illinois, by the ice, which entirely prevented further navigation. This was the 2d and jd of January, 1682. I remained behind 10 direct the making of some caches in the earth, of the things I left behind. Having finished my caches, I left, the 25th of December, and went on foot to join the Sieur de Tonty, which I did the 7th of January, the snow having detained me some days at the portage of Checagou."

LaSalle then gives a long description of the portage from what he calls the " channel which leads to the lake of the Illinois " (this channel being our Chicago River), to the Desplaines (" Checagou "), and combats the state- ment of Johet, that " by cutting only one canal half a league through the prairie, one may pass from the lake of the Illinois into the St. Louis River,"t saying that this " may very well happen in the spring "-when the swollen waters of the "Checagou," through the " little lake on the prairie," found their way even to Lake Michigan-" but not in the summer," because at that season, he says, even the Illinois River is navigable only as far as Fort St. Louis. There was another difficulty in the way of successful navigation, which LaSalle be- lieved Joliet's "proposed ditch " would not remedy, and that was the " sand bar at the mouth of the channel which leads to the lake of the Illinois." Even the force of the current of the Checagou, when in the great fresh- ets of the spring it poured its waters into this channel, was not powerful enough to remove that obstacle ; and for these and various other reasons, LaSalle believed "it would be easier to effect the transportation from Fort St. Louis to the lakes by using horses, which it is easy to have, there being numbers among the savages."

LaSalle states, in a paper written in 1682, that he " joined M. de Touty who had preceded him, with his followers and all his equipage forty leagues into the Miamis' country, at the River Chekagou § in the coun- try of the Mascoutins, where the ice on the river had arrested his progress ; and where, when the ice became stronger, they used sledges to drag the baggage, the canoes and a wounded Frenchman through the whole length of this river and on the Illinois, a distance of seventy leagues." It would seem from the above quota- tions, that the name "Checagou," or " Chekagou," was applied to a certain locality which, in 1681-82, formed the division line between the Miamis and Mascoutins; the river of that name being within the limits of, or the eastern boundary line of the Mascoutin country, which extended west to the Fox River.

It is not within the province of this history to relate, in detail, the adventures of LaSalle and his followers on their Mississippi voyage. It is sufficient to say that the party descended the Illinois River, on the sledges made at the Desplaines, to Peoria Lake, where open water was reached. Embarking thence in the canoes, which

. Meaning the Desplaines. LaSalle speaks of crossing the portage of Checagou and joining Tonty on the river of the same name " which falls into the Ilimais."

+ Illinois.

: Starved Rock.

§ LaSalle had changed the spelling of the name of the river since he wrote before.

formed a part of their baggage, they reached the Mis- sissippi on the 6th of February. 1682, and on the 9th of April arrived at its mouth. Then, with solemn and impressive ceremonies, LaSalle tonk possession of the valley of the Mississippi in the name of France, called the new acquisition Louisiana, in honor of the king, and realized the great and all-absorbing desire of his life. On his return toward the Illinois, he was seized with a dangerous illness, and detained in consequence, at the Chickasaw Bluffs, where a fort had been estab-

Kikapou

MASCOUTINS

NATION DU FEU

Oupacole

als Assistageronons

Maramech

NIE DU S!

COLO

I.A

R. Pestekony

Pranghichin

R. Chekagon

Diatenon

Minou

Tukokia 160%

R. Chasssagunch

Chaournon, 2004

Tilation Jao

H. des Mainyoana-

SALLE

SECTION OF FRANQUELIN'S LARGE MAP. 1684.

Franquelin was a young engineer, who, al the time he made the map of which the above is a fac simile section, was hydrigrapher to the King, at Que- bec. The original map is six feet long, four and a half wide, and very elabo- rately executed. L'pon it is exhilated all the region then claimed by France. under the names of New France and Louisiana. The map was reproduced by Franquelin in 1685, for presentation to the king, and in this the branch of the Ilino, marked A. Chedagen in the alove section, was removed-no such branch really existing. IM Franquelin's large map, the Illinois is called the " Rivière des Ilinois, on Macopine," the Miwwwippi, "Missisipi, on Rivière Col- bert." and the name applied by Juliet to the Illinois, is transferred to the Ohio, which appears the " St. Louis, on Chucagoa." La Salle's Fort St. Louis, with the Indian villages around it ure represented on the section given above, also Fort Crevecoeur, and, as well be seen, the limit of the Mascoutin country.

lished on the downward passage. Tonty was directed to hasten forward to Mackinac, and dispatch the news of the successful termination of the expedition to Can- ada. He left the bluffs on the 6th of May, arrived about the end of June at Chicago, and by the middle of July at Mackinac, where he was joined in Septem- ber by LaSalle. Returning to the Illinois the same fall, LaSalle and Tonty, during the winter of 1682-83, strengthened and fortified the cliff known as Starved Rock, encircling its summit with a palisade, and build- ing storehouses and dwellings within the enclosure. The fort was called St. Louis, and about it, at the base of the cliff, LaSalle gathered the surrounding Indians, until their log and bark cabins formed a village, con- taining some twenty thousand souls, At Fort St. Louis, French colonists also settled, who were obliged to go to Montreal for supplies, and that by way of the well- known Chicago route. Frontenac, the friend and patron of LaSalle, was no longer in power, and LaBarre, his successor, was hostile to both LaSalle and his enter- prise. LaSalle writes to LaBarre, from the "Chicagou Portage," June 4, 1683, entreating him not to detain his colonists at Montreal, as coureurs de bois, when they came there to make their necessary purchases, some of which are indispensable to the safety of the fort where he has now " but twenty men, and scarcely a hundred

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Miany 1300"

EARLY EXPLORATIONS.

pounds of powder." To such lengths did LaBarre finally carry his enmity, that LaSalle's position at Fort St. Louis became unbearable, and in the autunin nf 1683, leaving Tonty in possession, he repaired to Que- bec, and thence sailed for France, to triumph over his faes, aud reinstate Tonty in peaceful possession of the fort on the Illinois ; but never again to return tu Fort Miamis, or the Rock of St. Louis, ar visit with his matley retinue uf devoted priests, brave yunng French- men and solemn savages, " Checagnu," the site of the great city where now a crowded thuroughfare perpet- wates his name, and where multitudes of people cherish his memary, and " delight to do him honor."

LaSalle again sailed from France, August 1. 1684. with vessels containing supplies for founding a colony at the month of the Mississippi ; entered the Gulf uf Mexico, and discovered land on the 28th of December. This proved to be the coast of Texas, the captain hav- ing ignorantly passed the month of the Mississippi. They landed near Matagorda Bay, and erected there a furt, where the columny remained together about a year. Afterward, LaSalle made several excursions into the . surrounding conntry, hoping to discover the Mississippi and, finally, discouraged and desperate, resolved to lind his way to Canada. One attempt was made, in 1686, which resulted in defeat, and the party, after wandering six months, found their way back to the fort at Matagorda, On the 7th of January. 1687, LaSalle again made an attempt to reach the north, and get sup- plies for his almost starving men, and, after two months' wandering, was assassinated by some of his discon- tented and faithless followers, un the 19th of March, 1687. After the murder, the party separated, and, finally, but five reached Fort St. Louis, on the Illinois, River, where the faithful Tonty still commanded. One of these was Henri Jontel, who with his companions. was detained at the fort until spring. They made one trip to Chicago, in the fall of 1687, and another in the spring of 1688. Joutel describes their experiences thus in his journal :

"On Sunday, the 14th of September, 1657, about two in the afternoon, we came into the neighborhood of Fort St. Louis. \t length we entered the fort, where we found and surprised several persons who did not expect us. All the French were under arms, and made several discharges to welcome us. M. de la Belle Fon- lainc, lieulenant to M. Tonly, was at the head of them, and com- plimented us, Sieur Boisrondet, clerk to the late M. de la Salle, having told us he had a canoe, in which he desired to go down Ju Canada, we prepared to make use of that opportunity, Care was laken to gather provision for our voyage : to get furs to barter as we passed Micilimaquinay. MI. Cavelier* wrote a letter for M. Tonty, which he left there to be delivered to him, and we repaired lo the lake [Michigan] to embark. It wouldibe needless to relate all the troubles and hardships we met with in that journey : it was painful and fruitless, for, having gone lo the bank of the lake in very foul weather, nfter waiting there live days for that foul weather lo cease, and after we had embarked-not withstanding the storm- we were obliged to put ashore again, to return to the place where we had embarked, and there to dig a hole in the earth lo bury our baggage and provisions, to save the trouble of carrying them back to Fort Louis, whither we returned, and arrived there the 7th of October, where they were surprised to see us come hack. Thus we were obliged to continue in that fort all the rest of the autumn, and part of the winter. tIn the 27th of October, of the same year, MI. Tonty returned from the war with the Iroquois, We continued after this manner till the month of December, when two men ar- rived from Montreal, They came to give notice 10 M. Tonty, that three canoes, laden with merchandise-powder, ball and other things-were arrived at Chicagou ; that there being too little water in the river, and what there was being frozen, they could come no lower : so that, it being requisite to send men to fetch those things, W. Tonty desired the chief of the Chahouanoust to furnish him with people. That chief accordingly furnished forty, men as well

. One of the party of five who reached the fort. Cuvelier was a bulwer of LaSalle, and a priest.

! The Shawanoes : who had their village just south of the fort.

as women, who set out with some Frenchmen, The nonesty of the C'hahouanous was the reason of preferring them before the Illinois, who are, naturally, knaves. That ammunition and merchandise were soon brought, and very seasonably, the fort being then in want. . Al length we set out, the 21st of March, from Fort Louis. The Sieur Bojsrondel, who was desirous lo return to France, joined UN. We embarked on the river, which was then become navigable. anel before we had advanced live leagues, mel with a rapid stream, which obliged us lo go ashore, and then again into the water. 10 draw along wir canne. I had the misfortune to hurt one of my feet against a rock which, lay under the water, which troubled me very much for a long time. We arrived at Chicagou on the 29th of March, and our first care was to seek what we had concealed at our former voyage, having, as was there said, buried our luggage and provisions. We found it had been opened, and some furs and linen taken away, almost all of which belonged lo me. This had been done by a Frenchman, whom M. Tonty had sent from the fort during the winter season la know whether there were any candesal Chicagou, and whom he had directed to see whether anybody had anechilled with what he had concealed ; and he made use of that ad- vice to rob us. The bad weather obliged us to stay in that place until .April. This time of rest was advantageous for the healing of my foot ; and there being but very little game in that place, we had nothing but our meal, or Indian wheal, In feed on ; yet we discov- ered a kind of manna, which was a great help to us. It was a sort of tree, resembling our maple, in which we made incisions, whence flowed a sweet liquor, and in it we boiled our Indian wheat, which made it delicious, sweet, and of a very agreeable relish. There being no sugar canes in that country, those trees supplied that liquor, which being boiled up and evaporated, turned into a kindl of sugar, somewhat brownish, but very good. In the woods we found a sort of garlic, nol so strong as ours, and small onions very like ours in taste, and some charvel of the same relish as that we have, but different in leaf. The weather being somewhat mended, we embarked again, and entered upon the lake on the 5th of April, keeping to the north side, to shun the Iroquois."

Tonty evidently knew Chicagou well. In his jour- neys to Canada, and, during the Iroquois war, to De- troit and Mackinac, he must have often passed the port- age, and descended the little river to embark on Lake Michigan. Durantaye, Dal.but Duluth, and Tonty were conspicuous among the young Frenchmen engaged in the long struggle between the French and the Iro- quois, the latter being friendly to the English and ready to assist them in extending their jurisdiction to the upper lakes, During these years French forts were erected at various important points on Lake Michigan, command- ing the fur trade of the interior and rendering the French more secure against the attacks of the Iroquois or their western allies, the Foxes. Besides the fart of the Miamis at St. Joseph, there was one at Mackinac, where De Lit Durantaye, commanded, and one at Detroit, command- ed by " Sieur Dul.hut " Duluth .

In the spring of 1684, Tonty was informed that the Iroquois were gathering to attack him at Fort St. Louis. He sent to Mackinac for assistance, and M. de la Du. rantaye came with sixty Frenchmen to his relief. Father Allouez also accompanied the party. The following year Tonty went to Mackinac to obtain news, if pos- sible, of LaSalle. Hearing that he was at the mouth of the Mississippi be resolved to go in search of him, and says :*

" I embarked, therefore, for the Illinois, on St. Andrew's Day (34th of October, 1685) ; but being stopped by the ice, I was obliged to leave my canoe, and to proceedt on by land. After go- ing one hundred and twenty leagues, I arrived at the fort of Chi- cagou, where M. de la Durantaye, commanded; and from thence } came to Fort St. Louis, where I arrived the middle of January (1696) .**

This fort at " Chicagou," where Tonty found Duran- taye in the early winter of 1685, had probably been erected by the latter since the spring of the preceding year, when he came to, the relief of the beleaguered Fort St. Louis. Tonty had repulsed the Iroquois before help arrived, but Durantaye would not remain in a conn- try constantly exposed to their attacks, without erecting

+ " Memnir of the Sieur de Tomty."

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HISTORY OF EARLY CHICAGO.

some kind of a fort for the protection of his little band of sixty men, and to keep their return path to Mackinac safe. Durantaye did not long remain at Chicago, A year later he was fighting the savages, with Tonty and La Forest, in the vicinity of Detroit, and at the end of the campaign he returned to Mackinac, where he was stationed for several years after.

In a reprint, by Munsell, of a hook entitled " Early Voyages up and down the Mississippi," it being letters and reports of Freuch Catholic missionaries, may be found a letter from Rev. John Francis Buisson de St. Cosme, addressed to the Bishop of Quebec, giving an ac- count of the journey of himself and companions from Mackinac to the Illinois, in 1699, which shows that there was at that time a flourishing Jesuit mission at Chicago, and also a large village of the Miamis. The party left Mackinac in " light canoes," September 14, 1699. De Tonty, with the missionaries St. Cosme, DeMontigny, Davion and De La Source, were on their way to the lower Mississippi, by way of the Illinois, and De Vincennes, a French officer, with several companions, was to visit St. Joseph and the country of the Miamis. It was the original intention of St. Cosme and party to have gone to the Mississippi by way of the Fox and Wisconsin rivers, but hostile Indians prevented, and they were obliged to take the "Chicagou road." On the 7th day of October they arrived at " Melwarik " (Milwaukee', where they found a village " which has been consider- able," and where they remained two days on account of the fine " duck and teal shooting." On the 10th they arrived at Kipikawi (Racine', intending to go up the Kipikawi River and crossing the portage to the Fox, descend that river to the Illinois ; but, "as there was no water in it,“ they were "again obliged to take the route to Chicagou." They left the river at Racine on the tythi, but were so long delayed by the roughness of the lake that on the 20th, they were still fifteen miles distant. On the 21st, when within half a league of the place, a sudden storm sprung up and they were com- pelled to land, and walk the remaining distance. St. Cosme says:

" We had considerable difficulty in getting ashore and saving our canoes. We had to throw everything into the water. This is a thing which you must take good care of along the lakes, and espe- cially on Missigan (the shores of which are very flat), to land soon when the water swells from the lake, for the breakers get so large in a short time that the canoes are in risk of going to pieces and losing all on board, several travelers having been wrecked there. We went by land, M. DeMontigny, Davion and myself, to the house of the Rev. Jesuit Fathers, our people staying with the bag- gage. We found there Rev. Father Pinet and Rev. Father Bine- teau," who had recently come in from the Illinois, and were slightly sick. I cannot explain to you. Monseigneur, with what cordiality and marks of esteem these Rev. Jesuit Fathers received and caressed us during the time that we had the consolation of staying with them. The house is built on the banks of the small lake.f having the lake on one side, and a fine large prairie on the other. The Indian village Is of over one hundred and fifty cabins, and one league on the river There is another village almost as large. They are both of the Miamis. Rev. Father Pinet makes it his ordinary residence; except in winter, when the Indians all go hunting, and which he goes and spends at the Illinois. We saw no Indians there; they had already started for their hunt. . . * On the 24th of October, the wind having fallen, we made our canoes come with all our baggage; and, perceiving that the waters were ex- tremely low, we made a cache on the shore, and look only what was necessary for our voyage, reserving till spring to send for the rest; and we left in charge of it Brother Alexander, who consented to remain there with Father Pinet's man; and we started from Chi-

. *The Ilinois Mission al Starved Rock was in charge of Father James Gra- vier from 1623 until he was recalled to Michilumackinac, early in s6g), He left Gabriel Marist in especial charge of the parent house and Fathers Bineleas and Pinet in charge of the brancher.

+ Evidently on the east side of Mud Lake, which St. Cosme describes in his account of the Chicagou portage; saying that by embarking on it in The spring when il " empties " into a branch of the Illinois (the Desplaines), the length of The portage is reduced from three leagues to a quarter uf a league.

cagoit 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 quarter of a league in the spring, for you (then) embark on a little lake which empties into a branch of the river of the Illinols; but, when the waters are low, you have to make a portage to that branch. We made half our portage thal day, and we should have made some progress further, when we perceived that a little buy whom we had received from M. De Muys, having started on alone-although he had been told to wait-had got lost without any one paying allention to it, all hands being en- gaged. We were obliged to stop and look for him. All set out. We fired several guns, but could not find him. It was a very un- fortunate mishap; we were pressed by the season, and the waters being very low, we saw well that being obliged to carry our effects and our canoe, it would take us a great while to reach the Illinois. This made us part company. M. DeMontigny. De Tonty and Davion continued the portage next day; and 1, with four other men, returned to look for this little boy; and on my way back I inet Fathers Pinet and Bineleau, who were going with two French- men and one Indian to the Illinois. We looked for him again all that day without being able to find him. As the next day was the feast of All Saluts, this obliged me to go and pass the night at Chi- cagou with our people, who having said mass and performed their devotions early, we spent all that day, too, in looking for that little boy, without being able to gel the least trace. It was very difficult to find him in the tall grass, for the whole country is prairies-you meet only some clumps of words. As the grass was high, we durst not set fire to it for fear of burning him. M. DeMontigny had told me not to stay over a day, because the cold was getting severe. This obliged me to start, after giving Brother Alexander directions to look for him and to take some of the French who were at Chica- gou, I set out the ad of November, in the afternoon; made the portage, and slept at the river of the Illinois."

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History of Cook County, Illinois From the Earliest Period to the Present Time, Part 9

Author: Andreas, A. T. (Alfred Theodore), 1839-1900 Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Chicago : A.T. Andreas Number of Pages: 875

Author: Andreas, A. T. (Alfred Theodore), 1839-1900
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Chicago : A.T. Andreas
Number of Pages: 875