History of Hancock County, Illinois, together with an outline history of the State, and a digest of State laws, Part 3

Author: Gregg, Thomas, b. 1808. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Chicago, C.C. Chapman
Number of Pages: 1046

USA > Illinois > Hancock County > History of Hancock County, Illinois, together with an outline history of the State, and a digest of State laws > Part 3

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).

HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.

manding his life, and nothing saved him from their uplifted weap- ons but a promise that he and his men would go with them to meet the enemy. With their suspicions partly lulled, they hurriedly crossed the river and met the foe, when both commenced firing. Tonti, seeing that the Illinois were outnumbered and likely to be defeated, determined, at the imminent risk of his life, to stay the fight by an attempt at mediation. Presuming on the treaty of peace then existing between the French and Iroquois, he exchanged his gun for a belt of wampum and advanced to meet the savage multitude, attended by three companions, who, being unnecessarily exposed to danger, were dismissed, and he proceeded alone. A short walk brought him in the midst of a pack of yelping devils, writhing and distorted with fiendish rage, and impatient to shed his blood. As the result of his swarthy Italian complexion and half-savage costume, he was at first taken for an Indian, and before · the mistake was discovered a young warrior approached and stabbed at his heart. Fortunately the blade was turned aside by coming in contact with a rib, yet a large flesh wound was inflicted, which bled profusely. At this juncture a chief discovered his true char- acter, and he was led to the rear and efforts were made to staunch his wound. When sufficiently recovered, he declared the Illinois were under the protection of the French, and demanded, in consid- eration of the treaty between the latter and the Iroquois, that they should be suffered to remain without further molestation. During this conference a young warrior snatched Tonti's hat, and, fleeing with it to the front, held it aloft on the end of his gun in view of the Illinois. The latter, judging that Tonti had been killed, renewed the fight with great vigor. Simultaneously, intelligence was brought to the Iroquois that Frenchmen were assisting their enemies in the fight, when the contest over Tonti was renewed with redoubled fury. Some declared that he should be immediately put to death, while others, friendly to LaSalle, with equal earnest- ness demanded that he should be set at liberty. During their clamorous debate, his hair was several times lifted by a huge sav- age who stood at his back with a scalping knife ready for execution.

Tonti at length turned the current of the angry controversy in his favor, by stating that the Illinois were 1,200 strong, and that there were 60 Frenchmen at the village ready to assist them. This state- ment obtained at least a partial credence, and his tormentors now

HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.

determined to use him as an instrument to delude the Illinois with a pretended truce. The old warriors, therefore, advanced to the front and ordered the firing to cease, while Tonti, dizzy from the loss of blood, was furnished with an emblem of peace and sent staggering across the plain to rejoin the Illinois. The two friars who had just returned from a distant hut, whither they had repaired for prayer and meditation, were the first to meet him and bless God for what they regarded as a miraculous deliverance. With the assurance brought by Tonti, the Illinois re-crossed the river to their lodges, followed by the enemy as far as the opposite bank. Not long after, large numbers of the latter, under the pretext of hunting, also crossed the river and hung in threatening groups about the town. These hostile indications, and the well-known disregard which the Iroquois had always evinced for their pledges, soon convinced the Illinois that their only safety was in flight. With this conviction they set fire to their village, and while the vast volume of flames and smoke diverted the attention of the enemy, they quietly dropped down the river to join their women and children. As soon as the flames would permit, the Iroquois entrenched themselves on the site of the vil- lage. Tonti and his men were ordered by the suspicious savages to leave their hut and take up their abode in the fort.

At first the Iroquois were much elated at the discomfiture of the Illinois, but when two days afterward they discovered them recon- noitering their intrenchments, their courage greatly subsided. With fear they recalled the exaggerations of Tonti respecting their numbers, and concluded to send him with a hostage to make over- tures of peace. He and his hostage were received with delight by the Illinois, who readily assented to the proposal which he brought, and in turn sent back with him a hostage to the Iroquois. On his return to the fort his life was again placed in jeopardy, and the treaty was with great difficulty ratified. The young and inexpe- rienced Illinois hostage betrayed to his crafty interviewers the nu- merical weakness of his tribe, and the savages immediately rushed upon Tonti, and charged him with having deprived them of the spoils and honors of victory. It now required all the tact of which he was master to escape. After much difficulty however, the treaty was con- cluded, but the savages, to show their contempt for it, immediately commenced constructing canoes in which to descend the river and attack the Illinois.

BOND-CHANDLER.CHIA

AN IROQUOIS CIHIEF.

עלד

HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.

FRENCHMEN DRIVEN AWAY.

Tonti managed to apprise the latter of their designs, and he and Membre were soon after summoned to attend a council of the Iro- quois, who still labored under a wholesome fear of Count Frontenac, and disliking to attack the Illinois in the presence of the French, they thought to try to induce them to leave the country. At the assembling of the council, six packages of beaver skins were intro- duced, and the savage orator, presenting them separately to Tonti, explained the nature ofeach. "The first two," said he, " were to de- elare that the children of Count Frontenac, that is, the Illinois, should not be eaten; the next was a plaster to heal the wounds of Tonti; the next was oil wherewith to anoint him and Membre, that they might not be fatigued in traveling; the next proclaimed that the sun was bright; and the sixth and last required them to decamp and go home."

At the mention of going home, Tonti demanded of them when they intended to set the example by leaving the Illinois in the peaceable possession of their country, which they had so unjustly in- vaded. The council grew boisterous and angry at the idea that they should be demanded to do what they required of the French, and some of its members, forgetting their previous pledge, declared that they would "eat Illinois flesh before they departed." Tonti, in imitation of the Indians' manner of expressing seorn, indignantly kicked away the presents of fur, saying, since they intended to de- vour the children of Frontenac with cannibal ferocity, he would not accept their gifts. This stern rebuke resulted in the expulsion of Tonti and his companion from the council, and the next day the chiefs ordered them to leave the country.

Tonti had now, at the great peril of his life, tried every expedient to prevent the slaughter of the Illinois. There was little to be ac- complished by longer remaining in the country, and as longer delay might imperil the lives of his own men, he determined to depart, not knowing where or when he would be able to rejoin LaSalle. With this objeet in view, the party, consisting of six persons, embarked in canoes, which soon proved leaky, and they were compelled to land for the purpose of making repairs. While thus employed, Father Ri- bourde, attracted by. the beauty of the surrounding landscape, wan- dered forth among the groves for meditation and prayer. Not return . ing in due time, Tonti became alarmed, and started with a compan-

HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.

ion to ascertain the cause of the long delay. They soon discovered tracks of Indians, by whom it was supposed he had been seized, and guns were fired to direct his return, in case he was alive. Seeing nothing of him during the day, at night they built fires along the bank of the river and retired to the opposite side, to see who might approach them. Near midnight a number of Indians were seen flitting about the light, by whom, no doubt, had been made the tracks seen the previous day. It was afterward learned that they were a band of Kiekapoos, who had for several days been hovering about the camp of the Iroquois in quest of scalps. They had fell in with the inoffensive old friar and scalped him. Thus, in the 65th year of his age, the only heir to a wealthy Burgundian house per- ished under the war-elub of the savages for whose salvation he had renounced ease and affluence.

INHUMAN BUTCHERY.

During this tragedy a far more revolting one was being enacted in the great town of Illinois. The Iroquois were tearing open the graves of the dead, and wreaking their vengeance upon the bodies made hideous by putrefaction. At this desecration, it is said, they even ate portions of the dead bodies, while subjecting them to every indignity that brutal hate could infliet. Still unsated by their hell- ish brutalities, and now unrestrained by the presence of the French, they started in pursuit of the retreating Illinois. Day after day they and the opposing forces moved in compaet array down the river, neither being able to gain any advantage over the other. At length the Iroquois obtained by falsehood that which number and prowess denied them. They gave out that their object was to pos- sess the country, not by destroying, but by driving out its present inhabitants. Deceived by this false statement, the Illinois separa- ted, some descending the Mississippi and others crossing to the western shore. The Tamaroas, more credulous than the rest, re- mained near the mouth of the Illinois, and were suddenly attacked by an overwhelming force of the enemy. The men fled in dismay, and the women and children, to the number of 700, fell into the hands of the ferocious enemy. Then followed the tortures, butch- eries and burnings which only the infuriated and imbruted Iroquois could perpetrate. LaSalle on his return discovered the half-charred bodies of women and children still bound to the stakes where they had suffered all the torments hellish hate could devise. In addition

HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.

to those who had been burnt, the mangled bodies of women and children thickly covered the ground, many of which bore marks of brutality too horrid for record.

After the ravenous horde had sufficiently glutted their greed for carnage, they retired from the country. The Illinois returned and rebuilt their town.

TONTI SAFE AT GREEN BAY.

After the death of Ribourde, Tonti and his men again resumed their journey. Soon again their craft became disabled, when they abandoned it and started on foot for Lake Michigan. Their supply of provisions soon became exhausted, and they were compelled to subsist in a great measure on roots and herbs. One of their companions wandered off in search of game, and lost his way, and several days elapsed before he rejoined them. In his absence he was without flints and bullets, yet contrived to slioot some turkeys by using slugs eut from a pewter porringer and a fire- brand to discharge his gun. Tonti fell siek of a fever and greatly retarded the progress of the march. Nearing Green Bay, the cold increased and the means of subsistence decreased and the party would have perished had they not found a few ears of corn and some froz- en squashes in the fields of a deserted village. Near the close of November they had reached the Pottawatomies, who warmly greet- ed them. Their chief was an ardent admirer of the French, and was accustomed to say: " There were but three great captains in the world,-himself, Tonti and LaSalle." For the above account of Tonti's encounter with the Iroquois, we are indebted to Davidson and Stuvé's History of Illinois.

LASALLE'S RETURN.

LaSalle returned to Peoria only to meet the hideous picture of devastation. Tonti had escaped, but LaSalle knew not whither. Pass- ing down the lake in search of him and his men, LaSalle discov- ered that the fort had been destroyed; but the vessel which he had partly constructed was still on the stoeks, and but slightly injured. After further fruitless search he fastened to a tree a painting repre- senting himself and party sitting in a eanoe and bearing a pipe of peace, and to the painting attached a letter addressed to Tonti.

LaSalle was born in France in 1643, of wealthy parentage, and edu- cated in a college of the Jesuits, from which he separated and came to Canada, a poor man, in 1666. He was a man of daring genius,

IIISTORY OF ILLINOIS.

and outstripped all his competitors in exploits of travel and com- merce with the Indians. He was granted a large tract of land at LaChine, where he established himself in the fur trade. In 1669 he visited the headquarters of the great Iroquois confederacy, at Onondaga, New York, and, obtaining guides, explored the Ohio river to the falls at Louisville. For many years previous, it must be remembered, missionaries and traders were obliged to make their way to the Northwest through Canada on account of the fierce hostility of the Iroquois along the lower lakes and Niagara river, which entirely closed this latter route to the upper lakes. They carried on their commerce chiefly by canoes, paddling them through Ottawa river to Lake Nipissing, carrying them across the portage to French river, and descending that to Lake Huron. This being the route by which they reached the Northwest, we have an explana- tion of the fact that all the earliest Jesuit missions were established in the neighborhood of the upper lakes. LaSalle conceived the grand idea of opening the route by Niagara river and the lower lakes to Canada commerce by sail vessels, connecting it with the navigation of the Mississippi, and thus opening a magnificent water communication from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mex- ico. This truly grand and comprehensive purpose seems to have animated him in his wonderful achievements, and the matchless difficulties and hardships he surmounted. As the first step in the accomplishment of this object he established himself on Lake Ontario, and built and garrisoned Fort Frontenac, the site of the present city of Kingston, Canada. Here he obtained a grant of land from the French crown, and a body of troops, by which he repulsed the Iroquois and opened passage to Niagara Falls. Hav- ing by this masterly stroke made it safe to attempt a hitherto untried expedition, his next step, as we have seen, was to build a ship with which to sail the lakes. He was successful in this under- taking, though his ultimate purpose was defeated by a strange com- bination of untoward circumstances. The Jesuits evidently hated LaSalle and plotted against him, because he had abandoned them and united with a rival order. The fur traders were also jealous of his success in opening new channels of commerce. While they were plodding with their bark canoes through the Ottawa, he was con- structing sailing vessels to command the trade of the lakes and the Mississippi. These great plans excited the jealousy and envy of

HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.

small traders, introduced treason and revolt into the ranks of his men, and finally led to the foul assassination by which his great achievements were permanently ended.

LASALLE'S ASSASSINATION.

Again visiting the Illinois in the year 1682, LaSalle de- scended the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. He erected a standard upon which he inscribed the arms of France, and took formal possession of the whole valley of this mighty river in the name of Louis XIV., then reigning, and in honor of whom he named the country Louisiana. LaSalle then returned to France, was appointed Governor, and returned with a fleet of immigrants for the purpose of planting a colony in Illinois. They arrived in due time in the Gulf of Mexico, but failing to find the mouth of the Missis- sippi, up which they intended to sail, his supply ship, with the immigrants, was driven ashore and wrecked on Matagorda Bay. With the fragments of the vessel he constructed rude huts and stockades on the shore for the protection of his followers, calling the post Fort St. Louis. He then made a trip into New Mexico in search of silver mines, but, meeting with disappointment, returned to find his colony reduced to forty souls. He then resolved to travel on foot to Illinois. With some twenty of his men they filed out of their fort on the 12th of January, 1687, and after the part- ing,-which was one of sighs, of tears, and of embraces, all seeming intuitively to know that they should see each other no more,-they started on their disastrous journey. Two of the party, Du Haut and Leotot, when on a hunting expedition in company with a nephew of LaSalle, assassinated him while asleep. The long absence of his nephew caused LaSalle to go in search of him. On approaching the murderers of his nephew, tliey fired upon him, kill- ing him instantly. They then despoiled the body of its clothing, and ieft it to be devoured by the wild beasts of the forest. Thus, at the age of 43, perished one whose exploits have so greatly enriched the history of the New World. To estimate aright the marvels of his patient fortitude, one must follow on his track through the vast seene of his interminable journeyings, those thou- sands of weary miles of forest, marsh and river, where, again and again, in the bitterness of baffled striving, the untiring pilgrim pushed onward toward the goal he never was to attain. America owes him an enduring memory; for in this masculine figure, cast

HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.

in iron, she sees the heroic pioneer who guided her to the possession of her richest heritage.

Tonti, who had been stationed at the fort on the Illinois, learning of LaSalle's unsuccessful voyage, immediately started down the Mississippi to his relief. Reaching the Gulf, he found no traces of the colony. He then returned, leaving some of his men at the mnouth of the Arkansas. These were discovered by the remnant of LaSalle's followers, who guided them to the fort on the Illinois, where they reported that LaSalle was in Mexico. The little band left at Fort St. Louis were finally destroyed by the Indians, and the murderers of LaSalle were shot. Thus ends the sad chapter of Robert Cavalier de LaSalle's exploration.

FRENCH OCCUPATION.

FIRST SETTLEMENTS.

The first mission in Illinois, as we have already seen, was com- menced by Marquette in April, 1675. He called the religious society which he established the " Mission of the Immaculate Con- ception," and the town Kaskaskia. The first military occupation of the country was at Fort Crevecœur, erected in 1680; but there is no evidence that a settlement was commenced there, or at Peoria, on the lake above, at that early date. The first settlement of which there is any authentic account was commenced with the building of Fort St. Louis on the Illinois river in 1682; but this was soon abandoned. The oldest permanent settlement, not only in Illinois, but in the val- ley of the Mississippi, is at Kaskaskia, situated six miles above the mouth of the Kaskaskia river. This was settled in 1690 by the removal of the mission from old Kaskaskia, or Ft. St. Louis, on the Illinois river. Cahokia was settled about the same time. The reason for the removal of the old Kaskaskia settlement and mission, was probably because the dangerous and difficult route by Lake Michigan and the Chicago portage had been almost abandoned, and travelers and traders traveled down and up the Mississippi by the Fox and Wisconsin rivers. It was removed to the vicinity of the Mississippi in order to be in the line of travel from Canada to Louisiana, that is, the lower part of it, for it was all Louisiana then south of the lakes. Illinois came into possession of the French in 1682, and was a dependency of Canada and a part of Louisiana. During the period of French rule in Louisiana, the population

HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.

probably never exceeded ten thousand. To the year 1730 the fol- lowing five distinct settlements were made in the territory of Illinois, numbering, in population, 140 French families, about 600 " converted " Indians, and many traders; Cahokia, near the mouth of Cahokia creek and about five miles below the present city of St. Louis; St. Philip, about forty-five miles below Cahokia; Fort Chartres, twelve miles above Kaskaskia; Kaskaskia, situated on the Kaskaskia river six miles above its confluence with the Mississippi, and Prairie du Rocher, near Fort Chartres. Fort Chartres was built under the direction of the Mississippi Company in 1718, and was for a time the headquarters of the military commandants of the district of Illinois, and the most impregnable fortress in North America. It was also the center of wealth and fashion in the West. For about eighty years the French retained peaceable possession of Illinois. Their amiable disposition and tact of ingratiating them- selves with the Indians enabled them to escape almost entirely the broils which weakened and destroyed other colonies. Whether exploring remote rivers or traversing hunting grounds in pursuit of game, in the social circle or as participants in the religious exer- cises of the church, the red men became their associates and were treated with the kindness and consideration of brothers. For more than a hundred years peace between the white man and the red was unbroken, and when at last this reign of harmony terminated it was not caused by the conciliatory Frenchman, but by the blunt and sturdy Anglo-Saxon. During this century, or until the coun- try was occupied by the English, no regular court was ever held. When, in 1765, the country passed into the hands of the English, many of the French, rather than submit to a change in their insti- tutions, preferred to leave their homes and seek a new abode. There are, however, at the present time a few remnants of the old French stock in the State, who still retain to a great extent the ancient habits and customs of their fathers.

TIIE MISSISSIPPI COMPANY.

During the earliest period of French occupation of this country, M. Tonti, LaSalle's attendant, was commander-in-chief of all the territory embraced between Canada and the Gulf of Mexico, and extending east and west of the Mississippi as far as his ambition or imagination pleased to allow. He spent twenty-one years in estab- lishing forts and organizing the first settlements of Illinois. Sep-

HISTORY OF ILLINOIS.

tember 14, 1712, the French government granted a monopoly of all the trade and commerce of the country to M. Crozat, a wealthy merchant of Paris, who established a trading company in Illinois, and it was by this means that the early settlements became perma- nent and others established. Crozat surrendered his charter in 1717, and the Company of the West, better known as the Missis- sippi Company, was organized, to aid and assist the banking system of John Law, the most famous speculator of modern times, and perhaps at one time the wealthiest private individual the world

has ever known; but his treasure was transitory. Under the Company of the West a branch was organized called the Company of St. Philip's, for the purpose of working the rich silver mines sup- posed to be in Illinois, and Philip Renault was appointed as its agent. In 1719 he sailed from France with two hundred miners, laborers and mechanics. During 1719 the Company of the West was by royal order united with the Royal Company of the Indies, and had the influence and support of the crown, who was deluded by the belief that immense wealth would flow into the empty treas- ury of France. This gigantic scheme, one of the most extensive and wonderful bubbles ever blown up to astonish, deceive and ruin thousands of people, was set in operation by the fertile brain of John Law. Law was born in Scotland in 1671, and so rapid had been his career that at the age of twenty-three he was a " bankrupt, an adulterer, a murderer and an exiled outlaw." But he possessed great financial ability, and by his agreeable and attractive manners, and his enthusiastic advocacy of his schemes, he succeeded in inflaming the imagination of the mercurial Frenchmen, whose greed for gain led them to adopt any plans for obtaining wealth.

Law arrived in Paris with two and a half millions of francs, which he had gained at the gambling table, just at the right time. Louis XIV. had just died and left as a legacy empty coffers and an immense public debt. Every thing and everybody was taxed to the last penny to pay even the interest. All the sources of in- dustry were dried up; the very wind which wafted the barks of commerce seemed to have died away under the pressure of the time; trade stood still; the merchant, the trader, the artificer, once flourishing in affluence, were transformed into clamorous beggars. The life-blood that animated the kingdom was stagnated in all its arteries, and the danger of an awful crisis became such that

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Hancock County, Illinois, together with an outline history of the State, and a digest of State laws, Part 3

Author: Gregg, Thomas, b. 1808. [from old catalog] Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Chicago, C.C. Chapman Number of Pages: 1046

Author: Gregg, Thomas, b. 1808. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Chicago, C.C. Chapman
Number of Pages: 1046