History of Iroquois County, together with Historic notes on the Northwest, gleaned from early authors, old maps and manuscripts, private and official correspondence, and other authentic, though, for the most part, out-of-the-way sources, Part 5

Author: Beckwith, H. W. (Hiram Williams), 1833-1903
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Chicago : H.H. Hill and Co.
Number of Pages: 1180

USA > Illinois > Iroquois County > History of Iroquois County, together with Historic notes on the Northwest, gleaned from early authors, old maps and manuscripts, private and official correspondence, and other authentic, though, for the most part, out-of-the-way sources > Part 5

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).

"Above all, I put our voyage under the protection of the Blessed Virgin Immaculate, promising her that, if she did us tlie grace to dis- cover the Great River, I would give it the name of the conception ;

* St. Ignatius was not on the Island of Mackinaw, but westward of it, on a point of land extending into the strait, from the north shore, laid down on modern maps as "Point St. Ignace." On this bleak, exposed and barren spot this mission was estab- lished by Marquette himself in 1671. Shea's Catholic Missions, p. 364.

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

and that I would also give that name to the first mission I should establish among these new nations, as I have actually done among the Illinois."

After some days they reached an Indian village, and the journal proceeds : "" Here we are, then, at the Maskoutens. This word, in Algonquin, may mean Fire Nation, and that is the name given to them. This is the limit of discoveries made by the French, for they have not yet passed beyond it. This town is made up of three nations gathered here, Miamis, Maskoutens and Kikabous .* As bark for cabins, in this country, is rare, they use rushes, which serve them for walls and roofs, but which afford them no protection against the wind, and still less against the rain when it falls in torrents. The advantage of this kind of cabins is that they can roll them up and carry them easily where they like in hunting time."

" I felt no little pleasure in beholding the position of this town. The view is beautiful and very picturesque, for, from the eminence on which it is perched, the eye discovers on every side prairies spreading away beyond its reach interspersed with thickets or groves of trees. The soil is very good, producing much corn. The Indians gather also quantities of plums and grapes, from which good wine could be made if they choose."

"No sooner had we arrived than M. Jollyet and I assembled the Sachems. He told them that he was sent by our governor to discover new countries, and I by the Almighty to illumine them with the light of the gospel; that the Sovereign Master of our lives wished to be known to all nations, and that to obey his will I did not fear death, to which I exposed myself in such dangerous voyages; that we needed two guides to put us on our way; these, making them a present, we begged them to grant us. This they did very civilly, and even pro- ceeded to speak to us by a present, which was a mat to serve us on our voyage."

" The next day, which was the 10th of June, two Miamis whom they had given us as guides embarked with us in the sight of a great crowd, who could not wonder enough to see seven Frenchimen, alone in two canoes, dare to undertake so strange and so hazardous an expe- dition."

" We knew that there was, three leagues from Maskoutens, a river emptying into the Mississippi. We knew, too, that the point of the compass we were to hold to reach it was the west-southwest, but the

* The village was near the mouth of Wolf River, which empties into Winnebago Lake, Wisconsin. The stream was formerly called the Maskouten, and a tribe of this name dwelt along its banks.

MARQUETTE'S VOYAGE.

way is so cut up with marshes and little lakes that it is easy to go astray, especially as the river leading to it is so covered with wild oats that you can hardly discover the channel ; hence we had need of our two guides, who led us safely to a portage of twenty-seven hundred paces and helped us transport our canoes to enter this river, after which they returned, leaving us alone in an unknown country in the hands of Providence."*

" We now leave the waters which flow to Quebec, a distance of four or five hundred leagues, to follow those which will henceforth lead us. into strange lands.

" Our route was southwest, and after sailing about thirty leagues we perceived a place which had all the appearances of an iron mine, and in fact one of our party who had seen some before averred that the one we had found was very rich and very good. After forty leagues on this same route we reached the mouth of our river, and finding our- selves at 422º N. we safely entered the Mississippi on the 17th of June with a joy that I cannot express."+

* This portage has given the name to Portage City, Wisconsin, where the upper waters of Fox River, emptying into Green Bay, approach the Wisconsin River, which, coming from the northwest, here changes its course to the southwest. The distance from the Wisconsin to the Fox River at this point is, according to Henry R. School- craft, a mile and a half across a level prairie, and the level of the two streams is so nearly the same that in high water loaded canoes formerly passed from the one to the other across this low prairie. For many miles below the portage the channel of Fox River was choked with a growth of tangled wild rice. 'The stream frequently expanding into little lakes, and its winding. crooked course through the prairie, well justifies the tradition of the Winnebago Indians concerning its origin. A vast serpent that lived in the waters of the Mississippi took a freak to visit the great lakes ; he left his trail where he crossed over the prairie, which, collecting the waters as they fell from the rains. of heaven, at length became Fox River. The little lakes along its course were, prob- ably, the places where he flourished about in his uneasy slumbers at night. Mrs. John H. Kinzie's Waubun, p. 80.

+ Father Marquette, agreeably to his vow, named the river the Immaculate Concep- tion. Nine years later, when Robert La Salle, having discovered the river in its entire length, took possession at its mouth of the whole Mississippi Valley, he named the river Colbert, in honor of the Minister of the Navy, a man renowned alike for his ability, at the head of the Department of the Marine, and for the encouragement he gave to literature, science and art. Still later, in 1712, when the vast country drained by its waters was farmed out to private enterprise, as appears from letters patent from the King of France, conveying the whole to M. Crozat, the name of the river was changed to St. Lewis. Fortunately the Mississippi retains its aboriginal name, which is a com- pound from the two Algonquin words missi, signifying great, and sepe, a river. The former is variously pronounced missil or michil, as in Michilimakinac ; michi, as in Mich- igan ; missu, as in Missouri, and missi, as in the Mississeneway of the Wabash. The variation in pronunciation is not greater than we might expect in an unwritten lan- guage. "The Western Indians," says Mr. Schoolcraft, " have no other word than missi to express the highest degree of magnitude, either in a moral or in a physical sense, and it may be considered as not only synonymous to our word great, but also magnificent, supreme, stupendous, etc." Father Hennepin, who next to Marquette wrote concern- ing the derivation of the name, says : "Mississippi, in the language of the Illinois, means the great river." Some authors, perhaps with more regard for a pleasing fic- tion than plain matter-of-fact. have rendered Mississippi "The Father of Waters;' whereas, nos, noussey and nosha mean father, and neebi, nipi or nepee mean water, as universally in the dialect of Algonquin tribes, as does the word missi mean great and sepi a river.

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

" Having descended as far as 41° 28', following the same direction, we find that turkeys have taken the place of game, and pisikious (buf- falo) or wild cattle that of other beasts.

" At last, on the 25th of June, we perceived foot-prints of men by the water-side and a beaten path entering a beautiful prairie. We stopped to examine it, and concluding that it was a path leading to some Indian village we resolved to go and reconnoitre ; we accordingly left our two canoes in charge of our people, cautioning them to beware of a surprise ; then M. Jollyet and I undertook this rather hazardous discovery for two single men, who thus put themselves at the mercy of an unknown and barbarous people. We followed the little path in silence, and having advanced about two leagnes we discovered a village on the banks of the river, and two others on a hill half a league from the former. Then, indeed, we recommended ourselves to God with all our hearts, and having implored his help we passed on undiscovered, and came so near that we even heard the Indians talking. We then deemed it time to announce ourselves, as we did, by a cry which we raised with all our strength, and then halted, without advancing any farther. At this cry the Indians rushed out of their cabins, and hav- ing probably recognized us as French, especially seeing a black gown, or at least having no reason to distrust us, seeing we were but two and had made known our coming, they deputed four old men to come and speak to us. Two carried tobacco-pipes well adorned and trimmed with many kinds of feathers. They marched slowly, lifting their pipes toward the sun as if offering them to it to smoke, but yet without uttering a single word. They were a long time coming the little way from the village to us. Having reached us at last, they stopped to con- sider us attentively.

"I now took courage, seeing these ceremonies, which are used by them only with friends, and still more on seeing them covered with stuffs which made me judge them to be allies. I, therefore, spoke to them first, and asked them who they were. They answered that they were Illinois, and in token of peace they presented their pipes to smoke. They then invited us to their village, where all the tribe awaited us with impatience. These pipes for smoking are all called in this country calumets, a word that is so much in use that I shall be obliged to employ it in order to be understood, as I shall have to speak of it frequently.

" At the door of the cabin in which we were to be received was an old man awaiting us in a very remarkable posture, which is their usual ceremony in receiving strangers. This man was standing perfectly naked, with his hands stretched out and raised toward the sun, as if he wished to screen himself from its rays, which, nevertheless, passed

PRESENTATION OF THE CALUMET.

through his fingers to his face. When we came near him he paid us this compliment: 'How beautiful is the sun, O Frenchman, when thou comest to visit us! All our town awaits thee, and thou shalt enter all our cabins in peace.' He then took us into his, where there was a crowd of people, who devoured us with their eyes but kept a profound silence. We heard, however, these words occasionally ad- dressed to us : 'Well done, brothers, to visit us !' As soon as we had taken our places they showed us the usual civility of the country, which is to present the calumet. You must not refuse it unless you would pass for an enemy, or at least for being very impolite. It is, however, enough to pretend to smoke. While all the old men smoked after us to honor us, some came to invite us, on behalf of the great sachem of all the Illinois, to proceed to his town, where he wished to hold a council with us. We went with a good retinue, for all the people who had never seen a Frenchman among them could not tire looking at us; they threw themselves on the grass by the wayside, they ran ahead, then turned and walked back to see us again. All this was done without noise, and with marks of a great respect entertained for us.

" Having arrived at the great sachem's town, we espied him at his cabin door between two old men ; all three standing naked, with their calumet turned to the sun. He harangued us in a few words, to con- gratulate us on our arrival, and then presented us his calumet and made us smoke; at the same time we entered his cabin, where we received all their usual greetings. Seeing all assembled and in silence, I spoke to them by four presents which I made. By the first, I said that we marched in peace to visit the nations on the river to the sea ; by the second, I declared to them that God, their creator, had pity on them, since, after their having been so long ignorant of him, he wished to become known to all nations; that I was sent on his behalf with this design ; that it was for them to acknowledge and obey him; by the third, that the great chief of the French informed them that he spread peace everywhere, and had overcome tlie Iroquois ; lastly, by the fourth, we begged them to give us all the information they had of the sea, and of nations through which we should have to pass to reach it.

" When I had finished my speech, the sachem rose, and laying his hand on the head of a little slave whom he was about to give us, spoke thus : 'I thank thee, Black-gown, and thee, Frenchman,' addressing M. Jollyet, ' for taking so much pains to come and visit us. Never has the earth been so beautiful, nor the sun so bright, as to-day ; never has our river been so calm, nor so free from rocks, which your canoes have removed as they passed ; never has our tobacco had so fine a flavor,

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

nor our corn appeared so beautiful as we behold it to-day. Here is my son that I give thee that thou mayest know my heart. I pray thee take pity on me and all iny nation. Thou knowest the Great Spirit who has made us all; thou speakest to him and hearest his word; ask him to give me life and health, and come and dwell with us that we may know him.' Saying this, he placed the little slave near us and made us a second present, an all mysterious calumet, which they value more than a slave. By this present he showed us his esteem for our governor, after the account we had given of him. By the third lie begged us, on behalf of his whole nation, not to proceed farther on account of the great dangers to which we exposed ourselves.

"I replied that I did not fear death, and that I esteemed 110 happi- ness greater than that of losing my life for the glory of him who made us all. But this these poor people could not understand. The coun- cil was followed by a great feast which consisted of four courses, which we had to take with all their ways. The first course was a great wooden dish full of sagamity,-that is to say, of Indian meal boiled in water and seasoned with grease. The master of ceremonies, with a spoonful of sagamity, presented it three or four times to my mouth, as we would do with a little child ; he did the same to M. Jollyet. For the second course, he brought in a second dish containing three fish; he took some pains to remove the bones, and having blown upon it to cool it, put it in my mouth as we would food to a bird. For the third course they produced a large dog which they had just killed, but, learning that we did not eat it, withdrew it. Finally, the fourth course was a piece of wild ox, the fattest portions of which were put into our mouths.

" We took leave of our Illinois about the end of June, and em- barked in sight of all the tribe, who admire our little canoes, having never seen the like.

"As we were discoursing, while sailing gently down a beautiful, still, clear water, we heard the noise of a rapid into which we were about to fall. I have seen nothing more frightful; a mass of large trees, entire, with branches,- real floating islands,- came rushing from the mouth of the river Pekitanoui, so impetuously that we could not, without great danger, expose ourselves to pass across. The agitation was so great that the water was all muddy and could not get clear .*

* Pekitanoui, with the aboriginals, signified " muddy water," on the authority of Father Marest, in his letter referred to in a previous note. The present name, Mis- souri, according to Le Page du Pratz, vol. 2, p. 157, was derived from the tribe, Mis- souris, whose village was some forty leagues above its mouth, and who massacred a French garrison situated in that part of the country. The late statesman and orator, Thomas A. Benton, referring to the muddiness prevailing at all seasons of the year in the Missouri River, said that its waters were "too thick to swim in and too thin to walk on."

PLOT AGAINST MARQUETTE'S LIFE.

"After having made about twenty leagues due south, and a little less to the southeast, we came to a river called Ouabonskigou, the mouth of which is at 36° north .* This river comes from the country on the east inhabited by the Chaoúanons, in such numbers that they reckon as many as twenty-three villages in one district, and fifteen in another, lying quite near each other. They are by no means warlike, and are the people the Iroquois go far to seek in order to wage an unprovoked war upon them ; and as these poor people cannot defend themselves they allow themselves to be taken and carried off like sheep, and, inno- cent as they are, do not fail to experience the barbarity of the Iroquois, who burn them cruelly.'

Having arrived about half a league from Akansea (Arkansas River), we saw two canoes coming toward us. The commander was standing up holding in his hand a calumet, with which he made signs according to the custom of the country. He approached ns, singing quite agreeably, and invited us to smoke, after which he presented us some sagamity and bread made of Indian corn, of which we ate a little. We fortunately found among them a man who understood Illinois much better than the inan we brought from Mitchigameh. By means of him, I first spoke to the assembly by ordinary presents. They admired what I told them of God and the mysteries of our holy faith, and showed a great desire to keep me with them to instruct them.

"We then asked them what they knew of the sea; they replied that we were only ten days' journey from it (we could have made the distance in five days); that they did not know the nations who inhab- ited it, because their enemies prevented their commerce with those Europeans ; that the Indians with fire-arms whom we had met were their enemies, who cut off the passage to the sea, and prevented their making the acquaintance of the Europeans, or having any commerce with them ; that besides we should expose ourselves greatly by passing on, in consequence of the continual war parties that their enemies sent out on the river ; since, being armed and used to war, we could not, without evident danger, advance on that river which they constantly occupy.

"In the evening the sachems held a secret council on the design of some to kill us for plunder, but the chief broke up all these schemes, and sending for us, danced the calumet in our presence, and then, to remove all fears, presented it to me.

" M. Jollyet and I held another council to deliberate on what we should do, whether we should push on, or rest satisfied with the dis-

* The Wabash here appears, for the first time, by name. A more extended notice of the various names by which this stream has been known will be given farther on. 4

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

covery that we had made. After having attentively considered that we were not far from the Gulf of Mexico, the basin of which is 31° 40' north, and we at 33º 40'; so that we could not be more than two or three days' journey off; that the Mississippi undoubtedly liad its mouth in Florida or the Gulf of Mexico, and not on the east in Vir- ginia, whose sea-coast is at 34º northi, which we had passed, without having as yet reached the sea, nor on the western side in California, because that would require a west, or west-southwest course, and we had always been going south. We considered, moreover, that we risked losing the fruit of this voyage, of which we could give 110 information, if we should throw ourselves into the hands of the Span- iards, who would undoubtedly at least hold us as prisoners. Besides it was clear that we were not in a condition to resist Indians allied to Europeans, numerous and expert in the use of fire-arms, who contin- ually infested the lower part of the river. Lastly, we had gathered all the information that could be desired from the expedition. All these reasons induced us to return. This we announced to the Indians, and after a day's rest prepared for it.

"After a month's navigation down the Mississippi, from the 42d to below the 34th degree, and after having published the gospel as well as I could to the nations I had met, we left the village of Akansea on the 17th of July, to retrace our steps. We accordingly ascended the Mississippi, which gave us great trouble to stem its currents. We left it, indeed, about the 38th degree, to enter another river (the Illinois), which greatly shortened our way, and brought us, witli little trouble, to the lake of the Illinois.

" We had seen nothing like this river for the fertility of the land, its prairies, woods, wild cattle, stag, deer, wild-cats, bustards, swans, ducks, parrots, and even beaver; its many little lakes and rivers. That on which we sailed is broad deep and gentle for sixty-five leagues. During the spring and part of the summer, the only portage is half a league.

" We found there an Illinois town called Kaskaskia, composed of seventy-four cabins ; they received us well, and compelled me to promise them to return and instruct them. One of the chiefs of this tribe, witlı his young men, escorted us to the Illinois Lake, whence at last we returned in the close of September to the Bay of the Fetid (Green Bay), whence we had set out in the beginning of June. 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 returning, I passed by the Indians of Peoria. I was three days announcing the faith in their cabins, after whichi, as we were embarking, they brought

BIOGRAPHY OF JOLIET.

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 inno- cent soul."

Count Frontenac, writing from Quebec to M. Colbert, Minister of the Marine, at Paris, under date of November 14, 1674, announces that "Sieur Joliet, whom Monsieur Talon advised me, on my arrival from France, to dispatch for the discovery of the South Sea, has returned three months ago. He has discovered some very fine countries, and a navi- gation so easy through beautiful rivers he has found, that a person can go from Lake Ontario in a bark to the Gulf of Mexico, there being only one carrying place (around Niagara Falls), where Lake Ontario communicates with Lake Erie. I send you, by my secretary, the map which Sieur Joliet has made of the great river he has discovered, and the observations he has been able to recollect, as he lost all his minutes and journals in the shipwreck he 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."*

Louis Joliet, or Jolliet, or Jollyet, as the name is variously spelled, was the son of Jean Joliet, a wheelwright, and Mary d'Abancour; he was born at Quebec in the year 1645. Having finished his studies at the Jesuit college he determined to become a member of that order, and with that purpose in view took some of the minor orders of the society in August, 1662. He completed his studies in 1666, but during this. time his attention had become interested in Indian affairs, and he laid aside all thoughts of assuming the " black gown." That he acquired great ability and tact in managing the savages, is apparent from the fact of his having been selected to discover the south sea by the way of the Mississippi. The map which he drew from memory, and which was forwarded by Count Frontenac to France, was afterward attached to Marquette's Journal, and was published by Therenot, at Paris, in 1681. Sparks, in lıis " Life of Marquette," copies this inap, and ascribes it to his hero. This must be a mistake, since it differs quite essentially from Marquette's map, which has recently been brought to public notice by Dr. Shea.

Joliet's account of the voyage, mentioned by Frontenac, is published in Hennepin's " Discovery of a Vast Country in America." It is very mneagre, and does not present any facts not covered by Marquette's nar- rative.

In 1680 Joliet was appointed hydrographer to the king, and many

* Paris Documents, vol. 9, p. 121.

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

well-drawn maps at Quebec show that his office was no sinecure. After- ward, he made a voyage to Hudson's Bay in the interest of the king; and as a reward for the faitliful performance of his duty, he was granted the island of Anticosti, which, on account of the fisheries and Indian trade, was at that time very valuable. After this, he signed himself Joliet d'Anticosty. In the year 1697, he obtained the seignory of Joliet on the river Etchemins, south of Quebec. M. Joliet died in 1701, leaving a wife and four children, the descendants of whom are living in Canada still possessed of the seignory of Joliet, among whom are Archbishop Taschereau of Quebec and Archbishop Tache of Red River.

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 Iroquois County, together with Historic notes on the Northwest, gleaned from early authors, old maps and manuscripts, private and official correspondence, and other authentic, though, for the most part, out-of-the-way sources, Part 5

Author: Beckwith, H. W. (Hiram Williams), 1833-1903 Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Chicago : H.H. Hill and Co. Number of Pages: 1180

Author: Beckwith, H. W. (Hiram Williams), 1833-1903
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Chicago : H.H. Hill and Co.
Number of Pages: 1180