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 8

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 8

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" The day November 1st we again embarked on the lake, and came to the mouth of the river of the Miamis, which comes from the south- east and falls into the lake."

* While the Jesuit Fathers wore black gowns as a distinctive mark of their sect, the Recollects, or Franciscan missionaries, wore coats of gray.

CHAPTER X.

THE SEVERAL MIAMIS-LA SALLE'S VOYAGE DOWN THE ILLINOIS.

MUCH confusion has arisen because, at different periods, the name of " Miami" has been applied to no less than five different rivers, viz. : The St. Joseph, of Lake Michigan ; the Maumee, often designated as the Miami of the Lakes, to distinguish it from the Miami which falls into the Ohio River below Cincinnati; then there is the Little Miami of the Ohio emptying in above its greater namesake; and finally the Wabashı, which with more propriety bore the name of the "River of the Miamis." The French, it is assumed, gave the name " Miami " to the river emptying into Lake Michigan, for the reason that there was a village of that tribe on its banks before and at the time of La Salle's first visit, as already noted on page 24. The name was not of long duration, for it was soon exchanged for that of St. Joseph, by which it has ever since been known. La Hontan is the last authority who refers to it by the name of Miami. Shortly after the year named, the date being now unknown, a Catholic mission was established up the river, and, Charlevoix says, abont six leagues below the portage, at South Bend, and called the Mission of St. Joseph; and from this cir- cumstance, we may safely infer, the river acquired the same name. It is not known, either, by whom the Mission of St. Joseph was organ- ized ; very probably, however, by Father Claude Allouez. This good man, and to whose writings the people of the west are so largely indebted for many valuable historical reminiscences, seems to have been forgotten in the respect that is showered upon other more conspicuous though less meritorious characters. The Mission of the Immaculate Conception, after Marquette's death, remained unoccupied for the space of two years, then Claude Jean Allouez received orders to proceed thither from the Mission of St. James, at the town of Maskontens, on Fox River, Wisconsin. Leaving in October, 1676, on account of an exceptionally early winter, he was compelled to delay his journey until the following February, when he again started; reaching Lake Mich- igan on the eve of St. Joseph, he called the lake after this saint. Embarking on the lake on the 23d of March, and coasting along the western shore, after numerous delays occasioned by ice and storm, he arrived at Chicago River. He then made the portage and entered the

LA SALLE REACHES THE ST. JOSEPH.

Kaskaskia village, which was probably near Peoria Lake, on the 8th of April, 1677. The Indians gave liim a very cordial reception, and flocked from all directions to the town to hear the "Black Gown" relate the truths of Christianity. For the glorification of God and the Blessed Virgin Immaculate, Allouez "erected, in the midst of the village, a cross twenty-five feet high, chanting the Vexilla Regis in the presence of an admiring and respectful throng of Indians; he covered it with garlands of beautiful flowers."* Father Allouez did not remain but a short time at the mission ; leaving it that spring he returned in 1678, and continued there until La Salle's arrival in the winter of 1679-80. The next succeeding decade Allouez passed either at this mission or at the one on St. Joseph's River, on the eastern side of Lake Michigan, where he died in 1690. Bancroft says: " Allouez has imperishably connected his name with the progress of discovery in the West ; unhonored among us now, he was not inferior in zeal and ability to any of the great missionaries of his time."

We resume Hennepin's narrative :

"We had appointed this place (the mouth of the St. Joseph) for our rendezvous before leaving the outlet of Green Bay, and expected to meet the twenty men we had left at Mackinaw, who, being ordered to come by the eastern coast of the lake, had a mnuch shorter cut than we, who came by the western side; besides this, their canoes were not so heavily laden as ours. Still, we found no one here, nor any signs that they had been here before us.t

"It was resolved to advise M. La Salle that it was imprudent to remain here any longer for the absent men, and expose ourselves to the hardships of winter, when it would be doubtful if we could find the Illinois in their villages, as then they would be divided into fami- lies, and scattered over the country to subsist more conveniently. We further represented that the game miglit fail us, in which event we must certainly perish with hunger; whereas, if we went forward, we would find enough corn among the Illinois, who would rather supply

* " Allouez' Journal," published in Shea's " Discovery on Exploration of the Missis- sippi Valley."

+ In some works, the Geological Surveys of Indiana for 1873, p. 458, among others, it is erroneously assumed that La Salle was the discoverer of the St. Joseph River. While Fathers Hennepin and Zenobe Membre, who were with La Salle, may be the only accessible authors who have described it, the stream and its location was well known to La Salle and to them, as appears from their own account of it before they had ever seen it. Before leaving Mackinaw, Tonti was ordered to hunt up the deserters from, and to bring in the tardy traders belonging to, La Salle's party, and conduct them to the mouth of the St. Joseph. The pilot of the Griffin was under instruction to bring her there. Indeed, the conduct of the whole expedition leaves no room to doubt that the whole route to the Illinois River, by way of the St. Joseph and the Kankakee port- age, was well known at Mackinaw, and definitely fixed upon by La Salle, at least be- fore leaving the latter place.

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

fourteen men than thirty-two with provisions. We said further that: it would be quite impossible, if we delayed longer, to continue the voyage until the winter was over, because the rivers would be frozen over and we could not make use of our canoes. Notwithstanding these reasons, M. La Salle thought it necessary to remain for the rest of the men, as we would be in no condition to appear before the Illi- nois and treat with them with our present small force, whom they would meet with scorn. That it would be better to delay our entry into their country, and in the meantime try to meet with some of their nation, learn their language, and gain their good will by presents. La Salle concluded his discourse with the declaration that, although all of his mnen might run away, as for himself, he would remain alone with his Indian hunter, and find means to maintain the three missionaries - meaning me and my two clerical brethren. Having come to this con- clusion, La Salle called his men together, and advised them that he expected each one to do his duty; that he proposed to build a fort here for the security of the ship and the safety of our goods, and our- selves, too, in case of any disaster. None of us, at this time, knew that our ship had been lost. The men were quite dissatisfied at La- Salle's course, but his reasons therefor were so many that they yielded, and agreed to entirely follow his directions.

"Just at the mouth of the river was an eminence with a kind of plateau, naturally fortified. It was quite steep, of a triangular shape, defended on two sides by the river, and on the other by a deep ravine which the water had washed out. We felled the trees that grew on this hill, and cleared from it the bushes for the distance of two musket shot. We began to build a redoubt about forty feet long by eighty broad, with great square pieces of timber laid one upon the other, and then cut a great number of stakes, some twenty feet long, to drive into the ground on the river side, to make the fort inaccessible in that direc- tion. We were employed the whole of the month of November in this work, which was very fatiguing,-having no other food than the bears our savage killed. These animals are here very abundant, be- cause of the great quantity of grapes they find in this vicinity. Their flesh was so fat and luscious that our men grew weary of it, and desired to go themselves and hunt for wild goats. La Salle denied them that liberty, which made some murmurs among the men, and they went unwillingly to their work. These annoyances, with the near approach of winter, together with the apprehension that his ship was lost, gave La Salle a melancholy which he resolutely tried to but could not con- ceal.

"We made a hut wherein we performed divine service every Sun-

FORT MIAMIS.

day ; and Father Gabriel and myself, who preached alternately, care- fully selected such texts as were suitable to our situation, and fit to inspire us with courage, concord, and brotherly love. Our exhorta- tions produced good results, and deterred our men from their meditated desertion. We sounded the month of the river and found a sand-bar, on which we feared our expected ship might strike; we marked out a channel through which the vessel might safely enter by attaching buoys, made of inflated bear-skins, fastened to long poles driven into the bed of the lake. Two men were also sent back to Mackinac to await there the return of the ship, and serve as pilots .*

" M. Tonti arrived on the 20th of November with two canoes, laden with stags and deer, which were a welcome refreshment to our men. He did not bring more than about one-half of his men, having left the rest on the opposite side of the lake, within three days' journey of the fort. La Salle was angry with him on this account, because he was afraid the men would run away. Tonti's party informed us that the Griffin had not put into Mackinaw, according to orders, and that they had heard nothing of her since our departure, although they had made inquiries of the savages living on the coast of the lake. This confirmned the suspicion, or rather the belief, that the vessel had been cast away. However, M. La Salle continued work on the building of the fort, which was at last completed and called Fort Miamis.

"The winter was drawing nigh, and La Salle, fearful that the ice would interrupt his voyage, sent M. Tonti back to hurry forward the men he had left, and to command them to come to him immediately; but, meeting with a violent storm, their canoes were driven against the beach and broken to pieces, and Tonti's men lost their guns and equipage, and were obliged to return to us overland. A few days after this all our men arrived except two, who had deserted. We pre- pared at once to resume our voyage; rains having fallen that melted the ice and made the rivers navigable.

" On the 3d of December, 1679, we embarked, being in all thirty- three men, in eight canoes. We left the lake of the Illinois and went up the river of the Miamis, in which we had previously made soundings. We made about five-and-twenty leagnes southward, but failed to discover the place where we were to land, and carry our canoes and effects into the river of the Illinois, which falls into that of the Meschasipi, that is, in the language of the Illinois, the great river. We had already gone beyond the place of the portage, and, not know- ing where we were, we thought proper to remain there, as we were expecting M. La Salle, who had taken to the land to view the country.

* This is the beginning, at what is now known as Benton Harbor, Michigan.

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

We staid here quite a while, and, La Salle failing to appear, I went a distance into the woods with two men, who fired off their guns to notify him of the place where we were. In the meantime two other men went higher up the river, in canoes, in search of him. We all returned toward evening, having vainly endeavored to find him. The next day I went up the river myself, but, hearing nothing of him, I came back, and found our men very much perplexed, fearing he was lost. However, about four o'clock in the afternoon M. La Salle returned to us, having his face and hands as black as pitch. He carried two beasts, as big as muskrats, whose skin was very fine, and like ermine. He had killed them with a stick, as they hung by their tails to the branches of the trees.

" He told us that the marshes he had met on his way had compelled him to bring a large compass; and that, being much delayed by the snow, which fell very fast, it was past midnight before he arrived upon the banks of the river, where he fired his gun twice, and, hearing no answer, he concluded that we had gone higher up the river, and had, therefore, marched that way. He added that, after three hours' march, he saw a fire upon a little hill, whither he went directly and hailed us several times; but, hearing no reply, he approached and found no per- son near the fire, but only some dry grass, upon which a man had laid a little while before, as he conjectured, because the bed was still warm. He supposed that a savage had been occupying it, who fled upon liis approach, and was now hid in ambuscade near by. La Salle called out loudly to him in two or three languages, saying that he need not be afraid of him, and that he was agoing to lie in his bed. La Salle received no answer. To guard against surprise, La Salle cut bushes and placed them to obstruct the way, and sat down by the fire, the smoke of which blackened his hands and face, as I have already observed. Hav- ing warmed and rested himself, he laid down under the tree upon the dry grass the savage had gathered and slept well, notwithstanding the frost and snow. Father Gabriel and I desired- him to keep with his men, and not to expose himself in the future, as the success of our enterprise depended solely on him, and he promised to follow our advice. Our savage, who remained behind to lıunt, finding none of us at the portage, came higher up the river, to where we were, and told us we had missed the place. We sent all the canoes back under his charge except one, which I retained for M. La Salle, who was so weary that he was obliged to remain there that night. I made a little hut with mats, constructed with marsh rushes, in which we laid down together for the night. By an unhappy accident our cabin took fire, and we were very near being burned alive after we had gone to sleep."

ABORIGINAL NAME OF "KANKAKEE."

Here follows Hennepin's description of the Kankakee portage, and of the marshy grounds about the headwaters of this stream, as already quoted on page 24.

" Having passed through the marshes, we came to a vast prairie, in which nothing grows but grasses, which were at this time dry and burnt, because the Miamis set the grasses on fire every year, in hunt- ing for wild oxen (buffalo), as I shall mention farther on. We found no game, which was a disappointment to us, as our provisions had begun to fail. Our men traveled about sixty miles without killing anything other than a lean stag, a small wild goat, a few swan and two bustards, which were but a scanty subsistence for two and thirty men. Most of the men were become so weary of this laborious life that, were it practicable, they would have run away and joined the savages, who, as we inferred by the great fires which we saw on the prairies, were not very far from us. There must be an innumerable quantity of wild cattle in this country, since the ground here is every- where covered with their horns. The Miamis hunt them toward the làtter end of autumn."*

That part of the Illinois River above the Desplaines is called the Kankakee, which is a corruption of its original Indian name. St. Cosme, the narrative of whose voyage down the Illinois River, by way of Chicago, in 1699, and found in Dr. Shea's work of "Early Voyages Up and Down the Mississippi," refers to it as the The-a-li-ke, " which is the real river of the Illinois, and (says) that which we de- scended (the Desplaines) was only a branch." Father Marest, in his letter of November 9, 1712, narrating a journey he had previously made from Kaskaskia up to the Mission of St. Joseph, says of the Illi- nois River : "We transported all there was in the canoe toward the source of the Illinois (Indian), which they call Hau-ki-ki." Father Charlevoix, who descended the Kankakee from the portage, in his let- ter, dated at the source of the river Theakiki, September 17, 1721, says : "This morning I walked a league farther in the meadow, having my feet almost always in the water ; afterward I met with a kind of a pool or marsh, which had a communication with several others of dif- ferent sizes, but the largest was about a hundred paces in circuit ; these are the sources of the river The-a-ki-ki, which, by a corrupted pronun- ciation, our Indians call Ki-a-ki-ki. Theak signifies a wolf, in what language I do not remember, but the river bears that name because the Mahingans (Mohicans), who were likewise called wolves, had formerly

* Hennepin and his party were not aware of the migratory habits of the buffalo ; and that their scarcity on the Kankakee in the winter months was because the herds had gone southward to warmer latitude and better pasturage.

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

taken refuge on its banks."* The Mohicans were of the Algonquin stock, anciently living east of the Hudson River, where they had been so persecuted and nearly destroyed by the implacable Iroquois that their tribal integrity was lost, and they were dispersed in small fami- lies over the west, seeking protection in isolated places, or living at sufferance among their Algonquin kindred. They were brave, faithful to the extreme, famous scouts, and successful hunters. La Salle, ap- preciating these valuable traits, usually kept a few of them in his em- ploy. The " savage," or "hunter," so often referred to by Hennepin, in the extracts we have taken from his journal, was a Mohican.

In a report made to the late Governor Ninian Edwards, in 1812, by John Hays, interpreter and Coureur de Bois of the routes, rivers and Indian villages in the then Illinois Territory, Mr. Hays calls the Kankakee the Quin-que-que, which was probably its French-Indian name.+ Col. Guerdon S. Hubbard, who for many years, dating back as early as 1819, was a trader, and commanded great influence with the bands of Pottawatomies, claiming the Kankakee as their country, informs the writer that the Pottawatomie name of the Kankakee is Ky-an-ke-a-kee, meaning " the river of the wonderful or beautiful land,-as it really is, westward of the marshes. "A-kee," "Ah-ke" and "Aki," in the Algonquin dialect, signifies earth or land.

The name Desplaines, like that of the Kankakee, has undergone changes in the progress of time. On a French map of Louisiana, in 1717, the Desplaines is laid down as the Chicago River. Just after Great Britain had secured the possessions of the French east of the Mississippi, by conquest and treaty, and when the British authorities were keenly alive to everything pertaining to their newly acquired possessions, an elaborate map, collated from the most authentic sources by Eman Bowen, geographer to His Majesty King George the Third, was issued, and on this map the Desplaines is laid down as the Illinois, or Chicago River. Many early French writers speak of it, as they do of the Kankakee above the confluence, as the "River of the Illi- nois." Its French Canadian name is Au Plein, now changed to Des- plaines, or Rivière Au Plein, or Despleines, from a variety of hard maple,- that is to say, sugar tree. The Pottawatomies called it She- shik-mao-shi-ke Se-pe, signifying the river of the tree from which a great quantity of sap flows in the spring .¿ It has also been sanctified by Father Zenobe Membre with the name Divine River, and by authors

Charlevoix' "Journal of a Voyage to America," vol. 2, p. 184. London edition, 1761.

+ " History of Illinois and Life of Governor Edwards," by his son Ninian W. Edwards, p. 98.

# Long's Second Expedition, vol. 1, p. 173.

NAMES OF THE ILLINOIS.

of early western gazetteers, vulgarized by the appellation of Kickapoo Creek.

Below the confluence of the Desplaines, the Illinois River was, by La Salle, named the Seignelay, as a inark of his esteem for the brilliant young Colbert, who succeeded his father as Minister of the Marine. On the great inap, prepared by the engineer Franquelin in 1684, it is called River Des Illinois, or Macoupins. The name Illinois, whichi, fortunately, it will always bear, was derived from the name of the con- federated tribes who anciently dwelt upon its banks.

"We continued our course," says Hennepin, " upon this river (the Kankakee and Illinois) very near the whole month of December, at the latter end of which we arrived at a village of the Illinois, which lies near a hundred and thirty leagues from Fort Miamis, on the Lake of the Illinois. We suffered greatly on the passage, for the savages having set fire to the grass on the prairie, the wild cattle had fled, and we did not kill one. Some wild turkeys were the only game we secured. God's providence supported us all the while, and as we meditated upon the extremities to which we were reduced, regarding ourselves without hope of relief, we found a very large wild ox stick- ing fast in the mud of the river. We killed him, and with much diffi- culty dragged him out of the mud. This was a great refreshment to our men ; it revived their courage,- being so timely and unexpectedly relieved, they concluded that God approved our undertaking.

The great village of the Illinois, where La Salle's party had now arrived, has been located with such certainty by Francis Parkman, the learned historical writer, as to leave no doubt of its identity. It was on the north side of the Illinois River, above the mouth of the Vermillion and below Starved Rock, near the little village of Utica, in La Salle county, Illinois .*

" We found," continues Father Hennepin, " no one in the village, as we had foreseen, for the Illinois, according to their custom, had di- vided themselves into small hunting parties. Their absence caused great perplexity amongst us, for we wanted provisions, and yet did not dare to meddle with the Indian corn the savages had laid under ground for their subsistence and for seed. However, our necessity be- ing very great, and it being impossible to continue our voyage without any provisions, M. La Salle resolved to take about forty bushels of corn, and hoped to appease the savages with presents. We embarked again, with these fresh provisions, and continued to fall down the river,

* Mr. Parkman gives an interesting account of his recent visit to, and the identifi- cation of, the locality, in an elaborate note in his "Discovery of the Great West," pp. 221, 222.

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

which runs directly toward the south. On the 1st of January we went through a lake (Peoria Lake) formed by the river, about seven leagues- long and one broad. The savages call that place Pimeteoui, that is, in their tongue, 'a place where there is an abundance of fat animals. ' *

Resuming Hennepin's narrative: "The current brought us, in the meantime, to the Indian camp, and M. La Salle was the first one to land, followed closely by his men, which increased the consterna- tion of the savages, whom we easily might have defeated. As it was. not our design, we made a halt to give them time to recover them- selves and to see that we were not enemies. Most of the savages who had run away upon our landing, understanding that we were friends, returned ; but some others did not come back for three or four days, and after they had learned that we had smoked the calumet.

"I must observe here, that the hardest winter does not last longer than two months in this charming country, so that on the 15th of Jan- uary there came a sudden thaw, which made the rivers navigable, and the weather as mild as it is in France in the middle of the spring. M. La Salle, improving this fair season, desired me to go down the river with him to choose a place proper to build a fort. We selected an eminence on the bank of the river, defended on that side by the river, and on two others by deep ravines, so that it was accessible only on one side. We cast a trench to join the two ravines, and made the eminence steep on that side, supporting the earth with great pieces of timber. We made a rough palisade to defend ourselves in case the Indians should attack us while we were engaged in building the fort ; but no one offering to disturb us, we went on diligently with our work.

* Louis Beck, in his " Gazetteer of Illinois and Missouri," p. 119, says: "The Indi- ans call the lake Pin-a-tah-wee, on account of its being frequently covered with a scum which has a greasy appearance." Owing to the rank growth of aquatic plants in the Illinois River before they were disturbed by the frequent passage of boats, and to the grasses on the borders of the stream and the adjacent marshes, and the decay taking place in both under the scorching rays of the summer's sun, the surface of the river and lake were frequently coated with this vegetable decomposition. Prof. School- craft ascended the Illinois River, and was at Fort Clark on the 19th of August, 1821. Under this date is the following extract from his "Narrative Journal ": "About 9 o'clock in the morning we came to a part of the river which was covered for several hundred yards with a scum or froth of the most intense green color, and emitting a nauseous exhalation that was almost insupportable. We were compelled to pass through it. The fine green color of this somewhat compact scum, resembling that of verdegris, led us at the moment to conjecture that it might derive this character from some mineral spring or vein in the bed of the river, but we had reasons afterward to regret this opinion. I directed one of the canoe men to collect a bottle of this mother of miasmata for preservation, but its fermenting nature baffled repeated at- tempts to keep it corked. We had daily seen instances of the powerful tendency of these waters to facilitate the decomposition of floating vegetation, but had not before observed any in so mature and complete a state of putrefaction. It might certainly justify an observer less given to fiction than the ancient poets, to people this stream with the Hydra, as were the pestilential-breeding marshes of Italy."-Schoolcraft's "Central Mississippi Valley," p. 305.

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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 8

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