USA > Illinois > Vermilion County > History of Vermilion 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 7
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Still, his description of places he did visit ; the aboriginal names and geographical features of localities ; his observations, especially upon the manners and customs of the Indians, and other facts which he had no motive to misrepresent, are generally regarded as true in his last as well as in his first publication. His works, indeed, are the only repos- itories of many interesting particulars relating to the northwest, and authors quote from him, some indiscriminately and others with more cantion, while all criticise him without measure.
Hennepin was born in Belgium in 1640, as is supposed, and died at Utrecht, Holland, within a few years after issuing his last book. This , was republished in London in 1698, the translation into English being wretchedly executed. The book, aside from its historical value and the notoriety attaching to it because of the new claims Hennepin makes, is quite a curiosity. It is made up of Hennepin's own travels, blended with his fictitious discoveries, scraps and odd ends taken from the writings of other travelers without giving credit ; the whole embellished with plates and a map inserted by the bookseller, and the text empha- sized with italics and displayed type; all designed to render it a speci- men, as it probably was in its day, of the highest skill attained in the art of book-making.
La Salle brought up the St. Lawrence to Fort Frontenac the anchors, cordage and other material to be used in the vessel which he designed to construct above the Falls of Niagara for navigating the western lakes. He already had three small vessels on Lake Ontario, which he had made use of in a coasting trade with the Indians. One of these, a brigantine of ten tons, was loaded with his effects; his men, including Fathers Gabriel, Zenobius Membre and Hennepin, who were, as Father Zenobia declares, commissioned with care of the spiritual direction of the expedition, were placed aboard, and on the 18th of November the vessel sailed westward for the Niagara River. They kept the northern shore, and run into land and bartered for corn with the Iroquois at one of their villages, situated where Toronto, Canada, is located, and for fear of being frozen up in the river, which here empties into the lake, had to cut the ice from about their ship. Detained by adverse winds, they remained here until the wind was favorable,
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HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.
when they sailed across the end of the lake and found an anchorage in the mouth of Niagara River on the 6th of December. The season was far advanced, and the ground covered with snow a foot deep. Large masses of ice were floating down the river endangering the vessel, and it was necessary to take measures to give it security. Accordingly the vessel was hauled with cables up against the strong current. One of the cables broke, and the vessel itself came very near being broken to pieces or carried away by the ice, which was grinding its way to the open lake. Finally, by sheer force of human strength, the vessel was dragged to the shore, and moored with a strong hawser under a protect- ing cliff out of danger from the floating ice. A cabin, protected with palisades, for shelter and to serve as a magazine to store the supplies, was also constructed. The ground was frozen so hard that it had to be thawed ont with boiling water before the men could drive stakes into it.
The movements of La Salle excited, first the curiosity of the Iro- quois Indians, in whose country he was an intruder, and then their jeal- onsy became aroused as they began to fear he intended the erection of a fort. The Sieur de La Salle, says the frank and modest-minded Father Zenobe Membre, "with his usual address met the principal Iroquois chiefs in conference, and gained them so completely that they not only agreed, but offered, to contribute with all their means to the execu- tion of his designs. The conference lasted for some time. La Salle also sent many canoes to trade north and south of the lake among these tribes." Meanwhile La Salle's enemies were busy in thwarting his plans. They insinuated themselves among the Indians in the vicinity of Niagara, and filled their ears with all sorts of stories to La Salle's discredit, and aronsed feelings of such distrust that work on the fort, or depot for supplies, had to be suspended, and La Salle content himself with a house surrounded by palisades.
A place was selected above the falls,* on the eastern side of the river, for the construction of the new vessel.
The ground was cleared away, trees were felled, and the earpen- ters set to work. The keel of the vessel was laid on the 26th of Jan- uary, and some of the plank being ready to fasten on, La Salle drove the first spike. As the work progressed, La Salle made several trips, over ice and snow, and later in the spring with vessels, to Fort Frontenac, to hurry forward provisions and material. One of his vessels was lost on Lake Ontario, heavily laden with a cargo of valuable supplies, through the fault or willful perversity of her pilots. The disappointment over this calamity, says Hennepin, would have dissnaded any other person than
* Francis Parkman, in his valuable work, "The Discovery of the Great West," p. 133, locates the spot at the mouth of Cayuga Creek on the American shore.
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THE FIRST SAIL ON LAKE ERIE.
La Salle from the further prosecution of the enterprise. The men worked industriously on the ship. The most of the Iroquois having gone to war with a nation on the northern side of Lake Erie, the few remaining behind were become less insolent than before. Still they lingered about where the work was going on, and continued expres- sions of discontent at what the French were doing. One of them let on to be drunk and attempted to kill the blacksmith, but the latter repulsed the Indian with a piece of iron red-hot from the forge. The Indians threatened to burn the vessel on the stocks, and might have done so were it not constantly guarded. Much of the time the only food of the men was Indian corn and fish ; the distance to Fort Fron- tenac and the inclemency of the winter rendering it out of power to procure a supply of other or better provisions.
The frequent alarms from the Indians, a want of wholesome food, the loss of the vessel with its promised supplies, and a refusal of the neighboring tribes to sell any more of their corn, reduced the party to such extremities that the ship-carpenters tried to run away. They were, however, persuaded to remain and prosecute their work. Two Mohegan Indians, successful hunters in La Salle's service, were fortu- nate enough to bring in some wild goats and other game they had killed, which greatly encouraged the workmen to go on with their task more briskly than before. The vessel was completed within six months from the time its keel was laid. The ship was gotten afloat before en- tirely finished, to prevent the designs of the natives to burn it. She was sixty tons burthen, and called the "Griffin," a name given it by La Salle by way of a compliment to Count Frontenac, whose armorial bearings were supported by two griffins. Three guns were fired, and "Te Deums" chanted at the christening, and prayers offered up for a prosperous voyage. The air in the wild forest rung with shouts of joy ; even the Iroquois, looking suspiciously on, were seduced with alluring draughts of brandy to lend their deep-mouthed voices to the happy occasion. The men left their cabins of bark and swung their hammocks under the deck of the ship, where they could rest with greater security from the savages than on the shore.
The Griffin, under press of a favorable breeze, and with the help of twelve men on the shore pulling at tow-ropes, was forced up against the strong current of the Niagara River to calmer waters at the en- trance of the lake. On the 7th of August, 1679, her canvas was spread, and the pilot steering by the compass, the vessel, with La Salle and his thirty odd companions and their effects aboard, sailed out westward upon the unknown, silent waters of Lake Erie. In three days they reached the mouth of Detroit River. Father Hennepin was fairly
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HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.
delighted with the country along this river - it was "so well situated and the soil so fertile. Vast meadows extending back from the strait and terminating at the uplands, which were clad with vineyards, and plum and pear and other fruit-bearing trees of nature's own planting, all so well arranged that one would think they could not have been so dis- posed without the help of art. The country was also well stocked with deer, bear, wild goats, turkeys, and other animals and birds, that supplied a most relishing food. The forest comprised walnut and other timber in abundance suitable for building purposes. So charmed was he with the prospect that he " endeavored to persuade La Salle to settle at the 'De Troit,"" it being in the midst of so many savage na- tions among whom a good trade could be established. La Salle would not listen to this proposal. He said he would make no settlement within one hundred leagnes of Frontenac, lest other Europeans would be before them in the new country they were going to discover. This, says Hennepin, was the pretense of La Salle and the adventurers who were with him ; for I soon discovered that their intention was to buy all the furs and skins of the remotest savages who, as they thought, did not know their value, and thus enrich themselves in one single voyage.
On Lake Huron the Griffin encountered a storm. The main-yards and topmast were blown away, giving the ship over to the mercy of the winds. There was no harbor to run into for shelter. La Salle, although a courageous man, gave way to his fears, and said they all were undone. Everyone thereupon fell upon their knees to say pray- ers and prepare for death, except the pilot, who cursed and swore all the while at La Salle for bringing him there to perish in a nasty lake, after he had acquired so much renown in a long and successful naviga- tion on the ocean. The storm abated, and on the 27th of Angust, the Griffin resumed her course northwest, and was carried on the evening of the same day beyond the island of Mackinaw to point St. Ignace, and safely anchored in a bay that is sheltered, except from the south, by the projecting mainland.
CHAPTER IX.
LA SALLE'S VOYAGE CONTINUED.
ST. IGNACE, or Mackinaw, as previously stated, had become a princi- pal center of the Jesuit missions, and it had also grown into a head- quarters for an extensive Indian trade. Duly licensed traders, as well as the Coureurs de Bois,- men who had run wild, as it were, and by their intercourse with the nations had thrown off all restraints of civilized life,-resorted to this vicinity in considerable numbers. These, lost to all sense of national pride, instead of sustaining took every measure to thwart La Salle's plans. They, with some of the dissatis- fied crew, represented to the Indians that La Salle and his associates were a set of dangerous and ambitious adventurers, who meant to engross all the trade in furs and skins and invade their liberties. These jealous and meddlesome busybodies had already, before the arrival of the Griffin, succeeded in seducing fifteen men from La Salle's service, whom with others, he had sent forward the previous spring, under command of Tonty, with a stock of merchandise; and, instead of going to the tribes beyond and preparing the way for a friendly recep- tion of La Salle, as they were ordered to do, they loitered about Mackinaw the whole summer and squandered the goods, in spite of Tonty's persistent efforts to urge them forward in the performance of their duty. La Salle sent out other parties to trade with the natives, and these went so far, and were so busy in bartering for and collect- ing furs, that they did not return to Mackinaw until November. It was now getting late and La Salle was warned of the dangerous storms that sweep the lakes at the beginning of winter; he resolved, therefore, to continue his voyage without waiting the return of his men. He weighed anchor and sailed westward into Lake Michigan as far as the islands at the entrance of Green Bay, then called the Pottawatomie Islands, for the reason that they were then occupied by bands of that tribe. On one of these islands La Salle found some of the men belonging to his advance party of traders, and who, having secured a large quantity of valuable furs, had long and impatiently waited his coming.
La Salle, as is already apparent, determined to engage in a fur trade that already and legitimately belonged to merchants operating at
63
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HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.
Montreal, and with which the terms of his own license prohibited his interfering. Without asking any one's advice he resolved to load his ship with furs and send it back to Niagara, and the furs to Quebec, and out of the proceeds of the sale to discharge some very pressing debts. The pilot with five men to man the vessel were ordered to proceed with the Griffin to Niagara, and return with all imaginable speed and join La Salle at the mouth of the St. Joseph River. near the southern shore of Lake Michigan. The Griffin did not go to Green Bay City, as many writers have assumed in hasty perusals of the original authorities, or even penetrate the body of water known as Green Bay beyond the chain of islands at its mouth.
The resolution of La Salle, taken. it seems, on the spur of the moment, to send his ship back down the lakes, and prosecute his voyage the rest of the way to the head of Lake Michigan in frail birchen canoes, was a most unfortunate measure. It delaved his discoveries two years, brought severe hardships upon himself and greatly embarrassed all his future plans. The Griffin itself was lost. with all her cargo, valued at sixty thousand livres. She, nor her crew. was ever heard of after leaving the Pottawatomie Islands. What became of the ship and men in charge remains to this day a mystery, or veiled in a cloud of conjecture. La Salle himself, says Francis Parkman, "grew into a settled conviction that the Griffin had been treacherously sunk by the pilot and sailors to whom he had intrusted her : and he thought he had, in after-years, found evidence that the authors of the crime, laden with the merchandise they had taken from her, had reached the Mississippi and ascended it, hoping to join Du Shut. the famous chief of the Coureurs de Bois, and enrich them- selves by traffic with the northern tribes .*
The following is. substantially, Hennepin's account of La Salle's canoe voyage from the mouth of Green Bay south, along the shore of Lake Michigan, past Milwaukee and Chicago, and around the southern end of the lake : thence north along the eastern shore to the month of the St. Joseph River : thence up the St. Joseph to South Bend, mak- ing the portage here to the head-waters of the Kankakee: thence down the Kankakee and Illinois through Peoria Lake, with an account of the building of Fort Crevecoeur. Hennepin's narrative is full of in- teresting detail. and contains many interesting observations upon the condition of the country, the native inhabitants as they appeared nearly two hundred years ago. The privation and suffering to which La Salle and his party were exposed in navigating Lake Michigan at that early day, and late in the fall of the year, when the waters were vexed with
* Discovery of the Great West, p. 169.
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FIRST VOYAGE ON LAKE MICHIGAN.
tempestnous storms, illustrate the courage and daring of the under- taking.
Their suffering did not terminate with their voyage upon the lake. Difficulties of another kind were experienced on the St. Joseph, Kan- kakee and Illinois Rivers. Hennepin's is, perhaps, the first detailed account we have of this part of the "Great West," and is therefore of great interest and value on this account.
" We left the Pottawatomies to continue our voyage, being fourteen men in all, in four canoes. I had charge of the smallest, which carried five hundredweight and two men. My companions being recently from Europe, and for that reason being unskilled in the management of these kind of boats, its whole charge fell upon me in stormy weather.
" The canoes were laden with a smith's forge, utensils, tools for car- penters, joiners and sawyers, besides our goods and arms. We steered to the south toward the mainland, from which the Pottawatomie Islands are distant some forty leagues ; but about midway, and in the night time, we were greatly endangered by a sudden storm. The waves dashed into our canoes, and the night was so dark we had great difficulty in keeping our canoes together. The daylight coming on, we reached the shore, where we remained for four days, waiting for the lake to grow calm. In the meantime our Indian hunter went in quest of game, but killed nothing other than a porcupine ; this, however, made our Indian corn more relishing. The weather becoming fair, we resumed our voyage, rowing all day and well into the night, along the western coast of the Lake of the Illinois. The wind again grew to fresh, and we landed upon a rocky beach where we had nothing to protect ourselves against a storm of snow and rain except the clothing on our persons. We remained here two days for the sea to go down, hav- ing made a little fire from wood east ashore by the waves. We pro- ceeded on our voyage, and toward evening the winds again forced us to a beach covered with rushes, where we remained three days; and in the meantime our provisions, consisting only of pumpkins and Indian corn purchased from the Pottawatomies, entirely gave ont. Our canoes were so heavily laden that we could not carry provisions with us, and we were compelled to rely on bartering for such supplies on our way. We left this dismal place, and after twelve leagues rowing came to another Pottawatomie village, whose inhabitants stood upon the beach to receive us. But M. La Salle refused to let anyone land, notwithstanding the severity of the weather, fearing some of his men might run away. We were in such great peril that La Salle flung himself into the water, after we had gone some three leagues farther, 5
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HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.
and with the aid of his three men carried the canoe of which he had charge to the shore, upon their shoulders, otherwise it would have been broken to pieces by the waves. We were obliged to do the same with the other canoes. I, myself, carried good Father Gabriel upon my back, his age being so well advanced as not to admit of his ventur- ing in the water. We took ourselves to a piece of rising ground to avoid surprise, as we had no manner of acquaintance with the great number of savages whose village was near at hand. We sent three men into the village to buy provisions, under protection of the calu- met or pipe of peace, which the Indians at Pottawatomie Islands had presented us as a means of introduction to, and a measure of safety against, other tribes that we might meet on our way."
The calumet has always been a symbol of amity among all the In- dian tribes of North America, and so uniformly used by them in all their negotiations with their own race, and Europeans as well; and Father Hennepin's description of it, and the respect that is accorded to its presence, are so truthful that we here insert his account of it at length :
"This calumet," says Father Hennepin, "is the most mysterious thing among the savages, for it is used in all important transactions. It is nothing else, however, than a large tobacco pipe, made of red. black, or white stone. The head is highly polished, and the quill or stem is usually about two feet in length, made of a pretty strong reed or cane, decorated with highly colored feathers interlaced with locks of women's hair. Wings of gandily plumaged birds are tied to it, mak- ing the calumet look like the wand of Mercury, or staff which ambas- sadors of state formerly carried when they went to conduct treaties of peace. The stem is sheathed in the skin of the neck of birds called 'Huars' (probably the loon), which are as large as our geese, and spotted with white and black; or else with those of a duck (the little wood dnek whose neck presents a beautiful contrast of colors) that make their nests upon trees, although the water is their ordinary ele- ment, and whose feathers are of many different colors. However, every tribe ornament their ealumets according to their own fancy, with the feathers of such birds as they may have in their own country.
"A pipe, such as I have described, is a pass of safe conduct among all the allies of the tribe which has given it; and in all embassies it is ear- ried as a symbol of peace, and is always respected as such, for the sav- ages believe some great misfortune would speedily befall them if they violated the public faith of the calumet. All their enterprises, declara- tions of war, treaties of peace, as well as all of the rest of their cere- monies, are sealed with the calumet. The pipe is filled with the best
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CANOE VOYAGE ON LAKE MICHIGAN.
tobacco they have, and then it is presented to those with whom they are about to conduct an important affair ; and after they have smoked out of it, the one offering it does the same. I would have perished," concludes Hennepin, "had it not been for the calumet. Our three men, carrying the calumet and being well armed, went to the little village about three leagues from the place where we landed; they found no one at home, for the inhabitants, having heard that we refused to land at the other village, supposed we were enemies, and had aban- doned their habitations. In their absence our men took some of their corn, and left instead, some goods, to let them know we were neither their enemies nor robbers. Twenty of the inhabitants of this village came to our encampment on the beach, armed with axes, small guns, bows, and a sort of club, which, in their language, means a head- breaker. La Salle, with four well-armed men, advanced toward them for the purpose of opening a conversation. He requested them to come near to us, saying he had a party of hunters out who might come across them and take their lives. They came forward and took seats at the foot of an eminence, where we were encamped ; and La Salle amused them with the relation of his voyage, which he informed then he had undertaken for their advantage; and thus occupied their time until the arrival of the three men who had been sent out with the calumet ; on seeing which the savages gave a great shout, arose to their feet and danced about. We excused our men from having taken some of their corn, and informed them that we had left its true value in goods ; they were so well pleased with this that they immediately sent for more corn, and on the next day they made us a gift of as much as we could conveniently find room for in our canoes.
" The next day morning the old men of the tribe came to us with their calumet of peace, and entertained us with a free offering of wild goats, which their own hunters had taken. In return, we presented them our thanks, accompanied with some axes, knives, and several little toys for their wives, with all which they were very much pleased.
" We left this place and continued our voyage along the coast of the lake, which, in places, is so steep that we often found it difficult to obtain a landing; and the wind was so violent as to oblige us to carry our canoes sometimes upon top of the bluff, to prevent their being dashed in pieces. The stormy weather lasted four days, cansing us much suffering ; for every time we made the shore we had to wade in the water, carrying our effects and canoes upon our shoulders. The water being very cold, most of us were taken sick. Our provisions again failed us, which, with the fatigues of rowing, made old Father Gabriel faint away in such a manner that we despaired of his life.
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HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.
With a use of a decoction of hyacinth I had with me, and which I found of great service on our voyage, he was restored to his senses. We had no other subsistence but a handful of corn per man every twenty-four hours, which we parched or boiled ; and, although reduced to such scanty diet, we rowed our canoes almost daily, from morning to night. Our men found some hawthorns and other wild berries, of which they ate so freely that most of them were taken sick, and we imagined that they were poisoned.
" Yet the more we suffered, the more, by God's grace, did I become stronger, so that I could outrow the other canoes. Being in great dis- tress, He, who takes care of his meanest creatures, provided us with an unexpected relief. We saw over the land a great many ravens and eagles circling in mid-air ; from whence we conjectured there was prey near by. We landed, and, upon search, found the half of a wild " goat which the wolves had strangled. This provision was very ac- ceptable, and the rudest of our men could not but praise a kind Provi- dence, who took such particular care of us.
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