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 9

Author: Beckwith, H. W. (Hiram Williams), 1833-1903
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Chicago : H. H. Hill and Company
Number of Pages: 1164

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 9

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* 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 mark of his esteem for the brilliant young Colbert, who succeeded his father as Minister of the Marine. On the great map, prepared by the engineer Franquelin in 1684, it is called River Des Illinois, or Macoupins. The name Illinois, which, 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- enlty 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 enstom, 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- nary 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.

FORT CREVECOEUR AND ITS LOCATION.

When the fort was half finished, M. La Salle lodged himself, with M. Tonti, in the middle of the fortification, and every one took his post. We placed the forge on the curtain on the side of the wood, and laid in a great quantity of coal for that purpose. But our greatest diffi- culty was to build a boat,- our carpenters having deserted us, we did not know what to do. However, as timber was abundant and near at hand, we told our men that if any of them would undertake to saw boards for building the bark, we might surmount all other difficulties. Two of the men undertook the task, and succeeded so well that we began to build a bark, the keel whereof was forty-two feet long. Our men went on so briskly with the work, that on the 1st of March onr boat was half built, and all the timber ready prepared for furnishing it. Our fort was also very near finished, and we named it . Fort Creve- cœur.' because the desertion of our men, and other difficulties we had labored under, had almost ' broken our hearts. ' *

" M. La Salle," says Hennepin, " no longer doubted that the Griffin was lost; but neither this nor other difficulties dejected him. His great courage bnoyed him np, and he resolved to return to Fort Fron- tenac by land, notwithstanding the snow, and the great dangers attend- ing so long a journey. We had many private conferences, wherein it was decided that he should return to Fort Frontenac with three men, to bring with him the necessary articles to proceed with the discov- ery, while I, with two men, should go in a canoe to the River Me- schasipi, and endeavor to obtain the friendship of the nations who inhabited its banks.

"M. La Salle left M. Tonti to command in Fort Crevecœur, and ordered our carpenter to prepare some thick boards to plank the deck of our ship, in the nature of a parapet, to cover it against the arrows of the savages in case they should shoot at us from the shore. Then, calling his men together, La Salle requested them to obey M. Tonti's orders in his absence, to live in Christian union and charity; to be conrageous and firm in their designs ; and above all not to give credit to false reports the savages might make, either of him or of their com- rades who accompanied Father Hennepin."

Hennepin and his two companions, with a supply of trinkets suitable

* * Fort Crevecœur," or the Broken Heart, was built on the east side of the Illi- nois River, a short distance below the outlet of Peoria Lake. It is so located on the great map of Franquelin, made at Quebec in 1684. There are many indications on this map, going to show that it was constructed largely under the supervision of La- Salle. The fact mentioned by Hennepin, that they went down the river, and that coal was gathered for the supply of the fort, would confirm this theory as to its location; for the outcrop of coal is abundant in the bluffs on the east side of the river below Peoria. There is also a spot in this immediate vicinity that answers well to the site of the fort as described by Fathers Hennepin and Membre.

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

for the Indian trade, left Fort Crevecœur for the Mississippi, on the 29th of February, 1680, and were captured by the Sioux, as already stated. From this time to the ultimate discovery and taking possession of the Mississippi and the valleys by La Salle. Father Zenobe Membre was the historian of the expedition.

La Salle started across the country, going up the Illinois and Kan- kakee, and through the southern part of the present State of Michigan. He reached the Detroit River, ferrying the stream with a raft ; he at length stood on Canadian soil. Striking a direct line across the wilder- ness, he arrived at Lake Erie, near Point Pelee. By this time only one man remained in health, and with his assistance La Salle made a canoe. Embarking in it the party came to Niagara on Easter Monday. Leaving his comrades, who were completely exhausted, La Salle on the 6th of May reached Fort Frontenae, making a journey of over a thou- sand miles in sixty-five days, "the greatest feat ever performed by a Frenchman in America."

La Salle found his affairs in great confusion. His creditors had seized upon his estate, including Fort Frontenac. Undaunted by this new misfortune, he confronted his creditors and enemies. pacifying the former and awing the latter into silence. He gathered the fragments of his scattered property and in a short time started west with a com- pany of twenty-five men, whom he had recruited to assist in the prose- cution of his discoveries. He reached Lake Huron by the way of Lake Simcoe, and shortly afterward arrived at Mackinaw. Here he found that his enemies had been very busy, and had poisoned the minds of the Indians against his designs.

We leave La Salle at Mackinaw to notice some of the occurrences that took place on the Illinois and St. Joseph after he had departed for Fort Frontenac. On this journey, as La Salle passed up the Illinois, he was favorably impressed with Starved Rock as a place presenting strong defenses naturally. He sent word back to Tonti, below Peoria Lake, to take possession of " The Rock " and erect a fortification on its summit. Tonti accordingly came up the river with a part of his avail- able force and began to work upon the new fort. While engaged in this enterprise the principal part of the men remaining at Fort Creve- cœur mntinied. They destroyed the vessel on the stocks, plundered the storehouse, escaped up the Illinois River and appeared before Fort Miami. These deserters demolished Fort Miami and robbed it of goods and furs of La Salle, on deposit there, and then fled out of the country. These misfortunes were soon followed by an incursion of the Iroquois,

* Parkman's "Discovery of the Great West."

DEATH OF FATHER GABRIEL.

who attacked the Illinois in their village near the Starved Rock. Tonti, acting as mediator, came near losing his life at the hand of an infuriated Iroquois warrior, who drove a knife into his ribs. Constantly an object of distrust to the Illinois, who feared he was a spy and friend of the Iroquois, in turn exposed to the jealousy of the Iroquois, who imag- ined he and his French friends were allies of the Illinois, Tonti remained faithful to his trust until he saw that he could not avert the blow meditated by the Iroquois. Then, with Fathers Zenobe Membre and Gabriel Rebourde, and a few Frenchmen who had remained faith- ful, he escaped from the enraged Indians and made his way, in a leaky canoe, up the Illinois River. Father Gabriel one fine day left his com- panions on the river to enjoy a walk in the beautiful groves near by, and while thus engaged, and as he was meditating upon his holy call- ing, fell into an ambuscade of Kickapoo Indians. The good old man, unconscious of his danger, was instantly knocked down, the scalp torn from his venerable head, and his gray hairs afterward exhibited in tri- umph by his young murderers as a trophy taken from the crown of an Iroquois warrior. Tonti, with those in his company, pursued his course, passing by Chicago, and thence up the west shore of Lake Michigan. Subsisting on berries, and often on acorns and roots which they dug from the ground, they finally arrived at the Pottawatomie towns. Pre- vions to this they abandoned their canoe and started on foot for the Mission of Green Bay, where they wintered.

La Salle, when he arrived at St. Joseph, found Fort Miamis plun- dered and demolished. He also learned that the Iroquois had attacked the Illinois. Fearing for the safety of Tonti, he pushed on rapidly, only to find, at Starved Rock, the unmistakable signs of an Indian slaughter. The report was true. The Iroquois had defeated the Illi- nois and driven them west of the Mississippi. La Salle viewed the wreck of his cherished project, the demolition of the fort, the loss of his peltries, and especially the destruction of his vessel, in that usual calm way peculiar to him; and, although he must have suffered the most intense anguish, no trace of sorrow or indecision appeared on his inflexible countenance. Shortly afterward he returned to Fort Miamis. La Salle occupied his time, until spring, in rebuilding Fort Miamis, holding conferences with the surrounding Indian tribes, and confeder- ating them against future attacks of the Iroquois. IIe now abandoned the purpose of descending the Mississippi in a sailing vessel, and de- termined to prosecute his voyage in the ordinary wooden pirogues or canoes.

Tonti was sent forward to Chicago Creek, where he constructed a number of sledges. After other preparations had been made, La Salle

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

and his party left St. Joseph and came around the southern extremity of the lake. The goods and effects were placed on the sledges pre- pared by Tonti. La Salle's party consisted of twenty-three French- men and eighteen Indians. The savages took with them ten squaws and three children, so that the party numbered in all fifty-four persons. They had to make the portage of the Chicago River. After dragging their canoes, sledges, baggage and provisions about eighty leagnes over the ice, on the Desplaines and Illinois Rivers, they came to the great Indian town. It was deserted, the savages having gone down the river to Lake Peoria. From Peoria Lake the navigation was open, and embarking, on the 6th of February, they soon arrived at the Mis- sissippi. Here, owing to floating ice, they were delayed till the 13th of the same month. Membre describes the Missouri as follows: "It is full as large as the Mississippi, into which it empties, troubling it so that, from the mouth of the Ozage (Missouri), the water is hardly drinkable. The Indians assured us that this river is formed by many others, and that they ascend it for ten or twelve days to a mountain where it rises; that beyond this mountain is the sea, where they see great ships : that on the river are a great number of large villages. Although this river is very large, the Mississippi does not seem aug- mented by it, but it pours in so much mud that, from its mouth, the water of the great river, whose bed is also slimy, is more like clear mud than river water, without changing at all till it reaches the sea, a distance of more than three hundred leagues, although it receives seven large rivers, the water of which is very beautiful, and which are almost as large as the Mississippi." From this time, until they neared the months of the Mississippi, nothing especially worthy of note occurred. On the 6th of April they came to the place where the river divides itself into three channels. M. La Salle took the western, the Sienr Dantray the southern. and Tonti, accompanied by Membre, followed the middle channel. The three channels were beautiful and deep. The water became brackish, and two leagues farther it became perfectly salt, and advancing on they at last beheld the Gulf of Mexico. La Salle, in a canoe, coasted the borders of the sea, and then the parties assembled on a dry spot of ground not far from the mouth of the river. On the 9th of April, with all the pomp and ceremony of the Holy Catholic Church, La Salle, in the name of the French King, took pos- session of the Mississippi and all its tributaries. First they chanted the " Vexilla Regis " and "Te Deum," and then, while the assembled voyageurs and their savage attendants fired their muskets and shouted " Vive le Roi." La Salle planted the column, at the same time pro- claiming, in a loud voice, "In the name of the Most High, Mighty,

TAKING POSSESSION OF LOUISIANA.

Invincible, and Victorious Prince, Louis the Great, by the Grace of God King of France and of Navarre, Fourteenth of that name, I, this 9th day of April, one thousand six hundred and eighty-two, in virtue of the commission of His Majesty, which I hold in my hand, and which may be seen by all whom it may concern, have taken, and do now take, in the name of His Majesty and his successors to the crown, posses- sion of this country of Louisiana, the seas, harbors, ports, bays, adjacent straits, and all the people, nations, provinces, cities, towns, villages, mines, minerals, fisheries, streams and rivers within the extent of the said Louisiana, from the mouth of the great river St. Louis, otherwise called Ohio, as also along the river Colbert, or Mississippi, and the rivers which discharge themselves therein, from its source beyond the country of the Nadonessions (Sioux), as far as its month at the sea, and also to the mouth of the river of Palms, upon the assurance we have had from the natives of these countries that we were the first Europeans who have descended or ascended the river Colbert (Missis- sippi) ; hereby protesting against all who may hereafter undertake to invade any or all of these aforesaid countries, peoples or lands, to the prejudice of His Majesty, acquired by the consent of the nations dwelling herein. Of which, and of all else that is needful, I hereby take to witness those who hear me, and demand an act of the notary here present."

At the foot of the tree to which the cross was attached La Salle caused to be buried a leaden plate, on one side of which were engraven the arms of France, and on the opposite, the following Latin inscription:

LUDOVICUS MAGNUS REGNAT. NONO. APRILIS CIO IOC LXXXII.

ROBERTVS CAVALIER, CVM DOMINO DETONTI LEGATO, R. P. ZENOBIO MEMBRE, RECCOLLECTO, ET VIGINTI GALLIS PRIMVS HOC FLVMEN, INDE AB ILINEORVM PAGO ENAVAGAVIT, EZVQUE OSTIVM FECIT PERVIVM, NONO APRILIS ANNI.

CIO LOC LXXXI.

NOTE .- The following is a translation of the inscription on the leaden plate:

" Louis the Great reigns.

"Robert Cavalier, with Lord Tonti as Lieutenant, R. P. Zenobe Membre, Recollect, and twenty Frenchmen. first navigated this stream from the country of the Illinois, and also passed through its mouth, on the 9th of April, 1682."

After which, La Salle remarked that His Majesty, who was the eldest son of the Holy Catholic Church, would not annex any country to his dominion without giving especial attention to establish the

HISTORIC NOTES ON THE NORTHWEST.

Christian religion therein. He then proceeded at once to erect a cross, before which the "Vexilla" and " Domine Salvum fac Regem" were sung. The ceremony was concluded by shouting "Vive le Roi!"

Thus was completed the discovery and taking possession of the Mississippi valley. By that indisputable title, the right of discovery, attested by all those formalities recognized as essential by the laws of nations, the manuscript evidence of which was duly certified by a no- tary publie brought along for that purpose, and witnessed by the sig- natures of La Salle and a number of other persons present on the occa- sion, France became the owner of all that vast country drained by the Mississippi and its tributaries. Bounded by the Alleghanies on the east, and the Rocky Mountains on the west, and extending from an undefined limit on the north to the burning sands of the Gulf on the south. Embracing within its area every variety of climate, watered with a thousand beantiful streams, containing vast prairies and exten- sive forests, with a rich and fertile soil that only awaited the husband- man's skill to yield bountiful harvests, rich in vast beds of bituminous coal and deposits of iron, copper and other ores, this magnificent domain was not to become the seat of a religious dogma, enforced by the power of state, but was designed under the hand of God to become the center of civilization,-the heart of the American republic,-where the right of conscience was to be free, without interference of law, and where universal liberty should only be restrained in so far as its unre- strained exercise might conflict with its equal enjoyment by all.

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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 9

Author: Beckwith, H. W. (Hiram Williams), 1833-1903 Publication date: 1879 Publisher: Chicago : H. H. Hill and Company Number of Pages: 1164

Author: Beckwith, H. W. (Hiram Williams), 1833-1903
Publication date: 1879
Publisher: Chicago : H. H. Hill and Company
Number of Pages: 1164