USA > Illinois > Illinois, historical and statistical, comprising the essential facts of its planting and growth as a province, county, territory, and state, Vol. I > Part 7
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Routes .- The question of routes followed by early explorers between Canada and the country of the Illinois is as interest- ing as it has been provocative of discussion among speculative antiquarians. But as the investigation is not now of much practical value to the ordinary reader, but little space will be given to it in these pages.
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Perhaps the most prolific source of doubt and difficulty, in the endeavor positively to trace and identify any particular route, arises from the confounding of newly-discovered streams with those first discovered, the same name being required to do duty for rivers as distinct as the individuality of the explorers who first sailed or paddled a canoe upon them. Thus the name Chicago, in its various orthographies, was applied more or less indifferently to the St. Joseph, the Calumet, the Desplaines, and the Illinois rivers. Both of the latter were also called the "Divine." It was also applied to the country adjacent to the southern portion of Lake Michigan. Such confusion of nomen- clature renders it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to deter- mine precisely what stream or locality was meant when either of these names is used by early writers.
It must be remembered that the fountain-head of informa- tion for early explorers was the Indians. To them even the primitive mode of transportation by horses or mules was un- known. They knew of but one way to abridge or vary tedious marches through forests or glades: that single avenue of escape was found in the water-ways, and the shortest practicable port- age connecting these was welcomed as the easiest way to avoid the physical labor which they considered as degrading as it was irksome.
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There were four possible routes which could be used in going to the Illinois from Eastern Canada, the choice of which depended upon the stage of water and season of the year, and the starting and the objective points.
I. One of these was from Lake Michigan by the Calumet rivers, which connected with Stony Brook, from which, by a short portage, the Desplaines was easily reached. Beck, in his gazetteer of 1823, says, in speaking of this route: "The distance is eighteen miles, and it is nearly on a level with the lake. It is said boats have frequently passed through this channel to the Desplaines, and when such is the case it is impossible in many places to say whether the current sets to the lake or the Desplaines. About half-way between the lake and the Desplaines, a feather will sometimes float one way and sometimes the other."
2. By the Grand Calumet. This stream, rising a few miles
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southeast of Lake Michigan, near what is now Laporte, Ind., ran to a point at present called Blue Island, in Cook County, and thence turning flowed back about three miles north of its outward course, and emptied into Lake Michigan at a point formerly called Indiana City. This route connected with the Desplaines, the same as route one.
3. By the St. Joseph River. Ascending this stream about thirty-five miles, the head-waters of the Kankakee River were reached by a portage of about four miles. The distance to the Illinois River by the Kankakee was one hundred and eighty miles, but only eighty across the country.
4. By the Chicago River. The distance by this route from the lake to the Desplaines by the South branch, including a portage of four miles, was twelve miles. The North branch was also doubtless sometimes used, although not so direct.
Now if the wayfarer was on the Illinois River, and desired to reach the mission of St. Francis Xavier, at Green Bay, as did Joliet in 1673, the most direct and feasible of the above- described routes would be either the first or fourth. And whichever way was taken by Joliet and Marquette, in Septem- ber, 1673, on their return trip, was adopted by Marquette on his second visit in 1675, for he observes in his journal of the latter: "March 31; here we began our portage more than eight- teen months ago."
To the mariner desiring to reach the Illinois from Mackinac, it would be nearer to proceed down the east side of Lake Michigan to the Grand Calumet, and up that stream to where it connected with route one. But in 1679, LaSalle, being at Green Bay, appointed the mouth of the St. Joseph as a place of rendezvous for his expedition en route for the Illinois, and ordered Tonty to proceed thither on the east side of the lake, while he coasted along its western and southern sides. He may have known of the St. Joseph route, which he then pursued, and not of the others; or, it being in winter, it may have been more a question of good ways for sleighs than of water navigation. At all events, on this occasion he took the Kankakee route. And he doubtless went over the same course on his second trip, when searching for Tonty. On his third trip to the Illinois, which was also in the winter, 1681-2, he mentions the Chicago
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River; and as the Grand Calumet is plainly marked with this name on his map, recently discovered in Paris, and published by Margry, and as that would be a nearer and better route in the winter than the Kankakee or that by the Chicago River as now known, it is fair to presume that when he alluded to the "Chicago route" he referred to the passage of the Grand Calumet.
As early as 1698, a mission had been established among the Miamis, called Chicago. It is evident that this mission was on the route usually followed by travelers, wherever that was, along the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan. St. Cosme and party undoubtedly followed this route in 1699, as did Father Gravier the year following. Prior to 1684, the Chicago River, as now known, does not appear upon any map then extant. At least, it is not on those of Marquette and Henne- pin; and while there is something resembling it on those of Joliet and LaSalle, the name of Chekagoua is plainly given by the latter to the Calumet, as stated above. Nor does it appear on that of Raffeix, 1688, especially designed as a route map. As the route by the Little Calumet afforded a higher stage of water for navigation in the dry season, and was a better location for a mission-house, the supposition is authorized that it was. the one usually taken by those going to or coming from the east side of Lake Michigan to or from the Illinois River. A careful examination of the detailed route described by Mar- quette and St. Cosme, and of the landmarks and streams which they mention, fully justifies such a conclusion .*
After the abandonment of the French settlements on the Illinois River, and the emigration of the greater portion of the friendly Illinois Indians to the Mississippi, in 1722, neither of the foregoing routes were any longer used by the French while they held the country, nor indeed by any whites until the time of the Revolution.
There was also another route from Canada to the Ohio and Mississippi which came to be used; that by the Maumee and Wabash rivers. It was first mentioned by LaSalle, in 1683,
* An interesting paper sustaining this view, by Albert D. Hager, late secretary of the Chicago Historical Society, is published in Vol. I. of Andreas' " History- of Chicago."
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but was not much traveled prior to 1699. In this year a colony of Canadians was conducted from Quebec to Louisiana by this route. These were followed by other families, under the leader- ship of M. du Tessenet. The Maumee River was originally known to the French as the Miami, or the Oumiami. It was the use of this route that served to give to Vincennes and to Fort Sackville, there situated, the military and strategic im- portance which they afterward enjoyed. Communication with Detroit was rendered easy by its adoption, and it gradually came to occupy a prominent position in the estimation of travelers .*
Authorities: "Historical Collections of Louisiana, " by B. F. French, Vols. * I. to VI .; Margry's " Voyages des Français"; Histories of Louisiana, by Gayarre, . Du Pratz, Stoddard, and Martin; C. W. Butterfield's "John Nicolet"; Parkman's "LaSalle" and other works; "Narrative and Critical History of America," by Justin Winsor, Vol. IV., and papers therein by Edmund F. Slafter, Edward D. Neill, J. G. Shea, and the Editor; LaHontan's, Hennepin's, and Joutel's Voyages; Smith's " History of Wisconsin"; Reports and Collections of the Historical Societies of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Chicago; Warburton's "Conquest of Canada"; " Radis- son's Voyages"; "Magazine of American History"; " Magazine of Western History"; Shea's "Down and Up the Mississippi"; the "Jesuit Relations"; Bancroft's "United States": Andreas' "History of Chicago"; Beckwith's "Vermilion County."
CHAPTER IV.
Catholic Missionaries-First Permanent Settlements.
TT has been a question whether the extension of French settlements to the valley of the Mississippi was owing more to the demands of trade and the greed for gain, or to the religious zeal of the Catholic missionaries. They moved along together-the explorer and voyager giving protection to the missionary, and the latter in return aiding them to concili- ate and make friends with the natives. The administrations of the cross went hand in hand with those of the government and trade. But alas for the peaceful spread of religion, those who had its advancement especially in charge in America, as in Europe, were divided and warring among themselves. To the Recollect monks of St. Francis was first assigned the care of the American missions, but subsequently Cardinal Richelieu superseded this order, and confided the spiritual welfare of the people and natives of Canada to the priests of the Society of Jesus, the disciples of Loyola. The former felt very keenly their exclusion from a field which they had been first to culti- vate, and left no means untried to regain their supremacy.
They enlisted the sympathies of Gov. Frontenac and LaSalle, through whose influence and efforts they were permitted to return to Canada, where the bitter controversies between the two orders, and between the Jesuits and the civil authorities, were renewed and continued with aggravating circumstances. The last-named order not only claimed the right to regulate the sale and use of intoxicating liquors, but also, as was directly charged by Gov. Frontenac, intermeddled with private rela- tions, "setting husbands against wives, and parents against children." It also resolutely antagonized the policy of the gov- ernment in regard to the domestication and civilization of the Indians .*
The acrimonious quarrels between these two rival religious orders, intensified as they were by the participation therein of
* Winsor's "America, " Vol. IV.
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the civil authorities, continued until the suppression of the Jesuits in the dominions of France, in 1764.
The data for the early history of Illinois is mainly derived from letters, memoirs, and narratives prepared by the priests of one or the other of these orders. But few of the earliest traders or explorers, as has been already remarked, were capable of writing any intelligent account of their discoveries. The rever- end fathers, however, were facile with the pen, and used it, it must be confessed, two hundred years ago very much as do the partisan writers of today. The adherents of either side strove to make the best possible showing for their own faction, and threw discredit and contempt upon the labors of the other.
Of the missionaries connected with the Illinois, Fathers Mar- quette, Allouez, Gravier, Rasle, Pinet, Limoges, Marest, and Binneteau were Jesuits; Fathers Bergier and Montigny were secular priests; and Fathers Membré, Douay, LeClercq, Henne- pin, and Ribourde belonged to the Recollects.
Father Marquette, already mentioned, was, it is said, a native of Laon, France, where he was born in 1637. Having been par- tially restored to health after his return from his trip down the Mississippi, he had been appointed to the mission of the Illinois, and on October 25, 1674, set out for that country. Being again seized with his malady in November, upon arriving at the portage of the Illinois River in December and being unable to proceed farther, he spent the winter there. Having sufficiently recovered, on March 29 he proceeded on his journey, reaching the Kaskaskia village April S.
His constitution, however, had been thoroughly undermined. It was only with great pain and difficulty that he could attempt to discharge the duties of his sacred office, and he remained there but a short time. Realizing that the end was approach- ing, he was anxious to close his days at his old mission of St. Ignace, surrounded by his brethren of the order of which he had been so distinguished a member. He set out, accord- ingly, on his return by way of the eastern shore of Lake Michi- gan, where, at the mouth of a small river afterward bearing his name, he died, May 18, 1675.
The memory of this excellent father has long been held in veneration. If his character was not free from the imperfec-
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tions incident to his times, he was gentle, zealous, courageous, and devoted. It is true, nevertheless, that for nearly two hun- dred years he who was merely the chaplain of the expedition received credit equal with, if not superior to, that accorded Joliet as the discoverer of the Mississippi River, while he who was its commander was left to occupy a subordinate place.
Father Claude Jean Allouez, who has been justly termed the great apostle of the West, was the most distinguished of the early missionaries. Arriving at Quebec from France in 1658, he spent the years from 1665 to 1675 in establishing missions at Chegoimegon, on Lake Superior; that of St. Francis Xavier-he being the first Jesuit to visit this point; and, in connection with Fathers Dablon and Marquette, that of St. Ignace, on the Straits of Mackinac. During this period he made extensive explorations of the country around and adja- cent to lakes Superior and Michigan. While in counsel with the Indians at Green Bay, he was informed of the existence and direction of the upper Mississippi, which information he was among the first to communicate to the authorities at Montreal; and upon which, confirmatory as it was of reports from other directions and sources previously received, it was resolved by Talon to commission the expedition of Joliet to explore that river.
At the great congress of St. Lusson, at Sault de Ste. Marie, Father Allouez was put forth as the orator of the occasion; and in his speech pronounced a glowing panegyric on the king, calling him "the chief of chiefs," and eulogized his native France; contrasting very sharply the advantages in favor of an alliance between the Indians and that government over one with Great Britain.
Upon the demise of Father Marquette, he was appointed to complete the establishment of the mission of the "Immaculate Conception," at the Kaskaskia village of the Illinois. He arrived there April 27, 1677, and erected a cross twenty-five feet high, and preached to eight tribes there congregated. He remained here, with some brief absences, until the ap- proach of LaSalle, when he retired on account of the supposed unfriendliness of that leader to his order. He returned in 1684, and remained until 1687, when he departed for Wiscon-
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sin." He died at Fort St. Joseph in 1690. He was the ablest of all the Jesuit missionaries sent to the Illinois, and against him no charge of unfairness, jealousy, mistrust, or abuse of others has ever been justly preferred.
Father Jacques Gravier succeeded to this mission in 1688, and remained until 1692, when he was followed by Father Sebastian Rasle, who continued in charge two years. The latter was a learned and most devoted missionary, who left behind him an interesting account of the Illinois Indians and his labors with them. He was subsequently transferred to his former mission in Maine, where he was killed, bravely stand- ing by his Indian converts in an attack upon them by the British.
Father Gravier returned in 1694, and continued there during the years 1694-5, laboring also among the Peorias until 1699, when he was recalled to Mackinac. He was succeeded by Fathers Binneteau and Pinet. In 1700-I, he made a voyage down the Mississippi to Biloxi, an interesting account of which has been published.+ It was while on this trip that, arriving at the Illinois mission, September 8, 1700, then in charge of Father Marest, he found that the Kaskaskias, separating from the Peorias, had determined on their removal south; a portion of them, as has been previously stated, having already de- parted.
Father Gravier was much concerned at this grave step, and would have prevented it had he arrived in time. He marched with them four days, and then went ahead with Father Marest, whom he left sick at the village of Tamaroa. The Kaskaskias undoubtedly joined those of their tribe who had already pre- ceded them on the peninsula bounded by the Kaskaskia and Mississippi rivers.
After remaining at Biloxi a year, Father Gravier returned to the Peorias, among whom he resumed his labors. Here, in an assault upon him incited by the medicine men of the tribe, he received a severe wound which finally resulted in his death, at Mobile, in 1706. He was an earnest and faithful missionary,
* Shea's "Catholic Missions."
+ "Down and Up the Mississippi," Shea.
+ French's "Louisiana, " VI., 420.
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who had great influence with the Illinois Indians, as also with the other missionaries. But the credit given him by Father Marest, as having been the founder of the mission of the Illi- nois, can not now, with justice to the labors of others, be con- ceded. It was certainly initiated by Father Marquette, and more completely established by Father Allouez, who labored with the Illinois most of the time for ten years before Father Gravier's appearance among them.
The Peoria station, after the final enforced departure of Father Gravier, was left vacant as a punishment for their cruel treatment of that good father. But being cut off from French trade in consequence, they became clamorous for the presence of another missionary, and promising better behavior, Father Deville was at length sent to them, but how long he or his successors remained does not appear.
The credit of establishing the mission of Cahokia, at first called Tamaroa-after the Indian tribe of that name, belongs to Rev. Jacques Pinet; but at what date has been a matter of dispute. Up to the time of St. Cosme's visit to the Tamaroas, in 1699, it appears that no "black gown " had been seen there, except Father Gravier for a few days. The following year, however, when LeSueur had reached this village, where he re- mained seventeen days, he found there three French missiona- ries: Rev. J. Bergier and Fathers Pinet and Joseph de Lamoges, and also a number of Canadian traders, who were purchasing furs and skins. In October of the same year (1700), Father Gravier mentions the fact in his journal, that on his way down the Mississippi he stopped at the village of the Tamaroas, and found Father Pinet there, "peaceably discharging the functions of a missionary," and Rev. Mr. Bergier, also, "who had care only of the French." Father Bergier remained at Cahokia until his death, July 16, 1710.
The Tamaroas were not at their village at this time, but had taken up their winter-quarters two leagues below, on a "beautiful bay," while the Cahokias were located four leagues above. But the village itself, called Sainte Famille de Cao- quias and the mission St. Sulpice, was from this time on con- tinuously occupied, and is undoubtedly the oldest permanent settlement in Illinois. Fathers François Joliet de Montigny
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and probably A. Damon had charge of this mission for awhile, as also did Dominic Mary Varlet, who succeeded Bergier in 1712. He remained there, zealous and devoted to his calling, for six years. Having returned to Europe, he professed Jan- senism, and became an heretical bishop. Revs. Dominic An- thony Thaumer de la Source and François le Mercier suc- ceeded him.
Father Gabriel Marest, when he had recovered his health, proceeded to join the Kaskaskias at their new location. He was one of the most faithful as well as intelligent of the French missionaries in Illinois. He was longer in service with that tribe than any of his predecessors, having remained at Kaskaskia until his death, September 17, 1715 .*
Father Jean Mermet, it is claimed by local historians, was the first missionary sent to Vincennes, but was later an assistant of Marest at Kaskaskia. He was called by Marest "the soul of that mission," in 1707. He also died at Kaskas- kia, in 1718. When the parish of Kaskaskia was substituted for the mission, in July, 1720, Father Nicholas Ignatius de Beaubois was appointed the first curé and administered its affairs for some years.+
The Rev. Philip Boucher was said to have labored at Fort St. Louis for some time, and died there in 1719.
In 1750, Fathers Guyenne, Vivier, Watrin, and Meurin were in charge of the several Illinois missions .¿
The Recollects confined their ministrations generally to the tribes whom they met while in company with LaSalle and other explorers, and wherever they stopped on their way, and especially at Fort St. Louis. Here Fathers Membré and Ribourde labored in 1680, and Fathers Douay and Le Clercq in 1687-8.
Father Hennepin, after leaving LaSalle in 1680, was the first to explore the upper Mississippi as far as St. Anthony's Falls. He was captured by the Sioux, and rescued by Du Lhut, and soon after returning to Quebec, departed for France. He was one of the leading Recollect missionaries, and left behind him many interesting works relating to the early explorations of
* Carayon's List. + Old parish records.
# Shea's "Church in Colonial Days," 585.
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this country. His first account of the exploration of the upper Mississippi was admitted to be truthful and satisfactory. His good faith and veracity, however, in regard to later publi- cations have been often the subject of serious question, as was the case with many of these early chroniclers.
The feeling of hostility to the Jesuits in Europe, which had been growing in intensity, first found authoritative sanction in 1741, when Pope Benedict XIV, in a papal brief, characterized them as "disobedient, contumacious, captious, and reprobate."* In 1764, the order was suppressed in France, the decree being the culmination of a long series of condemnatory measures adopted by local French parlements. Before this, however, in 1763, the Superior Council of Louisiana, following the example of the provincial legislative bodies of France, had declared the perpetuation of the Society in that province to be a menace to the royal authority and fraught with danger to the peace and safety of society. Having settled these questions to their own satisfaction, the council decreed the confiscation of the personal property of the order in Louisiana-including plate and vestments, the razing of their churches to the ground, and the banishment of the members from the country.+
Not content with this, the council, disregarding the fact that the country of the Illinois had been ceded to Great Britain, and that the exercise therein by that body of any authority other than ecclesiastical was at least questionable, assumed to enforce the same policy throughout the latter territory. The vessels and vestments of the Jesuit chapels were ruthlessly seized by the "king's attorney," who made so-called sales of the realty of the order, inserting in these conveyances a cove- nant that the grantee should level the chapels to the earth.
As to the extent of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction vested in the superior council, there may or may not be a question. How far it possessed a legal right to direct the disposition of the property, real or personal, of the Jesuit order in Illinois, in view of the fact that the proprietorship of the country had been ceded to Great Britain, is a question as grave as it is
* "Encyclopedia Britannica."
+ Winsor's " America," Vol. IV., 289; Shea's " Catholic Church in Colonial Days," 587.
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ILLINOIS-HISTORICAL AND STATISTICAL.
interesting. It is, however, a source of surprise that, notwith- standing the fact that French courts still exercised de facto jurisdiction in the district, the parties against whom the order was directed, and who were most deeply interested in having it declared to be an excess of authority, do not seem-so far as appears from any evidence extant -- to have taken any steps to have its legality judicially determined.
The decree of banishment was read to the priests by the attorney, and they were one and all incontinently shipped to New Orleans, from whence they were sent to France. Only one, Sebastian Louis Meurin, was allowed to return to Illinois, and he not until he had signed a paper obligating himself to recognize no ecclesiastical superior other than the superior of the Capuchins at New Orleans, and to carry on no commu- nication with either Quebec or Rome .*
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