USA > Illinois > Peoria County > Peoria > Peoria city and county, Illinois; a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Vol. I > Part 5
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The white men had no cannon of long range; and the Indians had none at all, while their muskets were only short range guns .. They did most of their fighting with clubs and bows and arrows. Thus a fort on a high point of the bluff would afford no protection to a boat in the water below. Moreover it would be hard to keep a fort so located supplied with provisions and water, a very essential thing. From a military point of view it seems to me altogether probable that the fort would have been built on a little bay near the water's edge at a place where the water from the numerous springs coming into the river would keep it open and free from ice a much greater part of the year than it would be a little farther up, and where the boats would not be threatened with floating ice as they would have been if anchored near where Wesley City . now stands. Also, it would have been placed near enough to the village of Peoria on the western shore to be in easy communication with it and yet free from danger of an attack from it. The location of this fort is a very interesting question because the buildings there were the first ones erected by white men in Illinois.
It would be well to have careful examination made into this matter and to examine the old remains of the fort that are alleged to be found at the place named by Mr. Sheen and perhaps erect another monumental stone to show the location of the first building erected by white men in Illinois. Peorians are specially interested in this location for if the fort were standing now where Mr. Sheen claims it stood it would face our city and be plainly visible from our steamboat landing.
.At the same time that the fort was being built the keel for a vessel was laid near the fort, but before the work on the boat had advanced far, some of Tonti's men deserted, partly from want of pay, perhaps partly through a disposition to cut lose from restraint and perhaps from fear of the Iroquois. This made it
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HISTORY OF PEORIA COUNTY
necessary to suspend work on the vessel and La Salle and Tonti agreed that the former should go back on foot to enlist a fresh force of men and bring the necessary supply of materials for finishing and furnishing the boat and that Tonti should have the river explored farther west and south.
A young Illinois passing La Salle's shipyard traced for them with coal a fairly accurate map of the Mississippi river, assuring them that there were no falls or rapids between them and the gulf, giving the names of the nations along the shore. The next morning, after public prayers, La Salle visited the village, where he found the Illinois assembled having a feast. They again tried to per- suade him of the dangers of proceeding down the river. La Salle informed them that he knew all about it and the savages thought he had learned it all in some very mysterious way. The Illinois then apologized saying that they had told him their false stories only with the desire to keep the Frenchmen with the Illinois ; and they then all admitted that the river was navigable to the sea. The chief Oumahouha (Omaha) adopted Zenoble Membre as his son. The tribe lived at that time only half a league from Fort Creve Coeur.
Early in March La Salle left Tonti in command at Fort Creve Coeur and taking five men went back to Niagara to look after the Griffon and secure neces- sary supplies. Hennepin started down the river Illinois on his exploring expedi- tion, February 29, 1680. He describes the river as skirted by hills, ascending which you discover prairie further than the eye can reach. Hennepin reached the Tamaroas, two leagues from the mouth of the Illinois, March 7, 1680. The Tamaroas then had their village six or seven leagues below the mouth of the Illinois and west of the river Mississippi. On April 11, 1680, Hennepin was captured by Indians on the upper Mississippi. After a long captivity and much suffering, he was rescued by Daniel Greysolon Duluth, a cousin of Tonti.
When Hennepin and La Salle were gone, Tonti commenced the construc- tion of another fort on the western side of the river, supposed to be where the old pottery stood near Birket's Hollow. In all this work the French were doubtless very greatly assisted by the Illinois, who as well as the French would feel the need of it as a defense against their terrible common enemies, the Iroquois. When Tonti was left by La Salle in command of Fort Creve Coeur, he was supplied with powder and lead, guns and other arms to defend himself in case he was attacked by the Iroquois.
La Salle while on his trip east sent back orders to Tonti to go to Starved Rock and build a strong fort there, and for this purpose Tonti started north- ward. On the way, however, all of his men deserted except two Recollects and three men newly arrived from France, taking with them everything that was most valuable. Tonti went back to hold Fort Creve Coeur with his six men and did hold it all summer.
On September 10, 1680, sudden as a clap of thunder, the Iroquois invaded the Illinois. Tonti had only a few hours notice and in trying to negotiate with the Iroquois came near being treacherously killed. The Illinois fled down the river, leaving everything behind, even their corn, which was destroyed. Tonti and Zenoble met the Iroquois in council September 18, 1680. The Iroquois told Tonti they were going to eat some of the Illinois before they went away, whereupon Tonti resenting the inference that he might be persuaded to desert his friends, kicked away their presents and the parley broke up in anger. Tonti expected to be killed before morning and resolved to sell his life dearly. At day-break, however, the Iroquois told Tonti and his men to depart, which they promptly did knowing they could no longer, by remaining, be useful to the Illi- nois. Tonti was wounded during the parley but was allowed to start for Green Bay with his few men. The next day, September 19th, after Tonti started back, Father Gabriel Ribourde, who had retired a short distance for private prayer was killed by a band of renegade Kickapoos. The Iroquois returned to New York taking a large number of female prisoners with them. During the continuation of this parley, the Iroquois must have been encamped or had a
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HISTORY OF PEORIA COUNTY
village near Fort Creve Coeur. This probably was a very temporary village as well as temporary fort because the Iroquois had come in only eight days before like a clap of thunder. Their fort must have been near Creve Coeur because they exchanged messages several times a day.
Tonti went on up to Canada hoping to join La Salle but for the time being failed to find him.
La Salle, meanwhile, on returning to Peoria, finding that his fort was de- stroyed and that the Indians had been driven away, passed on down the river seeking for Tonti, but not finding him, he returned to Fort St. Joseph. There he met Tonti and proceeded with consummate ability to organize a great con- federacy of the western Indians, including the Illinois, Miamies, Foxes, Shaw- nees, Tamaroas and others, forming an alliance offensive and defensive with the French and each other against their mutual enemies, the Iroquois, who were the allies of the colonies east of the Alleghanies. La Salle then returned east for new supplies, again leaving Tonti in command.
La Salle again rejoined Tonti in December, 1681, and started on the third winter's journey down the Illinois for the mouth of the Mississippi river with a party of twenty-three Frenchmen and thirty-one Indians. This time they crossed Lake Michigan and entered the mouth of the Chicago river. From there they followed down the course of the Deep Waterway Canal (which was not built then, and is not yet, but will be soon) and halted at Peoria long enough to repair their canoes and transfer their supplies from the sledges to the boats, for this trip as far as Peoria had been made by placing their boats on sledges and drawing them by hand on the ice on the frozen rivers and on the snow across the portage. They then successfully passed on down the Illinois and Mississippi river to the Gulf of Mexico, and took possession of the country and all its seas, harbors, ports, etc., including the long string of particulars that in those days were included in documents of that sort, in the name of the "most high, mighty, invincible and victorious Prince Louis the Great, by the Grace of God, King of France and Navarre, Fourteenth, by that name," April 9, 1682.
They then started on their return. La Salle fell sick and had to be left behind at Chickasaw Bluffs, while Tonti came on ahead. La Salle followed later and joined him at Mackinac. All this magnificent domain was then, according to the charter granted him by the Grand Monarch, "La Salle's Country" to be held by him for and in the name of the French King and for his own profit.
La Salle on his return proceeded, in the winter of 1682 and 1683, to erect a fort at Starved Rock called Fort St. Louis du Rocher; about which he gathered the remnant of many western tribes, twenty thousand or more Indians. This was to be the military headquarters of La Salle's Country, the principal trad- ing post of the whole region, the rallying point of all of the western red war- riors in opposition to the Iroquois. When it was finished, he placed Tonti in command and early in the summer of 1683, La Salle left his glorious domain- never to see it again. Some time after he was gone, Tonti led or accompanied his Illinois allies and joining a body of French and Canadian Indians drove the Iroquois back to their home villages and punished them severely.
La Salle's friend, Count Frontinac, had been succeeded by La Barre, who was an enemy of La Salle's and thwarted him in every possible way; so that now La Salle was compelled to return to France and appeal directly to the French King. There he was successful and organized a new expedition with the inten- tion of returning to America and establishing a fort and a commercial city for his territory at the mouth of the Mississippi river. It was a grand conception and if he had not accidentally missed the mouth of the Mississippi, landing further west on the shore of Texas, thus losing his ships and his life in an effort to return, it is hard to determine how great a colony that able man might have developed. His plans were magnificent. His ability was great. His life was terminated by the treachery of one of his own men.
CHAPTER VI
PEORIA UNDER THE FRENCH
Joliet and Marquette, La Salle and Tonti had come and gone like meteors in the sky, wonderful in their brilliant achievements as any of the knights of old. After them there is little to be told of the French occupation of the Mis- sissippi valley that is creditable to the mother country.
Tonti was left by La Salle in charge at Starved Rock of all his fortifications and headquarters for all his wide domain and for the confederacy of the west- ern Indians which he had organized. But the enemies of La Salle were in charge of Quebec and they sent Chevalier de Bogis to supersede Tonti in his com- mand, which he did but retained Tonti as a captain of troops. They remained in charge of the Fort at Starved Rock, representing different interests and hav- ing but little sympathy with each other's plans. In the following March, thie approach of their common enemy, the Iroquois, compelled them to unite in a defense of their post, where they were besieged for six days by two thousand warriors. Their position, however, was so strong and their means of defense so adequate that the hitherto victorious Iroquois were repulsed with loss and compelled to abandon the siege. This was the last invasion of the savages from the east. From this time on for many years, the Illinois and allied tribes re- sumed their yearly residence in the vicinity of the fort without molestation. The protecting guns of the French and the presence of Tonti, who made the fort his headquarters for many years, rendered their safety secure. It was also the abode of many French traders and merchants with their families.
From this point Tonti roamed the Western world over, and trading, fight- ing, and exploring, he made six trips up and down the Mississippi and visited Montreal. Mackinac and points on Lake Michigan. In 1702 he was deprived of his command and joined d'Iberville to aid him in his efforts to colonize lower Louisiana, and the fort at Starved Rock was ordered abandoned. It was, how- ever, occasionally occupied as a trading port, until 1718, when it was raided by the Indians and burned on account of the licentiousness of the French inhabitants.
In 1686-9 he accompanied Rev. J. F. Buisson Sentsome on his trip with a company of priests from Mackinaw down to Natchez.
To the Recollet monks of St. Francis was first assigned the care of the American mission but Cardinal Richelieu superseded this order and confined the spiritual welfare of the natives and settlers of Canada to the Jesuits. There were accremonious quarrels between these two rival religious orders, which were intensified by the participation therein of the civil authorities and which continued until the suppression of the Jesuits in most of the provinces of France and their expulsion from the province of Louisiana, in 1763 or before, and from the entire Dominion of France in 1764.
After the departure of La Salle there was but little done by the French in Illinois for the next thirty years. An account of the succession of priests, who were sent to the missions at Peoria by the religious orders to which they be- longed to care for the spiritual welfare of the French traders and Indians, is all there is to keep up the continuity of the story. It is a melancholy tale of
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HISTORY OF PEORIA COUNTY
suffering and death, and an evidence of the warmth, zeal, and piety of these faithful followers of the cross.
Father Gabriel Lambronde, Jesuit, went as a missionary to the Illinois in 1678 and was slain at his mission in 1680.
Father Maxime Le Clerc went to the Illinois in 1678. He was killed by the Indians in 1687.
Father Zenoble Membre, Recollet, went to the Illinois in 1678, returned in 1680, and was employed in visiting the tribes on the Mississippi.
Father Louis Hennepin went to the Illinois in 1678 with La Salle; was oc- cupied in making discoveries on the Mississippi where he was made prisoner in 1680 and afterwards ransomed.
M. Jean Bergier, mentioned as the successor of Father Pinet, priest of the Seminary of Quebec, went to the Illinois in 1686; was at the Tamaroas or Cahokia mission; died there in 1699; was buried by Father Marest, who was in the mission to the Kaskaskias.
During the year 1694-5 Father Grevierre attended his labors among Peorias until 1699 when he was recalled. He returned to the Illinois mission in 1700 and continued his labors with the Peorias, where he was assaulted by a med- icine man of the tribe from whom he received a severe wound which finally resulted in his death, at Mobile in 1706.
Peoria then was left without a priest until the Indians had promised better behavior, when Father Deville was sent to them.
M. Phillip Boucher, priest of the Seminary of Quebec, was sent to the Tam- aroas or Cahokia mission, to assist M. Bergier ; remained with him until 1696, when he went to visit the Arkansas and other Indian tribes on the lower Mis- sissippi ; returned and died at Peoria in 1719.
In 1692, Father Louis Ilyacinth Simon, went as missionary to "St. Louis," ( Peoria) ; went from there in 1694 to visit the different establishments and posts on the Mississippi ; returned to Quebec in 1699.
Father Julien Benettau, Jesuit priest, went to the Illinois in 1696; labored at the mission of ( Peoria?) St. Louis with great success; died there in 1709.
M. Francois Juliet de Montigney, priest, in 1696 was sent to Louisiana in the character of vicar-general, by the bishop of Quebec. He visited the mis- sions in Illinois, St. Louis, the Tamaroas or Cahokias, while M. Bergier was there, traversed the whole country, and returned to Quebec in 1718.
M. Michael Antoine Gamelin, priest of the Seminary of Quebec, accom- panied him. They descended the Mississippi, and went as far as Mobile.
Father Gabriel Marest, Jesuit, went to the Illinois in 1699; fixed his resi- dence at Kaskaskia: died there in 1727.
Father Antoine Darion, priest, went in 1700 on a mission to the Tunicas, a tribe living on the Mississippi; and adjoining the Natchez. He went from Quebec.
Rev. Phillip Boucher labored a while at St. Louis ( Peoria) and died there in 1718.
Under the French government the territory of Illinois was at first under the administration of the governor of Canada, the seat of government being at Quebec. The region being so very remote and the population so exceedingly sparce, little if any civil authority was exercised over the people. As the Illi- nois country had been settled by Frenchmen coming through Canada, who had left many relatives there, and as they had always traded there, the affections of the old French settlers still remained with Canada; but in consequence of La Salle's discovery of the mouth of the Mississippi and of his taking posses- sion, in the name of his king, of all the countries drained by it, the people of France now began to come into the Mississippi valley by way of the Gulf, as La Salle had foreseen and planned. As early as the year 1700, they had pene- trated as far north as the River Maramac, not more than twenty miles south from St. Louis, and had there begun the smelting of lead with which that region was supposed to abound.
VIEW OF A PEORIA RESIDENCE STREET
VIEW OF PEORIA'S PRINCIPAL BUSINESS STREET
PEORIA WATER FRONT. FROM THE LOWER FREE BRIDGE
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HISTORY OF PEORIA COUNTY
In 1711 that portion of Canada or New France in which this part of the State of Illinois is located was detached from Canada and attached to the prov- ince of Louisiana, and thereafter continued for many years to constitute a part of it.
In those days fabulous stories of the great wealth of Louisiana in gold, silver, pearls and precious stones were circulated in Europe. Such paltry things as the great fertility of the soil, or as coal, iron, and lead were not much thought of. Adventurers explored the country throughout its entire extent in search of the precious metals, little of which was found, but great discoveries were made of lead, iron and mineral coal.
In the spring, 1712, the French at Fort St. Louis "The Rock" (Starved Rock ) established a trading post here at Peoria Lake, and a number of families came thither from Canada and built cabins in the Indian village. For fifty years French and half-breeds continued to live in the town with the Indians as one people, and during that time peace and harmony prevailed between them.
On August 17. 1717, John Law, the celebrated financier, procured from the king a charter for the Company of the Occident for the whole of the colony of Louisiana, which included Illinois, with power to sell and alienate the lands in such manner as they might think proper, and with power to appoint governors and other superior officers and to dismiss them and to appoint others. They were also given a monopoly of the tobacco and slave trades and the exclusive right to refine gold and silver. In pursuance of this charter, a government was organized over the whole territory, including the Illinois country. On the 9th of February, 1718, there arrived at Mobile by ship from France, Pierre Duque Boisbriant, a Canadian gentleman, with the commission of Commandant at Illinois. He was a cousin of Bienville, then governor of Louisiana, and had already served under him in that province. In October of the same year, one hundred years before Illinois became a state, accompanied by several officers and a detachment of troops, he departed for the Illinois coun- try, where he was ordered to construct a fort. Late in the year Boisbriant reached Kaskaskia and selected a site for his fort sixteen miles above the vil- lage, on the left bank of the Mississippi. Merrily rang the axes of the soldiers in the forest by the mighty river, as they hewed out the ponderous timbers for palisades and bastian. And by degrees the walls arose, and the barracks and commandant's house, and the store house and great hall of the Indian company were built and the cannon, bearing the Coat of Arms of Louis XIV, were placed in position. In the spring of 1720 all was finished and the lilies of the Bourbons floated over the work which was named "Fort Chartres."
In 1719, while Fort Chartres was in process of erection, the company of the East Indies, established years before by Colbert, was united with the Com- pany of the West under the name of the Company of the Indies, which latter company then assumed jurisdiction over the province of Louisiana. Under its authority a provincial council for Illinois was established.
This council speedily made Fort Chartres the center of the civil govern- ment and of the colony, and its members executed grants of land upon which somne titles still rest, though but few permanent improvements and actual settle- ments were made. They dispensed justice, regulated titles and administered estates, in fact established the court which for more than forty years decided the causes which arose in the Illinois country according to the principles and mode of procedure recognized by the civil law.
Phillip Francis Renault, director general of the mines of the Company of the Indies, and formerly a banker of Paris, reached Fort Chartres before its completion and made his headquarters at the post. He brought with him two hundred and fifty miners and soldiers and five hundred slaves from San Do- mingo. This is said to have been the beginning of slavery in Illinois.
Renault, as director of the Mines, pursued for years with indefatigable en- ergy the exploration of the Mississippi valley for mineral, carrying his pros- Vol. 1-3
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HISTORY OF PEORIA COUNTY
pecting far up the Missouri to the Rocky Mountain and up the Ohio and its tributaries to the Alleghanies. He obtained a concession to himself of several tracts of land some of which are known to have contained valuable mines. The concession in which we Peorians are most interested embraced a tract of land.on Peoria lake, which under the name of Renault claims gave rise to much contro- versy in congress, as well as some unrest at Peoria.
This claim was described as: "One league in front at Pimiteau on the River Illinois facing the east and adjoining to the lake bearing the name of the village, and on the other side of the banks opposite the village for a half league above it with a depth of five leagues, the point of the compass following the Illinois river down the same upon one side and ascending by the river of Arcary . [de d'Arescy, elsewhere called the des Arcouy .- Ed.] which forms the middle through the rest of the depth."
The wording of this grant goes to show that at that time, June 14, 1723, there was a village located on Lake Pimiteau, or Lake Peoria, the precise loca- tion of which is not definitely stated. The heirs of Renault have, from time to time, set up a claim to the land so granted at Lake Peoria. Their last claim was that it embraced a tract lying on both sides of the Kickapoo creek at its mouth extending up the river as far as Bridge street, and following the creek as its middle line for a distance of five leagues, or fifteen miles by one league, or three miles, in width. The description however is of such an uncertain na- ture it was not possible to locate it with any degree of accuracy, and it never has been recognized by the government in any of its surveys.
Here we have the fact well authenticated by a grant of land based thereon that in 1723 there existed at Pimiteau ( Pimiteoui) a village bearing the same name as the lake upon which it was situated. Whether or not this was the same village mentioned by Marquette, St. Cosme, and Grevierre, does not appear. But that it was a French village can scarcely be doubted. Tradition says that the object of this grant was to secure control of a lead mine, of which some evidence had been found. In the light of the present day it would seem more highly probable that Renault's aim was to secure control of the valuable coal fields which, it was evident, bordered upon the Kickapoo creek, then called the Arcary or Arcoury.
In 1732 the charter of the Company of the Indies was surrendered, and Louisiana, including what is now the state of Illinois, was thereafter governed by officers appointed directly by the French crown, under a code of laws known as the Common Law of Paris. These laws however not being adapted to the exigency of civil or social relations in a new country were not generally en- forced ; the commandant exercising an arbitrary but mild authority which was acquiesced without complaint.
The majority of the colonies who had come with the Indies company were poor and illiterate and for the most part they took themselves to hunting and boating. Few men of talent and enterprise remained and became merchants and traders on a large scale with the Indians.
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