USA > Indiana > Vermillion County > History of Parke and Vermillion Counties, Indiana : with historical sketches of representative citizens and genealogical records of many of the old families > Part 3
USA > Indiana > Parke County > History of Parke and Vermillion Counties, Indiana : with historical sketches of representative citizens and genealogical records of many of the old families > Part 3
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"Having arrived at the great Sachem's town, we espied him at his cabin door between two old men ; all three standing naked, with their calumets turned toward the sun. He harangued us in a few words to congratulate on our arrival, and then presented us his calumet and made us smoke; at the same time we entered his cabin, where we received all their usual greetings. Seeing all assembled and in silence, I spoke to them by four presents which I
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made them take. By the first, I said that we marched in peace to visit the nations on the river to the sea; by the second, I declared to them that God, their creator, had pity on them, since after having been so long ignorant of Him, He wished to become known to all nations; that I was sent on His be- half with that design; that it was for them to acknowledge and obey Him; by the third, that the great chief of the French informed them that he spread peace everywhere, and had overcome the Iroquois; lastly, by the fourth, we begged them to give us all the information they had of the sea, and of all nations through which we should have to pass to reach it.
"When I had finished my speech, the Sachem rose, and laying his hand on the head of a little slave whom he was about to give us, spoke thus: 'I thank thee, Black-gown, and thee, Frenchman,' addressing M. Jollyet, 'for taking so much pains to come to visit us. Never has our river been so calm, nor so free from rocks, which your canoes have removed as they passed ; never has our tobacco had so fine a' flavor, nor our corn appeared so beau- tiful as we behold it today. Here is my son, that I give thee that thou mayest know my heart. I pray thee take pity on me and all my nation. Thou know- est the Great Spirit who has made us all; thou speakest to him and hearest his word; ask him to give me life and health, and come and dwell with us that we may know him.' Saying this, he placed the little slave near us, and made us a second present, an all mysterious calumet, which they value more than a slave. By this present he showed us his esteem for our governor, after the account we had given of him. By the third, he begged us, on behalf of the whole nation, not to proceed farther on acount of the great dangers to which we exposed ourselves.
"I replied that I did not fear death, and that I esteemed no happiness greater than that of losing my life for the glory of Him who made us all. But these poor people could not understand. The council was followed by a great feast which consisted of four courses, which we had to take with all their ways. The first course was a great wooden dish full of sagamity- that is to say, of Indian meal boiled in water and seasoned with grease. The master of ceremonies, with a spoonful of sagamity, presented it three or four times to the mouth, as we would do with a little child: he did the same to M. Jollyet. For the second course, containing three fish, he took some pains to remove the bones, and having blown upon it to cool it, put it in my mouth, as we would food to a bird. For the third course they produced a large dog which they had just killed, but learning that we did not eat it, withdrew it. Finally, the fourth course was a piece of wild ox, the fattest portions of which were put into our mouths.
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"We took leave of our Illinois about the end of June, and embarked in sight of all the tribe, who admire our canoes, having never seen the like.
"As we were discoursing, while sailing gently down a beautiful, still, clear water, we heard the noise of a rapid into which we were about to fall. I have seen nothing more frightful; a mass of large trees, entire with branches -real floating islands-came rushing from the mouth of the river Pekitanoui so impetuously that we could not, without great danger, expose ourselves to cross over it. The agitation was so great that the water was all muddy and could not get clear.
"After having made about twenty leagues due south and a little less to the southeast, we came to the river called Ouabouskigon, the mouth of which is thirty-six degrees north. [This was the Wabash river.] This river comes from the country on the east inhabited by the Chaouanous, in such numbers that they reckon as many as twenty-three villages in one district, and fifteen in another, lying quite near each other. They are by no means warlike and are the people the Iroquois go far in order to wage an unprovoked war upon them; and as these poor people cannot defend themselves they allow them- selves to be taken and carried off like sheep, and, innocent as they are, do not fail to experience the barbarity of the Iroquois who burn them cruelly.
"Having arrived about a half league from Akansea [Arkansas] river we saw two canoes coming towards us. The commander was standing up, holding in his hand a calumet, with which he made signs according to the customs of the country. He approached us, singing quite agreeably, and in- vited us to smoke, after which he presented us some sagimity and bread made of Indian corn, of which we ate a little. We fortunately found among them a man we brought from Mitchigamen. By means of him I first spoke to the assembly by ordinary presents. They admired what I told them of God and the mysteries of our holy faith, and showed a great desire to keep me with them to instruct them.
"We then asked them what they knew of the sea; they replied they were only ten days' journey from it (we could have made the distance in five days) ; that they did not know the nations who inhabited it, because their enemies prevented their commerce with these Europeans; that the Indians with fire-arms whom we had met were their enemies, who cut off the passage to the sea, and prevented their making an acquaintance with Europeans, or having commerce with such nation; that besides, we should expose ourselves greatly by passing out on the river. Since being armed, and used to war, we could not, without danger, advance on that river which they constantly occupy.
(3)
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"In the evening the Sachems held a secret council on the design of some to kill us for plunder, but the chief broke up all these schemes, and sending for us, danced the calumet in presence, and then, to remove all fears, presented it to me.
"M. Jollyet and I held another council to deliberate on what we should do, whether we should push on, or rest satisfied with the discovery we had made. After having attentively considered that we were not far from the gulf of Mexico, the basin of which is thirty-one degrees north, and we at thirty-three degrees; so that we could not be more than three days' journey ; that the Mississippi undoubtedly had its mouth in Florida or the Gulf of Mexico, and not on the east in Virginia, whose sea-coast is thirty-four de- grees north, which we had passed, without yet having reached the sea, nor on the western side in California, because that would require a westerly, or west southwest course, and we had always been going south. We consid- ered. moreover, that we risked losing the fruit of the voyage, of which we could give no information, if we should throw ourselves into the hands of the Spaniards, who would undoubtedly at least hold us prisoners. Besides it was clear that we were in no position to resist Indians allied to Europeans, numer- ous and expert in the use of fire-arms, who continually infested the lower part of the river. Lastly, we had gathered all the information that could be gained from the expedition. All these reasons induced us to return. This was announced to the Indians, and after a day's rest prepared for it.
"After a month's navigation down the Mississippi, from the forty-sec- ond to the thirty-fourth degree, and after having published the gospel as well as I could to the nations I met, we left the village of Akansea on the 17th of July, to retrace our steps. We accordingly ascended the Mississippi, which gave us great trouble to stem its currents. We left it indeed about the thirty- eighth degree, to enter another river (the Illinois), which greatly shortened our way, and brought us little trouble, we soon arriving to the lake of the Illinois.
"We had seen nothing like this river, for the fertility of the land, its prairies, woods, wild cattle, stag, deer, wild-cats, bustards, swans, ducks, par- rots, and even beaver; its many little lakes and rivers. That on which we sailed is broad, deep and gentle for sixty-five leagues. During the spring and part of the summer, the only portage is half a league.
"We found there an Illinois town called Kaskaski, composed of seventy- four cabins; they received us well, and compelled me to promise them to re- turn and instruct them. One of the chiefs of this tribe, with his young men,
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escorted us to Illinois lake, whence at last we returned in the close of Septem- ber to the Bay of the Fetid (Green bay), whence we had set out in the be- ginning of June. Had all this voyage caused but the salvation of one soul, I should deem all my fatigue well repaid, and this I have reason to think, for when I was returning, I passed by the Indians of Peoria. I was there three days announcing the faith in their cabins, after which, as we were embark- ing, they brought me, on the water's edge, a dying child, which I baptized a little before it expired, by an admirable providence for the salvation of that innocent soul."
Count Frontenac, writing from Quebec to M. Colbert, minister at Paris, announces that "Sr. Joliet, whom Monsieur Talon advised me, on my arrival from France, to dispatch for the discovery of the South sea, has re- turned three months ago. He has discovered some very fine countries, and a navigation so easy through beautiful rivers he has found, that a person can go from Lake Ontario in a bark to the Gulf of Mexico, there being only one carrying place found (around Niagara Falls), where Lake Ontario communi- cates with Lake Erie. I send you by my secretary, the map which Sr. Joliet has made of the Great river he has discovered, and the observations he has been able to recollect, as he lost all his minutes and journals in the ship- wreck he suffered within sight of Montreal, where, after having a completed voyage of twelve hundred leagues, he was near being drowned, and lost all his papers and a little Indian whom he brought from those countries. These accidents have caused me great regret."
LA SALLE'S EXPLORATIONS.
Governor Frontenac of Quebec selected La Salle to take command of Fort Frontenac, near Kingston, on the St. Lawrence river, at that time a dilapidated, wooden structure on the frontier of Canada. La Salle remained in Canada about nine years, acquiring knowledge of the Indians, their man- ners, languages, etc. He then returned to France and presented a petition to the King, in which he urged the necessity of maintaining Frontenac, which he offered to restore with a structure of stone : to keep there a garrison equal to the one in Montreal ; to employ as many as fifteen laborers during the first year; to clear and till the land, and to supply the surrounding Indian villages with Recollect missionaries in furtherance of the cause of religion, all at his own expense, on condition that the King would grant him the right of seign- iory and a monopoly of the trade incident to it. He further petitioned for
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title of nobility in consideration of voyages he had already made in Canada, at his own expense and which had resulted in great benefit to the King's colony. The King heard the petition graciously, and on May 13, 1675, granted La Salle and his heirs Fort Frontenac, with four leagues of the ad- jacent country along the lakes and rivers above and below the fort and a half league inward, and the adjacent islands, with the right of hunting and fishing on Lake Ontario and the near-by rivers. The same day he issued La Salle a title making him a nobleman, having, as the King declared, been informed of the worthy deeds performed by the people, either in reducing or civilizing the savages or in defending themselves against their frequent in- sults, especially of the Iroquois, etc., He left France armed with these pre- cious documents and repaired to Canada, where he performed the conditions imposed by the terms of his titles. He sailed for France again in 1677, and in the following year, after he and Colbert had finally matured their plans, he again petitioned the King for a license to prosecute further discoveries. The King granted his request, giving him a permit, under date of May 12, 1678, to endeavor to discover the western part of New France; the King avowing in the letters patent that he had "nothing more at heart than the discovery of that country where there is a prospect of finding a way to pene- trate Mexico," and authorizing La Salle to prosecute discoveries, and con- struct forts in such places as he might think necessary, and enjoy there the same monopoly as at Fort Frontenac on condition that the enterprise should be conducted at La Salle's expense and completed within five years; and that he should not trade with the savages, who carried their peltries and beavers to Montreal; and that the governor, intendant, justices and other officers of the King in New France, through the Prince de Conti, was intro- duced to one Henri de Tonti, an Italian by birth, who for eight years had been in the French service. Having had one of his hands shot off while in Sicily, he repaired to France to seek employment. It was a most fortunate meeting. Tonti-a name that should be prominently associated with dis- coveries in this part of America-became La Salle's companion.
Supplied with this new grant of enlarged powers, La Salle, in company with Tonti, and thirty men, comprising pilots, sailors, carpenters and other mechanics, with a supply of material necessary for the intended expedition, left France for Quebec. Here the party was joined by some Canadians, and the whole force was sent forward to Fort Frontenac, at the outlet of Lake Ontario, since this fort had been granted to La Salle. He had, in conform- ity to the terms of his letters patent, greatly enlarged and strengthened its
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defenses. Here he met Louis Hennepin, a Franciscan friar, whom it seems had been sent hither, along with Father Gabriel de la Ribourde, all of the same religious order, to accompany La Salle's expedition. In the meantime Hennepin was occupied in pastoral labors among the soldiers of the garrison and the people of the little hamlet of peasants nearby, and proselyting the Indians of the neighboring country. Hennepin, from his own account, had not only traveled over several parts of Europe before coming to Canada, but since his arrival in America had spent much time in roaming about among the savages, to gratify his love of adventure and acquire knowledge.
Hennepin's name and writings are so prominently connected with the history of the Mississippi valley and withal, his contradictory statements, made at a later date of his life, as to the extent of his own travels, have so clouded his reputation with grave doubt as to his regard to truth, that we will give no sketch of his life and travels, to speak of. His first work is gen- erally regarded as authentic. That he did go up the Mississippi river there seems no controversy, while grave doubts prevail as to many statements in his last publication, which would otherwise pass without suspicion were they not found in company with statements known to be untrue.
In the preface of his work, published in 1697, Father Hennepin assigns as a reason why he did not publish his descent of the Mississippi river in his volume issued in 1683, "that I was obliged to say nothing of the course of the Mississippi, from the mouth of the Illinois down to the sea, for fear of disobliging M. La Salle, with whom I began my discovery. This gentleman alone would have the glory of having discovered the course of that river. But when he heard that I had done it two years before him he could never forgive me, though, as I have said, I was so modest as to publish nothing of it. This was the true cause of his malice against me and of the barbarous usage I met with in France."
Still his description of places he did visit; the aboriginal names and manners and customs of the Indians, and other facts which he had no mo- tive to misrepresent, are generally agreed upon as true in his last, as well as in his first, publication. His works are indeed the only repositories of many interesting particulars relating to the Northwest, and authors quote from him, some indiscriminately and others with more caution, while all criticise him without measure. Hennepin, known as "Father Hennepin," was born in Belgium in 1640 and died at Utrecht, Holland, within a few years after the publication of his last book.
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LA SALLE'S OPERATIONS.
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 Niagara Falls, 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 commissioned with care of the spiritual di- rection of the expedition, were placed aboard, and November 18th 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 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, when they sailed across the end of the lake and found anchorage in the mouth of Niagara river on December 6th. The season was far advanced and the ground covered with snow fully a foot deep. Large masses of ice were floating and it became necessary to protect the ship, hence it was drawn up against the current, by means of strong cables, and finally dragged to the shore. A cabin, to protect with palisades, for shelter and to serve as a magazine to store supplies in, was also constructed. The ground was frozen so hard that it had to be thawed out with boiling water before the men could drive the stakes. La Salle now commenced to plan for his new boat. The ground was cleared away, trees felled, and carpenters were set to work January 26th, 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 snow and ice, for the purpose of hurrying matters along by secur- ing his needed materials. One of his vessels was lost on Lake Ontario, heav- ily laden with a cargo of valuable supplies, through the fault or wilful perver- sity of her pilot. The Iroquois Indians were causing La Salle all kinds of trou- ble and these savage depredations, want of wholesome food, the loss of the vessel on the lake, and a refusal of the neighboring tribes to sell any more store of their corn, reduced the party to such extremities that the ship- carpenters tried to run away. They were finally persuaded to remain and prosecute the work. Six months later the new boat was finished, and had been set afloat even prior to that time, to avoid the designs of the Indians. She was sixty tons burden, and called the "Griffin." It was not until August.
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1679, that her canvas was spread and the pilot, steering by the compass, with La Salle and his thirty or more men, sailed out westward upon the unknown, silent waters of Lake Erie. Three days' sailing brought them to the mouth of the Detroit river. Father Hennepin was fairly delighted with the coun- try along the river last mentioned. So charmed was he that he undertook to persuade La Salle to settle at "De Troit." But La Salle would not listen to his plea, but steadily pressed onward and after nearly being shipwrecked in a storm, he finally reached the island of Mackinaw. La Salle, it must be re- membered, had two objects- first, his interest in the commerce of the new, wild country, the purchase of valuable furs, and secondly, his interest in mak- ing discoveries and explorations for his King, as he had contracted to do. Here La Salle made a hasty decision that really was the worst step he ever took in his career. This was in sending the ship back down the waters of the lakes, and then himself to prosecute his voyage the. rest of the way to the head of Lake Michigan in frail birchen canoes. It delayed his discoveries for two long years, brought severe hardships upon himself and greatly embar- rassed all his future plans. The "Griffin" was lost, with all her cargo. She nor her crew was ever heard of after leaving the Pottawatomie islands and what became of the ship and men in charge remains a mystery to this day. La Salle himself grew into a settled conviction that the "Griffin" had been treacherously sunk by the pilot and sailors to whom he had entrusted her, and in after years thought he had 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 De Shut, the famous chief of the Coureurs de Bois, and enrich themselves by traffic with the northern tribes.
The following is, in part, Hennepin's account of La Salle's voyage in canoes from the mouth of Green Bay south along the shore of Lake Michi- gan, past Milwaukee and Chicago and around the southern end of the lake; thence along the eastern shore to the mouth of St. Joseph river; thence up that stream to South Bend, making the portage here to the headwaters of the Kankakee; thence down the Kankakee and Illinois through Peoria lake. 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 autumn of the year, when the waters were vexed with storms, illustrate the courage and daring of such an undertaking. Hennepin says: "We left the Pottawatomie islands to continue our voyage, being fourteen men in all, in four canoes. I had charge of the smallest, which carried five hundred weight and two men.
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My companions being recently from Europe and unskilled with such boats, left me to handle the same in time of storms.
"The canoes were laden with a smith's forge, utensils, tools for carpen- ters, joiners and sawyers, besides our goods and arms. We steered to the south toward mainland, from which the Pottawatomie islands are distant forty leagues; but about midway, and in the night-time, we were greatly en- dangered by a sudden storm. The waves dashed into our faces, the night was dark and we had much difficulty in keeping our canoes together. The day- light coming on, we reached the shore, where we remained four days, waiting for the lake to grow calm. In the meantime our Indian hunter went ashore in search of game, but killing nothing other than a porcupine; this, however, made our Indian corn relishing. The weather became fair, we resumed our voyage, rowing all day and well into the night, along the western coast of the lake of Illinois. The wind again grew too 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, having made a little fire from the wood cast ashore by the waves. We proceeded on our voyage, and toward evening the winds again forced us to the beach covered with rushes, where we remained three days ; and in the meantime our provision, consisting of only pumpkins and Indian corn, purchased from the Pottawatomies, entirely gave out. 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 rowing twelve leagues came to another Pottawatomie village, whose inhabitants stood upon the beach to receive us. But M. La Salle refused to let any one 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 three leagues farther, and, with the aid of three men, carried.the canoe of which he had charge 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 the good Father Gabriel upon my back, his age being so well advanced as not to admit of his venturing 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 so near at hand. We sent three men into the village to buy provisions, under the protection of the calumet ("pipe-of-peace"), which the Indians had presented us as a means of intro- duction to, and a measure of safety against other tribes that we might meet on our way."
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