History of Ingham and Eaton counties, Michigan, Part 8

Author: Durant, Samuel W. cn
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia : D.W. Ensign & Co.
Number of Pages: 772

USA > Michigan > Eaton County > History of Ingham and Eaton counties, Michigan > Part 8
USA > Michigan > Ingham County > History of Ingham and Eaton counties, Michigan > Part 8

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Marquette spent the winter of 1673-74 and the follow- ing summer at Green Bay. In the autumn of 1674, his malady having somewhat abated, he resolved to carry out a cherished desire to found a mission on the Mississippi River, which he proposed to call the Mission of the Immac- ulate Conception,-a name which he had already given to the great river. Accordingly, on the 25th of October, 1674, accompanied by two Frenchmen, named Pierre and Jacques, and a band of Pottawattomies, in ten eanoes, he crossed by an obseure pathway to Lake Michigan, and pro- ceeded thence southward to the mouth of the Chicago River, which stream he aseended about two Freneh leagues, and here, in consequence of a severe attack of his old malady, he was obliged to halt and eventually to encamp. Realizing his condition, he told his attendants it would be his last journey, and preparations were made for a per- manent camp, his companions still hoping that after a tem- porary resting spell he would be able to proceed or to return to the missions.

As it resulted, however, they were obliged to remain through the winter. A comfortable log cabin was erected, in which the missionary was placed, and here in the suburbs of what is now a city of half a million inhabitants he re- mained until the following spring. The Pottawattomies proved true friends in his hour of need, and managed to proeure abundance of game for sustenance. This conduet becomes the more striking when we remember that nearly on the same ground, 137 years later, their descendants per-

petrated one of the most bloody massacres recorded in the annals of the country.§

Marquette survived the winter, and even rallied a little and seemed so much better that he determined to go on and establish the mission ; and in the latter part of March the party crossed the portage to the Des Plaines River, de- scended that stream to its junction with the Kankakee, and thenee down the Illinois to an Indian town ealled Kaskas- kia, | situated some seven miles below the site of the present city of Ottawa, Ill. At this place the missionary held a great eouneil, at which more than 2000 warriors were as- sembled. The chiefs were anxious that Marquette should remain among them, but he realized that his time was short, and if he would die among his countrymen he must hasten his departure.

It was near the end of April when the party started on the return voyage down Lake Michigan, taking their way around its southern margin and along the eastern shore. Slowly they progressed northward, encamping upon the beach at night, until, the 19th of May, 1675, when near a small stream supposed to have been the Betsie, or Aux Bec Scies, Marquette requested them to land; and here he ex- pired soon after being taken ashore. Ilis sorrowing followers dug a shallow grave in the sand, and, burying his emaciated remains, hastened on to Mackinac bearing the sad tidings to his brethren of the missions.

It is related by Parkman that in the spring of 1676, a party of Kiskakon Ottawas, who had been hunting in the vicinity during the winter, visited the grave of the mission- ary, dug up his body, and, cleaning the bones, placed them in a box of birch bark and bore them to St. Ignaee. They were among the Indians who had listened to Marquette when preaching at the mission of St. Esprit at La Pointe. There were thirty canoes, and as they neared St. Ignaee they united in singing their funeral hymns, while the shore was thronged with the priests and dwellers at the mission, who gave them a sorrowful welcome.T

For a long period the last resting-place of the bones of Father Marquette was almost or quite unknown; but within a recent period they are believed to have been dis- covered in the ruins of the Jesuit chapel at St. Ignace. Marquette was a prominent figure among the early explorers of Michigan, and there would be eminent propriety in erect- ing a public monument to his memory.

It is said that the mission of St. Ignaee was abandoned by the priests in 1706, and that the dwellings and chapel were set on fire and destroyed. The missionaries returned to Quebec. If this statement is true the place was no doubt abandoned through fear of the Indians living west of Lake Michigan. The post and mission at St. Ignaee

* The folles avoine, or wild rice. Its Latin name is Zizania aquat- ica. It grows in vast fields in all the shallow waters of the northern latitudea.

t The Miamis subsequently, aboot 1677, migrated to Southern Michigan, and soon after removed into Indiana and Ohio.

# The Missouri Marquette called the Pekitanoui. It is also called on old maps Rivière des Osages and Rivière Emissourites. The Ohio was named the Quahouskinou. The Arkansas they called Akamaca. The name of the Ohio is said to signify " beautiful." The French afterwards called it " La Belle Rivière."

¿ Massacre of the garrison of Fort Dearborn, Aug. 15, 1812.

|| This has no reference to the town by the same name situated at the mouth of the Kaskaskia River, on the Mississippi. Both wero probably villages of tho Illinois Indians.

" It has been suggested that here is a subject for an historical paint- ing worthy the pencil of a master,-the long lino of canoes, filled with their dusky voyageurs, the wild aod fantastic garb of the rowers, and the shore lit up with the glare of pine torches and covered with a motley throng of priests, Canadians, half-breeds, and Indians. Nothing could be moro woird and picturesquo.

DISCOVERY AND OCCUPATION OF MICHIGAN.

were certainly restored about 1713, though, as before stated, not on the ground formerly occupied. An interesting and able paper upon Marquette, prepared by Rev. George Duf- field, is in the second volume of the " Michigan Pioneer Collections."

LA SALLE. 1142777

The most famous explorer of the great lakes and the Mississippi River was Robert Cavelier, Sicur de la Salle,* who was born in Rouen, in Normandy, in 1643. His father, Jean Cavelier, and his uncle, Henri, were wealthy merchants iving much after the manner of the noblemen of that period, though they could not boast of noble lineage.

La Salle was educated at the Jesuit schools, and was probably a member of the order, though, like Louis Joliet, le subsequently threw aside his vestments to become a pioneer in the wilds of Canada, and eventually one of the most celebrated explorers of his time. His elder brother, he abbé Jean Cavelier, was a priest of the order of St. Sulpice, and preceded him to America. This circumstance, quite likely, determined the future course of La Salle. He vas so far connected with religious orders that under a law of that day he was cut off from receiving any portion of he family estate ; but a small allowance or annuity of about 100 livrest was settled upon him, and with this pittance he appeared at Montreal in the spring of 1666.

He seems at first to have come to Canada with the view of becoming a trader, and we find him arranging with the priests of St. Sulpice, at Montreal, for a large tract of land ituated about nine miles above that place, where he built . stockade-fort and began a settlement. Soon he com- nenced learning the Indian languages, in which he became proficient, and ere long his mind began to grasp and dwell upon the possibilities of the vast continent lying to the westward. The thoughts of great discoveries yet to be nade finally took full possession of his mind, and he deter- mined to dispose of his newly-acquired domain and give himself to the business of exploring the great West.

He proceeded to Quebec, where he laid his plans before Courcelles, the Governor, and Talon, the intendant, and uch was the persuasive power of his arguments that he enlisted both in his schemes, and was granted letters-patent authorizing the carrying out of his plans. He returned to Montreal, where he sold baek the most of his property and mprovements to the superior of the Sulpitians and one Jean Milot, and with the proceeds purchased four canoes ind the necessary supplies, and hired fourteen men to assist n his enterprise.

At the same time the Sulpitian Seminary was preparing similar expedition, but for a different purpose. The priests had established three years before (in 1666) a mis- sion on the Bay of Quinté, Lake Ontario, and put it in charge of two of their number, Fénelon and De Casson. The latter had passed a winter among the Nipissings, and is account of the tribes living in heathen darkness in the ar Northwest had aroused an ardent desire in the priests of

Montreal to send out an expedition for the purpose of estab- lishing missions among them.

Under the advice of Courcelles, it was finally arranged that the two expeditions should be united and proceed to- gether. For a wonder there was then a brief interval of peace between the French and the Iroquois.

In mid-summer the consolidated expeditions, consisting of twenty-four men in seven canoes, started from La Chine for Lake Ontario. They were accompanied by two other canoes carrying a party of Senecas, who had wintered at La Chine. They passed up the St. Lawrence, struggling with its sweeping rapids, and reached Lake Outario after a toilsome voyage of thirty days, weary and worn and nearly every man partially disabled by sickness.

They first visited the principal village of the Senecas, in the valley of the Genesee River, where they expected to procure guides to pilot them on their way. It would ap- pear that at this time the expedition was intending to pur- sue La Salle's plan of exploring the Ohio River. But the Senecas, instead of furnishing guides and encouraging them in that direction, threw every obstacle in their way and failed to furnish guides. Finally, an Indian from a place called Ganastogué, an Iroquois colony at the head of Lake Ontario, said if they would proceed to that place they would find guides who knew all about the country on the Ohio. They accordingly left the Seneca town, coasted along the south margin of the lake, passed the mouth of the Niagara River, where they heard the distant roar of the great cataract, and a few days later reached Ganastogué.

They found the people friendly and ready to assist them. There was a Shawaneset prisoner in the village, who in- formed them that they could reach the Ohio in six weeks, and offered to guide them to it. He had been released by the chiefs and presented to La Salle. When on the point of setting forth they were astonished by the appearance of two Frenchmen in the village. One of these proved to be Louis Joliet (before mentioned), who was returning from his expedition to explore the copper mines, upon which he had been sent by Talon. He had failed to accomplish his purpose and had returned by way of Lake Huron, the De- troit River, Lake Erie, and the Grand River, a stream which discharges into Lake Erie about thirty miles west from Buffalo. His guide had taken him over this route through fear of the Iroquois around the Niagara portage.

This opportune meeting changed all their plans. Joliet showed a map of the upper lakes which he had made, and gave the priests a copy of it. He described the condition of the Pottawattomies and other tribes and nations, and excited in the priests a lively sense of their needs in a relig- ious point of view. They determined to abandon the search for the Ohio River and procced over the route pointed out by Joliet, who was himself quite a religious enthusiast.

The Pottawattomies must be converted to Christianity, and Dollier de Casson and Galinée resolved to proceed at all hazards to their country. The remonstrances of La Salle were of no avail.

The latter was sick of fever, and to get rid of the priests

* Cavelier was the family name, and La Salle the designation of ts estates or seigniories. According to the parish record the great xplorer's full name was Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle. t About seventy- five dollars.

į In Drake's Life of Tecumseh this word is invariably written Shawanoe. It was generally written in French Chouanou.

HISTORY OF INGHAM AND EATON COUNTIES, MICHIGAN.

he pretended that he was in no condition to go forward, and should be obliged to part with them. They accordingly left him with their own special followers and crossed over to Lake Erie, where, as we have seen, they were forced to remain until the following spring, when they proceeded on their voyage, and in May reached the Sault Ste. Marie. But after spending a few days at the latter point they returned to their home at Montreal, having accomplished little save passing through the famous strait D'etroit* and making a long voyage around the northeastern shores of Lake Huron. They had not been cordially received by the Jesuit Fathers at the Sault, and came back satisfied that there was no encouragement for their order in the West.

When they left La Salle their supposition was that he would immediately return to Montreal.

There are no reliable data from which to determine the course La Salle pursued during the succeeding two years (1670-71). Some writers affirm that a number of his followers refused to continue with him, and returned to La Chine; and that out of derision for his schemes of dis- covery, and very possibly from some hint dropped by him that there was a water passage westward to China, they bestowed upon the place its name, La Chine.

The only information which appears to bear any evidence of authenticity is found in a work entitled " Histoire de Monsieur de la Salle." It purports to be the substance of many conversations with La Salle in Paris, during one of his visits with a petition to the court. The substance of the narrative is that, after leaving the priests, Dollier and Galinée, he visited the Onondaga nation, where he procured a guide, and then proceeded to Lake Erie, and, crossing from that lake to the Ohio, lie descended that river as far as the rapids at Louisville, or, as some affirm, even down to the Mississippi. Here his men refused to proceed farther, and escaped to the English and Dutch, while La Salle, left alone, returned to Canada. It is claimed, and probably with justice, that the Jesuits were inimical to his schemes and placed every possible obstacle in his path. This was certainly trne in after-years. This expedition is supposed to have been in the winter and spring of 1669-70.

During the year 1671 this same memoir states that La Salle explored Lakes Erie, Huron, and Michigan, including their bays, and crossed over from the southern extremity of Lake Michigan to a river which he followed to its junc- tion with another great river flowing from the northwest. It is also claimed that he deseended the latter stream, which must have been the Mississippi, to the thirty-sixth parallel of latitude, where, becoming assured that it discharged into the Gulf of Mexico, he returned, with the determination to collect the necessary supplies and men and explore it at a future day.

Talon, the intendant, stated in his dispatches of that year to the home government that he had sent La Salle to the southward and westward on a grand exploring expedi- tion ; and La Salle, in a memorial addressed to Connt Fron- tenac, in 1677, affirms that he had discovered the Ohio and explored it as far as the falls. Joliet also, his rival in explorations, made two maps of the region of the great

lakes and the Mississippi, on both of which the Ohio River is shown, and with an inscription stating that it was discovered or visited by La Salle. It is generally considered that he did discover the Ohio, but not the Mississippi at the date mentioned.

The French Governors of Canada, as a rule, were not wealthy men, and their salary was but a pittance, and under such circumstances it is not to be wondered at that they sometimes became interested in schemes of trade and com- merce which promised pecuniary advantages. The for trade was the great engrossing topie among merchants and traders, and, in 1673, Count Frontenae, either in conse- quenee of his own observations or by reason of information furnished by La Salle (quite probably the latter), became convinced that the establishment of a fort and trading-post at the outlet of Lake Ontario would be not only advanta- geons to the government in a military point of view, but prove a source of valuable revenue to himself.

With this idea in his mind he fitted out a strong expedi- tion consisting of nearly 400 picked men, besides Indians. He sent La Salle on a mission to the Iroquois to invite them to a grand council on the Bay of Quinte, but by La Salle's advice, who showed by a map which he had made that Cataraqui, where Kingston now stands, was a better place, the meeting was changed to the latter.

With a numerous staff and retinue, in a fleet of 120 eanoes and two large flat-boats gorgeously painted, the Governor proceeded leisurely to Cataraqui, where a large delegation of Iroquois chiefs met him, and a grand council, commencing on the 13th of July and continuing through several days, was held, in which many speeches were made by Frontenac and the Iroquois chiefs, and a great number of presents were distributed among the Indians.

Notwithstanding the hereditary hostility of the Indians to any attempt to build military works within their terri- tory or on its borders, Frontenac managed the matter so boldly, and yet with such consummate address, that he began the erection of a strong work in the presence of the Indians, and left them in exceeding good humor at the liberality of the great Onontio .; The Governor returned to Mont- real in the beginning of August, leaving a garrison to hold his new fortification, which was to be provided with a year's supplies, then on their way, under convoy, up the river.

In speaking of the success of his expedition Frontenac, in a letter to the ministry, writes : " Assuredly I may boast of having impressed them (the Iroquois) at onee with re- spect, fear, and good will." He had entered fully into the plans of La Salle, and adds that the new fort at Cataraqui, with the aid of a vessel now building, will command Lake Ontario, keep the peace with the Iroquois, and cut off the trade with the English ; and that by another fort at the month of the Niagara, and another vessel on Lake Erie, we can command all the upper lakes.}

In 1674, La Salle visited France with letters from Fron- tenae, and was so successful that he obtained a patent of

D'etroit, in French, means the strait, or the place of tho strait.

{ This was a title which the Indians bestowod upon the French Gov- erners of Canada. According to Parkman, it signifies " great moun- tain."

# Parkman, Discovery of the Great West.

DISCOVERY AND OCCUPATION OF MICHIGAN.

nobility in recognition of his discoveries, and a grant of Fort Cataraqui, together with a large tract of land adjacent, including the neighboring islands, and was invested with the command of the fort, subject only to the orders of the governor-general .* For these favors he was to rebuild the fort of stone ; pay back its original cost to the Crown ; main- tain a garrison equal to that of Montreal, besides fifteen to twenty laborers ; plant a French colony around it; build a church whenever the number of inhabitants should reach a hundred; support one or more Récollet friars ; and, finally, form a settlement of domesticated Indians in the vicinity.

He returned to Canada, and proceeded to carry out his agreement. He rebuilt his fort substantially of stone and heavy pickets, and named it, in honor of the gover- nor-general, " Fort Frontenac," which name it bore until Canada was transferred to the English in 1760.

It would seem that, with all these favorable circum- stances surrounding him, La Salle would have been willing to remain quietly in his position, content to enrich himself with trade, which he possessed every facility for pursuing. But it was not his disposition to become merely a success- ful merchant ; the insatiable desire to make discoveries in the unknown regions of the West possessed his mind to the exclusion of every other idea.

He had become famous, and his relatives now came for- ward and supplied him liberally with means to carry on his plans. He went to France in 1677 and succeeded in rais- ing large sums of money, with which he purchased supplies and hired men, and in July, 1678, returned again to Can- ada, accompanied by thirty followers and abundant supplies of all kinds for the prosecution of his scheme of explo- ration. Among those who came with him at this time was Henri de Tonty (or Touti), f an Italian officer who had Jost a hand by the explosion of a grenade in the Sicilian wars. His father was a noted man, and the author of the famous Tontine plan of life insurance.

On his return to Canada, La Salle was joined by Father Louis Hennepin, who also became famous in after-years as an explorer and writer. He was a priest of the order of St. Francis, and became the historian, or journalist, of La Salle's expedition to the great lakes. He had come to Canada in 1675, and been sent to Fort Frontenac as a missionary.

A little sloop or brigantine of about ten tons' burden had been built at Frontenac, and in this frail vessel, on the 18th day of November, 1678, La Motte, Hennepin, and sixteen meu pushed out into the tumultuous waters of Ontario and steered towards Niagara. They kept as near the north- ern shore as was compatible with safety, and on the 26th of the month, after a boisterous passage, ran into the Bay of Toronto, where they were frozen in and had to cut their way out with axes.

On the 6th of December they made the mouth of the Niagara River and landed at the place where afterwards stood Fort Niagara. At this point was a small Seneca

village. From here Ilennepin and a few companions ascended the river in a canoe to the foot of the ridge at Lewiston, where they were obliged to leave the canoe and proceed the remaining seven miles to the cataract on foot. Ilennepin was probably the first European to gaze upon the wonderful fall of waters which makes the name of Niagara famous throughont the world.

Ilis deseription of the cataract is in the main correct, though he greatly overestimated its height. His first state- ment made it 500 feet, but, not suited with this, he subse- quently fixed it at 600.

La Salle wrung a reluctant consent from the Senecas to allow him to build a stockaded warehouse at Niagara, but a sad misfortune overtook him. Late in the season of 1678 his little vessel on Lake Ontario was wrecked by the dis- obedience of the pilot, at a point west of the mouth of the Niagara River, and her cargo of provisions and merchandise was lost, though the crew saved the anchors and cables de- signed for a larger vessel which La Salle intended building on Lake Erie.§

To this task he now bent all his energies. The small craft which had first reached Niagara was hauled to the foot of the rapids and her lading taken out and transported with immense labor over the heights and through the forest to the mouth of Cayuga Creek, on the American side of the Niagara, about six miles above the fall. At this point there is a very good harbor formed by an island in the river, and here, probably in Jannary, 1679, was laid the kecl for the first vessel that ever (at least since the days of the Mound- Builders) navigated the great upper lakes. Her construc- tion proceeded slowly, for the workmen were few and labored under many and serious disadvantages, not the least of which was the hostility of the Iroquois.

By indomitable exertions the vessel was finished by Tonty, who had the management of affairs in the absence of La Salle, in the beginning of spring, and launched amid great rejoicing by her builders ; and even the intractable Iroquois, under the influence of a generous gift of brandy, whooped and danced like madmen as the monster canoe glided out upon the bosom of the Niagara. The ves- sel was of about forty-five tons' burden, and was a great astonishment to the Indians. She was towed out into the stream and anchored, and on her decks the entire party took refuge, feeling at last safe from the tomahawks of the savages. She mounted five small swivel-guns, and under her bowsprit was carved a figure of the fabled mon- ster whose name she bore. This nondescript beast was also a part of the armorial bearings of Count Frontenac, and in his honor she was christened the " Griffin."

She was soon taken up the river and anchored below Block Rock, where her equipment was finished. La Salle,

* His patent raised him to the rank of the untitled nobles.

t The name in Italian is written Tonti, but he seems to have adopted the French manner of writing it.

į It is stated by Dr. O'Callaghan, in the Documentary History of New York, that there are thirty-nine ways in which Niagara is writ- ten. It was spelled by early writers Ouguiaahra and Ongiara. IIennepin wrote it as it is now written. It is said to be of Iroquois origin, and in the Mohawk dialect is pronounced Nyagarah.

¿ It appears that this was a second vessel which had been built on Lake Ontario, and not the one which brought La Motte and Hennepin first to Niagara. It was apparently a larger craft than that, and a serious loss.

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History of Ingham and Eaton counties, Michigan, Part 8

Author: Durant, Samuel W. cn Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Philadelphia : D.W. Ensign & Co. Number of Pages: 772

Author: Durant, Samuel W. cn
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia : D.W. Ensign & Co.
Number of Pages: 772