History of Ingham and Eaton counties, Michigan, Part 9

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 9
USA > Michigan > Ingham County > History of Ingham and Eaton counties, Michigan > Part 9

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HISTORY OF INGHAM AND EATON COUNTIES, MICHIGAN.

who had been absent at Montreal, at length returned about the middle of summer, bearing the tidings that his creditors, under the excitement of false rumors, had seized upon all his property in Canada, save only what was centred in the " Griffin." But La Salle never allowed misfortune to impair his energy or damp his ardor, and he prepared to embark upon the long-anticipated voyage of discovery with high hopes and dauntless courage.

The " Griffin" was towed up to the entrance of Lake Erie, and on the 7th of August, 1679, all things being ready, the excited company, numbering thirty-four persons, set sail amid the firing of cannon and the music of the Te Deum.

At the end of three days they reached the strait between Lake Erie and the little Lake St. Clair, whose shores were alive with a great variety of game,-herds of deer, wild turkeys, bears, and other varieties,-while the stream was crowded with water-fowl. The crew went on shore and came back laden with game, which was hung over the bulwarks of the vessel, including the carcasses of several bears, which latter were greatly praised by Hennepin for their lack of ferocity and the excellence of their flesh.

The enthusiastic priest, in speaking of the region, says, " Those who will one day have the happiness to possess this fertile and pleasant strait will be very much obliged to those who have shown them the way." Sailing north- eastward they crossed Lake St. Clair,* and, threading the blue stream towards the north, at length came in sight of the great " Huron Sea."

Over the waters of this inland ocean they passed on pros- perously for a time, still bearing northward ; but as they reached the broad opening of the Saginaw Bay the bosom of the sea was swept by a furious tempest, during which even the stout heart of the commander quailed, and he recommended his followers to commend themselves to Heaven. Every one fell on his knees save what Henne- pin calls the godless pilot, who reproached La Salle for bringing him to perish in fresh water. But the storm at length abated, and the gallant craft passed on over the tu- multuous waves, where in modern times a gigantic com- merce whitens the watery way with the wings of monster ships of fifty times the capacity of the daring "Griffin" of two hundred years ago.

She passed the distant Manitoulins and at length came in sight of the wooded shores of Bois Blanc and Michili- mackinac, and cast anchor under the whitewashed walls of the mission of St. Ignace.

The " Griffin" fired a salute, and, amid a throng of Ot- tawa and Huron Indians yelping with amazement, La Salle and his whole party went on shore, under arms, and pro- ceeded to the Jesuit chapel to hear mass.

Thus, two hundred and one years ago the present August (1880) came the venturous La Salle, in the first European vessel, over the wide-expanding waters of those inland oceans, his little vessel the avant-courier of a great commer- cial marine, which in this year of grace reaches thousands of ships and millions in value. Could the intrepid navi-

gator have anticipated the changes of two centuries he would have recked little, in the presence of the inspiring vision, of the difficulties and hardships which confronted him.

Before embarking on this voyage La Salle had sent for- ward, in the previous autumn, fifteen men in canoes laden with goods to trade with the Indians and accumulate a stock of furs against his arrival. Hearing nothing from them, he had dispatched his lieutenant, Tonty, in a canoe from Niagara to look after them. They had been tampered with, and had traded the goods on their own account. La Salle found four of them at Mackinac, whom he arrested, and sent forward Tonty to the Sault Ste. Marie, who there found and captured two others with their plunder. The remainder were in the forest, and beyond his reach.

In the early part of September, before Tonty had re- turned from this expedition, La Salle set sail and proceeded up Lake Michigan to the islands lying at the entrance of Green Bay, where he was heartily welcomed by a Pottawat- tomie chief who had been to Fort Frontenac, where he had met the governor-general and was greatly impressed with him. At this place, also, La Salle found a portion of the men whom he had sent in advance, and who had remained faithful to his interests. They had collected a large store of furs, and the commander determined to load his vessel with them and send her down the lakes, that he might liquidate a portion of his indebtedness and pacify his ereditors.

On the the 18th day of September the loading was com- pleted, and, firing a parting salute, the " Griffin" set sail on her return trip, under charge of the pilot and a part of the crew who had come up in her. But from that day no tidings were ever received from her. Her fate was never known. Whether she foundered in the boisterous seas off Saginaw Bay, went down in the shallower waters of Lake Erie, or was taken and destroyed by the Indians, none can tell. The probabilities favor the first proposition, for Saginaw Bay almost rivals Cape Hatteras as a region of storms and tempests.t

Upon the departure of the vessel, La Salle, with the fourteen men remaining, embarked in four canoes heavily loaded with a forge, tools, merchandise, and arms, and pro- ceeded up the lake along its western shore. Their voyage was interrupted the same day by one of those sudden storms to which this lake is so liable, and they were compelled to lay up for five days before the water was smooth enough to allow them to proceed. They thought of the " Griffin," as the foaming surges rolled past the little cove where they had sought shelter, and the ill-fated vessel may have been lost the first night out, before reaching Mackinac.

A number of times was the little flotilla of frail canoes driven ashore, and on the 28th of the month they were nearly wrecked and compelled to lay by until they had consumed all their provisions. They purchased corn of the friendly Pottawattomies, but near the head of the lake en- countered a band of Outagamies, and through their thieving propeusities there was imminent danger of a rupture, but

+ La Salle believed that she was treacherously scuttled and sunk by the pilot, who fled with her furs and merchandise to the Indians on the upper Mississippi.

* The original name of this lake was Sainte Claire, of which the prescot name is a perversion.

DISCOVERY AND OCCUPATION OF MICHIGAN.

the good management of La Salle prevented. Getting clear of these dangerous warriors, the voyagers coasted around the southern bend of the lake, and on the first of November reached the mouth of the St. Joseph River, which La Salle named the " Miamis," from the fact that he there found the Miami Indians, who had within a few years migrated from the southern part of Wisconsin.

Here he expected to meet Tonty, who was to join him with twenty men from Mackinac, coming up the eastern side of the lake ; but no Tonty appeared, and La Salle's companions grumbled and nearly became mutinous. To divert their thoughts he set them at work cutting trees from the forest and building a fort on rising ground near the mouth of the river. This was the first attempt at anything that looked like a settlement within the borders of the lower peninsula ; and the first day of November, 1679, may be set down as the natal day of Southern Mich- igan. La Salle had circumnavigated three-fourths of the peninsula, and began a settlement at its extremity farthest from the region occupied by his people.

About the 20th of the month Tonty appeared, bringing one-half of his men; the others were left a hundred miles in the rear to hunt for provisions, for they had eaten the supply with which they started. Ile brought no word of the " Griffin." She was to have met La Salle at this point, but, though two months had passed since she left Green Bay, there were no tidings of her. A few days later the remainder of Tonty's men (excepting two who had de- serted) joined the company at Fort Miamis. Weary with waiting for his lost vessel, La Salle dispatched two men to meet her at Mackinac should she return and bring her to his new fort. He then turned with a heavy heart, and prepared to ascend the river and cross over to the Kankakee on his way towards the south.

On the 3d of December the little party, thirty-three in number, in eight canoes, re-embarked and passed up the St. Joseph, whose edges were already beginning to be slightly frozen. After many adventures they reached the waters of the sluggish and swampy Kankakee, paddled down that stream past the present sites of Momence, Kan- kakee, and Wilmington, in Illinois, and towards the last of the year reached a great town of the Illinois, contain- ing nearly five hundred lodges, but all abandoned. They found plenty of corn in cachés, of which they stood in such need that La Salle took a small supply, expecting to find the owners at some point and pay them for it.

On New Year's day, 1680, they went on shore and heard mass. About the 3d of the month they came to an in- habited Illinois village, where, after the first alarm was over, they were hospitably received.

The party descended the river as far as the site of the present flourishing city of Peoria, and about the middle of January, La Salle, somewhat distrustful of the savages, and perhaps more so of his own men, six of whom had already deserted him, resolved to erect a fort. The spot chosen by him and Hennepin was on a rising ground on the east side of the river, very near where it issues from Lake Peoria, and here he constructed a strong stockade work, surrounded by a ditch and guarded by chevaux-de- frise, with barracks and shops inside. This work, the first

erected within the limits of the now populous State of Illinois, and the site of which is not certainly known, La Salle named Fort Crèvecœur (" broken heart"), evidently in consequence of his mental depression.

At this point the indefatigable adventurer constructed the hull of another vessel, of forty tons' burden, with which he intended to navigate the Mississippi. As in the case of the " Griffin," the timber was all worked out by hand from the forest; but, notwithstanding the obstacles in his way and the desertion of his carpenters, he labored with such energy that in six weeks the hull was nearly finished. But the rigging, sails, and materials to complete her for active service were not at hand, and La Salle now resolved to return to Canada on foot, leaving Tonty in command, procure the necessary outfit, and bring it back around the lakes and by way of his route from the mouth of the St. Joseph River. Then, with a new vessel, well manned and armed, he would sail down the Mississippi, and possibly thence to France, bearing the history of his discoveries to his sovereign.

Bethinking him that Hennepin might be profitably em- ployed in his absence, he requested him to sail down the Illinois River and explore it to its mouth. Accordingly, on the first day of February, Hennepin, accompanied by two companions, Michacl Accau, and one Antoine Auguel (com- monly called Du Gay), set forth in a canoe, well laden with gifts and trinkets for the Indians.

On the second of March, La Salle, accompanied by four Frenehmen and one Mohegan Indian, who had come with him from the lower lakes, embarked in two canoes on his return trip to Canada.

The party traveled sometimes by water and sometimes by land, hauling their canoes after them, and after a most toil- some journey, at length, on the twenty-third of the month, arrived at Lake Michigan, and, following its eastern shore, reached Fort Miamis on the following day. Here he found the two men whom he had sent in search of the " Griffin" in the autumn before, and, ordering them to join Tonty at Fort Crèvecœur, he constructed a raft, and, crossing the St. Joseph River, took his way overland through Southern Michigan, pursuing a nearly easterly course.

His route led him through the counties of Berrien, Van Buren, Kalamazoo, Calhoun, Jackson, Washtenaw, and Wayne. That this was his route there can be no reason- able doubt, for he speaks of passing great meadows and prairies covered with rank grass, which must have been in all probability Prairie Ronde, Climax Prairie, and others. On reaching the Huron River, in Washtenaw County, probably near the present village of Dexter, two of the men being siek, the party constructed a canoe from elm bark, and thence proceeded down the river until stopped by drift- wood, when they again took to land and soon after reached the Detroit River.

Ifere La Salle detached two men to proceed to Maeki- nae, while with the remaining three he crossed the river on a raft, and, striking southeast, reached Lake Erie near Point Pelée. Two more of the party were now taken sick, but by the aid of the only one remaining in health La Salle constructed a canoe and went thence by water to Niagara. From thence, taking three fresh men, and leav-

HISTORY OF INGHAM AND EATON COUNTIES, MICHIGAN.

ing his exhausted companions at the fort, he continued his remarkable journey, and after sixty-five days reached Fort Frontenac on the sixth of May. At that time this was eer- taiuly the most wonderful journey ever performed on the continent. The distance traveled was fully 1200 miles.

But though he had reached the end of his journey, he found troubles everywhere thickening around him. A short time after his arrival at Fort Frontenac, two voyageurs came to him bearing a letter from Tonty with the intelli- gence that the men at Fort Crèvecœur had mutinied, de- stroyed the fort and such stores as they could not carry away, and deserted. Two other messengers soon after con- firmed this statement, and brought in addition information that the mutineers had also destroyed the fort on the St. Joseph, plundered La Salle's furs at Mackinac, and were then coasting in two bodies, one of eight and the other of twelve men, along the northern and southern shores of Lake Outario, the sonthern band on their way to the Dutch at Albany, and the other coming to Frontenae with the avowed purpose of assassinating La Salle.

Choosing nine trusty men, well armed, La Salle proceeded up the lake and intercepted and captured, after a brief fight, the bulk of both parties, and brought them to Fort Frontenac to await the arrival of the governor-general.

IInrrying his preparations, La Salle on the 10th of Angust again set sail for Illinois with a fresh supply of material and twenty-five men of various callings. He took a new route, via the Humber River, Lake Simcoe, the Sev- ern River, and Lake Huron, arriving safely at Mackinac. With him on this trip went a new lieutenant, La Forest. At Mackinaw the latter was left to bring up the rear, while La Salle, anxious to succor Tonty, pushed on with twelve inen. On the 4th of November he reached his ruined fort at St. Joseph, where he left five of his men with the heavy stores to await the arrival of La Forest, while with six Frenchmen and an Indian he hurried on towards the Illi- nois River.

He found the country entirely deserted by its human inhabitants. The Iroquois had been there and left only bleaching bones and blackened ashes. But the prairies were alive with buffaloes, and there was no trouble in securing all the meat the company needed. Pushing on to Fort Crèvecoeur, he found it destroyed, but the little vessel on the stocks remained entire except that the Iroquois had found means to extract nearly all the iron bolts with which it was fastened.

La Salle descended the Illinois River to its junction with the Mississippi, finding everywhere marks along its banks of the flight of the Illinois and the pursuit of the bloody Iroquois, but nowhere any signs of Tonty and his men. When near the mouth of the Illinois they found the ruins of an Indian village and the mangled bodies of women and children scattered around. It was the last resting-place of the Illinois tribes. The Iroquois had come upon them and nearly destroyed the perscented nation.

Late in the scason La Salle returned to his old stopping- place on the St. Joseph. La Forest and his inen had restored the work, cleared some ground for planting, and sawed Inmber for a new vessel to navigate the lakes. Ilere the adventurers remained until the spring of 1681.

HENNEPIN.

In the mean time Father Hennepin and his two com- panions had descended to the Mississippi, and, turning their canoes up-stream, began their voyage of discovery towards its head-waters. They proceeded without any remarkable adventure as far north as the month of the Wisconsin River ; but at this point their troubles began, for on the 11th or 12th of April they were taken prisoners by a band of 120 Sioux * warriors. By them they were carried north as far as the Thousand Lakes, near the sources of the modern Rum River. In the early summer they went with a large hunting-party to kill buffalo. Wearying of this mode of life, Hennepin announced that he expected a party of Frenchmen at the mouth of the Wisconsin River, who were coming there to trade with the Indians.

There had been considerable quarreling among the cap- tors as to the disposition to be made of the prisoners. Some had favored the plan of putting them to death, while a powerful young chief had stood by and protected them. They finally considered that it would be highly advantageous to have the French come among them with goods and weapons for barter ; and after many discussions they at length gave consent for the three Frenchmen to take their canoes and go down the river. They had, on the whole, been very well treated, and fared as well as their captors.

It is altogether probable that Hennepin had no reason to expect any of his people would visit that part of the coun- try, though he pretended that La Salle had promised to send traders there. At the last moment Accau refused to go with Hennepin, preferring to remain among the savages, and so the friar and Du Gay paddled away together. In due time they reached the great falls of the Mississippi, which Hennepin named after St. Anthony of Padna,-a name which they have borne to the present day.

After paddling sixty leagues down the river they resolved to join a large hunting-party of the Sioux, which was going up the Chippewa River, and which Hennepin calls Bull River. Not very long after a story was spread through the Indian camp that a war-party of Sioux, which had gone towards Lake Superior, had met five " spirits," or Europeans, on their way. These spirits soon after met the hunting-party below the falls, and proved to be Daniel Greysolon Du Lhut and four other Frenchmen, all well armed.

DU LHUT.

This famous leader of the coureurs de bois was a cousin of Tonty, born at Lyons, France. He belonged to the untitled nobles, and was well known to, and, some writers say, connected with, Count Frontenac in the fur trade. He was also a brother-in-law of Louvigny, an officer in the Governor's guard. He had ascended the lakes to the head of Lake Superior, and from thenee come overland to the Mississippi River .; He had left the lake in June, and,

* The namo Sioux is an abbreviation of the Ojibwa word Na-doues- sioux, meaning enemies .- Parkman.

+ Du Lhut was famous in after-years as a fur trader, an explorer, and a military loader. About 1683 ho built a trading-post on the north side of Lake Superior, near Thunder Bay, which was called Can-an-is-ti-goy-an by La Hfonton. In 1686, under orders from De- nonville, then Governor, ho built a fort at the outlet of Lako Iluron.

DISCOVERY AND OCCUPATION OF MICIIIGAN.

during his explorations, had heard that there were three Europeans among the Indians. The entire party now fol- lowed the Sioux to their villages at the head of Rum River, where they were treated to a grand feast.

It was now autumn, and the white men proposed to return home, promising to come back and open trade with the Indians, who, upon this, allowed them to depart peace- ably. They descended the Mississippi to the mouth of the Wisconsin, hunting by the way, and, ascending the latter river, crossed the portage, and reached the Jesuit mission at Green Bay, where Hennepin remained until spring, when he descended the lakes via the Detroit River, Lake Erie, and Niagara Falls, which latter he again examined, and finally reached Montreal, where he was cordially welcomed by Count Frontenac.

TONTY.

La Salle, when he set out on his overland journey to Canada in March, 1680, had left Tonty at Fort Crèvecœur with fifteen men, besides a servant and two friars, Membre and Ribourde. At Fort St. Joseph (or Miamis), La Salle had written a letter to Tonty and sent it to him by two men whom he had found there, with instructions to ex- amine and fortify an immense rock on the upper Illinois River. Tonty accordingly took a portion of his men and set out to examine the position ; and it was while absent on this expedition that the men left at Crèvecoeur destroyed that work and fled.

Tonty immediately sent word to La Salle, and with what few men were yet faithful was forced to take up his abode among the Illinois Indians. The great town of these In- dians was situated near where the modern village of Utica, in the county of La Salle and State of Illinois, now stands. Around this famous locality was at times gathered probably the largest and densest Indian population to be found in any locality in America. Opposite, on the south side of the Illinois River, rose the palisade-like line of sandstone cliffs which marks the border of the river valley, and also the bank of that mighty stream which in prehistoric times drained the surplus waters of the upper lakes into the Mis- sissippi.

But this far-off Indian paradise was marked by the insa- tiable Iroquois for destruction, and the storm fell while Tonty was among them. After vainly trying to negotiate peace between the belligerents, and nearly losing his life in the attempt, he felt compelled to abandon the Illinois In- dians and save his little company if possible. On their way up the river towards Lake Michigan, Father Ribourde was waylaid and murdered by a band of Kickapoos. Late in November, Tonty and his half-starved and nearly frozen companions reached the country of the Pottawattomies around Green Bay, where they were warmly welcomed by the chief who had visited Montreal and treated La Salle with such distinguished courtesy.

In the latter part of the winter, 1680-81, La Salle vis- ited the various Indian nations and fragments of tribes

around the head of Lake Michigan and on the Illinois River, consisting of Miamis, Illinois, Shawanoes, and scat- tered bands of many New England and New York nations, Mohegans, Narragansetts, Wampanoags, and others, who had followed Philip of Mount Hope, and been compelled by the death of that famous chieftain, in 1676, to flee from their native country. To these he made speeches in which he portrayed the ruin sure to come upon them at the hands of the dreaded Iroquois, unless they listened to his advice, following his addresses with many presents. His plan was to gather the tribes and nations of the West and the frag- ments of Eastern nations in the valley of the Illinois River near where he proposed to build a strong fort, and then civilize and Christianize them under the powerful protection of the Freuch.

The plan and the accompanying presents suited the In- dians, and they urged La Salle to carry out his designs. In order for him to do this he must return to Canada, make arrangements with his clamorous creditors, and procure supplies for his new colony.

In May he proceeded down Lake Michigan to Mackinac, where he found Tonty and others lately arrived from Green Bay. The party embarked for Montreal, where on his arrival La Salle found everything in a most discouraging condition. He was heavily in debt and his creditors were impatient for their money. But he quieted them all, and succeeded in once more collecting men and supplies, and with them returned to Fort Miamis, where he arrived in the early autumn. Here he chose out eighteen of his Eastern allies, and, joining them to his own party, found himself at the head of fifty-four persons,-men, women, and children, for the Indians insisted on the latter's accom- panying them.

This party left Fort Miamis on the 21st of December, 1681, in six canoes, and made their way around the margin of the lake to the mouth of the Chicago* River, which they followed up to the portage, and, crossing to the river Des Plaines, or Aux Plains, followed it down to the Illinois. La Salle had abandoned his original idea of con- structing a large vessel for the purpose of navigating the Mississippi River, and did not stop at Fort Crèvecœur, but contiuned on to the Mississippi, which he reached on the 6th of February, 1682.

The expedition reached the mouth of the Mississippi on the 6th of April, following. A column bearing the arms of France was erected, and, amid much ceremony, La Salle took possession, on the 9th of the month, of the whole vast region watered by the great river and its branches, which he named, in honor of Louis XIV., LOUISIANA.

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History of Ingham and Eaton counties, Michigan, Part 9

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