History of Kalamazoo county, Michigan, Part 3

Author: Durant, Samuel W. comp
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia. Everts & Abbott
Number of Pages: 761

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A part of the Huron nation fled to the Isle St. Joseph, in the Georgian Bay, some fled to the French settlements on the lower St. Lawrence, some to the Eries and An- dastes, to perish with those doomed nations, and quite a number of families sought a home among the Senecas, their bitterest enemies, but who readily received them and incor- porated them as a part of the nation.

The division of the Huron people known as the Tobacco Nation§ maintained their ground longer than the rest, but they, too, were at length compelled to fly their country and seek a new home on the island of Mackinac, where they were joined by the Ottawas and other Algonquins who had been driven from the valley of the Ottawa River. But even here, surrounded by the almost boundless waters of the great northern lakes, they were not safe. The Iroquois penetrated to their new abode, and again they retreated before their implacable enemies, and took up their residence among the islands at the entrance of Green Bay, of Lake Michigan. Once more the enemy sought them out, and compelled them to fall back upon the mainland, where they fortified themselves, and at length the tide of Iroquois inva- sion was stayed. From thence they migrated south and west until they came in contact with the Illinois (them- selves subsequently destroyed), and the Sioux branch of the great Dacotah race of the Western plains.

This powerful people drove them back towards the east and north, and they once more made a stand around the southwestern extremity of Lake Superior, settling mostly at Chegoimegon Point, and among the Apostle Islands in the lake. Finding themselves still harassed by the Sioux, they returned about the year 1671 to the neighborhood of Mackinac, where they settled.

Subsequently the greater part of them removed to the neighborhood of Detroit and Sandusky, where they were known as Wyandots. Eventually the United States gov- ernment removed them to a western reservation beyond the Mississippi, where a remnant of the once-powerful Huron-

¿ Called also by the French Dionondadies.

INDIAN NATIONS.

Ottawa nation still survives,-a fragment of that wonderful people who so long battled the Iroquois, and who followed the fortunes of the mighty Pontiac in his war against the English.

CHAPTER III. INDIAN NATIONS.

Renewal of the Jesuit Missions on the Great Lakes-Explorations- Marquette and Joliet.

WHEN Champlain visited the region lying between Lakes Huron, Erie, and Ontario, he found it occupied by different branches of the great Huron- Ottawa nation, and, for an Indian country, quite densely populated, their numbers being variously estimated at from ten thousand to thirty- five thousand.

This entire family of tribes having been broken up by the Iroquois about 1645-50, many of its scattered rem- nants were found twenty years later inhabiting portions of Michigan. A part of this once-powerful nation, as we have seen, subsequently took the name Wyandots.

The great nation of the Ojibwas, or, as they were more commonly called, Chippewas, occupied all that portion of the present State of Michigan known as the Upper Penin- sula. The Pottawattomies, who were an important branch of the Ojibwas, we find mentioned as being present at the great council held by the French at the Sault St. Marie in 1671.

This nation or tribe would appear to have gradually moved to Green Bay, and thence, about the beginning of the eighteenth century, to the vicinity of Chicago; and we find them soon after occupying the country in the valleys of the St. Joseph and Kalamazoo Rivers. As late as 1679, however, unless La Salle was mistaken, the nation known as the Miami's was occupying the region about the mouth of the St. Joseph .*

The Ottawas were mingled more or less with the Ojibwa nation, and in fact no one tribe or nation seemed to have any special abiding-place, but changed their residence as war, famine, or other compelling cause obliged them to.t

The Ojibwas also occupied the region from Mackinac along the western coast of Lake Huron towards Saginaw Bay. Along the southern border were the Wyandots, intermingled with scattered bands of the Shawanese, those Bedouins of the Western Continent, and the Miamis, who were allied to the Illinois, lying farther west. The Menomi-

nees, in 1671-73, inhabited the region of Green Bay, and dwelling near, and perhaps mingling with them, were the fiery Sacs and Foxes, who nominally occupied the country lying southwest of Green Bay and between it and the Mississippi River.

The Winnebagoes, dwelling around the lake which still bears their name, were a branch of the Dahcotah family, who chose rather to be environed by the Algonquin nations than remain among their own people.

The Kickapoos, or, as they were sometimes called by the French, Mascoutins (dwellers on the prairie), occupied the northern part of Illinois.

The Kaskaskia, Peoria, Cahokia, Ouiatanons, Piankas- haws, Eel River Indians, and others, were probably branches of the Miami and Illinois nations. All these nations, with the possible exception of the Winnebagoes, spoke dialects of the language of the Algonquin family. Among the famous chiefs and orators of these nations were Pontiac, of the Ottawas ; Buck-ong-a-he-las, of the Delawares; and Meshecunnaqua (Little Turtle), of the Miamis ; Tecumseh, Elsk watawa his brother, the prophet, and Blue Jacket, of the Shawanese ; Winnemeg and Black Partridge, of the Pottawattomies; and Black Hawk and Keokuk, of the Sac nation.

RENEWAL OF THE JESUIT MISSIONS.

The first visit made by the Jesuits to the territory of Michigan, succeeding the Huron-Iroquois war, was proba- bly by Father René Ménard (or Mesnard), in the autumn of 1660, who coasted the southern shore of Lake Superiort and attempted to plant a mission at the head of Keweenaw Bay, to which he gave the name of St. Theresa. Here he remained during the following winter, and perished in the summer of 1661, while on a journey across the point. It has been supposed by some writers that he was captured by a roving band of Sioux, as his cassock and breviary were said to have been found many years subsequently among that people.

On the 8th of August, 1666, Father Claude Allouez left Three Rivers with a band of several hundred Indians, and reached the Sault St. Marie in September following. He visited Lake Superior, which he named Lac Tracy au Superieur, in honor of the viceroy of Canada. The earliest map of this region, drawn in 1668 and published in 1672, is supposed to have been the work of Fathers Allouez and Marquette. It was a remarkably accurate one considering the means at their command.

Allouez, in an account of his visit, speaks of copper as being a plentiful commodity among the Indians. The mines do not appear to have been in any manner worked by them, but they possessed numerous pieces weighing from a few ounces to twenty pounds, which they had picked up, evi- dently among the drift.

This missionary coasted along the southern shore of the great lake, and on the 1st of October landed at Chaqua- megon Bay, which the early voyageurs named La Pointe Bay. Here he lived for a period of two years, and proba-

* This nearly corresponds with the declaration of the celebrated Miami chief Little Turtle or Meshecunnaqua, at Greenville, in 1795 : " My forefathers kindled the first fire at Detroit ; from thence they ex- tended their lines to the head-waters of the Scioto ; from thence to its mouth ; from thence down the Ohio to the mouth of the Wabash ; and from thence to Chicago, on Lake Michigan. These are the boundaries within which the prints of my ancestors' houses are everywhere to be seen."

t Traditions among the Ojibwas and Ottawas in the valleys of the streams which flow into Saginaw Bay seem to sustain the theory that " many moons" ago a nation called the Sauks, or Osaukies (whether identical with the modern Sauks, or Sacs, we do not know), once occu- pied all the Saginaw region, but were expelled by the Ojibwas and Ottawas before the advent of the French.

# The great fresh-water sea was called by the Indians Gitchi Gomee, which Longfellow translates to mean in English "Big Sea Water," or "Shining Big Sea Water."

HISTORY OF KALAMAZOO COUNTY, MICHIGAN.

bly visited the bay where Duluth* now stands, as he speaks of visiting Fond du Lac and meeting there the Sioux, from whom he learned of the great prairies of the West, where roamed immense herds of buffalo, and of the great river flowing through the country, which the Indians called Messepi or Namasepee. Allouez also visited and labored among the Nipissings, to the northward of Lake Huron. +

He returned to Quebec in the autumn of 1667, and after procuring the necessary aid returned again to the scene of his labors.

In 1668, Claude Dablon and Jacques (or James) Mar- quette established a permanent settlement and mission at the Sault St. Marie, which was, according to the historian Bancroft, the first permanent settlement within the boun- daries of what constitutes the present State of Michigan.f

In 1669, Father Marquette succeeded Allouez at Cha- quamegon, and the latter, in company with Dablon, founded a mission on Green Bay, of Lake Michigan, in 1670.

The first recorded visit of white men to the site of De- troit§ was made in the spring of 1670 by two Sulpitian priests, Dollier de Casson and Galinee, who had joined an expedition fitted out by La Salle in the summer of 1669, for the purpose of exploring the upper lakes and, if possi- ble, the Mississippi River. The expedition had been turned back at the head of Lake Ontario by the illness of La Salle, but the two priests, who had been sent out by the Sulpitian brotherhood, located on the bay of Quinte, resolved to con- tinue their journey alone. The winter overtook them on Lake Erie, and they were forced to remain at Long Point, on its northern shore, until the following spring, when they resumed their voyage, passing through the straits and on over Lake Huron to the Sault St. Marie, where they arrived on the 25th of May, 1670. This is the first recorded visit of the French to Detroit, though Louis Joliet, who had been on an exploring expedition the previous year, no doubt passed the point on his return.

In May, 1671, a grand council was held by the French at the Sault St. Marie with the Indians of the Northwest, at which an immense concourse of the natives was present. M. de Lusson, who had been sent out by the intendant, Talon, took possession of the country in the name of the king of France, and extended his sovereign's protection over all the Indian nations of the Northwest who chose to be friendly to the French. Father Allouez was present and pronounced a panegyric upon the king, and amid great pomp and much ceremony a grand treaty was concluded, and presents were liberally distributed among the assem- bled natives.

In the same year Marquette founded the mission of St.

Ignace,| on the north shore of the strait, opposite the island of Mackinac, T and, together with Allouez and Da- blon, explored the country lying south of Lake Superior and west of Lake Michigan, and penetrated, according to some writers, as far as the present site of the city of Chi- cago.

But the rulers of Canada, and especially Talon, the in- tendant, were not satisfied with pomp and show and the mere ceremony of taking formal possession of the great West. It was resolved to explore the entire region, and above all the Mississippi River, about which there were numerous speculations and conjectures. According to vari- ous writers it discharged its multitudinous waters into the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of California, and the Great South Sea.

Louis Joliet had been sent out in 1669, as we have already seen, but returned in the autumn of the same year without accomplishing the object of his commission. In 1673, Joliet and Marquette were selected and fitted out for a more thorough research.

JOLIET AND MARQUETTE.

Louis Joliet was the son of a wagon-maker in the employ of the Hundred Associates of Canada, and was born at Quebec in 1645. He was educated by the Jesuits, and studied for the priesthood, but when about twenty-two years of age he renounced his clerical vocation, and em- barked in the business of fur-trading. In 1669, as before stated, he was sent by Talon to explore the copper mines of Lake Superior, but returned without being able to reach his destination .**

MARQUETTE.

Father Jacques Marquette was born in 1637, at Laon, in the north of France, and was also educated by the Jesuits, and subsequently joined the order. In 1666 he was sent to the Canadian missions, where he studied the language of the Montagnais, and prepared himself for teaching among that people at Tadoussac, at the mouth of the Saguenay River ; but in 1668 he was sent to the upper lakes, where he remained until called by Talon to accom- pany Joliet in exploring the Mississippi, being last stationed at St. Ignace.

Under the patronage of Count Frontenac, who had been

| Judge Campbell, in his excellent " Outlines of the Political His- tory of Michigan," states that a mission was founded on the island of Michilimackinac in 1668, but removed very soon. We do not find satisfactory evidence of this, but it is probable.

" The word Michilimackinac is said to be derived from an Indian word, Mich-i-mack-i-nac, signifying a great turtle; or the Ojibwa word Mich-ine-mauk-i-nonk, meaning the place of giant fairies.

** In 1675, Joliet married the daughter of a Canadian merchant who was engaged in trade with the northern Indians. In 1679, Joliet's attention was drawn towards Hudson's Bay, and in that year he made a journey thither via the Saguenay River. In the same year he was granted the Mignon Islands, and in 1680 he received a grant of the great island of Anticosti, in the lower St. Lawrence, where, in 1681, he established his residence. He engaged in the fisheries and made a chart of the river. In 1690 his property was destroyed by the English, under Sir Wm. Phips, and his family captured. In 1694 he explored the coast of Labrador. He was made royal pilot of the St. Lawrence by Count Frontenac, and royal hydrographer by the French government. He died about 1700, and was buried on one of the Mignon Islands .- Parkman.

* This place takes its name from Daniel Greysolon du Lhut, a famous leader of the couriers de bois, a cousin of Tonti, born at Lyons. He visited the head of Lake Superior in the autumn of 1679.

+ A fort was first erected at the Sault by the Chevalier de Repen- tigny, in 1750.

# The mission at La Pointe, called St. Esprit, was broken up by the Sioux in 1671, and the Hurons, who composed its inhabitants, fled to the islands in Lake Huron. The mission of Green Bay was named St. François Xavier. A mission was also founded among the Otta- was, on the Grand Manitoulin Island, in Lake Huron, in 1671, by Father Louis Andre. It was named the mission of St. Simon. ¿ D'etroit is French for strait.

LA SALLE.

appointed Governor-General of New France in 1672, these two remarkable men left Mackinac in two birch canoes on the 13th of May, 1673, and made their way over the heav- ing waters of Lake Michigan,* and up the broad estuary of Green Bay to its extreme southern terminus. From thence the adventurers, against the earnest protest of the Indians, ascended the Fox River of Wisconsin, and crossing the portage descended the Wisconsin River to the Mississippi, which they entered on the 17th of June.

Around the head of Green Bay they found the nation now known as Menominees, which they named the " Folles Aviones," or nation of Wild Oats. Along the Fox River was a medley of nations,-Miamis, Mascoutins, and Kicka- poos, which latter two may have been identical. The scat- tering Miamis found here, soon after migrated, or returned, to the valley of the St. Joseph River, in Michigan.

Descending the Mississippi, they discovered the Des Moines, Illinois, Missouri, and Ohio Rivers, and went south as far as the mouth of the Arkansas.t

The explorers returned by way of the Illinois River, Chicago, and Lake Michigan, and this is perhaps the first well-authenticated visit to the site of the Northwestern me- tropolis.}

Marquette, who was greatly exhausted by his voyage and the premonitory attacks of what proved a fatal malady§ two years later, remained at Green Bay, while Joliet, with the journals and documents of the expedition, descended to Quebec to acquaint Frontenac with their discoveries. At the La Chine Rapids, above Montreal, his canoe was upset, two men and an Indian boy drowned, and all his papers lost in the raging waters. Joliet himself narrowly escaped.

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 found a mission on the Mississippi River, to be called the Mission of the Immaculate Concep- tion, a name which he had already given to the river. He accordingly left Green Bay on the 25th of October, 1674, accompanied by two Frenchmen, whom he called Pierre and Jacques, and a band of Pottawattomie Indians, in ten canoes, and crossing by an obscure portage to the main lake, coasted thence southward to the mouth of the Chicago River, which stream he ascended about two French leagues. Here, apparently, he encamped temporarily, and here his malady returned fiercer than ever, and he told his compan- ions it would be his last journey.

The party was compelled to go into camp, and in the end were obliged to remain through the winter, during which they subsisted largely upon the game which was abundant in the neighborhood. They built a log cabin,

and made themselves as comfortable as possible. The lo- cation was within the present limits of the built-up suburbs of the city of Chicago, near what was formerly known as Bridgeport, upon the south branch.

In the latter part of March, 1675, feeling somewhat better, Marquette crossed the portage to the Des Plaines River, and descended to its junction with the Kankakee, and thence down the Illinois to the Indian town called by him Kaskaskia, situated about seven miles below the site of the present city of Ottawa. Here he held a great council, at which were assembled more than two thousand warriors. The chiefs were anxious that the missionary should remain among them, but he felt that his days were numbered, and that if he would die among his countrymen he must hasten his departure.

Towards the end of April the little party started on the return voyage down Lake Michigan, their course being around the southern margin and along the eastern shore. On the 19th of May, as they neared the entrance to a small river,|| Marquette, feeling his end approaching, re- quested his companions to land, which they did and car- ried him ashore, where he died during the following night. They buried him in the sand, and returned to Mackinac, bearing the tidings of his death.

" In the winter of 1676, a party of Kiskakon Ottawas were hunting on Lake Michigan ; and when, in the follow- ing spring, they prepared to return home, they bethought them, in accordance with an Indian custom, of taking with them the bones of Marquette, who had been their in- structor at the mission of St. Esprit (La Pointe). They repaired to the spot, found the grave, opened it, washed and dried the bones, and placed them carefully in a box of birch-bark. Then, in a procession of thirty canoes, they bore it, singing their funeral songs, to St. Ignace of Michil- imackinac. As they approached, priests, Indians, and traders all thronged the shore. The relics of Marquette were received with solemn ceremony, and buried beneath the floor of the little chapel of the mission."T

CHAPTER IV.

LA SALLE.

Early History-Arrival in Canada-La Chine-Fort Cataraqui- Exploring Expeditions, 1669-1673-First Vessel on Lake Ontario -Fort Conti, at Niagara-The " Griffin" and her Voyage-Fort Miamis-On the Illinois-Fort Crevecoeur-Journey to Canada- In Kalamazoo County.

THE next, and by far the most prominent explorer of the valley of the Mississippi, was Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la

| "The river where he died is a small stream in the west of Michi- gan, some distance south of the promontory called the 'Sleeping Bear.' It long bore his name, which is now borne by a neighboring stream." (Parkman.)

This stream was probably either what is now called the Platte, or the Becs Scies. What is now called the Marquette River discharges at Ludington. (Ed.)

T Parkman, Discovery of the Great West, p. 71.

* This lake was called by the French Lac des Illinois, and by the Indians, Mitchiganon, or Machihiganing. Green Bay was named Le Baye des Eaux Puantes. It was said to have an odor like the sea.

t The Missouri Marquette called Pekitanoui. It is also called on French maps Rivière des Osages and Rivière des Emissourites. The Ohio is called by Marquette Ouabouskiaou. The name Ohio, or Oheio, is said to be from the Iroquois, and to signify "Beautiful." The Arkansas they called Akamsca.

# The name Chicago is written on Frauquelin's map of La Salle's explorations in 1684, Chekagou.

¿ The disease which caused Marquette's death was hemorrhage of the lungs.

HISTORY OF KALAMAZOO COUNTY, MICHIGAN.

Salle,* who was born at Rouen, in Normandy, in 1643. His father, Jean Cavalier, and his uncle, Henri, were wealthy merchants, living much after the manner of the noblemen of the period, though they could not boast of noble blood.

EARLY HISTORY.

La Salle was educated by the Jesuits, and was probably a member of the order, though, like Louis Joliet, he subse- quently threw aside his vestments to become one of the most famous explorers of his time. His elder brother, the Abbé Jean Cavelier, was a priest in the Sulpitian order, and had preceded him to Canada.

The accounts of the discoveries of Joliet, Marquette, and others had filled the mind of La Salle with an intense de- sire to visit the newly discovered regions, where he hoped at least to accumulate a competency, as his connection with the Jesuits had, under the law of France, cut him off from any share in his father's estate, excepting an annuity of four hundred livres which his father had settled upon him at his death, a short time before his departure for Canada.

ARRIVAL IN CANADA-LA CHINE.

He sailed for Quebec in the spring of 1666. He first appears at Montreal, where the superior of the seminary of St. Sulpice granted him a large tract of land on the island, at a point named by him La Chine, in commemora- tion of his idea of discovering a water passage via the lakes to the great South Sea, and thence to China.

He immediately laid out his lands into lots, commenced the erection of buildings, and encouraged settlers to join him. He determined to make La Chine a grand trading-point and base of operations.

It is evident that La Salle's first intentions were to engage in the fur-trade as a means of livelihood and gain, and in the mean time to study the Indian languages, and prepare himself gradually for grand exploring enterprises, which he no doubt had outlined in his mind from the first.' He ap- plied himself so diligently to learning the native tongue that it is said he mastered within two or three years the Iroquois and seven or eight other languages and dialects. In addition to all his other duties he is said to have made several journeys, in the years 1667 and 1668, into the northern wilderness.

At length the desire for exploring the unknown West took such firm hold of him that he resolved to lay his de- signs before the Governor-General, Courcelles, with the in- tention of procuring letters patent authorizing the enter- prise. He accordingly proceeded to Quebec, where he laid his plans before the Governor and Jean Talon, the inten- dant, with such success that they entered heartily into the work of assisting him.

With his credentials he hastened back to Montreal, where he sold back his seigniory to the principal of the Sulpitian seminary and one Jean Milot, an iron-monger, and with the proceeds purchased four canoes, with the necessary sup- plies, and hired fourteen men.

At the same time the seminary was preparing an enter-

prise for the purpose of establishing missions among the Western nations, in rivalry of the powerful order of the Jesuits, who aspired to monopolize the entire mission work of New France.

At the head of this latter enterprise was placed Dollier de Casson, a Sulpitian priest, who had been a soldier in his younger days, and had served with distinction under Gov- ernor Courcelles against the Mohawks, in 1666. He had also spent a winter among the Nipissings.

This was intended for an independent expedition, but Casson was persuaded by the Governor to unite with La Salle, and preparations were made for the two to proceed together. Three canoes, with supplies, were procured, and seven men hired as assistants. Galinée, another priest, was joined with Casson, and on the 6th of July, 1669, the joint expedition left La Chine.

La Salle's original idea was to pass from Lake Ontario or Lake Erie to the head of the Ohio, and follow that stream to its confluence with the Mississippi. The expedition accord- ingly followed the St. Lawrence to Lake Ontario, and, coasting the eastern and southern border of the same, entered the mouth of the Genesee and proceeded to the principal village of the Senecas. More than a month was consumed in getting to this point, and nearly every one of the voyageurs was prostrated by sickness. At the Seneca town was stationed the Jesuit Fremin, and between his antipathy to' the Sul- pitians and the suspicions of the Indians, the negotiations for a guide to pilot the party to the Ohio came to naught.

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History of Kalamazoo county, Michigan, Part 3

Author: Durant, Samuel W. comp Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Philadelphia. Everts & Abbott Number of Pages: 761

Author: Durant, Samuel W. comp
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia. Everts & Abbott
Number of Pages: 761