History of the St. Clair County, Michigan, containing an account of its settlement, growth, development and resources.., Part 2

Author: Western historical company, Chicago. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Chicago, A. T. Andreas & co.
Number of Pages: 814

USA > Michigan > St Clair County > History of the St. Clair County, Michigan, containing an account of its settlement, growth, development and resources.. > Part 2

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CHAPTER II.

FRENCH EXPLORATION AND SETTLEMENT.

The fame of Marquette continues to gain strength as days advance. Notwith- standing all his countrymen had written of him, the new Americans continue to inquire into his magnificent career, and to add to the store of information regarding him, already garnered. Rev. Geo. Duffield, of Detroit, is one of his latest biogra- phers, and from his writings on the life of the missionary, we make the following extracts :

Jacques Marquette came late to his fame. Open Davenport's Dictionary of Biography, 1831, " comprising the most eminent characters of all ages, rations and professions," and you will not find even so much as his name. Turn for that name

IHISTORY OF MICHIGAN.

to the Cyclopedia of Biography by Parke Godwin, with a supplement by George Sheppard, A. D. 1872, and you will not find it there, and so with many similar works. Hence we see the need of such an historical society as the present, that one of the greatest and best of the original founders of Michigan may receive his due credit, and be honored with an appropriate memorial.

Marquette was born of an honorable family at Laon, in the north of France. in the year 1637, but the month and day of his birth are not easily found, and I have nowhere seen his portrait. In 1651 he joined the Society of the Jesuits, and in 1666 was sent to the missions in Canada. . After the river St. Lawrence and the great lakes had been mapped out, the all-absorbing object of interest with Governor Frontenac Taleh, the intendant, and Marquette himself, was to discover and trace from the north the wonderful Mississippi, that DeSoto, the Spaniard, had first seen at the south in 1541. In 1668 (according to Bancroft. 111, 152), he repaired to the Chip- pewas at the Sault to establish the mission of St. Mary, the oldest settlement begun by Europeans within the present limits of the commonwealth of Michigan. On the day of the immaculate conception of the Holy Virgin, in 1673, he received his orders from Frontenac, to accompany Joliet on his long-desired journey. Taking probably the short trail through the woods he found his companion at Point St. Ignace, where, after many remarkable vicissitudes, both in life and death, he was at length to find his grave, where his numerous friends and admirers, both French and Indian, were for so long a time to lose sight of it again, and where a second time he gains his place as one of the founders of Michigan.

Apart from his peculiar mission, which was looked upon by " the Protestant colonies " of New England with anything but favorable eyes : apart from his pecu- liar dogma of the conception, which has only been officially sanctioned in our day and by the late Pope, there were many things in the life and times of Mar- quette that, to the lover of biography, make his character as attractive as that of Francis Xavier, " the great apostle of the Indies," or of his still greater master, Ignatius Loyola. The man in these days who can not admire, and even to a certain extent venerate man as man, apart from his more immediate antecedents or local surroundings, has but a very limited and mistaken idea of the enlightened spirit of the age, or the true dignity of human nature. Honor to whom honor is due, is not only a sound maxim, founded on that equity which is the highest form of justice, but is also in just so many words one of the very first principles of Christianity itself. When I can not give a man credit for what he really is, because he belongs to another party than my own, or give him credit for what he has done, because he belongs to another denomination than my own, I deserve to be consigned for the remainder of my days to a hole in the woods.

The pioneers of our country, no doubt, have had a very hard time of it, and

HISTORY OF MICHIGAN.

none more so than my Scotch-Irish ancestors in central Pennsylvania. From the childhood of Daniel Webster down to the present hour, it would argue a very igno- rant mind and most unfeeling and ungrateful heart to read the toils and trials and privations endured by men and women in the early settlement of this or any other State ; but after all what are the hardships of the carly settlers compared with those of Allouez, in 1665, afloat in a frail canoe on the broad expanse of Lake Superior, of Dablon, Marquette, LaSalle, and others of the original explorers ?

"Defying the severity of climate," as Bancroft has it, " wading through water or through snows, without the comfort of fire ; having no bread but pounded corn, and often no food but the unwholesome moss from the rocks; laboring inces- santly, exposed to live, as it were, without nourishment, to sleep without a resting place ; to travel far, and always incurring perils ; to carry their lives in their hands ; or rather daily and oftener than every day, to hold them up as targets, expecting captivity, death from the tomahawk, tortures, fires"-(Bancroft, III., 152.) It seems to me that if there are any two classes of men who should be most cordially linked in closest bonds of sympathy with one another, it is the pioneers and explorers.

Marquette was much more than a religious enthusiast. He was a scholar and a man of science. Having learned within a few years to speak with ease in six different languages, his talents as a linguist were quite remarkable. A subtle element of romance pervaded his character, which not only makes it exceedingly attractive to us in the retrospect, but was no doubt one of the great sources and elements of his power and success among his beloved Ottawas and Hurons, and others of the great Algonquin tribes, who were found in the immediate vicinity of the straits of Michilimackinac. With a fine eye for natural beauty, he was as much delighted with a rapid river, or extended lake, with an old forest or rolling prairie, or a lofty mountain as a Birch, or a Cole, or a Bierstadt. Every one who touches his character seems emulous of adorning it with a new epithet. Parkman speaks of him as "the humble Marquette, who with clasped hands and up-turned eyes, seems a figure evoked from some dim legend of medieval saintship." Bancroft calls him " the meek, gentle, single-hearted, unpretending, illustrious Marquette."- Vol. Ill., p. 157. Many call him " the venerated ;" all unite in calling him " the good Marquette," and by this last, most simple, but appropriate title he will be the best remembered by the generations yet to come. " A man who was delighted at the happy necessity of exposing his life to bring the word of God " within reach of half a continent deserves that title if any one does. llis Catholic eulogist, John Gilman Shea, (Catholic World, November, 1877, p. 267,) writes with pardon- able pride : " No missionary of that glorious band of Jesuits who in the seventeenth century announced the faith from the Hudson Bay to the lower Mississippi, who

HISTORY OF MICHIGAN.

hallowed by their labors and life-blood so many a wild spot now occupied by the busy hives of men, none of them impresses us more in his whole life and career with his piety, sanetity and absolute devotion to God, than Father Marquette. In life he seems to have been looked up to with reverence by the wildest savage, by the rude frontiersman, and by the polished officers of government. When he had passed away, his name and his fame, so marked in the great West, was treasured above that of his fellow-laborers, Menard, Allouez, Nouvel or Druillettes." May I not add that, most of all other States, his name and his fame should be dear to Michigan ?

Such, then, was the man who on the 17th of May, 1678, with the simple outfit of two birel canoes, a supply of smoked meat and Indian corn, and a crew of five men, embarked on what was then known as Lae Des Illinois, now Lake Michigan. June 10th they came to the portage, in Wisconsin, (III., 158,) and after carrying their canoes some two miles over marsh and prairie, " he committed himself to the current that was to bear them he knew not whither-perhaps to the Gulf of Mex- ieo, perhaps to the South Sea, or the Gulf of California." June 17, 1679, where now stands Prairie Du Chien, he had found what he sought, "and with a joy that I can not express we steered forth our canoes on the Mississippi, or great river." We know that the honor of this discovery is very stoutly contested in favor of LaSalle, but for the present we confidently hold with Parkman (Discovery of the Great West, p. 25): " LaSalle discovered the Ohio, and in all probability the Illinois also ; but that he discovered the Mississippi has not been proved, nor in the light of the evidence we have, is it likely." In 1846 W. J. A. Bradford, in his notes on the Northwest, says very dogmatically : "Father Hennepin must undoubtedly be considered the discoverer of the Mississippi;" but if the proof of it is only to be established by Hennepin's own narrative, which Parkman deseribes as a rare mon- ument of brazen mendacity, the proof is still wanting. His famous voyage from the Illinois to the Gulf of Mexico must be considered not only as a falsehood, but a plagiarism.

Fortunately for the fame of Marquette, the true record of his labors was not left to doubtful tradition and the hearsay testimony of Charlevoix. Among the papers some twenty-five years since in the archives of the College of Quebec are accounts of the last labors and death of Father Marquette, and of the removal of his remains, prepared for publication by Father Dabion ; Marquette's journal of his great expedition, the very map he drew, and a letter left unfinished at the time of his death. So at least says Mr. Shea, and that these documents are to be found in his work on the discovery and exploration of the Mississippi Valley.

Leaving, then, the doubtful narrative of Charlevoix and the romantic page of Baneroft founded upon it, we learn the real story of his death. October 25,

HISTORY OF MICHIGAN.

1674, he again left St. Ignace to fulfill a promise to the Kaskaskias in Illinois. December 4th he reached Chicago, hoping to aseend the river, and by a portage reach the Illinois: but the ice had closed the stream and it was too late. A winter march, facing the cutting wind of the prairie was beyond his strength. His two faithful companions erected a log hut home and chapel-the first dwelling and the first church of the first white settlement of the city-known for its great misfortune the world over, the city of Chicago.

With the opening of Spring the good father again set out, and his last letter notes his progress till the 6th of April, 1675. " Just after Easter he was again strieken by disease (dysentery), and he saw that if he would die in the arms of his brethren" at St. Ignace, he must depart at once. Escorted by the Kaskaskias, who were deeply impressed by his zeal, he reached Lake Michigan, gave orders to his faithful men to launch his canoe, and commenced his adventurous voyage along that still unknown and dangerous shore. His strength, however, failed so much that his men despaired of being able to convey him alive to their journey's end ; for in fact he became so weak and so exhausted that he could no longer help him- self, nor even stir, and had to be handled and carried like a child. He nevertheless in this state maintained an admirable resignation, joy and gentleness, consoling his beloved companions, and encouraging them to suffer courageously all the hardships of this voyage." " On the eve of his death, which was on Friday, he told them, all radiant with joy, that it would take place on the morrow, and spoke so calmly and collectedly of his death and burial that you would have thought it was another's and not his own.

Thus did he speak to them as they sailed along the lake, till perceiving the mouth of a river, with an eminence on the bank which he thought suited to his burial. he told them that it was the place of his last repose. They wished, how- ever, to pass on, as the weather permitted it and the day was not far advanced ; but God raised a contrary wind, which obliged them to return and enter the river which the father had designated.

They then carried him ashore, kindled a little fire and raised a bark cabin for his use, laying him in it with as little discomfort as they could ; but they were so depressed by sadness that, as they afterward said, they did not know what they were doing."

Many a time and oft, in my favorite summer home at Mackinac, have I had this whole seene pass before me as in a day-dream from Point Lookout, until last Sum- iner it took the form of accordant rhyme :

Where the gently flowing river merges with the stormy lake, Where upon the beach so barren ceaseless billows roll and break,

HISTORY OF MICHIGAN.

There the barque so frail and gallant, known throughout the western world, Glides into the long-sought haven and its weary wings are fuiled. Ilere, says one, I end my voyage and my sun goes down at noon ; Here I make the final traverse, and the part comes not too soon ; Let God have " the greater glory," care have 1 for naught beside, But to bear the blest evangel, Jesus Christ, the crucified.

II.

Slow and faint into the forest, straight he takes his quiet way, Kneels upon the virgin mosses, prays as he is wont to pray ; Nunc dimittis-then they hear him sweetly sing as ne'er before ; Then the angel, join in chorus, and Marquette is now no more. This the prayer he leaves behind him, as is said his latest mass- "One day bear me to my mission. at the l'ointe of St. Ignace." Entered into rest from labor, where all toils and tempests cease, Every sail outspread and swelling, so he finds the port of peace.

111.

Once again that spot so sacred hears the sound of human feet, And the gently flowing river sees a strange funereal fleet ; 'Tis the plumed and painted warriors, of their different tribes the best, Who have met in solemn council to fulfill his last request. Down their cheeks the tears are flowing, for the sainted man of God; Not the bones of dearest kindred dear as those beneath that sod, Reverently the grave they open, call the dear remains their own- Sink them in the running water, cleanse and whiten every bone. Place them gently in the mocock, wrought with woman's choicest skill, From the birch the very whitest, and the deepest colored quill ; In the war canoe the largest, to his consecrated tomb, Like a chief who falls in battle, silently they bear him home.

IV.

Gathers still the sad procession, as the fleet comes slowly nigh, Where the cross above the chapel stands against the northern sky ; Every tribe and every hamlet, from the nooks along the shore, Swell the company of mourners, who shall see his face no more.

Forth then thro' the deepening twilight sounds the service high and clear, And the dark-stoled priests with tapers guide and guard the rustic bier ; In the center of the chapel, close by little Huron's wave, Near the tall and stately cedars, Pere Marquette has found his grave.

V1.

Still I hear the Miserere sounding loud within my soul, Still I hear the De Profundis, with its solemn cadence roll- " For the blood of thy red brother. who shall answer in that day." When before the throne of judgment earth and heaven shall pass away.

HISTORY OF MICHIGAN.

When these lines were written I had not seen the narrative of Father Dablon, but a further extraet from it will show that there was very little poetic license in them as to the leading facts.

" God did not permit so precious a deposit to remain unhonored and forgotten amid the forests. The Indians called Kiskakons, who have for nearly ten years publicly professed Christianity, in which they were first instructed by Father Mar- quette, when stationed at La Pointe du St. Esprit, at the extremity of Lake Supe- rior, were hunting last year, not far from Lake Illinois (i. e. Michigan), and as they were returning early in the Spring they resolved to pass the tomb of their good father, whom they tenderly loved, and God even gave them the thought of taking his bones and conveying them to our church at the mission of St. Ignatius.

" They accordingly repaired to the spot and deliberated together, resolving to act with their father, as they usually do with those whom they respect. They opened the grave, unrolled the body, and though the flesh and intestines were all dried up, they found it entire, without the skin being injured. This did not pre- vent their dissecting it according to custom. They washed the bones and dried them in the sun ; then putting them neatly in a box of birch bark, they set out to bear them to our house at St. Ignatius.

"The convoy consisted of nearly thirty canoes in excellent order, including even a good number of the Iroquois " (a very ferocious tribe, who were a great terror to other tribes and especially hostile to the Jesuits), "who had joined our Algonquins to honor the ceremony. As they approached our house Father Nouvel, who is superior, went to meet them with Father Pierson, accompanied by all the French and Indians of the place ; and having caused the convoy to stop, he made the ordinary interrogations to verify the fact that the body which they bore was really Father Marquette. Then before they landed he intoned the De Profundis in sight of the thirty canoes still on the water, and of all the people still on the shore. After this the body was carried to the church, observing all that the ritual prescribes for such ceremonies. It remained exposed under his catafalque all that day, which was Whitsun Monday, the 8th of June, and the next day, when all the funeral honors had been paid to it, it was deposited in a little vault in the middle of the church, where he reposes as the guardian angel of our Ottawa missions."

So far the invaluable record of Dablon. We come now to 1706, when for well- known reasons, for which we can not pause, the Jesuits at St. Ignace broke up their mission, set fire to their house and chapel and returned to Quebec. What became of the bones of Marquette ? Did they carry them with them to Quebec? No; they left in haste, and fled almost as for their lives. "There is nothing in Canadian registers, which are extensive, full and well preserved." "Charlevoix, who was at Quebec on the return of the missionaries, is silent." There is little

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doubt, therefore, that the precious remains of the great explorer still lay in the chapel.

But the very site of the chapel was soon lost. The new chapel, still standing, was confessedly not on the site of the old one. Could the old site ever be identi- fied ? It seemed very doubtful indeed. True, there were a few local and legen- dary traditions to which reference was made some years since in his correspondence by the Hon. E. G. D. Holden, our present Secretary of State.

An Indian now living in St. Ignace told me early last Summer that " his father told him, and that his father told him," and pointed ont to him the place on the shore of the bay where a black cross used to stand, which was understood to "point ont the direction" of the good father's grave, and where the voyagers would invoke his blessing. I also have it in writing from a very intelligent Indian, that last Sum- mer he called on an aged Indian woman in Petoskey, claiming to be in her 100th year. "I asked her if she had heard, when a girl, anything concerning the Kitchi- ma-ka-da-na-co-na-yay, or "great priest." She said, "Yes. Ile died at the mouth of the river, and his body was carried to Min-is-sing, "i. e. to St. Ignace.

These are but specimens of many similar traditions ; but would there ever be anything more than tradition ?

Early in July I heard in Detroit for the first time, from Col. Stockbridge, who has a large lumber interest in St. Ignace ; that when he left there was a report that the site of the old chapel had been discovered. If so. thought I, then we have found Pere Marquette's grave at last-for the one statement in which all seem to agree is that he was buried in the middle of the chapel.

On my arrival in Mackinac I lost but little time before starting for St. Ignace. Though only four miles off we tacked a dozen times and took four hours, and worked hard at that.

On reaching Mr. Murray's house, where the supposed discovery had been made, I found precisely what had been described a few days before by a correspon- dent of the Evening News.

THE RECENT DISCOVERIES AT ST. IGNACE.

SHALL WE, OR SHALL WE NOT, RECOVER THE BONES OF MARQUETTE ? Correspondence of the Evening News.

Mackinac, July 12, 1877.

The readers of the Evening News will recollect the recently reported discovery at St. Ignace of the site of the mission chapel founded by Father Marquette in 1670, and under the pavement of which his bones were subsequently deposited. The account created considerable sensation among antiquaries. Being in Mackinac, within four miles of St. Ignatius, I improved the opportunity to cross over and see for myself what the discoveries amounted to. The little steamer Truscott erosses

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each afternoon ; fare fifty cents. A few steps from the landing we turn into a potato patch, just beyond which the boy who pilots us suddenly announces, "Here's the place." At first glance nothing can be observed more than might be noticed on any vacant lot in Detroit. A closer examination, however, reveals a very slight trench about a foot and a half wide, forming a rectangle 35 by 45 feet and located very nearly, if not exactly, with the points of the compass, the longer measurement being in the direction of east and west. At places in this trench rough stones lay embedded in the earth. At the southern side of the space, about nine feet from the western side, is a hole say three feet deep and eight or ten square, and in the southeast corner another smaller hole. Until the present Spring the site has been covered with a growth of young spruce, the clearing off of which led to the sup- posed discovery. The larger hole is assumed to have been a cellar under the church in which the valuables are kept; the smaller hole is thought to mark the position of the baptismal font, though why an excavation should be made for it is more than I can conjecture. A few feet west of the rectangle described above are two heaps of stone and earth, evidently the debris of two ruined chimneys. The outlines of the houses to which the chimneys belonged can also be faintly traced.

Mr. Murray, the owner of the ground, is a well-to-do Catholic Irishman, own- ing as he does 600 acres of land on the Point. He has lived on the place for twenty years past, and before that lived on Mackinac Island. He is inclined to be super- stitious and to magnify the mystery to which he believes he holds the key. As illustrative of this he remarked in my presence that when he was about to build a cow-house some time ago, his sons wished it located on what he now believes to be the site of the ancient church, but the protecting influences of that sacred spot strangely impelled him to adopt a different location. Ile is confident that by dig- ging below the surface at the center of the church, the " mocock " of bones would be discovered, but thus far owing to a difference between himself and the parish priest, not a spadeful of earth has been turned. The priest believes the location to be the correct one, and is, anxious to excavate, but Mr. Murray refuses to permit it without a pledge that whatever is found shall not be carried away from the Point. He offers to give ground for the erection of a church or a monument on the spot, but insists that the sacred relics, if found, must be left where they have for two centuries rested. The bishop is expected at St. Ignace shortly, when the question will be laid before him for adjustment.

Now as to the probability of the discovery being confirmed by others yet to be made, I must confess to being less sanguine than Mr. Murray and his neighbors. It is certain that the two ruined chimneys alluded to indicate the location of dwellings at some period in the past. Bits of iron, copper and looking-glass found in the debris attest this; but whether the buildings stood fifty years ago or 200 no one can posi-

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tively assert. Mr. Murray has known the spot for a quarter of a century, and ean vouch for no change having occurred in that time. I think it likely that they are of a much older date. In regard to the assumed church site I think the proba- bilities favor the existence there at one time of a building of some sort. Whether it occupied the limits assumed-45 by 35 feet-is less certain, while the existence of the eellar would seem to indicate that it was a dwelling rather than a church. On the other hand, it is certain that the mission was founded in this immediate vicinity, and the Murray farm, as fronting on the most protected part of the bay, and affording the best landing for boats, is certainly as likely a spot for Marquette to have adopted as any. But nothing can be told with any certainty till thorough investigation is made.

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History of the St. Clair County, Michigan, containing an account of its settlement, growth, development and resources.., Part 2

Author: Western historical company, Chicago. [from old catalog] Publication date: 1883 Publisher: Chicago, A. T. Andreas & co. Number of Pages: 814

Author: Western historical company, Chicago. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1883
Publisher: Chicago, A. T. Andreas & co.
Number of Pages: 814