USA > Michigan > Mackinac County > Two missionary priests at Mackinac: a lecture delivered at the village of Mackinac for the benefit of St. Anne's Mission in August, 1888 ; The parish register of the Mission of Michilimackinac : a paper read before the Chicago Literary Club in March, 1889 > Part 2
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This voyage was just four months long, and in it the travelers had paddled their frail barks over 2,700 miles.
One detail only of this voyage I would quote from Father Marquette's own account that I may call attention to how beautifully it has since been used in American literature.
On the arrival at the first village of Illinois, which they visited on their journey, Marquette had declared to them with the customary presents and symbolic language, that he came in peace, that he came to declare to them the greatness and goodness of the true God, and that the great chief of the French had subdued the Iroquois and spread peace every- where.
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" When I had finished my speech," says Father Marquette, " the sachem arose and laying his hand on the head of a little slave whom he was about to give us, spoke thus: I thank thee, Black Gown, and thee, Frenchmen, for taking so much pains to come and visit us; never has the earth been so beau- tiful nor the sun so bright as to-day, never has our river been so calm nor so free from rocks, which your canoes have re- moved as they passed; never has our tobacco had so fine a flavor nor our corn appeared so beautiful as we behold it to- day. Here is my son, that I give thee, that thou mayst know my heart; I pray thee to take pity on me and all my nation. Thow knowest the Great Spirit who has made us all; thou speakest to him and hearest his word; ask him to give me life and health, and come and dwell with us that we may know him."
Longfellow, recognizing the beauty of this historical speech, has paraphrased it, or indeed almost literally transcribed it, in Hiawatha. You will remember the visit of the Black Robe to Hiawatha and his people:
" O'er the water, floating, flying, Something in the hazy distance, Something in the mists of morning, Loomed and lifted from the water, Now seemed floating, now seemed flying, Coming nearer, nearer, nearer.
Was it Shingebis, the diver, Or the pelican, the Shada,
Or the heron, the Shuhshuh-gah,
Or the white goose, Wau-be-wawa, With the water dripping, flashing. From its glossy neck and feathers?
It was neither goose nor diver, Neither pelican nor heron, O'er the water floating, flying,
Through the shining mist of morning, But a birch canoe with paddles,
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Rising, sinking on the water, Dripping, flashing in the sunshine ; And within it came a people, From the distant land of Wabun, From the farthest realms of morning, Came the Black Robe chief, the Prophet,
He, the Priest of Prayer, the Pale Face, With his guides and his companions.
And the noble Hiawatha,
With his hands aloft extended,
Held aloft in sign of welcome, Waited, full of exultation,
Till the birch canoe with paddles Grated on the shining pebbles,
Stranded on the sandy margin.
Till the Black Robe chief, the Pale Face,
With the cross upon his bosom, Landed on the sandy margin. Then the joyous Hiawatha Cried aloud and spake in this wise : Beautiful is the sun, O strangers,
When you come so far to see us ;
All our town in peace awaits you, All our doors stand open for you ; You shall enter all our wigwams, For the heart's right hand we give you. Never bloomed the earth so gayly,
Never shone the sun so brightly, As to-day they shine and blossom When you come so far to see us ! Never was our lake so tranquil, Nor so free from rocks and sand-bars; For, your birch canoe in passing, Has removed both rock and sand-bar! Never before had our tobacco Such a sweet and pleasant flavor; Never the broad leaves of our corn fields Were so beautiful to look on As they seem to us this morning When you come so far to see us ! And the Black Robe Chief made answer, Stammered in his speech a little, Speaking words yet unfamiliar ;
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Peace be with you Hiawatha, Peace be with you and your people ; Peace of prayer and peace of pardon, Peace of Christ and joy of Mary !"
Marquette was attacked by dysentery on his homeward voy- age, and day after day lay exhausted in his canoe, engaged in prayer and holy meditation. So exhausted and weakened was he by his toil and his disease, which for a year did not sensibly abate, that during the autumn and winter of 1673 and the spring and summer following, he was obliged to remain at the mission of St. Francis Xavier on Green Bay making no attempt to return to Michilimackinac, which he doubtless desired to visit. It was while he was here that he wrote to his superior his account of the voyage. This became of great importance when, as it unfortunately happened, Joliet's official report and map were lost by the overturning of his canoe in the Lachine Rapids just as he was approaching Montreal at the end of his long journey.
This relation of Marquette, together with his journal of the later voyage of which I am about to speak, and some notes concerning him by his superior, Father Dablon, had afterward a strange history. Although one copy of the account of the Mississippi voyage evidently found its way to France and was published in a mutilated form in 1681, another copy of this relation and the journal and notes spoken of, lay entirely un- known in the library of the Jesuit College at Quebec until about 1800. When Canada became an English dominion, the Jesuits as a religious order were condemned and the reception of new members forbidden. The last survivor of them, Father Cazot, before his death about 1800, took the papers and archives which lay in his hands and turned them over for safekeeping
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until happier times, to the Gray Nuns of the Hotel Dieu, who were not under the ban of the government. These ladies joy- fully gave up their charge to the Jesuit Fathers who in 1842 re-established the Society in Canada, and in 1852 Marquette's relation and journal and the notes of Father Dablon, were by Dr. Shea brought to light and published.
Father Marquette's health having been partially, to appear- ance at least, re-established, he received the orders which he solicited to establish the Illinois mission, and on the 25th of October, 1674, he started, accompanied by two Frenchmen (" Engages" as these assistants to the missionaries were called ) and by a number of Indians, for the great village of the Illinois, which he had found on the previous year on the river of the Illinois, in his journey from the Mississippi to Lake Michigan. This time the journey was made down the western shore of Lake Michigan, and Father Marquette walked much of the way upon the shore, taking boat only when rivers or bays were to be crossed.
By the middle of November his malady returned and the winter began, too, to close in around the devoted wanderers. On the 4th of December, 1674, he reached the Chicago river, and about six miles from its mouth, unable on account of his increasing illness to go further, he and his companions built some kind of a rude cabin, and prepared to spend the winter. This was the first settlement upon the stream where now rise the towers of that imperial city, which before the century is over will number a million inhabitants. Jacques Marquette was undoubtedly the first resident of Chicago, a claim in itself, had he not other greater ones, to the remem- brance of posterity. The record of that winter, as told by
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himself, is a touching proof of the simple piety of this saintly man. In that forlorn and squalid cabin, in ice and snow, living on Indian corn and a very little chance game shot by his faithful French companions, or brought to him by two trappers, who were camping within fifty miles, (for he had sent his Indians away to their destination), stricken by a wasting and a mortal malady, he thanks God and the Blessed Virgin for their care of him, which had so comfortably housed him, he begins the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, he confesses his two com- panions twice each week, he says the Holy Mass each day, and he regrets only, as he innocently remarks, that he was able to keep Lent only on Fridays and Saturdays. One would have thought that the austerest idea of self sacrifice would have been perforce satisfied in this winter encampment.
In March, 1675, after a novena to the Blessed Virgin and in consequence of it as he at all events devoutly believed, he found himself able to travel and pushed forward for his pro- posed mission to the Illinois. By the Indians, at their village of Kaskaskia, he was received, as he says, like an angel from heaven, and during Holy Week he preached the Gospel to the thousands there assembled. Formally he opened a mission to be known as that of the Immaculate Conception, and prom- ised that some black-robed priest should be sent to take charge of and prosecute his work.
But his strength was failing fast, he felt himself that his sick- ness was mortal, and he bade therefore his Indian friends a sad good-bye and started for his loved mission at Michilimackinac, there to make arrangements for his successor at the mission among the Illinois and then, as he hoped, to die in the arms of his brethren.
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From information afforded him by the Indians whom he had visited he had come to know of another route to the north, a way, afterward the favorite one of LaSalle in his many jour- neys. It was by the way of the Kankakee branch of the Illi- nois, and a portage thence to the St. Joseph River, flowing into Lake Michigan on its eastern shore at the present site of the town of that name.
As the party, Marquette and his two faithful companions, made their way along this shore, the good Father's strength utterly failed. He lay in his boat, reciting his breviary, and his companions were obliged to lift him ashore when they made their nightly encampment. At last when they ap- proached the promontory now known as The Sleeping Bear, where stands the present city of Ludington, he could go no farther. Carried ashore by his companions he confessed them both; in contrition and penitence he made his own confession in writing, begging that it should be taken to his brethren, and with the names of Jesus, Mary and Joseph upon his lips, thank- ing God that he was allowed to die a member of the Society of Jesus and a missionary of Christ, this sweet, heroic soul passed to its reward. His companions buried him on the spot where he died, and raised a cross above the grave and then kept on their saddened way to Michilimackinac.
But says the Jesuit relation of 1677:
" God did not choose to suffer so precious a deposit to re- main unhonored and forgotten amid the woods. The Kiskakon Indians who for the last ten years have publicly professed Christianity, in which they were first instructed by Father Marquette, when stationed at La Pointe du Saint Esprit at the extremity of Lake Superior, were hunting last winter on the-
-
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banks of Lake Illinois. As they were returning early in spring, they resolved to pass by the tomb of their good Father, whom they tenderly loved, and God even gave them the thought of taking his remains and bringing them to our church at the mis- sion of St. Ignatius, at Michilimackinac, where they reside."
" They accordingly repaired to the spot, and, after some de- liberation, they resolved to proceed with their father, as they usually do with those whom they respect. They opened the grave, divested the body, and though the flesh and intestines were all dried up, they found it whole, the skin being in no way injured. This did not prevent their dissecting it, accord- ing 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 the house of St. Ignatius. The convoy consisted of nearly thirty canoes, in excellent order, including even a good number of Iroquois, 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. 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's. Then, before landing, he intoned the ‘De Profundis' in sight of the thirty canoes still on the water, and of all the people on the shores. After this the body was carried to the church, observing all that the ritual prescribes for such ceremonies. It remained exposed under a pall stretched as if over a coffin all that day, which was Pentecost Monday, the 8th of June, (1677). The next day, when all the funeral honors had been paid it, it was deposited in a little
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vault in the middle of the church, where he reposes as the guardian angel of our Ottawa Missions. The Indians often come to pray on his tomb."
So, in the flower of his manhood, thirty-eight years old, died, and with such simple and yet touching ceremonies, was finally buried, Father Jacques Marquette. For a century after- wards the voyageurs on Lake Michigan, in storm and peril, besought what they believed to be his saintly intercession.
But the exact site of his grave was not known for nearly two hundred years, for when the mission was temporarily abandoned in 1706, the church where reposed his body was burned.
More than a hundred years later we have a glimpse of Father Richard looking for its site and the grave of a great priest, and, half a century later still, in 1877, Father Jacker, then the priest in charge of the church at Point St. Ignace, to the general satisfaction of the historical scholars who investigated the matter, identified not only this site, but found some relics of the sainted missionary, which now repose in the chapel of the Marquette College, at Milwaukee; while the grave at St. Ignace is marked by a plain but tasteful monu- ment, to tell to all admirers of devotion and courage, and es- pecially to all who are true sons and daughters of the church, who may journey thither, that beneath, for two centuries, lay all that was mortal of that most intrepid soldier of the cross, Jacques Marquette.
In the year 1792, perhaps led by the threatening condition of political and ecclesiastical affairs in France, the Superior General of the Sulpician Order, sent from that country to Bal-
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timore in the United States a number of young ecclesiastics to report to the venerable Bishop Carroll and to receive his orders for the work of the Church in the United States.
The original intention seemed to be that these young men should found such a seminary as the Sulpicians the world over are noted for-for the theological training of priests. But the need was much more urgent, Bishop Carroll thought, for mis- sionary priests, and most of these young men accepted with eagerness at the hands of the bishop the offer of such work. Among them was Gabriel Richard, a young man then of twenty-eight years, born in Santes in France in 1764. Like Father Marquette he came from a highly connected family, and in his case, too, his mother was from a family illustrious in the records of the church. At the age of twenty-five he had entered the Sulpician order.
By Bishop Carroll this young missionary was assigned a territorial jurisdiction of great extent. He was given as Vicar- General the pastoral charge of all the settlements in Illinois, and the missions especially that had been established by the French in that country during the century succeeding Father Marquette's first visit to it.
A few years ago, I had the pleasure of looking through the registers of the old parish churches at Fort Chartres and Kas- kaskia on the Mississippi river, and found that many of the en- tries in the latter years of the century were made by Gabriel Richard.
When a few days ago, I looked through the registers here, I found again the same familiar hand in at least a hundred en- tries, reviving in my mind the interest I had long felt in this pioneer priest. For I recognized at once the importance
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which here as there his duties had assumed in the history of the church in America. There as here he had been sent at once to continue the work of the line of French missions of the older time, in the many settlements and colonies of French and Canadians and half breeds and their descendants, who since the English occupation had fallen into sad need of regular pastoral care, and to whom that pastoral care to be effective for good, must be by one of their own race and language, and also as at least a no less important office, to begin in this western country the new development and to encourage the new growth of the Catholic Church from roots to strike more deeply than the old French missions could, into the newly born American life and national character.
In 1798, after a labor which became more and more fruitful as the years went on, Father Richard was withdrawn from Illinois, and sent to what seemed the still more important and promising field of Detroit, where the same condition of affairs as at Kaskaskia, but on a larger scale, called for the same kind of an ecclesiastical administrator.
From 1794, when he was but thirty-four years old, until 1832, when he died a true martyr's death at the age of sixty- eight, Father Richard's home and main work were at Detroit, where he nobly performed the singularly important functions he was called upon in the Providence of God to fulfill.
Not forsaking the French colonists, the descendants of those who accompanied Cadillac to Detroit in . 1701 and of those who subsequently came from Canada, and who still formed by far the greater number of his parishoners at the old St. Anne's church, of which his main home work was the pastoral charge, nor forgetting either the Indian Christians, either around De-
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troit or in the outlying missions far or near, he nevertheless thoroughly recognized, that after all in all this country the controlling tendency of the time was towards the ascendency and increasing influence and importance of the great English speaking race that had come under God to possess the land; and wasting no time in vain regrets over the more congenial or romantic past, he set his face towards the rising sun, prophesying of and preparing the ground for the glorious destiny he saw for the American church of the future.
But like St. Paul, he was ready to be all things to all men, if haply he might save some, and in the midst of the very different work, to which I shall hereafter more particularly re- fer, he found time to be the devoted missionary and pastor of the almost abandoned Indians and half-breeds and French voyageurs and traders, who then lived at Michilimackinac.
In 1706, as I have said, the mission at Michilimackinac was temporarily abandoned. With sad hearts and reluctant hands the Jesuit Fathers, that their chapel might not be desecrated, had themselves burned it and their house, given up their loved labors at Michilimackinac and returned to Quebec. This was because the French commandant at Michilimackinac, Cadillac, had removed to and fortified the present site of Detroit and most of the Indians who had settled here, led by the material inducements held out by Cadillac, had followed him there. Some remained, however, and more returned, and the mission of Michilimackinac was soon re- established, this time, however on the other side of the straits, now known as Old Mackinaw. Hither had come the saintly Jesuit missionaries Marest, Lamorinie, De Jaunay and Le Franc, laboring zealously and efficiently among the Indians.
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We catch glimpses of this mission in the pages of Charle- voix's history, but these parish registers here are the best evi- dence of the labors and success of these devoted men.
But in 1762 Choiseul drove the French Jesuits from their colleges, and surrendered the possessions of France in America to England, and without the magnificent power and energy of the Society of Jesus behind it, the mission at Michilimackinac languished, and although not abandoned, the faithful in its flock were obliged to depend on visits, more or less frequent, from various missionary priests.
Between 1762, when Du Jaunay left Arbe Croche (now Har- bor Springs) and Michilimackinac, and 1799, when Richard visited the mission, Gibault, Payet, Ledru, Levadoux, all names illustrious among the post-Jesuit missionaries to the In- dians, had, as these registers attest, been here at intervals, and when they came, there thronged here to meet them the Christian men and women, French and Indian, of the settle- ment, often to be married or to have their children baptized, more often for the supplemental ceremonies, and the blessing of the Church, on lay baptisms already administered or mar- riages already contracted before some civil magistrate.
These parish registers here contain some very curious records during these years, made by lay officials, of baptisms and marriages and sepultures.
In the matter of baptisms, especially, the people, well in- structed in the efficacy of lay baptism, in the absence of a priest frequently applied to those best able to keep a record.
Thus, there is this one entry (in French, which I have trans- lated) :
" The thirtieth of August, 1781, was baptized Domitille,
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legitimate daughter of Mr. Charles Gazelle and Madeleine Pascal, his legitimate wife, born the same day at noon.
" JOHN COATES, " Notary Public."
Immediately below this entry is another still more remark- able. It is in the same handwriting evidently, that of John Coates, the notary public. This entry is in English :
" I certify you that, according to the due and prescribed order of the Church, at noon, on this day, and at the above place, before divers witnesses, I baptized this child, Charlotte Cleaves.
" (Signed) P. W. SINCLAIR,
" Lt. Governor and Justice of the Peace.
" Witnesses: William Grant, John McNamara, D. McRay, George Meldrum.
" JOHN COATES, " Notary Public."
This last entry, without date as it is, or the names of the parents, is hardly a sufficient baptismal register to give us much information for these later days, but it is evidently the record of a certificate, insisted upon by the parents and given to them by Major Sinclair, then commander of the post for the English Government.
In the memoirs of Augustus Grignon, published in the Wis- consin Historical Collections, is a passage relating how his mother, who was a daughter of Charles Langlade, who was born in Mackinac in 1729, came with her children all the way in a birch canoe, from Green Bay to Mackinac to have them baptized by Father Payet, who was making a visit here in
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1787. These registers confirm this. Six children of Pierre Grignon, from four months to ten years old, were at that time baptized.
On one of these missionary visits, came to Michilimackinac, in 1799, the subject of this sketch, Father Richard. He found here, we are told, about 700 Christians, and spent, as this register shows, several weeks at least in ministering to their spiritual necessities. From here he went to Georgian Bay and to the Sault Ste. Marie, and then, after an absence of four months, returned to Detroit. The succeeding twenty years of Father Richard's life were marked by an exceedingly great activity; made Vicar-General of Detroit, and given a free hand, he enlarged and improved all the parochial and mission schools; he opened an academy of a very high class for the higher education of women. He also instituted and carried on a seminary for young men, and endeavored to obtain from among its pupils fit candidates for the priesthood, of which he had pressing need.
In 1805, in a fire which almost entirely destroyed the city, Father Richard's church and presbytery and schools were burned. But far from discouraging him, the calamity seems but to have reanimated his zeal, and he soon had rebuilt the church and re-established his school-supplying the latter with chemical and astronomical apparatus.
In 1807, believing that the time had fully come, he estab- lished a series of English sermons given every Sunday in the Council House of the then newly established Territory of Michigan.
In 1808 and '9 he visted his bishop at Baltimore, and went to other eastern cities, bringing back with him a printer, a
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printing-press and a font of old type. This has been said to have been the first printing-press west of the Alleghanies. It certainly was the first in Michigan. On this press were printed some devotional books, an edition of the epistles and gospels in French and English, and various educational books. A copy of one of these small books for children called Journal des Enfants, printed in French and English on alternate pages, belongs to me, and is here and is subject to your inspection. I cannot say much for the typographical execution, but the matter seems to me useful and good. Father Vitali, the priest of this mission, owns and uses on all public services one of the edition of the epistles and gospel referred to, and this also is here.
In 1812 Father Richard imported from Europe, for his church, an organ, the first ever brought to the North-west.
In 1812 came the English war. Aided by the Indians the English took Detroit, and one of their first acts was to im- prison Father Richard, on the ground that he was an instiga- tor and exciter of anti-English feeling. Sent to a guard-house on the other side of the river he used his great influence and experience with the Indians to save the other prisoners from tor- ture. On his return to Detroit at the close of the war, he found his flock threatened with famine. Sending away, he procured and distributed provision and seed; " continuing," as has been said by another, " as long as the scarcity lasted, to be the liv- ing Providence of the destitute."
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