History of Fillmore County, Including the Explorers and Pioneers of Minnesota, Part 2

Author: Edward D. Neill
Publication date: 1882
Publisher:
Number of Pages:

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Governor Frontenac of Canada, was indignant

at the occurrence, and in a letter to Colbert, one of the Ministers of Louis the Fourteenth, speaks t. in condemnation of this discharge of a cannon by a Brother attached to the Jesuit Mission.

From this period, the missions of the Church of Rome, near Lake Superior, began to wane. Shea, a devout historian of that church, writes: "In 1680, Father Enjalran was apparently alone at Green Bay, and Pierson at Mackinaw ; the latter mission still comprising the two villages, Huron and Kiskakon. Of the other missions, neither Le Clerq nor Hennepin, the Recollect, writers of the West at this time, makes any mention, or in any way alludes to their existence, and La Hon- tan mentions the Jesuit missions only to ridicule them."

The Pigeon River, a part of the northern boun- dary of Minnesota, was called on the French maps Grosellier's River, after the first explorer of Min- nesota, whose career, with his associate Radisson, became quite prominent in connection with the Hudson Bay region.

A disagreement occurring between Groselliers and his partners in Quebec, he proceeded to l'aris, and from thence to London, where he was intro- duced to the nephew of Charles I., who led the cavalry charge against Fairfax and Cromwell at Naseby, afterwards commander of the English fleet. The Prince listened with pleasure to the narrative of travel, and endorsed the plans for prosecuting the fur trade and seeking a north- west passage to Asia. The scientific men of Eng- land were also full of the enterprise, in the hope that it would increase a knowledge of nature. The Secretary of the Royal Society wrote to Rob- ert Boyle, the distinguished philosopher, a too sanguine letter. His words were : " Surely I need not tell you from hence what is said here, with great joy, of the discovery of a northwest passage; and by two Englishmen and one Frenchman represented to his Majesty at Oxford, and an- swered by the grant of a vessel to sail into Hud- son's Bay and channel into the South Sea."

The ship Nonsuch was fitted out, in charge of Captain Zachary Gillam, a son of one of the early settlers of Boston; and in this vessel Groselliers and Radisson left the Thames, in June, 1668, and in September reached a tributary of Hudson's Bay. The next year, by way of Boston, they re- turned to England, and in 1670, a trading com-

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EXPLORERS AND PIONEERS OF MINNESOTA.

pany was chartered, still known among venerable English corporations as "The Hudson's Bay Company."

The Reverend Mother of the Incarnation, Su- perior of the Ursulines of Quebec, in a letter of the 27th of August, 1670, writes thus :

"It was about this time that a Frenchman of our Touraine, named des Groselliers, married in this country, and as he had not been successful in making a fortune, was seized with a fancy to go to New England to better his condition. He excited a hope among the English that he had found a passage to the Sea of the North. With this expectation, he was sent as an envoy to Eng- tand. where there was given to him, a vessel, with crew and every thing necessary for the voy- age. With these advantages, he put to sea, and in place of the usual route, which others had ta- ken in vain, he sailed in another direction, and searched so wide, that he found the grand Bay of the North. He found large population, and filled his ship or ships with peltries of great value.

He has taken possession of this great region for the King of England, and for his personal benefit A publication for the benefit of this French ad- venturer, has been made in England. He was a youth when he arrived here. and his wife and children are yet here."

Talon, Intendent of Justice in Canada, in a dis- patch to Colbert, Minister of the Colonial Depart- ment of France, wrote on the 10th of November, 1670, that he has received intelligence that two English vessels are approaching Hudson's Bay, and adds : " After reflecting on all the nations that might have penetrated as far north as that, I can alight on only the English, who, under the guidance of a man named Des Grozellers, for- merly an inhabitant of Canada, might possibly have attempted that navigation."

After years of service on the shores of Hudson's Bay, either with English or French trading com- panies, the old explorer died in Canada, and it has been said that his son went to England, where he was living in 1696, in receipt of a pension.

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EARLY MENTION OF LAKE SUPERIOR COPPER.

CHAPTER II.

EARLY MENTION OF LAKE SUPERIOR COPPER.

Ragard, A. D. 1686, on Copper Mines .- Boucher, A. D. 1640, Describes Lake Supe rior Copper .- Jesuit Relations, A. D. 1666-67 .- Copper on Isle Royals .- Half- Breed Voyageur Goes to France with Talon .- Jolliet and Perrot Search for Copper .- St. Lusson Plants the French Arms at Sault St. Marie .- Copper at Ontanagon and Head of Lake Superior.

Before white men had explored the shores of Lake Superior, Indians had brought to the tra- ding posts of the St. Lawrence River, specimens of copper from that region. Sagard, in his Ilistory of Canada, published in 1636, at Paris, writes : "There are mines of copper which might be made profitable, if there were inhabitants and work- men who would labor faithfully. That would be done if colonies were established. About eighty or one hundred leagnes from the Hurons, there is a mine of copper, from which Truchemont Brusle showed me an ingot, on his return from a voyage which he made to the neighboring nation."

Pierre Boucher, grandfather of Sieur de la Ve- rendrye, the explorer of the lakes of the northern boundary of Minnesota, in a volume published A. D. 1640, also at Paris, writes : " In Lake Su- perior there is a great island, fifty or one hundred leagues in circumference, in which there is a very beautiful mine of copper. There are other places In those quarters, where there are similar mines ; so I learned from four or five Frenchmen, who lately returned. They were gone three years, without finding an opportunity to return; they told me that they had seen an ingot of copper all refined which was on the coast, and weighed more than eight hundred pounds, according to their es- timate. They said that the savages, on passing it, made a fire on it, after which they cut off pje- ces with their axes."

In the Jesuit Relations of 1666-67, there is this description of Isle Royale : " Advancing to a place called the Grand Anse, we meet with an island, three leagues from land, which is cele- brated for the metal which is found there, and for the thunder which takes place there; for they say it always thunders there.

" But farther towards the west on the same north shore, is the island most famous for copper, Minong (Isle Royale). This island is twenty-five leagues in length ; it is seven from the mainland, and sixty from the head of the lake. Nearly all around the island, on the water's edge, pieces of copper are found mixed with pebbles, but espe- cially on the side which is opposite the south, and principally in a certain bay, which is near the northeast exposure to the great lake. * * *

" Advancing to the head of the lake (Fon du Lac) and returning one day's journey by the south coast, there is seen on the edge of the water, a rock of copper weighing seven or eight hundred pounds, and is so hard that steel can hardly cut it, but when it is heated it cuts as easily as lead. Near Point Chagouamigong [Sha - gah - wah - mik- ong, near Bayfield] where a mission was establish- ed rocks of copper and plates of the same metal were found. Returning still toward the mouth of the lake, following the coast on the south as twenty leagues from the place last mentioned, we enter the river called Nantaouagan [Ontona- gon] on which is a hill where stones and copper fall into the water or upon the earth. They are readily found.

"Three years since we received a piece which was brought from this place, which weighed a hundred pounds, and we sent it to Quebec to Mr. Talon. It is not certain exactly where this was broken from. We think it was from the forks of the river ; others, that it was from near the lake, and dug up."

Talon, Intendent of Justice in Canada, visited France, taking a half - breed voyageur with him, and while in Paris, wrote on the 26th of Febru- ary, 1669, to Colbert, the Minister of the Marine Department, " that this voyageur had penetrated among the western nations farther than any other Frenchman, and had seen the copper mine on Lake Iluron. [Superior?] The.man offers to go

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EXPLORERS AND PIONEERS OF MINNESOTA.

to that mine, and explore, either by sea, or by lake and river, the communication supposed to exist between Canada and the South Sea, or to the regions of Hudson's Bay."

As soon as Talon returned to Canada he com- missioned Jolliet and Pere [Perrot] to search for the mines of copper on the upper Lakes. Jolliet received an outfit of four hundred livres, and four canoes, and Perrot one thousand livres. Minis- ister Colbert wrote from Paris to Talon, in Feb- ruary, 1671, approving of the search for copper, in these words : " The resolution you have taken to send Sieur de La Salle toward the south, and Sieur de St. Lusson to the north, to discover the South Sea passage, is very good, but the principal thing you ought to apply yourself in discoveries of this nature, is to look for the copper mine.

" Were this mine discovered, and its utility evident, it would be an assured means to attract several Frenchmen from old, to New France."

On the 14th of June, 1671, Saint Lusson at Sault St. Marie, planted the arms of France, in the pres- ence of Nicholas Perrot, who acted as interpreter on the occasion ; the Sieur Jolliet ; Pierre Moreau or Sieur de la Taupine ; a soldier of the garrison of Quebec, and several other Frenchmen.

Talon, in announcing Saint Lusson's explora- tions to Colbert, on the 2d of November, 1671, wrote from Quebec : " The copper which I send from Lake Superior and the river Nantaouagan [Ontonagon] proves that there is a mine on the border of some stream, which produces this ma- terial as pure as one could wish. More than twenty Frenchmen have seen one lump at the lake, which they estimate weighs more than eight hundred pounds. The Jesuit Fathers among the Outaouas [Ou-taw-waws] use an anvil of this ma- terial, which weighs about one hundred pounds. There will be no rest until the source from whence these detached lumps come is discovered.

" The river Nantaouagan [Ontonagon] appears

between two high hills, the plain above which feeds the lakes, and receives a great deal of snow, which, in melting, forms torrents which wash the borders of this river, composed of solid gravel, which is rolled down by it.

"The gravel at the bottom of this, hardens it- self, and assumes different shapes, such as those pebbles which I send to Mr. Bellinzany. My opinion is that these pebbles, rounded and carried off by the rapid waters, then have a tendency to become copper, by the influence of the sun's rays which they absorb, and to form other nuggets of metal similar to those which I send to Sieur de Bellinzany, found by the Sieur de Saint Lus: on, about four hundred leagues, at some distance from the mouth of the river.

"He hoped by the frequent journeys of the savages, and French who are beginning to travel by these routes, to discern the source of produc- tion."

Governor Denonville, of Canada, sixteen years after the above circumstances, wrote : " The cop- per, a sample of which I sent M. Arnou, is found at the head of Lake Superior. The body of the mine has not yet been discovered. I have seen one of our voyageurs who assures me that, some fifteen months ago he saw a lump of two hundred weight, as yellow as gold, in a river which falls into Lake Superior. When heated, it could be cut with an axe; but the superstitious Indians, regarding this boulder as a good spirit, would never permit him to take any of it away. ITis opinion is that the frost undermined this piece, and that the mine is in that river. He has prom- ised to search for it on his way back."

In the year 1730, there was some correspond- ence with the authorities in France relative to the discovery of copper at La Pointe, but, practi- cally, little was done by the French, in developing the mineral wealth of Lake Superior.

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DU LUTH PLANTS THE FRENCH ARMS IN MINNESOTA.

CHAPTER III.

DU LUTH PLANTS THE FRENCH ARMS IN MINNESOTA

Da Lath's Relativos .- Randin Visits Extremity of Lake Superior. - Du Luth Plants King's Arms .- Post at Kaministigoya. - Pierre MoreaF, alias La Taupinc. - La Salle's Visit .- A Pilot Deserta to the Sioux Country .- uaffart, Du Luth's Interpreter .- Descent of the River St. Croix .- Meets Father Hennepin .-- Crit- Jeized by La Salle .- Trades with New England. - Visits France .-- In Command at Mackinaw .- Frenchmen Murdered at Keweenaw .- Du Luth Arrests and Shoots Murderers .- Builds Fort above Detroit. - With Indian Allies in the Seneca War .- Du Luth's Brother .- Cadillac Defends the Brandy Trade .- Du Luth Disapproves of Selling Brandy to the Indians .- In Command at Fort Frontenac .- Death. .

In the year 1678, several prominent merchants of Quebec and Montreal, with the support of Governor Frontenac of Canada, formed a com- pany to open trade with the Sioux of Minnesota, and a nephew of Patron, one of these merchants, a brother -in - law of Sieur de Lusigny, an officer of the Governor's Guards, named Daniel Grey- solon Du Luth [Doo-loo], a native of St. Germain en Laye, a few miles from Paris, although Lahon- tan speaks of him as from Lyons, was made the leader of the expedition. At the battle of Seneffe against the Prince of Orange, he was a gendarme, and one of the King's guards.

Du Luth was also a cousin of Henry Tonty, who had been in the revolution at Naples, to throw off the Spanish dependence. Du Luth's name is va- riously spelled in the documents of his day. Hen- nepin writes, "Du Luth ;" others, "Dulhut," "Du Lhu," "Du Lut," " De Luth," " Du Lud."

The temptation to procure valuable furs from the Lake Superior region, contrary to the letter of the Canadian law, was very great; and more than one Governor winked at the contraband trade. Randin, who visited the extremity of Lake Superior, distributed presents to the Sioux and Ottawas in the name of Governor Frontenac, to secure the trade, and after his death, Du Luth was sent to complete what he had begun. With a party of twenty, seventeen Frenchmen and three Indians, he left Quebec on the first of September, 1678, and on the fifth of April, 1679, Du Luth writes to Governor Frontenac, that he is in the woods, about nine miles from Sault St. Marie, at the entrance of Lake Superior, and

adds that : he " will not stir from the Nadous- sioux, until further orders, and, peace being con- cluded, he will set up the King's Arms; lest the English and other Europeans settled towards California, take possession of the country."

On the second of July, 1679, he caused his Majesty's Arms to be planted in the great village of the Nadoussioux, called Kathio, where no Frenchman had ever been, and at Songaskicons and Houetbatons, one hundred and twenty leagues distant from the former, where he also set up the King's Arms. In a letter to Seignalay, published for the first time by Harrisse, he writes that it was in the village of Izatys [Issati]. Upon Fran- quelin's map, the Mississippi branches into the Tintonha [Teeton Sioux] country, and not far from here, he alleges, was seen a tree upon which was this legend: " Arms of the King cut on this tree in the year 1679."

He established a post at Kamanistigoya, which was distant fifteen leagues from the Grand Port- age at the western extremity of Lake Superior; and here, on the fifteenth of September, he held a council with the Assenipoulaks [ Assineboines] and other tribes, and urged them to be at peace with the Sioux. During this summer, he dis- patched Pierre Moreau, a celebrated voyageur, nicknamed La Taupine, with letters to Governor Frontenac, and valuable furs to the merchants. ITis arrival at Quebec, created some excitement. It was charged that the Governor corresponded with Du Luth, and that he passed the beaver, sent by him, in the name of merchants in his in- terest. The Intendant of Justice, Du Chesneau, wrote to the Minister of the Colonial Department of France, that "the man named La Taupine, a famous coureur des bois, who set out in the month of September of last year, 1678, to go to the Ou- tawacs, with goods, and who has always been in- terested with the Governor, having returned this year, and I, being advised that he had traded in

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EXPLORERS AND PIONEERS OF MINNESOTA.

two days, one hundred and fifty beaver robes in one village of this tribe, amounting to nearly nine hundred beavers, which is a matter of public no- toriety ; and that he left with Du Lut two men whom he had with him, considered myself bound to have him arrested, and to interrogate him ; but having presented me with a license from the Gov- ernor, permitting him and his comrades, named Lamonde and Dupuy, to repair to the Outawac, to execute his secret orders, I had him set at liberty : and immediately on his going out. Sieur Prevost, Town Mayor of Quebec, came at the head of some soldiers to force the prison, in case he was still there, pursuant to his orders from the Governor, in these terms : " Sieur Prevost, Mayor of Quebec, is ordered, in case the Intendant arrest Pierre Moreau alias La Taupine, whom we have sent to Quebec as bearer of our dispatches, upon pretext of his having been in the bush, to set him forthwith at liberty, and to employ every means for this purpose, at his peril. Done at Montreal, the 5th September, 1679."

La Taupine, in due time returned to Lake Su- perior with another consignment of merchandise. The interpreter of Du Luth, and trader with the Sioux, was Faffart, who had been a soldier under La Salle at Fort Frontenac, and had deserted.

La Salle was commissioned in 1678, by the King of France, to explore the West, and trade in cibola, or buffalo skins, and on condition that he did not traffic with the Ottauwaws, who carried their beaver to Montreal.

On the 27th of August, 1679, he arrived at Mackinaw, in the "Griffin," the first sailing ves- sel on the great Lakes of the West, and from thence went to Green Bay, where, in the face of his commission, he traded for beaver. Loading his vessel with peltries, he sent it back to Niag- ara, while he, in canoes, proceeded with his ex- pedition to the Illinois River. The ship was never heard of, and for a time supposed to be lost, but La Salle afterward learned from a Pawnee boy fourteen or fifteen years of age, who was brought prisoner to his fort on the Illinois by some Indians, that the pilot of the " Griffin " had been among the tribes of the Upper Missouri. IIe had ascended the Mississippi with four others in two birch canoes with goods and some hand grenades, taken from the ship, with the intention of jom ing Du Luth, who had for months been trading

with the Sioux ; and if their efforts were unsuc- cessful, they expected to push on to the English, at Hudson's Bay. While ascending the Missis- sippi they were attacked by Indians, and the pilot and one other only survived, and they were sold to the Indians on the Missouri.

In the month of June, 1680, Du Luth, accom- panied by Faffart, an interpreter, with four Frenchmen, also a Chippeway and a Sioux, with two canoes, entered a river, the mouth of which is eight leagues from the head of Lake Superior on the South side, named Nemitsakouat. Reach- ing its head waters, by a short portage, of half a league, he reached a lake which was the source of the Saint Croix River, and by this, he and his companions were the first Europeans to journey in a canoe from Lake Superior to the Mississippi.

La Salle writes, that Du Luth, finding that the Sioux were on a hunt in the Mississippi val- ley, below the Saint Croix, and that Accault, Au- gelle and IIennepin, who had come up from the Illinois a few weeks before, were with them, de- scended until he found them. In the same letter he disregards the truth in order to disparage his rival, and writes:

"Thirty-eight or forty leagues above the Chip- peway they found the river by which the Sieur Du Luth did descend to the Mississippi. He had been three years, contrary to orders, with a com- pany of twenty " coureurs du bois " on Lake Su- perior; he had borne himself bravely, proclaiming everywhere that at the head of his brave fellows he did not fear the Grand Prevost, and that he would compel an amnesty.

" While he was at Lake Superior, the Nadoue- sioux, enticed by the presents that the late Sieur Randin had made on the part of Count Fronte- nac, and the Sauteurs [Ojibways], who are the sav- ages who carry the peltries to Montreal, and who dwell on Lake Superior, wishing to obey the re- peated orders of the Count, made a peace to unite the Sauteurs and French, and to trade with the Nadouesioux, situated about sixty leagues to the west of Lake Superior. Du Luth, to disguise his desertion, seized the opportunity to make some reputation for himself, sending two messen- gers to the Count to negotiate a truce, during which period their comrades negotiated still bet- ter for beaver.

Several conferences were held with the Na-

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FAFFART, DU LUTHI'S INTERPRETER.

dovessioux, and as he needed an interpreter, he led off one of mine, named Faffart, formerly a sol- dier at Fort Frontenac. During this period there were frequent visits between the Sauteurs [Ojib- ways] and Nadouesioux, and supposing that it might increase the number of beaver skins, he sent Faffart by land, with the Nadouesioux and Sauteurs [Ojibways]. The young man on his re- turn, having given an account of the quantity of beaver in that region, he wished to proceed thither himself, and, guided by a Sauteur and a Nadone- sioux, and four Frenchmen, he ascended the river Nemitsakouat, where, by a short portage, he de- scended that stream, whereon he passed through forty leagues of rapids [Upper St. Croix River], and finding that the Nadouesioux were below with my men and the Father, who had come down again from the village of the Nadouesioux, he discovered them. They went up again to the village, and from thence they all together came down. They returned by the river Quisconsing, and came back to Montreal, where Du Luth in- sults the commissaries, and the deputy of the 'procureur general,' named d'Auteuil. Count Frontenac had him arrested and imprisoned in the castle of Quebec, with the intention of return- ing him to France for the amnesty accorded to the coureurs des bois, did not release him."

At this very period, another party charges Frontenac as being Du Luth's particular friend.

Du Luth, during the fall of 1681, was engaged in the beaver trade at Montreal and Quebec. Du Chesneau, the Intendant of Justice for Can- ada, on the 13th of November, 1681, wrote to the Marquis de Siegnelay, in Paris : "Not content with the profits to be derived from the countries under the King's dominion, the desire of making money everywhere, has led the Governor [Fron- tenac], Boisseau, Du Lut and Patron, his uncle, to send canoes loaded with peltries, to the En- glish. It is said sixty thousand livres' worth has been sent thither;" and he further stated that there was a very general report that within five or six days, Frontenac and his associates had di- vided the money received from the beavers sent to New England.

At a conference in Quebec of some of the dis- tinguished men in that city, relative to difficulties with the Iroquois, held on the 10th of October, 1682, Du Luth was present. From thence he went

to France, and, early in 1683, consulted with the Minister of Marine at Versailles relative to the interests of trade in the Hudson's Bay and Lake Superior region. Upon his return to Canada, he departed for Mackinaw. Governor De la Barre, on the 9th of November, 1683, wrote to the French Government that the Indians west and north of Lake Superior, "when they heard by expresses sent them by Du Lhut, of his arrival at Missili- makinak, that he was coming, sent him word to come quickly and they would unite with him to prevent others going thither. If I stop that pass as I hope, and as it is necessary to do, as the Eng- lish of the Bay [Hudson's] excite against us the savages, whom Sieur Du Lhut alone can quiet."

While stationed at Mackinaw he was a partici- pant in a tragic occurrence. During the summer of 1683 Jacques le Maire and Colin Berthot, while on their way to trade at Keweenaw, on Lake Su- perior, were surprised by three Indians, robbed, and murdered. Du Luth was prompt to arrest and punish the assassins. In a letter from Mack- inaw, dated April 12, 1684, to the Governor of Canada, he writes: "Be pleased to know, Sir, that on the 24th of October last, I was told that Folle Avoine, accomplice in the murder and rob- bery of the two Frenchmen, had arrived at Sault Ste. Marie with fifteen families of the Sauteurs [Ojibways] who had fled from Chagoamigon [La Pointe] on account of an attack which they, to- gether with the people of the land, made last Spring upon the Nadouecioux [Dakotahs.]

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History of Fillmore County, Including the Explorers and Pioneers of Minnesota, Part 2

Author: Edward D. Neill Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Number of Pages:

Author: Edward D. Neill
Publication date: 1882
Publisher:
Number of Pages: