In 1669 La Salle, accompanied by Dollier and Gallinée, set out from Montreal to discover the Mississippi. They proceeded in company to the western extremity of Lake Ontario. At this place La Salle, professing illness, parted from the missionaries, ostensibly to return to Montreal. Dollier and Gallinée continued their journey along the northern shores of Lake Erie, thus taking a course hitherto untravelled, and reached Sault Ste. Marie in May, 1670, having spent the winter on the shores of Lake Erie. Gallinée’s journal, entitled “Récit de ce qui s’est passé de plus rémarquable dans le voyage de MM. Dollier et Gallinée,” is printed in Margry, vol. i., pp. 112–166. The Abbé Faillon, who first discovered the records of this journey, gives a synopsis of Gallinée’s recital, with a fac-simile of his map, in the third volume of his “Histoire de la Colonie française en Canada.”
O. M. Marshall’s pamphlet, entitled “The First Visit of La Salle to the Senecas,” Buffalo, 1874, contains a textual translation of this document. The Société historique, of Montreal, published in 1875 an edition of this journal, with notes by the Abbé Verreau. Margry prints in his collection, vol. i., pp. 342–402, a narrative which he calls “Récital d’un ami de l’Abbé de Gallinée.” This purports to be notes, taken by the writer, who Margry thinks was the Abbé Renaudot, of conversations had with La Salle at Paris in 1678, in which he recounted his adventures in Canada from 1667 to 1678. In it is stated that after leaving Dollier and Gallinée, instead of going to Montreal, La Salle kept on until he reached the Ohio, and later went to the Mississippi by way of the Illinois. Parkman prints extracts from this paper in his “Discovery of the Great West,” but does not credit it wholly; he, however, admits that La Salle discovered the Ohio, and most likely the Illinois. It is upon this document, that Margry bases his claim that La Salle was the first to reach the Mississippi.
The following writers take issue with Margry: Brucker, “J. Marquette et la Découverte du Mississipi,” Lyon, 1880, and in the “Études religieuses,” vol. v.; Harrisse, in “Notes pour servir à l’Histoire [etc.] de la Nouvelle France,” Paris, 1872; in an article entitled “Histoire critique de la Découverte du Mississipi,” in the Revue maritime et coloniale, vol. xxxii, pp. 642–663.
Shea, in whom Margry finds perhaps his most strenuous opponent, discusses the question in an address read on the bi-centennial of Marquette’s voyage, published in the “Wisconsin Historical Society Collections,” vol. vii., pp. 111–122. He has, however, published a pamphlet, in which he examines the matter more in detail, entitled “The Bursting of P. Margry’s La Salle Bubble,” New York, 1879. Tailhan, in notes to Perrot, and the Abbé Verreau in his edition of Gallinée’s journal, also refute Margry. Colonel Whittlesey’s tract, forming No. 38 of the Western Reserve Historical Society’s publications, entitled “Discovery of the Ohio by La Salle, 1669–70,” is an inquiry upon the subject. Margry presents his arguments in full, in articles upon “Les Normands dans les vallées de l’Ohio et du Mississippi,” published in the Journal géneral de l’Instruction publique, Paris, 1862. See also a paper by him in the Revue maritime et coloniale, vol. xxxiii., pp. 555–559; his pamphlet, “La Priorité de La Salle sur le Mississipi,” Paris, 1873; a letter in the American Antiquary, vol. i., pp. 206–209, Chicago, 1880, and in remarks in the preface to his “Découvertes et établissements des Français,” vol. i.
Gravier in his “Découvertes de La Salle,” Paris, 1870, in the “Compte rendu of the Congrès des Américanistes,” 1877, pt. i., pp. 237–312, and in The Magazine of American History, vol. viii., p. 305, supports the Margry theory.
In August, 1679, La Salle having completed his arrangements and obtained letters patent from the king for another attempt upon the Mississippi, set sail in the Griffon, upon Lake Erie, and arrived at Michilimackinac about two weeks later. The Illinois was reached in January, 1680, but owing to adverse circumstances, La Salle being compelled, for want of supplies and other causes, to make twice the journey between the Illinois and Canada, the exploration of the Mississippi was not accomplished until April, 1682. The adventures of La Salle’s party upon the great lakes and in the Illinois country, previous to the voyage down the Mississippi in 1682, are recounted with minute detail in the “Relation des Descouvertes et des Voyages du Sieur de La Salle, 1679–81,” printed in Margry’s Collection, vol. i., pp. 435–594.
Margry considers this paper to be the official report drawn up by the Abbé Bernou from La Salle’s letters. The account of the journey to Fort Crevecœur in 1679–80, given in this narrative, is nearly identical with the description of the same voyage in Hennepin’s “Description de la Louisiane.” For this reason Margry charges Hennepin with plagiary, which calls out a defence of the latter by Shea, in his edition of Hennepin’s “Louisiana,” where the two narratives are compared. Membré’s journal in Le Clercq’s “Premier Établissement de la Foy,” Paris, 1691, which is reproduced in English in Shea’s “Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi,” and Tonty’s Memoirs, which will be more fully described farther on, also report this stage of the explorations. Hennepin’s spurious “Nouvelle Découverte” also contains an account, which does not differ materially from that given in the “Description de la Louisiane.”
Mathieu Sâgean, who claimed to have been with La Salle in 1679–80, dictated from memory, in 1701, a report of his adventures in Canada. See Parkman’s La Salle, p. 658, concerning Sâgean’s pretensions. Shea published Sâgean’s narrative in 1863, with the title, “Extrait de la Relation des avantures et voyage de M. Sâgean.”
In February, 1680, Hennepin, by La Salle’s orders, set out from Fort Crevecœur for the upper Mississippi. He ascended that river to the Sioux country, and discovered St. Anthony’s Falls. Hennepin’s first work, “Description de la Louisiane,” Paris, 1683, relates the events of this expedition, and also gives an account of La Salle’s journey from Canada to the Illinois in 1679–80. Shea gives in his “Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi” the portion of this work relating the voyage to the upper Mississippi. Hennepin’s works are held in disrepute, owing to undoubted plagiarisms and falsifications which characterize some of them. Shea, however, shows in the preface to his edition of the “Description of Louisiana,” New York, 1880, that this charge applies only to the “Nouvelle Découverte” and “Nouveau Voyage,” and other works made up from these two last, and that they were probably published without Hennepin’s sanction. Parkman agrees with Shea in considering the “Description de la Louisiane” to be an authentic work.
For criticisms upon Hennepin, see Sparks’ “La Salle;” Parkman’s “Discovery of the Great West;” Harrisse’s “Notes pour servir à l’Histoire [etc.] de la Nouvelle France,” p. 145; and the preface to Margry’s Découvertes, etc. Shea’s early judgment upon Hennepin, which he has modified as indicated above, is given in his “Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi.” E. D. Neill, in a pamphlet entitled “The Writings of L. Hennepin,” lately published by the Minnesota Historical Society, dissents from Shea’s exculpation of Hennepin, and declares that no evidence has been produced to clear him from the charge of plagiary.