Heroes of the Middle West: The French

by Mary Hartwell Catherwood

A long peninsula betwixt the Mississippi and Kaskaskia Rivers, known since as the American Bottom, lured away Indians from the great town on the Illinois. The new settlement founded on this peninsula was called Kaskaskia, for one of the tribes. As other posts sprung into existence, Fort St. Louis was less needed. "As early as 1712," we are told, "land titles were issued for a common field in Kaskaskia. Traders had already opened a commerce in skins and furs with the remote post of Isle Dauphine in Mobile Bay." Settlements were firmly established. By 1720 the luxuries of Europe came into the great tract taken by La Salle in the name of King Louis and called Louisiana.

Twelve years after La Salle's death a missionary named St. Cosme (Sant' Come) journeyed from Canada in a party guided by Tonty. St. Cosme has left this record of the man with the copper hand:—

"He guided us as far as the Arkansas and gave us much pleasure on the way, winning friendship of some savages and intimidating others who from jealousy or desire to plunder opposed the voyage; not only doing the duty of a brave man but that of a missionary. He quieted the voyageurs, by whom he was generally loved, and supported us by his example in devotion."

On the Chicago portage a little boy, given to the missionary perhaps because he was an orphan and the western country offered him the best chances in life, started eagerly ahead, though he was told to wait. The rest of the party, having goods and canoes to carry from the Chicago River to the Desplaines, lost sight of him, and he was never seen again. Autumn grass grew tall over the marshy portage, but they dared not set it afire, though his fate was doubtless hidden in that grass. The party divided and searched for him, calling and firing guns. Three days they searched, and daring to wait no longer, for it was November and the river ready to glaze with ice, they left him to some French people at the post of Chicago. But the child was not found. He disappeared and no one ever knew what became of him.

Like this is Henri de Tonty's disappearance from history. The records show him working with Le Moyne D'Iberville and Le Moyne de Bienville to found New Orleans and Mobile, pushing the enterprises which La Salle had begun. He has been blamed with the misbehavior of a relative of his, Alphonse de Tonty, who got into disgrace at the post of Detroit. Little justice has been done to the memory of this man, who should not be forgotten in the west. So quietly did he slip out of life that his burial place is unknown. Some people believe that he came back to the Rock long after its buildings were dismantled and it had ceased to be Fort St. Louis of the Illinois. Others say he died in Mobile. But it is probable that both La Salle and Tonty left their bodies to the wilderness which their invincible spirits had conquered.

After the settlement of Kaskaskia a strong fortress was built sixteen miles above, on the same side of the Mississippi. The king of France spent a million crowns strengthening this place, which was called Fort Chartres. Its massive walls, inclosing four acres, and its buildings and arched gateway were like some medieval stronghold strangely transplanted from the Old World. White uniformed troops paraded. A village sprang up around it. Fort Chartres was the center of government until Kaskaskia became the first capital of the Illinois territory. Applications for land had to be made at this post. Indians on the Mississippi, for it was a little distance from the shore, heard drumbeat and sunset gun, and were proud of going in and out of its mighty gateway under the white flag of France.

Other villages began on the eastern bank of the river—Cahokia, opposite the present city of St. Louis, and Prairie du Rocher, nearer Kaskaskia. Ste. Genevieve also was built in what is now the state of Missouri, on land which then was claimed by the Spaniards. There was a Post of Natchitoches on the Red River, as well as a Post of Washita on the Washita River. Settlements were also founded upon La Fourche and Fausse Rivière above New Orleans.

"The finest country we have seen," wrote one of the adventurers in those days, "is all from Chicago to the Tamaroas. It is nothing but prairie and clumps of wood as far as you can see. The Tamaroas are eight leagues from the Illinois." Chicago was a landing place and portage from the great lakes long before a stockade with a blockhouse was built called Fort Dearborn.

"Monjolly," wrote the same adventurer, "or Mount Jolliet, is a mound of earth on the prairie on the right side of the Illinois River as you go down, elevated about thirty feet. The Indians say at the time of the great deluge one of their ancestors escaped, and this little mountain is his canoe which he turned over there."