“At the thirty-eighth degree of latitude they entered the river Illinois, and discovered a country without its parallel for the fertility of its beautiful prairies, covered with buffaloes and stags—for the loveliness of its rivulets and the prodigal abundance of wild ducks and swans, and of parrots and wild turkeys. The tribe of Illinois that tenanted its banks entreated Marquette to come and reside among them. One of their chiefs, with their young men, conducted the party, by way of Chicago, to Lake Michigan, and before the end of September all were safe in Green Bay.
“Joliet returned to Quebec to announce the discovery, of which the fame, through Talon, quickened the ambition of Colbert. The unaspiring Marquette remained to preach the gospel to the Miamis, who dwelt in the north of Illinois, round Chicago. Two years afterwards, sailing from Chicago to Mackinaw, he entered a little river in Michigan. Erecting an altar, he said mass according to the rites of the Catholic church, after which he begged the men who conducted his canoe to leave him alone for half an hour. At the end of that time they went to seek him, but he was no more. The good missionary had fallen asleep on the margin of the stream that bears his name. Near its mouth, the canoe-men dug his grave in the sand. Ever after, the forest rangers, if in danger on Lake Michigan, would invoke his name. The people of the West will build his monument.”
A modern traveller[[11]] remarks, with great truth and beauty, of the Mississippi, that the history of its discovery has two epochs, and each a romance, the one as different to the other as day and night—the one a sun-bright idyll, the other a gloomy tragedy. The first belongs to the northern district, the second to the southern; the former has for its hero the mild pastor, Father Marquette, the other the Spanish soldier, Ferdinand de Soto.
Joliet, returning from the West, stopped at Frontenac, now Kingston, an outpost on Lake Ontario, of which the young Robert Cavalier la Salle was governor. La Salle, himself of a bold and adventurous turn of mind, had occupied his solitary leisure in reading the voyages of Columbus and the adventures of De Soto, and a traveller such as Joliet would not fail of being welcome. Of a good family in France, and educated a Jesuit, though he had afterwards been absolved from his vows, he had come over to Canada in the year 1667, and enjoying the favour of Talon and Courcelles, had explored Lakes Ontario and Erie. In 1675—when, on the dissolution of the West India Company, New France had reverted to the crown, La Salle hastened to his native land and obtained from the monarch the grant of Fort Frontenac, on condition of maintaining the fortress. This grant gave him in fact the exclusive traffic with the Five Nations. La Salle’s settlement here occurred about the time of the war with King Philip in New England and Bacon’s rebellion in Virginia.
From Joliet, who was well entertained at Frontenac, La Salle heard of the discovery of the Mississippi; and at once conceiving vast plans for the colonisation of the south-west, he again hastened to France and obtained a royal commission for the perfecting the discovery of the Mississippi, together with the monopoly of the trade in buffalo hides. The purpose of this visit accomplished, La Salle lost no time in returning to America, provided with men and abundant stores, and accompanied by Chevalier Tonti, an Italian soldier, as his lieutenant. It was autumn when he returned; and before winter, he had built a wooden canoe of ten tons, the first that ever sailed into Niagara River, and thus conveyed part of his company to Tonawanta Creek, not far from the falls at the foot of Lake Erie, a spot which he had selected for the purpose, and here he commenced building a sailing-vessel of sixty tons burden, which he called “The Griffin.” While the ship was building, a trading house was established at Niagara, where La Salle collected furs from the Indian traders; and Tonti and the Franciscan Father Hennepin, who was attached to the enterprise, ventured among the Senecas, with whom they formed amicable relationships.
On August 7th, 1679, amid a salvo of cannon, the chanting of the Te Deum, and the astonishment of the assembled Indians, “The Griffin” was launched, the first civilised vessel that ever ploughed the waters of Lake Erie. She bore La Salle, Tonti, and Hennepin, besides sailors, boatmen, hunters and soldiers, amounting in all to sixty persons.
Leaving Lake Erie, they entered the strait “Detroit,” at the head of the lake, and passing through a little lake which they called St. Clair, entered Lake Huron by a second strait, and navigating that inland sea, reached Lake Michigan by the Straits of Mackinaw, where La Salle planted a colony, and thence, after a voyage of twenty days, to Green Bay, thus being the first to traverse that which is now a great highway of commerce. From this point, after despatching his vessel back to Niagara, with a valuable cargo of furs, ordering her to return immediately to the head of Lake Michigan with provisions and supplies, he and his company repaired in birch-bark canoes to the appointed place of rendezvous, stopping by the way at the mouth of the St. Joseph, then called the Miami, where Allouez had already established a Jesuit mission, and here they built a fort called the Post of the Miamis.
Of the Griffin came no tidings; and weary of waiting, La Salle resolved to employ himself in exploring the Illinois. Ten men were left to guard the fort, and La Salle, Hennepin, and the rest, it now being the depth of winter, penetrated to the banks of Lake Peoria, where was an Indian village. Four days’ journey below Lake Peoria, they built a second fort, which, as expressive of their disappointment in receiving no tidings of the Griffin, and the general depression, was called Crevecœur.
The circumstances of La Salle “were such as either to sink the spirit into despair, or to call forth untried energy and courage, according to the character of the soul; La Salle’s was of the heroic class. He resolved therefore, now that no tidings could be expected of the Griffin, which in fact had perished with all its valuable cargo of furs, to proceed himself alone, to hasten or obtain the necessary supplies, to Fort Frontenac; having first however, despatched Hennepin to explore the Upper Mississippi, in a canoe which his courage and example had inspired his men to build.
In the month of March, with his gun and powder and shot, a blanket, and two skins to cut into moccassins, La Salle, with only three attendants, set off on foot, Tonti remaining at the Illinois fort with the main body.