It is clear from this account that "Etpikagwa" was a point on the lake not more than fifteen miles north of Chicago; that here the party landed early on October 21, and the priests, leaving the boatmen behind, went by land to Pinet's house. Grover says that this shows the mission was not on the lake shore, and that they went inland to reach it; and he further assumes that they proceeded but a short distance. In fact, it shows neither of these things, and since three days elapsed before the canoes were sent for, there is nothing in the account inconsistent with the supposition that the priests proceeded a distance of fifteen miles down the lake shore in coming to the mission.
On the contrary, the account directly supports this supposition. If the mission was inland near the Skokie marsh, as Grover supposes, they could hardly have had the canoes brought to it on the twenty-fourth. The supposition that it was located at the modern Chicago is strengthened by St. Cosme's account of the departure from Chicago. Having sent for the canoes on the twenty-fourth, the party started from Chicago on the twenty-ninth and camped for the night two leagues up the river at the beginning of the portage. They had been staying with Father Pinet, and Father Pinet was at "Chikagwa." Now they depart from "Chikagwa," and two leagues away, "where the little river loses itself in the prairies," and at the commencement of the portage they camp. Pinet's mission was, then, apparently, near the mouth of the Chicago River. Reverting to the description already given of it as "on the bank of the little river, having on one side the lake, and on the other a fine large prairie," we find nothing to conflict with this conclusion.
Finally, St. Cosme records that having made half of the portage they were delayed by the discovery that a little boy, who had joined the party, had wandered off. St. Cosme with four of the men turned back next day to look for him. Their quest was unsuccessful, and the next day being All Saints', St. Cosme was obliged to go and pass the night at Chicago. Mass having been said early, the following day was devoted to the search. Evidently the Chicago here referred to was not, as Grover supposes, located on the North Shore fifteen miles above the mouth of the river. On the contrary, it must have been within a reasonable distance of the portage where the boy was lost. From every point of view the study of St. Cosme's letter leads to the conclusion that the mission of the Guardian Angel was on the Chicago River at some point between the forks and the mouth.
The members of St. Cosme's party proceeded on their way, having left a man at Chicago in charge of some of their supplies, and without having found the lost boy. After spending the winter among the tribes along the lower Mississippi, the party retraced its steps northward.[75] St. Cosme remained among the Tamaroas at Cahokia, while his companions continued on their way to Chicago, where they arrived on "maundy Thursday." One of them records that the boy who had been lost made his way to Chicago after thirteen days, utterly exhausted and "out of his head." In the spring of 1700 Father Pinet abandoned his mission at Chicago and joined St. Cosme at Cahokia, where he died a few years later.[76] Therewith Chicago ceased to be a place of residence for white men for almost a century. Owing to causes which will be set forth in the following chapter, the frequent visits made by the French in the seventeenth century ceased, and the story of Chicago during the first half of the eighteenth century concerns itself almost wholly with the terrible Indian wars which desolated the Northwest during this period.
[75] On the travels and experiences of the missionaries see their letters in Shea, Early Voyages Up and Down the Mississippi.
[76] Citations from the Jesuit Relations in Grover, Pinet, 162-64. The date of Pinet's death is variously given as 1702 and 1704.
Much has been said and written on the subject of a fort at Chicago in the French period. In the Treaty of Greenville of 1795 one of the cessions which General Wayne extorted from the tribes was a tract of land six miles square at the mouth of the Chicago River "where a fort formerly stood."[77] Since the English never had a fort at Chicago, the allusion is obviously to one belonging to the French. Thomas Hutchins, the first and only civil "geographer of the United States,"[78] who himself had traveled extensively in the Northwest, placed an "Indian Village and Fort" at the entrance of the Chicago River on the map which accompanied his famous Topographical Description of 1778. Many earlier maps might be cited to show the existence of a fort at Chicago in the French period.[79] Coming to secondary accounts, most of the local histories which treat of early Chicago with any degree of fullness credit the French fort tradition.[80] Mr. Edward G. Mason, a zealous worker in the field of Illinois history, even thought there was a fort at Chicago from 1685 until the end of French control in this region.[81]
[77] American State Papers, Indian Affairs, I, 562.
[78] Hutchins, Topographical Description of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and North Carolina, 7.
[79] E.g., Hennepin, Nouvelle découverte d'un tres grand pays situé dans l'Amérique, Utrecht, 1697, I, (facing) I. This map was frequently copied by others in the years following its first appearance. Jean Baptiste Homann's map of North and South America (copy in Chicago Historical Society library), of unknown date, but probably about the year 1700; Bellin, Carte de l'Amérique septentrionale, 1755; Jean Roque's map of North America, 1754-61.