[70] [Cf. Breese, Early History of Illinois, and Vol. IV., p. 198.—Ed.]
[71] “The minute of the surrender of Fort Chartres to M. Sterling, appointed by M. de Gage, governor of New York, commander of His Britannic Majesty’s troops in North America, is preserved in the French Archives at Paris. The fort is carefully described in it as having an arched gateway fifteen feet high; a cut stone platform above the gate, and a stair of nineteen stone steps, with a stone balustrade, leading to it; its walls of stone eighteen feet in height, and its four bastions, each with forty-eight loop-holes, eight embrasures, and a sentry-box; the whole in cut stone. And within was the great storehouse, ninety feet long by thirty wide, two stories high, and gable-roofed; the guard-house, having two rooms above for the chapel and missionary quarters; the government house, eighty-four by thirty-two feet, with iron gates and a stone porch, a coach-house and pigeon-house adjoining, and a large stone well inside; the intendant’s house, of stone and iron, with a portico; the two rows of barracks, each one hundred and twenty-eight feet long; the magazine thirty-five feet wide and thirty-eight feet long, and thirteen feet high above the ground, with a door-way of cut stone, and two doors, one of wood and one of iron; the bake-house, with two ovens and a stone well in front; the prison, with four cells of cut stone, and iron doors; and one large relief gate to the north; the whole enclosing an area of more than four acres.”—Illinois in the Eighteenth Century, by Edward G. Mason, being No. 12 of the Fergus Historical Series, p. 39.
[72] [See map, Vol. IV. p. 200.—Ed.]
[73] Lettres édifiantes et curieuses (Paris, 1758), xxviii. 59. Father Vivier says that five French villages situated in a long prairie, bounded at the east by a chain of mountains and by the River Tamaroa, and west by the Mississippi, comprised together one hundred and forty families. These villages were (Bossu, seconde édition, Paris, 1768, i. 145, note) Kaskaskia, Fort Chartres, St. Philippe, Kaokia, and Prairie du Rocher. There were other posts on the lines of travel, but the bulk of the agricultural population was here. The picture of their life given by Breese is interesting.
Vincennes is said by some authorities to have been founded as early as 1702. See Bancroft (New York, 1883), ii. 186; also A Geographical Description of the United States by John Melish. C. F. Volney, the author of Tableau du climat et du sol des États-Unis d’Amérique (Paris, 1803), was himself at Poste Vincennes in 1796. He says (p. 401): “I wished to know the date of the foundation and early history of Poste Vincennes; but spite of the authority and credit that some attribute to tradition, I could scarcely get any exact notes about the war of 1757, notwithstanding there were old men who dated back prior to that time. It is only by estimate that I place its origin about 1735.” In Annals of the West, compiled by James R. Albach, the authorities for the various dates are given. The post figures in some of the maps about the middle of the century.
[74] “We receive from the Illinois,” he says, “flour, corn, bacon, hams both of bear and hog, corned pork and wild beef, myrtle and bees-wax, cotton, tallow, leather, tobacco, lead, copper, buffalo-wool, venison, poultry, bear’s grease, oil, skins, fowls, and hides” (Martin’s History of Louisiana, i. 316).
[75] Pownall in his Administration of the Colonies (2d ed., London, 1765, appendix, section 1, p. 24) gives a sketch of the condition of the colonies, derived mainly from Vaudreuil’s correspondence. He says that Vaudreuil (May 15, 1751) thought that Kaskaskia was the principal post, but that Macarty, who was on the spot (Jan. 20, 1752), thought the environs of Chartres a far better situation to place this post in, provided there were more inhabitants. “He visited Fort Chartres, found it very good,—only wanting a few repairs,—and thinks it ought to be kept up.”
[76] Fort Chartres is stated by Mr. Edward G. Mason, in Illinois in the Eighteenth Century (Fergus Historical Series, no. 12, p. 25), to be sixteen miles above Kaskaskia. In the Journal historique, etc. (Paris and New Orleans, 1831), p. 221, the original establishment of Boisbriant is stated to have been “eight leagues below Kaskaskia,” and (p. 243) it is stated that it was transferred “nine leagues below” the village. French, in his Louisiana Historical Collections, published a translation of a manuscript copy of the Journal historique which is deposited in Philadelphia. His translation reads that the transfer was made to a point “nine leagues above Kaskaskia.” Martin, who worked from still another copy of the Journal historique, states that the establishment was transferred to a point twenty-five miles above Kaskaskia. The “au dessous” (p. 243 of Journal historique, or, as ordinarily cited, “La Harpe”) was probably a typographical error.
[77] This ground was partly prospected by Dutisné, who, Nov. 22, 1719, wrote to Bienville an account of an expedition to the Missouris by river and to the Osages and Paniouassas by land. Bournion, whose appointment was made, according to Dumont, in 1720, went up the river to the Canzes, and thence to the Padoucahs in 1724. Le Page du Pratz gives an account of the expedition. The name of this officer is variously given as Bournion in the Journal historique, Bourgmont by Le Page du Pratz, Bourmont by Bossu, and Boismont by Martin.
[78] Neyon de Villiers.