Old Mackinaw; Or, The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings

by W. P. Strickland

The Indians of Mackinaw and vicinity, and also those of Kaskaskia, were in great sorrow when the tidings of Marquette's death reached them. Not long after this melancholy event, a large company of Ojibwas, Ottawas, and Hurons, who had been out on a hunting expedition, landed their canoes at the mouth of the Marquette river, with the intention of removing his remains to Mackinaw. They had heard of his desire to have his body interred in the consecrated ground of St. Ignatius, and they had resolved that the dying wish of the missionary should be fulfilled. As they stood around in silence and gazed upon the cross that marked the place of his burial, the hearts of the stern warriors were moved. The bones of the missionary were dug up and placed in a neat box of bark made for the occasion, and the numerous canoes which formed a large fleet started from the mouth of the river with nothing but the sighs of the Indians, and the dip of the paddles to break the silence of the scene. As they advanced towards Mackinaw, the funeral cortege was met by a large number of canoes bearing Ottawas, Hurons, and Iroquois, and still others shot out ever and anon to join the fleet.

When they arrived in sight of the Point, and beheld the cross of St. Ignatius as if painted against the northern sky, the missionaries in charge came out to the beach clad in vestments adapted to the occasion. How was the scene heightened when the priests commenced, as the canoe bearing the remains of Marquette neared the shore, to chant the requiem for the dead. The whole population was out, entirely covering the beach, and as the procession marched up to the Chapel with cross and prayer, and tapers burning, and laid the bark box beneath a pall made in the form of a coffin, the sons and daughters of the forest wept. After the funeral service was ended, the coffin was placed in a vault in the middle of the church, where the Catholic historian says, "Marquette reposes as the guardian angel of the Ottawa missions."

"He was the first and last white man who ever had such an assembly of the wild sons of the forest to attend him to his grave.

"So many stirring events succeeded each other after this period—first, the war between the English Colonists, and the French; then the Colonists with the Indians, the Revolutionary War, the Indian Wars, and finally the War of 1812, with the death of all those who witnessed his burial, including the Fathers who officiated at the time, whose papers were lost, together with the total destruction and evacuation of this mission station for many years, naturally obliterated all recollections of the transaction, which accounts for the total ignorance of the present inhabitants of Point St. Ignatius respecting it. The locality of his grave is lost; but only until the Archangel's trump, at the last, shall summon him from his narrow grave, with those plumed and painted warriors who now lie around him."

The Missionaries who succeeded Marquette, at Mackinaw, continued their labors until 1706, when, finding it useless to continue the mission, or struggle any longer with superstition and vice, they burned down their College and Chapel, and returned to Quebec. The governor, alarmed at this step, at last promised to enforce the laws against the dissolute French, and prevailed on Father Marest to return. Soon after the Ottawas, discontented at Detroit, a French post, which was served by the Recollects, and where the blood of a Recollect had been shed in a riot, began to move back to Mackinaw, and the mission was renewed. In 1721, Charlevoix visited this mission, and this is the last we hear of it.

Nearly two hundred years have passed away since that event. The Chapel of St. Ignatius has passed away, and with it the Chapel, and Fort, and College at Old Mackinaw. Nothing is left but the stone walls and stumps of the pickets which surrounded them, and which may be seen to this day. To the Catholic, this consecrated spot, the site of one of their first Chapels, and their first College in the great northwest, must possess unusual interest. As there is a difference of opinion in relation to the burial place of Marquette, whether it was on the north or south side of the Straits, we give the following from "Schoolcraft's Discovery of the Sources of the Mississippi." He says: "They carried his body to the Mission of Old Mackinaw, of which he was the founder, where it was interred. It is known that the Mission of Mackinaw fell on the downfall of the Jesuits. When the post of Mackinaw was removed from the peninsula to the island, which was about 1780, the bones of the Missionary were transferred to the old Catholic burial ground, in the village on the island. There they remained till a land or property question arose to agitate the Church, and when the crisis happened the whole grave-yard was disturbed, and his bones, with others, were transferred to the Indian village of La Crosse, which is in the vicinity of L'Arbre Croche, Michigan."

There is a difference of opinion also as to the point from whence Marquette and his companions started for the discovery of the Mississippi. Schoolcraft says: "Wherever Missilimackinac is mentioned in the Missionary letters, or in the history of this period, it is the ancient Fort on the apex of the Michigan peninsula that is alluded to." In his Introduction to the above work, he says, that "Father Marquette, after laying the foundation of Missilimackinac, proceeded in company with Sieur Joliet, up the Fox River of Green Bay, and crossing the portage into the Wisconsin, entered the Mississippi in 1673."

It is an established fact, that Marquette organized the Mission at Old Mackinaw, in the year 1671, subsequently to that at the opposite point, and that he remained there until the year 1673, when he embarked with Joliet on his exploring tour of the Mississippi. Charlevoix places the Mission of St. Ignace, on the south side of the Straits, adjoining the Fort, and has made no such designation on the north side, showing at least that this mission was more modern than the other. Nearly all the Jesuit Missions bore the name of St. Ignatius, in honor of their founder, as those of the Franciscans bore the name of St. Francis. Ignatius Loyola and Francis Xavier were the founders of these sects.[(Back to Content)]

CHAPTER IV.

La Salle's visit to Mackinaw — English traders — La Hontan's visit — Mackinaw an English fort — Speech of a Chippewa Chief — Indian stratagem — Massacre of the English at the fort — Escape of Mr. Alexander Henry — Early white settlement of Mackinaw — Present description — Relations of the Jesuits — Remarkable phenomena — Parhelia — Subterranean river.