(Judge B.O. Jones)
"Behind the Squaw's light birch canoe
A human sea now waves,
And city lots are staked for sale
Beside old Indian graves."
Pages 10-29
In the reign of Francis I. of France, the French navigators began to interest themselves in the New World. Juan Verrazano, a Florentine, sailed from France in 1524, and sighted land in the latitude of North Carolina. He sailed south some distance and then, turning north, explored the eastern coast of the continent for 600 leagues, and named it New France, in honor of his royal patron.
Ten years afterwards, Jaques Cartier, a bold navigator of Brittany, sailed from St. Malo, 1534, reached the eastern shore of Newfoundland, and sailed nearly around that island. He discovered and named the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and entered the Bay of Chaleurs.
This was the beginning of the French occupancy of North America. The discoveries made by Cartier and companions turned the attention of France to the valley of the St. Lawrence and its capabilities, and established her claim to the country according to the equities then prevailing among the maritime powers of the old world.
Samuel de Chaplain was a prominent figure among the early list of navigators and explorers who left their impress upon the New World. July 3, 1608, he landed a company of adventurers at Quebec, and explored the country which he called New France. In 1615, he brought from France three priests and a lay brother of the order of Recollect-the first of priestly orders that set foot in the New World.
The French gradually extended their occupation throughout the country now known as Canada, and to the Northern lakes and the head waters of the Mississippi river.
By the treaty of Utrecht of April 11, 1713, France restored to England Hudson’s Bay, ceded Newfoundland and a large portion of Acadia, and renounced all claims to the country of the Iroquois, reserving to herself the valleys of the St. Lawrence and Mississippi and the region of the upper lakes.
De Soto was the first white man to view the Mississippi river, 1541. He crossed the river at a point a short distance below the present city of Memphis, continued his explorations until June 5th, 1542, when he died, and was buried in the “great river” at a point below the mouth of the Arkansas. His three hundred followers were scattered, many disappeared, others appeared in Mexico, while tradition states that one band found a temporary resting place on the banks of the Ohio river, just above the ruins of old Fort Massac. Spanish relics have been found around a ruin, that tradition still marks as a temporary fort, used by De Soto’s men to protect themselves from the Indians.
One hundred years after De Soto’s discovery of the “Great River” the first Canadian envoys met the Indians of the northwest at the Falls of St. Mary, but it was not until nineteen years afterwards that the first mission was established in that region. Menard, who founded this first mission, perished in the woods a few months afterwards, and in 1665, Father Claude Allonez built the earliest of the permanent habitations of white men among the Indians of the Northwest. In 1668, Claude Dablon and James Marquette founded the mission at St. Mary’s Falls; in 1670, Nicholas Perrot, explored Lake Michigan as far as Chicago; in 1671, formal possession of the Northwest was taken by the French officers in the presence of the surrounding tribes of Indians. Marquette, by this time had gathered a little flock of listeners around him at Point St. Ignatius, on the mainland, north of the island of Mackinac. He had heard of the “Great River” of the west, and of the untutored tribes of men who lived along its banks, and he wished to go and seek them out and preach to them. His heart was filled with joy when he received permission from Talon to carry out this great desire. As companions, Talon sent to him from Quebec, Monsieur Joliet and five boatmen. Upon the 13th of May, 1637, this little band of seven Frenchmen left Michillimacinac in two bark canoes, lightly laden with stores, to tempt the unknown and go, they knew, not whither. They finally reached, though the aid of friendly Indians, the Wisconsin river, and floated down its sand barred stream, past vineclad isles and pleasant slopes, bordered with alternate groves and meadowns, until the 17th day of June, 1673, when they entered the Mississippi river, as Marquette writes, “with joy, that I cannot express.”
They beheld deer and buffaloes, and great fish, one of which came near wrecking their canoe; the swan, and birds of many kinds and hues; but no men. On the 21st of June, they observed footprints of men along the western bank of the river, and a little path leading into a pleasant meadow. Leaving their canoes, Joliet and Marquette boldly advanced upon this path, and soon came to an Indian village, where they were well received by four old men, who presented them the pipe of peace, and told them, that this was village of the “Illinois.” They were feasted on fish, dog and buffalo, spent a pleasant night among the true and genuine native Illinoisans, and next morning were escorted to their canoes by six hundred people.
The Indians warned them, before they departed, of a terrible demon in the river further down, who would devour them, but they made their escape, and duly passed his lair without accident. This demon was a pillar of rocks, now known as Grand Tower, in Jackson county, Illinois. They reached the Onaboskigon, or Ohio, an important stream which failed to impress Marquette with its immensity, and finally reached the mouth of the Arkansas, (Akamscas.) Here they had trouble with the Indians, but “God touched their hearts,” says the pious Marquette, and they were allowed to proceed to the village of Akamscas, where they were received and feasted bountifully on dog meat and other luxuries. Here we must leave Pierre Marquette, or rather, after stating that he returned to the Illinois, and on the 18th of May, 1675, died, alone in the sublime wilderness, on the shores of Lake Michigan, near the mouth of the Marquette-a river named in his honor.
The next great French explorers are Robert de La Salle and Louis Hennepin, whose names we may read on the map of Illinois. To La Salle belongs the honor of discovering the Ohio river. Marquette had heard of the Hohio, but died before he could visit it. About the fall and winter of 1669-70, La Salle entered the Allegheny river, following its course in his frail boat, passed down the Ohio as far as the Falls at Louisville and according to the authority of Pierre Margery, a recent French writer, descended to the Mississippi. This is doubted by some. It is well known, however, that he was the discoverer of the Ohio river, and the pioneer of Illinois history. He and his boon companion, Chevalier Tonti, and Italian, continued their explorations together, and , finally, landed at the mouth of the Mississippi river. On the 9th of April, 1682, with great formality they took possession of that river and all its tributaries, and the country drained by all of them in the name of the great Louis XIX, King of France and Navarre, and named the country Louisiana in honor of that monarch. La Salle lost his life by the treachery of some of his men, on the 20th of March, 1687, while engaged in a final expedition to reach the Illinois country, and establish a colony there. He had already located and completed Fort St. Louis, on the Illinois river, near the present site of Utica, La Salle county, Illinois, during the winter of 1682-3.
Before this, Marquette, in 1673, had visited a village of Peoria Indians, and, also, a village of Kachkaskias, further up, on the Illinois river, and La Salle, in March 1680, had built Fort Creve Coeur-or the Fort of the Broken Heart, long thought to have been named by La Salle, from depression of spirits, the results of difficulties thrown in his way by the Canadian authorities, preventing him from the free pursuit of his long cherished plans of discovery.
It may be well to mention that Marquette, the pious, died preaching the gospel to the Indians on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, May 18, 1675.
We have now traced the salient points in the discovery of the northern lakes, rivers St. Lawrence, Mississippi, Ohio and Illinois, and embracing a greater portion of that territory drained by them. Especial reference is made to what was known as the “territory of Illinois” long subject to the French in Canada.
The French continued to occupy Fort St. Louis on the Illinois river, until 1690-1, when the Count de Ponchertrain, French minister of the colonies, disbanded the garrison, which returned to Canada. The fort was not again occupied as a military post, but became a fur trading station until suppressed by a royal decree of the King of France in 1699; but a provision was made in favor of Henri de Tonti and La Forrest, his lieutenant, but in 1702, a provincial order was made from the Commandant at Quebec, ordering La Forrest to remove to Canada, and Tonti on the Mississippi, and the establishment at Fort St. Louis was permanently discontinued. This was the last of the chivalrous Tonti in Illinois. He disappeared from history somewhere in lower Louisiana. In 1718, the fort was temporarily occupied by some French traders, but in 1721, when Charlevoix passed by, he only found the remains of its palisades and rude buildings.
The foundation of Kaskaskkia, the oldest town founded by white men in the state, has been variously ascribed to members of La Salle’s party on returning from the mouth of the Mississippi in 1682; to Father Jaques Gravier, about 1685; to Henri de Tonti in 1686, and to others at different dates. It is probable that numbers of these parties visited the location- they certainly passed near it, but the antiquarian, in his search after the archaic, frequently draws strongly on his imagination, as to the proper date of the founding of Kaskaskia. Father Marquette, in 1673, when on his voyage of discovery down the Mississippi, stopped at a village of Kaskaskias, on the Upper Illinois river, and, at their request, returned thither in 1675, founding a mission among them, called “the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin.” Father Claude Allonez was appointed to succeed him, after Marquette’s death, by the Superior General of the Jesuits, at Quebec. He called this village Kachkachkia, but as the C in French nearly always has the sound of S, the name has been by later writers, spelled according to it orthoepy. Father Allonez clung to this Illinois mission until he died in 1690, and was successed by Sebastian Rasles in 1692, the latter remaining in charge until 1693, when he was recalled to his former station, among the Abenakis, on the Kennebec river, in Maine. Father Jaques Gravier received this mission from Rasles and remained until 1697 when he was recalled to Mackinac. Gravier was succeeded in 1697 by Father Julian Binneteau and Jaques or (Franceis) Pinet. In December, 1699, Binneteau, while with the Indians on their annual hunt, died of fever, and his remains were left to bleach along the track of the buffalo.
In 1698, Gabriel Marest, and it was under his guidance, in the year 1700, that the mission to the Kaskaskias was removed from the Illinois river to the Mississippi. The intention was to journey to the French establishment, founded by D’Iberville on the lower Mississippi. The Indians with Marest, who was sick, halted between the Kaskaskis and Mississippi rivers, and thus, doubtless, providence, through the sickness of Marest, laid the foundation of the permanent settlement of Kaskaskia, and the future greatness of Illinois and the Northwest. But for this settlement George Roger Clark would never have undertaken (1778) his expedition to the Illinois, and the whole Northwest, not being in occupancy of the colonial forces, as was the case with Canada, would have been set off to England at the Treaty of Peace after the Revolutionary War. Father Marest remained at his new mission, and was buried there. To him and James Gravier should be the honor of founding Kaskaskia, in the fall of the year 1700, styled by them “Le Village d’ Immaculee Conception de Cascasquias.”
In 1707, Father Marest was joined at Kaskaskia by Father Jean Mermet, who had, undoubtedly before that time, founded a mission at what is now old Fort Massac, under the name of Assumption. This was the same year that Kaskaskia was founded by Fathers Marest and Gravier. At this point the locality of Massac begins to assume a clearer outline, under the light of history. Hitherto it has been the purpose of the writer to give the outlines of the advents of the white settler into the state of Illinois. This history has been brought down to the year 1700. Louis XIV-LeGrande Monarque-ruled in France, and claimed vast possessions in America-claims which were wrested from France, at a later period in the history of the Illinois country, a name of French derivation-“Illini,” the name of the Indians that inhabited this section with the French affix, “ois,” meaning the people or country of the Illini.
The Wabash river had at an early day, attracted the attention of the adventurous pioneers of the wilderness. The head waters of this stream, called by the French Ouabache, on account of their contiguity to the Great northern lakes and the French possessions in Canada, furnished an accessible passage into the interior, the southwest, which was not neglected by the explorers, who risked their lives freely for the sake of marking new discoveries.
As early as 1719, De Vincennes established or aided in establishing on the Wabash, the post named for him and Fort Ouatanon, higher up the river, had also been established by the French. There is a claim that these settlements bear a more ancient date, but, in view of the fact that the record bearing on the Wabash settlements must include the lower Ohio river to its mouth, which bore, also, the name of Wabash, it is probable that the mission, called Assumption, at the present site of “Old Fort Massac” has been credited by historians as having been at the present Vincennes.
It is stated by Dillon, in his history of Indiana, that the Jucherau, a Canadian officer, assisted by the Jesuit Missionary, Mermet, before the close of the 1702, made an attempt to establish a post on the Ohio, near the mouth of that river, and some have erroneously claimed that his post was established at Vincennes. La Harpe, and after him, Charlevoix, fix the position of the post at, or near, the mouth of the Ohio (Ouabache), which discharges itself into the Mississippi river. But other authorities, notably, Dr. John G. Shea, in his Jesuit Missions in America, give us such detail as lead to the conclusion that this post was founded by Jucherau at the present site of “Fort Massac”, as a trading post, and that Mermet, his Jesuit associate, also established along with the post, a branch mission which he called “Assumption,” from which he taught or instructed the Southern Indians, living on the Cherokee (Tennessee) and Shawnee (Cumberland) rivers. In the early maps these rivers – last named – are dotted along with the sites of Indian villages, especially Cherokee, Choctaws, and Chickasaws. The post at Massac was a coigne of vantage, easily accessible by three great waterways and their tributaries to the very persons they desired to trade with and bring over to the Catholic Christian faith.
It may be interesting, at this point, to mention the different names by which, in those early days, the Ohio river was known; and the reader will no doubt, pardon the digression from the main subject. First we have the modern name, Ohio, then the French name La Belle Reviere, followed by the Indian names (Ohio is really an Indian word), Allegheny, Olighisipon, Ohiopehen, Ohiophaune, Ohiopeckhaune, meaning the beautiful river, very white stream, the very deep white river, the shining river, the white shining river, and the deep broken shining river. This river, so famous since the dawn of its history, drains through its northern and southern affluents 190,464 square miles of territory.
This post and mission, founded by Juchereau and Father Mermet, on the Ouabache (Ohio) was undoubtedly at the present site of old Fort Massac. The neighboring Indians (Mascoutins) soon gathered about this post for the purpose of exchanging their furs and peltry for such goods as the French traders had to offer, including iron tomahawks, knives, and axes, thus arming the savages, but, no doubt unintentionally, for the future butcheries of the white settlers and of each other, Juchereau, it appears, did a more prosperous business than Father Mermet, and it is sad to relate that the Indians about this location were incorrigible, and failed to respond to the zealous and well meant instructions of the pious Father.
It seems that Southern Illinois, or the territory now known by that name, was a happy hunting ground for the Indians; especially was it prolific in buffaloes, and their peltry furnished the most important article of barter in the extensive transactions between the Indians and the French traders.
La Harpe and Charleviox tell us that the French in 1700, establishing a trading post, near the mouth of the Ohio, on the site of Fort Massac, in Massac county, Illinois, for the purpose of securing buffalo hides. The neighboring Mascoutins were not long in finding this out, and an active trade soon began, which gathered other Indians from a greater distance, who sought the trading post for the purpose of barter. This collection of Indians could not escape the vigilance of the ever active Jesuit Father Mermet, who saw in it that special providence that permits not the fall of a sparrow unnoticed. The French traders desired their priest, and invited Father Mermet to visit the place and engage in mission work, which he readily did, it being in every way suited to his views, and in accord with his purposes and desires in visiting the wilds of North America and enduring the hardships of the wilderness. This co-operative union of the mission with the trading post endured only for four or five years, or until about 1705, when it was broken up on account of a quarrel among the Indians themselves, in which, unfortunately, the French in trying to keep the peace, became involved to the extent that their lives were endangered, and they fled for safety, leaving behind all their stores of trade and barter, together with thirteen thousand buffalo hides which they had collected for shipment to Canada and from thence to France.
This mission and trading post, brought to such a disastrous termination in the manner described, was coeval with the mission and village of the Immaculate Conception at Kaskaskia, of which Fathers Marest and Gravier were the founders, Father Mermet followed, Juchereau down the Wabash to Massac, remained here, as above shown, until forced to leave, when he repaired to Kaskaskia and joined Father Marest, about 1707. It must be borne in mind that Massac – the modern name is used to avoid tautology – was a trading post for about two years before it was a mission; so it was in 1707 that Mermet retired from Massac to Kaskaskia.
It thus appears as a matter of history that the first religious discourse ever preached on the Ohio river was preached at old Fort Massac, about 1702, or one hundred and ninety seven years ago, by the learned Mermet, and, he being the first preacher of any Christian church who discoursed the Gospel of Christ in this part of the present state of Illinois, it is natural that the reader should desire to know more about him. History informs us, that “in 1701, Father Marest was joined at Kaskaskia by Father Jean Mermet, who had previously attempted a mission among the Mascoutins of the lower Ohio (Massac) and had also labored at the great village of the Illinois (Peoria).” Mr. Bancroft, the historian, gives us the following in regard to this, the first of the pioneers of Massac county. “The gentle virtues and fervid eloquence of Mermet made him the soul of the Mission of Kaskaskia.” (This was after he had been forced to retire from Massac.)
Father Mermet continued to labor at Kaskaskia until his death until 1718, and his remains now rest with the forefathers of that historic village.
There has been some dispute as to the location of this trading post and mission at Massac; owing to the confusion
caused by the early French writers calling the lower Ohio river – from the mouth of Wabash to the Mississippi,
the Wabash. They knew nothing of the upper Ohio, and gave to that part of this river with which they were
acquainted – the lower Ohio – the name of their favorite stream, the Wabash. Charlevoix says that the mission
and trading post was “at the mouth of the Wabash which discharges itself into the Mississippi.” Le Harpe
and LeSueur, from personal knowledge tell us that a mission was formed among the Mascoutins on the lower Ohio (Massac)
near the mouth of the Ohio. The latter gives an account of its origin, and the former narrates an account
of its trade and final abandonment. Thus it will be seen by even the cursory student of history that the
first white men to visit this region were French.
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Transcribed by Debbie Woolard
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