(Judge B.O. Jones)
The settlements in Illinois, of which the settlement at Massac was a part, were prosperous. The French settlers imbibed a love of the chase from the friendly Illinois Indians, and, in turn, taught the Indians how to cultivate wheat and make flour bread.
As early as 1712, the French began to intermarry with the friendly Illinois Indians, and gradually the relations between them became so attached that a Frenchman could travel any where among the Indians with perfect safety. Father Marest, writing from Kaskaskia, towards the close of 1712, describes the Illinois Indians as "much less barbarous than the other Indians." The introduction of Christianity and the civilizing agency of "flour bread" had greatly improved these Indians, and lessened their natural ferocity of disposition.
During 1718 and 1719, the French settlements in this country were increased by emigration from Canada and from France by way of New Orleans, and M' de Boisbriant was commissioned by the French government to build Fort Chartres, one of the best and most thoroughly equipped forts, when completed to be found in America. This fort was built for the use of the "Mississippi Company" then being formed by John Law and others, an association over which men and women went wild, and which, after it had ruined thousands and bankrupted France, surrendered its charpter in 1732.
The French by this time had established "missions," supported by "forts," from Canada to New Orleans. Metal plates with fleurs de luce, the lilies of France stamped upon them, were sunk in the ground, along the rivers, at points where they were unable to leave garrisons, and carvings on trees were made all declaring that the French had taken possession of the country. Within this century some of them have been discovered, along the Ohio river and elsewhere, sad memorials of the thirst for empire and dominion; of hopes, that like "Dead Sea Fruits," had allured only to fly from the grasp of the discoverers, and melt, to ashes ere they had been fairly in possession.
The English, our ancestors, had, in the meanwhile, been encroaching on the east, or Atlantic slopes. They were formidable rivals of the French in trading with the Indians, if not in preaching to them. Wars were engendered between the rival nations, fierce, cruel and bloody, but the reader must search the history of the United States for information in regard to these wars.
May 10, 1763, the forces of France, from New Orleans to Detroit, were summoned and let by D'Artagnette, Governor of Illinois, in the expedition against the Chickasaws. These Indians were the friends and allies of the English traders on the Mississippi, excited the latter to an attempt to punish them. The attack was made sometime later, at or near the present city of Vicksburg, and, while, at first success, in two attacks, attended the French arms, in attacking a third and more formidable position, the gallant D'Artaguette fell, dangerously wounded, and the Illinois Indians seeing their trusted leader fall, instantly took to flight, leaving the brave Canadian Vincennes, and Father Senat, a Jesuit who attended the expedition prisoners, in the hands of the enemy. The Jesuit could have escaped, but refused to do; and without a thought for his personal safety, preferred to remain to offer the consolation of his religion to his dying commander. Devoted priest; even after the lapse of one hundred and thirty years, we offer to his memory the feeble tribute of a line.
The Chickasaws received the prisoners into their wigwams and feasted them bountifully for awhile, but on the 27th day of May, Bienville arrived from the South, and attempted to retrieve his brother. He was too late, the Indians instructed by the English traders, had fortified their position, and Bienville was driven back, and forced to an inglorious retreat. The Indians then brought forth their captives, and celebrated their victories in songs and dances around the stakes where the flames were slowly consuming their victims.
In 1739, a renewal of the war was attempted, and four thousand men were quartered at Fort Assumption, the present site of Memphis. This force was wasted by sickness until the summer of 1740 when the Chickasaws demanded, through messengers, peace with the French, which was gladly granted, and the troops withdrawn.
During the next ten years the settlers of Illinois enjoyed a decade of peace and prosperity. They lived on terms of social and religious friendship with the surrounding Indians.
In the summer of 1750, Vivier, a missionary writing from Fort Chartres says: "We have here whites, negroes and Indians, to say nothing of the cross breeds, there are five French villages, and three villages of the natives, within a space of twenty one leagues (63 miles), situated between the Mississippi and another river called the (Kaskaskia). In the five French villages there are, perhaps, 1,100 whites, 300 blacks, and some 60 red slaves or savages. The three Illinois towns (Indians) do not contain more that 800 souls, all told. Most of the French till the soil; they raise wheat, cattle, pigs, and horses, and live like princes. Three times as much is produced as can be consumed; and great quantities of grain and flour are sent to New Orleans."
These early settlers were united in thought and heart and mind for two purposes-the common defense, and social intercourse. If the head of a family was sick, his field was not allowed to grow up in weeds, but was thoroughly cutivated for him, without a thought to charging him for it. At the close of the day the weary toiler was met at the door of his humble dwelling, and his return was welcomed by a conjugal kiss by the good wife, and after this, before he entered his abode, a like salutation was claimed by all the children and happily bestowed upon them.
But the recent conflict with the English soon brought evil days to these peaceful dwellers in Illinois. France claimed all the country watered by the Mississippi river and its tributaries - England claimed from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean, on the ground that the discovery and possession of the sea coast entitled her to the possession of the country. War soon followed these rival claims, but for a long time Illinois, by its remoteness, escaped the harassments of the conflict. In 1752, the French burnt down the first English trading post established on this side of the Alleghenies, and thus the war began, for the particulars of which we refer the reader, as before stated, to the pages of our country's history. Braddock was defeated in 1755, near Fort Du Quesne. Who does not remember the part our Washington took in that battle? Washington, who had some experience, fighting the Indians, asked of Braddock, a British General, to be allowed to fight the Indians in their own way. The Indians were fighting the French. Braddock's reply is familiar to most school boys:
"High times, young man; high times, by G-, when a young buckskin can teach a British general how to fight!"
The British general fell a victim to his own folly, but the young Virginian lived forty four years longer, during which he founded for us our Republic.
One after another, the French forts fell into the hands of the English. Louisburg yielded to Boscawen, Frontenac was taken by Bradstreet, and in 1785, Gen. Forbes began his march, with ten thousand men, from Carlisle, Pa., against Fort Du Quesne, now Pittsburg. The French and Indian garrison, not able to withstand so great a force, blew up the fort, the Indians dispersed, and the French having constructed a sufficient number of rafts, loaded all the munitions of war and stores that they could carry upon the rafts, and fell back, down the river, on these rafts, to place themselves in communication with the French line of Forts on the Mississippi. On their way towards New Orleans, they passed the mouths of the Shawnee (Cumberland) and Cherokee (Tennessee) rivers, and landed at the point now known as Fort Massac. They were well acquainted with this country, many of them, notably St. Ange de Belle Rive and followers, having gone from Illinois to Fort Du Quesne to help in the defense of that place. It was only 120 miles by land to Kaskaskia and but a little further to Fort Chartres, and they determined, upon the elevated embankment that overlooked the mouth of the Cherokee river, ten miles above, and commanded a view of the "Beautiful river," eighteen miles below to erect a fort, and make a final stand against their English foes. The stand was final and from the day - the sad day (to them) - when by order of their superiors, the French garrison at Massac retired to Fort Chartres, no French soldier has trod this classic shore.
Having determined to erect this fort, the work, as historians relate, was speedily accomplished under the direction of a young engineer, M. Massac, who gave to the new fort his own name - a name which it has borne from 1758 to the present time - Fort Massac. This point, as has been elsewhere observed, was as early as 1700 to 1705, a trading station under Juchereau, and a mission under Mermet. Hence grounds had been broken, the trees cleared away, and much work had been accomplished, rendering less arduous the erection of the Fort by Colonel Massac. The origin of his name, in the lapse of time has become involved in traditions, which almost obscure the true history of the place. There is a story extant of a massacre of the garrison by the Indians, who appeared on the Kentucky shore dressed in bearskins, thus beguiling the garrison into a bear hunt, when the Indian warriors, waiting until most of the soldiers had gone over the river, in their boats to kill the bears, and the rest, without arms, were watching the sport from the high banks, rushed upon them, took the fort, and massacred the garrison. This story forms a beautiful tradition, and it is unfortunate that it cannot be satisfactorily verified. It rests upon generally accepted tradition. Against this origin, appears the fact, that is scarcely could have been the French thus massacred, for the reason that the French and Indians were devoted allies and on but few occasions, was war waged between them. Especially is this true of the Illinois Indians and the French. They only hostilities of consequence between the French and Indians was the conflict of ten or more years before, when the brave D'Artaguette lost his life in an attack upon the Chickasaw villages, in Mississippi. The stratagem of the "bear skins" reads like one of Pontiac's ruses. He was always the friend of the French, and it is certain that he never led a massacre against them.
As before stated, it seems almost incredible that the garrison of French at Fort Massac were massacred by the Indians; for at the time of which we write, before and afterwards, the Indians, especially the Illinois Indians, were faithful and devoted friends of the French; yet as stated, authorities conflict greatly as to the true origin of the name.
Hall, in his "Sketches of the West" gives the story of the Indians "dressed in bears' skins," massacreing the French garrison.
Nicolet, in his report to congress, page 79, says: "It (the Fort) was not named Massac, or Massacre, but Marsiac," while it is stated by the author of "Boriquet's Expedition in 1764, that the fort was called Massiac, or Assumption," and the time of its erection was fixed a year earlier - 1757. This maybe accounted for on the hypothesis that the French, foreseeing the inevitable abandonment of Fort Du Quesne, ahd sent a small detachment to locate a fort at, or near the mouth of the Ohio, so as to place the garrison in communication with the line of forts on the Mississippi river; and with that reverence for Roman Catholic festivals for which the French of the day were remarkable, the new location, for want of a better name, was styled "Assumption"-a very common name for French outposts of those days, not to say a very appropriate one.
Colonel George Rogers Clark, when he landed his expedition against Kaskaskia, then help by the English, in the mouth of Massac Creek, in July 1778, called it "Fort Massick, or Massacre." Clark was remarkable, even then, for his butchery of the "King's English."
Moses, in his history of Illinois, note at bottom of page 148, says this fort was "erected by Lieutenant Massac, in October 1758, after the evacuation of Fort Du Quesne by the French," and says that this was "the last fort built by the French in the Western country, and gives Monette's Valley of the Mississippi, Vol. I, p. 317 for authority. But Moses continues, "This statement and the name of such an officer has not been verified. It is more probable that the Fort was named after M. de Massiac, the French minister of Marine at this time.
In part we can verify the above. Several years ago, while under President Harrison, Whitelaw Reid was minister to France, the writer made inquiry of the French government, through him, as to the personal history of M. Massac, and learned that no record of this real or suppositious officer existed in the military archives of Paris, although it is the universal practice to keep such record. This only makes the matter more obscure without lessening our faith in the hero of the Fort, M. Massac. It seems impossible that the French War Department could have kept track of all its heroes and pioneer soldiers, inasmuch as many of them earned their titles far away from their native land, in the wilderness of the great West and Northwest.
As has been seen the French were forced to evacuate Fort Du Quesne, and, on the 24th of October, 1758, they bade a long farewell to the scene of their triumph over Gen. Braddock. Probably the first detachment of the retiring forces had already reached and began Fort Massac on the old site of Mermet's and Juchereau's efforts. At all events, in passing down the Ohio riber, M. Aubry, the commander, made a halt thirty six miles, as it was then estimated from the mouth of the Ohio, and on the site of this trading post, fortlet and mission, erected a fort, and left one hundred men to garrison it and retired with the rest to Fort Chartres. The new fort was called Fort Massac, in compliment to M. Massac or Marsiac, the officer who first commanded there, or who, as others state, laid it off and directed it construction. This was the last fort erected by the French on the Ohio, and it was occupied by them until the evacuation of the country under the stipulations of the treaty of Paris of February 10th, 1763.
We learn the following particulars from Wallace's Illinois and Louisiana under the French:
"The early French history of Fort Massac dates back to the beginning of the last century (1700), but it is obscured by time and fiction. Dr. Lewis C. Beck, in his Gazetteer of Illinois and Missouri, page 114, describing the place, says: "A fort was first built here by the French when in possession of this country. The Indians, who were then at war with them, laid a curious strategem to take it, which answered their purpose. A number of them appeared in the day time on the opposite side of the river, each of whom was covered with a bear skin, and walked off on all fours. Supposing them to be bears, a party of the French crossed the river in pursuit of them. The remainder of the troops left their quarters, and resorted to the bank of the river in front to observe the sport. In the meantime, a large body of warriors, who were concealed in the woods near by, came silently up behind the fort and entered it without opposition, and very few of the Frenchmen escaped the carnage. They afterwards built another fort on the grounds and called it Massac, or Massacre, in memory of the disastrous event. This romantic story is repeated by Judge Hall in his "Sketches of the West" and by other Western writers.
Ex-Governor Reynolds, in his "Own Times" second edition, page 16, writes more specifically of the fort as follows; "Fort Massac was first established by the French about 1711, and was also a missionary station. It was only a small fort, until the war commenced in 1755 between the English and the French. In 1756 (1758) the fort was enlarged and made a respectable fortress, considering the wilderness it was in. It was at this place that the Christian missionaries first instructed the Southern Indians in the Gospel precepts, and it was here also that the French soldiers made a resolute stand against the enemy."
Fort Massac was subsequently sustained by the United States government as a military post, and a few families resided in the vicinity until the war of 1812-14. During this latter period of its history it was sometimes called the "Old Cherokee Fort" from the river of that name, now known as the Tennessee. In fact, from it proximity to the mouth of that river and the Shawnee (Cumberland) both of which streams were dotted with Indian villages, it was a favored locality for missionary work among the Indians.
In 1855, Reynolds visited the place, which he thus describes: "The outside walls were one hundred and thirty five feet square, and at each angle strong bastions were erected, with earth between the wood, a large well was sunk in the fortress; and the whole appeared to have been strong and substantial in its day. Three or four acres of graveled walks were made on the north of the fort, on which the soldiers paraded. These walks are made in exact angles and are beautifully graveled with pebbles from the river. The site is one of the most beautiful on La Belle Riviere, and commands a view that is charming."
The French were vanquished by the English in the war and peace was made by the Treaty of Paris, February 10th, 1763, the French surrendering all their American possessions east of the Mississippi river.
But the French garrison held Massac until directed to give it up by a special order of April 21st, 1764. After that, the French held the fort another year, finally surrendering to Captain Stirling of the British army, in 1765.
Fort Massac was not again occupied by troops until trouble arose with Spain, about 1796, when it was repaired and occupied under the special orders of the United States army.
It was used during the French crisis, under Genet's ministry. Mad Anthony Wayne and General Wilkinson, commanders in chief of the army, occupied the fort, and for periods of time made it their headquarters. Aaron Burr made it one of the points where he directed his southern conspiracy, and it was here that he formed his "entangling alliance" with General Wilkinson. It was the scene of many intrigues in those pioneer days, between Spanish, French, and ambitious Americans, male and female.
Mrs. Blannerhasset spent one night here, on her way to join her husband on the lower Mississippi.
The fort was repaired and used for defensive purposes during the war of 1812-14 with Great Britain.
It yet remains a landmark of the early pioneer history of the West.
Return to History of Massac County by O.J. Page
Back to History of Massac County Homepage
Return to Massac County Homepage
Transcribed by Debbie Woolard
Copyright © 2000-2001 by Debbie Woolard. All rights reserved.
Copyright includes all contents of this site and does not extend to any other entity. It may not be quoted or retransmitted without a full citation to the author, and may not be put into print--in whole or part--without the individual author's express permission. Submitters retain all copyright, along with the hosts.