Chapter II: Chicago in the Seventeenth Century

It seems quite probable that Chicago was an important meeting-place for Indian travelers long before the first white men came to the foot of Lake Michigan. The portage of the Indian preceded the canoe of the white man, and the Indian trail was the forerunner of the white man's road. Who the first white visitor to Chicago was cannot be stated with certainty. The chief incentive to the exploration of the Northwest was the prosecution of the fur trade, and it is probable that wandering coureurs de bois had visited this region in advance of any of the explorers who have left us records of their travels. Coming to the domain of recorded history we encounter, on the threshold as it were, the master dreamer and empire builder, La Salle.

Already interested in the subject of western exploration, in the summer of 1669 he set out from his estate of Lachine in search of a river which flowed to the western sea.[43] His course to the western end of Lake Ontario is known to us, but from this point his movements for the next two years are involved in mist and obscurity. It is believed by some that he descended the Ohio to the Mississippi in 1670, and that the following year he traversed Lake Michigan from north to south, crossed the Chicago Portage, and descended the Illinois River till he again reached the Mississippi. But the claim that he reached the Mississippi during these years is rejected by most historians. Probably the exact facts as to his movements at this time will never be known. We are here interested, however, primarily in the question whether he came to the site of Chicago. Even this cannot be stated with certainty, but the preponderance of opinion among those best qualified to judge is that he probably did.[44]

[Footnote 43: For this expedition and the subsequent movements of La Salle see Winsor, _Cartier to Frontenac_; Parkman, _La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West_; Winsor, _Narrative and Critical History_, IV, 201 ff.]

[Footnote 44: Margry was convinced of this and Parkman thought it entirely probable. Winsor thought that La Salle came to the head of Lake Michigan, but was in doubt whether he entered the Chicago River or the St. Joseph. Shea, who constantly belittles La Salle's achievements, believed he "reached the Illinois or some other affluent of the Mississippi." See the references given in note 43.]

The pages of history might be scanned in vain for a more fitting character with which to begin the annals of the great city of today. La Salle is noted, even as it is noted, for boundless energy, lofty aspiration, and daring enterprise. He combined the capacity to dream with the resolution to make his visions real. "He was the real discoverer of the Great West, for he planned its occupation and began its settlement; and he alone of the men of his time appreciated its boundless possibilities, and with prophetic eye saw in the future its wide area peopled by his own race."[45]

[Footnote 45: Edward G. Mason, "Early Visitors to Chicago," in _New England Magazine_, New Ser., VI, 189.]

In strong contrast with the masterful La Salle succeeds, in the early annals of Chicago, the gentle, saintly Marquette. For a number of years vague and indefinite reports had been carried to Canada of the existence, to the west of the Great Lakes, of a "great river" flowing westwardly to the Vermilion Sea, as the Gulf of California was then known. These reports roused in the French the hope of finding an easy way to the South Sea, and thence to the golden commerce of the Indies.

Spurred on by the home government Talon, the intendant of Canada, took up the project of solving the problem of the great western river.[46] It chanced that for several years Marquette, a Jesuit missionary, had been stationed on the shore of Lake Superior. Here he heard from his dusky charges stories of the great river and of the pleasant country to the westward. In consequence he became imbued with the double ambition of solving the geographical question of the ultimate direction of the river's flow, and of seeking in this new region a more fruitful field of labor.[47] In the summer of 1672 Talon appointed Louis Joliet, a young Canadian who had already achieved something of a reputation as an explorer, to carry out the new task, and the projected exploration of the great river was launched. Joliet proceeded that autumn to Mackinac--the Michilimackinac of the French period--where he spent the winter preparing for the enterprise. Hither Marquette had come two years before, and here he had established the mission of St. Ignace. Proximity and a common interest in the projected enterprise combined to draw the two together; so that when the expedition set out from Mackinac in May, 1673, the party was composed of Joliet, Marquette, and five companions. Though Joliet was the official head of the expedition, it has come about, through the circumstance that his records were lost almost at the end of his toilsome journey, that we are chiefly indebted to the journal of Marquette for our knowledge of it, and have come insensibly to ascribe the credit for it to him.

[Footnote 46: Winsor, _Cartier to Frontenac_, 231.]

[Footnote 47: _Ibid._, 199-201.]

From Mackinac the party passed, in two canoes, to the head of Green Bay, and thence by way of the Fox-Wisconsin River route to the Mississippi, which was reached a month after the departure from the mission of St. Ignace.[48] Down its broad current the voyagers paddled and floated for another month. Arrived at the mouth of the Arkansas, they were told by the natives that the sea was distant but ten days' journey, and that the intervening region was inhabited by warlike tribes, equipped with firearms, and hostile to their entertainers. This information led the explorers to take counsel concerning their further course. Deeming it established beyond doubt that the river emptied into "the Florida or Mexican Gulf," and fearful of losing the fruits of their discovery by falling into the hands of the Spaniards, they decided to turn about and begin the homeward journey.

[Footnote 48: Marquette's Journal of the expedition is printed in _Jesuit Relations_, Vol. LIX. For standard secondary accounts see the works of Parkman and Winsor.]

On reaching the mouth of the Illinois they learned that they could shorten their return to Mackinac by passing up that river. A pleasing picture is drawn by Marquette of the country through which this new route led them. They had seen nothing comparable to it for fertility of soil, for prairies, woods, "cattle," and other game. The Indians received them kindly, and obliged Marquette to promise that he would return to instruct them. Under the guidance of an Indian escort the voyagers passed, probably by way of the Chicago Portage and River,[49] to Lake Michigan, whence they made their way to Green Bay by the end of September.

[Footnote 49: It was the contention of Albert D. Hagar, a former secretary of the Chicago Historical Society, that on both this expedition and that of 1675 Marquette passed from the Des Plaines River to Lake Michigan by way of the Calumet Portage and River. (Andreas, _History of Chicago_, I, 46.) The evidence, however, seems to me to point to the route by way of the Chicago Portage and River. Hagar's argument is refuted by Hurlbut in _Chicago Antiquities_, 384-88.]

The following year Joliet continued on his way to Quebec to report to Count Frontenac the results of his expedition. Marquette remained at Green Bay, worn down by the illness that was shortly to terminate his career. In the autumn of 1674, the disease having temporarily abated, he undertook the fulfilment of his promise to the Illinois Indians to return and establish a mission among them. Late in October he began the journey,[50] accompanied by two voyageurs, Pierre Porteret and Jacques, one of whom had been a member of the earlier expedition. The little party was soon increased by the addition of a number of Indians, and all together made their way down Green Bay and the western shore of Lake Michigan, to the mouth of the "river of the portage"--the Chicago. Over a month had been consumed in the journey, owing to frequent delays caused by the stormy lake. The river was frozen to the depth of half a foot and snow was plentiful. Ten days were passed here, when, Marquette's malady having returned, a camp was made two leagues up the river, close to the portage, and it was decided to spend the winter there. Thus began in December, 1674, the first extended sojourn, so far as we have record, of white men on the site of the future Chicago. There has been much loose writing concerning the character of their habitation. Even Parkman states that they constructed a "log hut," and other writers have made similar assertions. There is no warrant for this in the original documents, and all the circumstances of the case combine to render it improbable.[51] Marquette was too sick to travel, and he had but two companions to assist him. They made two camps, one at the entrance of the river, and the other, a few days later, at the portage. It was already the dead of winter, and they could not have been equipped with heavy tools. It seems entirely probable that in place of a "log hut" they constructed the customary Indian shelter or wigwam.[52]

[Footnote 50: For Marquette's Journal of this expedition see _Jesuit Relations_, Vol. LIX. Parkman and Winsor have written standard secondary accounts.]

Marquette found that two Frenchmen had preceded him in establishing themselves in the Illinois country. He designates them as "La Taupine and the surgeon," and says that they were stationed eighteen leagues below Chicago, "in a fine place for hunting cattle, deer, and turkeys."[53] They were supplied with corn and other provisions, and were engaged in the fur trade. Apparently their location was selected either because it was "a fine place for hunting," or else because of its advantages as a trading station, for it is evident from the narrative that they were in close proximity to the Indians.

[Footnote 51: The French word used by Marquette, _cabannez_, was commonly employed, whether as a verb or a noun, to designate the ordinary temporary encampment of travelers and the wigwam of the Indian. In Marquette's Journal of his first expedition (_Jesuit Relations_, LIX, 146), the word is used to designate the cover of sailcloth erected over the voyagers' canoes to protect them from the mosquitoes and the sun while floating down the Mississippi. Later, on the second expedition, when Marquette, hastening along the eastern shore of Lake Michigan toward Mackinac, found himself at the point of death, his companions hastily landed and constructed a "wretched cabin of bark" to lay him in (_ibid._, 194). Numerous other instances of the habitual use of the word to indicate a temporary camp might easily be cited.]

[Footnote 52: For a further development of this subject see H. H. Hurlbut's pamphlet, _Father Marquette at Mackinac and Chicago_, 13-14.]

[Footnote 53: _Jesuit Relations_, LIX, 174-76.]

Who were these French pioneers of the upper Illinois Valley? We know concerning La Taupine--the mole--that he was a noted fur trader whose real name was Pierre Moreau;[54] that he was an adherent of Count Frontenac, the governor of New France; and that he was accused by the intendant with being one of the Governor's agents in the prosecution of an illicit trade with the Indians. He had been with St. Lusson at the Sault Ste. Marie in 1671, and doubtless was possessed of all the information current among the French concerning the region beyond the Great Lakes. In what year he pushed out into this region and established the first habitation and business of a white man in northern Illinois will probably forever remain unknown.

[Footnote 54: _Ibid._, 314; Mason, "Early Visitors to Chicago," cited in note 45.]

The little that Marquette tells us of the companion of La Taupine serves only to whet our curiosity. Though these first residents were lawbreakers, they were not without redeeming qualities. In anticipation, apparently, of Marquette's arrival at their station they had made preparations to receive him, and had told the savages "that their cabin belonged to the black robe."[55] As soon as they learned of the priest's illness at Chicago the surgeon came, in spite of snow and bitter cold,[56] a distance of fifty miles to bring him some corn and blueberries. Marquette sent Jacques back with the surgeon to bear a message to the Indians who lived in his vicinity, and the traders loaded him, on his return, with corn and "other delicacies" for the sick priest. Furthermore, the surgeon was a devout man, for he spent some time with Marquette in order to perform his devotions. Clearly here is a character who improves with closer acquaintance. But such acquaintance is denied us. As a ship passing in the night the surgeon flashes across Chicago's early horizon; whence he came, whither he went, even his name will doubtless remain forever a mystery.

[Footnote 55: _Jesuit Relations_, LIX, 176.]

[Footnote 56: The Journal records that the Indians were suffering from hunger because the cold and snow prevented them from hunting.]

Meanwhile, how fared the winter with the three Frenchmen in their primitive camp near the portage? The picture of their life as painted in the pages of Marquette's Journal is not, on the whole, unattractive. The fraternal spirit manifested for them by the traders has already been noted. The Indians were equally friendly. When those living in a village six leagues away learned of Marquette's plight, they were so solicitous for his welfare, and so fearful that he would suffer from hunger, that, notwithstanding the cold, Jacques had much difficulty in preventing the young men from coming to the portage to carry away to their village all Marquette's belongings.

The Indians' fears, however, proved groundless. Deer and buffalo abounded, partridges, much like those of France, were killed, and turkeys swarmed around the camp. The traders sent corn and blueberries, and the Indians brought corn, dried meat, and pumpkins. The severe winter produced its effect upon the game, some of the deer that were killed being so lean as to be worthless. But "the Blessed Virgin Immaculate," Marquette's celestial queen, took such care of them that there was no lack of provisions, and when the camp was broken up in the spring there was still on hand a large sack of corn and a supply of meat.

An intense spirit of religious devotion animated Marquette throughout the winter. It was his zeal in the service of his Heavenly Master that had led him, in his illness, to brave the rigors of a winter in the wilderness. Despite his bodily affliction, the observance of religious exercises was maintained. Mass was said every day throughout the winter, but they were able to observe Lent only on Fridays and Saturdays. On December 15 the mass of the Conception was celebrated. Early in February a novena, or nine days' devotion to the Virgin, was begun, to ask God for the restoration of Marquette's health. Shortly afterward his condition improved, in consequence, as he believed, of these devotions. An opportunity to give his religion a practical application was afforded him in the latter part of January. A deputation of Illinois Indians came bringing presents, in return for which they requested, among other things, a supply of powder. Marquette refused this, saying he had come to instruct them and to restore peace, and did not wish them to begin a war with their neighbors, the Miamis.

Toward the end of March the ice began to thaw, but on breaking up it formed a gorge, causing a rapid rise in the river. The camping-place was suddenly flooded, the occupants having barely time enough to secure their goods upon the trees. They themselves spent the night on a hillock, with the water steadily gaining upon them. The following day the gorge dissolved, the ice drifted away, and the travelers prepared to resume their journey to the village of the Illinois.

Eleven days were consumed in this journey, during which Marquette suffered much from illness and exposure.[57] According to Father Dablon he was received by the Indians "as an angel from Heaven." He preached to them and established his mission, and then, feeling the hand of death upon him, began his return journey to the distant mission of St. Ignace.

[Footnote 57: Marquette's Journal ends abruptly at this point, his last entry being made on April 6 while the little party was waiting at the Des Plaines River for the subsidence of the ice and the cold winds to permit them to descend. For the remainder of the story we are indebted to the narrative of Father Dablon, Marquette's superior, whose information was derived from the two companions of Marquette. Dablon's narrative is printed in _Jesuit Relations_, Vol. LIX.]

And now we come to what may be regarded as the next scene in the annals of Chicago. A crowd of the Illinois accompanied Marquette, as a mark of honor, for more than thirty leagues, vying with each other in taking charge of his slender baggage. Then, "filled with great esteem for the gospel," they took leave of him, and continuing his journey he shortly afterward reached Lake Michigan.[58] The route followed from this point was by way of the eastern side of the lake. But the missionary's life was to terminate sooner than the voyage. On May 19 he died, on the lonely shore of the lake, and was buried near the mouth of a small river in the state of Michigan which was long to bear his name.

[Footnote 58: The route followed by Marquette and his escort from the Illinois village to Lake Michigan is not certainly known. From the fact that after reaching the lake Marquette sought to reach Mackinac by following around its eastern shore, it has been argued that he ascended the Kankakee to reach Lake Michigan. The evidence seems to me, however, to favor the route by the Des Plaines and Chicago. Marquette had gone this way on the return from his first expedition, and had returned to the Illinois the same way. If he now followed this route, the thirty leagues which the Indians accompanied him would have brought them to the vicinity of the portage between the Des Plaines and the Chicago. In the period when travel was chiefly by water portages were natural meeting (and parting) places. The one argument in support of the Kankakee route is the fact that the further route of the party was along the eastern shore of the lake. But this fact does not obviate the possibility of a return to the lake by the Des Plaines and Chicago. Furthermore, by the Kankakee route from the point where the Indians turned back Marquette would still have to travel upward of one hundred and fifty miles to reach the lake. Yet the narrative states that he reached it "shortly after" they left him--a statement which harmonizes with the supposition that the leave-taking occurred at or near the Chicago Portage. For these reasons I have chosen to consider this an event in early Chicago history.]

A successor to Marquette at the mission of the Illinois was found in the person of Father Claude Allouez, who was then stationed at the mission of St. Francis Xavier at Green Bay. In October, 1676, with two companions he set out in a canoe for his new field of work.[59] The winter closed down early, however, and before they had proceeded far they were compelled to lie over until February with some Pottawatomie Indians. Then they proceeded once more, in a way "very extraordinary"; for instead of putting the canoe into the water, they placed it upon the ice, over which a sail and a favoring wind "made it go as on the water." When the wind failed they drew it along by means of ropes. New obstacles to their progress arose, however, so that not until April did they enter "the river which leads to the Illinois." At its entrance they were met by a band of eighty Illinois Indians who had come from their village to welcome Allouez. The ceremony of reception which ensued may well be set forth in the words of the missionary himself, in whose honor it was staged.

[Footnote 59: The narrative of Allouez is printed in _Jesuit Relations_, Vol. LX. The quotations from it which follow are from the Thwaites translation there given.]

"The captain came about 30 steps to meet me, carrying in one hand a firebrand and in the other a Calumet adorned with feathers. Approaching me, he placed it in my mouth and himself lighted the tobacco, which obliged me to make a pretense of smoking it. Then he made me come into his Cabin, and having given me the place of honor, he spoke to me as follows:

'My Father, have pity on me; suffer me to return with thee, to bear thee company and take thee into my village. The meeting I have had today with thee will prove fatal to me if I do not use it to my advantage. Thou bearest to us the gospel and the prayer. If I lose the opportunity of listening to thee, I shall be punished by the loss of my nephews, whom thou seest in so great number; without doubt, they will be defeated by our enemies. Let us embark, then, in company, that I may profit by thy coming into our land.'"

It is not to be supposed that the exact words of the "Captain" have been preserved, though it may well be that the general tenor of his remarks is here set forth. The speech concluded, they set out together, and "shortly after" arrived at the Chief's abode. We have no clue, further than this, to the location of the Indian camp. Probably it was in the vicinity of the portage; for aside from the fact that this furnished a logical stopping-place Marquette tells us that during his sojourn here, two years before, Indians were encamped in his vicinity during a portion of the winter.

After a brief stay among the Indians on the Illinois, where his labors met with great success, Allouez left them, returning again the next year. We have no details of these journeys, however, and our next account of the presence of white men in this region involves us in the schemes and deeds of the masterful La Salle.

La Salle conceived the ambitious design of leading France and civilization together into the valley of the Mississippi.[60] But vast obstacles interposed to hinder him in its execution. Canada must be his base of operations, and Canada abounded in hostile traders and priests who jealously sought to checkmate him at every opportunity. The initiation of his design involved the establishment of a colony in the Illinois country. In 1678 he sent out in advance a party of men to engage in trade for him and ultimately to go to the Illinois country and prepare for his coming. Meanwhile he himself was busied with further preparations for the execution of his project; a sailing vessel was constructed close above Niagara Falls, and in August, 1678, its sails were spread upon Lake Erie for the voyage around the upper lakes. Arrived at Green Bay, the vessel was loaded with furs and started on its return, while La Salle and fourteen followers, in four canoes, continued their way down the western shore of Lake Michigan. The party laboriously made its way past the site of the modern cities of Milwaukee and Chicago and around the southern end of the lake to the mouth of the St. Joseph River. This had been agreed upon as the place of rendezvous with Tonty, La Salle's faithful lieutenant, who with twenty men was toiling, meanwhile, down the eastern side of the lake from Mackinac. Tonty had been delayed, and La Salle employed the period of waiting for him in building Fort Miami on an eminence near the mouth of the river. This became, therefore, the oldest fort in this region, and constituted an important base of operations for the prosecution of his designs.

[Footnote 60: For the original documents pertaining to La Salle's work see Margry's collection. For standard secondary accounts see the works of Parkman and Winsor. I have drawn freely upon these in preparing this portion of my own narrative.]

At last Tonty arrived, bringing news which rendered probable the loss of La Salle's sailing vessel, the "Griffin," with her cargo of furs. Early in December the combined party ascended the St. Joseph River to the portage leading to the Kankakee, near the site of the modern city of South Bend. Down the latter river they passed and into the Illinois, until they came to the great Indian village, in the vicinity of Starved Rock, where Marquette and Allouez had labored as missionaries during the past five years. The place was deserted, however, the inhabitants having departed for their annual winter hunt. The journey was resumed, therefore, as far as Lake Peoria, near which place a village of the Illinois was found.

A parley was held with the Indians, in the course of which La Salle unfolded his design of building a fort in their midst, and a "great wooden Canoe" on the Mississippi, which would go down to the sea, and return thence with the goods they so much desired. La Salle was successful in overcoming alike the suspicions of the natives, the intrigues of his enemies, and the disloyalty of his own men. A site suitable for a fort was selected, and here in the dead of winter was constructed the first civilized habitation of a permanent character in the modern state of Illinois; the Indians gave to the fort the name of Checagou, but by La Salle it was christened Fort Crevecoeur.

La Salle had thus established himself in the heart of the Mississippi Valley, and had initiated the work of carving out what was to become the imperial domain of French Louisiana. But the major portion of that work lay yet before him, and difficulties were to succeed one another in its prosecution until the leader's death at the hands of a hidden assassin was to terminate his life in seeming failure. It is not our purpose here to attempt a history of La Salle's career; rather our aim is to sketch such of its salient features as may be pertinent to the unfolding of the story of the genesis of Chicago. The loss of the "Griffin" imposed upon La Salle the necessity of returning to Fort Frontenac for supplies. Having urged forward the construction of his fort and arranged for the departure of Hennepin and his associates on what eventuated in their famous exploration of the upper waters of the Mississippi, La Salle left Tonty in command at Fort Crevecoeur, and himself, in March, 1680, set forth on his long and terrible journey. In its course he again paused near Starved Rock, noted the ease with which it might be defended, and passing on to Fort Miami, dispatched orders to Tonty to occupy and fortify it. He then crossed on foot the trackless waste of southern Michigan in the season of spring floods, and came at last to his destination. He spent some months in setting his affairs in order, and in August, 1680, set out on the return to Illinois, passing by way of Mackinac and thence down the eastern side of Lake Michigan to Fort Miami.

Meanwhile, what of Tonty and affairs at Fort Crevecoeur? Faithful to his orders, Tonty, on receipt of the dispatch which La Salle had sent forward from Fort Miami, set forth to occupy Starved Rock. In his absence the men left at Fort Crevecoeur, spurred on by the tales of financial disaster to La Salle related by the new arrivals, rose in mutiny. They destroyed the fort, stole its provisions, and writing on the side of the unfinished vessel the legend _Nous sommes tons sauvages_--"We are all savages"--departed. Upon the heels of this disaster succeeded a still greater menace to La Salle's designs. It was essential to their success that the Illinois Indians should retain peaceable possession of their territory. But now came against them a war party of the terrible Iroquois. They assailed and destroyed the village at the Rock and pursued the fleeing Illinois until the scattered survivors found refuge across the Mississippi.

The indomitable Tonty, almost alone in this sea of savagery, had done what he could to save the Illinois from destruction. His efforts proved vain, and with his few followers he fled from impending destruction. Their goal was distant Mackinac, and their route was up the Illinois and the Des Plaines to Lake Michigan and thence northward along its western shore. Doubtless the forlorn little party passed by Chicago, though we have no direct details as to this portion of their journey. Hardships and dangers in abundance were endured before the survivors found refuge with a band of friendly Pottawatomies at some point to the southward of Green Bay.

Shortly after the destruction of the Illinois La Salle, in ignorance of what had happened, came from Fort Miami to the relief of Tonty. In the ghastly remains of the village at Starved Rock he read the story of this new disaster to his plans. Failing to find the bodies of Tonty and his companions among them, he followed in the track of the pursued and pursuing savages until he reached the Mississippi. Concluding at last that Tonty had not come this way he retraced his steps to the junction of the Kankakee with the Des Plaines, and turning up the latter stream soon found traces of Tonty's party. It was now the dead of winter. Convinced of Tonty's escape, La Salle abandoned the canoes, which he had dragged with him on sledges thus far and made his way overland through extreme cold and deep snow to Fort Miami, where he arrived at the end of January.

The design was now conceived by La Salle of welding the western tribes into a confederation, which, under the guidance of himself and his French followers, should oppose the marauding incursions of the Iroquois into the West. The year 1681 was devoted to the furthering of this project and to the gathering of La Salle's scattered resources for a renewal of his attempt at establishing himself in the Mississippi Valley. Late in the year he was again at Fort Miami with a considerable party of French and Indians, ready for the exploit which has given him his greatest fame--the descent of the Mississippi to its mouth.

From Fort Miami the route followed led around the foot of Lake Michigan to Chicago; thence across the portage and down the Des Plaines, the Illinois, and the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. The expedition set forth in two divisions, Tonty with the first crossing over to the Chicago River in the closing days of December, 1681, where he prepared sledges for transporting the canoes and equipment on the ice, and awaited the arrival of his chief. La Salle with the second division arrived early in January, and after a detention of a few days, occasioned by unfavorable weather, the united party set out, dragging their sledges on the surface of the frozen rivers until open water was reached below Lake Peoria. There they embarked, and three months later, on April 9, 1682, at the mouth of the Great River he had descended La Salle took formal possession, under the name of Louisiana, of all the vast country drained by it and by its tributaries, stretching "from the Alleghenies to the Rocky Mountains; from the Rio Grande and the Gulf to the farthest springs of the Missouri."[60]

[Footnote 60: Parkman, _La Salle_, chap. xxi.]

La Salle's discovery of the mouth of the Mississippi caused him to broaden his projects. He would establish a colony at the mouth of the Great River to serve as an outlet for his colony on the Illinois where he hoped to gather the furs on which he relied to render his whole vast enterprise commercially successful. The prosecution of his designs, therefore, depended ultimately on his ability to make the Illinois colony profitable. On his return to Mackinac from the descent of the Mississippi, in the autumn of 1682, he learned that the Iroquois were about to renew their attacks upon the West. The best efforts of himself and Tonty were now directed, therefore, to the fortification of Starved Rock, which he planned to serve as the center of his colony and its rock of defense against the invader.

Here, on a cliff which rises sheer from the water's edge to a height of one hundred and twenty-five feet, with its crest about an acre in extent, and accessible only by a narrow pathway in the rear, during the winter of 1682 and 1683 the fort was constructed. At the same time the work of alliance with the Indians went vigorously forward until from the lofty ramparts of St. Louis, the name given by La Salle to his fortress, the leader could look down upon the lodges of four thousand warriors, gathered from half a score of tribes, and a total population of upward of twenty thousand souls. The stability of the colony thus gathered depended on La Salle's ability to protect his allies against the Iroquois, and to furnish them with goods and a market for their furs.

La Salle's career shows that over natural obstacles and the wiles of the red man he could rise triumphant, but that he was no match for the intriguing enemies of his own race. By these his plans were shipwrecked once more, and for the last time, so far as his Illinois career was concerned. Count Frontenac, his staunch supporter hitherto, was recalled, and the new governor, De la Barre, pursued a policy of unscrupulous hostility toward him. His ammunition and supplies to sustain himself against the Iroquois were detained, lying reports about him were sent to the home government, and finally a force was sent to supersede him in command of Fort St. Louis.

La Salle's only remedy against such an enemy was to appeal in person to his monarch. Leaving Tonty in command of the colony he went, by way of Canada, to France, whence he embarked upon the enterprise which was to end so disastrously in the wilds of Texas. Under the guidance of others Louisiana became, in the following century, the fairest province of New France. Wrested from French control by the Anglo-Saxon, it has come in time to constitute the heart and center of our magnificent national domain. The geographical monuments to the memory of La Salle are few; a county in Texas, a city and a county in Illinois are all, aside from a few insignificant post towns, that bear his name. Yet in the eyes of history he will always be regarded as the father of Louisiana, a province as favored by Nature, as imperial in character, as any the sun ever shone upon.

Since 1678 La Salle's chief lieutenant in the prosecution of his enterprises had been the capable and valorous Tonty.[62] La Salle's mission to the French Court in 1684 had resulted in the restoration of Tonty to command at Fort St. Louis. On the death of La Salle he sought to step into his former leader's place, and to complete the establishment of the French power in the Mississippi Valley. For a dozen years longer he held his lofty post of St. Louis, seeking meanwhile to interest the French Court in the uncompleted design of his former chief. But other and more powerful interests held the ear of the distant monarch, and his efforts were in vain. Finally, in 1700 an expedition was sent out under the command of Iberville to take possession of the mouth of the Mississippi. A settlement was made at Biloxi Bay, and hither Tonty came, abandoning his fort at the Rock, and joining his efforts in support of the more powerful enterprise. After four years more of service in the cause in which he had first enlisted under La Salle's banner, he died at Biloxi of yellow fever. There in September, 1704, "was dug the grave of the most unselfish and loyal, as he was one of the most courageous and intrepid, of the many knightly men who blazed the path whence entered civilization into what later became known as the old Northwest."[63]

[Footnote 62: The story of Tonty is told by Parkman in connection with his account of La Salle. "Henry de Tonty," a sketch and appreciation of Tonty's career by Henry E. Legler, is printed in _Parkman Club Publications_, No. 3. For an English translation of Tonty's own modest narrative of his career to 1693 see French, _Historical Collections of Louisiana_, I, 52 ff.]

[Footnote 63: Legler, _op. cit._, 37.]

(By courtesy of the Chicago Historical Society)]

During Tonty's occupancy of Fort St. Louis in the period following the death of La Salle a number of travelers passed between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi by the Chicago-Illinois route the records of whose experiences are still preserved. One of the most interesting of these narratives is that of Joutel, the companion of Cavelier.[64] Their party comprised the sole survivors of La Salle's ill-fated Texan expedition who returned to France and civilization. They came, a band of five forlorn fugitives, up the Mississippi and the Illinois, arriving at Fort St. Louis in September, 1687. Carefully concealing the fact of La Salle's death, they obtained means to continue their journey, and soon set out for Lake Michigan accompanied by a dozen savages who carried their goods and baggage, because of the lack of water in the Des Plaines. On the twenty-fifth they arrived at Chicago and there found a canoe left by some Frenchmen who had recently passed down to Fort St. Louis. Their lack of experience as canoemen, together with contrary winds and bad weather, caused a delay of eight days at this place. Meanwhile the season was advancing and their scanty supply of provisions was being consumed. The state of mind to which they were reduced is naively shown by the record of Joutel that one of the party, having shot at some chickens and cracked his gun, "was so provoked that it gave him a fever."

[Footnote 64: For the story of Cavelier's party see Joutel's Journal printed in Margry, III, 89-535. An abridged and distorted English translation of the Journal was published in 1714, and this was reprinted at Albany in 1906 under the editorial direction of Henry Reed Stiles.]

Finally they embarked on the lake and advanced some eight or ten leagues along the shore to the northward, striving to come to the villages of the Pottawatomies, where they hoped to procure a fresh supply of food. The effort was a pitiful failure. Starvation lay before them; the loss of a year of time with the consequently lessened prospect of affording succor in season to the survivors of La Salle's colony in Texas, and the danger of the discovery of their guilty secret concerning their leader's fate, awaited their return to Fort St. Louis.

They decided, however, to turn back. It was a dejected party we may well believe, which came early in October to the entrance of the Chicago River. Here they made a cache in which they concealed their goods, put their canoe upon a scaffold, and retraced their steps to Fort St. Louis. In this place they passed the winter, and from them we get our fullest description of the fort, and of the manner of life that prevailed there. Some three weeks after their arrival at the fort Tonty returned from his participation in Denonville's famous campaign against the Iroquois. From Fort St. Louis he had led sixteen Frenchmen and two hundred Indians to share in this distant enterprise. With a baseness which is difficult to excuse the fugitives deceived him concerning the death of La Salle, and after accepting his hospitality through the winter secured from him, on the assumption that La Salle was still alive, a considerable quantity of furs and other supplies.

Taking advantage of the spring floods they set out once more for Chicago, March 21, 1688. They arrived on March 29, after a toilsome journey. Because of the swiftness of the river they were compelled to wade in the water, pulling their canoes, much of the way. Joutel avers that he suffered more on this short trip than he had done before since his departure from the Gulf of Mexico. Again bad weather compelled them to delay at Chicago, this time for ten days. There was little game and they had only corn meal to eat. But Providence furnished them "a kind of manna" to eat with their meal, which appears from the description to have consisted of maple sap. They also procured in the woods garlic and other edible plants, and Joutel records that Chicago takes its name, as they were informed, from the profusion of garlic growing in the surrounding woods.[65]

[Footnote 65: Margry, III, 485.]

The members of Joutel's party passed on to Canada, and here we may leave them to pursue their way, burdened with their terrible secret, as best they may. Our interest meanwhile shifts to the story of Father Pinet and his mission of the Guardian Angel. We have seen that commerce and the Cross entered the upper Mississippi Valley together in 1673, in the persons of Joliet and Marquette. During the succeeding years the efforts of the servants of the Cross to gain control of this region were scarcely less zealous than were those of the devotees of trade. The missionary accompanied, sometimes even preceded, the explorer in his journeys, seeking everywhere to introduce the doctrine of the true faith and win the natives to the Church. The representatives of the Jesuit order were the most active agents of the Church in this work of proselyting. Under its auspices Marquette had established the Illinois Mission. Its vicissitudes of fortune were as various as those of La Salle himself, but, on the whole, it was as successful as any in all the annals of Catholic missions to the red man.[66]

[Footnote 66: For the history of the Illinois Mission see Shea, _Catholic Missions among the Indian Tribes of the United States_, chaps, xxii, xxiii.]

We are more particularly concerned with that portion of the work of the Jesuits among the Illinois which pertains to the mission of the Guardian Angel at Chicago.[67] This was established in 1696 by Father Pierre Pinet, who had been stationed at Mackinac for a couple of years. According to the Jesuit records, however, Pinet was soon driven from Chicago and his mission broken up by no less a person than Count Frontenac, governor of New France.[68] An appeal to Bishop Laval resulted in a cessation of Frontenac's opposition, which, in the eyes of Pinet's associates, amounted to persecution. The mission of the Guardian Angel was accordingly resumed in 1698, but two years later it was permanently abandoned.

[Footnote 67: For a brief biographical sketch of Pinet see _Jesuit Relations_, LXIV, 278. Various references to Pinet scattered throughout the _Jesuit Relations_ have been collected by Frank R. Grover in his lecture on Pinet and his mission of the Guardian Angel of Chicago, published by the Chicago Historical Society in 1907.]

[Footnote 68: Letter of Gravier to Laval, September 17, 1697, _Jesuit Relations_, LXV, 52.]

Pinet was a man of deeds rather than words, and has himself left no account of his mission. The statements of his associates show that he was successful in his work here; the adult Indians, "hardened in debauchery," paid little heed to his teachings, but the young were baptized, and even the medicine men, who were the most inveterate opponents of Christianity, manifested a desire to have their children instructed.[69] It was Pinet's practice to spend only the summer season at Chicago. The winters he spent with the missionaries lower down on the Illinois, or in following his charges on their annual hunt.[70]

[Footnote 69: _Ibid._, 70; Shea, _Early Voyages Up and Down the Mississippi_, 53-54.]

[Footnote 70: _Jesuit Relations_, LXV, 70; Shea, _op. cit._, 53, 59.]

The site of the mission of the Guardian Angel has long been a subject of misapprehension. Aside from the general allusions to the mission as being at Chicago, the document of chief importance in determining its location is the letter of St. Cosme of January 2, 1699.[71] He had passed during the preceding autumn and early winter, in company with a party of associates, from Mackinac to the Mississippi by way of Green Bay, the Chicago Portage, and the Illinois River route, and the letter is, in fact, a report concerning this trip. The party spent some time at Pinet's mission, detained by storms and other obstacles. From a study of this letter, as printed by Shea, Grover concludes that the mission was situated above the modern Chicago on the North Shore, near the present village of Gross Point.[72]

[Footnote 71: Printed in Shea, _op. cit._, 45 ff.]

[Footnote 72: Grover, _Pinet_, 167 ff.]

Shea's translation of St. Cosme's letter, however, frequently departs from the original manuscript.[73] Because of this fact, reference to the latter deprives Grover's argument of whatever force it might otherwise possess.[74] It shows that St. Cosme's party left the site of the modern city of Racine on October 17, and having been detained by wind, cabined three days later "five leagues from Chikagwa." This they should have reached early on the twenty-first, but a wind suddenly springing up from the lake obliged them to land "half a league from Etpikagwa." Here the priests left their baggage with the canoemen, and went "by land" to the house of Father Pinet, which they say was built on the bank of the little river, having on one side the lake and on the other a fine large prairie. On the twenty-fourth, the wind having fallen, they had their canoes brought with all their baggage, and, the waters being extremely low, placed everything not absolutely necessary for their further journey in a cache, to be sent for the following spring. Finally on the twenty-ninth they started from Chicago and encamped for the night at the portage, two leagues up the river.

[Footnote 73: This is preserved in the archives of Laval University at Quebec. I have used an attested copy made "with the greatest possible fidelity" by Father Gosselin, archivist of Laval University, in the Chicago Historical Society library.]

[Footnote 74: Aside from the inaccuracy of Shea's translation of St. Cosme's letter, on which Grover bases his argument, he has made it the basis of a number of unwarranted and erroneous conclusions.]

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.

[Footnote 75: On the travels and experiences of the missionaries see their letters in Shea, Early Voyages Up and Down the Mississippi.]

[Footnote 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]

[Footnote 77: _American State Papers, Indian Affairs_, I, 562.]

[Footnote 78: Hutchins, _Topographical Description of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and North Carolina_, 7.]

[Footnote 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.]

[Footnote 80: See among others Mason, _Chapters from Illinois History_, 163-64; Hurlbut, _Chicago Antiquities_, 164, 171, 360-61, 592; Blanchard, _Discovery and Conquests of the Northwest with the History of Chicago_, I, 68 (this work will be cited henceforth as _The Northwest and Chicago_); Davidson and Stuvé, _History of Illinois_, 260. Many other works and historical articles speak more or less briefly of the supposed French fort at Chicago; see for example Andreas, _History of Chicago_, I, 79; Shea, "Chicago from 1673 to 1825," in _Historical Magazine_, V, 103.]

[Footnote 81: Mason, "Early Visitors to Chicago," 201-2.]

Despite these numerous assertions, however, it is extremely doubtful whether the French ever had a regular fort at Chicago, and it can be shown conclusively that if so it existed for but a short period only. La Salle and Tonty passed by Chicago at various times and their movements are known during the entire period of La Salle's activities in Illinois. But for two exceptions, to be noted shortly, they nowhere speak of a fort at Chicago at this time, and the evidence that there was none, though negative, may be regarded as conclusive. There was no establishment at Chicago in 1687 when Cavalier La Salle's party was here vainly seeking to push on to Mackinac; nor in 1688 when the same party, having wintered at Fort St. Louis, again tarried at Chicago while on its way to Canada. There is no evidence that such a fort was established in the succeeding decade; and there is negative evidence to the contrary, both in the fact that St. Cosme makes no mention of a fort at Chicago at the time of his visit and that the French government gave only a grudging permission to Tonty to continue at Fort St. Louis, limiting his yearly operations to two canoes of merchandise, and finally, by royal decree, directing the abandonment of the fort.[82]

We have thus arrived at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Did the French have a fort at Chicago between the years 1700 and 1763? James Logan's report to Governor Keith in 1718, upon the French establishment in the interior, which was used by Keith in his memorial to the Board of Trade, so asserts. By the latter the statements of Logan were incorporated in a report to the king,[83] and this, apparently, was the source of Popple's representation of a "Fort Miamis" at Chicago on his great _Map of the British Empire in America_ of 1732.[84] In spite of this contemporary evidence, which has gained the approval of many historians, it may confidently be asserted that no such fort existed at Chicago in the eighteenth century. That there was no fort here in 1715 is shown by two independent sources. In November of this year, Claude de Ramezay, acting governor, and Begon, intendant of New France, in a report to the French minister dealing in part with the military situation in the region between the upper lakes and the Mississippi, recommended the establishment of several new posts.[85] Among the number a post at "Chicagou" was urged, "to facilitate access to the Illinois and the miamis, and to keep those nations in our interests." If a fort already existed at Chicago the two highest officials in New France would have been aware of the fact, and there would have been no reason for this recommendation. In this same year, 1715, as part of an elaborately planned campaign against the Fox Indians of Wisconsin, the French arranged for the rendezvous at Chicago of forces from Detroit, from the Wabash, and from the lower Illinois River settlements.[86] A series of mishaps caused a complete miscarriage of plans for the campaign; but these very mishaps show there was at all events no garrison at Chicago. The three parties which were to effect a junction here arrived at different times, and, ignorant of the movements of the others, each in turn abandoned the expedition and retired. Obviously if there had been a garrison at Chicago it would have constituted an important factor in planning the campaign; and the various bands which were to effect a junction here would have been informed, on their arrival, of the movements of the others.

[Footnote 82: Legler, "Henry de Tonty"; Winsor, _Cartier to Frontenac_, 340.]

[Footnote 83: Printed in O'Callaghan, _New York Colonial Documents_, V, 620-21.]

[Footnote 84: Popple states that his map was undertaken with the approbation of the Lords of Trade; and that it is based upon maps, charts, and especially the records transmitted to them by the governors of the British colonies and others.]

[Footnote 85: _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, XVI, 327 ff.]

[Footnote 86: _Ibid._, 313 ff.]

That there was no French establishment at Chicago in 1721 is evident from the journal of Father Charlevoix. In this year he was touring the interior of America on a royal commission to examine and report to his king the condition of New France. His letters and history constitute the most authoritative eighteenth century source for the history of New France. In the very month of September, 1721, when the British Board of Trade report was made, Charlevoix passed from Fort St. Joseph, where the city of Niles, Michigan, now stands, down the Kankakee and the Illinois to Peoria, and beyond.[87] He had first intended to pass through Chicago, but a storm on the lake, together with information of the impossibility of navigating the Des Plaines in a canoe at this season, led him to follow the route by the St. Joseph Portage and the Kankakee. His journal is detailed and explicit; he carefully describes the various posts and routes of communication. He had planned to pass by Chicago, and had informed himself concerning the portage and the Des Plaines River. Yet he gives no hint of a fort here, a thing incomprehensible if such a fort had in fact existed.

[Footnote 87: Charlevoix, _Histoire et description générale de la Nouvelle France, avec le journal historique d'un voyage fait par ordre du roi dans l'Amérique septentrionale_, letters of September 14 and 17, 1721.]

There is abundant evidence in the sources pertaining to the operations of the French in the Northwest that they had no fort at Chicago after 1721. In connection with the Fox wars numerous campaigns were waged in which the Chicago garrison, if there had been such, would have participated. Yet no such force is ever mentioned, and some of the sources make it positively evident that there was neither garrison nor fort here. In 1727 the holding of a great conference with the Foxes the following year at Starved Rock or Chicago was proposed.[88] If this were done it was deemed necessary for the French to be first on the spot appointed for the rendezvous "to erect a fort" and otherwise prepare for the council. The project never materialized, however, and so the fort was not built. In 1730, when the French succeeded in trapping and destroying a large band of the Foxes in the vicinity of Starved Rock,[89] parties came to the scene of conflict from many directions--from Ouiatanon, St. Joseph, Fort Chartres, and elsewhere; but none came from Chicago, although it was nearer the scene than any of the places from which the French forces did come--obviously because there was no garrison at Chicago. In the early winter of 1731-32 a Huron-Iroquois war party passed from Detroit to St. Joseph and thence around the southern end of Lake Michigan and on into Wisconsin to attack the Foxes.[90] The party paused at Chicago long enough to build a fort in which to leave their sick. This "fort" was evidently a temporary Indian shelter, but it is also evident that if an ungarrisoned French fort had been standing here, the construction of such a shelter would have been unnecessary. An official list of the commanders of the various western posts a dozen years later is preserved in the French colonial archives.[91] The posts at Detroit, Mackinac, Green Bay, St. Joseph, Ouiatanon, and elsewhere are mentioned, but the name of Chicago is not included in the list. Finally an exhaustive memoir upon the posts and trade of the interior of the continent by Bougainville in 1757 includes no mention of a post at Chicago, although the neighboring posts which are known to have existed at this time receive careful attention.[92]

[Footnote 88: _Wisconsin Historical Collections_, XVII, 3-6.]

[Footnote 89: _Ibid._, 109-20.]

[Footnote 90: _Ibid._, 148-50.]

[Footnote 91: _Ibid._, 432-33.]

[Footnote 92: _Ibid._, XVIII, 167 ff.]

It is evident, then, that the French had no fort at Chicago during the eighteenth century. Did they have one here at any time during the seventeenth? Two exceptions to the proposition that La Salle and Tonty make no mention of such a fort have been noted. In a letter written from the Chicago Portage, June 4, 1683, La Salle[93] speaks of a "fort" here, built by two of his men the preceding winter. This structure Mason describes as a "little stockade with a log house within its enclosure,"[94] and declares it to have been the first known structure of anything like a permanent character at Chicago. But a log hut constructed by two men and never garrisoned by any regular force hardly merits the designation of a fort in the ordinary acceptation of this term, even though it was surrounded by a stockade. Those who speak of a French fort at Chicago in this period refer not to this structure but to the "Fort of Chicagou" commanded by M. de la Durantaye in the winter of 1685-86.

[Footnote 93: Margry, II, 317.]

[Footnote 94: Mason, _Chapters from Illinois History_, 144.]

Our information concerning this fort is very scanty, being confined to a simple mention of it with the name of its commander, in Tonty's memoir of 1693.[95] At the end of October, 1685, Tonty started from Mackinac in a canoe on Lake Michigan to go to Fort St. Louis on the Illinois River. Because of the lateness of the season his progress was rendered impossible by the formation of ice in the lake. This compelled him to return to Mackinac, whence he again set forth, this time by land, for Fort St. Louis. An earlier account of this trip than that of 1693, but of equal brevity, was written by Tonty in the summer of 1686.[96] It does not even mention Durantaye's "Fort of Chicagou," but it adds certain details concerning Tonty's trip which are of importance in determining the location of that establishment.

[Footnote 95: French, _Historical Collections of Louisiana_, I, 67.]

[Footnote 96: Letter of Tonty to M. Cabart de Villermont, August 24, 1686, in Margry, III, 560.]

Tonty was, of course, familiar by 1686 with both sides of Lake Michigan. In view of this fact it is extremely improbable that, having to go by land from Mackinac to Fort St. Louis in the winter time, he would make the long détour around the head of Lake Michigan and Green Bay and down the western side of the lake, rather than follow the shorter route down the eastern side and around its southern end. This reasoning finds support in the statements of Tonty of the distances he traversed. The entire distance from Mackinac to Fort St. Louis he gives as two hundred leagues, and states that after traveling one hundred and twenty leagues he came to Durantaye's fort. It was, therefore, eighty leagues from Fort St. Louis. The usual estimate of French travelers of this time of the distance between Chicago and Fort St. Louis was thirty leagues;[97] while the distance overland from St. Joseph to Fort St. Louis was approximately eighty leagues. It is incredible that Tonty would estimate the distance from Mackinac to Chicago by land at one hundred and twenty leagues, and that from Chicago to Fort St. Louis at eighty leagues, a distance two-thirds as great. The supposition that Durantaye's fort was on the St. Joseph River rather than the modern Chicago harmonizes well both with the probabilities of the case and the distances given us by Tonty.

[Footnote 97: See for example St. Cosme's statement in Shea, _Early Voyages Up and Down the Mississippi_, 59.]

The foregoing reasoning is not, of course, absolutely conclusive of the location of Durantaye's "Fort of Chicagou," It is strengthened, however, by one other consideration. If such a fort was in fact here in January, 1686, what had happened to it in the interval between this time and Cavalier La Salle's visit in the autumn of 1687? Joutel's narrative of the adventures of his party is given with a wealth of detail. Both in the autumn of 1687 and again in the spring of 1688 the traveler stayed at Chicago for several days. Not only does the narrative show that there was no garrison or fort here, but it contains no mention of such an establishment at any previous time.

The French had no fort at Chicago in the eighteenth century, then, and if they had one in the seventeenth century it could only have been a temporary, structure which quickly disappeared. It remains to suggest an explanation of the origin of the widespread belief that there was a French fort at Chicago. It seems evident that it was due largely to the cartographers, who, residing for the most part in Europe, found themselves at a loss to interpret correctly the narratives of the explorers, which were themselves oftentimes confused and inaccurate, or lacking in detail. That the cartographers often labored in the dark, and that their work was frequently erroneous, will be apparent from a comparison of their maps with those of an authoritative modern atlas. The representations of the map-makers can no more be relied upon implicitly than can the narratives of the time; and there is as much reason in the one case as in the other for subjecting them to critical scrutiny.

In the present instance the erroneous belief in the existence of a French fort at Chicago in the eighteenth century probably originated with Father Hennepin, the garrulous companion of La Salle. He had been at La Salle's Fort Miami on the St. Joseph, and had passed thence with his leader down the Kankakee and the Illinois. Yet his _New Discovery_, first published in 1697, contains a map[98] showing "Fort des Miamis" at the mouth of a stream emptying into the southwestern corner of Lake Michigan. It is obvious from a comparison of this map with the one in Hennepin's earlier work, the _Description of Louisiana_, published in 1683,[99] that this representation is intended for the St. Joseph River and La Salle's Fort Miami, which, by a stupid blunder, have been transferred from the southeastern to the southwestern side of the lake. The _New Discovery_ enjoyed widespread popularity, and numerous editions were issued during the following years, not only in French but also in foreign languages. Hennepin's maps, too, were widely copied in other works, and so the blunder with respect to the location of Fort Miami was perpetuated. Evidently this was the source of the error of Logan and of the many who in later times repeated his statements. Ignorant alike of the fact that Fort Miami had stood at the mouth of the St. Joseph and that it had been destroyed nearly forty years before, Logan located it at Chicago in 1718, adding the interesting information that it "was not regularly garrisoned."

[Footnote 98: For a reproduction of this map see Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, IV, 251; Hennepin, New Discovery (Thwaites ed.), I, (facing) 22.]

[Footnote 99: For a reproduction of this map see Winsor, _op. cit._, IV, 249; Hennepin, _op. cit._, I, frontispiece.]