CHAPTER IV.

LAKE ERIE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

CLOSELY related as Ohio is to the mighty current of the St. Lawrence, a rapid outline of its early exploration will not be deemed too discursive, although our attention will thus be recalled to events which transpired during the seventeenth century.

The magnificent water-course which constitutes the northern border of the Atlantic and Mississippi States, aided materially in the colonization of its extended coast. As at Plymouth, it was religious sentiment which first opened the adventurous way to the borders of our inland lakes. As early as 1616, Le Caron, an unambitious Franciscan monk, the companion of the noted Champlain, had traversed New York, and threading the Canadian peninsula, reached the rivers of Lake Huron. As Quebec was founded only eight years before, the voyage of the missionary probably deserves the distinction of a first discovery. In 1625, we hear of the Franciscans laboring with the Neutral Hurons near the Niagara river.

Tempting as the theme may be, we must be content with a mere chronology of the French missions on the great lakes. They were repelled from the south shore of Lake Erie during the following fifty years, which was the period of their greatest activity, by the hostility of the Iroquois, who were often at war with the natives of the soil.1

1) Charles Whittlesey relates (Discourse before Ohio Historical Society in 1810, p. 8.) that trees have been found on the Western Reserve, bearing the marks of an axe, which, judging from the rings, were made in 1660.

2*

(41)

The Jesuits succeeded all other religious orders in the labor of evangelization, and from 1634 to 1647, no less than forty-two missionaries of that society were devoted to the tribes in Upper Canada-assembling twice or thrice a year at St. Marys, a central spot upon the banks of the Matchedash, between Lakes Toronto or Simcoe and Huron. Perhaps no passage of colonial history is so full of romantic interest as the narrative of the Wyandot Mission, of which Bancroft has furnished a faithful and fascinating picture; but as early as 1649, the principal seat of the Jesuit Fathers, the village of St. Ignatius, was destroyed by the ruthless Mohawks, and the peaceful inmates involved in a general massacre. The names of Anthony Daniel, Jean de Brebeuf and Gabriel Lallemand, have been preserved to us, fragrant with their martyrdom in the wilderness.

"It

Every dispassionate reader will readily respond to the tribute by the single-hearted annalist of New France. is certain," says Charlevoix, "as well from the annual relations of those happy times, as from the constant tradition of that country, that a peculiar unction attached to this savage mission, giving it a preference over many others far more brilliant and fruitful. The reason no doubt was, that nature, finding nothing there to gratify the senses or to flatter vanitystumbling blocks too common even to the holiest―grace worked without obstacle. The Lord, who never allows himself to be outdone, communicates himself without measure to those who sacrifice themselves without reserve; who, dead to all, detached entirely from themselves and the world, possess their souls in unalterable peace, perfectly established in that child-like spirituality which Jesus Christ has recommended to his disciples as that which ought to be the most marked trait of their character." "Such is the portrait,"

adds Charlevoix, "drawn of the missionaries of New France by those who knew them best. I myself knew some of them in my youth, and I found them such as I have painted them, bending under the labor of a long apostleship, with bodies exhausted by fatigues and broken with age, but still preserving all the vigor of the apostolic spirit, and I have thought it but right to do them here the same justice universally done them in the country of their labors."

The Relations or Journals of the Jesuit Fathers contain incidental descriptions of the lake coast from "Unghiara," or Niagara, to Lake Superior, otherwise called "Tracy" and "Upper Lake." A map, published at Paris, in 1660, indicates a discovery of Lake Michigan, or "Lake of the Illinois."

In 1668, the mission of Sault St. Mary was established by Claude Dablon and James Marquette-the oldest settlement in Michigan.

In 1671, Marquette gathered some wandering Hurons round a chapel at point St. Ignace, on the main land north of the peninsula of Michigan.

In 1673, Marquette, accompanied by Joliet, a trader of Quebec, and five other Frenchmen, with a number of Indian guides, paddled up Green Bay in birch bark canoes, ascended Fox River to the head of navigation and crossed the Portage to the banks of the Wisconsin. Here their guides deserted the party, from fear of the Sioux, but the Frenchmen fearlessly followed the current of the Wisconsin, until, on the 17th of June, the Mississippi was discovered.

In 1678, La Salle, accompanied by Tonti, an Italian soldier, and Lewis Hennepin, a Flemish friar of the order of Recollects, commenced the construction of the "Griffin," a bark of sixty tons, near the present site of Buffalo. During

and on

the next summer, this bark was ready for the voyage, the 7th of August, 1679, the surface of Lake Erie was first parted by the keel of civilization. The crew was thirty-four in all-sailors, hunters and soldiers-while father Hennepin was accompanied by several friars of his order.

Our purpose is not to follow this exploring expedition after leaving Lake Erie. The present digression only relates to their adventures from Niagara to Detroit. The voyage to Mackinaw the return of the Griffin loaded with furs, and the wreck of the bark in Lake Erie-La Salle's subsequent wanderings in Illinois among innumerable discouragementshis weary journey to Fort Frontenac on Lake Ontario, traversing the ridge which divides the basin of the Ohio from that of the lakes-his return to the Illinois in 1681, these and subsequent particulars of his heroic adventures and untimely end in the wilderness of Louisiana, belong to general history, and we must resist the temptation to pursue the romantic record.

His companion, Hennepin, has left to us a readable book, which, authentic for our purposes of reference, has been sharply criticised and also lustily defended,2 in respect to its narrative of exploration and discovery in the valley of the Mississippi. With that controversy we have nothing to do. His sketch of Lake Erie, as it was in 1679, is our only concern with the gray-coated Franciscan. We even suppress the inclination to give a personal history of the doughty friar.

We repeat Hennepin's description of Niagara Falls in his own words, preserving also the typography of 1698, the date of the edition in our possession:

"Betwixt the Lake Ontario, and Erie, there is a vast and prodigious Cadence of Water which falls down after a sur

2) Democratic Review, v. 190, 381.

prising and astonishing manner, insomuch that the Universe does not afford its Parallel. 'Tis true Italy and Suedeland boast of some such things; but we may well say they are but sorry Patterns, when compared to this of which we now speak. At the foot of this horrible Prescipice, we meet with the River Niagara, which is not above half a quarter of a League broad, but is wonderfully deep in some places. It is so rapid above this Descent, that it violently hurries down the wild Beasts while endeavoring to pass it to feed on the other side, they not being able to withstand the force of its Current, which inevitably casts them down above Six hundred feet.

"This wonderful Downfall is compounded of two great Cross-streams of Water, and two Falls, with an Isle sloping along the middle of it. The waters which fall from this vast height do foam and boil after the most hideous manner imaginable, making an outrageous noise, more terrible than that of Thunder, for when the Wind blows from off the South, their dismal roaring may be heard above fifteen Leagues off.

"The River Niagara having thrown itself down this incredible Precipice, continues its impetuous course for two Leagues together, to the great Rock above mentioned, with an inexpressible rapidity: But having passed that, its Impetuosity relents, gliding along more gently for two Leagues, till it arrives at the Lake Ontario or Frontenac.

"Any Barque or greater vessel may pass from the Fort to the foot of this huge rock above mentioned. This rock lies to the Westward, and is cut off from the Land by the River Niagara, about two Leagues farther down than the great Fall; for which two Leagues the people are oblig'd to carry their Goods over-land; but the way is very good and