CHAPTER IV.

EARLY SETTLEMENTS IN MICHIGAN.

THE Griffin was built during the winter and spring of 1679. In the autumn of 1678 La Salle sent forward some Frenchmen to winter at Detroit, and meet him when he should come up in the next summer. This would indicate a knowledge of the country, and an assurance that there was some place suitable for a winter abode. Allusion has already been made to the fact that the early narratives often make no reference whatever to the existence of posts and Indian villages lying directly in the way of the traveller. The narratives of the voyage of the Griffin do not inform us of any sight of human beings between Niagara and Mackinaw. We have no certain means of knowing whether there was any Indian town, or any post of coureurs de bois, upon the Strait at the time. There must have been one or the other in all probability. Tonty was sent up in a canoe in advance of the Griffin, to join the others

"a place called Detroit, 120 leagues from Niagara." This fact appears fact appears in Tonty's own narrative or memoir sent to the Government in 1693, where he repeatedly refers to Detroit as a

CHAP. IV.]

THE STRAIT.

37

place that can be identified as at or near where the city of Detroit now stands.' It may have been that the Indian town mentioned by Colden as at Teuchsa Grondie" was still in existence. The term written by the English and Dutch interpreters in a multitude of different ways more or less resembling it, and by the French as Taochiarontion, Atiochiarontiong, Teiocharontiong, Techaronkion,

etc., was applied properly to an undefined region embracing the Strait, and according to Hennepin, it gave a name to Lake Erie. Several of the old maps give it this title. The name given by the Hurons to the place where the city stands was Karontaen, a word closely resembling if not the same as Carantouan, the great stronghold where Champlain's follower, Etienne Brulé, spent a winter with a tribe supposed by Parkman to have been the Eries. These men were not sent up to explore, and it is difficult to believe they would have been turned out without a leader in an unknown wilderness.

On the 11th of August, 1679, the vessel weighed anchor and entered the Strait. The party were greatly charmed with all that they saw, and the nar

1 I La. Documents, 53, 68, 69, 70.

2 Taochiarontion. La Côte du Détroit.-Potier MS. "Cote" was used as "coast" was in old English, not merely to mark a hill or water boundary, but a vicinage or border-land.

3 Pioneers of France in the New World, 377-8.

The Jesuit Journal of 1653 (for July) speaks of 800 of the neutral nation wintering at Skenthio'ie, near Teiochanontian. In the New York documents the English and Dutch forms of the name are 19 in number.

38

LAKE ST. CLAIR.

[CHAP. IV.

rative of Hennepin, (like those of La Hontan and Charlevoix,) is almost rapturous in its expressions of admiration for the tall woods and verdant meadows, the fruits and vines, and the infinite abundance of birds and beasts. We are informed that La Salle was strongly urged to stop and settle on the Strait, but his real purpose, not then disclosed, was to compete with the Spaniards for the Lower Mississippi and Gulf Country, and so early a break in his voyage was not to be thought of.

On the 12th of August, which is known in the Calendar as Ste. Claire's day, they entered the Lake formed by an expansion of the Strait, and named it after that Saint. Modern geographers have called it Lake St. Clair, and referred its name to Patrick Sinclair, an English commander of the last century. Its Huron name was Otsiketa, signifying sugar or salt, and probably referring to the salt springs near Clinton River, which were well known in the earliest days of the country.' Here they were wind-bound for several days, the current of the upper Strait, (St. Clair River) being too strong to be overcome without a very fair breeze. They finally set out and reached Lake Huron on the 23rd. They were struck by a storm a day or two after, probably off Saginaw Bay, and were for a time in great peril. The gale abating, they reached Mackinaw safely. On the 2nd of Sep

This little lake also had various names. One was Lac Chaudiere (kettle) from its round shape. On the Duteh maps it is called Kandekio. On some of the French maps Library.

Ganatchio.

See Maps in Michigan State

CHAP. IV.]

FORT AT ST. JOSEPH RIVER.

39

tember La Salle left Mackinaw, and after visiting Green Bay, whence he despatched the Griffin eastward with a valuable cargo of furs, he coasted down the eastern shore of Lake Michigan and finally landed at the mouth of the St. Joseph River, then called the River of the Miamis. There he built a timber fort or block-house fifty by eighty feet. He subsequently went up that river and crossed over to the Illinois River, and thence worked down to the Mississippi.

This fort does not appear to have been of much consequence originally, and there.was never any outside settlement of whites about it. In 1697, when an attempt was made to induce the King to call in all the traders from the Northwest, and destroy the posts, an exception was proposed in favor of the forts at Mackinaw and the River St. Joseph, as necessary to obstruct the trade of the English and Iroquois with the Western and Northern Indians.' A few years

before (in 1691 or 1692) some English traders were said to have dealt with the Miamis near the latter post,' and Tonty, Courtemanche, Nicholas Perrot, and other noted leaders, were sent up to keep the Indians in the French interest. When Charlevoix visited the country in 1721, he spent some time at this post, which had then been re

1 2 Charlevoix Hist., 211-212.

2 In 1670 some Iroquois reached the Ottawa country under the guidance of Frenchmen, on a political mission.-9 N. Y. Doc., 84.

40

DU LUTH.

[CHAP. IV.

moved some distance up present State of Indiana.

the river into the

Meanwhile this region, from its abundance of furs, and from its lying in the path of all who sought to deal in those articles, was assuming considerable importance. The coureurs de bois had become very numerous, and there was great clamor against them. The English in New York were reaching out as far as they could for the Upper Country trade. The company at Quebec, in order to prevent beaver-smuggling, desired to exclude all but their own servants from the woods. We find constant reference to Du Luth, De la Forêt, Durantaye, De Lusigny, and other conspicuous characters, as not only active in exploring, but engaged in unlawful traffic. These men were all useful in defending the posts and holding the savages under control, and without them the close of the seventeenth century would have seen this region in the hands of the English. Du Luth, with great foresight, built a fort on the Kaministique River, on the north shore of Lake Superior, which completely shut off access to the Hudson Bay country from below, according to the routes then known. He was the first also to see the necessity of fortifying on the Strait.

In 1679, while La Salle was preparing for his journey, the Intendant Duchesneau made bitter complaints against Frontenac the Governor and Du Luth, as concerned together. He says that 500 or 600 brave men were in the country own