Joliet was the first Frenchman to descend Lake Erie from Detroit. He had
been sent by Talon to investigate the copper mines of Lake Superior. He
returned to Quebec in the autumn of 1669 by way of the lower lakes,
instead of taking the usual route by the French River and the Ottawa. At
the mouth of Kettle Creek he hid his canoe. Thence he portaged,
doubtless by the well-known trails to the Thames and Grand rivers, until
he reached Burlington Bay.[5]
[5] This is the most probable inference from the facts stated by
Galinee.
At the Seneca village of Tinaouatoua, midway between the Bay and the
Grand River, he met La Salle and the Sulpician priests, Dollier de
Casson and Galinee on their way to Lake Erie and the Ohio River. The
result of the meeting and of the information given by Joliet was that
the priests altered their purpose and decided to proceed to Sault Ste.
Marie and then to the Pottamatamies, where they would establish their
mission: whilst La Salle, who evidently was dissatisfied with his
companions, went back with Joliet and, it is now pretty generally
believed, discovered the Ohio by journeying overland from the Seneca
villages south of Lake Ontario during the winter or the following
spring. Joliet gave the missionaries a description of his route, from
which Galinee was able to make a map which was of great assistance in
the further progress of their expedition.[6] The priests descended the
Grand River to Lake Erie, and wintered at the forks of Patterson's
Creek, where Port Dover now stands. After a sojourn of five months and
eleven days, during which they were visited in their cabin by Iroquois
beaver hunters, they proceeded westward along the north shore of the
lake. Losing one of their canoes in a storm, they were obliged to divide
their party. Four men with the luggage proceeded in the two remaining
canoes. Five of the party, including apparently the two priests, made
the wearisome journey on foot from Long Point all the way to the mouth
of Kettle Creek, where on the tenth of April, 1670, they found Joliet's
canoe, and the party was reunited for the rest of the long journey to
the Sault. Upon leaving their winter abode however the whole party had
first proceeded to the lake shore, and there on the 23rd March 1670,
being Passion Sunday, planted a cross, as a memorial of their long
sojourn, and offered a prayer. The official record is as follows:
"We the undersigned certify that we have seen affixed on the lands
of the lake called Erie the arms of the King of France with this
inscription: The year of salvation 1669, Clement IX. being seated in
St. Peter's chair, Louis XIV. reigning in France, M. de Courcelle
being governor of New France, and M. Talon being intendant therein
for the King, there arrived in this place two missionaries from
Montreal accompanied by seven other Frenchmen, who, the first of all
European peoples, have wintered on this lake, of which, as of a
territory not occupied, they have taken possession in the name of
their King by the apposition of his arms, which they have attached
to the foot of this cross. In witness whereof we have signed the
present certificate."
"FRANCOIS DOLLIER,
Priest of the Diocese of Nantes in Brittany.
DE GALINEE,
Deacon of the Diocese of Rennes in Brittany."
[6] Galinee's map is reproduced in Faillon's Histoire de la
Colonie Francaise.
Galinee grows enthusiastic over the abundance of game and wild fruits
opposite Long Point. The grapes were as large and as sweet as the finest
in France. The wine made from them was as good as _vin de grave_. He
admires the profusion of walnuts, chestnuts, wild apples and plums.
Bears were fatter and better to the palate than the most "savory" pigs
in France. Deer wandered in herds of 50 to 100. Sometimes even 200 would
be seen feeding together. In his enthusiasm the good priest calls this
region "the terrestrial paradise of Canada."
Fortunately for the explorers, the winter was as mild at Port Dover as
it was severe at Montreal. Patterson's Creek was however still frozen
over on the 26th March, when, having portaged their goods and canoes to
the lake, they embarked to resume their westward journey. They had to
pass two streams before they arrived at the sand beach which connected
Long Point with the mainland. To effect the first crossing they walked
four leagues inland before they found a satisfactory spot. To cross Big
Creek, they were obliged to spend a whole day constructing a raft. They
were further delayed by a prolonged snow storm and a strong north wind.
On the west bank was a meadow more than 200 paces wide, in passing over
which they were immersed to their girdles in mud and slash. Arriving at
the sandy ridge which then connected Long Point with the mainland, they
found the lake on the other side full of floating ice, and concluded
that their companions had not ventured to proceed in their frail
barques. They encamped near the sandbar and waited for the canoes,
which had doubtless been delayed by the weather. The missionaries put
themselves on short rations in order to permit the hunters to keep up
their strength for the chase, and were rewarded with a stag as the
result. As it was Holy Week the whole party decided not to leave the
spot until they had kept their Easter together. On the Tuesday
following, which was the eighth day of April, they heard mass and,
although the lake had still a border of ice, they launched their canoe,
and continued their journey as before, five of the party going by land.
When they arrived at "the place of the canoe," on the 10th great was
their disappointment to find that the Iroquois had anticipated them and
carried it away. Later in the day however it was found, hidden between
two large trees on the other side of a stream. The discoverers came
upon it unexpectedly whilst looking for dry wood to make a fire, and
bore it in triumph to the lake. The hunters were out the whole day
without seeing any game. For five or six days the party subsisted on
boiled maize, no meat being obtainable. Being provided now with three
canoes, the party paddled up the lake in one day to a place where game
was abundant. The hunters saw more than 200 deer in a single herd, but
missed their aim. In their craving for flesh-meat, they shot and
skinned a poor wolf and had it ready for the kettle, when one of their
men perceived twenty or thirty deer "on the other side of a small lake
on the shore of which we were."[7] The deer were surrounded and forced
into the water, where 10 were killed, the rest being permitted to
escape. Well supplied with fresh and smoked meat they went on nearly
twenty leagues (about fifty miles) in one day, "as far as a long point
which you will find marked in the map of Lake Erie. We arrived there on
a beautiful sand-beach on the east side of this point."[8] Here
disaster overtook them. They had drawn up their canoes beyond high
water mark, but left their goods on the sand near the water, whilst
they camped for the night. A terrific gale came up from the north-east,
and the water of the lake rose until it swept with violence over the
beach. One of the party was awakened by the roaring of the waves and
wind and aroused the rest, who attempted to save their supplies.
Groping with torches along the shore, they succeeded in securing the
cargo of Galinee's canoe, and of one of Dollier's. The other canoe load
was lost, including provisions, goods for bartering, ammunition, and,
most important of all, the altar service, with which they intended
establishing their mission among the Pottawatamies. The question was
debated whether they should take up their mission with some other
tribe, or go back to Montreal for a new altar service and supplies,
and, returning at a later period, establish themselves wherever they
should then determine. Deciding in favor of the latter view, they
concluded that the return journey would be as short by way of the Sault
and the French River as by the route which they had followed from the
east. In favor of this decision was the further consideration that not
only would they see a new country but they would have the escort of the
Ottawas who were assembling at the Sault for their annual trading visit
to Montreal and Quebec. Galinee continues: "We pursued our journey
accordingly towards the west, and after having made about 100 leagues
on Lake Erie arrived at the place where the _Lake of the Hurons_,
otherwise called the _Fresh-water Sea of the Hurons_, or the Michigan,
discharges itself into that lake. This outlet is perhaps half a league
wide and turns sharply to the north-east, so that we were in a measure
retracing our steps; at the end of six leagues we found a place that
was very remarkable and held in great veneration by all the savages of
these regions, because of a stone idol of natural formation, to which
they say they owe the success of their navigation on Lake Erie when
they have crossed it without accident, and which they appease by
sacrifices, presents of skins, provisions, etc., when they wish to
embark on it."
[7] Evidently the Rondeau.
[8] This was Point Pelee.
"This place was full of huts of those who had come to pay homage to this
idol, which had no other resemblance to a human figure than that which
the imagination chose to give it. However it was painted all over, and a
kind of face had been formed for it with vermillion. I leave you to
imagine whether we avenged upon this idol, which the Iroquois had
strongly recommended us to honor, the loss of our chapel."
"We attributed to it even the scarcity of food from which we had
suffered up to that time. In fine there was nobody whose hatred it had
not incurred. I consecrated one of my hatchets to break this god of
stone, and then having locked canoes we carried the largest piece to the
middle of the river, and immediately cast the remainder into the water,
that it might never be heard of again."
"God rewarded us forthwith for this good act: for we killed a deer that
same day, and four leagues farther we entered a little lake about ten
leagues long and almost as wide, called by Mr. Sanson the _Lake of the
Salted Waters_, but we saw no sign of salt. From this lake we entered
the outlet of Lake Michigan, which is not a quarter of a league in
width."
"At last ten or twelve leagues farther on, we entered the largest lake
in all America, called here "the Fresh-water Sea of the Hurons," or in
Algonkin, _Michigan_. It is 600 to 700 leagues in circuit. We made on
this lake 200 leagues and were afraid of falling short of provisions,
the shores of the lake being apparently very barren. God, however, did
not wish that we should lack for food in his service."
"For we were never more than one day without food. It is true that
several times we had nothing left, and had to pass an evening and
morning without having anything to put into the kettle, but I did not
see that any one was discouraged or put to prayers (_sic_) on that
account. For we were so accustomed to see that God succored us mightily
in emergencies, that we awaited with tranquility the effects of his
goodness, thinking that He who nourished so many barbarians in these
woods would not abandon his servants."
"We passed this lake without any peril and entered the _Lake of the
Hurons_, which communicates with it by four mouths, each nearly two
leagues in width."
"At last we arrived on the 25th May, the day of Pentecost, at Ste. Marie
of the Sault, where the Jesuit fathers have made their principal
establishment for the missions to the Ottawas and neighboring tribes."
Here they found fathers D'Ablon and Marquette in charge of the mission,
with a fort consisting of a square of cedar posts, enclosing a chapel
and residence. They had cleared and seeded a large piece of ground. The
Sulpicians remained only three days and then hired an experienced guide
to take them to Montreal, where they arrived on the 18th June after a
fatiguing journey of twenty-two days. They had been absent since the 6th
July 1669, and were welcomed as if they had come to life again after
being dead. It was their intention to return in the following spring and
renew their search for the Ohio River, where they purposed establishing
a mission; but this intention was never carried into effect.
"This famous voyage," says Dean Harris in his interesting 'History of
the Early Missions in Western Canada,' "stimulated to an extraordinary
degree enthusiasm for discovery, and in the following year Talon sent
out expeditions to the Hudson Bay, the Southern Sea, and into the
Algonquin country to the north." Marquette, Tonty, Hennepin, Du Lhut, La
Salle and Perrot explored the Mississippi valley, and the head waters of
the St. Lawrence system, and almost the entire continent was claimed by
the French as belonging to New France. As far as appears, there were no
Indians having settled abodes on the north shore of Lake Erie for more
than a century after the expulsion of the Neutrals. Nor does any attempt
appear to have been made by the whites to explore south-western Ontario
until the close of the last century. The Iroquois continued for a long
period to range its forests for beaver in the winter. The rivalry
between the French and the English for the control of the vast western
fur trade led to the erection of outposts by the English at Oswego and
by the French at Cataraqui, Niagara, Detroit and Michilimakinac, during
the latter part of the 17th century. English traders sailed or paddled
up the lakes to get their share of the traffic, and were from time to
time summarily arrested and expelled by their rivals. Both parties tried
to ingratiate themselves with the natives. The French were as eager to
maintain a state of warfare between the Iroquois and the Indians of the
upper Lakes--the Hurons, Ottawas, Pottawatamies, Ojibways etc.--as to
induce the former to keep the peace with the white inhabitants of
Canada. There were two great trade routes to Montreal, viz: by Mackinac,
the Georgian Bay and the French and Ottawa River and by Detroit, Lake
Erie and Niagara; the Lake Simcoe portage routes by the Trent River
system, and the Holland River and Toronto were also used. Trading or
military parties, under the leadership of La Salle, Tonty, Perrot, Du
Lhut, Cadaillac, passed along the coast of L. Erie in canoes; but little
record if any remained of their visits to the shores. Kettle Creek was
long called the Tonty River. It is so named in one of Bellin's maps of
1755, and by the Canadian Land Board at Detroit as lately as 1793. The
only northern tributaries of Lake Erie to which names are given on the
map of 1755 are the Grand River, River D'Ollier (Patterson's Creek),
which in some maps is called the River of the Wintering--a manifest
reference to Galinee and Dollier de Casson's sojourn in 1669-70--the
River a la Barbue (Catfish Creek), the River Tonty (Kettle Creek) a
little east of P'te au Fort (Plum Point or else Port Talbot) and the
River aux Cedres (M'Gregor's Creek in Essex). The Thames is described as
a "River unknown to all geographers, and which you go up eighty leagues
without finding any rapids (_saults_)." The Chenail Ecarte is indicated
as the only outlet of the Sydenham river the map-makers assuming that
Walpole Island was part of the mainland. The mouths of four or five
streams are shown between Long Point and "the Little Lake" (Rondeau),
and the shore is marked "The High Cliffs." "The Low Cliffs" were
between the Rondeau and Point Pelee. In one of Bellin's maps of 1755 in
the present writer's possession Long Point is shown as a peninsula, and
the streams now in the County of Elgin are marked "Unknown Rivers," but
the map firstly mentioned and published in the same year, is more
complete, represents Long Point as an island, and names the Barbue and
Tonty rivers and Fort Point, (_P'te au Fort_) which are not named in
the other. The Tonty, moreover, is represented as an inlet by way of
distinction from the other streams (including the Barbue) which appear
as of equal insignificance. The naming of Kettle Creek after the great
explorer and devoted lieutenant of La Salle indicates its consequence.
Its harbor was of paramount importance to the navigation of these early
days, but no doubt the portage route extending from its mouth to the
Thames, exalted the little river in the eyes of the explorers who
honored it with Tonty's name.[9]
[9] General John S. Clarke, of Auburn, N.Y., in correspondence
with the present writer, dwells upon the importance of the Kettle
Creek portage route in the seventeenth century. He is a
recognized authority upon the subject of Indian trade routes.