Page:History of Goodhue County, Minnesota.djvu/95

 HISTORY OF GOODHUE COUNTY <;:5 Montreal June 16, 1727, and reached the enlargement of the Mississippi, now known as Lake Pepin, September 17 of the same year. It is interesting to note that the name Pepin is first given to this lake in the journal of Le Sueur in the year 1700, and was probably applied in honor of Stephen Pepin, who was with Le Sueur on the shores of Lake Superior as early as 1679. In the latter part of September, 1727, Boucher arrived at Sand Point, which extends into Lake Pepin opposite Maiden Rock. Here he erected a stockade one hundred feet square, within which were three buildings, subserving probably the uses of store, chapel and living quarters. One of the log huts was 34 x 16, one 30 x 16 and the last 26 x 16. There were two bastions, with pickets all around, twelve feet high. The fort was named in honor of Charles de Beauharnois, then governor of Canada. The Jesuits called their mission from St. Michael, the Archangel. Father Guignas, in writing from the new fort, gave the following description of a celebration held there. He says: "On the morning of November 1 [1727] we did not forget that it was the General's birthday. In the morning, mass was said for him, and in the evening some very fine rockets were displayed, while we shouted 'Vive le Roy' and 'Vive Charles de Beauharnois.' What contributed much to. the amusement was the terror which the rockets caused to some lodges of Indians, at that time near the fort. When these poor people saw the fireworks in the air, and the stars apparently falling down from the heavens, the women and the children began to flee, and even the most courageous of the men to cry for mercy, begging earnestly that we would stop the astonishing display of 'fire medicine'." During the following spring, in the month of April. 1728, the water rose so high in the lake that the floors of the log buildings were submerged, and for two weeks the Frenchmen had to live in the woods. In dispatches sent to France in Octo- ber, 1729. by the Canadian government, the following reference is made to Fort Beauharnois: ''They report that the fort built among the Sioux, on the border of Lake Pepin, is badly situated on account of the freshets, but the Indians assure them that the water in the spring of 1728 rose higher than ever before, and this is credible, inasmuch as it did not so much as reach the fort this year." Owing to the hostility of the Foxes during that summer, traders were afraid to settle at the post, and in the fall of that year it was practically abandoned. In the spring the abandonment became actual, and the place was without occupants for several years. In going to Illinois, during the month of October, probably 1728 or 1720. the zealous Father Guignas attempted to visit the