Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/69

 ATHER JACQUES MARQUETTE, a French Jesuit, who had long lived on the frontier, in 1669 determined to explore the far west to the great river. He enlisted the cooperation of M. Talon, the Intendant, to aid him in fitting out an expedition. Father Marquette was one of the most devoted of missionaries, who had for years spent his life among the Indians in the French possessions. He had built up churches among them, learned their language, and endeared himself to the Indians by devoted friendship and kindly intercourse.

An intelligent French explorer and Indian trader, at Quebec, Louis Joliet, was selected by M. Talon to accompany Marquette on this expedition. On the 13th day of May, 1673, Marquette and Joliet, with five experienced voyagers, embarked from Michilimacinac in two birch canoes. When they arrived at Green Bay, the Indians, who had a warm affection and great veneration for the good missionary, who had devoted the best years of his life to their welfare, implored him to abandon the dangerous enterprise. They told him fearful stories of the Mes-as-se-pi country, and besought him with tears to give up such a hazardous expedition and remain with them. But his religious zeal, and the love of adventure, prompted him to make light of the apprehended dangers, and eager to go forward into the unexplored valley of the great river which it was believed no white man had seen, he pressed on. The party sailed up Green Bay to the mouth of Fox River and ascending this stream some distance, came to a village of the Miami and Kickapoo Indians. This was the extreme western limit of French explorations, and here Marquette engaged Miami guides to pilot