Page:History of Richland County, Ohio.djvu/36

 hardly happened him. In a letter to Gov. Frontenac, Juliet says:

" I had escaped every peril from the Indians; I had passed forty-two rapids, and was on the point of disembarking; full of joy at the success of so long and difficult an enterprise, when my canoe capsized after all the danger seemed over. I lost my two men and box of papers within sight of the French settlements, which I had left almost two years before. Nothing remains now to me but my life, and the ardent desire to employ it in any service you may please to direct."

When Joliet made known his discoveries, a Te Deum was chanted in the Cathedral at Quebec, and all Canada was filled with joy. The news crossed the ocean, and the French saw in the vista of coming years a vast dependency arise in the valley, partially explored, which was to extend her domain and enrich her treasury. Fearing England might profit by the discovery and claim the country, she attempted as far as possible to prevent the news from becoming general. Joliet was rewarded by the gift of the Island of Anticosti, in the St. Lawrence, while Marquette, conscious of his service to his Master, was content with the salvation of souls.

Marquette, left at Green Bay, suffered long with his malady, and was not permitted, until the autumn of the following year (1674), to return and teach the Illinois Indians. With this purpose in view, he left Green Bay on the 25th of October with two Frenchmen and a number of Illinois and Pottawatomie Indians for the villages on the Chicago and Illinois Rivers. Entering Lake Michigan, they encountered adverse winds and waves and were more than a month on the way. Going some distance up the Chicago River, they found Marquette too weak to proceed farther, his malady having assumed a violent form, and landing, they erected two huts and prepared to pass the winter. The good missionary taught the natives here daily, in spite of his afflictions, while his companions supplied him and themselves with food by fishing and hunting. Thus the winter wore away, and Marquette, renewing his vows, prepared to go on to the village at the foot of the rocky citadel, where he had been two years before. On the 13th of March, 1675, they left their huts and, rowing on up the Chicago to the portage between that and the Desplaines, embarked on their way. Amid the incessant rains of spring, they were rapidly borne down that stream to the Illinois, on whose rushing flood they floated to the object of their destination. At the great town the missionary was received as a heavenly messenger, and as he preached to them of heaven and hell, of angels and demons, of good and bad deeds, they regarded him as divine and besought him to remain among them. The town then contained an immense concourse of natives, drawn hither by the reports they heard, and assembling them before him on the plain near their village, where now are prosperous farms, he held before their astonished gaze four large pictures of the Holy Virgin, and daily harangued them on the duties of Christianity and the necessity of conforming their conduct to the words they heard. His strength was fast declining and warned him he could not long remain. Finding he must go, the Indians furnished him an escort as far as the lake, on whose turbulent waters he embarked with his two faithful attendants. They turned their canoes for the Mackinaw Mission, which the afflicted missionary hoped to reach before death came. As they coasted along the eastern shores of the lake, the vernal hue of May began to cover the hillsides with robes of green, now dimmed to the eye of the departing Father, who became too weak to view them. By the 19th of the month, he could go no farther, and requested his men to land and build him a hut in which he might pass away. That done, he gave, with great composure, directions concerning his burial, and thanked God that he was permitted to die in the wilderness in the midst of his work, an unshaken believer in the faith he had so earnestly preached. As twilight came on, he told his weary attendants to rest, promising that when death should come he would call them. At an early hour, on the morning of the 20th of May, 1675, they heard a feeble voice, and hastening to his side found that the gentle spirit of the good missionary had gone to heaven. His hand grasped the crucifix, and his lips bore as their last sound the name of the Virgin. They dug a grave near the banks of the stream and buried him as he had requested. There in a lonely wilderness the peaceful soul of Marquette had at last found a rest, and his weary labors closed. His companions went on to the mission, where the news of his death caused great sorrow, for he was one beloved by all.

Three years after his burial, the Ottawas, hunting in the vicinity of his grave, determined to carry his bones to the mission at their home, in accordance with an ancient custom of their tribe. Hav- ing opened the grave, at whose head a cross had been planted, they carefully removed the bones and