Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume X.djvu/183

 LA SALLE 177 sash, doors, and blinds, 1 of woollen goods, 12 flour mills, 1 tannery, 1 currying establishment, and 6 breweries. Capital, Ottawa. LA SALLE, a city of La Salle co., Illinois, situated at the head of navigation on the Illi- nois river, at the terminus of the Illinois and Michigan canal, and at the intersection of the Illinois Central and the Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific railroads, 80 m. W. S. W. of Chi- cago; pop. in 1860, 4,016 ; in 1870, 5,200. It is built on a bluff rising from the river, and enjoys a pleasant and healthful situation and great facilities for trade. The river, here 900 ft. wide, is crossed by a railroad bridge of 20 arches. The surrounding country is fertile, and abounds in bituminous coal, of which large quantities are shipped from this point. There are extensive zinc works, breweries, flouring mills, founderies and machine shops, glass works, &c. It has graded public schools, in- cluding two high schools, two weekly news- papers, and five churches. LA SALLE, Jean Baptiste, founder of the " Brothers of the Christian Schools," born in Rheims, April 30, 1651, died in Rouen, April 7, 1719. He was appointed a canon of the cathedral of Rheims in 1669, and the next year went to St. Sulpice, Paris, to complete his course of theology. In 1671 he was ordained priest, and forthwith resolved to devote his whole life to the improvement of the working classes. He began by obtaining a royal char- ter for a sisterhood already established in Rheims, destined to teach exclusively the poor children of their sex. He then engaged in founding a brotherhood devoted to the instruc- tion of poor boys, and with a few associates opened schools in two of the parishes of Rheims. The number of these schools in- creased rapidly, and he united the teachers in a common residence, giving them a distinctive dress of the coarsest material, and a few simple rules to be observed by all. In order to en- courage his followers to practise religious pov- erty, he renounced his prebend in favor of a poor priest, distributed his patrimony in alms, and thenceforward taught daily in the schools. The new brotherhood spread rapidly through- out France. In Paris the secular teachers sued him before the courts, and compelled him to leave the city. At Rouen he purchased the es- tablishment of St. Yon, which became the cen- tral house of the brotherhood. (See BEETHREN OF THE CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS.) The canonical process of his beatification is nearly completed at Rome. He left several works, among which two have been frequently reprinted : Les regies bienseance et de la civilite c7 de la and Les dome vertus d'un ~bon maitre. LA SALLE, Robert Cavelier, sieur de, a French explorer, born in Rouen in November, 1643, killed in Texas, March 19, 1687. He is said to have forfeited his patrimony by becoming a Jesuit ; but he withdrew from the order, and went to Canada early in 1666. He settled at Montreal, and from the Sulpicians, seigneurs of the island, to which body his brother Jean belonged, obtained a grant of land and founded La Chine. He soon disposed of this, and in 1669 started on an exploring expedition with the Sulpicians Dollier de Casson and Galine"e ; but after visiting the Seneca country he parted with them near the head of Lake Ontario, on the Canada side, on account of illness. He is then said to have returned to the Iroquois country, reached the Ohio, and descended it to the falls where Louisville now stands. An as- sertion made recently that about this time he descended the Illinois to the Mississippi rests on an anonymous statement of conversations, and is unsupported by his own petitions and documents as to his discoveries. After Fron- tenac established Fort Frontenac, on Quinte" bay, La Salle went to France in the autumn of 1674, with strong commendatory letters from the governor general to Colbert. He was re- ceived with favor, ennobled, obtained a grant of the fort and adjacent lands, and was made governor of the fort and settlement, May 13, 1675. He replaced the palisade fort with one of cut stone, gathered French and Indian set- tlers around it, and soon had four decked ves- sels on the lake, making his post the centre of the fur trade, on which he now entered ; and Canada became divided into two great antago- nistic organizations, both grasping at a mo- nopoly of the peltries. With a view of extend- ing his operations to the west, and perhaps finding a way to the western ocean and China, he returned to France, and in May, 1678, ob- tained permission to carry on western explora- tions for five years, build and hold forts, and njoy a monopoly of the trade in buffalo skins, but was expressly forbidden to trade with the Ottawas or other lake tribes who had been accustomed to bring furs to Montreal. With Tonty, an Italian veteran, and 30 mechanics and mariners, he sailed from La Rochelle on July 14, and proceeded to Fort Frontenac. He sent Tonty to establish a post near the mouth of the Niagara, gained the good will of the Senecas, and began to build a vessel of 55 tons, above the falls, apparently at Cayuga creek. The Griffon was launched in 1679, and in August he embarked with his expedition, including three Franciscans. He sailed through Lakes Erie, St. Clair, Huron, and Michigan to Green bay. As his creditors had during his operations been proceeding against him, he un- wisely collected furs in defiance of the terms of his grant, and sent back a load by the Grif- fon to meet their claims. His party then pro- ceeded in canoes to the mouth of the St. Jo- seph's river, where he established a trading house, called Fort Miami. He then ascended the St. Joseph's, crossed to the Kankakee, and sailed down till he reached an Illinois village. He formed an alliance with the tribe, and in January, 1680, began near the present Peoria a post which he called Fort Crevecoaur. The Griffon never returned from her voyage down, and La Salle was deprived of much that he