aged were the men that they refused to go farther and pleaded 

 with their leader to give up the expedition and turn back. 

 The priest proved a valuable aid to Verendrye at this critical 

 period, for by his pleadings, some of the men were persuaded 

 to go farther, and four canoe crews were organized under the 

 leadership of M. de Jemmeraie and Verendrye's son, with a 

 competent guide. The little party made the portage at once, 

 leaving their companions to pass the winter, it being then 

 late in August, at Grand Portage. Passing on, Jemmaraie and 

 his little band arrived at Rainy Lake without any mishaps and 

 proceeded to build a small fort before the cold weather set in. 

 The young man named his fort St. Pierre after his uncle. 



The party having arrived so late in the summer, the news 

 of their coming had not reached many of the villages, making 

 trading only possible with those savages in the immediate 

 country. Early in the spring, La Verendrye's son left the fort 

 with the small amount of fur to return to his father and 

 party at Grand Portage, reaching there on the twenty-ninth 

 of May. Sending his son on to Michillimacimac with the fur, 

 with instructions to return, bringing the supplies supposed to 

 be there from Montreal, La Verendrye pushed on toward 

 Rainy Lake and Fort St. Pierre, taking good care along the 

 route to put all the portages in first-class condition, arriving 

 at the latter place on July 14th, 1732. Stopping here only 

 long enough to lay in supplies, Verendrye proceeded on his 

 way down Rainy River into the Lake of the Woods. 



About 1765, the Indians of Rainy Lake made themselves so 

 obnoxious to the English and French traders by plunder and 

 black-mail, that they were given the name of Pillagers. The 

 names of many remarkable men are connected with the trad- 

 ers of the Rainy River country, such as the elder and younger 

 Alexander Henry (uncle and nephew), David Thompson and 

 Daniel William Harmon. In 1791, Peter Grant, only in his 

 twenties but already a partner in the North-West Company, 

 was in charge of the fort on Rainy Lake. Sir George Simpson 

 gave the present name to the fort, calling it after his wife, 

 Fort Frances, he being at that time the governor of the Hud- 

 son Bay Company's vast territories, and in his account of his 



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