BOTANICAL, INDEX 
35 
they launched their frail bark canoes on Lake Michigan for the Missionary Station of 
St. Simeon at the head of Green Bay, keeping near the shore all the way. Joilet 
continued on his journey to Quebec, but Marquette, who had already lost his health 
from exposure, remained at Green Bay through the winter and until late the next 
autumn (Oct. 25, 1G74), when his strength being partly restored he again started for 
the Illinois Missions with two French companions and nine canoe loads of Indians. 
After innumerable hardships and sufferings they reached the mouth of the Chicago 
river late in December. Here they entered and ascended about two leagues (six 
miles), when Marquette’s old disease (consumption) returning, accompanied by a vio- 
lent hemorrhage of the lungs, he requested to be landed to die. They built a small 
Fig. 175. Fort Dearborn , 1812. 
log hut by the river for protection from the inclemency of the weather, which, how- 
ever, they were obliged to abandon in early spring, from a sudden inundation from 
the river, and located their residence on higher ground, which became the nucleus 
of a permanent settlement or Mission. Marquette again set out on his journey to 
the Illinois country in March, 1(175, where he passed the summer, and in the fall 
started on his return to the North, but died before reaching his destination, Michil- 
limackinack. But this point (Chicago) had already been insensibly selected as a per- 
manent settlement after the manner of most of the French frontier settlements of 
the period, by a population consisting of roving bands of Indians, deserters from 
the French government service, (army, explorers, &c.,) or from the chartered Trad- 
ing Company, or often simply adventurers and small Indian traders, and who have 
ever since been known on the frontier as French voyageurs. They had no permanent 
homes, and from such a convenient point could change their fealty to the English at 
New York, &c., or to the French in Canada or southwest (Louisiana) as occasion de- 
manded. 
Pursuing our investigations further we find that on the 18th of September, 1679, 
LaSalle, after exploring eastern America for a long time, left Miehillimackinack on 
his first great Illinois voyage of discovery, stopping first at Green Bay, coasting 
along the western shore of Lake Michigan in his frail birch-bark canoes southward 
past Chicago river, around the head of the lake, and north upon the eastern shore until 
lie reached the mouth of the St. Joseph river, Michigan, which he reached No- 
vember 1st, 1679. Here he built a fort w hich lie called Fort Miami, which was his 
future, western headquarters for the next few years, and from here he would sail up 
the St. Joseph river to the present village of South Bend, Indiana, and by carrying 
(portage) his light canoes across the prairies to the Kankakee river, a distance of only 
two miles, he could visit the Illinois river country, of which he held a charter from 
the French government. But this was a long and tedious journey, and on the 21st 
of December, 1681, he crossed the lake with all of his supplies, tools, and most of his 
colony, being fifty-four men, women and children, and made Chicago his future base 
of operations. From here he followed Marquette’s old route to the Illinois country. 
All the French frontier establishments at this period were built after one 
model, and consisted of a chapel, one or more houses (usually log huts), a store- 
house and workshop, the whole enclosed with palisades (upright posts set close to- 
gether), and forming, in fact, a fort. The Indian wigwams were never within the 
