Correspondence. 127 
About 1622 at the head of 400 Algonquins he was successful in an at- 
tempt to negotiate peace with the Iroquois. Later he went among the 
Nipissings or Algonquins of lake Nipissing, fifty leagues farther north- 
west, and remained with them eight or nine years, becoming one of 
them, adopted by the nation, taking part in their councils, "having his 
cabin apart, doing his own fishing and trading." He is not thought to 
have been in Quebec during the time when (1629 to 1632) it was held by 
the English. But when the French again obtained control he was 
called to be clerk and interpreter for the Company of the Hundred As- 
sociates. 
July 1, 1634, he was sent from Quebec by Champlain on an exploring 
expedition to the west. On this journey it is said that Nicollet "sus- 
tained all the hard work of the most robust of savages." With seven 
Huron Indians for his only companions he coasted along the shore of 
lake HuroQ through the strait that leads to lake Superior, to the place 
since called Sault Sainte Marie, where he remained some time to af- 
ford rest for his men. He thence proceeded through the straits of 
Mackinaw into lake Michigan and landed at the mouth of the Menom- 
onie river on Green bay. Prom here his course is not definitely known. 
It is believed that he went up the Fox river as far as the village of the 
Mascoutins, about where Green Lake county now is, and then turned 
south to the Illinois country. It is not certain that he ever reached the 
Mississippi river, although he traveled some distance into the territory 
west and south of lake Michigan. 
He died in November, 1643. "While making a journey to Three Riv- 
ers in order to deliver an Indian prisoner, his zeal cost him his life and 
he was shipwrecked. He embarked at Quebec at seven o'clock in the 
evening in the launch of M. de Savigny, which was going to Three Riv- 
ers. They had not yet arrived at Sillery when a gust of the northeast 
wind, that had raised a terrible storm on the great river, caused the 
launch to fill and it sank to the bottom." (Relation of 1643.) 
"To-day Jean Nicollet is openly recognized as the one who disclosed 
the way to the great lakes and the western territory." He has been 
called the "Jacques Cartier" of Wisconsin, and furnished the earliest ac- 
counts of its inhabitants. "In the Relation de In Nouvelle France, for 
1639-40, is the first list of western tribes, made up from the statement 
of Nicolet." 
These facts are taken from various volumes of the Wisconsin Histori- 
cal Collections, especially, however, from the French of Henri Jouan, in 
Revue Manchoise, 188(>. Translated by Grace Clark. Wis. Hist. Coll.. 
XI, pp. 1-22. 
Joseph Nicolas Nicollet* was born July 24, 1786, at Cluses, in Savoy. 
He showed unusual indications of mental acuteness and energy while 
still a boy, and was given a first-class education. In order to complete 
*Vid. Xouvellft Biographie Generale, etc. Dr. Hoefer, J'uris, 1864; Amer. Alma- 
nack, 1S44; Am. Biog. Diet., L85*i : (,)uerard, France Litteraire; Obituary notice in Am. 
■Tour. Sci., Ser. I, vol. xlv, 1843; J. C. Pogaeadorff's Biographisch-Literarieches Hand- 
wortorbucli zur Goschichte dor cxactcn Wissenschaftpn, Leipzig, 1863| vol. n, pp. 286, 
1431. 
