Chapter One

THE FIRST IOWA EXPLORERS AND WHAT THEY FOUND.

The first inhabitants of Iowa and the Mississippi valley are known as the "Mound Builders." From the implements of stone and copper and the fragments of woven cloth and other trinkets which are found in the mounds which they left we have reason to believe that they had made some progress in the scale of intelligence. Strange as it may seem, these mounds have preserved the work of their hands, including skeletons, through the ages without number that have elapsed since they became an extinct race. Of what absorbing interest it would be if we could know something of their manner of life, their numbers, customs, the purpose of these imperishable earthworks, how long they were here and the cause of their extermination; but aboriginal races preserve no history and further definite knowledge of this interesting race must remain forever unknown.

Two Frenchmen, James Marquette and Louis Joliet and their five French Canadian companions were the first white men who ever looked upon Iowa soil. Both these young men had been educated at a Jesuit college in France. Marquette was twenty-six years of age and had been a missionary among the Indians in the French possessions for a number of years. Joliet was twenty-seven years of age. He was thoroughly acquainted with the Indian life and customs, having conducted an Indian trading post for some years near Quebec. The two explorers met at Mackinaw and proceeded to Green Bay and passed up the Fox river for some distance to a village of the Miami and Kickapoo Indians. This was the farthest western outpost to which even the zealous Jesuit missionaries had ventured. Calling a council of the chiefs and head men of the village they told them of the object of their voyage. The Indians tried in vain to dissuade them from pursuing so perilous a journey by telling them of the savage tribes they would meet and the monsters which infested forest and river, but, the two young explorers were unmoved. Their minds were ripe for adventure, and they answered, "We are firmly resolved to do all and suffer all for so glorious an enterprise." They engaged Miami guides to pilot them across the portage between the Fox and the Wisconsin rivers. Here they dismissed their guides and embarked in the two little bark canoes which they had brought with them and for seven days they floated down the waters of the Wisconsin. On June 16, 1673, they were swept into the broad waters of the Mississippi river and beheld the rugged bluffs on the western shore a few miles below where the city of McGregor now stands. Floating down on the bosom of its spacious waters they felt the inspiration of their great discovery. The Indians at Green Bay had told Marquette of the rumor of a great river far toward the setting sun and his consuming ambition to be among the first Europeans to look upon its valleys and plains and to carry a knowledge of the true God to its people had been gratified. The only supplies they had brought with them was enough Indian corn and dried meat to forward them on their journey. It was the delightful month of June, the month of singing birds and blooming flowers and new born foliage. Herds of buffaloes, deer and elk roamed the prairies and forests. They were passing through the richest and fairest region in the world. Yet it was an entire solitude. There were no signs of human habitation. Marquette called the river the "Broad River of Conception." Its present name is a compound of Algonquin words, "Missi" signifying great and "sepe," a river.

Floating down the current of the great river they landed from time to time and supplied their camp with abundance of fish and game. Every day added new joys to the explorers. The prairies stretching on either shore and the fringing woodlands marked the course of the streams in the distance. All were laden with the rich pedume and fragrance of June. After eight days they landed in the western shore and discovered human footprints in the sand.

Marquette and Joliet left their five companions in charge of their canoes and followed the footprints to the river bluff. Here they found a trail leading westward across a prairie. They looked in vain for some sign of camp or wigwams but saw none. All had the stillness of a wilderness solitude but the waving meadows and the distant clumps of forest and thicket had an entrancing beauty. They followed the trail for six miles and saw another river and on its banks an Indian village. A few miles further on the uplands there were other villages. The natives were greatly astonished at the approach of the white men but made no hostile demonstrations. They received them cordially and appointed four of their old men to meet the two strangers in council. Marquette, who had spent most of his young manhood as a missionary among the Indians in the lake region, could speak their language, which was a great delight to the natives. They informed him that they belonged to the "Illini" tribe, (meaning in their language, "we are men"). They smoked the pipe of peace together and extended them a most welcome greeting, inviting them to share the hospitality of their village. Marquette told them the object of their visit and that they had been sent to them by the French who were their friends. True to his vows, the good man told them in his first formal address of the great God worshiped by the white man and that he was the same as the Great Spirit which they adored. One of the chiefs addressed them as follows:

"I thank the black gowned chief and his friend for taking so much pains to come to visit us. Never before has the earth been so beautiful nor the sun so bright as now. Never has the river been so calm or free from rocks, which your canoes removed as they passed down. Never has the- tobacco had so fine a flavor nor our corn appeared so beautiful as we behold it today. Ask the Great Spirit to give us life and health and come ye and dwell with us."

At the close of this fraternal conference the visitors were invited to a feast prepared by the squaws. Marquette has also given us a complete description of this feast. It consisted of four courses. The first was a preparation of corn meal boiled in water and seasoned with oil. The second course of boneless fish nicely cooked. The third roasted dog, which, when the visitors had declined with thanks they at once removed from sight. The last course was a roast of buffalo, the fattest pieces of which were passed to the Frenchmen, who found it to be most excellent meat. Marquette's narrative is rendered in verse in Longfellow's beautiful poem, "Hiawatha."

The two Frenchmen remained six days with their Indian friends, hunting, fishing and bathing. Every day with them was a day of feasting. The natives exerted themselves in every possible way to contribute to their entertainment and comfort. This is the generous and beautiful spirit shown to the first white men who visited Iowa. The stream on whose banks this conference and reception occurred was the Des Moines river and the place of their landing on the Mississippi is supposed to be near where the town of Montrose now stands, in Lee county. Marquette and his party could not be induced to remain longer. They were accompanied back to their canoes by an escort of six hundred Indians. They parted regretfully with their newly made friends, who gave them repeated invitations to renew their visit.

As an expression of his sincere friendship, the Illinois chief presented Marquette with an ornamented pipe of peace-the sacred calumet. This he was to suspend from his neck as a sure protection from savage tribes whom the party might meet. This expression of friendship proved a timely safeguard to the brave party of explorers. They continued their journey down the river, being carried on its current by dayand camping at night on the shore. Frequent excursions were made, exploring forests and prairies and rowing up the streams which emptied into the Mississippi. They passed the mouth of the Missouri and called it "Muddy Water." The clear waters of the Ohio were called the "Beautiful River." In latitude 32 degrees we are told they came into the territory of a savage tribe which appeared on the bank of the river armed with bows, arrows and tomahawks ready for battle. The fearless Marquette was undaunted and held aloft his sacred Calumet. These signs of peace checked the rage of the warriors and after a conference the chief invited Marquette and his party to their village, where they teasted them for several days, and furnished them with fresh supplies for their journey. Marquette was quite a different character from the Spanish freebooters of the south a hundred years previous to his visit. The explorers extended their journey as far south as the mouth of the Arkansas river, a distance of nearly eleven hundred miles. It was extremely hot. The Indian tribes were extremely hostile and Marquette was unacquainted with their language. Should the company be killed their discovery would never be made known to the civilized world. As in every case, from the first decision to embark in the exploration, until its close, these young men acted from a sense of duty. After considering the situation they decided it was their duty to return to Canada and make a report to their sovereign. For days and weeks they made their way against the current of the majestic river until they reached the Illinois. Here they learned from the Indians that in ascending this river they would find a shorter route than the way they had come. Going up the Illinois river for two weeks, they crossed. the short portage to the Chicago river and reached Lake Superior. Here the two explorers separated, Marquette returning to resume his work as a missionary among the Indians, and Joliet going on to Quebec to make a report of their joint discoveries to the governor of Canada. They had made a long journey of over two thousand miles without the loss of a man. Joliet received as a reward for his services the gift of the island of Anticosta in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. There is no record that Marquette ever received anything. He asked nothing, but counted it a pleasure to bear a knowledge of the true God to these wilderness tribes. James Marquette was at the top of the list of noble men sent out by the Roman Catholic Church to do missionary work in the Mississippi Valley and the St. Lawrence basin.