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Updated: June 18, 2025
Father Marquette reached Sault Sainte Marie, in company with Greysolon Du Lhut, in August, 1670, and was received in a manner friendly enough, but the Chippewas warned him to turn back from that point, for the Ojibways beyond were notoriously hostile to Europeans, their chief White Otter having taken it on himself to revenge, by war, his father's desertion of his mother.
Du Lhut advanced from the bushes as he spoke, and the four men crossed the open ground in the direction of the line of men who waited silently for them in the dim twilight. They were within fifty paces, and yet none of them had raised hand or voice to challenge their approach. There was something uncanny in the silence, and a change came over Du Lhut's face as he peered in front of him.
Moreover, in the long course o their relations with the French they had, as already mentioned, formed a high opinion of men like Le Moyne and Lamberville, while they viewed with respect the exploits of Tonty, La Durantaye, and Du Lhut.
One of their leaders, Daniel Greysolon du Lhut, whose name is borne by the city of Duluth, in Minnesota, was a conspicuous figure in the wild frontier life. He carried on a vast fur-trade, held his rough followers well in hand, led a small army of them in fighting the battles of his country, and even appeared at the French court at Versailles.
"They have taken him. He is lost." "I have seen some strange things in these forty years, but never the like of that!" said Du Lhut. The seigneur took a little pinch of snuff from his gold box, and flicked the wandering grains from his shirt-front with his dainty lace handkerchief. "Monsieur de Catinat has acted like a gentleman of France," said he.
At one point a single broad shaft of light slid down between two pines and cast a golden blotch upon their track. Save for this one vivid spot all was sombre and silent. "Do not look round," whispered Du Lhut sharply. "Walk on as before." "Are they enemies?" "They are Iroquois." "And pursuing us?" "No, we are now pursuing them." "Shall we turn, then?" "No, they would vanish like shadows,"
The forces which he brought together for this task were greatly superior to any that had been mustered in Canada before. Not only were they adequate in numbers, but they comprised an important band of coureurs de bois, headed by La Durantaye, Tonty, Du Lhut, and Nicolas Perrot men who equalled the Indians in woodcraft and surpassed them in character.
Among them were many worthy men, like the great Du Lhut; but the majority were 'white savages, whose conduct went far to nullify the teaching and example of the missionaries. Thus the missions went on until the British came. For more than fifty years the conflict between the two nations for mastery continued intermittently; and finally in 1760 the French struck their flag and departed.
And one must, as I have said of Nicolet and Perrot and Du Lhut, judge charitably these men who made the reconciliations of the edges of things. They made the paths to western cities; he, to a western character; that only need be remembered.
In 1689, during the panic that followed the Iroquois invasion of Montreal, Du Lhut, with twenty-eight Canadians, attacked twenty-two Iroquois in canoes, received their fire without returning it, bore down upon them, killed eighteen of them, and captured three, only one escaping. In 1695, he was in command at Fort Frontenac.
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