marks-and

Updated: May 9, 2025

Joseph River there stands a withered cedar, perhaps several hundred years old, which bears scars that are believed to be the blaze marks of the broad-bladed axes of the French explorers made to indicate the place where the portage out of the river began, the place which La Salle missed when lost in the forest but afterward found, where Father Gabriel made several crosses, as Hennepin records, on the trees perhaps these very marks-and where La Salle left letters for the guidance over the prairie of those "who were to come in the vessel" thinking of the captain of the Griffin who was ordered to follow him to the Illinois on his return.

John Finley - The French in the Heart of America