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Updated: June 26, 2025
There they beheld on an island a large cross: never did Christians gaze on that emblem with more deep-felt emotion. Near it stood a log hut, tenanted by two Frenchmen. A missionary, of the name of Tonti, had descended that river, and, full of grief at not finding La Salle, had established a post near the Arkansas.
He called Lieutenant Tonti to the side of his couch, and directed him to take several canoes, with the larger part of the company, and make his way, as vigorously as possible, up the river three hundred miles to the mouth of the Illinois River. Then, ascending that, and its upper branch, the Kaskaskias, he was to cross by the portage to a tributary of the St.
Five or six old sailors, like himself, were close at his side; these, it is true, did not hesitate to speak as became their experience. But Tonti had obtained no small part of his reputation by exercising great moderation in delivering his oracles, and perhaps by seeming to know more than he actually revealed.
He charged Pere Hennepin to trace the downward course of the Illinois to its junction with the Mississippi, then to ascend the former as high as possible and examine the territories through which its upper waters flow. After making Tonti captain of the fort in his absence, he set out, March 2, 1680, armed with a musket, and accompanied by three or four whites and one Indian.
His reception by the court was even more cordial than before, and he received from the king new honors and more extended privileges. On the 14th of July, 1678, he sailed from Rochelle for Quebec. He took with him an Italian gentleman, by the name of Tonti, as his lieutenant, and a party of thirty men. After a two months' voyage, they landed at Quebec on the 15th of September.
Robert, Cavalier, with Lord Tonti, Ambassador, Zenobia Membré, Ecclesiastic, and twenty Frenchmen, first navigated this river from the country of the Illinois, and passed through this mouth on the ninth of April, sixteen hundred and eighty-two." The names of all the Frenchmen of the party were attached to this plate.
Ten minutes had not certainly elapsed after the rumor reached the lower part of the town ere two thousand persons were on the hill, including nearly all the principal personages of the place, 'Maso Tonti, Ghita, and the different characters known to the reader.
Little did this hardy adventurer suspect what had occurred on shore since he quitted it; nor was he at all aware that Tommaso Tonti was at watch in the harbor, ready to report the slightest indication on the part of the lugger of a wish to quit the bay. But, while Raoul was so indifferent to the danger he ran, the feeling was quite the reverse with Ithuel Bolt.
The expedition here described, organized in 1681, comprized, beside La Salle and Tonti, thirty Frenchmen and a band of Indians. It reached the Mississippi by way of the Chicago portage and the Illinois River, and arrived at the mouth in 1682. In 1684 La Salle attempted to found a settlement at the mouth of the Mississippi.
Thus I might begin this tale with a biography of Tonti birthplace, parentage, genius probably inherited from his mother, remarkable instance of precocity, etc. and a complete treatise on the system to which he bequeathed his name. The material is all beside me in a pigeon-hole, but I scorn to appear vainglorious.
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