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Updated: June 26, 2025
It will be remembered that on the last of February, 1680, M. La Salle left the fort at Crèvecoeur, with four Frenchmen and an Indian guide, for his perilous journey of four hundred leagues, through the pathless wilderness, to Frontenac, at the eastern extremity of Lake Ontario. His chosen companion, Lieutenant Tonti, was intrusted with the military charge of the garrison.
At this point they landed, and encamped in the midst of a dense and almost tropical forest, upon the bank, but slightly elevated above the surface of the water. In the morning La Salle divided his fleet into three bands, one to descend each of these three branches. He took the one on the extreme right, or the western branch. Lieutenant Tonti, with Father Membré, took the middle.
There he leaves Tonti with all his people, and he himself, anxious about the fate of the Griffon, returns with three Frenchmen and one Indian, to the fort of Catarocouy, separated by 500 leagues from Crèvecoeur.
"No, Signore; but this felucca was a lugger. Tommaso Tonti wished to mystify me about that, too; but I have not been podest
Tonti, acting with spirit and decision as their ally, now intervened, and enforced upon the Iroquois a truce for the Illinois; but the former, on ascertaining the paucity of his means, recommenced hostilities. Attacking the fort, they murdered Pere Gabriel, disinterred the dead, and wasted the cultivated land of the French residents.
At the foot of the column was buried a leaden plate, on which, in Latin, the following words were inscribed: "Louis the Great reigns. 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 Illinois dispersed in all directions, leaving the latter isolated among their enemies. Tonti, who had at last but five men under his orders, also fled the country.
Among them was Lorenzo Tonti, direct descendant of the Tonti, of insurance fame. The youngster had been brought to the United States by one of the followers of Garibaldi, the Italian liberator, who spent a few years in New York City about 1852. "This youngster explained to his comrades the Tontine insurance plan. To boys of that age, fresh from war, this species of gambling seemed very attractive.
"Si, Signore," he replied, after satisfying his mind once more, through his eyes, "I will swear that the stranger yonder is a lugger." "And canst thou add, honest Tonti, of what nation? The nation is of as much moment in these troubled times, as the rig."
Tonti, almost alone in face of the Illinois, who were roused against him by the depredations of his men, and judging that he could not resist in his fort of Crèvecoeur, had left it on September 11th, 1680, with the five Frenchmen who composed his garrison, and had retired as far as the bay of the Lake Michigan. After having placed a garrison at Crèvecoeur and at Fort St.
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