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Updated: June 9, 2025
On his return to Canada he was accompanied by a Recollet friar, Father Louis Hennepin, and by Henry de Tonty, the son of an Italian resident of Paris, both of whom have associated their names with western exploration.
The Iroquois, the scourge of the east, had swept down the valley of the Illinois like hyenas of the prairies, leaving total desolation in their path. After a vain, anxious search for Tonty among the ruins and the dead, he makes his way back, finding at last at the junction of the two rivers that make the Illinois a bit of wood cut by a saw.
Lawrence River as far as the Falls of Lachine; Champlain, his Recollet friars and Jesuit priests and heralds of the woods added the upper lakes; and Marquette, Joliet, La Salle, Tonty, Hennepin, Radisson, Groseilliers, Iberville, Bienville, Le Sueur, La Harpe, the Verendrye father and sons and scores of other Frenchmen, many of forgotten names, added the valley of the river of a hundred thousand streams, from where at the east the French creek begins, a few miles from Lake Erie, to flow toward the Ohio even to the sources of the Missouri in the snows of the Rockies "the most magnificent dwelling-place" again to recall De Tocqueville, "prepared by God for man's abode; the valley destined to give the world a field for a new experiment in democracy and to become the heart of America."
"While it is true I am legally the wife of Francois Cassion, my sympathies now are altogether with the Sieur de Artigny. I would have you ask M. de Tonty to confer with me." "Yes, Madame." "You have served with De Artigny? You know him well?" "Three years, Madame; twice he saved my life on the great river. M. de Tonty shall receive your message."
"Francois de Boisrondet, the one who led the rescue party last night." "A gallant lad." "Ay, a gentleman of France, a daring heart. Tonight " The door opened, and the figure of a man stood outlined against the brighter glow without. De Tonty was on his feet fronting the newcomer, ere I even realized it was Cassion who stood there, glaring at us. Behind him two soldiers waited in the sunshine.
The men that Tonty had sent to tell him about the destruction of Fort Crèvecoeur were followed by others who brought word that the deserters had destroyed his forts at the St. Joseph River and Niagara, and carried off all the goods. The Griffin was certainly lost. And before going back to the Illinois country he was obliged to chase these fellows and take from them what could be recovered.
Louis had never interfered, and it is De Tonty, and not De Baugis who is in command at St. Louis by royal order. My right to respect of rank is clearer than your own, Monsieur, so I beg you curb your temper." "You threaten me?" "No; we who live in the wilderness do not talk, we act. I obey your orders, do your will, on this expedition, but as a man, not a slave.
They came prancing and screeching on their savage march, and would have been ridiculous if they had not been appalling. These Hodenosaunee, or People of the Long House, as they called themselves, were the most terrible force in the New World. Tonty saw at once it would go hard with the Illinois nation.
His agents at Fort Frontenac had plundered him; his creditors had seized his property; several of his canoes loaded with furs had been lost in the rapids of the St. Lawrence; and a letter from Tonty, brought to him by two voyageurs, told him that nearly all the men, after destroying Fort Crèvecoeur, had deserted. What a blow!
Both Hennepin and Tonty accompanied La Salle on his expedition of 1678 to the Niagara district, where, above the great falls, near the mouth of Cayuga Creek, he built the first vessel that ever ventured on the lakes, and which he named the "Griffin" in honour of Frontenac, whose coat-of-arms bore such a heraldic device.
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