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Updated: June 9, 2025
They were afraid of La Salle when he was with them; and, though it is said no man could help loving Tonty, these lawless fellows loved their own wills better. The two men that La Salle had sent to look for the Griffin arrived at Fort Crèvecoeur, bearing a message from him, having met him on the way. They had no news, but he wrote a letter and sent them on to Tonty.
The men whom he sent for goods were detained, and finally the Governor seized Fort Frontenac and put men in charge of it. La Salle had no resource but to appeal from the Governor's high-handed injustice to the King. He left Tonty in command of Fort St. Louis and departed for France. The famous falls are first mentioned in the Jesuit "Relations" of 1648.
So quietly did he slip out of life that his burial place is unknown. Some people believe that he came back to the Rock long after its buildings were dismantled and it had ceased to be Fort St. Louis of the Illinois. Others say he died in Mobile. But it is probable that both La Salle and Tonty left their bodies to the wilderness which their invincible spirits had conquered.
Tonty, having been informed that La Salle was coming with a fleet from France to settle a colony on the banks of the Mississippi, had not hesitated to set off from the northern lakes, with twenty Canadians and thirty Indians, and to come down to the Balize to meet his friend, who had failed to make out the mouth of the Mississippi, and had been landed by Beaujeu on the shores of Texas.
Unable to proceed, he sent forward Tonty to Michillimackinac, whence, after despatching news of their discovery to Canada, he was to return to the Illinois. La Salle himself lay helpless at Fort Prudhomme, the palisade work which his men had built at the Chickasaw Bluffs on their way down.
With his mind relieved, La Salle was glad to rest for a while at his little Fort Miami, situated at the mouth of the St. Joseph River. Tonty had passed through perilous straits. The desertion of the larger part of his men left him with but three fighting men and two friars. Next came a tremendous war-party of Iroquois to attack the Illinois, in the midst of whom he was.
Joseph portages, were the Miamis; and farther still, the Illinois, whom the Sieur de la Salle and Henri de Tonty had drawn close under the arm of New France. This chain of allies, with Du Luth's fort at Detroit and a partial control over Niagara, had given New France nearly all the fur trade of the Great Lakes.
These were ten in number, besides three children; and thus the expedition included fifty-four persons, of whom some were useless, and others a burden. On the 21st of December, Tonty and Membré set out from Fort Miami with some of the party in six canoes, and crossed to the little river Chicago. La Salle, with the rest of the men, joined them a few days later.
Among them was a man, not strong in person, and disabled, moreover, by the loss of a hand; yet, in this den of barbarism, betraying the language and bearing of one formed in the most polished civilization of Europe. This was Henri de Tonty. The others were young Boisrondet, and the two faithful men who had stood by their commander.
"And no orders to clear the devils out?" "No, Monsieur only to watch that they do not form for a rush." The Commandant's office was built against the last stockade a log hut no more pretentious than the others. A sentry stood at each side of the closed door, but De Tonty ignored them, and ushered me into the room.
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