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03 - Starved Rock- A Historical Sketch by Eaton G. Osman · Starved Rock- A Historical Sketch

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  Speaker 1: Section three of Starved Rock, a historical sketch by Eton
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  Speaker 1: g Ossman. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain
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  Speaker 1: recording by Veronica Jenkins, Section three The Fate of the
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  Speaker 1: Explorers and Lassalle The Fate of the Explorers, ah weary
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  Speaker 1: priest with pale hands on the trobbing brow of pain wittier.
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  Speaker 1: He was a man of comely form, polished and brave,
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  Speaker 1: well learned and kind Puritan poet. The death of Marquette,
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  Speaker 1: Marquette and Joliette separated at green Bay, never again to meet.
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  Speaker 1: Marquette's constitution was so seriously impaired by the fatigues of
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  Speaker 1: the journey that he never afterward became a well man.
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  Speaker 1: Illness followed him so relentlessly that not until the following
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  Speaker 1: year was he able to complete his report and send
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  Speaker 1: it to his father's superior at Quebec. In the fall
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  Speaker 1: of the same year, sixteen seventy four, he received from
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  Speaker 1: Quebec in order to establish a mission at Keskaskia Starved Rock.
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  Speaker 1: His heart was in the work, and on October twenty
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  Speaker 1: fifth he left Green Bay for the Illinois. His old
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  Speaker 1: malady dysentery with hemorrhage returning, however, he was compelled to
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  Speaker 1: winter with his white companions at the mouth of Chicago River,
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  Speaker 1: which place he left for the Illinois River March twenty ninth,
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  Speaker 1: sixteen seventy five, reaching Keskaskia April eighth, here on the
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  Speaker 1: plain north of and across the river from Starved Rock.
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  Speaker 1: He then founded the mission, to which he gave his
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  Speaker 1: favorite name, Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin. But it
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  Speaker 1: was only for a little while that he was able
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  Speaker 1: to teach the benighted Indians, for continued illness soon obliged
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  Speaker 1: him to set forth on their returned voyage, which brought
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  Speaker 1: him to a lonely grave in the wilderness. On the
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  Speaker 1: eve of his departure from the village, he convened the
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  Speaker 1: inhabitants to the number of two thousand on a meadow
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  Speaker 1: hard by, and there on a rude altar, exhibited four
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  Speaker 1: pictures of the Virgin Mary, explained their significance, and exhorted
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  Speaker 1: the chiefs and people to embrace Christianity. Quitting Kaskaskia soon
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  Speaker 1: after Easter, which occurred that year April fourteenth, he returned
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  Speaker 1: to the lake via the Kankakee Portage and Saint Joseph River.
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  Speaker 1: Unable to proceed further, his companions built for him a
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  Speaker 1: rude hut near the mouth of the river, in which
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  Speaker 1: he died, the names of Jesus and Mary on his
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  Speaker 1: lips and his face radiant with joy. He was buried
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  Speaker 1: on an eminence overlooking the lake, which he himself had
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  Speaker 1: pointed out for his resting place. But two years later
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  Speaker 1: his Indian friends from Mackinaw removed his bones to Saint Anas,
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  Speaker 1: where they were buried in a va under the floor
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  Speaker 1: of the log chapel. In process of time, the mission
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  Speaker 1: being afterwards abandoned, their resting place was forgotten, but it
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  Speaker 1: was discovered in eighteen seventy seven by a Michigan clergyman,
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  Speaker 1: and a monument has by the latter's endeavors been since
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  Speaker 1: erected to mark the spot. Thus, died, at the age
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  Speaker 1: of thirty eight, one of the noblest and purest men
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  Speaker 1: whose names adorn the annals of the Northwest Joliet's subsequent career.
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  Speaker 1: Monsieur Joliet reached Quebec in August sixteen seventy four, but
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  Speaker 1: within side of Montreal, was nearly drowned, losing all the
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  Speaker 1: records of his voyage, he made a verbal report to
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  Speaker 1: the Governor, accompanying it with a map made from recollection.
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  Speaker 1: He no doubt expected some substantial reward, but was disappointed,
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  Speaker 1: at least at that time. For this and other services,
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  Speaker 1: he was later granted the island of Antacosti, at the
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  Speaker 1: mouth of the Saint Lawrence, where in sixteen eighty one
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  Speaker 1: he established himself with his wife and six servants, and
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  Speaker 1: became interested in the fisheries. Being also a skilled navigator
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  Speaker 1: and surveyor, he was appointed by Frontenac hydrographer at Quebec.
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  Speaker 1: In sixteen ninety the English commander Sir William Phipps burned
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  Speaker 1: Joliet's and Acoste establishment and took him and his wife prisoners.
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  Speaker 1: Joliet was subsequently released and in sixteen ninety four explored
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  Speaker 1: Labrador on behalf of a seal and whale fishing company.
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  Speaker 1: He died evidently poor, in sixteen ninety nine or seventeen hundred.
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  Speaker 1: His descendants appear to have inherited his virtues and his talent,
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  Speaker 1: and several of them have held positions of high trust
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  Speaker 1: and responsibility, both civil and ecclesiastical, in the modern Dominion
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  Speaker 1: of Canada. LaSalle, I hear the tread of pioneers of
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  Speaker 1: nations yet to be the first low wash of waves,
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  Speaker 1: where soon shall roll a d human see Whittier his
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  Speaker 1: dream of empire. It has come to be the fashion
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  Speaker 1: in certain quarters to belittle the character and accomplishments of LaSalle.
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  Speaker 1: While Parkman makes him second only to Champlain as the
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  Speaker 1: greatest of all French discoverers of the Great West, Shay
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  Speaker 1: treats him as simply a follower of paths that others
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  Speaker 1: had previously blazed. Parkman bears testimony to the heroic persistence
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  Speaker 1: of the man in spite of immense physical difficulties and
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  Speaker 1: the more disheartening machinations of enemies, whose adverse influence was
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  Speaker 1: felt at every step of his career and at every point,
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  Speaker 1: from the court of Louis the fourteenth to the mouth
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  Speaker 1: of the Mississippi Doctor. Shay, on the other hand, ascribes
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  Speaker 1: his failure to a fatal lack of capacity as an explorer.
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  Speaker 1: LaSalle was doubtless a persuasive talker in setting forth his projects,
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  Speaker 1: he says, though utterly incapable of carrying out even the
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  Speaker 1: simplest there is an element of truth in the latter view.
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  Speaker 1: Of LaSalle, but the statement is an exaggeration of La
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  Speaker 1: Sal's real fault. It is true Lasal strictly speaking, discovered
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  Speaker 1: nothing except the Ohio River, neither the Mississippi nor its outlet,
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  Speaker 1: both of which had been seen by the Spaniard a
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  Speaker 1: hundred years before La Sal was born. But these discoveries
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  Speaker 1: the Spaniard had also as long ago forgotten, and Lasal's
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  Speaker 1: claim of the land for France by right of discovery
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  Speaker 1: and occupancy was never disputed. As to the north West,
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  Speaker 1: though Lasal was neither the first to explore its lakes
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  Speaker 1: or rivers, he certainly was the first to enter it
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  Speaker 1: as a suttler and pioneer of the future settlers. Moses
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  Speaker 1: goes even further than Shay, attributing to LaSalle a bickering spirit,
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  Speaker 1: which certainly is not a characteristic of the man, as
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  Speaker 1: he is pictured by Parkman. Confessedly the most competent historian
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  Speaker 1: of this period and department of our American history, Moses
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  Speaker 1: says had the French governor Lebarre Lesal's enemy at all times,
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  Speaker 1: as Frontenac was always his friend and LaSalle pooled their
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  Speaker 1: issues and instead of endeavoring to break each other down
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  Speaker 1: worked together, there was nothing to prevent their building up
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  Speaker 1: a colony at Fort Saint Louis starv Rock, which would
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  Speaker 1: have been of great advantage to the interests of each
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  Speaker 1: and exerting a controlling influence upon the destiny of New France.
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  Speaker 1: Had agriculture and permanent settlement been encouraged in connection with
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  Speaker 1: the traffic with the Indians, a prosperous and powerful community
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  Speaker 1: might have been established, which, growing and extending to other
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  Speaker 1: equally favorable locations in the Illinois country, might in fifty
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  Speaker 1: years have constituted a community which would have proved an
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  Speaker 1: insuperable barrier against any foreign encroachment in consequence of its
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  Speaker 1: ability to maintain its own integrity. But the rapacity of
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  Speaker 1: one and the ambition of the other prevented the accomplishment
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  Speaker 1: of such a result. Mister Moses' overlookd the fact that
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  Speaker 1: this very idea was, in truth the keynote of LaSalle's career,
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  Speaker 1: that is, to take possession of and settle the Mississippi Valley.
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  Speaker 1: But in this purpose he had the opposition of both Labarre,
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  Speaker 1: the governor, and also the Jesuits, neither of whom then
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  Speaker 1: desired permanent settlers about them. To interfere with their relations
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  Speaker 1: with the Indians. The responsibility of the failure of LaSalle's
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  Speaker 1: attempts to colonize the Illinois rests much more with the
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  Speaker 1: court and the priesthood on the Saint Lawrence than with
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  Speaker 1: LaSalle on the Illinois. His failures, as a result of
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  Speaker 1: his own faults, must be attributed not so much to
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  Speaker 1: the withering influences of the soul consumed with petty quarrels
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  Speaker 1: and bickerings, but rather to his unfortunate inability to create
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  Speaker 1: real friendships among his own people, and to his besetting
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  Speaker 1: sin of trusting no one but himself, even in projects
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  Speaker 1: requiring for their success the co operation of large bodies
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  Speaker 1: of mind. More than two hundred years have passed since
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  Speaker 1: LaSalle perished in the trackless wastes of the far Southwest,
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  Speaker 1: and his venturous soul fled to that bourne from which
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  Speaker 1: no traveler returns. But even as he stood upon the
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  Speaker 1: summit of Starved Rock in sixteen eighty two and sixteen
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  Speaker 1: eighty three, and his eye swept over the magnificent landscape,
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  Speaker 1: his prophetic spirit saw in the then distant future the
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  Speaker 1: grandeur of the empire that was yet to come, whose
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  Speaker 1: very heart would throb in the fertile land spread out
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  Speaker 1: before him, which he loved to characterize as a terrestrial paradise.
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  Speaker 1: It was the master mind of LaSalle that first conceived
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  Speaker 1: the policy which led on step by step, from starved
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  Speaker 1: Rock to Fort to Sgain Braddock's defeat, and Forbes marched
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  Speaker 1: to the forks of the Ohio, and the train of
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  Speaker 1: events culminating in the fall of Quebec. Looking into the future,
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  Speaker 1: LaSalle saw on these prairies and by the shores of
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  Speaker 1: the Great Lakes, a new France far more powerful than
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  Speaker 1: the old. And this vision, one may truly say, was
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  Speaker 1: the guiding star of his romantic career. As the first
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  Speaker 1: white man to establish a settlement upon her soil, he
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  Speaker 1: has been justly styled the father of Illinois. But it
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  Speaker 1: was only when Wulf triumphed on the Heights of Abraham
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  Speaker 1: that the empire which Lassal foresaw and devoted his life
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  Speaker 1: to found became a historic fact. What LaSalle did not
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  Speaker 1: see was that the great law of evolution had destined
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  Speaker 1: that this great power would be not Norman but Anglo Saxon.
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  Speaker 1: End of section three, recorded by Veronica Jenkins in Ottawa, Illinois,