New-York tribune., 1878-07-19

tie settlers along the shore or the
Gulf so that when Marquette carried his
canoe across the portage of the Wisconsin u
was to enter the depths of an unknown VIII
derness. and to follow a current whose course
had never been traced. But the patient enter
prise of the peaeeable French Canadians ac-
complished far more in the exploration OF the
Great West than the daring and often
chiyalrous violence of their predecessors, the
warlike SpanIards. 1t was on the 18th OF
June, 1878, that Marquette, the Jesuit mis-
sionary, and Joliet, the fur trader, after their
long canoe journey from Quebec up the St.
Lawrence, through the Lakes, to the head OF
Green Bay, and thence to the upper waters OF
the Wisconsin, reached the Mississippi a few
miles below the present site of Prairie du
Chen; and on the 18th Of July, having
descended probably to the mouth OF the
Arkansas, passed the Missouri and Ohio,
and asoertained that the Mississippi dis
charged its food into the Gulf, they turned
to retrace their course.
A romantic story of Marquette's solitary
death on the bank of the river which bears his
namo was current for many years until Mr..
Shea brought to light the original and authen-
tic narrative of the missionarys last voyage.
But it is only within few months that mys-
terry respecting his last resting place has been
dissolved. Ii was known that after preaching
to the Kaskaskias and building the first house
and chapel on the present site of Chicago, he
was warned by increasing weakness to return
to the mission establishment ut Maclinac, in
the Spring of 1915, that he died on the way, and
that his remains were afterward transported to
Macllnac and deposited in a church whose
very site was forgotten more than century
ago. But in September 1877, the perseyer-
ing and intelligent search OF a local antiquary
was rewarded by the discovery, on farm
near the town, of the foundations OF the Old
Mission Chapel, pieces of a birch-bark collin,
and lastly, some fragments of human bones
The contemporary descriptions of Marquette's
burial make il impossible to doubt that here
were the long hidden remains Of one OF the
most illustrious explorers of the New World.
No part of the early history of America pos
sossCs a purer charm than that which
embraces the ariless narratives OF
these Canadian pioneers of the Northwest.
Spurred by the most unselfsh ambition,
they wandered into the primeval for t,
they guided their frail boats across the wintry
fioated down unknown rivers. burning
enthusiasm sustained them in peril, and yet an
idyllic peace brooded over their simple adyen-
lures. The painted savage, recking with the
blood of Spaniards and Englishmen, treated
them rs friends They lived for years in the
midst OF appalling dangers, and welcomed
cruel martyrdom as the crown of 4 happy life.
The lonely death OF Marquette attended by
two Indian disciples, who drew up his canoe
ON the strand when he told them that bis hour
had come, and there built but of bark
to shelter him in his last moments,
is poem upon which the pen OF
every historian, from CharlevOix to Bancroft,
has affectionately fingered. What might have
been the consequences to America il the French
schemes of a Mississippi empire which once
seemed so hopeful had been carried out, it
would be vain now TO speculate. But we
Americans can never cease to honor the
memory of the Canadian pioneers who broke
the road for us in the Mississippi valley, little
though those good men imagined what sort of
colonists were to follow in their footsteps, and
what sort of towns and cities were to spring
up by the banks of that "strOng and always
muddy current"