The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-05-29
State is One of the Oldest
 Spots in the World
EARLY EXPLORERS STORY
Jesutis Took Most Prominent Part In the Early History of the State. Lead and Lumber Among
 Wisconsin's Resources.
BY FREDERIC j. HAsklN.

Though Wisconsin as a state is only fifty-nine years old today, geologists tell us 1t Is one of the oldest spots in the world. It was part of the original Lau- rentian Highlands and once possessed mountains that rivaled those of Thibet, standing for cons as portion of a great solitary island built directly from prime val chaos. Wind ana wave did their patient work and dislntefgrated the moun- tains until they were hardly half their former height, then the great glaciers came aown from the north and secured the face of the earth until the mountains were only hills. When the eternity of ice was passed the melted placiers lay as limpid lakes at the foot of the hills, and garden spot was ready for the pre- historic men who came to build great mounds down the valleys.
 It was such a garden that the voy- ageurs and eonriers de bols found when they left Quebec and pushed their way through forest and over inland seas to the west In quest of furs and game. It was this country that Jeon Nieolet found RNAAN him tp explore the unknown lands and open a way for western trade, way that John Jacob Astor was to follow two centuries later. Nicolet believed that "the strange waters" of which the Indians told were none other than those of the China Sea. He expected to be welcomed by mandaains at the end of his journey and included in his outfit a gorgeous robe of gold brocade in which to be presented to the powers and potentates of Cathay but only a band of naked savages with peace pipes welcomed him. He was sore with disappointment for many days, and even at the end of long years still be- lieved that the sea of California on Span- ish maps must be very near him, and only branch of the sea of China"
 The Jesuits were almost the first white people in Wisconsin. The martyrs, Ere beuf and Jogues were two of these, and some day when America has saints calendar of her own, it is expected that they will be canonized. D Esprit and Chouart passed through this region in 1858 on their way to explore Minnesota. D Esprit wrote an account of the trip for Charles II of England, indifferent to the sources of revenue, just so he was paid.
 
 passed on to his death in the wilderness over the Fox river praifdes, and if tra- dition be accepted, he one time reached the source of the Mississippi river, before Joliet journeyed there. In 1665 Claude Allouez established the first house of worship in what is now Wisconsin, build ing a mission at Pointe Saint Esprit on Crequamegon Bay near the present site of Ashland Four years later he was re- Af fffl zealot and going near the mouth of Fox river in the Green Bay country, estab- lished a mission where the city of Depere now stands. In 1871 an assistant was sent to Pere Allouez and he left the mis- sion to become the first itinerant min ister of that state, preaching to villages of Ottawas, Chippewas Pottawatomies, Miamis, Kiekapoos, Sioux and Illinois.
 On June A. 1671, Saint Lusson, envoy from Quebec, took possession of the north west In the name of Louis XIV of France, and it remained French for many years. A Wisconsin F'renchnan with a following of Indians and haif-breeds went out in the next century against Brad dock. Langlade of Green Bay settlement, led the Indians on the Plains of Abraham, and Rene de Boucher drew his fighters from the Indians of Wisconsin when he went to sack Haverhill Massachusetts
 In 1875 Frontenac, then governor of Quebec sent Louis Joliet to explore the Fox and Wisconsin rivers, the natural waterway that connects, with slight portage, the Great Lakes with the Miss issippi. Joliet was joined by Pere Mar quette, his former teacher, and these two with their party made one of the most famous expeditions in history. They went down the Mississippi as far as the mouth of the Arkansas 1t was in sight of Montreal on their return trip that Jolio' lost his box of maps and notes in the rapids, and so Marquette must needs
 write the story of the long journed iron his own notes and get most credit for the exploration.
 Robert Cavellier known to history as La Salle, came to the Wisconsin lands in 1875, and in 1879 his trading boat, the Chiffon, was the first sail boat oh the lakes. Tn 1885 Perrot, the trader, soldier of fortune, diplomat among the Indians was appointed ''Commandant of the West and given & force of twenty men with which to hold all the great unknown vii derness. He built a rude fort on the banks of the Mississippi in southwest Wisconsin.
 In 1880 Louis Hennepin, Franciscan friar going up the Mississippi and David Graysolon Du Luth, gentleman of the Kings Guard" coming down the river met on Wisconsin soil. It was an event that proves how small the world is aftei all, for when they had last met it was as companions on the field of Seneffe ir Hainault the day of the French victory over William of Orange, when Prior Hen nepin was an almoner in the Kings army and Du Luth was squire to the Marquis de Lassay They had each gone to ar extreme end of the new world and hat met by accident almost in it's center, the only white men save a handful within