The Irish standard., 1915-09-01


instructed young and old in the ele-
ments of religion and led in such re-
ligious exercises as could be conduct
ed by laymen; and during both of
these journeys they administered the
sacrament of baptism to several hun
dred infants whom they believed in
danger of death. In this way the min
istrations of our Catholic faith were
dispensed in Minnesota as early as
the middle of the seventeenth CEN
tury. y
Not many years afterwards another
explorer, Duluth, or as his full name
reads, Daniel Greysolon, sieur Duluth,
visited several districts of what is now
Minnesota. During his journey to the
west, which covered the years l67S-
81, he went first to the eastern end of
Lake Superior, in the spring of 1879
along its southern shore, and then
overland in a southwesterly direction,
until he reached the principal village
of the Sioux tribe, known as the
Issati (People of Knife lake,, who
lived in the neighborhood of Lake
Mile Laos. Here he planted the royal
arms of France, on July 2, 1879, and
placed thus the wild tribes of Mime
sofa and their territory under the
sceptre of His Most Christian Ma
jesty. The same act was performed a
little later among other tribes of the
Sioux, who lived at a considerable dis
tance to the west or southwest. On
September IS, 1878, he held a great
gathering of Sioux, Assiniboins, Crees,
Monsouis and Ojibways at a place
near the western extremity of Lake
Superior, probably on the spot where
now rises the city of Duluth, in order
to further the interests of peace and
amity amongst these savages. In the
spring of the following year, $780, he
went down stream on the St. Croix
river, until he reached the Mississippi,
where he learned from a small band
of Sioux Indians, that the Recollect
Father Louis Hennepin and two other
Frenchmen had been made captives by
a party of their tribe Duluth met
two of his countrymen on the Missis-
sippi in the company of large hunt
ing party of Sioux, with whom he went,
to the villages of the Indians near
Lake Mile Lacs, and did not rest until
the prisoners were released and de-
parted with him. They left the coun-
try of the Sioux at the end of Sep
tember, 1880, followed the course of
the St. Francis or Rum river and of
the Mississippi as far as the Wiscon-
sin river, and then went eastward
The Recollect missionary, Father
Louis Hennepin, went on an expedi-
tion towards the west in 1878 with the
famous explorer La Sale, and reached
as far as the site of the present city
of Peoria on the Illinois river, near
which the Fort Crevecoeur was built.
In 1880 he and two other men of the
party, Michael Accault and Anthony
Auguelle, were sent by La Sale to ex-
plore the course of the upper Missis-
sippi. They left Fort Crevecoeur on
February %, sailed down the Illinois
river, and within a week or ten days
reached the Mississippi. They went
then in northerly direction, when on
April II they were surrounded by
large band of Sioux who came from
the north to make war against their
enemies, the Miamis, the Illinois, and
other Indian tribes. All three were
made prisoners, carried along the Mis-
sissippi as far north as the Site of the
present city of St. Paul, and then TAX
en- overland to the Sioux or Issati
villages in the neighborhood of Mile
Lacs. At the beginning of July, Hen
nepin and Anthony Auguelle were per-
mitted to go down the Mississippi as
far as the Wisconsin river, where they
expected to receive provisions and
merchandise from some Frenchmen,
while Michael Accault remained with
the Sioux. They sailed down the St.
Francis or Rum river and then the
Mississippi it was on this expedition
that Hennepin beheld for the first
time the falls within the present CITY
of Minneapolis, which he named the
Falls of St. Anthony. Not having
found any Frenchmen near the Wis.
consin river they went up stream
again, until on July 25th thew met