OLD KASKASKIA DAYS AND WAYS.

By a patent granted to John Cabot and his sons by Henry VII of England, they were empowered "to seek out and discover all islands, regions and provinces whatsoever that may belong to heathens and infidels, to subdue, occupy and possess these countries as his vassals and lieutenants." First discovery, first occupancy, peaceable and uncontested possession, these are the three bases upon which nations claim the territory of the weaker. As an example of this kind of reasoning Portugal claimed the Indian ocean, because of first discovery and navigation and forbade all others from using the route around the Cape of Good Hope. Further the discovery of the mouth of a great river was claimed to give the right of occupancy to a nation of the entire valley of the said stream and to all the countries watered by its tributaries.

These statements may seem dry as dust to you, but they were of great and absorbing interest to the dwellers in Old Kaskaskia. I cannot, in the short space of time allotted to me, do more than touch upon the facts, but just for a moment see where they lead you. John Cabot of the so-called civilized nations first touched upon the coast of North America. He was an Italian but he flew the flag of Henry and so England claimed all of North America. Jacques Cartier in 1534 sailed up the St. Lawrence and for Francis¹, he claimed the whole mainland of Canada. This was afterwards elaborated into a claim for the valley of the St. Lawrence and all its tributaries which of course included the Great Lakes and all their surroundings. DeSoto, the Spaniard, in 1541 first saw the Mississippi and his party, or the remnants of it, sailed through its mouth.

Marquette, the Frenchman, in 1673 first navigated its middle reaches and saw the Missouri and what he calls the Ouabache, what is now the Ohio. And there you have the beginning of a very pretty quarrel, the shifting phase of which brought terror and troubles to Old Kaskaskians, for as family quarrels dip deep into fortunes so national disputes make and break towns.

When Father Marquette, that courtly, yet childlike Jesuit, that weak emaciated bony frame of a man, yet with a mind true as Castilian steel to his church and pupils, entrusted his body to a birch bark canoe and his soul to God, and paddled through the Fox and Wisconsin rivers in 1673, he stepped boldly, with open eyes, into the great unknown, and dared more highly than even Christopher Columbus.

GEN. GEORGE ROGERS CLARK.

For in so much as death by fire at the stake with all the accompaniments of Indian torture exceeds the ill of death by drowning did his venture surpass that of the other. Marquette entered the Father of Waters from the Wisconsin and was not troubled by Fox, Sioux or Sac. He floated quietly down the great river, passed the beautiful Rock river and came to the Des Moines. Here an Indian trail came down to the Mississippi. He stopped and followed it to the west, and came to an encampment of many lodges.

Reflect what courage it required to step boldly from the timber and walk out into the open field and advance toward those painted savages who stood in silent wonder to see the black robe approach. An old chief met him with a welcome and the pipe of peace. He was entertained by a repast. First he was given sampine or sagamite, a species of corn mush, then broiled fish from which the bones were carefully taken, then with the greatest delicacy of all, roast dog. Each dish was taken and the first three mouthfuls were placed in his mouth by the hand of the chief, then the calumet pipe was smoked in religious gravity; these were the general customs of the Indians. Then, and not till then, was he asked where he came from and where he was going. To his question as to who they were, the chief replied, Inini or perfect men, so named to distinguish them from the Iroquois who were called beasts by the western Indians. This word Inini was changed to Illini by the French and in the Algonquin plural should have been Illiniwug but with the French plural became Illinese or Illinois, and thus our State obtained its name.

Marquette passed the Missouri and the Illinois, the Kaskaskia, which then had another name, and the place where afterwards our Kaskaskia was built; passed the Ohio and when he ascertained that the Mississippi did not flow into the Pacific and probably did enter the Gulf of Mexico, returned on July 17th, to the North. Everywhere his Illinois calumet brought him peace and safety. On his return he entered the Illinois river and saw the prairies; soon he came to the original town of Kaskaskia which was the home of the Indians of the same name. There were then 74 lodges. It was on the wide bottom and directly south of Utica in LaSalle County.²

This nation was very friendly and desired Marquette to return, and he did so in 1675 and established there a mission which he called "The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin." This was Me Old, the oldest, Kaskaskia. When Father Claude Allouez came to it in 1676, there were 351 cabins ranged along the river, and Membre in the same year estimated the number of Indians at 7,000. It was probably one of the largest, if not the largest, Indian town in 'this country. The immediate successor of Allouez was Rasles, then came Gravier, who studied the language and stated its principles. In the meantime LaSalle and Hennepin bad seen it. Tonti had lived and fought there. The Iroquois had descended upon the Illinois and killed thousands of men, women, and children.

Through the dispersion of the Indians by the Pottawattomies and the Iroquois and the change of route of the voyagers and fur traders,who found the way by the Fox and Wisconsin rivers to the Mississippi shorter and less difficult. the French post at Fort St. Louis was abandoned and Father Gabriel Marest, who was in charge there of the Jesuit Mission, persuaded the Illinois tribes to move down the Mississippi to get away from their foes and be in better touch with the French, who were settling at Mobile and at the mouth of the Mississippi. In the summer of 1700, Marest stopped at the mouth of the river which was later called Kaskaskia after the tribe. Then began the real Kaskaskia, Our Kaskaskia. The place took its name from the Kaskaskia tribe of the Illinois Confederacy of the Algonquin nation, and was spelled in many different ways at first: Cachecachequia, by Marquette; Kachkaehkia, by Allouez; Cascaskias, by Membre'; Cascasquias, by Marest; Kaskasquias, by Charlevoix. At an early date in the eighteenth century it was settled, however, as Kaskaskia. Its significance in English, so far as I know, is unknown; but it is a singular fact that the only names containing the three K's in any language are all of the Algonquin tongue: Kalkaska, Mich.; Kekaskee, Wis.; Keokuk, Ia; Kaskaskia and Kankakee in Illinois.³

The Illinois Confederacy was composed of the Kaskaskias, Cahokias, Tamaroas, Peorias and Mitchigamias, and at one time was numerous, but finally was driven south by the Pottawatomies and Iroquois and all its tribes settled in or near Kaskaskia. In 1830 they were all merged into the Kaskaskia tribe and in 1833 migrated in a body to the West. In 1849 there were 165 Peorias and Kaskaskias at Quapaw, 1. T. Ducogne, their last chief, boasted that his tribe had never shed the blood of a white man. The early explorers found them to be of a somewhat gentler and more refined nature than other savages. In later times they cultivated some corn in the American Bottom, exchanged furs with the white traders, became drunken, lazy, and degraded and lost that simple dignity which the American Indian is supposed to possess.

The site of the new settlement was fixed on the right bank of the Kaskaskia river about six miles above its entry into the Mississippi river and about two miles from the latter. Here the Kaskaskia river was about 350 feet wide, and the bluffs on the opposite side were .about 200 feet high. The village was named by the Jesuits "Le Village de l'Immaculee Conception de Cascasquias," and was not laid out in any regular form but like most Indian villages consisted of a row of lodges or huts scattered along the river. The scenery at the conflue-nee of the two rivers is said by all observers to have been beautiful: the point of land with its cottonwood trees coming to the rivers; the bluffs of the east towering above the placid river; crowned with a virgin forest, descending on the east gradually to the open prairies with their beautiful grasses and flowers. The place was well adapted to become a center of influence for the western country; half way between the Wisconsin and Natchez, when the river route was the only way from Canada to New Orleans; with the richest of alluvial soils to furnish hominy and flour and bacon for the voyageur; with the Kaskaskia to float down the peltries of Central and Eastern Illinois to the fur trader; with the Merrimac, a short distance above to lead out into Missouri and within 100 miles above the great tributaries, the Missouri and the Illinois; with wood inexhaustible for building and firewood; with water in abundance and stone of good quality in the bluffs; with the Mississippi as a barrier to the hostile western Indians; with the friendly Illinois to protect them from the murderous Shawnees of the southwestern part of Illinois, the warlike Pottawattomies of the north, and the thieving Kickapoos of the east; with the English and the Spanish too far away to be threatening. This surely was a paradise for the hunter and voyageur.

To the Jesuits, the Indian was as good a soul to save as the white man. For the coureur de bois and the voyageur the Indian woman made a good wife to take care of his house and toil for him in his winter holidays. There are few chronicles of this period except such as are contained in the letters of the missionaries and the church marriage and baptismal registers.

But in 1712, on September 14, Louis XIV granted to one Anthony Crozat, a merchant of Paris, for the term of fifteen years a sole monopoly of commerce and a direction of affairs of all the vast territory from the Carolinas to Old and New Mexico and from the Illinois to the mouth of the Mississippi. Crozat was after gold and silver and only incidentally expected profit from furs. Until his advent Kaskaskia was a portion of Canada; now it was a part of Louisiana. Crozat's exploring parties in all directions did not find gold or silver, but they did discover large deposits of lead and iron in southeastern Missouri, and the miners at these places had to draw their food supplies from Kaskaskia. Besides, many who came to work in the mines found the half nomadic life of Kaskaskia more attractive and located at Kaskaskia. Crozat's venture not proving a profitable one, he gave it up in despair and surrendered his rights on Aug. 23, 1717, and thereupon the government reverted to the crown.

The history of a single voyageur and hunter will be enough -to make a type of old Kaskaskia. Jules may have come to Mobile as a soldier under Iberville and concluded to remain after his term of enlistment had expired; he may have accompanied Phillippe Renault, who after stopping at San Domingo with his 200 artisans and purchasing 500 African slaves, came to Kaskaskia in 1719. It is more likely that Jules was a Canadian born in the woods and accustomed to the birch canoe since infancy. The birch canoe was the great carrier of the wilderness, the Frenchman's steamboat. It was of three sizes usually; the smallest for one or two oarsmen, about twelve to fourteen feet long, the second of about twenty feet in length for four paddles, and the largest called the canot maitre, which was thirty-six feet long and could carry fourteen persons and their bundles. All were made of light dry cedar frames, were pointed at the ends and constructed of a single roll of birch bark, fastened to the frame by sinews through holes made by a square shaped awl and made water-tight with pine gum. In these they voyaged on lake or river, and made those long and painful journeys. Capable of transporting heavy burdens, they could, when unloaded, be carried with ease upon the shoulders of men; they could ascend rivers, pass around rapids and falls, ascend mountains or penetrate the forest; a terror to the inexperienced, they were swift and sure carriers for Jules. In one of these perchance he had sailed and paddled through the Great Lakes to Green Bay and then upon the Fox and down the Wisconsin and Mississippi to Kaskaskia, or he had gone down Lake Michigan to Chicago and up the Chicago to go down the Desplaines and Illinois. In each case he must take the portage and this was the only craft he could carry.

Jules was light hearted and gay. He was simple and temperate. He was placid as he smoked in his red cap by some cottage door; then he would be excited, raving, weeping, threatening in the crowd. The merriest of mortals, he was one of the hardiest and also the handiest. He could swim like an otter, run like a deer, paddle all day without resting; while he paddled be sang or told stories, and laughter was his dear companion. He could imitate the Indian yell, mimic the hissing rattle snake, could skin a deer, scrape a fiddle. And now Jules was come to Kaskaskia and be had saved a little sum of gold or silver, which he had concealed in some leathern bag in a place he knew of. And here at Kaskaskia was a place where nature had been bountiful. Here he could raise corn for sagamite and hominy. Here the maple yielded him sugar; here was cotton for garments; and wheat for flour. Around him were fertile, grassy prairies for cattle to grow fat upon, and rivers to travel by. Wild grapes, plums, persimmons and cherries in abundance for his use, and pecans, acorns, hickory nuts, hazel and walnuts for his swine. Here were buffalo, elk and deer for hides and food. The rivers were full of fish, while the forests abounded in fur bearing animals, whose skins he might acquire and sell. Then there were Indians to trade with in many directions. So Jules decided to settle here and marry a French woman, if possible; if not, an Indian maid. Here at Kaskaskia be could find these with music and dancing and a glass of domestic wine to complete his enjoyment. Here he could cut his own lumber, make his own mortar, get a lot near others of his kind and procure a deed for his corn field with a right of common for wood and pasture. Here he would marry and live in elegant ease on what he could farm and shoot, and would make one voyage a year of three or four months long. Here he had no taxes. Here he bad a mild, paternal government. Here he was lazy when the mood suited and happy always; with the Father to give him consolation on the door-step of death and bury him with the rites of Holy Church.

During the time of Crozat, however, the Canadian French as hunters and voyageurs had been coming to Kaskaskia in increasing numbers, and quite a settlement bad sprung up at several places on the American Bottom.

On Sept. 6, 1717, the Compagnie d'Occident was authorized by the Parliament of Paris, upon the plan of the English South Sea Company. It was given the exclusive control of the commerce of Louisiana for twenty-five years, to begin January 1, 1718. The company was under the brilliant, if erratic, leadership of John Law. The most extravagant dreams of the wealth of precious metals, and other products of the valley of the Mississippi were told as facts. The shares of the company were driven up in price until they had appreciated. 1300 per cent; whole streets in Paris were given over to stock jobbers and speculators. Fortunes were made in a day. The gains of regular industry were despised and all classes went wild over the speculation. John Law was a demi-god. The bubble burst in the summer of 1720 and in December of that year John Law was a poverty stricken wanderer on the face of the earth.

The Company of the West with all its misfortunes did, however, benefit Kaskaskia. In December, 1718, M. Pierre Duque de Boisbriant came to Kaskaskia as commander of, or rather commandant of, the Seventh District of Louisiana, called the District of Illinois and Wabash, and Kaskaskia became the capital of a territory that was claimed to extend from the head waters of the Ohio to the Rocky Mountains. Kaskaskia, however, only enjoyed this eminence for fifteen months; for Boisbriant selected a suitable place for a wooden fort, to be called Fort Chartres, which was located about sixteen miles above Kaskaskia. Here the "company" built its warehouses and the' Jesuits -erected the Church of St. Anne de Fort Chartres.

About this time Kaskaskia began to assume some form. The increased activity all along the river, the greater security, of life the greater ease and facility of transportation, gave an impetus to agriculture and a market for products of the soil and the chase. The farmer who bad heretofore relied on Indian titles now applied to the company and the crown to affirm the same.

Boisbriant laid out the great square or common field on the prairie and designated to each farmer his separate field, one-half arpent in width and one mile in length from the Kaskaskia to the Mississippi rivers. He then established also a common for stock and timber outside of the cultivated fields and running to the mouth of the Kaskaskia. On the east side of the Kaskaskia he also set apart the bottom lands for a cattle range.

The town was laid out in blocks of 300 feet square with narrow streets at right angles. These blocks were divided into four lots, enclosed by cedar posts touching each other, two feet in the ground and five feet above ground, with tops sharpened to a point. This made a fence difficult to climb. A neat gate just opposite the front door of the house allowed entrance. In each of these enclosures was a house made of posts set in the ground about two feet, apart. The interstices were filled with a mortar made of clay and straw mixed. The houses were whitewashed inside and out. The roofs were of straw thatch. The windows were sometimes glazed; the doors were plain batten work. To each house was attached a porch called a gallery, and a stone well with a windlass was in the rear of the house. Later some few of the houses were built of stone.

Though Boisbriant suggested it, not until 1727 did they fence off the common from the cultivated fields, and thus save the continual herding of the cattle. It was during the administration of Boisbriant that France and Spain were at war, and Old Kaskaskia was saved from possible future trouble by the mistake of Indian guides. The Spaniards intended to employ the Osages to slaughter the Missouris but were led to the Missouris, and in ignorance exposed the plan, thus inviting their own destruction.⁴

Here is the way the news came to Old Kaskaskia.⁵

Monsieur Boisbriant was playing cards one Sabbath afternoon with St. Gemme Beauvais who afterwards made the long river journey to Duquesne and helped defeat Braddock; and with Langlois DeLisle, who was some years later burned at the stake with D'Artaguette, the young people were making merry with music and dancing in the large room of the barracks, with a father from the Jesuit college to watch, when the "assembly"' sounded at the guard post on the Mississippi. You may be sure there was much hurry by the soldiers and young men to doff their Sunday best cloth and get into buckskin. By the time the culverines were loaded and the militia were properly disposed, a strange cavalcade came into sight. First came sixty Missouri warriors armed with flint lock, saber, and hatchet, each bearing what looked like a lacrosse stick, but on closer inspection appeared as a scalp stretched on a willow frame attached to a pole. Then came old Merameck, chief of the Missouris, mounted on a beautiful grey roan with Spanish saddle and silver bit, and Father Benat threw up his bands in holy horror and told his beads rapidly; for, awful to relate, around the horse's neck was hung the holy chalice, as if it was a bell, while on Merameck's naked, painted body was the chasuble and suspended from his grimy neck the paten; other warriors on horses came next, decked in garments of holy church. In grave silence they dismounted, gathered together and sat down upon the ground, -and said, "We come in peace, not war, 0 Chieftain." After the bread was broken and the pipe lighted in Indian religious gravity, Boisbriant said, "Why do you come, 0 Merameck. and what bring you?"

And Merameck spoke as follows: Not half a moon ago we had just finished a fast of three days by the hung deer to appease Manito who had sent but little game to our bunting grounds; our sages had slept on fresh deer skins to bring wisdom from the dream god, when one of our young men came running up and said that a vast cavalcade from the Santa Fe country was approaching led by the riding Comanches. Soon we saw a captain with yellow face and hair of night, followed by seventy horsemen with as many more led horses and cattle loaded with burdens. When they approached, we received them with hospitality and Manito unlocked their lips to tell us that they were Spaniards come- by a long hard journey from the southern mountains to attack Kaskaskia. Manito also led them to believe we were Osages and, oh! wonder of wonders, they asked us as Osages, who, as you know, are our mortal enemies, to attack and slaughter the Missouris ourselves, knowing that as Missouris we would not permit you to be harmed. We asked to counsel on the matter and as they yet did not know us we promised to help them. Then they took down some of the burdens and gave us .500 muskets, sabres and hatchets. We asked for three days to assemble our warriors. and on the morning of the second day at dawn we attacked these perfidious ones and killed all but one blackrobe whom we spared and allowed to flee as be was dressed as a woman and not as a warrior. This horse we bring to you, 0 chieftain, and these ornaments which we cannot use we would exchange for goods.

And Boisbriant gave them goods and took the holy ornaments which he afterwards sent to Bienville at New Orleans with his account of the tale. And that night, the fifteenth day having arrived, the people of Kaskaskia went to the Missouri camp fire and saw them dance the scalp dance, and bury the scalps. For it is the custom of these people, after scalps have been taken, for fifteen days, each day, before retiring to rest, to gather in a circle around maidens who hold the sticks aloft -upon which are the scalps, and dance madly around emitting yells and war cries which would arouse the dead, feinting and striking at each other as if in war. And on the fifteenth night they do bury the scalps lest the spirits of the dead warriors may come to haunt them.

Sometime in the summer of 1720 Boisbriant removed his headquarters to Fort Chartres and Kaskaskia ceased to be the capital of the District. In 1725 Boisbriant became acting governor of Louisiana. and went to New Orleans, and in this year the first great overflow of the Mississippi occurred. He was succeeded by Capt. deLiette of the Royal Army, who had many troubles with the Fox Indians on the north.

In 1730 Capt. St. Ange was Commandant. In 1731 the India Company gave back to the Crown the province of Louisiana and Louis XV assumed control on April 10, 1732. In 1734 Bienville came back as governor of Lousiana and appointed Capt. Pierre D'Artaguette as Major-Commandant at the Illinois. It was during his administration of the Illinois country that the war with the Chiekasaws was carried on.⁶ Here is a picture of his march and fate. I introduce it to show what perils the old Kaskaskian soldier had to face besides the ordinary dangers of a, war in the wilderness, without surgeons, without anaesthetics, without other food and powder than they could carry on their backs.)

It was a chilly day in January 1736 when a "canot-maitre" came up the river and stopped at Old Kaskaskia. People were wearing buffalo robe coats and worsted stockings and were stamping around the landing watching the big ice cakes whirl down the rapid running Mississippi. In the stern of the canoe was a man wrapped in a couple of blankets; his nose was blue and his teeth chattered when he asked if Major D'Artaguette was in Kaskaskia. The major happened to be there on that day and the stranger walked rapidly up to the town, leaving his men to take care of themselves as best they could. The curious followed after and soon it was noised about that Captain Le Blanc was come from New Orleans with news that a great campaign was to be commenced against the Chickasaws, and now couriers pushed across country to order Sieur Vincennes, who was well known to Kaskaskia people as a nephew of Joliet's and a brave fighter, to gather together his French militia and Miami Indians and join D'Artaguette down the river. Orders were also sent to Moncherval at Cahokia to bring his Cahokias and Mitchigamias from the Illinois, and chiefs of the Kaskaskias and Missouris were hastening to their lodges to light the fires and dance the war dance. The trappers and hunters from many a winter hut on the Kaskaskia and the Merrimac came quickly to town and there was a general burnishing and sharpening of arms and tinkering with batteaux and canoes. For everyone hated the Chickasaws because they had cut off many a boat load of furs and flour on the way to New Orleans and many a family bad lost a voyageur.

It was a long time though, as things go, before they were ready and not till late in February did the expedition start. After a special mass in the little church and a long procession to the. boats the old men, the women and the children, saw the thirty regular troops with the white coats, the blue epaulets, and the funny bats, with the bright-eyed D'Artaguette and the black robed Father Senat at their head, and the 100 militia of the wood and river men, in white capots and elk-skin leasing take to the boats. Then came the 200 Illinois and Missouri Indians properly bedecked in paint and feathers, in their log canoes. Many an eye was sad, for the Chickasaws were valiant warriors; but there was a great chatter of bon voyage and a great waving of caps and handkerchiefs as the long procession dropped down the river and faded away. It was many weeks before Moncherval and his Cahokias passed on the same errand and then there were weeks of weary waiting.

It was Sunday in old Kaskaskia and the cherry blossoms had come and gone, the June was here and the full leaved cottonwoods were dipping thirstily to the stream on the river banks. The whole population had gone to the church and the morning service was just finished when a man with his clothing torn and bloody, with a face that looked like a death's head and eyes that were burning up with fever staggered to the door. A woman cried, "Jules," and the priest stopped in his concluding remarks. The man walked in with his cap on, and like a child who has a confession to make began to speak hurriedly and with all his soul alert, and as he spoke, he feebly waved his hands as one who seeks for air and gets it not.

"Tis malediction I bring to you blessed ones, but I must tell it now and quickly. We went to Fort Prudhomme with the Major, and Vincennes joined us with twenty French and 100 Miamis. We waited long for Bienville; he came not; we waited longer for Moncheval, he was not there. Our maize and hog meat ran short; our Indians were clamorous to begin. We marched alone to the attack. We marched a weary twenty leagues and came to the towns of the Chickasaws; they were awaiting us, and we were forced to attack. We pass two lines of fortification. We are successful but we pay the price. At the third line D'Artaguette falls severely wounded. The Miamis betray us; the Illinois and Missouris run like sheep. They who were so eager to fight are cowards when we need them. We try to drag Father Senat and Vincennes away but they will not come and leave their wounded friend. These, with fifteen others are taken by the fiends. I hang around to try and help them. Bienville attacks from the other side and is defeated with great loss. D'Artaguette,' Vincennes, Senat and the others remain in the hands of the Chickasaws. Then comes a day of feasting and noise and in the afternoon they bring out the French. They tie them by fours to saplings and (lance the death dance, while I watch from a near by tree. They build piles of hickory poles in circles around them and set fire to the poles, and when the fires burn down they rush in toward them in crowds; they stick them with the hot poles; they discharge their guns loaded only with powder into their bodies. Ali, Jesus. I hear their hateful screams and above all the din the song of Senat as he chanted his requiem mass. My ears ring with it. My eyes burn with the sight until I cannot eat or sleep. And then there was silence and they are all dead-all! all!"

And while he said this the people of Kaskaskia stood and listened and shivered, first a sweat and then a fever, and little groans ran through the crowd and lips were bleeding and hands were clenched and when the man threw up his hands and fell full length on the floor, it was as if a demon bad seized the crowd for it rushed out the door's as if with a common impulse to seek the pure fresh air. After the cruel death of D'Artaguette, Alphonse de laBuissoniere was sent to Fort Chartres in 1739 he led the Kaskaskians again to war on the Chickasaws. In 1740 came Captain Benoist de St. Clair and in 1743 Chevalier de Bertel. In 1744 the war with England brought many apprehensions to old Kaskaskians; the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, allayed the suspense, but you must remember that it was months before it was known at Kaskaskia.

In 1749 came back the popular Captain St. Clair who married a daughter of the town on his arrival. In 1751 came Chevalier de McCarty, an Irishman by descent and a Major of Engineers. He built the new stone Fort Chartres, said to have cost a million dollars. It was finished in 1756. Now came the seven years war with England, beginning with Fort Necessity and Braddock's defeat followed by Louisbourg and finally by Quebec. Kaskaskians saw George Washington march out of Fort Necessity and tramp back to Virginia. Kaskaskians shot at him on Braddock's field. Kaskaskians were at Quebec and saw Wolfe storm the heights of Abraham, and Wolfe and Montcalm die gloriously on that field where the lilies of France in the New World were eaten up by the English lion.

By the peace of 1763 Kaskaskia became English, but it was not until the first week of October, 1765, that Captain Thomas Sterling came from Fort Pitt with 100 Highlanders of the 42nd to take possession of Kaskaskia and Fort Chartres. It fell to the lot of Captain St. Ange de Bellerive to deliver up the possession.

On Dec. 4, 1765, came Major Robert Farmer from Mobile with a strong detachment of the 34th foot, then Colonel Cole and Capt. John Reed. Lieut. Col. John Wilkins of the 18th Royal Regiment of Ireland, came from Philadelphia in 1768; his administration was unpopular. His successor, Capt. Hugh Lord of the 18th British Regiment came in 1771, and staid until 1775. In the freshet of 1772 one wall and bastion of Fort Chartres was undermined by the Mississippi river and fell; and the garrison was hastily transported to Kaskaskia which came back to its own as the capital. Fort Gage, just across the Kaskaskia river, was renovated and remained the seat of British authority on the Mississippi until the conquest by George Rogers Clark in 1778. When the English took actual possession of Kaskaskia, many of the wealthiest people, although they were permitted the free exercise, of religion, would not be ruled by the English and departed for Louisiana or to St. Genevieve and St. Louis. The Jesuits had been banished from France in 1764 and soon after the order was condemned by the Pope.

The French method of government by a commandant and the parish priest was not suited to the Saxon education or temperment. The bulk of the population however remained in Kaskaskia for the English occupation was not a real settlement but only a military' occupation.

I shall not attempt to portray in detail the conquest of Kaskaskia by George Rogers Clark and his four small companies of rangers. How he assembled them at the bead waters of the Ohio; brought them down in boats to Southern Illinois; made the weary march across the wilderness; surprised M. Rocheblaxe the Frenchman and English governor; how be took the town and by efficient aid of Gibault retained it and made our peace with the assembled Algonquin tribes.

I shall only point out how all the past dovetailed in to make our position more secure. If valiant old Champlain in his suit of plate armor had not met the Iroquois in the early part of the seventeenth century and thus obtained the fealty of the western tribes by antagonizing their mortal enemies, the eastern sea coast would have been an easier prey for the French. But, on the other hand, Father Marquette and the voyagers could not have made friends with the Algonquins. If France had not made a treaty of alliance with the United Colonies in February, 1778, Clark could not have secured the willing aid of the Kaskaskian French in July 1778, and their Indian friends would not have been so easily dealt with.

In 1784 came "le gros hiver" and the deep snow to make life more miserable for our gay subjects at Kaskaskia. In 1785 came the greatest overflow of the 18th century and the water rose to the floor of the old tavern. This caused more of the wealth and quality of Kaskaskia to desert the town for St. Genevieve and St. Louis in Missouri. But now there were, other troubles gathering around Kaskaskia. It is true it was the capital of the great County of Illinois of Virginia and the place of residence of Col. John Todd, the Lieutenant Governor, but the American troops were badly paid and were boisterous and. troublesome. They took whit they needed and did so with a high hand and Monsieur B. Tardiveau was sent by the French inhabitants to the Continental Congress at New York to obtain redress and likewise to obtain some confirmation of the individual and communal grants which had been made by French authority to Kaskaskians. For Virginia bad by that time made a grant of all that county to the Congress. There are rumors that Tardiveau had some opportunity to settle with various members of Congress; that he had an anxious and weary time in obtaining Kaskaskian rights. The history of the transaction shows that it is not alone in our time that rings and political jobbery has had its birth. It was not until 1788 that Congress confirmed a portion of the French titles. It was then stated that there were eighty families at Kaskaskia.

On July 13, 1787, the ordinance of the North West Territory was passed and Arthur St. Clair was made Governor. One of the provisions of that ordinance prohibited slavery in the new territory and many Kaskaskians moved with their slaves to St. Louis, which-had been ceded to Spain in 1763. With the coming of the territory of the Northwest, Kaskaskia again ceased to be a capital and went lack to be the county seat of the new county of St. Clair which was the third county organized in the territory of the Northwest. In March, 1790, it was visited for the first time by Governor St. Clair. Later, in 1795, it became the county seat of Randolph county.

In 1800 Illinois became a part of the Indiana Territory and in 1809 it became a territory of the second class, governed by a governor and judges appointed by the President. Ninian Edwards of Kentucky was the first territorial governor and Kaskaskia again came into prominence as the capital. The residence of Governor Edwards was not, however, in the old town, but at a country seat called Elvirade, near there. In 1812 Illinois became a territory of the first class with a governor, legislature and a delegate in Congress, and Kaskaskia Was still the capital.

Up to 1800 Kaskaskia had not greatly changed in character of population or in the number of inhabitants. In that year Governor Reynolds says there were but seven or eight English families that had settled there. There were then only about 3,000 persons other than Indians in the whole Territory of Illinois, of whom the French and their slaves were the large majority. After that date the population began to increase rapidly and by 1810 numbered 12,282. Kaskaskia became a centre of much influence. The American Bottom, as the strip of alluvial ground extending from Kaskaskia to Cahokia was called, was recognized as a most fertile soil. Immigrants came to Kaskaskia and halted, while they looked around for a place to locate and make a permanent home. The French element looked on with dismay when they saw the machinery of government beginning to turn. for they reasoned that this would breed taxation. They thought that a people which installed Judges, a sheriff, a jail, and lawyers must be looking for litigation; that a community which needed two doctors must expect to be an unhealthy one.

Besides, the individuals who came to the new places were of a totally different type. They were Protestants by inclination and looked on the French observance of the Sabbath with its strict church duties in the morning and its gayety of the -afternoon and night as an inheritance from the devil. Also those who drank were not as temperate as the French. They were too, like all the English, unwilling to fraternize with the Indian. They killed him when he was bad; they robbed him when he was drunk. They took his lands away from him and were not particular as to the manner of doing so. They encouraged the Indian in his dissipations and soon the Indian tribes began to melt away and the fur-bearing and food-producing animals departed with the coming of the settler and his farm; and so many more of the gentler spirits among the French left the old home and their, places were taken by a more vigorous yet ruder, by a more energetic, yet more common type of the pioneer or forerunner of civilization. The sprightly but somewhat refined dance of the old French gave way to the tavern revel, the jig and reel; the gay flash of the voyageur wit was displaced by the rude practical joke. The manners which imitated the air of the royal court were roughly cast aside for the boisterous ways of the trapper, the ranger, and the cow boy; and horse races, foot races, and wrestling were the amusement of the people.

The years 1811 and 1812 were years of trouble and dismay in Old Kaskaskia. In the first of these years, the inhabitants were frightened beyond description by a terrible earthquake which was felt in different degrees of intensity by the whole Mississippi valley. At Kaskaskia, the earth several times waved like a river agitated by the winds; the steeple of the church bent like a reed; the old bell rang with tremulous strokes like some Unseen demon pulling on the bell cord; the cattle wild with a nameless fear, ran to and fro filling the air with howling; the soil cracked so deeply in the very streets that they could not sound the bottom of the crevice, and the water drawn from it exhaled a most disagreeable odor; stone and brick chimneys fell down; houses cracked as if it were doomsday. The people, believers and unbelievers, flocked to the church and listened with a Catholic zeal to the stout old Father Donatien Olivier as he implored mercy from Him whom the elements obey.

Those Kaskaskians who had presence of mind enough to watch the Indians saw that but few of those who had professed christianity had the faith of their former promises. The many camps around Kaskaskia were greatly disturbed and elaborate ceremonies were carried out to appease the visible wrath of Manito. Amidst the wailing and lamentations of the squaws and children the warriors cleansed their hands and faces and prepared for sacrifice to Manito. Deer freshly skinned were hung upon trees with their beads up to heaven. The calumet was smoked with sighing and groans. For three days the men did not speak to women or children and at night lay upon fresh skins with the hair next to the body. No food was taken during this time, All this to provoke dreams which to the Indian was the only mode of communication with Manito. At the end of the three days, the council was held and those who bad had unfavorable dreams appeared with half the face painted black. After the relation of all the dreams, and not until then, did they feast. If in the general. opinion the auspices were favorable then the young men adorned themselves and spent hours laying on the colors with a hand glass, arranging their tresses. When one finally appeared in full paint and with hair and body anointed with bear's grease with two or three' broad clasps of silver about each arm, with jewels in his ears; with thin circular piece of silver about the size of a silver dollar depending from his nose resting on the upper lip; with painted porcupine quills in his hair; with tails of animals hanging down his back; with a necklace of bear's teeth or the claws of the bald eagle; with little perforated cylindrical pieces of silver or brass around his legs from the

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