superior specimens of the race. The Delawares were the ancestral tribe, and their biography contains an unusual number of remarkable personages, though none of so extraordinary career or character as to be known to the present generation. They will receive a large degree of our notice when the history of the Moravian mission comes before us; for it was principally among the Delawares that the missionaries were successful in making conversions. The Shawanese, whose rovings might vindicate their claim, at least, to be a lost tribe of Israel, have been frequently characterized as the "Spartans" of the race; and certainly their constancy in braving danger and enduring all the consequences of defeat, merits the appellation. But it is by the name of Tecumseh, a son of the nation, though by an alien mother, as we have before observed of his great Ottawa prototype, that the name "Shawnee," will be commemorated in the wild annals of our aboriginal history. The Ottawas, so far as they have ever been observed on the soil of Ohio, have hardly sustained the gravity and dignity of position, which we spontaneously assign to the Wyandot and the Delaware. Compared with his forest brethren, the Ottawa, or Tahwah, (as the early settlers called him,) whose life was nearly amphibious, by his joint avocations of trapper and fisher, seems to be rather a Pariah among his brethren, but to whom history will be more indulgent, in deference to the name of Pontiac. As for the Wyandots, ever recurring as the tribe will be in these chapters, we can do no better than to give a paragraph from Gen. Harrison's discourse, to which we have frequently referred. He gives the Wyandots the unquestioned preference among the Western Indians on the score of bravery. With the other tribes, flight in battle, when occasioned by unexpected resistance and obstacles, brought with it no dis

grace, and was rather a part of their strategy: but otherwise with the Wyandots. In the battle of the Rapids of the Miami, in which the confederated tribes were broken by Gen. Wayne, of thirteen chiefs of the Wyandots one only survived, and he badly wounded. The following anecdote illustrates this trait in their character:

"When General Wayne assumed the position of Greenville, in 1793, he sent for Captain Wells, who commanded a company of scouts, and told him that 'he wished him to go to Sandusky and take a prisoner, for the purpose of obtaining information.' Wells (who, having been taken from Kentucky when a boy, and brought up among the Indians, was perfectly acquainted with their character,) answered, that he could take a prisoner, but not from Sandusky.' 'And why not from Sandusky?' said the General. 'Because,' answered the Captain, there are only Wyandots there.' 'Well, why will not Wyandots do?' 'For the best of reasons,' said Wells, 'because Wyandots will not be taken alive.""

CHAPTER IV.

LAKE ERIE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY,

CLOSELY related as Ohio is to the mighty current of the St. Lawrence, a rapid outline of its early exploration will not be deemed too discursive, although our attention will thus be recalled to events which transpired during the seventeenth century.

The magnificent water-course which constitutes the northern border of the Atlantic and Mississippi States, aided materially in the colonization of its extended coast. As at Plymouth, it was religious sentiment which first opened the adventurous way to the borders of our inland lakes. As early as 1616, Le Caron, an unambitious Franciscan monk, the companion of the noted Champlain, had traversed New York, and threading the Canadian peninsula, reached the rivers of Lake Huron. As Quebec was founded only eight years before, the voyage of the missionary probably deserves the distinction of a first discovery. In 1625, we hear of the Franciscans laboring with the Neutral Hurons near the Niagara river.

Tempting as the theme may be, we must be content with a mere chronology of the French missions on the great lakes. They were repelled from the south shore of Lake Erie during the following fifty years, which was the period of their greatest activity, by the hostility of the Iroquois, who were often at war with the natives of the soil.1

1) Charles Whittlesey relates (Discourse before Ohio Historical Society in 1840, p. 8,) that trees have been found on the Western Reserve, bearing the marks of an axe, which, judging from the rings, were made in 1660.

2*

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The Jesuits succeeded all other religious orders in the labor of evangelization, and from 1634 to 1647, no less than forty-two missionaries of that society were devoted to the tribes in Upper Canada-assembling twice or thrice a year at St. Marys, a central spot upon the banks of the Matchedash, between Lakes Toronto or Simcoe and Huron. Perhaps no passage of colonial history is so full of romantic interest as the narrative of the Wyandot Mission, of which Bancroft has furnished a faithful and fascinating picture; but as early as 1649, the principal seat of the Jesuit Fathers, the village of St. Ignatius, was destroyed by the ruthless Mohawks, and the peaceful inmates involved in a general massacre. The names of Anthony Daniel, Jean de Brebeuf and Gabriel Lallemand, have been preserved to us, fragrant with their martyrdom in the wilderness.

Every dispassionate reader will readily respond to the tribute by the single-hearted annalist of New France. "It is certain," says Charlevoix, "as well from the annual relations of those happy times, as from the constant tradition of that country, that a peculiar unction attached to this savage mission, giving it a preference over many others far more brilliant and fruitful. The reason no doubt was, that nature, finding nothing there to gratify the senses or to flatter vanity— stumbling blocks too common even to the holiest grace worked without obstacle. The Lord, who never allows himself to be outdone, communicates himself without measure to those who sacrifice themselves without reserve; who, dead to all, detached entirely from themselves and the world, possess their souls in unalterable peace, perfectly established in that child-like spirituality which Jesus Christ has recommended to his disciples as that which ought to be the most marked trait of their character." "Such is the portrait,"

adds Charlevoix, "drawn of the missionaries of New France by those who knew them best. I myself knew some of them in my youth, and I found them such as I have painted them, bending under the labor of a long apostleship, with bodies exhausted by fatigues and broken with age, but still preserving all the vigor of the apostolic spirit, and I have thought it but right to do them here the same justice universally done them in the country of their labors."

The Relations or Journals of the Jesuit Fathers contain incidental descriptions of the lake coast from "Unghiara,” or Niagara, to Lake Superior, otherwise called "Tracy" and "Upper Lake." A map, published at Paris, in 1660, indicates a discovery of Lake Michigan, or "Lake of the Illinois."

In 1668, the mission of Sault St. Mary was established by Claude Dablon and James Marquette-the oldest settlement in Michigan.

In 1671, Marquette gathered some wandering Hurons round a chapel at point St. Ignace, on the main land north of the peninsula of Michigan.

In 1673, Marquette, accompanied by Joliet, a trader of Quebec, and five other Frenchmen, with a number of Indian guides, paddled up Green Bay in birch bark canoes, ascended Fox River to the head of navigation and crossed the Portage to the banks of the Wisconsin. Here their guides deserted the party, from fear of the Sioux, but the Frenchmen fearlessly followed the current of the Wisconsin, until, on the 17th of June, the Mississippi was discovered.

In 1678, La Salle, accompanied by Tonti, an Italian soldier, and Lewis Hennepin, a Flemish friar of the order of Recollects, commenced the construction of the "Griffin," a bark of sixty tons, near the present site of Buffalo. During