ANNUAL ADDRESS.

FATHER GIBAULT: THE PATRIOT PRIEST OF THE NORTHWEST.

(By J. P. Dunn)

There are no two states of the Union which have been so closely and yet so diversely united in their history as Illinois and Indiana. Since their admission as states their common interests have been, of course, much the same as those of other adjoining states. In the territorial period, from 1800 to 1809, Illinois was a part of Indiana Territory, and, as the Indiana side was settled the more rapidly, it dominated in the territorial government. The seat of government was within the bounds of Indiana. Under the Northwest Territory, both were subject to Ohio domination. Prior to American occupation, under the British both were ruled from Quebec through Detroit; but under the French both were ruled from New Orleans; and under both British and French rule Illinois was the dominating factor.

The dominance of Illinois began in the time of LaSalle, who induced all of the Indian tribes of Indiana to move into Illinois and join his confederacy, which was located around Starved Rock on the Illinois river, leaving Indiana uninhabited. After his death the tribes gradually moved back to their old homes on the Wabash, and north of it, but there were no permanent white settlements in Indiana for many years, though there were probably French trading houses near the site of Ft. Wayne as early as 1718, and at Ouiatanon in 1720. ("Indiana," American Commonwealth Series, Chapters 1 and 2.)

In this latter year there came to Kaskaskia a man who was destined to have a more permanent influence on the region than LaSalle. This was Nicolas Ignace de Beaubois, a Jesuit priest, born at Orleans, France, Oct. 15, 1689, who had come into Canada in 1718. When he was appointed curé at Kaskaskia, two years later, the place, which had until then been a mission only, was established as a parish. It should be understood that although the Bishop of Quebec was ecclesiastical superior over Louisiana as well as Canada, the church establishments of the two provinces were practically distinct, and that of Louisiana was largely controlled by the Company of the Indies which supported the priests and missionaries of that province. In

1722, owing to friction between the various religious orders, the Louisiana authorities divided the spiritual jurisdiction among them, much as our Indian tribes were parceled out to the various churches by President Grant. All the region north of the Ohio was given to the Jesuits, while, south of the Ohio, the region east of the Mississippi was assigned to the Discalced Carmelites, and that west of the river to the Capuchins. This arrangement lasted about six months, when the Bishop of Quebec, dissatisfied with the work of the Carinelites, added their district to that of the Capuchins. A year later, as the Capuchins did not furnish clergymen enough to suit the company, it gave to the Jesuits all the territory north of Natchez, and restricted the Capuchins to the region south. This move alarmed the Capuchins, who demanded guaranty against further aggressions, and, finally, in 1725, the matter was permanently adjusted on the basis of the Natchez boundary, and confirmed by patent of the King.

From the time Father de Beaubois was stationed at Kaskaskia, letters began to go to France urging the desirability of a post on the "Ouabache," under which name was included the Wabash proper and also the Ohio below the mouth of the Wabash; for during the first half of the eighteenth century the French always described the Ohio as emptying into the Wabash, and the Wabash as emptying into the Mississippi. Father Charlevoix, LaHarpe, De Boisbriant, and De Beaubois himself, all joined in the call for a fort on the Ouabache.

Meanwhile the Louisiana authorities were being impressed with the fact that the Capuchins were not able to furnish the clergy needed in the province, and, on Feb. 20, 1726, they entered into an agreement with the Jesuits to supply missionaries not only for their own district but also for the Indians in the Capuchin district, and, in addition, to secure an establishment of nuns at New Orleans. To do all this, Father de Beaubois was to go to France, and in aid of his mission the Chevalier de Bourgmont gathered at New Orleans twenty-two Indian chiefs and other tribal representatives who were to accompany him. Just before they were to embark, the ship in which they were to sail sank at its moorings, and this so frightened the Indians that only half-a-dozen of them finally consented to go, the most important of these being the Mitchigamia chief Agapit Chicagou. In this connection, permit me to diverge for a moment to say that the controversy which has so long raged in Illinois over the meaning of this word "Chicagou." is disposed of by a memoir of La Mothe Cadillac, the founder of Detroit, written in 1695 from Michilimackinac, where he then commanded. In describing the various French posts and Indian villages, he says: "The post of Chicagou comes next. This word signifies the River of Garlic, because it produces naturally, without any cultivation, a very large quantity of it." (Margry's Découvertes et Etablissements, Vol. 5, p. 123.)

De Beaubois and his Indians were well received in France. They were presented at court, and royally entertained. De Beaubois accomplished all his undertakings, and sent over the nuns who founded the famous Ursuline Convent at New Orleans, and a supply of missionaries, among whom was Father Stephen D'Outreleau, destined for the proposed establishment on the Ouabache. By this time the

Ouabache project had taken definite shape, and apparently under inspiration of De Beaubois. During the French regime, all of Illinois except the northeast corner was included in Louisiana, but the dividing line between it and Canada crossed the Wabash near the present site of Terre Haute, and all of the Indians in Indiana lived north of that point. Consequently De Beaubois would have no Indians for his Quabache mission unless they could be induced to move; and the new plan was, instead of establishing a large and expensive fort, to build a small one, and bring enough Indians to the lower Wabash to protect it from the English. To secure this result, Sieur de Vincennes, who was with the Wabash Indians, and was very popular with them, was to be given a position in the Louisiana service, and to use his influence to induce the Indians to move. This plan was carried out, but not speedily, for not until the summer of 1731 did Vincennes get the Piankeshaws to leave their old village on the Vermilion, and begin building his fort. By that time De Beaubois had got into an awful row with the Louisiana authorities, and had been expelled from the province, while Father D'Outreleau had become weary of waiting and gone down the river. After narrowly escaping death at the hands of the Yazous, he located for a time at New Orleans, where he is said to have served as Spiritual Director of the Ursulines, and chaplain of the hospital. (The Mission to the Ouabache, Ind. Hist. Soc. Pubs., Vol. 3, No. 4; The Jesuit Relations, Vol. 67, p. 342; Vol. 70, p. 243; Vol. 71, p. 169.)

After the removal of Father De Beaubois the life seems to have been taken out of the mission work north of the Ohio so far as aggressive development was concerned. There were still priests laboring in this region, but their efforts were rather to hold the ground already occupied than to open new fields, and from all appearances they had ample work to occupy all their time at that. They had to cover a great deal of ground, and their flocks were not so deeply concerned with religious duties as they should have been. The preserved records of the Vincennes parish go back only to 1749, and what was done there prior to that time is uncertain. It appears, however, that there was some sort of church establishment at the place prior to that. time, for the Abbé Tanguay states that Father Pacöme Legrand, who died on Oct. 6, 1742, was at the time returning from a term of service at Vincennes. (Shea's Catholic Church in Colonial Days, p. 578.) In the period of the preserved records the priests who served at Vincennes bore names familiar in the Illinois parishes. The first entries were made by Father Sebastian Louis Meurin. In 1752 the name of Father Peter du Jaunay appears. In 1753 Father Louis Vivier, writer of the well known letter from the Illinois in 1750 which appears in the Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses, came to Vincennes for a three years' stay. He was succeeded in November, 1756, by Father Julian Devernai, who was the last of the old Jesuits at Vincennes.

The times on which Father Devernai fell were indeed troublous, for they covered the French and Indian war, which ended French rule in America. When the news of the Treaty of Paris reached the Illinois country the settlers were filled with alarm, for they were

handed over to the mercies of the Protestant English, the ancient enemies of their country. Many of them left the settlements, some going to New Orleans, and others to the region west of the Mississippi. Thither, to the new settlement of St. Louis, or Pain Court, as it was called, went Neyon de Villiers, commandant of the Illinois country, after calling St. Ange from Vincennes to take his place at Ft. Chart

res.

You will pardon me for again diverging, to straighten out the St. Ange family, which has been sadly mixed by all of our historians. It has been a common impression that this St. Ange who came to the command of Ft. Chartres in 1764 was the same one that commanded there thirty years earlier. I corrected this error some years ago in my history of Indiana, getting a clue from a foot-note of Margry that, in 1736, after the disastrous Chickasaw campaign in which Sieur de Vincennes was killed, the St. Ange then at Ft. Chartres asked for his place for his son. (Découvertes et Etablissements, Vol. 6, p. 448.) I sent to Paris, and through the kindness of Miss Jessie McDonald -granddaughter of the late Senator Jos. E. McDonald-obtained a copy of the passage to which he refers. It is in a letter from Bienville, dated at New Orleans, June 29, 1736, recommending appointments for the places of officers lost in the Chickasaw campaign, and reads as follows:

"The death of M. de Vincennes leaves vacant a position of half-pay lieutenant. M. de St. Ange, the father, who has served the king for more than fifty years, and who had a son killed at the Chickasaws, has asked me to request this place for the last son who remains to him. He is commanding at present a little post on the Missouri, and M. D'Artaguiette has often spoken to me of him as a brave youth and one of much merit."

Miss McDonald also obtained for me copies from the Alphabet Lafillard, or memorandum of appointments kept at Paris, of the following entries under the name St. Ange:

"St. Ange (pere) capitaine d'armes a la solde

enseigne reformé (Louisiana)
lieutenant 66

confirmé par le roi

66

capitaine reformé

"St. Ange (cadet)

lieutenant

20 mai 1722

19 decembre 1722 4 avril 1730

17 avril 1738

19 decembre 1722

1 avril 1730

17 aout 1732

tué a la guerre des sauvages & remplacé 15 october 1736

lieutenant reformé

15 october 1736

I also obtained from the Canadian archives a copy of a certificate made at St. Louis in 1773 by "Louis St. Ange de Bellerive,” then in the Spanish service, that he commanded at Post Vincennes from 1736 to 1764, succeeding Sieur de Vincennes in the command.

In 1885, Mr. O. W. Collett, of St. Louis, published the will of "Mr. St. Ange de Bellerive," who died at St. Louis on Dec. 27, 1774, and among his listed effects were the following:

First, a commission or order from M. De La Buissoniere, who succeeded D'Artaguiette in command of the Illinois settlements, dated July 1, 1736, directing St. Ange to take command of the Post of the Pianguichats, which was the official title of Post Vincennes at that time; second, a commission from the King as lieutenant reformé, dated Oct. 16, 1736; third, a commission from the King as captain, dated Sept. 1, 1738. (Mag. of West Hist., Vol: 2, pp. 60-65.)

These documents make it plain that there were three St. Anges in the Louisiana service, a father and two sons; that the elder son was killed in 1736; that the second son commanded at Vincennes from 1736 to 1764, and then at Ft. Chartres; and that the father probably died in 1738, after the issue to him of the commission as captain reformé on April 17, 1738, and before the issue of the commission as captain reformé to the surviving son on Sept. 1 of the same year. This last presumption is confirmed by entries in the parish records of Prairie du Rocher, in 1743 and 1744, concerning "Madame St. Ange, widow of the late M. de St. Ange, captain reformé." (Pub. No. 8, Ill. Hist. Library, pp. 132, 138.) The record of his death will probably be found at some future time buried away in some of the parish records of Illinois.

It will be noted that Bienville calls the father "M. de St. Ange," and this title was usually given by his contemporaries, as, for example, in his memorandum concerning the war with the Fox Indians in 1730, in recommending the St. Anges, father and elder son, for promotion for meritorous service, Beauharnois calls the father "Sieur de St. Ange." In the son's certificate above mentioned, in his will, in the minutes of the formal surrender of Ft. Chartres (N. Y. Col. Docs., Vol. 10, p. 1161) and elsewhere, the son is called "St. Ange de Bellerive." American writers, myself among them, have adopted this nomenclature, and so careful and learned an investigator as the late E. G. Mason makes it "M. de St. Ange de Bellerive." But in years of search I have been unable to find any trace of any such title as "St. Ange" or "Bellerive," either in France or Canada. There was never any estate, seigniory or fief bearing either name. Whence then were these titles derived?

As we have seen, Bienville states in 1736 that the father had then been in the King's service over fifty years, although he had been on the Louisiana rolls less than fifteen years. It is a matter of history that a Canadian officer called St. Ange accompanied Father Charlevoix on his trip down the Mississippi in 1721. (In his "Historical Journal," or letters to the Duchess de Lesdigieres-letter No. 27Charlevoix says: "M. de St. Ange who has since very much distinguished himself against the Foxes, commanded my escort.") Fortunately the parish records of Canada have been made accessible through the magnificent Dictionnaire Genealogique of the Abbé Tanguay, and from it we find that the name "St. Ange" occurred in Canada only as a nickname, or "surnom" of one Robert Groston, who was married at Quebec in 1693, and who was then a sergeant in the "Compagnie de Noyan." His bride was Marguerite, daughter of Christopher Crevier, who had already been three times widowed. She was first married to Jacques Fournier, May 14, 1657; second to