CHAPTER V.

ADVENT OF THE WHITE MAN.

First of Europeans, or of the Caucasian race, to tread the soil of Ohio, was the brilliant Norman, a native of Rouen, Robert Cavelier de la Salle: Eager and daring, this tireless explorer arrived in Canada from France in 1666, his mind teeming with glowing fancies concerning the unknown West. Learning vaguely from the Indians of the great Mississippi and its beautiful tributary the Oyo, as the Iroquois called it, he conceived the idea that, launching upon these waters, he would be borne to the Pacific, and far round the globe toward India and China. Therefore, in token of the expected destination of his proposed enterprise, he gave to the settlement which he founded on the St. Lawrence the name of La Chine.' Disposing of his possessions in that colony, he set out in 1669 to explore the country between the lakes and the Ohio. At the head of Lake Ontario his two white companions quitted him, but he persisted in his purpose, reached the Ohio River, and descended it to the present site of Louisville. La Salle's record of this expedition, if he ever wrote one, has not been preserved. After his assassination some years later, his papers seem to have been lost. He spent the winter of 1669-70 within the present limits of Ohio, and probably passed through the State down the Muskingum, the Scioto, or the Big Miami. It is quite possible that he was the first white man who ever visited the spot whereon, nearly one hundred and fifty years later, was founded Ohio's capital.

Having ascertained from this and subsequent expeditions the real course of the Mississippi, La Salle conceived some new and far-reaching schemes. Engaging in the fur trade, for which he obtained special favors from the King of France, he launched his canoes on the Ohio, the Wabash and the Maumee, and established posts for traffic along the banks of these rivers and the shores of the Great Lakes. He was also first to conceive plans for exploring the country from Lake Frontenac, as Ontario was then called, to the Gulf of Mexico, in order to extend the dominion of France over the entire Mississippi basin, and bring its inhabitants to the knowledge of the Christian religion. In 1678 he began to build the Griffon, a bark of sixty tons, which he launched the following summer near the present site of Buffalo. On August 7th, 1669, with a crew of thirtyfour hunters, soldiers and sailors, he set forth in this ship, which was the first craft of civilized construction to ride the waters of Lake Erie. He was accompanied by an Italian soldier named Tonti, and Lewis Hennepin, a Franciscan friar of the order of Recollects. From Green Bay, which was reached in September, the Griffon, laden with furs, set out, and was lost, on her return to Niagara, while La Salle, with seventeen men and a

Recollect monk sailed in canoes to the mouth of St. Joseph's River, then called the River of the Miamis. After building there a trading fort he led his party overland, carrying its canoes and equipage, until he reached the Kankakee, which he descended to the Lake of Peoria, and there first came in contact with the Illinois Indians. Here he built another trading fort, and fitted out an expedition under Hennepin to explore the Upper Mississippi, reserving for himself the voyage of discovery down that river to its mouth. He then returned to Fort Frontenac, and after various journeys back and forth rejoined Tonti, in November, 1681, for the crowning expedition. Quitting the shores of Lake Michigan in January, 1682, La Salle led that expedition across the country by way of the Chicago River to the Illinois, and on the sixth of February arrived on the banks of the Mississippi. On the thirteenth of February, all being ready, the voyage was renewed, the party comprising twentytwo arms-bearing Frenchmen, Father Membré - one of the Recollect missionaries and a band of Indians, including several women. After many interesting adventures La Salle arrived at the mouth of the Mississippi, named it the River Colbert, and explored the three channels by which its waters were discharged into the sea. He then reascended to a point beyond the reach of inundation, erected a cross and formally proclaimed the dominion of the French king, by right of discovery, over all the territories of the Mississippi Valley. Louisiana was the name with which, in honor of his sovereign, he christened this vast wilderness realm, including the present State of Ohio. Over these immense, indefinitely-bounded territories France held jurisdiction for eightyone years. By treaties of 1762 and 1763 she ceded her claims west of the Mississippi to Spain, and those east of it to Great Britain. La Salle undertook to colonize the Louisiana province, and for that purpose brought over a party of settlers from France, but their ship missed her longitudes, passed the mouth of the Mississippi, and landed in Texas. From thence the hardy explorer undertook to make his way overland to Canada, but had not proceeded far before he was treacherously murdered by his companions. La Salle was a man of genius, and deserves greater credit for his achievements than he has usually received.

2

To colonize the Ohio country, and set a bulwark against the claims and en croachments of the French, the Ohio Land Company of Virginia was chartered in 1749. It included in its membership George Washington's brothers Lawrence and Augustine, and was chiefly represented in England by John Hanbury, a wealthy merchant of London. Thomas Lee, its founder and most active colonial member, was President of the Virginia Council. Robert Dinwiddie, another shareholder, was Surgeon-General for the Southern Colonies.

This company obtained from the British government a grant of five hundred thousand acres of land "between the Monongahela and the Kanawha, or on the northern margin of the Ohio," with the stipulation that no quit-rent should be paid for ten years, that at least one hundred families should be settled within seven years, and that the colonists should, at their own expense, build and garrison a fort for defense against the Indians.

There were at that time, says Sparks, "no English residents in those regions." A few traders wandered from tribe to tribe, and dwelt among the Indians, but they neither cultivated nor occupied the land. The French had established numerous trading posts in the country, including one at the mouth of the Scioto, the founda