De Pere

Very good.

I felt like that was appropriate for De Pere here.

Excellent.

All right.

And it's just spectacular.

If you spin to the other Rosalita patios, especially the one in De Pere, you'll get kind of an idea.

But this one is that and then some.

The focal point is a sculpture tree that looks like a Texas post oak.

Yesterday, I had about 50 kids go to Legion Park and play, so it was wild.

I looked behind me at one point, and I had a trail of 40 kids walking down the sidewalk in De Pere.

That's awesome.

I

burial

marquette begins by saying that the hurons fearing an attack from iroquois had built a stockade in the summer just past to surround their cabins this was in the immediate neighbourhood of the mission chapel which was very likely but a bark hut much resembling the long houses of the hurons the front end fitted up as a church with a rude altar silver vessels upon it and pictures hung about illustrating the lives of christ and the saints while the rear served the frenchmen as a dwelling of his dusky parishioners the father writes they have been more assiduous at prayer have listened more willingly to the instructions that i gave them and have acceded to my requests for preventing grave misconduct and their abominable customs one must have patience with savage minds who have no other knowledge than of the devil whose slaves they and all their forefathers have been and they frequently relapse into those sins in which they have been reared god alone can give firmness to their fickle minds and place and maintain them in grace and touch their hearts while we stammer into their ears this year the tianantateranons hurons were here to the number of three hundred and eighty souls and they were joined by over sixty souls of the owata synago ottawas some of the latter came from the mission of st franois xavier de pere where rev father andre spent last winter with them and they appeared to me to be very different from what they were when i saw them at the point of santa the zeal and patience of that father have won over to the faith hearts which seem to us to be very averse to it they desire to be christians they bring their children to the chapel to be baptized and they are very assiduous in attending prayers last summer when i was obliged to go to st marie du sou with rev father alois the hurons came to the chapel during my absence as assiduously as if i had been there and the girls sang the hymns that they knew they counted the days that passed after my departure and continually asked when i was to return i was absent only fourteen days and on my arrival all proceeded to the chapel to which many came expressly from their fields although these were very far away i cheerfully attended their feasts of squashes at which i instructed them and called upon them to thank god who gave them food in abundance while other tribes who had not yet embraced christianity had great difficulty in preserving themselves from hunger i cast ridicule on their dreams and encouraged those who had been baptized to acknowledge him whose adopted children they were those who gave feasts although still idolaters spoke most honorably of christianity and they were not ashamed to make the sign of the cross before every one some young men against whom jests had been directed to prevent them from doing so made it in the largest meetings even when i was not present some christian hurons who came up from quebec and montreal declared at the outset that they would not attend meetings wherein god was offended that if they were invited to feasts they would follow the custom of the christians they placed themselves on my side when i was able to be present and maintained their freedom when i was absent he then proceeds to tell of some of his apparent conversions but he fully recognizes from sad experience with them that in many cases this supposed change of heart is but temporary for he says i trust that what they do through respect and through fear will one day be done through love and with the desire of being saved he attends some of their dances but disapproves of most of them as being superstitious and succeeds for a time in stopping them i did not fail during the autumn to go and visit them in their fields where i instructed them and made them pray to god and told them what they had to do i also made frequent and regular visits to them especially those who owing to their advanced age could not come to the chapel since there was as yet no bell for the chapel i went to notify them of the services of the church during the year he baptized two adults and twenty-eight children his letter thus concludes god has aided in a special manner the hurons who went to hunt for he led them to places where they killed a great number of bears stags beavers and wild cats several bands failed not to observe the directions that i had given them respecting prayers dreams to which they formerly had recourse were looked upon as illusions and if they happened to dream of bears they did not kill any on account of that on the contrary after they had recourse to prayer god gave them what they desired this my reverend father is all that i can write to your reverence respecting this mission where men's minds are more gentle more tractable and better disposed to receive the instructions that are given them than in any other place meanwhile i am preparing to leave it in the hands of another missionary to go by your reverence's order and seek toward the south sea new nations that are unknown to us to teach them to know our great god of whom they have hitherto been ignorant chapter

chapter twelve

of father marquette when jacques marquette was an eight-year-old lad a scion of the proudest family in lans there was born sixteen forty five in the little riverside hamlet at the foot of the rock of quebec a boy whose name will forever be mentioned with his own whenever men speak of the french discovery of the mississippi river louis jolyer was the son of a poor wagon-maker in the employ of the great fur-trading company which then controlled new france he died when louis was six years of age as louis grew to manhood he developed considerable capacity in several directions he appears to have been at first selected for the priesthood and spent several years as a student in the jesuit house in quebec he even took some of the preliminary vows of that order in sixteen sixty six and sixteen sixty seven just after he had reached his majority we find him mentioned in the records as clerk of the church in the seminary of quebec quebec was then but a small village upon the outskirts of civilization and people of every sort were thrown together with more or less intimacy the little band of jesuits both priests and scholars of course lived beneath the same roof and with ames in common formed lifelong attachments marquette had arrived from france in sixteen sixty six although he was eight years older than jolliet they were both young and impressionable and appeared to have become fast friends but jolliet abandoned his priestly studies at about the same time that marquette left for three rivers to study under drouillet in october sixteen sixty seven jo went to france spending a happy year in the land of his parents upon his return to canada he adopted the calling of an explorer as did many another ambitious young man of his time and entered upon the training then essential to success in that arduous field like the indian the professional explorer must understand the craft of the wilderness he must know how properly to interpret the moods of nature to silently wend his way in the darkest and thickest forest and to live alone far from his base of supplies it was essential for him to acquire the art of fashioning shelter huts weapons utensils sleds and canoes and he must be a good hunter fisher and cook he must patiently endure the experience of life in the indian camps must readily acquire indian dialects must not be failing in tact must in times of danger be alert resourceful and brave such rearing had jean nicol who in sixteen thirty four first of all known frenchmen journeyed into the region of the upper lakes nicolas perrault duluth lasalle tonty and the jesuit missionaries all studied in this rough school and were successful only as they proved good pupils wildly divergent as were now the callings of the two young students it is curious to see how close from the first lay their paths of action in the year sixteen sixty nine when marquette was sent to take charge of the mission at chequemagon bay joliet in the capacity of interpreter and indian expert accompanied a party instructed by the governor of new france to search for copper mines in the lake superior region two years later soon after marquette arrived at mackinac island we find jolliet with a party of saint lusson the political agent who as related in a preceding chapter formally took possession of the northwest country in the name of the great king of france jolliet appears to have spent much of his time for several years in the region of the upper great lakes hunting for copper mines and learning the numerous dialects of the algonkins and their neighbors in both the jesuit and official reports of the period he is always spoken of as a man of discretion bravery and unusual ability who might be trusted to do difficult work it must not be supposed that father marquette was alone in his yearning to explore the great river of the west and thus to solve the geographical problem of the day whether it flowed into the gulf of california or the gulf of mexico or southeastward through virginia long before marquette was born adventurous frenchmen had been eager to find the mysterious river concerning which savages brought vague but glowing reports to the jesuit missions of huronia and to the fur markets of quebec and tadousac champlain had dreamed of reaching its banks but the affairs of the colony caused him to turn homeward after only reaching the shores of lake huron in itself a notable achievement we have seen that those gay rovers radisson and grossier who went forth to discover the great lakes that they heard the wild men speak of may have also paddled their canoe upon the father of waters in the summer of sixteen fifty five there are those who think that robert cavalier known to history as la salle prince of western explorers traded for furs upon the mississippi as early as sixteen seventy but no good reason for this belief has been advanced in the early summer of that same year fathers de blanc and alouez were at the mascoutan village not far from the wisconsin river which three years later jolliet and marquette were to descend to the mississippi it was writes alouez in the relation for sixteen sixty nine to seventy a beautiful river running south-west without any rapid it leads to the great river called messissippi which is only six days sail from here d'aublin who soon after returned to quebec as the superior general of his order in new france had throughout his many journeys in wisconsin and along the shores of lake superior persistently sought information regarding the mysterious river in the relation of sixteen seventy to seventy one he gives a map of lake superior and says it is a southward course that is taken by the great river called by the natives mississippi which must empty somewhere in the region of the florida sea more than four hundred leagues hence some savages have assured us that this is so noble a river that at more than three hundred leagues distance from its mouth it is larger than the one flowing before quebec for they declare that it is more than a league wide some warriors of this country who tell us that they have made their way thither declare that they saw there men resembling the french who were splitting trees with long knives and that some of them had their houses on the water for thus they expressed themselves in speaking of sawed boards and of ships

It is very beautiful at its mouth, writes our appreciative diarist.

and flows gently it is full of bustards geese ducks teal and other birds attracted thither by the wild oats of which they are very fond pushing on through this mass of waving grain and noisily welcomed by circling clouds of aquatic fowl the canoeist soon found the channel broaden to about three hundred yards as solid banks were reached before them was still an exhilarating pull of about six miles up-stream on the right the wooded lowlands long afterward the seat of military power in the trans michigan country for french english and americans in turn on the left the rolling site of the modern city of green bay then an untrodden forest of intermingled oaks and pines above this placid stretch fox river was a toilsome waterway for frail craft of bark Very difficult a passage, writes Marquette, on account of which both the currents and the sharp rocks which cut the canoes and the feet of those who are obliged to drag them, especially when the waters are low.

The first of these rapids were those at De Pere.

At this gateway to the Mississippi our travellers found friends, and doubtless tarried by the way.