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Received icnT* ,1900

Accession No. 8 1 5 0 6 • Class No.

THE HENNEPIN BI-CENTEN ARY.

CELEBRATION

BY THE MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY.

OF THE

200TH ANNIVERSARY

OF THE

Discovery of the Falls of Saint Anthony

IN 1680, BY FATHER LOUIS HENNEPIN.

NOTE.— The Minnesota Historical Society, early in the year 1880, resolved to appropriately celebrate the two hundreth anniversary of the discovery of the Falls of Saint Anthony, by Father Louis Hennepin, which occurred in 1680. In this they were generously and energetically aided by the citizens of Minnneapolis, whose liberal and well-planned arrangements made the celebration a complete success. The exact date of the discovery cannot be fixed, but the third of July (the fourth falling on Sunday) was selected as the day for the celebration, on account of its being a public holiday. The subjoined account of the exercises is from the Saint Paul Daily Globe, of July 4, 1880:

The city of Minneapolis never saw such a day as yes- terday. It almost appeared as though the inanimate earth on which the city is built — her magnificent blocks

30 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS.

of buildings, her immense mills and even the grand Falls themselves, were aware that something more than ordi- nary was taking place. The broad avenues were teeming with life, and every artery of the city pulsed with a glad and gleesome feeling, which developed itself in the smil- ing countenances of her citizens, and the outward emblems of general rejoicing. Most of the business houses and many private dwellings were decorated with flags, ever- greens, etc., all testifying to the general joy felt by all. In fact, it was Minneapolis' ' 'Saturday out," and she en- joyed it. The privacy of home and the conventionalities of society which ordinarily ''doth hedge us in" were for the once laid aside, and all, whether old or young, regardless of previous condition, gave themselves up to a gala day. The moving tide of humanity, the gaily decked blocks of buildings, the floating stars and stripes, and the general air of pleasure everywhere visible, conspired to give the locality a holiday appearance never seen before. Cer- tainly not since the day Father Hennepin looked upon it and pronounced it good, two hundred years ago.

THE GRAND PROCESSION.

The official program for the day had announced that the procession would be formed promptly at 9 a. m. Commit- tees of arrangements may propose, but it not infrequently happens that those who take part in pageants of this character, dispose of time to suit their convenience. It so happened yesterday. As early as 8 o'clock all the principal streets of the city were filled with people on foot, in carriages, on horseback and in arms, waiting for the procession to form. It was somehow understood that

HENNEPIN BI-CENTENARY. 31

General Sherman, Secretary Ramsey* and other notables were to arrive at an early hour at the University, and come from thence to the Nicollet House, where arrange- ments were to be made for assigning them positions in the grand procession. An immense throng of people as- sembled in front of the hotel and for over an hour waited patiently, in the broiling sun, to catch a glimpse of the dis- tinguished visitors. About half past ten their curiosity was satisfied, for at that hour a number of carriages con- taining General Sherman, Secretary Ramsey, Hon. E. B. Washburne and other distinguished gentlemen, drove to the main entrance of the hotel. The features of nearly all were familiar to the dense throng, and as they alighted from their carriages they were greeted with a succession of cheers. A few moments were spent in the parlors of the Nicollet to allow for introductions, refreshments, etc., when the party once more took their places in carriages and proceeded to Bridge Square where the grand proces- sion was formed in the following order, under the com- mand of Gen. T. L. Rosser, marshal of the day, assisted by some aids:

THE ORDER OF PROCESSION:

Gen. Rosser, Marshal of the Day and Aide, Officer Hoy. Platoon of Sixteen Minneapolis Police, Commanded by Sergeant West.

Great Western Union Band.

Hon. W. D. Washburn and Mayor Band in Carriages. General W. T. Sherman and Secretary of War Ramsey.

Governor Pillsbury.

Ex-Governor C. C. Washburn and Rev. Mr. Neill.

Hon. E. B. Washburne, D. Morrison and Anthony Kelly.

Members of the City Council.

* Hon. Alexander Ramsey was, at that date, Secretary of War.

32 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS.

Members of the County Board.

City and County Officials.

Hon. W. S. King and Friend.

Fort Snelling Military Band.

Two Companies of U. S. Regulars.

Veterans of the War for the Union.

Mounted Zouave Lancers. Zouave Drum Corps and Band.

Minneapolis Zouaves.

Minneapolis Light Infantry.

St. John the Baptiste Society.

Swede Brothers' Society.

Odd Fellows' Encampment.

North Star Lodge, I. O. O. F.

Sons of Herman.

Father Matthew Cadets.

Father Matthew T. A. B. Society.

Woman's Christian Temperance Union.

Father McGolrick and Priests.

Citizens in Carriages.

It required some time to bring order out of the chaotic mass, which had not only filled Bridge Square, but all the streets adjacent with a surging tide of humanity on ioot, in carriages, and in every other species of convey- ance. The throng had come "from the north and south, from the east and from the west," all intent upon seeing all they could and taking part in this pageantry. The .grand marshal and his aids had a most difficult task to •perform, but they finally succeeded, and the procession took up its line of march across the suspension bridge, in the order above given. When the carriage containing General Sherman and Secretary Ramsey reached the east- ern end of the bridge, and the vast crowd recognized the

HENNEPIN BI-CENTENARY. 33

familiar countenances, cheer after cheer greeted the two distinguished men, who manage and control the military arm of this great republic. This hearty greeting was continued all along the line of march, and was re- sponded to by both gentlemen rising and bowing in response. They rode in a splendid English drag, drawn by four beautiful horses, gaily caparisoned, and driven by Mr. R. F. Jones, the owner of the magnificent turn- out.

Words are inadequate to describe the appearance of the procession and Nthe streets along the line of march. The sidewalks and the streets also were a complete moving mass of humanity of all ages and both sexes. The suspension bridge never before was put to such a test, and hereafter it may be considered safe. Every available space was occupied by people on foot, while for fully a half hour the driveway was filled with two lines of carriages from end to end. The . scene on University avenue when the procession was passing, baffles descrip- tion. The procession formed across the street, but on either side of it were dense throngs of carriages, four or five abreast, while the sidewalks and private grounds of the residents were crowded with men, women and children. At every street crossing, numbers of vehicles were added to the throng, and yet all moved on, slowly it is true, but without accident. Gen. Sherman was of course the lion of the day, and next to him came in for many com- pliments, a number of the organizations that formed a part of the procession. The Union Great Western Band, the Seventh Infantry Band from Fort Snelling, and the Minneapolis Zouave Band Drum corps, elicited well de-

34 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS.

served praise for their excellent music and splendid appearance. Companies C, K and H, of the Seventh In- fantry, under command of Major Benham, marched as only veterans can. The Minneapolis Zouaves made a fine appearance in their strange uniform, and the squad of mounted Lancers of the same organization, were a marked feature of the procession. The Union Francaise, of St. Paul, who turned out 150 strong, and were led by the Great Western Band, did themselves proud, being the largest organization in the line. Suffice it to say that it was a grand demonstration, in which not only the cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, but the country for miles around, united.

Over the entrance to the University grounds a grand arch had been erected, beautifully ornamented with national colors and evergreens, and bearing the inscrip- tion, "Soyez les Bienvenus."

THE APPEARANCE OF THE GROUNDS.

While so many were waiting on the avenue, some hun- dreds had gathered on the University campus at an early hour, and before the head of the procession arrived at the green arch, under which it entered upon the field, thousands were assembled. The spacious campus — over- looking the river and falls, and a goodly part of the city — covered with a fine sward and shaded by noble trees, was supplied for the occasion with a covered stand for the Historical Society and its guests and seats for the audience, and also with numerous tables for free refresh- ment of visitors, and with many tents for their shelter and entertainment. Around the north and west sides

HENNEPIN BI CENTENARY. 35

of the campus were arranged the various tents and headquarters of the different bodies taking part in the celebration. A short distance from the main entrance to the grounds, on the right, was located seven tables, each 210 feet in length. These tables were loaded with sub- stantial food, enough to feed thousands, and thousands were fed at this hospitable board. All were invited, and among the many thousands there not one went away hungry, except at his or her accord. This branch was under the supervision of George A. Brackett, Esq., and he managed it with a method and beaming hospitality that will be long remembered by thousands whom he fed. In fact it may be said that all went away prepared to say: "I was a hungered and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger and ye took me in." Passing on down to the right was a tent reserved for the members of the councils of the cities. Under this canvas were two tables, sufficient to accom- modate the number expected to be present, and supplied with good things enough to satisfy even an alderman's stomach.

Next to this was a canopy supplied with chairs, where the weary might find rest.

Then came the grand tent, under which Governor Pillsbury had provided a repast for the distinguished visitors and the members of the Historical Society. Un- der this large canopy were fifteen tables arranged in cir- cular form. The tent was tastefully decorated with the national colors and evergreens, and the tables were adorned with a profusion of flowers, presenting a picture of great beauty. Under this canvas the Governor received

36 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS.

and feasted his friends after the formal exercises were over. Never before did such a collection of distinguished men and fair women meet within sight and sound of St. Anthony Falls. Connected with this was another tent, where, during the entire day, such refreshments as lemon- ade, sandwiches, etc., were dispensed to the hungry and thirsty.

A number of other tents were scattered around for the accommodation, convenience and comfort of ladies, the various visiting organizations, etc., etc. Probably the most important of these tents were two — one large and handsomely fitted up where ladies could obtain lemonade, ic$s, etc., and the other called the "house that Jack built," for gentlemen, where they could obtain a bountiful supply of ice water. In th'is tent they had on exhibition specimens of water said to have been bottled by Father Hennepin at the time he discovered the falls. It had im- proved wonderfully with age. A large number tasted it (purely out of curiosity) and they informed the GLOBE reporter that it was not bad to take.

Many columns might be filled with accounts of all there was to be seen and done on the grounds. The imagina- tion of the reader must supply the deficiency, It is suffi- cient to say that the citizens of Minneapolis, both in their private and corporate capacity, dispensed a boundless hospitality on the occasion, and all, the many thousands present, went away satisfied that it was good for them to be there.

HENNEPIN BI-CENTENARY. 37

THE SOCIETY AND ITS GUESTS. It was about 10:30 A. M. when the head of the proces- sion arrived on the grounds, and some time was necessa- rily taken in placing the military and societies, and in seating the people, who wished to listen to the oration and addresses. Meantime the Historical Society and its guests were seated upon the grand stand. Among this notable company the following were recognized from the reporter's table: Gen. H. H. Sibley of St. Paul, president of the Historical Society; Hon. Alex. Ramsey, Secretary of War; Gen. W. T. Sherman, U. S. A.; Archbishop Tach£ of St. Boniface, Manitoba; Bishop La Fleche, of Three Rivers, Lower Canada; Bishops Grace and Ireland, St. Paul; Mgr. J. Neve, Rector of the American College, Lou- vain, Belgium; Rev. Fr. Desaulniers, St. Bonaventure, Canada; Rev. G. Dugast, St. Boniface, Manitoba; Rev. J. A. Andre, Inner Grove, Minnesota; Rev. James McGol- rick, Minneapolis; Justice Miller, of the U. S. Supreme court; Judge Gilfillan of the State Supreme court; Judge McCrary of the U. S. Circuit court; Judge Nelson, of the U. S. District court; Gen. Terry and other army officers from department headquarters, St. Paul; Gen. Gibbon and officers of the Seventh Infantry, Fort Snelling; Col. Bar- ry, Washington; Hon. E. B. Washburne, Galena, and Al- bert D. Hager, Chicago, the latter secretary, and both delegates of the Chicago Historical Society; Hon. C. H. Berry, Winona; Hon. John S. Pillsbury, Governor of Min- nesota; Ex-Go v. C. K. Davis; Ex-Gov. Wm. R. Marshall; Hon. C. C. Washburn, Wisconsin; Gen. R. W. Johnson, St. Paul; Hon. W. D. Washburn, Minneapolis; Hon. S. J. R. McMillan, U. S. Senator; Ex- Senator H. M. Rice; Mr.

38 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS.

Sprague, of Minneapolis, a soldier of 1812; Rev. Mr. Ri- heldaffer, of the State Reform school; Rev. E. D. Neill, Mayor Rand, Wm. S. King, W. W. McNair, Jno. H. Stevens, H. Mattson, O. V. Tousley, D. Morrison and N. B. Harwood, all of Minneapolis; I. De Graff, Russell Blakeley, E. S. Goodrich, Edmund Rice, J. Fletcher Williams, H. L. Moss, I. V. D. Heard and J. B. Cha- ney, of St. Paul; Hon. O. P. Whitcomb, State auditor; Hon. D. Burt, Superintendent of public instruction; and President Folwell and the Faculty of the State Univer- sity.

When Gen. Sherman escorted by Gen. Sibley, and Secretary Ramsey escorted by Gen. Terry, came upon the stand they were warmly applauded, and Gen. Sher- man especially seemed to be the favorite. In fact, throughout the exercises, he could hardly move without starting a round of applause. It was evident there was present a goodly number of the boys who marched through Georgia with Sherman.

While the procession was marching into the campus, a salute was fired by a section of artillery from Fort Snelling; and as all arrangements were about concluded, at 11:35 A. M., the Union Great Western Band opened the exercises by playing the national airs, after which Gen. Sibley addressed the multitude.

He said that he welcomed, as President of the Minne- sota Historical Society, such a large concourse of citizens to assist in celebrating this interesting anniversary. He said we owe a debt of gratitude to the citizens of Minne apolis, for their liberality and energy in getting up this celebration in so complete and splendid a manner. With-

HENNEPIN BI-CENTENARY. 39

out occupying more time, he would now introduce Hon. Cushman K. Davis, the orator of the day. Ex-Gov. Davis appeared amid an outburst of applause, and addressed the audience as follows:

HON. C. K. DAVIS' ORATION.

It is not without cause that nations, sects, communities and individuals, by a custom which seems world -wide, observe with commemorative ceremonies the recurrence of certain days with which events of great national, reli- gious and personal importance began.

There is a satisfaction in looking back into "the abysm of time", where generations have been swallowed up and forgotten, to gaze at some luminous diurnal spot which marks the occurrence of that without which an empire could never have existed, or a faith never been defined for belief, or a human right never ceased from being an eth- ical abstraction to become a concrete and beneficent fact, or a person never born, to taste the joys and sorrows of life and to fall heir to the inexpressible heritage of im- mortality.

At one day in each year the Christian traverses the tract of eighteen centuries, gazing from obscure Bethle- hem over the civilized world, and over the enormous epoch of his faith traces the sublime consequences of the nativity. He sees that in a period so short that it attests the miracle, the entire skeptical, dogmatic and practical Roman world was penetrated and possessed by the cardinal idea of a faith which sprung from the despised Semitic province, and overcame the indurate prepossessions of the Aryan family. He sees the vast and unending political conse-

40 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS.

quences of the event which he commemorates. He sees how thoroughly Christianity took possession of the place providentially left for it in the interstices of the Roman structure, and speedily transformed it in color, shape and proportions. He appreciates the fact that the functions of a kingdom not of this world needed, to make efficient its propagandizing idea of personal equality, the aid of secular institutions. It found them in the marvelous ma- chinery of the Roman polity. He sees the submergence of all this under the northern torrent — a submergence so complete that nothing but the cross can at times be seen over that waste of waters ; the hopes of civilization and progress seem ended. But barbarism itself was in time subdued by that which it had conquered. It had brought from its northern forests a practice of parliamentary par- ticipation in affairs by every free man which by elective affinity combined with the religious dogmas of personal equality, and the Christian world was at once placed upon a line of logical consequences which, by asserting the freedom of the individual and the equality of man to man, has found its most perfect development in the United States.

The Mahometan, mindful of the ignominious Hegira of the Prophet, commemorates its day, and standing at Mecca, sees the crescent, within the period of seven hun- dred years, compassing nations with its arc of conquest, one point touching Grenada, and the other shining over Vienna.

What day more than this thrills every sensibility of the American citizen — this day of days — when our charter of human rights was signed with dedications to its mainten-

HENNEPIN BI-CENTENARY. 41

ance of lives, fortunes and sacred honor — which has been for more than one hundred years preserved inviolate, which has been confirmed by an extension of its extrem- est declaration that all men are created equal, to the emancipation of the slave and his participation as a free man in the administration of the institutions by which he was committed to ignorance and bondage.

Two hundred years ago the Franciscan father Hennepin saw the Falls of St. Anthony. He was the first white man who ever saw and heard the throbbings of that great artery of power which now gives life to thousands of people and moves those great mechanical agencies which in our hearing almost, are doing the work of hun- dreds of thousands of men. For unnumbered ages the cataract had spent its forces wearing away the ledge over which it fell, receding northward through gorges which it cut, and in which it has recorded its recession. The wildest dreamer of two hundred years ago could not have foretold the wondrous changes which would be worked upon the scene.

The indomitable courage of the French in discovering and opening up the territory west of the Alleghanies, their utter failure to hold it and its relapse into obscurity form one of the most interesting and obscure problems of our history.

By the year 1680, La Salle, a gentleman by birth and a scholar by education by the Jesuits, then the best school- masters in the world, had built a ship above Niagara Falls, made the circuit of the great lakes, landed near the western extremity of Lake Michigan, traversed what is now the State of Illinois, and rested at a point on the

42 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS.

shores of Peoria lake, where he built a fort. Attached to this company of adventurers was Hennepin. He was a man of great resolution, faithful to his vocation, and of remarkable power of observation — so remarkable that his footsteps can be traced to-day in the changed condition of this region, most distinctly by the account which he left of his adventures.

During the winter of 1679-80, he, with two compan- ions, had by the order of La Salle, descended the Illinois river to its mouth, and was directed also to ex- plore the Mississippi river above the Illinois. They as- cended the river without molestation, probably as far as the mouth of the Wisconsin river, where ,they were cap- tured by a war party of Sioux, and from that time their journey northwards was an enforced one. Their captors held debate over their lives, but finally concluded to spare them. They were brought by the Sioux up the river to a point doubtless a few miles below where St. Paul now stands, where the band then left the river and followed the trail over the country to Mille Lacs. A journey of five days brought them to the Indian villages in the valley of the Rum River, and there the captives were separated, each band conducting a Frenchman to its village. They seem to have been treated with rude kindness. Henne- pin now endeavored to acquire the Indian language, and to instruct the savages in the faith, but they were in- different and he made no converts. He baptized and christened by the name of Antoinette, a sick Indian infant, who shortly afterward died. He seems to have inspired his captors with a certain feeling of awe, and yet at the same time to have been regarded by them quite contemptuously.

HENNEPIN BI-CENTENARY. 43

He settled, however, an important geographical ques- tion. The hope of a direct westerly ocean route to the East Indies which inspired Columbus and resulted in the discovery of America in the search for India, was at this time an inspiring cause of the persistent intrusion of the French into this region. It was supposed that the Mis- sissippi river emptied into the Gulf of California. The northwest passage was laid down on maps as through tfee the Straits of Anian, which was represented to be not far from the water system which has its source in Min- nesota.

While Hennepin was detained in this vicinity of Mille Lacs, four Indians came to the village, who stated that they had come from the west fifteen hundred miles, and that their journey had occupied four months. They were questioned by Hennepin and told him truly that they had seen no sea nor any great water. They described the country northwest of here with general accuracy, saying that it contained no great lakes, that it had many rivers and that there were few forests in that region. From this narrative Hennepin concluded that the straits of Anian as delineated upon the maps of that time, had no existence, and he conjectured that the route to the Pacific was by the rivers of which these Indians told.

The time came in June for the departure of the In- dians to the hunting grounds west of the Mississippi river. The assemblage of the bands for this purpose brought Hennepin and his companions together again. They descended the Rum River and encamped where Day- ton is now. Starvation threatened the Indians, and Hen- nepin was of course anxious to be released. By stating

44 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS.

to them that he expected to meet a party of Frenchmen at the mouth of the Wisconsin river with goods for the Indians, he prevailed upon the savages to allow him and his companions to go to meet them. One of the French- men preferred to remain with the Indians, and staid. A small birch canoe was given Hennepin and Du Gay, and they started down the river and came to the falls of St. Anthony.

It was a sacred spot with the tribes. Indians were there invoking the spirit of the waters in voices of lam- entations and hanging offerings of beaver skins upon the trees.

Hennepin named the cataract the Falls of St. Anthony in honor of St. Anthony of Padua. He proceeded on his journey, and at some distance below the Falls encoun- tered Daniel Greysolon Duluth and four other Frenchmen, who had made their way from the head of Lake Superior to the Mississippi river. The Frenchmen then returned to Mille Lacs with a party of Indians, remained there till the following autumn, and then resumed their southward journey by the way of Rum river and the falls of St. Anthony. They proceeded to Green Bay by ascending the Wisconsin river. From thence Hennepin made his way to Europe and in 1683 published at Paris an account of his adventures.

After the death of La Salle and about fourteen years after the publication of this book, Hennepin is said to have published in Utrecht another edition of his travels, in which he pretended for the first time that before he started up the Mississippi river, he had followed its course from the Illinois to the sea and returned in time to start

HENNEPIN BI-CENTENARY. 45

northward from the mouth of the Illinois river by the eleventh of March, 1680. The dates in the two narratives show that he must have done all this in a month, and of course conclusively establish the falsity of this portion of his second narrative. The first narrative, published in 1683, is, however, undoubtedly a true one. His topog- raphy, capable of verification to-day, and his use of Sioux words, fully establish the fact.

The edition of 1694 was dedicated to the King of Eng- land and the surprising claim then advanced was doubt less due to some political reason, for it is stated that its contents caused William to send vessels to the Gulf of Mexico to enter the river, and Callieres, the Governor of Canada, wrote a letter to Pontchartrain, the French min- ister, warning him that William was about to take posses- sion of Louisiana upon the relation of Hennepin. Louis XIV was greatly incensed at Hennepin, and hearing that he intended to revisit Canada, directed Callieres in that event, to arrest him and send him to Rochefort. He died, probably in Italy, after the year 1701.*

Hennepin' s experience as a discoverer was small com- pared with that of other adventurous Frenchmen. The most illustrious of those men who two hundred years ago followed the Mississippi valley from the Falls of St. Anthony to the Gulf of Mexico was undoubtedly Robert Cavelier La Salle. This heroic man starting from Montreal, ascended the St. Lawrence, sailed the great lakes, made the portage to the Illinois river, and descending thence

*It should be stated, however, that the complicity of Hennepin with the Utrecht edition is denied with good support of internal testimony. It is greatly to be hoped that criticism will expunge the blemish which has heretofore seemed to rest upon his veracity.

-2

46 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS.

into the Mississippi, reached its mouth in the year 1682, after years of incredible hardships. In the month of April of that year, standing where jetties now spring from the unstable shore, and through which the commerce of the world passes rejoicing in stately ships, he planted the cross, took possession of a vast country for and in the name of Louis XIV, while the voices of the great hearted companions of his quest joined in the Vexilla Regis.

The region thus claimed was the entire valley of the Mississippi and all of its tributaries. It stretched from the Alleghanies to the Rocky Mountains. It was the most imperial domain which ever accrued to a king by the claim of discovery. Far-seeing men of that age foretold that it would, in its time, be what it is now. Its military importance and commercial and agricultural capacities were quite well understood. The energies of a church whose sons have set their feet in tropic jungles, on polar snows, in Saharas of sand, on every place on earth where there are souls to be saved, the sagacity and power of the great- est king and the wisest statesmen of that age, the ad- venturous private spirit inspired by the hope of gain, the romantic gleams of El Dorados which even then shone in the West like golden sunsets, the colonial policy then car- dinal with the great European powers, all these confeder- ated to make this immense domain a province of France.

Had it remained so, the French possessions would have extended from the mouth of the St. Lawrence nearly to the Rio Grande; the domain of England would have been east of the Alleghanies. Spain would have had only the province of Florida, and the whole of all the remainder of North America east of the Rocky Mountains, excepting

HENNEPIN BI- CENTENARY. ±7

Mexico, would have belonged to France to colonize and civilize by way of the Mississippi river, instead of by that painful and slow process overland from east to west, by which this country has been occupied.

Why France did not succeed in so doing is a most re- condite yet instructive question.

There was at that time every reason why she should have done all this. Louis XIV was then at the zenith of his power. His intellect was in its prime; his pride was at its height; his will had never been curbed; his armies were victorious everywhere; he had the finest navy in the world; his treasury overflowed.

The grandest statesman whom France — perhaps Europe — ever produced had been at the head of affairs, and the propulsive force of his genius still operated unspent. It is doing its work to-day. Colbert had wrought the work which Louis was then enjoying. He was so great to the men of his own age, that the Mississippi river was named the Colbert, but the great stream — greater than the stream of history — has effaced even his name from the water in which it was written.

England, as a power, was utterly contemptible. She was panting under the incubus of the disreputable old age of that heartless voluptuary Charles II, and he was a pensioner of the French king. Her finances were disordered, her army was despised, her navy was weak and rotten, her statesmen were profligate and corrupt, her literature was mere bawdry, and she was through- out a state diseased.

William of Orange, constitutionally weak of body and broken by sickness, was battling for mere existence with

48 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS.

the overwhelming power of France, and was thought to be a vanishing factor in the problem of national and personal supremacy.

Why then was it that, though France held for almost one hundred years nearly all that La Salle proclaimed was her's east of the great river, and held until the reign of the great Napoleon, nearly all that was pro- claimed as her's west of the great river, she eventually lost everything, and left but little or no trace of her presence, excepting what is now the state of Louisiana?

The cause was not conquest. Conquests then were, but they were merely the secondary and proximate agencies of the transfer.

And here we are presented with one of the grandest examples which time has given to history, of the diver- sion of a great region from one empire and its attach- ment to another, by the moral power of contending in- stitutions. For this was effected by the collision of institutions, and by nothing else. We have seen France, starting from Montreal, engirdle the North American continent from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to the mouth of the Mississippi, and shutting up the English occupancy into a tract which was practically bounded by the St. Lawrence, the Alleghanies and the Savannah. We understand the proportions of the physical compet- itory powers by which these rival institutions were sus- tained.

I do not think that differences of dogma or victories in proselyting had anything to do with the result. The Puritan of New England, the Quaker of Pennsylvania, the Catholic of Maryland, and the Churchman of Vir-

HENNEPIN BI-CENTENARY. 49

ginia, each represented a political tendency, with which his religious faith had little to do. either by way of cre- ation or modification. The result would have been the same, had James the Second succeeded in restoring Eng- land to the ranks of the Catholic powers.

Behind and beyond the mere questions of faith, ruling and overruling them by providential destiny, carrying them along as the world revolving east carries a ship that is sailing east, were the great and peremptory ideas of personal freedom and self government, based upon Christianity and not upon any of its creeds, which were fighting their way to institutional recognition in the per- son of every English-speaking man.

Englishmen had fought for centuries this momentous fight. They had extorted Magna Charta from John. They had enacted in parliament the declaration of rights, and so far annihilated the feudal system as to leave nothing but its fictions. They had passed the statute of habeas corpus. They had increased the powers of the commons, until that house became the immediate agent of the people in the administration of the State. More than all, they had so dilated their capacity for self-government through their love of freedom that it was as certain then as it is to-day that the mountains would be removed into the sea before the stock of that people could ever be forced back into the dungeons of absolute power.

In France there was no counterpart to all this. There was, on the contrary, a complete system of antithetical institutions. The whole kingdom was, feudal. It was enfeoffed to despot over despot through all the ascend-

50 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS.

ing degrees of tyranny, until the king was reached, who absorbed into himself the sum of all despotic powers. There was no parliament. Judges were so purchasable that judgments were finally sold as common commodi- ties. The land was filled with private prisons, in which the seigneurs incarcerated their offending underlings with- out pretext of trial. The king took away personal lib- erty by simple lettre de cachet. There was no liberty of conscience, nor was there anything in the tendency of the institutions which promised it. The system of tax- ation was an abominable device of spoliation by which a host of intermediaries tolled the product, so that but a fraction reached the royal exchequer.

Such were the two systems which started in the race of empire upon this continent. The French colonial sys- tem was feudal, and was governed from Versailles. The English colonial system was allodial and substantially governed itself. Each was a reproduction of its original. That of the French was cumbrous, but it had an artificial perfection like that of an organized army. The French- man who founded a colony laid off a seigniory and had his vassals. The English colonists on the contrary, owned their farms and their houses were their castles. They had their provincial parliaments and enacted their own laws. Every English settlement was a nucleus from which growth sprang. Every French settlement was a lordship or fort — it stood by itself; its neighbor was an- other lordship or fort. The English settlements were confluent. Those of the French were marked by bounda- ries established from the beginning. The former tended to identification; the latter were indurated into separa- tion; contact was friction and private war.

HENNEPIN BI-CENTENARY. 51

Under such conditions of growth it is easy to under- stand how the French, moving with the celerity of organ- ization, at first covered so much territory. After the first act was done, progress stopped.

The French settler looked to his lordship, and was at- tached to the soil. If he removed, he entered a vagrant life. The English immigrant, who was his own man, bettered his condition. His children stood higher in the ranks of wealth and society than he did. The result was that when the English became ready to pass the Alle- ghanies, they took with them ready made all of the ma- chinery of an independent government. The mere presence of Boone and his companions in Kentucky ended the shadowy French claim to that region. The French in 1762 finally ceded the territory by the treaty of Versailles. The capture of Kaskaskia by Gen. George Rogers Clarke, who was sent upon that campaign by Thomas Jefferson while governor of Virginia, seems to have ended the French institutions and customary laws over all the coun- try in the valley of the Mississippi. The passage of the ordinance of 1787 gave to the territory northwest of the Ohio a republican constitution, and from that time En- glish immigrants poured into that region, while the French institutions disappeared like a cloud.

The hold of France upon the territory west of the river became less eager. She ceded it to Spain and then took it back. The iron hold of Napoleon became flaccid there and he finally ceded it to the United States in 1803, and nothing was left of France upon this continent save Louisiana (which exists like an area of geologic drift) and the names of counties and cities where French and

52 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS.

Indian words alike mark the former presence of vanished institutions.

The political consequences of the tendencies and results of which I have spoken, were most momentous to the cause of liberty. Did anybody ever conceive of a declara- tion of independence by French colonies? Had the French institutions at all kept pace with those of the English over what is now the United States, there would have been no declaration of our own independence, for Louis XV and George III, assisted by their colonists, would have been fighting a war of conquest and defense. Let no one permit these words to disparage the Frenchman's love for liberty or his devotion to its cause. That race has stood since the days of Caesar in the forefront of in- expungable nationalities. But the Frenchman begins his political revolutions at Paris and overthrows tyranny in its central fortress. The Englishman has never regarded London as the place where the crown jewels of his liber- ties are kept. He will in any contest for his right, move upon London from every antipodal point where his ''morning drum beat" sounds. When the French revolu- tionist fails to secure Paris, his cause fails to the remotest extremities of the French dominions. But to his dauntless love of liberty, the Frenchman makes every sac- rifice. Wherever the scaffold has become an altar for the immolation of human victims dying for human freedom, the sons and daughters of France have stood upon that scaffold gloriously triumphing — stood singing songs of deliverance in the gates of the morning of freedom, like the angel Uriel in the sun, watching the world on which its light is sent.

HENNEPIN BI-CENTENARY. 53

Mere political speculation might ,pause at this point. But standing to-day at the great anniversary of our inde- pendence, and seeing what forces contended against each for a century before it was declared, we cannot help rec- ognizing the work of Providence in all this. Through all -time this new world had slumbered, hidden by the ocean from conquest, preserved; from the operations of the events which in the long course of thousands of years had brought the Europeans to civilization. The Greeks and the Romans did their work and passed away, and not a hint of this great world came to them from sea or shore. The long night which settled over Europe, and in the hours of which were slowly formed the models of our present institutions, was not illuminated by a single gleam from the west.

The Mongol peopled this continent from the northwest, but by some process left behind him his institutions and his faith. Precisely at the time when man was ready to fill the sphere of his natural rights; when printing was discovered and men were thereby enabled to reason to- gether and to come to think alike over vast areas, when conscience was beginning to assert its liberty, when slav- ery was denounced by the church and by publicists, when war, become more humane, required some real justifica- tion for its commencement, when the law rose from its tomb and, reasserting itself as a science superseded the can- onical jargon which had been administered by ecclesiasti- cal incompetence, when the divinity which inheres in science was breeding wings for its flight among the stars, when the real rulers of men were rising from the people and the world was ceasing to hope or dread the results

54 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS.

of dynastic chance, when force and fraud were becoming merely the "crownless metaphors of empire;" this wat- ery vail of ocean was first withdrawn from the new world and every agency which works under the providence of God for the well-being of man, entered upon its heritage. It took possession. The Englishman, the Dutchman, the Frenchman, the Irishman, the Scandinavian and the Ger- man here found refuge and gratified the aspirations for that personal liberty of thought, speech, belief and action, without which the most exalted man is but a splendid slave. In all this, the wondrous works of God, who holds the nations in the hollow of his hand, are as plainly to be seen as if some unpeopled planet had touched this earth on its way and taken from it its agencies for the well be- ing of man.

The Franciscan priest died in obscurity, and his burial place no man knows. His monument is here. His name is ineffaceably written upon this very place in the county which bears it. Where he stood two hundred years ago a despised captive, sit to-day the rulers of a great state; the professors of a university; the brave men and the lovely women of his race; the general of the armies of the most powerful and the freest people on earth; the judges of its greatest courts and the ministers of Christianity. Every- thing has changed. Two great cities occupy the scene. The cataract has been manacled by the hand of man and works like the blind Sampson in his mills. And the final results have not yet been reached. In all that we see there is nothing but the infancy of a great people. From the west and the northwest come the murmurs of awaken- ing empire, and the prophecies of that riper time when a

HENNEPIN BI-CENTENARY. 55

race — composite of the mingled blood of the nations of Europe — shall present to humanity its highest type of physical, intellectual and moral development. One hun- dred years from to-day they who shall stand in this place and repeat these ceremonies, may from their vantage- ground of knowledge, refinement and luxury, look upon us as their crude forerunners merely. Let us play well our part however, and cause them to say of us as we say of those who have preceded us, that these men acted well that part, and secured that larger liberty, that greater knowledge, that more perfect civilization which we of to- day know must forever bless this favored spot if we do our duty as our predecessors did theirs.

The conclusion of Gov. Davis' address was the signal for a prolonged applause. This was followed by an air from the band, when the president introduced, as poet of the day, A. P. Miller Esq., editor of the Worthington Ad- vance, who read the following poem:

MR. MILLER'S POEM. I.

Down these great rocks the mighty river poured,

And like an endless tempest beat and roared,

Ages on ages of uncounted years,

Before its thunder fell on human ears;

In one great song that made the woods rejoice,

Praising its maker with a ceaseless voice!

Then the Mound Builders came, with awkward toil,

And built their mounds and tilled the barbarous soil,

Yoked the wild bison to some uncouth plow,

And cleaved the rivers with a birchen prow.

56 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS.

How long ago? Perhaps ere Tubal Cain Began to build his cities on the plain, Perhaps ere Eve and Adam, hand in hand, Went out from home to tame the savage land. Then came the Red Man, stoical and brave, Of whom no power on earth can make a slave, True to the true and good toward the good, And, like his Christian brother, spilling blood. Human as we, whate'er his savage arts, For veins of gold run through his heart of quartz. Here round the Falls he built his rude tepee, Made Jove and danced and fought and died as we.

II.

And centuries 'went by, and then there came,

For love of Mother Church and France and fame,

The man who gave the Falls their saintly name.

O Priests! destined to pierce the wilderness,

Yours to explore and ours to possess,

Yours to uplift the cross by every stream,

And ours to build and realize your dream!

Anon the Saxon came, whose iron hand,

Has one strong finger laid on every land,

Who through his loom runs all the threads of race,

And leaves a grander Saxon in his place.

The doughty Dutchman from his dykes escaped,

With wives and ships to one plump model shaped,

Spreads round the Hudson in phlegmatic ease,

And smokes his pipe and trades to every breeze;

The gifted Frenchman, panting to be free,

And smit with love of fame and liberty,

Kisses Columbia on her river mouth,

And builds his New World Paris in the south;

The swarthy Spaniard plants his homes and vines

Where down the coast the yellow metal shines,

And counts his beads and tells his herds and flocks,

HENNEPIN BI-CENTENARY. 57

Till at his door the sturdy Saxon knocks;

But build where'er they may, they build in vain,

The land is not for Holland, France nor Spain ;

The all-absorbing Saxon, east or west,

Like Aaron's serpent, swallows down the rest !

His tongue and faith, his name and laws he leaves

On every soil his conq'ring plough-share cleaves,

Yet, blood-stained Saxon! storming round the world,

With battle-ax and bloody flag unfurled,

Cleaving the skull of every weaker race,

Shall not God's lightning smite you on the face?

Beware! for though the Red Man finds no God

To keep his waning race above the sod,

Yet every wrong to white or black or red,

Falls back at last upon the culprit's head.

For every Black man killed in Slavery's name,

Two white men perished when the crisis came,

And twice the wealth amassed by unpaid toil,

Went down in war's grim waste and debt and spoil !

And is the Eed Man, though foredoomed to fall,

Less dear to him who made and loves us all?

III.

Now came the time (so near it seems to stand That one might almost reach it with his hand,) When the great human tide rolled up the strand, And bird and beast and savage fled the land! Andlo! the infant Lowell of the West, Lay like a Fondling on the prairie's breast!

To-day the child to stalwart manhood grown, Has won a name that round the world is known ! I see the tow'ring stack that cleaves the air, The pond'rous engine-stroke, the furnace-glare, And hear the roar of trade, the whirr of wheels, The buzz of saws, the hum of giant mills. On every wind is heard the signal scream

58 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS.

Of iron chariots made alive by steam, While, like great shuttles, flashing to and fro And ever in and out, they come and go, As in this warp they weave the woof of wealth, And through our commerce pour the blood of health. Forth from this mart, through empires near and far, Flies the iron chariot and the thund'ring car,. Like some great Dragon from the Furies hurled, Yoked to a Juggernaut to crush the world! Fleet as the arrow from the Eed Man's bow, Down through the vales and up the steeps they go, Dive through the hills and bursting forth again, Shout to the busy towns and shake the plain!

IV.

'Tis fit that we should meet to celebrate, Here at the heart of this great Summit State, Which, like a mountain summit, raised on high, Bathes her pure head in the azure sky, Whence all the streams, as from a mountain crest Flow down to south and north, to east and west. All ways lead downward from her upland height, All ways lead up to her ideal site. The Pivot State! on which shall turn and rest The balanced continent, when East and West And North and South shall teem with human handi As thick as those that toil in Asian lands ; For up to us, so Nature has decreed, From every point the Water Highways lead! The Water State! that to her bosom takes, In mother love, ten thousand cryetal lakes, Mother of Mighty Waters, who gives birth To the two Giant Kivers of the Earth! Grandmother of the Waters, mighty dame, From whom the Father of the Waters came! Far to the north a thousand streams and lakes,

HENNEPIN BI-CENTENARY. 59

In her strong hands the mighty mother takes,

And into one great river gives them form,

Then pours it southward, like a bridled storm,

Here, at our side, it thunders down the Fall,

And far-off rivers hear the mighty call,

And from a thousand miles come sweeping free,

To join the glorious march toward the sea!

And give their all to swell one river tide,

Where the vast commerce of the world may ride!

Far to the north again, a net of lakes

And thread-like streams the mighty mother takes,

And into one vast river spins them all,

The grandest stream on this terrestial ball!

Which, flowing down the world toward the east,

And by a thousand affluents still increased,

Expands its tide to five stupendous lakes,

And four great rivers in its progress makes,

Till far away it leaps the world's great Fall,

And meets the sea at storied Montreal!

Nor yet content to call the South and East

To her own free yet sumptuous water feast,

The Mother of the Waters gives the West

Another river from her teeming breast,

Which to the vast Pacific rolls away

Through chains of lakes and through the icy bay.

Y.

Here, as was said by wiser men than I, Shall the great seat of future empire lie. Here springs the Dual City which shall fill The plain for miles and cover every hill ! Playmates in childhood, hand in hand they went, And grew and loved till their glad youth was spent. Soon shall the nuptials come and man and wife Go forth one flesh to one illustrious life, And nations see the twain in wedlock given,

60 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS.

And say, "Behold a marriage made in heaven !"

Now, while the Muse withdraws the veil, I see The wondrous vision of what is to be: For miles and miles along the river banks The blocks of Commerce tower in massive ranks, A thousand domes are flashing in the sun, A thousand streets between the structures run, Down which I see a human ocean pour With rush and surge and heat and stormy roar, And far around the river wharfs and slips, Like a dead forest, rise the masts of ships; For now, through channels made by human hand The seas and lakes and rivers of the land Are linked together, and, with flags unfurled, The ships come up from all the busy world!

And now the scene expands beneath my eyes, I see, far out, a mile long depot rise, Where, with a great and never-ceasing din, The long-drawn trains from all the world come in ! Far to the north I see a great train glide, And sweep across to the Pacific side, And, turning northward through the Polar gate, Thrid a long tunnel under Behring's Strait, Then shout to Asia and go thundering down Through many an old and many-peopled town, And fleeing westward through an hundred states, O'er classic streams and under tunneled straits, Rise screaming from the ground on Britain's shores, And London, sea-like, round it breaks and roars !

VI.

Around these Falls, if we believe the wise, The world's great Capital may yet arise ! One constitution then shall join mankind, And rights before obscure be well defined, And here from year to year, in all men's cause,

HENNEPIN BI-CENTENARY, 61

The world shall meet to frame its general laws!

The day dawns now in which your sons shall view

The place you built better than you knew;

For you shall build the City of the Free;

The heart of Man's Great State which is to be,

The Capital of Men and not of Kings,

Where Toil and Merit are the honored things,

Whose halls of learning and of art shall rise

Free as the air to make the many wise,

And o'er whose domes the flag shall be unfurled

Of one United States of All the World !

Mr. Miller's clever poem was greeted with warm ap- plause, after which the Great Western Band regaled the audience with a fine selection. Gen. Sibley, President of the day, then called on Hon. Alex. Ramsey, Secretary of War, for a speech. Secretary Ramsey spoke as follows:

HON. ALEX RAMSEY'S ADDRESS.

My friends, I should be very much embarassed indeed, to be thus suddenly called upon before such an audience as this, if I supposed you expected a speech from me. I know you do not. You will not be disappointed. [Laughter and applause.] I looked at this magnificent audience, as I sat here and heard the eloquent address of the ex- Governor of this state, and said to myself, that one of the great things that we might be under obligations to Father Louis Hennepin for, was that he had discovered the Falls of St. Anthony in the 45th degree of north latitude. [Renewed laughter and applause.] My friends, think for a moment, and suppose that he had made the great dis- covery possibly away down in the island of San Domin- go ! [Great laughter.] You recollect very well what -3

62 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS.

Mark Twain said about that country, about those lati- tudes, and the people inhabiting them. "Why," said he, "if you took five hundred deacons from the State of Massachusetts, and five hundred elders from Connecticut, and sent them down there, in the third generation all their boys would be riding upon little jackasses, with a fighting cock, each one, under his arm, going, on Sun- day, with a broken umbrella, to fight chickens." [Great laughter.] Now, as I looked upon this exhibition of in- telligence, which I see in the faces here, and at a pop- ulation such as would well compare with the most ad- vanced places in the world, I said to myself, that among all, and above all things that we are under obligations to this ancient father for, is that he located the Falls of St. Anthony just where he did, in about the 45th degree of north latitude. [Laughter and applause.]

But, my friends, as I said, I have no speech to make- I recollect very well, as do many of my venerable friends who sit around me here to-day, when we heard the "first low tread of nations yet to be," and witnessed the "first low wash of waves, where soon shall roll a human sea.'' And, my friends, under the dispensation of Providence, just as likely it is, that when our day comes, as it soon will, to go out of the world, we may go hence with peace and contentment, feeling that those who come after us will say, that we have done enough to satisfy the ambition of the most sanguine. I thank you for this kindness, in giving me this reception. [Great applause.]

HENNEPIN BI-CENTENARY. 63

GEN. WM. T. SHERMAN'S ADDRESS.

In response to repeated calls for "General Sherman,"

that officer appeared, amid tumultuous applause. When

• this had subsided, he said:

Ladies and Gentlemen of Minnesota, and Gentlemen of the

Historical Society of Minnesota:

I am one of those referred to by the Orator of the day as having came a long distance to be here to-day to do honor to the memory of him who discovered the Falls of Saint Anthony. I have come more, however, to recognize the worth of the Historical Society, and to do what I can in my humble sphere, to encourage them in collecting the .data, not:! only relating to that one great adventure, but of La Salle and of Marquette, and of all that noble body of men, who, two centuries ago, roamed over this land, and told their fellows of its wealth and resources, and printed books to induce others to follow in their footsteps; and I am glad that that duty has fallen to this Society, whose orator has this day drawn out lessons of wisdom which we may all heed. He has pointed out why the French had failed in making a permanent lodgment in the great valley of the Mississippi, and, still more, why the Spaniards, the ablest and bravest men of that day, had also failed; and why the English and other colonists who settled along the Atlantic Coast, came over rivers, mount- ains and plains, and finally settled here. That one lesson is sufficient to pay us for coming here to-day, and I have listened to it with great pleasure and profit. The day is coming, young men, when we will not go back to Homer and ^Eneid for our epics, but these brave men of two

64 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS.

hundred years ago will be the heroes of a volume quite as good as the ^Eneid. [Applause.]

But there is one thing which your orator did not touch upon, to which I will briefly advert. I am very glad, as the Secretary of War said, that Father Hennepin located this great falls in the forty-fifth parallel, and not down at the mouth of the Mississippi ; but, still more, that he did not discover any gold here. [Laughter.] The black soil over which we have been traveling now for eight hundred miles is far richer than the gold mines of California [applause], and I, therefore, hope that you young people won't be caught with the gold fever. There is more gold in the wheat fields, the oat fields, the tim- othy fields of Minnesota, than in the Black Hills, or in Colorado. [Applause.] Moreover, the soil raises children, and such as we see here, and makes homes where people may be virtuous and good. If you go into the gold mines, you have to carry a pistol on one side and a knife on the other, and work hard always, and when your year's work is done you have nothing left. Therefore, I am very glad that your fate has brought you to this beautiful valley of the Mississippi. I hope each and every one of you will enjoy it, and realise and improve your advantages.

I hope this Historical Society may live and prosper. I honor them from my heart, and have come here for that purpose. I also thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for giving me so much of your time and applause. I am much obliged to you. [Prolonged cheering.]

President Sibley here remarked, that it had been ex- pected that Archbishop Tache, of Manitoba, would have made an address, but that the latter had asked to be

HENNEPIN BI-CENTENARY. 65

excused on account of great fatigue from his journey. He would call on Bishop Ireland, of Saint Paul, a mem- ber and ex president of our Society, to address us in his place. Bishop Ireland then came forward, amid a hearty and earnest applause, and said:

BISHOP IRELAND'S ADDRESS.

MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: The scene which this assembled multitude commemorates to-day is indeed one well deserving, on this two-hundreth annivers- ary, the attention of the people of the Northwest. A group of weary voyagers, Louis Hennepin and his two companions, Accault and Auguelle, stood in mute aston- ishment before yonder cataract — the first white men into whose ears pealed its solemn music — whose eyes feasted upon its tumultuous waters, then free and unfettered, as they hurried over the precipice in wild, unbridled play. There was, however, to the scene a significance far broader than its exterior outlines might suggest — it was the dawning upon the Northwest of the bright day of civilization. It was the registration of the state of Min- nesota on the page of history. [Applause.] Hencefor- ward, the name of Louis Hennepin can never be spared from our history. His name is the first which the pen of annalists will trace. The first picture which the painter of noted events in the history of Minnesota will color with his pencil, will be the long- gowned Franciscan, with his two companions at his side, hands uplifted, christen- ing the cataract under the name of one of the heroes of the church, Saint Anthony, of Padua. [Applause.]

66 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS.

Hennepin, immediately upon his return to Paris, France, chronicled his discovery, and narrated in quaint and pic- turesque language, his story of the Northwest, and owing to his book, this northwest was henceforward before the eyes of the world. On all the maps which afterwards were traced of the American Continent, maps which still revealed the fact that a great portion of our country was wrapped in obscurity, the Falls of St. Anthony were always one of the greatest landmarks, as if around them, as it seemed, should cluster in the future, the destinies and the glories of the land of Columbus. [Applause.] Hennepin must remain the hero of this anniversary, the hero of the early history of Minnesota. His is a name which we cannot forget. Is it a name, I will briefly ask, that we can to-day pronounce with affectionate pride? Certainly, in many respects, he is not unworthy of our admiration. Hennepin was a brave voyageur. He was a scholar. He was a zealous and disinterested missionary of the cross. It has been said that his writings show a little vanity; that he dwells with rather too much com- placency on what he himself has said and done. But we can well overlook the weakness when we remember that having been for long years, during his solitary journey - ings, accustomed to dwell only on himself, and what he did, he naturally continued, without any preconceived ef- fort, to still talk, a good deal, in his narrative, abou himself. [Laughter.]

We can well believe that his little vanity, or what is called vanity, was the love of narrating peculiar to trav- elers in distant, and in our own, lands, and not at all the result of a deep-seated or odious pride.

HENNEPIN BI-CENTENARY. 67

But it has been said that Hennepin stands forth in his- tory as an untruthful writer, as having designedly made false statements. Is this assertion proved?

Hennepin, in 1683, three years after his discovery of the Falls, published in Paris, his "Description of Louisi- ana." This volume has never been translated into Eng- lish. It will, in a few weeks, be given to the American public, from the pen of John Gilmary Shea, of New York. Now, this volume is undoubtedly the work of Hennepin, and, we may add, it is undoubtedly accurate and truthful. There is no one statement in any contemporary writer, that would lead us to doubt the statements of Hennepin in this volume. His description of the life among the early Sioux, is admitted to be very accurate by the Amer- ican historian, Parkman. Hennepin was the first writer to give to the world Sioux words, and the Sioux scholars to-day recognize all of those words, though his notation of them, at times, was somewhat singular,

A letter addressed to Paris by Sieur Duluth, at the same time that Hennepin was in Paris, in the Monastery of Saint Germain, writing this book, sub stantiates Hennepin's account of his captivity in the northwest. . Duluth says that having been on Lake Super- ior, he followed a river leading to the Mississippi, where he heard of the captivity of Hennepin and his companion, and, having rowed down the Mississippi for over eighty leagues, he found Father Hennepin, and re -ascended with him the Mississippi. He gives the details of Henne- pin's captivity. He states even the fact that his sacer- dotal vestments had been stolen from him by the Sioux— thus corroborating the details of Hennepin's book. Hen

68 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS.

nepin, when he wrote this book in Paris, appeals to the testimony of his companion, Accault, then also in Paris. And, seven years later, LeClerq quotes Hennepin's work as one of undoubted authority, referring his readers to it. Here, then, we have Hennepin, the author of the volume published in Paris in 1683, undoubtedly a truthful narra- tor; and whatever accusation could be, or has been, raised against him, cannot be based upon this volume.

What, then, was the occasion of this accusation? It was this: Fourteen years later, in the year 1697, a volume of travels, "New Discoveries," as it was called, was published at Utrecht. This is the volume which was at an early day translated into English. Through .this volume, mainly, Hennepin has been known to our Eng- lish and American writers. Now, in this volume, there are really pages which cannot be said to contain a truth- ful narration. In these pages, it is related that Henne- pin made a voyage down the lower Mississippi, in the spring of 1680, allowing himself so short a time to make the voyage, that it becomes at once an absolute impos- sibility. If Hennepin wrote all the volume, we must abandon the defense. Now, this book has lately been subjected to a very close scrutiny by one of our most renowned American scholars, John Gilmary Shea. Some years ago, Dr. Shea wrote on Hennepin, and wrote very bitterly about him, stating that he could not be put forth as a truthful historian. On later, and more careful examination, Dr. Shea has changed his opinion. His book will be before the public in a few weeks, and will pre sent in full, his line of arguments. He has compared, one with the other, the two volumes, the volume writ-

HENNEPIN BI-CENTENARY. 69

ten at Paris, and the one at Utrecht. The style is different. The Utrecht edition embraces all that was said in the first edition, with additions, the object of which additions seems to have been, to bring the volumes up to date. Errors occur, blunders of which Hennepin could not be supposed capable; blunders in the wording of things relating to the Catholic church, which shows that the compiler of the second volume could not even have been a Catholic. For instance, Catholic priests — who in French, are always set down as cures, are called pasteurs — while the word pasteur, in the French language, essentially indicates a Protestant minister.

When Hennepin came over to America, he was the com- panion of Bishop Laval, later appointed Bishop of Que- bec. It was under his jurisdiction that Hennepin was to labor in this country. Bishop Laval had been pre- viously Bishop for twenty years, of Petrea. Now the com- piler of the second volume says that at the time of Hennepin's voyage to America, Bishop Laval had been lately appointed Bishop of Petrea. * V

Again, one of the f missionaries in Canada was Fenelon, Now any Frenchman of any sense whatever who had evifei been in France could not have dreamed that this Feix: elon was the famous Archbishop of Cambrai; and yet this volume says that this was the Fenelon who after- wards became the Archbishop of Cambrai.

Again, Hennepin was a scholar. He knew geography too well to* give himself only a few days (I do not now remember the exact number of days this second volume takes for the voyage, but something less than a month) to go down to the Gulf of Mexico and return. Some-

70 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS.

thing yet more to the point: Dr. Shea remarks that it "is evident, whatever we may think of the remainder of the book, that the ten pages containing the so-called voyage on the lower Mississippi, were an interpolation in the volume, after it had been issued from the press."

The volume is numbered to page 313, then these ten pages, differing in type and in the spacing of the lines from the balance of the book, are all inserted in the volume under the same paging, with a star after the number of the page (313*), showing plainly that these ten pages were added to the book after it had come forth from the hands o'f the printer.

Now, what is the conclusion of all this? Simply that it cannot be proved that Father Hennepin was ever the author or publisher of this Utrecht volume.

In those days, literature was not governed by the same rules and customs as now. There were then no interna- tional laws protecting the rights of publishers. Those were not the days of railroads or telegraphs, or literary reviews; and it was no unusual thing when a book had a great "run" in one part of the world, to bring it out under the same name, in another part. Thus, another of La Salle's companions, Tonty, wrote three volumes, which were published under his name, being his genuine works; and afterwards, as Parkman tells us, a fourth one was put forth under the same name (of Tonty), which had never come from Tonty's pen.

Hennepin's book had made much noise in France. Utrecht was a great literary center. It is very easy to suppose, then, basing our verdict upon the facts which I have put before you, that the second volume, the one

HENNEPIN BI-CENTENARY. 71

published at Utrecht, was made up, and published, not by Hennepin, but by some stranger, some man who had adopted the principal part of the Paris edition, adding on certain notations, which he got from Le Clerq's "Es- tablishment of Christianity," in the new world, to bring it up, so to speak, to date.

About that time, much was said in Europe about the discovery along the Gulf of Mexico, and it is quite natural to suppose, that these ten pages were interpolated after this book had been published, to give to the curious public all that would be desired by them.

The very matter of these ten pages, shows that they were interpolated. The pages tell us that Hennepin was at the mouth of the Arkansas, on the 24th of April, and yet, in the following pages, he is said to have been captured near the Wisconsin, on the 24th day of April, the date according to the Paris edition. Besides, in these ten pages it is stated that Easter Sunday occurred on the 23d of March. Now, Hennepin could never have made such an error. In 1680, Easter Sunday occurred on the first of April, and it is so stated in Hennepin's first volume. These are very significant facts, which cannot be overlooked, and when we take them all into consideration, together with the general appearance of this second volume, when we remember him as the scholar and close observer, which the Paris volume shows him to have been, when we remember the habits of literary piracy that were then common in Europe, have we not solid foundations for saying, that it cannot be proven that Father Louis Hennepin wrote and published, himself, the second volume? This Utrecht volume is the one upon

72 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS.

which all the accusations against him have been based, and once take away from it Hennepin's name, there is no ground whatever to impeach.

It affords me much pleasure, on this day, to be able to say a few words in defence of the old hero — to be able to advance a few arguments by which to attempt to wipe from his venerable brow the stain which Historians have placed upon it. [Great applause].

One thing is certain. Hennepin loved the northwest. In the first volume, he describes it as a most fertile and beautiful country. "I wish," he says, "that the day would come, when large and enterprising colonies from the over-populated countries of Europe, would come and possess the rich land." We can, without much effort, fancy the spirit of Hennepin hovering over this multi- tude to-day and rejoicing that the desire of his heart has more than been fulfilled. [Great applause.] For, however great or extravagant might have been his dreams, two hundred years ago, never could he have fancied that on this, third day of July, 1880, such a spectacle would be witnessed, as the one which this assembled multitude now offers. [Applause.] Hennepin, two hundred years ago, offered prayers for the rapid development of the country. While congratulating our- selves on the past history of Minnesota, let it be the prayer and desire of our hearts, that this development may be proportionately greater in the future, than what- ever it has been in the past, and when, in 1980, our own spirits, with that of old Hennepin, will hover over this campus, amid the throngs commemorating the three hundredth anniversary, we will rejoice, as we do to-day,

HENNEPIN BI-CENTENARY. 73

that the Create? has given to the children of men, a land as beautiful, and as richly teeming with treasures, as our beloved Minnesota.

The conclusion of Bishop Ireland's address was marked by enthusiastic applause. The exercises were then ter- minated with a brief address by Gen. Thos. L. Rosser, marshal of the day.

FROM LABOR TO REFRESHMENTS.

The exercises of the day being completed, while the military companies, societies and bands were entertained at their headquarters and visitors generally were supplied with refreshments at the tables spread in the groves, the Historical Society and its guests with their ladies and many friends, were the guests of Gov. Pillsbury in a grand marquee covering tables at which two or three hundred persons were seated and were fed boun- teously. After refreshments, Gen. Sherman and Gov. Pillsbury were at home to everybody for a long time during which both gentlemen had a steady succession of friendly greetings and hand- shakes.

Slowly, as if loth to leave the place of pleasure, the organized companies and societies gathered and marched away and the visitors and their hosts of the day one by one dropped away. But so great was the number present and so leisurely their departure that it was near nightfall before the campus began to assume a deserted appearance.

All the incidents and pleasures of the day could not be well described in one issue of a journal, attempting also to give the general news of the day. There were

74 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS.

exhibition drills by the militia companies, interesting reunions, and pleasant social and personal events worthy of mention, which have to be omitted. In fact, while the great crowd was at and around the grand stand, there was enough going on in other parts of the field to have left a score of reporters busy.

It was a great day for the Historical Society, for Minneapolis, and for the Recollect Missionary of two hun- dred years ago.

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