Note 58 — Chapter II · CHICAGO IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

The route followed by Marquette and his escort from the Illinois village to Lake Michigan is not certainly known. From the fact that after reaching the lake Marquette sought to reach Mackinac by following around its eastern shore, it has been argued that he ascended the Kankakee to reach Lake Michigan. The evidence seems to me, however, to favor the route by the Des Plaines and Chicago. Marquette had gone this way on the return from his first expedition, and had returned to the Illinois the same way. If he now followed this route, the thirty leagues which the Indians accompanied him would have brought them to the vicinity of the portage between the Des Plaines and the Chicago. In the period when travel was chiefly by water portages were natural meeting (and parting) places. The one argument in support of the Kankakee route is the fact that the further route of the party was along the eastern shore of the lake. But this fact does not obviate the possibility of a return to the lake by the Des Plaines and Chicago. Furthermore, by the Kankakee route from the point where the Indians turned back Marquette would still have to travel upward of one hundred and fifty miles to reach the lake. Yet the narrative states that he reached it "shortly after" they left him—a statement which harmonizes with the supposition that the leave-taking occurred at or near the Chicago Portage. For these reasons I have chosen to consider this an event in early Chicago history.