Note 12 — Front matter

(page page 12).—When, in 1650, the Hurons fled before the great Iroquois invasion, some of them took refuge with the French at Quebec, and others migrated to the Mackinac region, and even as far west as northern Wisconsin. The refugees to Lake Superior and northern Wisconsin were driven back east again in 1670 (see Note 11), to Mackinac. When Cadillac founded Detroit (1701), some of them accompanied him, and settled in the outskirts of that town. They remained without a religious teacher until the arrival of the Jesuit La Richardie. He established his mission on the opposite bank of the river from Detroit, at where is now Sandwich, Ontario. This was in order to avoid conflict of ecclesiastical jurisdiction with the Récollets in charge at Detroit. The mission house built by La Richardie stood until after the middle of the nineteenth century; that portion of his church which was built in 1728 remained until the last decade of that century; but the addition, built in 1743, is still in good condition, and used as a dwelling.