William Washington in the Spring of 1781, while his troops reposed under the tall graceful poplars in the yard. There are those who can trace their ancestry back to this old house now known to be living in the states of New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Texas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, the Dakotas and Washington, and many have been lost sight of and perhaps living in other states. They have spanned the continent and among them are found lawyers, physicians, ministers, teachers, merchants, farmers, mechanics, artisans.

"Such is the history, briefly told, of the old house. The companions of its early days are all gone, but the old doorsteps upon which men have trod, when with knapsack and rifle they left home at their country's call to endure all the hardships of a soldier's life, are the same now as then. The same stones are in the large old chimney around which sat the mothers, wives and daughters, and with deft fingers made wonderful fabrics of flax, wool or cotton, while they anxiously waited for news of the loved ones far away. The beautiful waters of the Alamance sing the same song as they ripple over the same stones now as then. All else is changed. Even the sturdy oaks and tall, graceful poplars have decayed and died. Generations have come and gone. Some have sought homes in the far west, and long since mingled their ashes with the dust of the prairie. Others have been laid to rest in the quiet old Alamance churchyard, and the same Alamance creek, which sang their lullaby when they lay in their cradles now sings their requiem as it rushes past their graves. Still the old house stands as of yore, extending its hospitality to all who may come. Another and a younger genera

tion now roam over the old house, peering into the dark nooks and crannies and wondering what they were for, exploring the mysteries of the old garret and bringing to light the old swords, pistols and reap-hooks, implements of war and peace, little dreaming of the hardships endured and the sacrifices made by the owners of these implements to secure the liberty and freedom they now enjoy."

CHAPTER III

THE FRENCH IN ILLINOIS

The Northwest Territory, including all of the country around the Great Lakes north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi, was patiently acquired by the French through the gradual extension of their missions and settlements, beginning with the settlement on the St. Lawrence River in 1608, which they named Quebec. From this settlement as a base they steadily pushed their way into the interior, following the course of the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes which it drained. Within three years a settlement was established at Montreal, and by the middle of the seventeenth century they had established themselves at the Rapids of the St. Mary's River, connecting Lakes Superior and Huron, from which their settlement took its name, Sault Ste. Marie. Steadily pushing their outposts into the wilderness, settlements were soon flourishing at the western extremity of Lake Superior near the present site of Duluth, and as far south as Green Bay on Lake Michigan.

In the meantime their headquarters had been established on Mackinac Island, located in the straits of the same name, through which the waters of Lake Michigan flow into Lake Huron.

It was here, not many years later, that John Jacob Astor, the founder of the famous American family of that name, located a trading post on the island which, for many years afterward, was the center of the fur trading industry around the Great Lakes. Father Marquette established a mission on the mainland north of the island which was named St. Ignace, and his remains are reposing there today in the quiet little village, which has changed but little during the two centuries which have passed since its establishment.

It was at the mission of St. Ignace, in December, 1672, that Louis Joliet delivered to Father Marquette a message from the Governor of Canada, Count Frontenac, requesting them to organize a party and explore to the westward to locate, if possible, a mighty river said to be some distance west of Lake Michigan. They started on their journey in the middle of the following May, skirting the west shore of Lake Michigan to Green Bay, from thence up the Fox River to its headwaters, thence across a portage pointed out by their Indian guides to the headwaters of the Wisconsin, down which they propelled their canoes, reaching the Mississippi on June 17, 1673. Floating with the current on the bosom of the great river, they drifted as far south as the mouth of the Arkansas, and then turned their canoes for the trip back. On their return trip they were influenced to ascend the Illinois River to see if

they could return to the Great Lakes by that route. When they reached the present site of Utica, near Ottawa, they found a village of Indians camped along the shore who called themselves Kaskaskias. Marquette established such cordial relations with these red men of the prairie that they were loath to let him depart, and did so only upon his promise to return and establish a mission in their midst. He then went on to the mission on Green Bay, which was reached early in the fall of that year.

A year later Marquette started on his return to the village of the Kaskaskias in order to redeem his promise, but his failing health and waning strength made it necessary for him to disembark often to rest and recuperate. Proceeding in this way by easy stages, his party reached the mouth of the Chicago River about the first of December, when Father Marquette became so ill that it was necessary to break the journey here. His faithful and devoted followers, in order to insure the greatest comfort for him, built a hut on the banks of the Chicago River at a point near where Robey Street now crosses the west fork of the south branch of the river, the approximate location of which is now designated by a large cross placed on the site by the Chicago Association of Commerce. That was the first habitation built for a white man in the Mississippi valley. With the coming of