February 1680

They had three missionaries at Fort Crevecoeur. The first one was Father Gabriel was to continue with the Frenchmen. Father Zenobe was to go among the Illinois to convert other nations. Lastly, Father Louis Hennepin was to go with their discovery. M. de La Salle gave a Calumet of Peace and two men (Anthony Auguel and Mitchel Ako) to manage a canoe. Mitchel Ako had commodities that valued to 1000 livres ($266,379.72 in today’s money) to trade with the Indians. Father Hennepin and his men set out from Fort Crevecoeur on February 29th, 1680. They met Indians with wooden canoes loaded with bulls that they had hunted. Later on, Father, Louis Hennepin’s men told him that they were going to leave him with the Indians and make their escape with the canoe and commodities because M. de La Salle owed them more than their value. On their way down the Illinois River, they came across a valley between a marshy ground and overflows with it rains in the Fall and Spring. They went up a hill to discover big meadows with forests. The River flows softly that a current could not be seen.