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 1911 
 

 Copyright. 191 1, by 
 THE AMERICA PRESS, NEW YORK 
 
 (g Ci. A 2 8 r, a i 
 
Imprimatur. 
 
 JOHN jVI. FARLEY, 
 
 Archbishop of New York. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 In connection with the movement inaugurated by the 
 New York State Historical Society to erect a memorial in 
 honor of the discoverer of Lake George, Father Isaac Jogues, 
 it has been deemed advisable to reprint the brief notice of 
 his life which has already appeared as one of the monographs 
 of the " Pioneer Priests of North America." It is here pre- 
 sented with some emendations and additions. Very probably, 
 also, it will be of service to the pilgrims who, during the 
 summer, journey to the scene of his death at Auriesville on 
 the Mohawk. 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Lake of the Blessed Sacrament ----- Frontispiece 
 Orleans --------___ Facing page 7 
 
 Isaac Jogues, S. J. ------- 
 
 The Hill of Prayer ------- 
 
 Auriesville, N. Y. — Bridge in the Ravine 
 
 New York as Seen by Jogues - - - - 
 
 Peter Stuyvesant -------- 
 
 Statue of Jogues, at Dunwoodie - - - 
 
 Auriesville, N. Y. — Ravine Procession 
 of the Blessed Sacrament - - - 
 
 21 
 27 
 29 
 
 32 
 40 
 46 
 
 53 
 
CHAPTER I 
 Ox Lake Huron 
 
 The first missionary who entered New York arrive! 
 drenched in his own blood. He had traversed Lake Cham- 
 plain and Lake George, and was going to be burned to death 
 at Ossernenon, on the Mohawk, the place now known as 
 Auriesville, forty miles west of Albany. He was Isaac 
 Jogues, then about thirty-six years of age. 
 
 With Protestant historians Jogues is an especial favor- 
 ite ; Parkman, among others, being very emphatic in his 
 praise. Catholics, of course, admire him, and it is said that 
 Gilmary Shea's manuscript of the Life of Jo!^iics was stained 
 with the author's tears. Jogues' gentle, almost shrinking, 
 but nevertheless heroic nature is in striking contrast with 
 the bold, aggressive and martial character of his friend and 
 associate, de Brebeuf. Perhaps that is why he appeals so 
 strongly to ordinary people. 
 
 He was born at Orleans, France, January lo, 1607. The 
 cathedral of the city is dedicated to the Holy Cross, which 
 may explain Jogues' repeated description of himself as a 
 " citizen of the Holy Cross." He was baptized in the 
 church of St. Hilary, and received the curious name of 
 Isaac, for it was then the fashion among the French Cath- 
 olics to imitate their Protestant neighbors in adopting 
 names from the Old Testament. Thus Isaac, Samuel, 
 Joshua, David, and even Shadrach. appear frccjuently on 
 the registers of those days. There is such a Calvinistic ring 
 in it all that one Canadian historian will have it that Cham- 
 plain was not originally a Catholic because his name was 
 Samuel. But the inference is not correct. 
 
 The family of Jogues still resides at Orleans. They were 
 known as Jogues de Guedreville well on iiUo the eighteenth 
 century, but that designation is no longer u<c(\, and they are 
 
ISAAC JOGUES 
 
 called de Dreuzy. It will be of interest to Americans to 
 know that in the course of time one of the family became an 
 intimate friend of Benjamin Franklin, who was then in 
 France as Ambassador of the Colonies. It was probably at 
 Franklin's suggestion that he attempted an establishment 
 on the banks of the Ohio. The scheme failed, however, and 
 he returned home. Had he directed his energies to the 
 banks of the Mohawk, which his distinguished relative has 
 made so famous, perhaps his efforts would have been 
 blessed with success. The present Vicomtesse de Dreuzy 
 is a German-American, born in New York. Her father also 
 was a native of the city, but her mother was from Bogota. 
 The maiden name of the Vicomtesse is de Liittgen. 
 
 Another coincidence is that their house faces the church 
 of Notre Dame de Recouvrance. This was the title given 
 by Champlain to the church erected in Quebec after " recov- 
 ering " Canada. Under the sanctuary of Notre Dame de 
 Recouvrance, in Orleans, repose the remains of the family 
 of Jogues de Guedreville, some of whom were eminent in 
 their native city. 
 
 The courtesy of the distinguished Curator of the Musee 
 Historique d'Orleans puts at our disposal the family crest, 
 whose peculiar quarterings it will be hard for our democ- 
 racy to interpret. It consists of two stags' heads rcgardants 
 avcc cols arrachcs, with a silver lake below, on which a water 
 fowl is floating, while in the center rises a rock, from which 
 gushes a fountain. The Jogues de Guedreville were of 
 noble blood. 
 
 Jogues' first schooling was at Rouen, but at seventeen 
 he entered the Jesuit Novitiate at Paris. Shea says it was 
 at Rouen, and Rouvier, in his Apotrc Esdavc, agrees with 
 him, while Rochemonteix pronounces for Paris. Perhaps 
 he was in both. They all concur, however, in giving him 
 the famous Louis Lalemant, the author of the well known 
 Doctrine SpiritiicHc, as novice master. This Lalemant was 
 not, however, as is commonly supposed, the brother of the 
 
THE DISCOVERER OF LAKE GEORGE 
 
 two great Canadian missionaries. Charles and Jerome, and 
 consequently he was not tlie uncle of Gabriel, who died at 
 the stake, side by side with de Brcbeuf. 
 
 Of course, Father Louis Lalemant was intensely in- 
 terested in the American missions, and doubtless that was 
 the reason why, when the young novice was asked what he 
 was seeking by entering the Society, and replied, " Ethiopia 
 and martyrdom," Lalemant said, " Not so, my child. You 
 will die in Canada." It turned out to be true, but there is 
 no need of regarding the utterance as a prophecy. 
 
 When his studies and teaching were over, he embarked 
 for Quebec, and after two stormy months on the ocean he 
 set foot on the shores of the New AVorld, October 2, 1636. 
 He was then twenty-nine years of age. On the vessel with 
 him was Champlain's successor, the great Montmagny, 
 whom the Indians called Onontio — a translation of the 
 name IMontmagny, or High Mountain. This title was given 
 to all subsequent rulers of Canada. 
 
 Fortunately we have the first letter that Jogues sent 
 liome. It w^as to his " Honored Mother," as he called her. 
 in the dignified fashion of those days, and was written im- 
 mediately after his first Mass in America. He had been 
 looking at the vast river, the like of which he had never 
 seen before. He had already met the painted red men, at 
 whose hands he might expect death at any moment. Never- 
 theless he wrote: " Honored Mother: I do not know what 
 it is to enter heaven, but this I know — that it is difficult to 
 experience in this world a joy more excessive and more 
 overflowing than I felt on setting foot in the New W'orld, 
 and celebrating my first Mass on the day of the Visitation. 
 I felt as if it were Christmas Day for me, and that I was 
 to be born again to a new life and a life in God." 
 
 A glimpse of the future was afforded him two or three 
 weeks later, when he was standing on the bank of the St. 
 Lawrence, near the stockade which in course of time has 
 grown into the city of Three Rivers. Down the stream w^as 
 
 9 
 
ISAAC JOGUES 
 
 coming a flotilla of canoes, in the first of which stood Father 
 Daniel, barefooted and bareheaded, his cassock in rags, and 
 his breviary suspended by a string around his neck, and, 
 though haggard and extenuated by hunger and fatigue, 
 plying his paddle as vigorously as any redskin. Thirteen 
 years after that Daniel fell, pierced with arrows, and his 
 body was flung into the blazing ruins of his little chapel. 
 But the light-hearted hero cared little what fate was in store 
 for him, as he sprang ashore, on that October morning, to 
 embrace the new soldier who was going to the battlefield 
 to fight for God. 
 
 Daniel was to remain in Quebec for a short time, but 
 the Hurons would not return to their home without a priest. 
 So Jogues took his place in the canoe and set out for Lake 
 Huron. A glance at the map will show what that means, 
 but a detailed description by Bressani, who made the same 
 journey ten years later, will help us to better appreciate its 
 hardships. 
 
 " The distance," he says, " is more than 900 miles over 
 dangerous rivers and great lakes, whose storms are like 
 those of the ocean, especially on one, which is 1200 miles in 
 circumference. The greatest danger, however, is on the 
 rivers. I say ' rivers ' because there are several, and we 
 can only follow the St. Lawrence for 400 miles. After that 
 we have to make our way over other lakes and streams 
 which we reach by skirting rapids and precipices until we 
 finally arrive at the great Lake Huron, which is known as 
 the ' Fresh Water Sea.' 
 
 " On our journey we meet with about sixty cascades, 
 some of them falling from a great height. To get around 
 them we have to carry our boats and provisions and lug- 
 gage, or at times drag our canoes through the rapids for 
 four, eight, or ten miles ; a labor which is attended with 
 great peril, for often the water is up to our waists or necks, 
 and is very cold, and if we are caught in the current we are 
 in danger of being swept away and lost. But it is com- 
 monly to be preferred to the portage, which means making 
 our way in our bare feet through dense forests, or through 
 pools and marshes, where we have to wade, helping our- 
 selves perhaps by a fallen tree which may serve as a bridge. 
 
 10 
 
THE DISCOVERER OE LAKE GEORGE 
 
 but which is often as dano^crous and disagreeable as the 
 water and mud. Swarms of insects follow us, and there is 
 also constant danger of dying from starvation. ]-"or on 
 these journeys the provisions, which are nothing ])ut corn, 
 have to serve for goitig and returning, and to lighten the 
 load a portion is often concealed in the woods, to be used 
 on the return trip, but these stores are frequently discov- 
 ered by other Indians, or dug up by the bears, or rotted by 
 the rain and dampness. In any of these events we have 
 nothing to do but to fast, and paddle away until by hunt- 
 ing or fishing we obtain some relief. If the journey is 
 made late in the year there is a likelihood of finding the 
 rivers and lakes frozen, and then there is danger of dying 
 of hunger and cold ; or, if we escape that, we may have to 
 spend six months in the woods, hunting to live rather than 
 journeying to reach the desired country. Arriving there, 
 other difficulties await us." 
 
 He says nothing of the lurking Iroquois all along the 
 route, from whom a horrible death could be expected at 
 each step of the journey. 
 
 Such was Jogues' first experience of missionary life. 
 Living on Indian corn and water, sleeping on rocks and 
 in the woods, paddling day after day against a rapid cur- 
 rent, dragging heavy burdens over the long portages, a 
 part of the time with a sick boy on his shoulders, were not 
 things he had been brought up to, but he survived them 
 all, and with a light heart staggered through the triple 
 stockade of the Indian town of Ihonitiria, and fell into the 
 arms of de Brebeuf and his companions, whose delight was 
 the greater as his coming was unexpected. 
 
 We have no means of identifying this lad whom Father 
 Jogues carried through the forests, and whose life he prob- 
 ably saved. He may have been an Indian, but it is just 
 possible that he was no other than young Jean Amiot, who 
 grew up to be a great favorite of the Hurons, and a famous 
 fighter against their hereditary foes, the Iroquois. The rea- 
 son of this supposition is that shortly after Jogues' arrival 
 in Huronia we find on the list of servants of the mission the 
 
 II 
 
ISAAC JOGUES 
 
 name " Jean Amiot, boy." Of his family we know nothing, 
 but it is a characteristic feature of those heroic days that a 
 mere boy should be willing to go so far into the wilderness 
 with the missionaries, where his life was in such constant 
 -danger. 
 
 Quite unexpectedly Amiot appears again in connection 
 with Jogues eleven years later. On September 17th, 1647, 
 viz., eleven months after Jogues' death, he came down from 
 Three Rivers to Quebec with an Iroquois warrior, whom he 
 had captured in battle. It turned out that his prisoner was 
 the very man who had murdered the missionary. Other In- 
 dians recognized him, and he admitted the crime. The culprit 
 was put to death, but before being led to execution was 
 baptized, and was given the name of his victim, Isaac. The 
 record of this baptism is signed by Druillettes, who had 
 been sent down to New England at the same time that 
 Jogues started on the fatal journey to the Mohawk. 
 
 After the execution of the Iroquois, Amiot returned to 
 Three Rivers, but that same year he and his friend 
 Francois Marguerie were drowned in the St. Lawrence. 
 The entire colony lamented the untimely death of these two 
 young men, whose stainless reputations had won for them 
 the affection and esteem of white men and Indians alike. 
 
 But to return to Jogues. His cheerful appearance on 
 arriving at the Huron Mission was only assumed. In a 
 few days he was down with a fever, which the others caught 
 from him, and the bark cabin became a hospital ; a wretched 
 one indeed, for they had only mats for beds, and a decoction 
 of roots for their whole supply of drugs. Moreover, the cold 
 of November was upon them and there was nothing to eat. 
 Le Mercier writes : " We had a hen which gave us an egg, 
 but not every day. We used to watch for the egg and 
 then debate as to who should refuse it." It was a poor out- 
 look for Father Jogues, and his condition soon became 
 alarming. He was bleeding profusely from the nostrils and 
 the blood could not be staunched. It may go against mod- 
 
 12 
 
THE DISCOVERER OF LAKE GEORGE 
 
 ern practice, but the Rciatio)is tell us " hence we decided to 
 bleed him. The great question was where to find a sur- 
 geon. IVe zvcre all so skilful in this trade that the patient did 
 not know zvho should open the vein for him, and every one of us 
 zi'as zcaiting for the benediction of the Father Superior to take 
 the lance and do the zvork." Ordinary people would like to 
 have better medical assurance than a benediction. So 
 Father Jogues, whose whole surgical experience consisted 
 in " having bled a savage very successfully on the way up," 
 took the lance and did it himself, furnishing thus a fair 
 sample of the cool courage he had at command. The 
 Relations very naively say in referring to the " savage who 
 was bled successfully " that " what was wanting in skill 
 was supplied by charity." 
 
 When the missionaries recovered, a pestilence broke out 
 among the people, and hundreds of them died. The medi- 
 cine men tried to conjure it away, and when the wild and 
 indecent orgies which they ordered were inefifectual, they 
 blamed the pestilence and their own failure on the mis- 
 sionaries and clamored for their death. 
 
 It was on this occasion that, fully expecting to be mur- 
 dered, the little band of priests assembled at Ossossane. 
 De Brebeuf had come over from Ihonitiria, and he boldly 
 walked into the wigwam where the sachems were deliberat- 
 ing about when and how to kill him and his associates. He 
 remonstrated, and pleaded, and explained, but he was 
 listened to in gloomy silence, until at last, amid muttered 
 threats of vengeance, the little group of condemned men 
 withdrew to Ragueneau's hut, where, under the light of a 
 torch, they wrote a letter of farewell to their friends at 
 Quebec. They were about to be put to death, they said, 
 and their only sorrow was that they had not been able to 
 sulYer more for the I-'aith. Jogues was not actually present 
 at this meeting, for he was unable to leave his little mission 
 of Tenaustaye, which was then the most unfriendly of all 
 the Huron villages, and where, as well as at Ossossane, he 
 
 13 
 
ISAAC JOGUES 
 
 might be tomahawked at any moment. But his name was 
 appended to the document, for he expected to be put to 
 death hke the rest. The letter was given to a faithful Indian, 
 who brought it to its destination. For one reason or an- 
 other the savages did not carry out their threat, but every 
 hour was filled with terror. " The missionaries," says 
 Parkman, " were like men who trod on the lava-crust of a 
 volcano palpitating with the throes of a coming eruption, 
 while the molten death beneath their feet gleamed white hot 
 from a thousand crevices." Finally the plague ceased, but 
 out of fickleness or hatred for the place, Ihonitiria was 
 abandoned by the Indians, and the Fathers established the 
 mission of Ste. Marie, which became the center of all their 
 work for many years, and the one for which they always 
 manifested the greatest attachment. Parkman regrets that 
 the Jesuits wrote so little about it. 
 
 If you take the train at Toronto and travel north through 
 the forests, which are still dense enough to attract the 
 hunter, but which the lumbermen are rapidly clearing, you 
 arrive at Lake Simcoe, from the northern end of which 
 flows the little River Wye into Georgian Bay, which is the 
 eastern portion of Lake Huron. On that river was built 
 the new mission. It was fortified, because it was intended 
 to be a place of refuge for fugitive Indians, a storehouse 
 for provisions, and a home where the missionaries could 
 come from the forests and lakes to restore their courage by 
 meditation and prayer. 
 
 A branch of the Grand Trunk which runs north to Mid- 
 land and Penetanguishene brings you within a few hundred 
 feet of that once famous establishment. You can still trace 
 the lines of the walls, which are laid in hydraulic cement, 
 and are said to be a puzzle to engineers, for there is no 
 cement in the neighborhood, and it could not have been 
 brought a thousand miles from Quebec. At the four corners 
 are bastions, and around it is a moat now filled with rubbish, 
 
THE DISCOVERER OF LAKE GEORGE 
 
 vvhicli when in use afforded easy access for boats from the 
 river and lake. 
 
 Father Martin, the famous Rector of St. Mary's Colles^e 
 of Montreal, who has done more than anyone else to revive 
 the memory of those old heroes of the seventeenth century, 
 and who inspired Gilmary Shea to carry on the work, visited 
 Ste. Marie in 1859. He was accredited by the Canadian 
 Government to make the investigations. 
 
 " Without difficulty," he says, " we found the ruins of 
 Fort Ste. Marie. Its walls, in ,good masonry, rose a metre 
 above the ground. It was in the form of a long parallelo- 
 gram, with bastions at the angles, and in spite of some 
 peculiarities, of which at the present day it is difficult to 
 understand the reason, one recognizes in the construction 
 an acquaintance with military engineering carried out with 
 great care. The curtains on the west and north are com- 
 plete, but there are no traces of them on the south and east. 
 Probably solid palisades which were subsequently destroved 
 by fire were placed there. There was no attack to be feared 
 on that quarter ; besides, on those two sides there is a dee]) 
 ditch which protects the enclosure. The south one extends to 
 the river and so formed a shelter for the canoes. It widens 
 out into basins at three places. Along this ditch on the 
 south is a vast field, protected on the side facing the country 
 by a redan, whose earth parapet is still distinguishable. In 
 that field were the wigwams of the visiting Indians, the 
 hospital, and guest-house. At the side of the southeast 
 bastion was a square construction with a very thick wall, 
 doubtless intended as the basis of a future observation 
 tower. We opened a trench on the inside angle of the north- 
 east bastion, and at the depth of 60 c. found portions of a 
 burned plank, large nails, pieces of copper and the bones 
 of beavers. The interior constructions were all in wood, 
 which explains how nothing is left except a chimney in 
 ruins." 
 
 Of course the missionaries were not cooped up in the 
 fort. The soil around was carefully cultivated and produced 
 an abundant harvest. There was such an amount of maize 
 in 1649 that the Superior thought they had a supply that 
 would last for three years. They kept fowl and swine and 
 
ISAAC JOGUES 
 
 cattle, and the wonder is how the animals were transported 
 to that distant place. It was a god-send for the poor, starv- 
 mg Indians, and at times three or four thousand of them 
 were within the walls of Ste. Marie. No doubt, while being 
 fed and cared for, they wondered at the unexplainable 
 charity that prompted it all. But it was not only in famine 
 times that they were harbored. On every alternate Satur- 
 day they came in crowds from the farthest villages, and 
 during Saturday, Sunday and a part of Monday they were 
 bounteously feasted, and of course instructed and made to 
 feel the influence of the solemn religious rites performed 
 in the great church, which, for the Indians, was a marvel of 
 beaut}', but, as Ragueneau deprecatingly wrote, " very poor 
 for the rest of us." Nothing is now left of all this but the 
 stones of the foundation, which for historical, if not for 
 religious, motives ought to be made a public monument. 
 
 To this central mission the Fathers all came for their 
 conferences and annual retreats, and possibly it might be of 
 interest to quote the well-known passage of Parkman, even 
 if it is colored somewhat by his poetry and lack of spiritual 
 appreciation. It is found in his Jesuits in NortJi America. 
 
 " Hither," he says, " while the Fathers are gathered from 
 their scattered stations at one of their periodical meetings, 
 let us, too, repair and join them. We enter at the eastern 
 gate of the fortification, midway in the wall between its 
 northern and southern bastions, and pass to the hall, where 
 at a rude table, spread with ruder fare, all the household are 
 assembled — laborers, domestics, soldiers, priests. 
 
 " It was a scene that might recall a remote half feudal, 
 half patriarchal age, when under the smoky rafters of his 
 antique hall some warlike thane sat, with kinsmen and de- 
 pendents, ranged down the long board, each in his degree. 
 Here doubtless Ragueneau, the Father Superior, held the 
 place of honor ; and for chieftains, scarred with Danish battle- 
 axes, was seen a band of thoughtful men clad in threadbare 
 garb of black, their brows swarthy from exposure, yet 
 marked with the lines of intellect and a fixed enthusiasm of 
 purpose. Here was Bressani, scarred with firebrand and 
 
 i6 
 
THE DISCOVERER OF LAKE GEORGE 
 
 knife ; Chabanel, once a professor of rhetoric in France, now 
 a missionary bound by a self-imposed vow to a life from 
 which his nature recoiled ; the fanatical Chaumonot, whose 
 character savored of his peasant birth — for the grossest 
 fungus of superstition that ever grew under the shadow of 
 Rome was not too much for his omnivorous credulity, and 
 mysteries and miracles were his daily food ; yet, such as his 
 faith was, he was ready to die for it. Garnier, beardless like 
 a woman, was of a far finer nature. His religion was of the 
 afifections and the sentiments ; and his imagination, warmed 
 with the ardor of his faith, shaped the ideal form of his wor- 
 ship into visible realities. Brebeuf sat conspicuous among 
 his brethren, portly and tall, his short moustache and beard 
 grizzled — for he was fifty-six years old. If he seemed im- 
 passive it was because one overmastering principle had 
 merged and absorbed all the impulses of his nature and all 
 the faculties of his mind. The enthusiasm which with many 
 is fitful was with him the current of his life — solemn and 
 deep as the tide of destiny. The Divine Trinity, the Virgin, 
 the Saints, Heaven and Hell, Angels and Fiends — to him 
 these alone were real, all else were naught. Gabriel Lale- 
 mant, nephew of Jerome Lalemant, Superior at Quebec, was 
 Brebeuf's colleague at the mission of St. Ignace. His slen- 
 der frame and delicate features gave him an appearance of 
 youth, though he had reached middle life; anti, as in the 
 case of Garnier, the fervor of his mind sustained him 
 through exertions of which he seemed physically incapable. 
 
 " Of the rest of that company little has come down to us 
 but the bare record of their missionary toils ; and we may 
 ask in vain what youthful enthusiasm, what broken hope 
 or faded dream, turned the current of their lives, and sent 
 them from the heart of civilization to the savage outpost of 
 the world. No element was wanting in them for the 
 achievement of such a success as that to which they aspired 
 — neither the transcendental zeal, nor a matchless discipline, 
 nor a practical sagacity very seldom surpassed in the pur- 
 suits where men strive for wealth and place, and if they 
 were destined to disappointment, it zvas the result of external 
 causes, against which no power of theirs could have insured 
 them." 
 
 Barring the malignant characterization of Chaumonot, 
 which is like a shot from an ambush, as well as the nonsense 
 
 17 
 
ISAAC JOGUES 
 
 about disappointed hopes and faded dreams, the picture is 
 vivid enough to be quoted. We regret that the figure of 
 Jogues does not appear in that " half-feudal, half-patriarchal 
 group " ; especially as it was his " practical sagacity very 
 seldom surpassed in the pursuits where men strive for 
 wealth and place " that prompted his superiors to appoint 
 him to superintend the construction of those very works 
 which Parkman so much admires. 
 
 That he was the chief builder of Ste. Marie dispels the 
 common impression about his being little else than a re- 
 ligious enthusiast eagerly seeking death. On the contrary, 
 he was the most practical of all the missionaries. What- 
 ever he undertook he scrutinized carefully in all its bear- 
 ings ; its difficulties were weighed ; its dangers estimated ; 
 but " once the word ' go ' was given," wrote his Superior, 
 " then neither man nor devil could stop him." 
 
 His first apostolic work away from Ste. Marie was among 
 the Petuns or Tobacco nation ; a name which indicates the 
 occupation of that tribe. With him was Garnier, who some 
 years later was to die under the blow of a tomahawk when, 
 after being riddled with bullets, he was crawling on the 
 ground to absolve a dying Huron. Garnier and Jogues had 
 been consecrated priests together at the same altar in 
 France a few years before. 
 
 Holy as they were, their efforts failed. Abandoned by 
 their guides, they had to make their beds in the snow ; were 
 driven out of the wigwams in the dead of night ; and were 
 followed by excited Indians with threats and imprecations 
 from village to village. They did nothing at all but baptize 
 one poor old squaw. But possibly her prayers were power- 
 ful with God, for the next year Garnier returned and estab- 
 lished a prosperous mission among his hard-hearted Petuns. 
 
 Meantime a number of Ojibways or Chippewas had 
 come down from Lake Superior to take part in the great 
 decennial feast of the dead with their friends the Hurons. 
 Astonished at what they saw, they asked for a mission in 
 
THE DISCOVERER OF LAKE GEORGE 
 
 their own country, and Joq^ucs and Raymbault were 
 assigned to the work. They stepped into their httle bark 
 canoe on September 17. 1641, and paddled for weeks alonij;- 
 the eastern shore of Georg-ian Bay, and then across the 
 upper reaches of Lake Huron and finally arrived after many 
 dangers and hardships at the j)lace which is now a g^reat 
 center of commerce, Sault Ste. Marie. The missionaries 
 gave it that name. 
 
 You say to the dwellers in those regions : " That must 
 have been a journey of two or three hundred miles." and 
 they smile at your simplicity and answer: "more like a 
 thousand because of the way a canoe has to travel. A 
 shell like that can never make a cut across the open." 
 
 They reached their destination, and it is a distinction 
 worth noting that they were the first white men to stand 
 on the shores of Lake Superior; for though Nicolct had 
 been in those parts before them, yet it is more than likely 
 that he went down through the Straits of Mackinac and 
 explored Lake Michigan, while they kept on to the north 
 and west. It is commonly asserted, indeed, that Nicolet 
 really visited Sault Ste. Marie, but the claim does not 
 appear to be sustained by documentary evidence. 
 
 At the vSault they met two thousand Indians, whom 
 Jogues addressed in their own language, assuring them that 
 after reporting to his Superior he would establish a mission 
 there. " Then," he added, " after instructing you we shall 
 go thither," and he erected a cross which faced the country 
 of the Sioux, who were settled about the headwaters of the 
 Mississippi. That was thirty years before Marquette 
 started from Mackinac to find the great river. jogues 
 would most likely have attempted it had he been spared. 
 In fact, as we see in Le Jeune's Relation of i63(), all the 
 missionaries were eager to find the river. But Jogues never 
 returned to Lake Superior. As will a])pear later, he was 
 captured by the enemy and killed on the far-off Mohawk. 
 But it is more than Hkely that by securing the good-will 
 
 19 
 
ISAAC JOGUES 
 
 of the savages of those parts he made it possible for the 
 great Marquette to be a missionary without being a martyr. 
 It is very pleasant to meet in Picturesque America a descrip- 
 tion of this scene. 
 
 " Two hundred and thirty-two years ago," says the 
 writer, " the first white man stood on the shores of Lake 
 Superior. Before him was assembled a crowd of Indians — • 
 two thousand Ojibways and other Algonquins — listening 
 with curiosity to the strange tidings he brought, and in 
 some instances allowing the mystic drops to be poured on 
 their foreheads ; for, like all the first explorers of the lake 
 country, this man was a missionary. Only religious zeal 
 could brave the wilderness and its savages, cold and hunger, 
 torture and death, for no hope of earthly reward, for no 
 gold mines, for no fountain of youth, but simply for the 
 salvation of souls. And whatever posterity may think of 
 the utility of their work, it must at least admire the courage 
 and devotion of these Fathers, who, almost without excep- 
 tion, laid down their lives for the cause. What can a man 
 do more? Five years later came the turn of this first white 
 man of Lake Superior, murdered by the Indians in the 
 forests near the Mohawk River." 
 
 20 
 
ISAAC JOGUES, S.J. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 The Capture 
 
 The two explorers paddled rapidly back to Gcorc^ian 
 Bay to announce the good news and to prepare for the great 
 enterprise, but Raymbault was in a dying condition from 
 hunger and exposure, and someone had to go with him to 
 Quebec, where possibly his life might be saved. Inci- 
 dentally also the mission had to lay in supplies, for nothing 
 had come from below for three years. Who would attempt 
 the perilous journey? Jogues maintained that he could be 
 most easily spared, though no one shared that view with 
 him, and he succeeded in persuading his superiors to let 
 him make the attempt. A thousand miles intervened 
 between the River Wye and Quebec, and at every moment 
 there was a menace of death from dangerous cataracts or 
 wild beasts or prowling Iroquois. But they reached Quebec 
 in safety, though with much sufifering, and there Raymbault 
 soon breathed his last. He was the first Jesuit to die in 
 Canada. He was buried by the side of Champlain ; but the 
 exact spot where the priest and the soldier were laid the 
 people of Quebec cannot tell you to-day. 
 
 Jogues was successful in obtaining supplies, and he set 
 out on his return journey with his canoes well packed with 
 provisions. With him were about forty persons; one a 
 famous Huron chief, Teondechoren, who was thought to 
 bear a charmed life, so often had he escaped injury in battle ; 
 another a former sorcerer, Ahitsasteari, who had become a 
 Christian, and was now as pious as he had formerly been 
 wicked. Rene Goupil and William Couture, two donncs or 
 laymen who for religious motives had devoted themselves 
 to the help of the missionaries, also made part of the con- 
 voy ; and finally Theresa, an Indian girl, who had been 
 educated by the Ursulines of Quebec, and who was now 
 
 21 
 
ISAAC JOGUES 
 
 unwillingly leaving her beloved nuns and returning to her 
 country to assist by her piety and knowledge in spreading 
 the faith. She is to disappear in the forests, only to be 
 found again just before Jogues' martyrdom. 
 
 Knowing the dangers that confronted them, the Gov- 
 ernor offered the convoy a detachment of soldiers, but the 
 Indians, who never appreciate danger until the enemy 
 appears, indignantly refused all help. They were able to 
 take care of themselves. But they were only a day's journey 
 beyond Three Rivers, which they had left on August i, 
 1642, when a suspicious trail revealed itself. The great 
 chief said haughtily: "If it is the trail of friends there is 
 no fear; if it is an enemy's A\e are strong enough to con- 
 quer "; but a war-whoop and a volley of musketry soon told 
 another story. They were ambushed by almost twice their 
 number. There were seventy Mohawks in all, and signifi- 
 cantly enough they were led by a Huron apostate. Regard- 
 less of the danger and thinking only of baptizing one of the 
 Indians whom he had been instructing, Jogues addressed 
 himself to that task while the battle was raging, and when 
 he rose from where he had been kneeling he found the 
 greater number of his Hurons in flight, and those who had 
 held their ground already in the hands of the enemy. What 
 should he do? He was as fleet of foot as any Indian and 
 could have escaped if he wished. But before his eyes he 
 saw his beloved Rene Goupil and some of his Huron Chris- 
 tians bound hand and foot, and the thought of deserting 
 them never entered his mind. To the amazement of the 
 Indians he strode out from his concealment and stood beside 
 them. It is worth noting that the one who made the most 
 splendid fight in this encounter was Goupil. When nearly 
 every one had fled he remained almost alone facing the 
 whole host of enemies and fighting fiercely. The fact is 
 worth remembering, for there is such stress laid on his piety 
 and gentleness that we are prone to fancy liim as timid and 
 shrinking and somewhat feminine in his disposition, and 
 
 22 
 
THE DISCOVERER OF LAKE GEORGE 
 
 not the heroic fig:htcr that this occasion showed him to be. 
 Jogues describes him as " a man of remarkable intrepidity." 
 
 The deep affection with which the priest was regarded 
 by the rest of the company revealed itself as the battle was 
 ending. Couttire was well out of reach when he discovered 
 that the Father was not with him. He deliberately turned 
 back, though he had to fight his way through a crowd of 
 Iroquois, who almost cut him to pieces in his effort to reach 
 the side of Jogues. The " invulnerable " Huron chief, who 
 had taken to flight, came back of his own accord also, 
 though he knew it meant torture and a horrible death. 
 
 It was while embracing and consoling Couture, who was 
 brought in covered with blood, that Father Jogues was 
 felled to the earth by the sticks and clubs of the Iroquois. 
 He awoke to consciousness only to find two savages gnaw- 
 ing his fingers off with their teeth. As the battle was now 
 over, the captives were flung into canoes, and the party 
 hurried up the stream to where the Sorel or Richelieu flows 
 into the St. Lawrence, but not before they had cut a record 
 of their exploit on the trees of the forest. The exact spot 
 where the battle was fought has been forgotten. 
 
 Nothing more disastrous could have happened to the 
 missions than this capture of Jogues. " Had we received 
 those supplies," wrote Father Le Mercier, " we could have 
 held out indefinitely." But of course Jogues was not re- 
 sponsible. He knew too well the needs of his brethren and 
 the advantage of having soldiers as protectors on that peril- 
 ous journey, and he had seen too many an example of the 
 foolish self-reliance of the Hurons. But the " invulnerable " 
 chief had decided, and the ruin of all the missions of the 
 Northwest was only a matter of time. 
 
 Their course lay up the Richelieu to Lake Champlain 
 and Lake George and over to the ]\Iohawk. As they hurried 
 along they were beaten with sticks and clubs ; their wounds 
 were torn open by the long nails of the Indians; they were 
 
 23 
 
ISAAC JOGUES 
 
 refused food and drink, and at night were picketed to the 
 earth to prevent their escape. 
 
 The traveler on Lake Champlain to-day is shown an 
 island which the State has set aside as a government reser- 
 vation. It is marked Jogues Island. It is thought to have 
 been the scene of the occurrences which Jogues describes 
 at this stage of his journey. A number of braves on the 
 warpath had halted there awaiting the raiders, and their 
 thirst for blood had to be satiated by the usual savage pas- 
 time of the gauntlet. " We were made to go up the slope 
 from the shore between two lines of savages armed with 
 clubs and sticks and knives," writes Jogues. " I was the 
 last, and blows were showered on me. I fell on the ground 
 and I thought my end had come, but they lifted me up all 
 streaming with blood and carried me more dead than alive 
 to the platform." The usual tortures of gashing and 
 stabbing and beating and burning and distending followed. 
 More joints of the martyr's fingers were gnawed or burned 
 off, and at one time he was on the point of consecrating that 
 island of Lake Champlain by a horrible death at the stake. 
 The torture was drawing to an end, and a huge savage stood 
 above him with a knife to slash the nose from his face — the 
 usual prelude of death by fire. Jogues looked at him calmly, 
 and, to the surprise of all, the executioner strode away. 
 Again the effort was made with the same result. Some 
 unseen power averted death at that time. His martyrdom 
 was to be more protracted, and at another place. 
 
 From there they resumed their journey, stopping, how- 
 ever, to repeat the sport whenever a new band was met 
 with. It took them till the tenth of August to reach the 
 southern end of Lake George; and then for four days the 
 wretched captives dragged themselves along the trail which 
 passes by what is now Saratoga, bleeding and famished, 
 supporting their miserable life by the fruit or berries they 
 could pluck from the trees or the roots they could dig up 
 in the woods. They were loaded meantime with heavy 
 
 24 
 
THE DISCOVERER OF LAKE GEORGE 
 
 packs, and beaten when they faltered or fell on the road. 
 On the eve of the Assumption, August 14th, 1642. they 
 arrived on the north bank of the Mohawk, opposite the vil- 
 lag-e of Ossernenon, a little above where the Schoharie 
 Creek flows into the river. 
 
 A conch-shell, an instrument usually reserved for re- 
 ligious rites, announced their coming, and men and women 
 and children swarmed down to the river bank to give the 
 victims a savage welcome. It was the gauntlet again, and 
 the miserable line moved up the steep ascent ; Jogues, as 
 usual, coming last. " I saw Rene in front of me," he after- 
 wards wrote : " he fell, horribly mangled and covered with 
 blood ; not a spot of white was visible as he was dragged 
 to the place of torture." But while grieving for his friend 
 and forgetting his own pitiable state, he himself was struck 
 by a huge ball of iron in the middle of the back, and fell 
 gasping on the pathway. He struggled to his feet and 
 followed the procession to the platform, where the iisual 
 horrors of such performances were carried out in all their 
 details, till darkness brought them to an end. But even. 
 then their sufferings were not over, for they were pinioned 
 to the earth and given over to the boys of the camp, who 
 amused themselves the greater part of the night by sticking 
 knives and prongs into the victims, and heaping coals and 
 hot ashes upon their naked bodies to see them writhe in 
 agony. Jogues narrates that Rene's breast was a pitiable 
 sight after this torture. He does not allude to his own 
 condition, except to say that he was more fortunate in being 
 able to throw off the burning coals. 
 
 One incident occurred, on this first day at Ossernenon, 
 which is worthy of special notice, as illustrating the wonder- 
 ful self-control of the great martyr. A captive Indian 
 woman, a Christian, and chosen no doubt for that reason, 
 was compelled, under menace of death, to saw off with a 
 jagged shell the thumb of the priest. She complied, though 
 horror-stricken; and when it fell on the ground, Jogues 
 
 25 
 
ISAAC JOGUES 
 
 picked it up, and, as he himself humbly says, " I presented 
 it to Thee, O my God ! in remembrance of the sacrifices 
 which for the last seven years I had ottered on the altars of 
 Thy Church and as an atonement for the want of love and 
 reverence of which I have been guilty in touching Thy 
 Sacred Body." " Throw it down," whispered Couture, at 
 his side, " or they will make you eat it." He cast it aside, 
 and possibly some prowling dog of the camp devoured it. 
 It would be hard to find a parallel for such an act in the 
 annals of the martyrs. 
 
 The next day the tortures were repeated, and then the 
 neighboring villages of Andagarron and Tionnontoguen, 
 the first about seven, the second fifteen miles to the west, 
 had to be regaled in similar fashion, until the ferocity of 
 the savages was sated. 
 
 By this time the other captives were either killed or sent 
 elsewhere among the tribes; Jogues and Goupil alone 
 remained. It had been decided first to burn them at the 
 stake; other counsels, however, prevailed, and they were 
 brought back to Ossernenon. On the seventh of Septem- 
 ber the news of their capture had reached Fort Orange, 
 and the Commandant, Arendt van Corlear, in person, ac- 
 companied by Jean Labatie and Jacob Jansen, came to 
 arrange for their ransom. But the news had arrived that 
 the war party which had tortured Jogues on Lake Cham- 
 plain had been badly beaten at the fort which Montmagny 
 had hastily thrown up at the mouth of the Richelieu after 
 the capture of Jogues. Furious with rage on that account, 
 they would not give up the prisoners. Once again there 
 was question of the stake. 
 
 Soon afterwards, Goupil was killed for making the sign 
 of the cross on the head of a child. It occurred when the 
 lonely captives were returning to the village reciting their 
 beads. A savage stole up behind them and buried his toma- 
 hawk in the skull of Goupil, who fell on his face uttering 
 the Holy Name. Jogues seized him in his arms, gave him 
 
 26 
 
THE' DISCOVERER OF LAKE GEORGE 
 
 the last absolution, and then waited his own turn, but the 
 victim was torn from his embrace, and two more blows by 
 the murderer ended the work. " Thus," says Jogues, " on 
 the twenty-ninth of September, this anj^el of innocence and 
 martyr of Jesus Christ was immolated in his thirty-fifth 
 year, for Him who had given His life for his ransom. He 
 had consecrated his heart and his soul to God, and his 
 work and his life to the welfare of the poor Indians." 
 
 The scene of this tragedy, as far as can be made out 
 from the indications left by Father Jogues, is somewhere 
 along the line of crosses that have been recently erected 
 at Auriesville. They are on what is called the Hill of 
 Prayer; that is to say, the slope which the two captives 
 were descending when the Indian interrupted their recital 
 of the beads by the blow of his tomahawk. 
 
 The next morning Father Jogues started out to find the 
 corpse of his friend, but was prevented from going on with 
 the search. On the following morning, however, in spite 
 of threats to kill liim, he set out with an Algonquin and 
 discovered the remains in the stream at the foot of the hill. 
 The body had been given to the boys of the village, who 
 had stripped it and dragged it there for sport. It was 
 already partially eaten by the dogs. All that he could do 
 at the time was to hide it deeper in the stream, intending to 
 return later to give it burial. Two days passed and he was 
 still unable to carry out his purpose. When he sought it 
 again it was gone. His description of this search reads 
 like a threnody : 
 
 " I went to the spot where I had laid the remains. I 
 climbed the hill at the foot of which the torrent runs. I 
 descended it. I went through the woods on the other side ; 
 my labor was useless. In spite of the depth of the water, 
 which came up to my waist, for it had rained all night, and 
 in spite of the cold, I sounded with my feet and my staff to 
 see whether the current had not carried the corpse further 
 ofif. I asked every Indian I saw whether he knew what had 
 become of it. Oh! what sighs I uttered and what tears I 
 
 27 
 
ISAAC JOGUES 
 
 shed to mingle with the waters of the torrent, while I 
 chanted to Thee, O my God ! the psahris of Holy Church 
 in the Ofifice of the Dead." 
 
 After the thaw he found some bones, and the skull, 
 which had been crushed in several places. 
 
 " I reverently kissed the hallowed remains and hid them 
 in the earth, that I may one day, if such be the will of God, 
 enrich them with a Christian and holy ground. He deserves 
 the name of martyr not only because he has been murdered 
 by the enemies of God and His Church while laboring in 
 ardent charity for his neighbor, but, more than all, because 
 he was killed for being at prayer, and notably for making 
 the sign of the cross." 
 
 The exact place that holds the remains of this illustrious 
 man whose brief career was so apostolic, and at the same 
 time so romantic, has never been identified. Perhaps it 
 may be God's will to reveal it at some future time, so that 
 a fitting memorial might mark the spot where the heart- 
 broken Father Jogues knelt weeping over the body of his 
 friend. 
 
 Nowadays the ravine where this tender and pathetic 
 parting of the friends took place is the favorite spot at 
 Auriesville for the throngs of people who gather there for 
 the annual pilgrimage. At the end of the day they wend 
 their way in solemn procession down the steep incline to 
 this, wooded hollow through which rushes the creek which 
 once covered the body of Goupil. The stream is boisterous 
 and full in the early spring, but almost dry in the heat of 
 summer. Here and there rustic bridges span it. At one 
 end of the glen a high wall of rocks, from which great 
 trees protrude, rises sheer above you. At its base is a pulpit 
 made of the trunks and branches of trees. There the pil- 
 grims gather for the concluding ceremonies and to listen 
 to the words of counsel and exhortation, or the repetition 
 of the tragic story of the past. The perpendicular cliff 
 behind sends the words of the preacher far into the lonely 
 
 28 
 
THE DISCOVERER OF LAKE GEORGE 
 
 woods around, which ahnost seem to awe the hsteninj^ 
 multitude to silence. Be}ond the creek a thick cluster of 
 jiines rises above a huge boulder, which serves as an altar, 
 and when the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament is 
 given there, the glimmer of the lights in the deep shadow 
 of the pines, the robes of the priests, and the scarlet and 
 wdiite of the acolytes, with the kneeling multitude beyond 
 the stream bowed in silent adoration as the Sacred Host is 
 lifted above their heads, while no sound is heard in the 
 densely peopled solitude save the tinkling of the bell and 
 the lapping of the waves on tlie rocks, you have a ])icture 
 that can never be efifaced* from your memory. How dif- 
 ferent is all this from the terrible twenty-ninth of Septem- 
 ber of long ago ! 
 
 When Goupii was dead Jogues was alone, and began 
 his awful captivity of more than a year, each moment of 
 wdiich was a martyrdom. In the Relation which his Superiors 
 commanded him to write he has left us a partial account 
 of the horrors he endured. Employed in the filthiest and 
 most degrading occupations, he was regarded with greater 
 contempt than the most degraded squaw of the village. 
 Heavy burdens were heaped on his crippled and mangled 
 shoulders, and he was made to tramp fifty, sixty and some- 
 times a hundred miles after his savage masters, who 
 delighted to exhibit him wherever they went. His naked 
 feet left bloody tracks upon the ice or flints of the road ; 
 his flesh was rotting wdth disease, and his w^ounds were 
 gangrened ; he w^as often beaten to the earth by the fists 
 or clubs of crazy and drunken Indians ; and more than once 
 he saw- the tomahawk above his head and heard his death 
 sentence pronounced. The wretched deerskin they per- 
 mitted him to wear was swarming with vermin : he was 
 often in a condition of semi-starvation as he crouched in a 
 corner of the filthy wigwam and saw the savages gorging 
 themselves with meat, wdiich had been first ofifered to the 
 demons, and which he therefore refused to eat. though his 
 
 29 
 
ISAAC JOGUES 
 
 savage masters raged against this implied contempt of their 
 gods. According to General Clark, that refusal to recognize 
 the Indian deity was the determining cause of Jogues' death. 
 But over and above all his bodily agony, his sensitive and 
 holy soul was made to undergo a greater torture by the 
 sight of the shameless moral turpitude of the savages and 
 ihe awful spectacle thrust upon him as they roasted and 
 devoured their captives. 
 
 Meanwhile he was baptizing what dying children he 
 could discover, and comforting the Huron captives who 
 were brought into camp, sometimes even at the risk of his 
 life rushing into the tlames to baptize them as they were 
 burning at the stake. 
 
 The wonder of it all is how human endurance could be 
 equal to such a strain. Indeed only the help of supernatural 
 grace can explain how he did not die or lose his mind. 
 That God gave him such assistance there is no doubt, for 
 we find in the record he has left that he spent hour after 
 hour kneeling in prayer in the deep snow of the forest, pro- 
 tected from the wintry blast of the storm only by a few pine 
 branches. The Indians looked with terror at the cross 
 which he used to cut in the trunks of trees, and took his 
 prayers for incantations, often threatening to kill him when 
 he was so engaged. We learn that he was at times favored 
 with heavenly visions during that long martyrdom. He 
 heard the songs of angels above the roar of the tempest ; he 
 saw the palisaded town transformed into a celestial city, 
 and beheld the Divine Master as a King in royal robes. Be- 
 sides these supernatural consolations, he had a human com- 
 forter also; a poor old squaw in whose cabin he lived and 
 whom he called his " Aunt." She would try in her rude way 
 to heal his wounds ; would weep over them when she could 
 not succeed ; and invariably warned him of any danger that 
 she happened to hear of. We do not know if he converted 
 the poor old creature. We cannot help thinking that he did. 
 
 There is another touching incident of rewarded affection 
 
 30 
 
THE DISCOVERER OF LAKE GEORGE 
 
 that occurred during his journeys. He once stumbled into a 
 miserable cabin where he found a dying Indian. " Do you 
 not know me?" said tiie sufferer. " It was I who cut you 
 down when you were suspended by ropes at Ossernenon 
 and were just about to die." God evidently rewarded the 
 poor wretch for this act of humanity. He received baptism 
 before he expired. No doubt also a poor squaw whom he 
 saved from a furious torrent, plunging in to save her and 
 her babe while the Indians looked on apathetically, must 
 have done her best to repay him. 
 
 Month after month dragged on, and repeated efforts were 
 made to purchase him from the Mohawks. Even the So- 
 kokis of distant Maine, who had been well treated by the 
 French, came to intercede for him. In fact he tells us him- 
 self that he might have escaped, but could not find it in his 
 heart to do so while there were any Christian captives to 
 whom he might be of service. His baptisms that year, he 
 informs us, amounted to seventy altogether, all, of course, 
 of persons at the point of death. It is New York's first 
 baptismal record. Unfortunately we have only the number, 
 not the names. 
 
 31 
 
CHAPTER III 
 The Escape 
 
 Jogues had been a captive for thirteen terrible months, 
 when an event occurred wliich seemed to announce his 
 doom. About a year after his arrival on the Mohawk, 
 namely, on June 30, 1643, he had secured a scrap of paper, 
 and, with full knowdedge of the danger, sent a letter to 
 Montmagny informing him that the Mohawks were about 
 to make a raid on Fort Richelieu. A Huron who had been 
 adopted by the Iroquois carried the missive. The garrison 
 was warned in time and the Indians were repulsed. They 
 must have known of the letter, for instead of fixing it 
 somewhere on the trail the Indian entered the fort with 
 it, an act which must have been witnessed by his asso- 
 ciates. Naturally they attributed the failure of their expe- 
 dition to Jogues and sullenly returned to their town. It is 
 this action of the missionary that serves as the basis of the 
 charge that he was really not put to death for the Faith, 
 but only in punishment for this " treachery." 
 
 To this the answer is plain. In the first place, he was 
 not put to death then. Consequently the feelings of the 
 Indians, at that time, can be eliminated as the motive of 
 an execution which took place three years later, unless those 
 same feelings persisted, wholly or in part ; which was not 
 the case. Secondly, it may be safely asserted, that even if 
 lie had been jmt to death then, he would have been a martyr 
 of charity. To deliberately accept death in order to save 
 one's brethren from being wantonly massacred by im- 
 placable savages led by an apostate Christian, is heroic vir- 
 tue fully worthy of canonization. Let a prisoner in the 
 hands of a civilized enemy do something similar to save his 
 countrymen and he will be immortalized as the nation's 
 hero. Thirdly, anyone acquainted with the code of Indian 
 
 32 
 
THE DISCOVERER OF LAKE GEORGE 
 
 ethics knows that once wampum hchs are cxchanf^ed. all 
 causes of complaint, past and present, are obliterated. That 
 was their recognized purpose. They were treaties of peace, 
 and an IndicUi accepting them would not remember the mur- 
 der of his own brother. We have notable examples of 
 this in Indian history. It was even adopted by the whites 
 themselves. Thus Kondiaronk, " The Rat." was made a 
 captain of French troops, and was buried with unusual 
 honors after having deliberately caused the most bloody 
 massacre in all Canadian history. We have another instance 
 in the case of Ouraouhara, the Iroquois, who after luuing 
 been sent to the galleys in France was trusted by Denon- 
 ville as his special envoy. Hence, when the presents were 
 exchanged later on at Three Rivers, and Jogues was chosen 
 as the ambassador of France, all past offences, real or imagi- 
 nary, were not only condoned but forgotten, and had no 
 influence whatever on subsequent negotiations. Moreover, 
 he was killed not by the Mohawks as such — and they were 
 the ones who had suffered harm — but by a few fanatics of 
 the Bear family, in spite of the protest of the nation ; and 
 for no other reason than that he was a sorcerer who was 
 making the okis and inanifoiis of the Mohawks powerless. 
 To die for that was to die for the Faith. 
 
 The Dutch were aware of his impending death, and a 
 positive order came from Governor Kieft of Manhattan to 
 the commandant at Fort Orange to secure his release at all 
 risks. Consequently, when, a short time afterwards, Jogues 
 arrived at the fort with his captors, the commandant in- 
 sisted that he should escape, promising that if he once got 
 on board the vessel which was lying in the river he would 
 be landed safely in France. 
 
 To his amazement Jogues refused. He could not desert 
 his post. He had written in that sense to his Superior in 
 Quebec. The worthy and perhaps wrathy Dutchman re- 
 monstrated that it was throwing away his life uselessly. 
 The Mohawks would not talk to him any longer about re- 
 
 33 
 
ISAAC JOGUES 
 
 ligious matters, nor would they let him approach the Huron 
 or other captives; and finally, he was made to understand 
 that his death was not to be deferred, but was to take place 
 as soon as he got back to Ossernenon. He listened to all this 
 and then spent the entire night in prayer to consider what 
 course was most in conformity with the glory of God and 
 the good of souls. In the morning he presented himself to 
 the commandant. He would escape and return again when 
 peace was restored. 
 
 It was then arranged that during the night he should 
 steal out of the place where he had been made to sleep 
 among the Iroquois. A small boat would be waiting on the 
 shore, and he could paddle to the ship whose sailors had 
 sworn to defend him. All seemed easy except the first step. 
 The structure which the Indians occupied with their pris- 
 oner was a wooden building about lOO feet long, one end of 
 which was used as the house of a settler who had married a 
 squaw; the rest being given over to the Indians. Going out 
 at nightfall to explore the ground, the poor captive was 
 nearly devoured by dogs, and was compelled to beat a hasty 
 retreat to the cabin. The charitable Dutchman bandaged 
 his wounds in a rough fashion, but the Indians, suspicious 
 that something was going on. securely barred the door and 
 lay down to sleep alongside of him. Hour after hour passed, 
 and he heard the cock crow announcing the dawn. All hope 
 was gone, when suddenly a door opened at the other end of 
 the building and a white man appeared. Making signs to 
 him to quiet the dogs, Jogues stealthily picked his way over 
 the prostrate forms of the savages — he would have been 
 tomahawked if he awakened them — and succeeded in 
 getting into the open. It is characteristic of the man that 
 before he began this race for life, he tucked somewhere in 
 his miserable rags a wooden cross he had made, and two 
 little books of devotion which he had found somewhere or 
 other. There was a fence to be cleared. He clambered 
 over it, and then running as fast as his mangled legs would 
 
 34 
 
THE DISCOVERER OF LAKE GEORGE 
 
 allow, made for the river, reachinj^ it in an exhausted state; 
 but alas! the boat was high and dry in the mud. He cried 
 out to the vessel in the stream, but no one heard him. The 
 sailors were asleep. At last by superhuman efforts he got 
 the boat into the water, and soon after he was climbing up 
 the ship's side, a free man. He was more than welcome, 
 but his happiness w^as brief. Furious at the escape of their 
 prisoner, the Mohawks threatened to burn the settlement, 
 but the commandant laughed at them. He knew perfectly 
 well they would not dare to risk a war with the Dutch while 
 they were fighting with the French. Nevertheless, for rea- 
 sons hard to understand, Jogues was compelled to go ashore 
 in the night, though the faithful sailors were loud in their 
 condemnation of the act, and was hidden in one of the 
 houses while the Indians were parleyed with, and finallv 
 induced to relinquish their claim on him by the payment of 
 three hundred livres. But his whereabouts was kept secret 
 for fear of his being tomahawked, and for six weeks he 
 lay in a garret within a few feet of the Indians, who en- 
 tered the house at pleasure. Often the slightest movement 
 or a moan would have betrayed him. The ship, meantime, 
 had departed, and the unhappy prisoner was subjected to the 
 most brutal treatment by the boor into whose charge he 
 had been given. Thus, for instance, he was nearly killed by 
 lye water which was given him to drink. Had it not been 
 for the kindness of the famous minister, Dominie Megapo- 
 lensis, he would have died of ill-treatment and starvation. 
 The Dominie was a conspicuous character among the 
 Dutch of Governor Kieft's time. He was more than kind 
 in this instance, and an affectionate intimacy sprang up be- 
 tween him and Father Jogues; the priest laboring strenu- 
 ously for his conversion, and the Dominie showing him 
 every consideration. In fact he was so outspoken in praise 
 of Jogues that he had to answer a charge before the Classis 
 of Manhattan of being a Jesuit. His reply may be found 
 
 35 
 
ISAAC JOGUES 
 
 in the New York State papers, indignantly repelling the 
 accusation. 
 
 At last another vessel was ready to sail, and Father 
 Jogues was conducted on board by the chief men of the 
 colony, and he and the Dominie came down together to 
 Manhattan Island. The crew were jubilant. They all loved 
 and admired Jogues and " half-way down," he says, " they 
 celebrated my release by stopping at an island which they 
 called by my name, and gave evidence of their pleasure by 
 the discharge of cannon and the uncorking of bottles." We 
 have no more indication than that of what island it was 
 that was " half-way down the Hudson," and that was 
 christened in such a cordial fashion. 
 
 Frequent attempts have been made to locate this island, 
 but so far no positive conclusion seems to have been 
 reached. Possibly it is the one which is now known as 
 Esopus Island. Thither the Jesuit novices from West Park 
 used to go on holidays. They at least had no doubt that 
 they stood on the holy ground where Father Jogues had 
 been a couple of hundred years before. It lies in the centre 
 of the stream; is about half a mile long, and possibly one 
 hundred feet at its greatest width. At its southern ex- 
 tremity there is a cove which afifords the only landing 
 place from the river, the rest of the shore being somewhat 
 steep and rocky and in one part, if you are a little 
 fanciful, it may look to you like a fortification. Someone 
 thought that the northern end had the appearance of a 
 mackerel's tail, and that may have suggested the name of 
 Fish Island, which at times serves to designate the place. 
 But romance has also been busy weaving legends. Thus 
 if you go over to the eastern side you will find an 
 isolated and stunted pine, which is known far and wide as 
 " Captain Kidd's Tree," and you may have to listen to all 
 sorts of gruesome tales about how the bold buccaneer buried 
 his treasures somewhere in the soil and left them to the care 
 of the Prince of Darkness. It is curious that Captain Kidd 
 
 36 
 
THE DISCOVERltR OF LAKE GEORGE 
 
 and I'^ather Jog-ues, wlio are jjoIcs away froni each other 
 morally, shonki meet on this little screen spot in the Hud- 
 son. 
 
 After six days the ship reached New York, and the Gov- 
 ernor g-ave Jogues a most honorable reception, seating- him 
 beside the Dominie at table, providing for his wants, and 
 changing his ragged and half savage costume for a civilized 
 dress. Naturally the presence of a priest and a Jesuit on 
 Manhattan Island, especially with all the marks of his ter- 
 rible sufferings upon him, caused a profound sensation 
 among the colonists. They crowded around him to ask 
 about his captivity, and it is narrated that, on one occasion, 
 a young man fell at his feet and. kissing the mangled hands 
 of the priest, exclaimed: " Martyr of Jesus Christ! Martyr 
 of Jesus Christ!" "Are you a Catholic?" asked Jogues. 
 " No, I am a Lutheran, but I recogni/.e you as one who has 
 suffered for the Master." 
 
 There were only two Catholics in Now York at that time 
 — one the Portuguese wife of the JMisign, who. singularly 
 enough, had a picture of St. Aloysius in her rc^om ; the 
 other an Irishman who had come up from Maryland. He 
 gave Father Jogues intelligence about the Jesuits there 
 and profited by the occasion to perform his religious duties. 
 
 The olffcial documents of the State of New^ York have 
 embodied Jogues' lengthy accotmt of the colony as he saw 
 it during the month he remaincfl with his Dutch friends. 
 He happened to be there just \vheii a war was going on 
 with the neighboring Indians, chiefly the \Veckc|uaeskeeck, 
 eighty of wdiom had been killed in one encounter and six- 
 teen hundred in another; but he merely mentions it without 
 going into details. He would have been compelled to say 
 harsh things about the Dutch. About the material condi- 
 tion of the colony he is more explicit. " Manhattan," he 
 says, " is seven leagues in circuit, and on it is a fort to serve 
 as a commencement of a town to lie built there and to be 
 called New Amsterdam." His practiced eye takes in the 
 
 37 
 
ISAAC JOGUES 
 
 defects of the construction, and no doubt he compared it 
 with the one he himself had built on Lake Huron. " It is at 
 the point of the island. It has four regular bastions, mount- 
 ed with several pieces of artillery. All these bastions and 
 the curtains were in 1643 only mounds ; most of them had 
 already crumbled away so that it was possible to enter the 
 fort on all sides. There were no ditches. The garrison for 
 that and another fort further up consisted of sixty soldiers. 
 The colonists were at that time beginning to face the gates 
 and bastions with stone. Within the fort were a pretty 
 large church, the house of the Governor, quite neatly built 
 of brick, and also storehouses and barracks." 
 
 The Governor told him that there were people on the 
 island speaking eighteen different languages. " No religion 
 is practised publicly, but the Calvinist, and orders are 
 to admit none but Calvinists ; but this is not observed. 
 There are in the colony, besides Calvinists, Catholics, Puri- 
 tans, Lutherans, Anabaptists who are called Mnistcs, etc." 
 He describes the character of the river, the ships in the har- 
 bor, the exposed position of many of the settlers, the method 
 of colonization, the climate, etc. ; and then reverts to what 
 he had seen further up the river at Fort Orange. " The set- 
 tlement of the Rensselaers is a little fort built of logs with 
 four or five pieces of cannon and as many swivels. The 
 colony is composed of about one hundred persons in twenty- 
 five or thirty houses which are built along the river. They 
 are merely of boards, and thatched roofs, and with no 
 masonwork except the chimneys." 
 
 It is not likely that Father Jogues left the narrow pre- 
 cincts of the colony during his month's sojourn on Manhat- 
 tan Island, for naturally he would not expose himself to be 
 captured by any prowling Indians who might have come 
 down from the Mohawk in search of him. Nor did the 
 colony itself afiford much opportunity for going about. The 
 houses were mostly clustered around Bowling Green. The 
 inarket-place was there, and the Parade Ground, and "' a 
 
 38 
 
THE DISCOVERER OE LAKE GEORGE 
 
 popular store/' as we arc told in Valentine's " History of 
 Broadway," which forms a part of TIic McDiital of the Coiii- 
 mon Council of Nciv York for iS6f,. The residence of the 
 Provincial Secretary was close at hand, but what interests 
 us most is that at the corner of what is now Morris Street 
 and Broadway was the parsonage of Dominie Megapolensis. 
 It is more than likely that Eather Jogues lived during all 
 the time he remained in Manhattan with the Dominie, who 
 had always shown himself such a devoted friend and bene- 
 factor. The parsonage was probably built of brick as were 
 most of the dwellings in that quarter, and in all likelihood 
 it was still standing during the greater part of the succeed- 
 ing century. In course of time it was sold to a relative of 
 Governor Stuvvesant, Balthazar Bayard, who erected a 
 brewery on the premises, not, however, facing the Parade 
 Ground, but down near the river front. The present Morris 
 Street was a lane which led to it. Bayard died in 1699, 
 and in 1726 his heirs sold the estate to Augustine Jay, the 
 ancestor of the well-known New York family of that name. 
 The admirers of Eather Jogues may thus give more than 
 usual attention to that particular section of old New York. 
 
 The Dominie's full name was Johannes Megapolensis, Jr. 
 He had been a Catholic up to the age of twenty-three. He 
 himself gives us that information. He became a Calvinist, 
 and was sent to New York when Kiliaen van Rensselaer 
 asked for a minister to look after the spiritual affairs of the 
 colony. He was liberally provided for; was given a free 
 passage and board on the ship for himself, his wife and four 
 children. A parsonage was to be erected for him in the 
 colony, and he was to receive a salary of one thousand and 
 ten guilders yearly, with an annual increase of two hundred 
 and fifty guilders for three years. He was to be supreme 
 arbiter in ecclesiastical matters, with the one limitation of 
 the Patroon himself. 
 
 When he arrived in the colony no church edifice except 
 what de Vries calls " a mean barn " had as yet been erected, 
 
 39 
 
ISAAC JOGUES 
 
 though it was then 1642, and the Dutch had been there since 
 1614; so he had to preach his first sermon in a storehouse, 
 where about one hundred persons were assembled. The 
 church in the fort was then being built. It was seventy-two 
 feet long, fifty-two broad, and sixteen feet high above the 
 soil. We find in a letter of Kiliaen van Rensselaer that the 
 people were in such a state that hardly any semblance of 
 godliness and righteousness remained. " The worst crimes," 
 says the Patroon, " were dishonesty, licentiousness and 
 drunkenness." Indeed Bogardus, one of the predecessors of 
 Megapolensis, frequently denounced the people of Manhat- 
 tan for their " horrible murders, covetousness and other 
 gross excesses." 
 
 The Dominie was a bitter antagonist of the Jews, and 
 sent a protest to the Classis at Amsterdam against their 
 admission into New Netherlands. His protest was accom- 
 panied by a similar document from Stuyvesant, who, like 
 the Dominie, was fierce in his utterances on the same topic. 
 Both documents make interesting reading, but could not 
 safely be published at the present day. 
 
 Megapolensis was on familiar terms not only with Father 
 Jogues, but later on he kept up a correspondence both with 
 Bressani and Poncet, who also had been tortured at Auries- 
 ville. In 1654 Father Le Moyne came down from the Iro- 
 quois missions to New York, " on the invitation," says 
 Megapolensis, " of the Papists living in Manhattan, and 
 especially of some French privateers who had arrived in the 
 port with a good prize." 
 
 Of course Le Moyne sought out the Dominie, but the re- 
 port made of this visit by the latter does not reveal the 
 same kindly feeling which his past relations with the Jesuit 
 missionaries might lead one to expect, although Le Moyne 
 was careful to assure him that he had not called to debate 
 religion but only to chat. It was on this occasion that Le 
 Moyne told the parson all about the salt springs and oil 
 wells in Onondaga, but Megapolensis was incredulous and 
 
 40 
 
'ETKR STUYVESANT 
 
THE DISCOVERER OE EAKE GEORGE 
 
 put it down as " a Jesuit lie." He referred the whole matter, 
 however, to his ecclesiastical superiors in Holland. 
 
 Le Moync spent eight days in New Amsterdam, and 
 began negotiations with the Government for a commercial 
 treaty between Canada and New Netherlands. He then 
 went back to Fort Orange and from that place wrote the 
 Dominie a long letter about the claims of the Church, send- 
 ing at the same time three learned dogmatical treatises. 
 
 Evidently this communication irritated the Dominic. 
 He wrote an equally long reply. The first ship that set sail 
 from New Amsterdam to Canada carried this acrimonious 
 rejoinder, but the St. Jean, as the ship was called, went to 
 pieces on the rocks of Anticosti, and Le Moyne never read 
 the diatribe. Megapolensis, however, had taken care to send 
 a copy of it to the Classis of Amsterdam, for he was anxious 
 to vindicate himself from the charge of being " a Jesuit." 
 His kindly attentions to the missionaries had brought upon 
 him that reproach. 
 
 The poor old Dominie had a sad ending. In August, 
 1664, four British frigates, carrying one hundred and twenty 
 guns and five hundred British regulars, sailed into New 
 York harbor. Stuyvesant had no more than one hundred 
 and fifty soldiers. The fort was equipped with only twenty 
 guns and the supply of ammunition did not amount to much. 
 After considerable maneuvering two of the frigates sailed 
 past the fort. Stuyvesant wanted to fight and the gunners 
 stood with lighted matches ready to fire, but the colonists 
 were averse to a struggle which they saw was foredoomed 
 to failure. The Governor still hesitated when two ministers 
 approached him. One was Dominic Johannes Megapolensis 
 and the other was his son Samuel. 
 
 " Of what avail," said Johannes, " are our poor guns 
 against the broadside of more than sixty? It is wrong to 
 shed blood to no purpose! " Stuyvesant collapsed, and on 
 September 3d the British flag was raised over the fort. 
 When the news of the surrender reached Holland there 
 
 41 
 
ISAAC JOGUES 
 
 was a storm of indifi^nation. Stuyvesant and Megapolensis 
 were forever disgraced, and the Directors of the West In- 
 dian Company issued the following protest : 
 
 " It is an act that can never be justified that the Director 
 General should stand looking between the gabions whilst 
 two hostile frigates pass by the fort and the mouths of 
 twenty pieces of cannon, and give no order to prevent it ; 
 but, on the contrary, lending an ear to preachers and other 
 chicken-hearted persons, allow himself to be led in from the 
 bulwark between the preachers." 
 
 The Dominie wrote a defense of his conduct, and at 
 the same time had the courage to ask for certain back pay- 
 ments due to him by the Honorable West Indian Company. 
 The Honorable Company replied to his reverence that until 
 he should give further satisfaction concerning the events 
 at the surrender of New Netherlands to the English his 
 salary would be withheld. Three years after that, Mega- 
 polensis complained to the Classis of Amsterdam as follows: 
 
 " The West India Company unjustly withheld two thou- 
 sand florins owing me for salary and due to me before the 
 change of government. I trust that God, who has hitherto 
 taken care of me from my youth, when I relinquished 
 Popery and was thrust out at once from my inherited estate, 
 will henceforth take care of me during the short remainder 
 of my life. I am now sixty-five years old and have been a 
 preacher about forty years : twenty-seven years here and 
 the remainder in North Holland." 
 
 The Dutch ofificials of New Netherlands wrote in his 
 favor, but the Classis continued to frown on him. He was 
 still a traitor in their eyes. He did not dare to return to 
 Holland, and hence continued his work in New York. 
 " Many come to hear me preach," he wrote. " They appa- 
 rently like the sermons, but are not inclined to contribute 
 to the support and salary of the preacher. They seem to 
 desire that we should live on air and not upon produce." 
 He died in New York on January 14th, 1670, friendless, 
 
 42 
 
THE DISCOVERER C)E EAKE GEORGE 
 
 poor, and with a blasted reputation. This was twenty-four 
 years after he liad c^onc up to tlie Mohawk to incpiire into 
 the murder of his friend, Eather Jo!:::ues, to whom, after this 
 long digression, we must now return. 
 
 After a month's sojourn in Manhattan, Eather Togues 
 went on board the wretched little vessel which the Gov- 
 ernor was hurrying to get ready to bring the news to the 
 home government about the Indian aggressions, weighed 
 anchor in the river. It was a bark of some say fifty, some say 
 a hundred, tons burthen. It left the harbor of Manhattan 
 on the 5th of November, so that in mid-winter, with thin 
 and wretched clothing and with nowhere to rest his aching 
 limbs but the deck on a coil of rope, or in the offensive 
 hold, the poor sufiferer was tossed on the waves of the At- 
 lantic until the end of December, 1643, when, after frightful 
 sufferings, the vessel entered the harbor of h'almouth, in 
 Cornwall, hotly pursued by some of Cromwell's ships, for 
 the rebellion against Charles I. was then in progress. 
 
 Left alone on the ship, he was robbed at the pistol's point 
 of his poor belongings by marauders who were prowling 
 about the port. Later on, a compassionate Frenchman 
 whom he met on shore obtained a free passage for him 
 across the Channel, on a dirty collier — a favor grudgingly 
 accorded — and on Christmas morning, 1643, when the bells 
 were ringing for Mass, he was flung on the coast of his 
 native country somewhere in Brittany. The exact place 
 cannot be identified from the indications which he has left. 
 Some poor peasants saw the ragged and emaciated creature 
 standing on the beach and fancied he was an Irish refugee 
 escaping from the Cromwellians. Finding to their astonish- 
 ment that he was a Frenchman and a priest, they ga\e him 
 some decent wearing apparel and went with him to the 
 church, where for the first time since his capture at Three 
 Rivers he was able to go to confession and communion. 
 The maimed condition of his hands precluded his saying 
 Mass. 
 
 43 
 
ISAAC JOGUES 
 
 It took him eight days after thai to reach the College of 
 Rennes, helped on his journey by some charitable soul who 
 took pity on him. He arrived there earh' in the morning 
 of the Epiphany, the 6th of January, 1644, and asked the 
 porter to inform the Rector that he had news from Canada. 
 Hearing the magic word " Canada," the Rector, though 
 about to say Mass, laid aside his vestments and hurried to 
 the door. " Do you come from Canada?" he asked of the 
 dilapidated and ragged man before him. " I do," was the 
 answer. "Do you know Father Jogues?" "Very well, 
 indeed." " Is he alive or dead? " " He is alive." " Where 
 is he? " " I am he," was the repl}-. 
 
 The amazement and joy of the household may be 
 imagined as they crowded around him to embrace him, to 
 kiss his mangled hands and kneel for his blessing. They 
 led him to the chapel and intoned the Tc Deiim. The dead 
 had come back to them. 
 
 The news of the missionary's return rapidly spread 
 throughout France. Everyone was speaking of him ; and 
 the Queen Regent, Anne of Austria, the mother of Louis 
 XIV, intimated her desire to see him, but was compelled to 
 express her wish more than once before Father Jogues could 
 be induced to be the subject of such public distinction. 
 Who were present at the famous audience? We have no 
 details about it, but we know that Conde and Turenne were 
 then in their young manhood ; that St. Vincent de Paul 
 was chief almoner of the Queen, and that possibly they 
 with man}^ other of the most famous personages of the 
 realm — for the interest in him was universal — may have 
 been near the throne when, humbled and abashed, with his 
 hands concealed in the folds of his cloak, he entered the 
 royal presence. He replied very slowly and reluctantly to 
 the various inquiries about his adventures and sufferings. 
 and when at last he was compelled to throw back his cloak 
 and tell of the hideous manner in which his fingers had 
 been eaten or burned, the Queen, descending from her 
 
 44 
 
THE DISCOVERER OF LAKE GEORGE 
 
 throne, took his hands in hers and, with tears streamin,^ 
 down her cheeks, devoutly kissed the mutilated members 
 and exclaimed : " People write romances for us — but was 
 there ever a romance like this? and it is all true." 
 
 Public exhibitions of this kind, however, were like Iro- 
 quois torture for Father Jogues. He became exceedingly 
 sensitive about it, and those who called to see him were 
 warned by the Superiors not to refer to his sufferings. He 
 even refused to visit his own people. Apparently he did 
 not see his " Honored Mother," though perhaps she was 
 dead then. But what grieved him most was that, on ac- 
 count of the condition of his hands, he was forever debarred 
 from saying Mass. His friends did not leave him long in 
 that distress, but sent a petition to the Holy Father to re- 
 mo^•e the canonical impediment. The answer quickly came: 
 " Indignnm cssct viartyrcm Christi, Christi nan hibcrc san- 
 guiiinn."' " It would be wrong to prevent the martyr of 
 Christ from drinking the blood of Christ." It is noteworthy 
 that this quasi-canonization was pronounced by Urban VIII, 
 the very Pope who has laid down such stringent laws on 
 the canonization of saints. 
 
 What his feelings were when this privilege came we do 
 not know. He has left us a record about his first Mass in 
 Canada. With regard to this first }Jass on his return to 
 France he is silent. 
 
 45 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 Death 
 
 Naturally one would fancy that this battered warrior 
 would now rest on the laurels which he had so nobly won. 
 On the contrary, he was on board the first vessel that left 
 France for America and he had plenty to do on the voyage. 
 The sea was tempestuous, but a worse storm arose among 
 the sailors. They were in mutiny, and had it not been for 
 Jogues' ascendancy over them, the captain might have been 
 tossed into the sea. The ship was thought to be unsea- 
 worthy, and the men insisted on turning back. Influenced, 
 however, by the persuasive words of their holy passenger, 
 they abandoned their purpose, and reached Quebec in June, 
 1644. 
 
 Maisonneuve was just then making his splendid fight 
 behind the stockades of Montreal, and thither Jogues was 
 sent, to keep up the courage of the defenders and help the 
 sick and dying. Finally the Indians asked for a parley, and 
 a conference was called at Three Rivers, for July 12, to 
 arrange the terms of peace. 
 
 Among the Indians and wearing their dress was William 
 Couture, the donnc who had been captured with Father 
 Jogues two years before. Fle had been adopted by the 
 tribe and was now coming as its envoy. He never returned, 
 however, to his Indian life, but settled down in Canada, mar- 
 ried, and lived to the age of ninety. 
 
 The Council assembled under a great tent in the court- 
 yard of the fort. In the most prominent place sat Mont- 
 magny ; before him in the centre were the Iroquois deputies, 
 while back of them stood the Algonquins, Montagnais, and 
 Attikamegues ; the Hurons and French being on either side. 
 The chief orator was Kiotsaeton, who appeared covered 
 with wampum belts, and very proud of his official position. 
 
 46 
 
STATUE OK J(K;LES AT DLNWOODIE 
 
THE DISCOVERER OE LAKE GEORGE 
 
 His speech was a notable one, and those who wish to study 
 Indian eloquence may find it in detail in the Relations, with 
 comments by Eather Vimont, who calls attention especially 
 to the wonderful pantomime of this American Demosthenes. 
 When he came to the fifteenth belt he walked up to Mont- 
 magny and presented it, saying that it was to wipe out the 
 memory of the ill-treatment of Father Jogues. " W'e 
 wished," he said, with splendid mendacity, not knowing 
 that Jogues was listening to him, " to bring him back to 
 you. We do not know what has become of him. Perhaps 
 he has been swallowed up by the waves, or fallen a victim 
 to some cruel enemy. But the Mohawks did not put him 
 to death.'' Jogues merely whispered to his neighlior that 
 the stake had been prepared all the same. Apparently he 
 did not let himself be known, and when the treaty was made 
 and the games and banquets began, he had already gone 
 back to his work. He had seen too much of Indian revelry 
 to be tempted to stay. 
 
 It was decided in the Council to send an ambassador tn 
 the Mohawks to obtain the assent of the tribe to the conces- 
 sions made by the deputies. Every one thought of Jogues. 
 He alone knew the language, and hence in due time he re- 
 ceived a letter from his Superior assigning him to the task. 
 The common of mortals will be thankful to him when they 
 read in his letter that he confessed to a shudder when he 
 learned of the appointment. Of course his official char- 
 acter as ambassador would protect him. But he was also 
 a priest and the Iroquois knew it. In fact, the Christian 
 Algonquins came to him to express their fear about his 
 going, and advised him not to speak of the Faith in his 
 first interview. " There is nothing," they said, " more re- 
 pulsive at first than this doctrine, which seems to uproot 
 all that men hold dear, and as your long robe preaches as 
 much as your lips, it will be prudent to travel in a shorter 
 habit." 
 
 This is the first example of the " clerical garb " difficulty 
 
 47 
 
ISAAC JOGUES 
 
 in New York. It is at the same time a very valuable tes- 
 timony as to why Jogues was put to death. When he ap- 
 peared as a layman and an ambassador he was treated with 
 honor, as we shall see ; when he went immediately after- 
 wards with his cassock and cross he was tomahawked, and 
 he unwittingly precipitated the disaster by not adhering 
 strictly to the advice of the Algonquins, and the Iroquois 
 saw that his office of ambassador had not really done away 
 Vv'ith his priestly character. They discovered that while on 
 this visit at Ossernenon he had secretly baptized some 
 dying children and had heard the confessions of the captive 
 Hurons. Evidently he had some other purpose besides that 
 of making peace. 
 
 It took some time before the embassy started ; for there 
 was much squabbling between the French and Iroquois as 
 to whether the Algonquins were included in the treaty, and 
 for a moment there was imminent danger of all the negotia- 
 tions coming to naught. In fact it was almost two years 
 after the conference, namely, on May i6, 1646, that Father 
 Jogues, accompanied by one of Canada's conspicuous col- 
 onists, Jean Bourdon, left Three Rivers with four Mohawk 
 guides and two Algonquins. They reached Lake Andiata- 
 rocte, or what is now Lake George, on the 30th of May. 
 Jogues had been there three years before, but he could 
 not then have seen its beauty, as he lay bleeding and 
 near to death in the bottom of an Indian canoe. But now, 
 when he beheld it in all the splendor with which summer 
 had clothed the woods in which it is embedded, and gazed 
 around at the countless garden-like islands reflected on its 
 surface, he gave it a name; one that was suggested by the 
 day on which he found himself crossing its beautiful ex- 
 panse. It was the eve of Corpus Christi, and for that reason 
 he called it the Lake of the Blessed Sacrament. It kept that 
 name for almost a century until shortly before the Revo- 
 lution a Protestant Irishman, Sir William Johnson, to gain 
 favor with the English king, changed it to Lake George. 
 
 48 
 
THE DISCOVERER OF LAKE GEORGE 
 
 It is most unlikely that it will ever recover the beautiful 
 designation given to it by the holy missionary, or even that 
 Gilmary Shea's and Parkman's suggestion of changing 
 Lake George to Lake Jogues will ever be carried out. lUit 
 who knows? Incidentally, the name is a chronograph, for 
 it recalls the day and year of the discovery. 
 
 The travellers did not take the trail by Saratoga, but 
 swerved over towards the Hudson, to what is now lieaver 
 Dam, then a fishing settlement of the Alohawks. There 
 Jogues had the happiness of meeting the Indian girl 
 Theresa, who had been captured at the same time as him- 
 self on the St. Lawrence. She had remained as good and 
 pious in her savage surroundings as she hafl Ijeen in the 
 nunnery at Quebec. Protected by an uncle for some time, 
 she finally married a warrior of the tribe. Her delight at 
 meeting Father Jogues may be imagined, and he made haste 
 to tell her that his first care would be to purchase her 
 freedom. The freedom indeed was granted, but its execu- 
 tion was never carried out ; and we meet her again }ears 
 afterward in the Onondaga country, where Father Le 
 Moyne saw her and told his friends in Quebec of the won- 
 derful holiness of her life. She never saw her own country 
 again. 
 
 The embassy then proceeded down the Hudson, and 
 passed through Fort Orange, or Albany, a familiar place for 
 Jogues, who was glad to see and thank his old friends, and 
 to reimburse them for the money they had expended on his 
 release. On June 5 he reached Ossernenon after a three 
 weeks' journey from the St. Lawrence. His arrival was the 
 occasion of surprise and delight for his former captors. A 
 council was held on the lOth, in which he was the principal 
 orator. He assured his ancient enemies " that the council 
 fires lighted at Three Rivers would never be extinguished." 
 " Here," he continued, " are 5,000 beads of wampum, to 
 break the fetters of the young Frenchmen you hold as cap- 
 tives, and 5,000 more for Theresa, that both may be set 
 free." All the arrangements made at Three Rivers were 
 
 49 
 
ISAAC JOGUES 
 
 ricqniesccd in, and the treaty was formally concluded. The 
 Wolf clan were particularly attentive to him and made him 
 a special present, saying: "You shall always have among 
 us a mat to rest upon and a fire to warm you," a manifesta- 
 tion of friendship which shows that the tribe as such did not 
 remember the incident of Fort Richelieu. 
 
 There were several Onondagas present, and Jogues made 
 an earnest and successful effort to win their favor. He 
 offered them presents, which they accepted, and he induced 
 them to receive missionaries for their tribe. Of their own 
 accord they indicated the safest way for these future 
 apostles to travel, viz., not through the Mohawk country 
 but by the St. Lawrence. It was this acceptance of the 
 belts that enabled Le Moyne and his associates later on to 
 announce the gospel among the Onondagas. 
 
 On June i6 the ambassadors left Ossernenon, going by 
 trail to the Lake of the Blessed Sacrament, and reaching 
 Quebec on July 3. Bourdon received valuable land grants 
 as his reward for making the treaty. Jogues received the 
 reward of death, for he asked immediately to return as 
 missionary to the Mohawks. His request was long and 
 seriously considered, for the bloodthirsty and unreliable 
 character of the Mohawks was a matter of common knowl- 
 edge. At last the petition was granted, and on September 
 27 he left Quebec for the Iroquois territory, his Superiors 
 giving it on that occasion the name of " The Mission of 
 Martyrs " ; for said they, " It is credible if the enterprise 
 succeed in efifecting the salvation of this people, it will pro- 
 duce no fruit until it be sprinkled with the blood of mar- 
 tyrs." Evidently Father Jogues was convinced of it also, 
 for on bidding farewell to a friend he wrote the memorable 
 words : " Jho scd non rcdibo " — " I go but I shall not return." 
 The utterance is remarkable inasmuch as it did not mean 
 that he was going to remain among the Mohawks indefi- 
 nitely, for his instructions were merely " to winter " there. 
 He did not even purpose to say Mass during this visit, and 
 he brought no vestments with him. 
 
 50 
 
THE DISCOVERER OF LAKE GEORGE 
 
 Was his fate revealed to him? Did he foresee what was 
 to happen? The Venerable Marie de I'lncarnation declared 
 that in her opinion his words were a veritable prophecy. 
 Ordinary people will read that meaning- into them also. 
 
 With him w'ere some Huron guides and a jcioic (^arcou 
 named Lalande — a dcnmc like Goupil, who w\inted to die 
 for the Faith. Before they reached Ossernenon the news 
 came that the Mohawks had dug up the liatchet. A box 
 which Jogues had left behind him had started the war. 
 
 Indeed on his previous visit he had been apprehensive 
 of such an eventuality, for he had shown its simple con- 
 tents to the Mohawks before he left, so as to allay their 
 suspicions which he perceived were already aroused, and 
 hence when the pestilence broke out. and the crops with- 
 ered, the savage inference was rapid ; viz., the evil came 
 from the mysterious box; there was a maniiou in it. They 
 hastened to get rid of it, and threw it in the river. But that 
 very delusion of theirs, fatal as it was, serves to establish 
 beyond any doubt that their wrath was aroused against 
 iiim, not because he was a white man, or a Frenchman, or 
 a friend of the Hurons, or because he had revealed their 
 plans to Montmagny, but solely and absolutely because his 
 manitoii had wrought them harm. That manitoii in their eyes 
 was Christianity, which was displacing their ancestral dei- 
 ties ; and thus in the wilds of America they did precisely 
 what the old Romans did when they strove to crush out the 
 Christian " superstition." The conditions were identical in 
 both instances. 
 
 As soon as his guides were apprised of what had hap- 
 pened they took to flight. But he kept on his way, though 
 he might easily have saved himself by returning to Quebec. 
 By his side walked the faithful Lalande. Two days more 
 would have brought them to Ossernenon. He wms at Lake 
 George when the Iroquois met him. Approaching them they 
 saw the sorcerer Ondessonk in his priestly robe. He was 
 no longer an ambassador but a missionary, bent on teach- 
 ing them the religion which they not only hated but which 
 
 51 
 
ISAAC JOGUES 
 
 they were convinced had brought disaster on their nation. 
 and they fell upon him, stripped him of his garments, slashed 
 him with their knives, and led him, mangled 'and bleeding, 
 to the very place where he had been so honored when in 
 another capacity he stood there the summer before. 
 
 The old Jesuit associates of Jogues call attention to a 
 revy remarkable and almost startling parallel between this 
 scene in the forests of the Mohawk and another memorable 
 one in the streets of Jerusalem. Surrounded by his enemies, 
 Christ asked: "Why do you wish to kill me?" and they 
 answered : " Because you have a devil." To which He 
 replied: " I have not a devil; but 1 honor My Father, and 
 you dishonor Him." 
 
 Father Jogues could scarcely have been reflecting upon 
 the import of the words that rose to his own lips when the 
 Indian knives were slashing his body, but he uttered almost 
 the same words as those of Our Saviour. " Let us see," 
 said one of the savages as he cut off a strip of the victim's 
 flesh, " if this white flesh is the flesh of a manitoii." " No," 
 he replied. " I am a man like you all. Why do you put me 
 to death? I have come to your country to teach you the 
 way to heaven, and }"ou treat me like a wild beast." It was 
 merely a difference of place. For the Iroquois, Jogues had 
 a vianitou, or devil ; for the Pharisees, Christ had a devii also, 
 and for that they put Flim to death. The servant was in- 
 deed very like his Master. 
 
 A council was held at Tionnontoguen to decide what was 
 to be done, and it is noteworthy that the famous Kiotsaeton, 
 who had spoken so eloquently and so mendaciously in the 
 peace conference at Three Rivers, was the priest's chief 
 defender. Both the Wolf and the Tortoise family were 
 against killing the victim, as were most of the Bears, and 
 the official verdict arrived at was to spare his life. But 
 one faction of the Bears clamored for his blood, and were 
 determined to have it in spite of the reasoning and pleading 
 of the rest of the tribe. 
 
 It is comforting to see, in the gloom and confusion of 
 
 52 
 
THE DISCOVERER OF LAKE GEORGE 
 
 this last act of tlie tra,c:;edy, the sytnpalhctic figure of the 
 kind old squaw. Leather Jop^ues' " Aunt." going around over- 
 whelmed with grief, and begging piteously with tears in 
 her eyes for her '" nephew's " life. " Kill me if you kill 
 him," she repeatedly said to his murderers. May we not 
 hope that the faithful old " aunt " is now with her 
 " nephew " in heaven? But she and the others failed. The 
 Bears were bent on vengeance, and on the i8th of October 
 they invited Jogues to a feast. What was to be done? To 
 refuse was to be killed immediately as outraging hospitality. 
 The messengers foimd him, crouching in a cabin nursing 
 his bleeding wounds. He rose up and followed them. 
 Those were his last steps on earth. They apin-oached the 
 wigwam, but behind the door stood an Indian with a toma- 
 hawk in his hand, and as Jogues stooped down to enter, the 
 axe descended with a crash into his skull. His long and 
 bloody battle had ended. They hacked ofT his head and 
 fixed it on a stake of the palisade, and then flung the 
 mai.gled body into the Mohawk, whose stream it sanctified. 
 
 " So died," says Ingram Kip, the Protestant bishop of 
 California, " one of that glorious band that had shown 
 greater devotion in the cause of Christianity than has ever 
 been seen since the time of the Apostles; men whose lives 
 and sufferings reveal a story more touching and pathetic 
 than anything in the records of our country, and whose 
 names should ever be kept in grateful remembrance ; stern, 
 high-wrought men who might have stood high in court or 
 camp, and who could contrast their desolate state in the 
 lowly wigwam with the refinement and affluence that waited 
 on them in their earlier years, but who had given up home 
 and love of kindred and the golden ties of relationship for 
 God and man. Ibo scd non rcdibo said Isaac Jogues as he 
 went for the last time into the valley of the Mohawk. He 
 fell beneath the blow of the infuriated savage and his body 
 was thrown to feed the vultures, whose shrieks as they 
 flapped their wings above him was his only requiem." 
 
 His companion was killed on the following morning. 
 Rumors of the tragedy gradually reached Quebec, but all 
 
 53 
 
ISAAC JOGUES 
 
 doubt was dispelled by an official letter of Governor Kieft, 
 of Manhattan, dated November, 1646, to Montmagny: "I 
 sent the minister of Fort Orange to find out the cause of 
 the murder, and he could get no other answer than that the 
 Father had left a devil among some articles confided to 
 their keeping which had caused all their corn or maize to 
 be eaten by worms." This letter of Governor Kieft is ex- 
 tremely precious, as there could be no more convincing testi- 
 mony than that of a Protestant minister and a Protestant 
 governor reporting of^cially on the cause of the crime. 
 They put it beyond question that it was not a matter of 
 politics, or race hatred, or of thoughtless savage fury. It 
 was the loathing of what the Indians conceived to be Chris- 
 tianity. Just as in greater persecutions, the pretext was that 
 its teachings brought disaster upon the country. 
 
 Independently of the nature of his death, the holiness of 
 this wonderful missionary was of the most extraordinary 
 kind. What he said of Goupil may be applied to him. " He 
 was an angel of purity." His obedience was heroic and 
 never faltered under any trial; the extent of his mortifica- 
 tion is evident from his sufferings, which were not only 
 accepted but sought ; his spirit of prayer was uninterrupted, 
 and of that higher kind to which visions are vouchsafed ; 
 his patience was boundless, his charity most tender even to 
 the fiercest of his persecutors. " The only sin I can remem- 
 ber during my captivity," he told his spiritual friend and 
 guide, Buteux, " was that I sometimes looked upon the 
 approach of death with complacency"; an admission which 
 will give ordinary saints a shiver. 
 
 Was his death a martyrdom? To be certain about that 
 we must await the decision of the Church, but most people 
 who read of his sufferings will agree with the Lutheran on 
 Manhattan Island who went down on his knees and saluted 
 him as a martyr; with the Queen of France who wept over 
 his wounds, and with the Sovereign Pontiff himself who 
 almost canonized him before his death. All of the Prot- 
 estant historians, some of them ministers and bishops, give 
 
 54 
 
THE DISCOVERER OE LAKE GEORGE 
 
 liini that title; Catholic writers have no doubt about it; the 
 Venerable Marie de I'lncarnation, who is so revered in 
 Canada for her sanctity, reiterates it incessantly; the old 
 missionaries who knew him, some of whom w^ere subse- 
 quently martyrs themselves, had no hesitation in privately 
 invoking his intercession; and the Plenary Councils of Bal- 
 timore and Quebec have asked for his canonization. Imme- 
 diately after his death a tribunal was established to officially 
 inaugurate the process, and the original documents contain- 
 ing the testimony given on that occasion have fortunately 
 come down to us. In our own days the ])rocess has been re- 
 sumed and the taking of testimony about the virtues and 
 death of Jogues and the other martyrs of the Canadian mis- 
 sions was continued for more than a year. Meantime the 
 place where he died has become a sanctuary. Ossernenon 
 has become beautiful Auriesville, and every Sunday in 
 the summer time thousands of devout people journey thither 
 from hundreds of miles away to pray in the hoi}- place which 
 the great missionary consecrated by his blood. To con- 
 clude, it is abundantly clear that more than for an}- of the 
 other missionaries, the cause of Jogues' death is freed from 
 any possibility of its having been associated with political 
 or race feeling. It was simply out of hatred of the cross, of 
 dislike of his doctrinal teachings, and detestation of the 
 Christian morality which he inculcated. 
 
 None of his relics have been found. His clothing, his 
 breviary and missal were given to his friend Dominic Mega- 
 polensis. All traces of them have been lost. Init as the 
 Dominie died in New York it is just possible that these 
 precious relics may some day be discovered. As to the place 
 where the martyrdom occurred there can l)e no reasonable 
 doubt that it is at what is known as Auriesville, on the south 
 bank of the Mohawk just above the Schoharie. 
 
 55 
 
A^'