not told it before? An excess of modesty, a lack of self-assertion, or a too sensitive reluctance to wound the susceptibilities of others, had never been found among his foibles. Yet some, perhaps, might have believed him, had he not, in the first edition of his book, gratuitously and distinctly declared that he did not make the voyage in question. "We had some designs," he says, "of going down the river Colbert [Mississippi] as far as its mouth; but the tribes that took us prisoners gave us no time to navigate this river both up and down."

Six years before Hennepin published his pretended discovery, his brother friar, Father Chrétien Le Clercq, published an account of the Recollect missions among the Indians, under the title of "Etablissement de la Foi." This book was suppressed by the French government; but a few copies fortunately survived. One of these is now before me. It contains the journal of Father Zenobe Membré, on his descent of the Mississippi In 1681, in company with La Salle. The slightest comparison of his narrative with that of Hennepin is sufficient to show that the latter framed his own story out of incidents and descriptions furnished by his brother missionary, often using his very words, and sometimes copying entire pages, with no other alterations than such as were necessary to make himself, instead of La Salle and his companions, the hero of the exploit. The records of literary piracy may be searched in vain for an act of depredation more recklessly impudent.

Justin Winsor says that some time after Hennepin published his first book, according to his own story, he incurred the displeasure of the Provincial of his Order, and that he was so pursued by his superior that in the end he threw himself on the favor of William III, of England, whom he had met at the Hague. This was doubtless the reason of his dedicating his later book to the English king. The same author goes on to say that on both of the maps published with this edition (1697) the Mississippi river is marked as continuing to the Gulf. This change was made to explain an interpolation in the text taken from Membre's journal of La Salle's descent of the Mississippi.

The explanation made by the apologists of Hennepin that the literary piracy was committed, not by Hennepin, but by "some stranger" or ignorant editor, is weak and unsatisfactory. At no time subsequent to the publication of the supposed spurious editions did Hennepin ever disavow the authorship of the book, or that part of it containing his pretended discovery of the lower Mississippi. He could not but have known of these fabrications, because these books were

widely published and distributed in Europe long prior to his death. He has left on record no word of denial as to their authenticity and correctness. While he may not have been able to stop the publication of pirated and false editions of his works, the least he could be expected to do was to leave on record his formal protest against the unwarranted use of his name in publishing to the world pretended discoveries which he never made.

On the other hand, when these later and interpolated editions appeared, and when doubts had arisen at that time as to the genuineness and veracity of the narrative, Hennepin, addressing the reader, says: "I here protest to you, before God, that my narrative is faithful and sincere, and that you may believe everything related in it." This testimony from his own pen is certainly convincing. When you couple this with the fact that the French authorities had received orders for his arrest as soon as he should reappear in Canada, which orders were based on the dedication of one of his subsequent interpolated books to the king of England, and the facts growing out of an English alliance, we are forced to the conclusion that in all the editions subsequent to the first, Hennepin was, as Parkman calls him, "the most impudent of liars;" and that these adapted narratives are, to use again the same historian's words, "a rare monument of brazen mendacity."* While I believe that the account contained in the first book published by Hennepin in 1683 is, in the main, truthful and accurate, barring his boasting and vainglorious statements, I am at the same time forced to concur in the conclusion of Edward D. Neill, a former secretary of this society, that "nothing has been discovered to change the verdict of two centuries; that Louis Hennepin, Recollect Franciscan, was deficient in Christian manhood."

*La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West, p. 123.

HISTORY OF DULUTH, AND OF ST. LOUIS COUNTY,

TO THE YEAR 1870.*

BY HON. JOHN R. CAREY.

When we take into account, in this rapidly advancing age, the many years, and I may say centuries, since the vast wealth and resources afforded to man by the great lake Superior and the country surrounding it became known, their settlement and development seem surprisingly slow.

While trading posts, missionary stations, and other small settlements, had been made within the boundaries of northeastern Minnesota at different dates, from the first advent of the white man in 1659, yet the first effort as to settlement of any part of that region, by the building of towns and cities, was not made until about the year 1854; after a lapse of nearly two hundred years, since the visit of the intrepid explorers, Groseilliers and Radisson, who are said to have been the first white men to visit Minnesota.

DANIEL GREYSELON DU LHUT.

Next in line of those early worthies, we have that noble and intrepid soldier and leader, Daniel Greyselon Du Lhut, a native of France and a prominent and influential man. That name (Du Luth, as it is better spelled in English) is destined to exist as long as the city which bears it as its name shall continue as the great commercial gateway of Minnesota and the Northwest.

*Presented and read in part at the monthly meeting of the Executive Council, May 9, 1898. This paper, in a somewhat more extended form, was later published by the Duluth News Tribune, as a series of articles beginning June 12 and ending August 21, 1898; and these were united and published from the same type, as a pamphlet, in November, 1898, under the auspices of the Duluth Historical and Scientific Association.