Term: Marquette, Jacques 1637 - 1675

Definition:

Jesuit missionary, priest, explorer, b. Laon, France. He was educated at the Jesuit college in Reims, he entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus, Nancy (1654). Ordained a priest at Toni in 1666, he arrived in Quebec the same year, and, after studying the Indian languages, founded the mission of St. Mary of the Sault (Sault Ste. Marie, Mich.) in 1668. In 1669 he moved to the mission of the Holy Ghost (Ashland, Wis.), and in 1670 followed the Huron Indians to the present site of St. Ignace, Mich., where he founded the mission of St. Ignatius. There, in 1672 Louis Jolliet (q.v.) brought news that Father Marquette was to take part in the exploration of the Mississippi River. The two men with five French companions left the mission on May 17, 1673, and via Green Bay ascended the Fox River, transferred to the Wisconsin at the present site of Portage, and reached the Mississippi on June 17, 1673, the first Europeans to cross what would become the state of Wisconsin. The party continued to follow the Mississippi southward until July 17, 1673, when they turned back near the present site of Arkansas City, Ark. Returning via the Illinois River, the Des Plaines-Chicago portage, and Lake Michigan to Green Bay, Father Marquette went to St. Francis mission (De Pere, Wis.), where he remained from Sept., 1673, to Oct., 1674. In 1674 he set out to found the mission of the Conception among the Illinois Indians. He wintered at the present site of Chicago, and in 1675 founded the mission at the Kaskaskia village (Utica, Ill.). Illness forced him to leave in a few days, and he followed the east shore of Lake Michigan to the present site of Ludington, Mich., where he died. In 1677 Indians returned his bones to the mission chapel at St. Ignace. In 1887 Father Marquette was chosen as one of the two Wisconsinites to represent the state in Statuary Hall of the U.S. Capitol. Dict. Amer. Biog.; R. G. Thwaites, ed., Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents (73 vols., Cleveland, 1896- 1901); N. Amer. French Regime (on file in Archives, Marquette Univ.).

The Wisconsin Historical Society has manuscripts related to this topic. See the catalog description of the Jacques Marquette Miscellaneous Papers for details.

View a related article at Wisconsin Magazine of History Archives.