MARIE AND MICHAEL

THERE was much clacking of tongues and shaking of heads among the Indian squaws and maidens in the ancient village of Kaskaskia over the case of Marie and Michael.

Some took the part of Marie and said that it was a shame, that her father, a chief of the tribe, insisted that she marry Michael, a good look-ing young French canoe paddler.

In the other camp were those, who said, in effect, that Marie was a spoiled darling, that she still was in her father's wigwam, so to speak and that his wishes for her to marry Michael should be carried out be-cause of filial loyalty.

Father Jacque Gravier, one of the successors to the beloved Marquette, took the side of Marie and the issue of whether to marry or not took on another aspect. It was the talk of the village for a long time and there was more clacking and clucking and head shaking. Marie appears to have been a high class Indian maiden, well liked by both her own people and the few whites in the Illinois valley.

Finally Marie yielded to her parental wishes and was duly married to Michael, who had been a paddler for Father Louis Hennepin, another of the famous explorers of the late 17th century, in the Mississippi and Illinois valleys.

It was one of his paddlers, so the tradition goes, who wrapped him-self in some blankets one chilly night along the Illinois river west of Ottawa, rolled some "black stones" into the fire and went off to the land of dreams. He awoke in a sweat for the "stones" in the fire were really coal and his accidental discovery was the first of its kind in North America. It was something like the tale of Charles Lamb and the Chinese discovery of the roast pig by fire and accident.

Back to Marie and Michael and their romance in the wilderness of the Illinois country, which had caused so much excitement among the Indian women and relieved their humdrum life for a few weeks.

Her action, so the Jesuit Relation says, volume 64, increased the con-version of Indians to Christianity to the great joy of Father Gravier.

Breese in his "Early History of Illinois" says "In the oldest record of the church found at the (new) Kaskaskia in the Register of Baptisms of the Missions of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin the first entry bears the date March 20, 1695. Retaining the French spelling of the names it reads like this, "In the year 1695 March 20th, I Jacques Gravier, of the Society of Jesus, baptised Pierro Aco, new~ born, of Michael Aco. Godfather was DeHautchy, Godmother Marie Aram-pinchincoue; Maria Joanos, grandmother of the child."

That Michael apparently settled down to caring for his wife and later his son is shown by an ancient deed now in possession of the Chicago Historical society and given to that body in 1893 by Edward G. Mason, who obtained it in Paris.

It shows that on April 1, 1693 Francis de la Forest conveyed a half interest in his Illinois valley concession to Aco. It has been granted him from Tonti and the King of France through the sovereign council in Quebec in August 1691. Ako was to pay 6,000 livres in beaver skins at Chicago for half the concession.

It was signed by De La Forest, Aco, De La Dicourvertes and Nicholas Laurens de Chappelle as witnesses.

Flat topped and lower in height than famed old Starved Rock is the sand stone promontory to the east of it known as Lover's Leap.

Long ago romantic and fancy legend spinners gave it the name of Lover's Leap and assured the doubting Thomases, that it was the same rock off which love sick Indian couples used to hurl themselves into the blue waters of the Illinois river 100 feet or more below the top of the rock.

There were, among the Indians of the Illinois valley, as among the pale faces, who followed them into it, couples forbidden to marry under the code of morals. That of the Indians was a savage one in keeping with the numerous others of their customs such as burning at the stake, torture of running the gantlet.

In such cases a long jump into the river may have seemed the easier way out to such couples.

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