th of
the river with nothing but the sighs of the Indians, and the dip of
the paddles to break the silence of the scene. As they advanced
towards Mackinaw, the funeral cortege was met by a large number of
canoes bearing Ottawas, Hurons, and Iroquois, and still others shot
out ever and anon to join the fleet.

When they arrived in sight of the Point, and beheld the cross of St.
Ignatius as if painted against the northern sky, the missionaries in
charge came out to the beach clad in vestments adapted to the
occasion. How was the scene heightened when the priests commenced, as
the canoe bearing the remains of Marquette neared the shore, to chant
the requiem for the dead. The whole population was out, entirely
covering the beach, and as the procession marched up to the Chapel
with cross and prayer, and tapers burning, and laid the bark box
beneath a pall made in the form of a coffin, the sons and daughters
of the forest wept. After the funeral service was ended, the coffin
was placed in a vault in the middle of the church, where the Catholic
historian says, "Marquette reposes as the guardian angel of the Ottawa
missions."

"He was the first and last white man who ever had such an assembly of
the wild sons of the forest to attend him to his grave.

"So many stirring events succeeded each other after this
period--first, the war between the English Colonists, and the French;
then the Colonists with the Indians, the Revolutionary War, the Indian
Wars, and finally the War of 1812, with the death of all those who
witnessed his burial, including the Fathers who officiated at the
time, whose papers were lost, together with the total destruction and
evacuation of this mission station for many years, naturally
obliterated all recollections of the transaction, which accounts for
the total ignorance of the present inhabitants of Point St. Ignatius
respecting it. The locality of his grave is lost; but only until the
Archangel's trump, at the last, shall summon him from his narrow
grave, with those plumed and painted warriors who now lie around him."

The Missionaries who succeeded Marquette, at Mackinaw, continued
their labors until 1706, when, finding it useless to continue the
mission, or struggle any longer with superstition and vice, they
burned down their College and Chapel, and returned to Quebec. The
governor, alarmed at this step, at last promised to enforce the laws
against the dissolute French, and prevailed on Father Mar