Claude Bernou Carte de lAmerique septentrionale

Fort Crevecoeur ( French: ''Fort Crèvecœur'') was the first public building erected by Europeans within the boundaries of the modern state of Illinois and the first fort built in the West by the French."The Site of Fort de Crèvecoeur", University of Illinois, 1925.
/ref> It was founded on the east bank of the

Illinois River The Illinois River () is a principal tributary of the Mississippi River at approximately in length. Located in the U.S. state of Illinois, the river has a drainage basin of . The Illinois River begins with the confluence of the Des Plaines ...

, in the

Illinois Country The Illinois Country ( ; ; ), also referred to as Upper Louisiana ( ; ), was a vast region of New France claimed in the 1600s that later fell under Spanish and British control before becoming what is now part of the Midwestern United States. Whi ...

near the present site of Creve Coeur, a suburb of Peoria,

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...

, in January 1680. It was destroyed on April 16, 1680 by members of La Salle's expedition, who mutinied and abandoned it, fearful of being attacked by the Iroquois League as the

Beaver Wars The Beaver Wars (), also known as the Iroquois Wars or the French and Iroquois Wars (), were a series of conflicts fought intermittently during the 17th century in North America throughout the Saint Lawrence River valley in Canada and the Great L ...

extended into the area. Reestablishing a more lasting presence, the French founded Fort St Louis du Pimiteoui nearby in 1691, at the former Kaskaskia village destroyed by the Iroquois (''Pimiteoui'' being the French name for what is now called Peoria Lake, a noted widening in the Illinois River). It became a center of trade and was partially settled during the colonial period.

Henri de Tonti Henri de Tonti (born Enrico Tonti; – September 1704) was an Italian-born French military officer and explorer who assisted René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle during the French colonization of the Americas from 1678 to 1686."A tour of M ...

was a primary founder of both the Crevecouer and Pimiteoui posts.

Founding

On January 15, 1680, French explorers

René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle (; November 22, 1643 – March 19, 1687), was a 17th-century French explorer and North American fur trade, fur trader in North America. He explored the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada ...

, and

began construction of a stockade they would call Fort Crèvecoeur (Broken Heart). It was intended to help the local Peoria tribe defend themselves against the powerful

Iroquois The Iroquois ( ), also known as the Five Nations, and later as the Six Nations from 1722 onwards; alternatively referred to by the Endonym and exonym, endonym Haudenosaunee ( ; ) are an Iroquoian languages, Iroquoian-speaking Confederation#Ind ...

league, who had entered this region to secure hunting grounds for the beaver

fur trade The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal ecosystem, boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals h ...

. On that day in January, Mass was celebrated and the Gospel preached by the

Récollets The Franciscan Recollects () were a French reform branch of the Friars Minor, a Franciscan order. Denoted by their gray habits and pointed hoods, the Recollects devoted their lives to an extra emphasis on prayer, penance, and spiritual reflecti ...

, Gabriel Ribourde, Zenobius Membre, and

Louis Hennepin Louis Hennepin, OFM (born Antoine Hennepin; ; 12 May 1626 – 5 December 1704) was a Belgian Catholic priest and missionary best known for his activities in North America. A member of the Recollects, a minor branch of the Franciscans, he travel ...

.Jean-Roch Rioux, "Louis Hennepin," ''Dictionary of Canadian Biography,'' University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003
/ref> They finished the fort in early March, naming it "Fort Broken Heart" because of the difficulties, including desertions of troops, that they suffered during its construction. Dr.

Daniel Coxe Daniel Coxe III ( – 19 January 1730) was an English physician and governor of West Jersey from 1687 to 1688 and 1689 to 1692. Biography The Coxe family traced their lineage to a Daniel Coxe who lived in Somersetshire, England, in the 13th ce ...

wrote in 1719:

Monsieur LaSalle erected a fort in the year 1680, which he named ''Crève-coeur'', from the Grief which seiz'd him on the Loss of one of his chief trading Barks richly laden, and the Mutiny and villianous Intrigues of some of his Company, who first attempted to poyson and afterwards desert him.

La Salle also started building a 40-ton barque to replace ''

Le Griffon ''Le Griffon'' (, ''The Griffin'') was a sailing vessel built by French explorer and fur trader René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle in the Niagara area of New York in 1679. ''Le Griffon'' was constructed and launched at or near Cayuga I ...

'', which had disappeared several months before.Francis Parkman, "La Salle And The Discovery Of The Great West," ''American Heritage,'' April 1957, Volume 8, Issue 3.
/ref> On March 1, 1680, La Salle set off on foot for

Fort Frontenac Fort Frontenac was a French trading post and military fort built in July 1673 at the mouth of the Cataraqui River where the St. Lawrence River leaves Lake Ontario (at what is now the western end of the La Salle Causeway), in a location traditi ...

for supplies (including rigging for the ship), leaving

to hold Fort Crèvecoeur in Illinois.

Destruction

While on his return trip up the Illinois River, La Salle concluded that

Starved Rock Starved Rock State Park is a state park in the U.S. state of Illinois, characterized by the many canyons within its . Located just southeast of the village of Utica, in Deer Park Township, LaSalle County, Illinois, along the south bank of th ...

might provide an ideal location for another fortification and sent word downriver to Tonti regarding this idea. Following La Salle’s instructions, Henri de Tonti had left Fort Crèvecoeur on April 15, 1680 with Father Ribourde and two other men, to begin fortifying the settlement and Fort St. Louis at Starved Rock. The next day, the remaining seven men, led by

Martin Chartier Martin Chartier (1655 – Apr 1718) was a French-Canadian explorer and trader, carpenter and glove maker. He lived much of his life amongst the Shawnee Native Americans in what is now the United States. Chartier accompanied Louis Jolliet on two o ...

,Charles Augustus Hanna, ''The Wilderness Trail: Or, The Ventures and Adventures of the Pennsylvania Traders on the Allegheny Path, Volume 1,'' Putnam's sons, 1911
/ref> pillaged Fort Crèvecoeur of all provisions and ammunition, destroyed the fort, and headed back to Canada. On visiting the ruins of the fort a few days later, La Salle observed that someone had written on the side of the unfinished barque, "''Nous sommes tous sauvages''," We are all savages" The mutiny was probably caused by the men's fear of being killed by

raiding parties. They had invaded the region from their stronghold south of the Great Lakes, and were disrupting and attacking the local

communities at the height of the

. The men had demanded that La Salle return with them to Canada, which he was unwilling to do. In addition, one of the mutineers, shipbuilder Moyse Hillaret who was later captured, testified that "some f the menhad had no pay for three years," and alleged that La Salle had mistreated them.Harriette Simpson Arnow, ''Seedtime on the Cumberland,'' Michigan State University Press. (2013)
/ref>"Déclaration faite par devant le Sr. Duchesneau, Intendant en Canada, par Moyse Hillaret, charpentier de barque cy-devant au service du Sr. de la Salle, Aoust, 1680." cited i
Francis Parkman, ''La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West: France and England in North America.'' Part Third, vol. V-VI; Little, Brown, 1897.
/ref> In a deposition made before the Sieur du Chesneau,

Intendant of New France The Intendant of New France was an Public administration, administrative position in the French colony of New France. He controlled the colony's entire civil administration. He gave particular attention to settlement and economic development, and to ...

, dated 17 August 1680, Hillaret stated the mutineers were dissatisfied "because the said Sieur de La Salle wanted them to build

sleigh A sled, skid, sledge, or sleigh is a land vehicle that slides across a surface, usually of ice or snow. It is built with either a smooth underside or a separate body supported by two or more smooth, relatively narrow, longitudinal runners ...

s to draw his goods and personal effects as far as the village of the

)]." Joining Tonti at Starved Rock, two men who had been at Fort Crèvecoeur told him of its destruction. Tonti sent messengers to La Salle in Canada to report the events. Tonti returned to Fort Crèvecoeur to collect any tools not destroyed and moved them to the Kaskaskia Village of the Illinois near Starved Rock. The mutineers, assisted by some other men they recruited along the way, looted some of La Salle's possessions at

Michilimackinac Michilimackinac ( ) is derived from an Ottawa Ojibwe name for present-day Mackinac Island and the region around the Straits of Mackinac between Lake Huron and Lake Michigan.. Early settlers of North America applied the term to the entire region ...

and at

Fort Niagara Fort Niagara, also known as Old Fort Niagara, is a fortification originally built by New France to protect its interests in North America, specifically control of access between the Niagara River and Lake Ontario, the easternmost of the Great L ...

. They split into two groups, one of which went to Albany and the second to Fort Frontenac, reportedly with the intention of finding and killing La Salle. In August, La Salle recaptured some of the mutineers, however Chartier took refuge with a band of

Shawnee The Shawnee ( ) are a Native American people of the Northeastern Woodlands. Their language, Shawnee, is an Algonquian language. Their precontact homeland was likely centered in southern Ohio. In the 17th century, they dispersed through Ohi ...

Indians and went with them to Pennsylvania. On September 10, 1680, nearly six hundred

warriors, armed with guns, approached the Kaskaskia village. At a meeting with de Tonti in advance, representatives of both the Iroquois League and the

Illinois Confederation The Illinois Confederation, also referred to as the Illiniwek or Illini, were made up of a loosely organized group of 12 or 13 tribes who lived in the Mississippi River Valley. Eventually, member tribes occupied an area reaching from Lake Mich ...

accused him of treachery. Tonti tried to mediate their disagreements in order to delay the Iroquois attack until the women, children and old people could escape from the village, until he was wounded by an Iroquois warrior, who stabbed him with a knife. The Iroquois burned Kaskaskia village and built a fort on that site near Starved Rock. Tonti with his allies fled the area, heading for

La Baye La Baye was a small trading post established on the ''Baie des Puants'' (modern Green Bay, Wisconsin) in 1634 by Jean Nicolet, and is the same as the modern city of Green Bay, Wisconsin. Nicolas Perrot, who was sent by Father Claude-Jean Allouez, co ...

Fort St. Louis du Pimiteoui

In 1691, Tonti returned to the area and founded another fort. This fort is known variously as Fort St. Louis du Pimiteoui, Fort Pimiteoui, and Old Fort Peoria (''Pimiteoui'' – English: Fat Lake – was the name of what is now called, Peoria Lake, a stretch where the Illinois River significantly widens). It was intermittently a center of trade, particularly fur trade, and sometimes settlement throughout the colonial period, when control of it shifted from the French to the British in 1763 after the

French and Indian War The French and Indian War, 1754 to 1763, was a colonial conflict in North America between Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and Kingdom of France, France, along with their respective Native Americans in the United States, Native American ...

Disputed location

Before 1922, the county Superintendent of Woodford, Peoria, and Tazewell counties appointed a committee of nine people to make a study of the fort's location and present a public report. The committee excavated in several places, but were unable to agree on a report. The Tazewell County Historical Society reviewed evidence presented for the various sites, and voted to select the Lagron site near the river above the present depot in Wesley City. The State Historical Society had a committee to review evidence, but due to deaths of some members of the Committee, the composition of the committee changed before work could be completed. In 2022, articles disputed the location of Fort Crevecoeur, placing it south of Beardstown. These build on work cited in 2006.

Present-day park

The present-day village of Creve Coeur has a recreation of the fort located in a park in the Creve Coeur Nature Preserve. The 86.6-acre park was deeded to the village of Creve Coeur in 1976 and leased to the non-profit organization, Fort Crevecoeur, Inc. The non-profit recreated the fort based on original design and dimensions of the 1680 winter quarters. A marker was erected by the state historical society. C.H. Wagner donated to start the park. The Daughters of the American Revolution selected the location for the marker.

Flora

A small

glacial drift In geology, drift is a name for all sediment (clay, silt, sand, gravel, boulders) transported by a glacier and deposited directly by or from the ice, or by glacial meltwater. Drift is often subdivided into unstratified (unsorted) drift ( glac ...

hill prairie on the northwestern ridge contains over 50 prairie plant species including little bluestem, Indian grass, pale coneflower, and Canada milk vetch.

Recreation

The park has a museum, gift shop, pavilions, RV park and campground, playground, and hiking and biking trails. Five miles of biking trails were cleared by the Peoria Area Mountain Biking Association in 2021. The trail offers views of bluff hardwood woodlands, the Illinois River, and the Peoria skyline. The Fling at the Fort disc golf tournament is played in late Summer on temporary baskets. The tournament includes a hole that finishes in the middle of Fort Crevecoeur near the pillory. This is the only disc golf tournament in the Midwest that includes a hole that finishes in a fort. FortCreveCoeur 20230923 0005

References

External links

Fort Crevecoeur Park

Fort Crevecoeur Biking Trails

"The Site of Fort de Crèvecoeur", University of Illinois, 1925.
{{coord, 40, 38, 56, N, 89, 36, 24, W, type:landmark_source:googlemaps, display=title 1680 establishments in the French colonial empire Buildings and structures completed in 1680 1680 disestablishments Buildings and structures in Tazewell County, Illinois Crevecoeur Illinois River