Jacques Marquette

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Marquette, Jacques
Jacques Marquette, Jesuit priest, missionary, explorer (b at Laon, France 10 June 1637; d at the mouth of a river later called the Père Marquette R, Mich 18 May 1675). Contemporaries regarded Marquette as a gifted linguist who founded the St-Ignace Mission and opened the Illinois country to missionaries. In the popular mind he is inextricably bound to Louis JOLLIET and the discovery of the Mississippi.

Father Marquette was ordained on 7 Mar 1666 and sailed for New France, where he served at Sault Ste Marie and at the mission to the Huron and Ottawa at Chequamegon (SW shore, Lk Superior) before he founded the mission of St-Ignace on the Straits of Mackinac. Late in 1672 Marquette received orders from his superior, Father Dablon, to accompany Louis Jolliet. The expedition departed St-Ignace for the Mississippi on 17 May 1673 and reached 33°40´ N lat near the mouth of the Arkansas R by mid-July. On Sept 30 they returned to the mission of St-Francis-Xavier (DePere, Wis) by way of the Illinois R and Lk Michigan. Exhausted and ill from the Mississippi voyage, Marquette journeyed back to the Illinois late in 1674 and opened the mission of La Conception among the Kaskaskia (an Illinois tribe). By spring 1675 he was too ill to continue his work and departed for St-Ignace but died on the NE shore of Lk Michigan.

Author C.E. HEIDENREICH


Links to Other Sites
The mystery of Pere Marquette's final resting place
Archaeologists and history buffs offer their theories about where Father Jacques Marquette was buried. Includes interesting notes about the life of this intrepid French priest and explorer. From the Detroit News.

Louis Jolliet And Jacques Marquette: Discovering The Mississippi
This site recounts Jolliet and Marquette’s search for a water route to the Pacific Ocean. From Library and Archives Canada.

Map of Marquette and Jolliet's exploration of the Mississippi River
Follow the route of Marquette and Jolliet's 1673 journey down the Mississippi River. From The Illinois State Museum.

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