Old Fort Chartres on the Mississippi River — Inside the Classic

Old Fort Chartres on the Mississippi River

Prepared by the Staff of the Public Library of Fort Wayne and Allen County 1955

One of a historical series, this pamphlet is published under the direction of the governing Boards of the Public Library of Fort Wayne and Allen County.

BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE SCHOOL CITY OF FORT WAYNE

_Mrs. Sadie Fulk Roehrs_ _B.F. Geyer, President_ _Joseph E. Kramer, Secretary_ _W. Page Yarnelle, Treasurer_ _Willard Shambaugh_

PUBLIC LIBRARY BOARD FOR ALLEN COUNTY

The members of this Board include the members of the Board of Trustees of the School City of Fort Wayne (with the same officers) together with the following citizens chosen from Allen County outside the corporate City of Fort Wayne:

_James E. Graham_ _Mrs. Glenn Henderson_ _Mrs. Charles Reynolds_

The following publication, which narrates the fortunes of Fort Chartres in Illinois, originally appeared as chapter XII in THE ROMANCE OF FORGOTTEN TOWNS by John T. Faris. The publishers, Harper & Brothers, have graciously granted permission to reprint the chapter.

The Boards and the Staff of the Public Library of Fort Wayne and Allen County present this account with the feeling that it is an important part of our heritage and with the hope that it will be interesting and informative to Library patrons.

More than two centuries ago there was an astonishing bit of feudal France on the banks of the Mississippi River. It was called Fort Chartres by those who chose the location near the southern extremity of the fertile American Bottom, which extends from a point nearly opposite the mouth of the Mississippi River nearly to Chester.

On the Bottom there were a number of French villages noted both for the military prowess of the residents and for the sleepy, Old World life of these residents among the Indians, with whom they were on friendly terms.

The present Fort Chartres was occupied in 1720 by Philippe François de Renault, the French director-general of mining operations, who brought with him up the river for the purpose two hundred white men and five hundred Santo Domingo negroes, thus introducing slavery in what became Illinois. The purpose of the fort was to protect against the Spaniards the servants of John Law’s famous Company of the Indies, whose startling scheme for curing the financial ills of France was later known as the Mississippi Bubble. Law’s plan was to set up a bank to manage the royal revenue and to issue notes backed by landed security. In selling shares in his Company of the Indies, which was to accomplish financial wonders, “large engravings were distributed in France, representing the arrival of the French at the Mississippi river, and savages with their squaws rushing to meet the new arrivals with evident respect and admiration.”

Promises of great dividends from mountains of gold and silver, lead, copper, and quicksilver were made. Shares rose rapidly and soon were selling for 20,000 francs. For three months the French people believed in Law. Then the Mississippi Bubble burst and there was sorrow in the homeland.

In the meantime the work at Fort Chartres was continued. Within the stockade of wood, which had earth between the palisades for purposes of strength, were received many wandering savages who brought their furs for barter. The French residents felt secure in the presence of their protection.

Various expeditions were sent out against the Indians. One of these went out against the Chickasaw Indians, on the Arkansas River. Disaster overtook the company of French soldiers, and fifteen were captured and put to death with savage barbarity.

In 1753 the fort was in such bad condition that it was decided to build anew, this time of stone, brought from the bluff. When completed, the new structure was one of the strongest forts ever built in America.

An English traveler who visited the new fort in 1765, when the British were in control, told of finding walls two feet two inches thick, pierced with loopholes at regular distances, and with two portholes for cannon in the faces, and two in the flanks of each bastion. There was a ditch, but this had not been completed. The entrance was a handsome rustic gate. Within the fort he found the houses of the commander and of the commissary, the magazine for stores, and the quarters of the soldiers. There were also a powder magazine, a bunk house, and a prison.

The visitor told how the bank of the Mississippi was continually falling in, and so was threatening the fort. In the effort to control the destructive current a sand bank had been built to turn it from its course; the sand bank had become an island, covered by willows. Yet it was realized that the destruction of the fort was sure.