Some cool American League Central images:
The Man with the Iron Hand
Image by guano
Henry de Tonti stands at the high end of Tonti Creek,
at Starved Rock State Park, Illinois. I took the creek photo,
and the Tonti portrait was painted by Ben Brantly in 1995.
Starved Rock park is rich with the footprints of Henri de Tonti. Tonti Canyon is narrow with two 80 foot waterfalls. There is a back canyon with 3 more waterfalls that only flow with snow melt or rain run off. It’s a beautiful place. Tonti canyon connects to LaSalle Canyon, which boasts the largest water flow in it’s series of cascades and waterfalls.
When I die, my ashes will be scattered along the high bluff trail atop LaSalle and Tonti canyons. I am attaching some bits of historical information about Henri de Tonti, the Man with the Iron Hand.
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Henri de Tonty (also spelled Tonti) born 1650, Gaeta, Italy, died September 1704, Fort Louis, Louisiana (now in Alabama).
Among the greatest of the dauntless men who made possible the exploration and settlement of the Mississippi Basin, there is one forgotten man. He was a simple sturdy soldier, blunt and laconic in his speech or his reports, over-shadowed by his brilliant chief — La Salle — whose trusted lieutenant, loyal friend and devoted companion he was. The Forest Preserve District proposes to create a lake and name it for Henry de Tonty, Sieur and Chevalier, Governor of Fort St. Louis in the Province of the Illinois — The Man with the Iron Hand.
Lorenzo Tonty, his father, was a banker in Naples, Italy. After a bloody revolt in 1647, he escaped to Paris where Cardinal Mazarin, also an Italian, had succeeded Cardinal Richelieu as prime minister for Louis XIV. It was Lorenzo Tonty who suggested to Mazarin a system of life insurance which would replenish the royal treasury, and the name
"tontine" for such a policy is in your dictionary.
Henry, or Henri Tonti, was born in 1650. In 1668-69, Henri served in the French army as a cadet. During the following four years he was a midshipman at Marseilles and Toulon, participating in seven campaigns at sea, four in warships and three in galleys. Sent to Sicily, he was made captain-lieutenant to the maitre de camp at Messina.
At Libisso, during a Spanish attack, his right hand was shot away by a grenade and he was taken prisoner. Conducted to Metasse, he was detained there six months, then exchanged for the governor’s son. In place of his missing left hand, he wore an iron hook, covered by a glove. His iron hand was feared by the Indians as "big medicine". In 1678 he was engaged as LaSalle’s lieutenant and they sailed for Quebec .
LaSalle, after talking with Joliet who had explored part of the Mississippi with Father Marquette, determined to find out if it was the long-sought route to China and India. In 1679, they started out in canoes, accompanied by three Recollects (Franciscans) — Fathers Ribourdi, Membre and Hennepin — who as LaSalle extended dominions of the king of France, would "bring the inhabitants to a knowledge of the Christian religion".
From the east shore of Lake Michigan they went up the St. Joseph River, over into the Kankakee and, in 1680, arrived at Peoria where they built Fort Crevecoeur. Father Hennepin was sent to explore the upper Mississippi. LaSalle went back to Montreal by way of the Chicago Portage, and Tonty, after surveying the site for Fort St. Louis on Starved Rock, planned to meet him at Mackinac.
After Tonty left, Fort Crevecoeur was destroyed, Father Rihourdi was killed by a band of Kickapoos, and Tonty narrowly escaped death from an Iroquois war party. Alarmed by the prospect of the French supplying arms and ammunition to the Illinois, the Iroquois decided to make war. They struck on September 10, 1680. At first Tonty tried to buy them off with necklaces, but received only a glancing blow from a knife for his pains. Bravely persevering and with the assistance of an Onondaga chief named Agonstot, he gave them to understand that the Illinois were under the protection of the king of France and persuaded them to call off their attack. Nevertheless, the Iroquois insisted that Tonty and his men immediately leave the Illinois country.
Hoping to reach Michilimackinac before winter set in, Tonty and his party arrived early in October at the site of the present city of Chicago, where they rediscovered the portage taken by Louis Jolliet and Father Marquette seven years before. From here they headed for Baie des Puants (Green Bay). While proceeding by canoe on Lac des Illinois (Lake Michigan), they were wrecked on November 1, 1680. During the next two weeks they lived on wild garlic, grubbed up from under the snow. They ate decayed pumpkins in an abandoned Potawatomi village. They ate the thongs which fastened the lodge poles. They ate the skins and hoofs of a deer killed by wolves, and they chewed a buffalo-hide shield "which gave them bellyaches".
Ultimately they arrived at a Potawatomi settlement where Tonty remained for the winter while his chaplain went on to the Jesuit mission of St Francis Xavier.
In 1682, LaSalle and Tonty reached the mouth of the Mississippi. LaSalle then returned to France to organize the expedition which finally landed at Matagorda Bay, Texas. After his ship was wrecked and most of the party had died or been killed, he was assassinated by his own men on a desperate overland trip to reach Tonty. Meanwhile, Tonty had built Fort St. Louis, rebuilt Fort Crevecoeur, and defeated the terrible Iroquois with a confederation of the Illinois and several other tribes.
In 1686 and 1689, with Father Membre, he made fruitless trips down the Mississippi to find his boss. In 1700 he was replaced as governor of Fort St. Louis where he had maintained the supremacy of the French for 20 years and grimly endured neglect and injustice from his king. He was ordered to Biloxi, where de’Iberville had established a settlement. In 1704, at a new colony on the Mobile River, a supply vessel from Havana brought yellow fever to Fort Biloxi. Tonti nursed the sick and buried the dead. In September, Tonti also died of yellow fever at Fort Louis-de-la-Louisiane.
According to local lore, de Tonti’s “remains were laid to everlasting rest in an unknown grave near Mobile River, and not far from the monument erected in 1902 to commemorate the site of old Mobile.”
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some quotes from the "Relation of Henri de Tonty Concerning the Explorations of La Salle from 1678 to 1683"
“…at the Coroa village, Indian corn comes to maturity in forty days. July, 1862. Fortunately I found at the lakeside an Outagamie, who sold me his canoe. Finding no one at the river of the Miamis, I made my way to Michilimakinak (previously spelled "Missilimakinak), which I reached on the 22nd of July. M. de La Salle, recovering from his illness, which had lasted forty days, sent me orders to await him, and, being arrived at Michili- makinak, decided to return to "
"France in order to give an account at Court of his Tonty returns discovery. He sent me back to build a fort at the portage of the Illinois River, for to the Illinois the purpose of protecting the village of the Shawanoes, whom he had drawn to him to build a fort and had joined with the Miamis. Being arrived, I found that the Shawanoes had gone hunting and that the Miamis were preparing for flight, as they had been told that the Iroquois were coming to devour them. I found that all our people were dispersed; and, as I had few men, I resolved to pass the winter on the Illinois River, hoping to be able to collect my men in the spring. Meanwhile, as M. de La Salle found himself unwell he resolved not to return to France, but to send his dispatches by the Reverend Father Zenoble."
"On the 30th of December he joined me; and during the winter we built upon an impregnable rock Fort St. Louis, to which M. de La Salle induced the Shawanoes Fort St. to come. The Miamis united themselves with him, and later the Illinois, to whom, Louis in the month of March, 1683, I made a journey of more than a hundred leagues across the prairies. After I had made them great presents in behalf of M. de La Salle, whom they call their Father, they gave me their word that they would join us."
"I will not weary you, Sir, with all the difficulties we encountered in collecting La Salle’s these tribes, whose minds were preoccupied with the evil reports which the French enemies of M. de La Salle had spread among them. Then, after M. de La Salle enemies had placed his fort in a state of defense, he resolved to return to France. Leaving me in command, he set out in the month of August, 1683, taking with him two Shawanoes."
"Fourteen leagues from the fort, he met the Chevalier de Baugy, who brought him a letter from M. de La Barre, Governor General of Canada, ordering him to return to give an account of his discovery. This Chevalier de Baugy reached the
Fort with letters from M. de La Salle, who advised me to receive him well and to live with."
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Henry de Tonty – 1699
by Rose Jo Boylan, Metro East Journal, July 6, 1966 (4th in a Series)
If you know one date in the history of Metro-East, it is most likely to be 1699.
That was the year when three priests from the Seminary of the Foreign Missions of Quebec, accompanied by lay employees, established themselves at a permanent settlement in the Cahokia-Tamaroa village. They acted under the guidance and protection of Henry de Tonty, merchant prince of the wilderness, who literally ruled the Illinois country "with an it-on hand." (He was a war veteran amputee.)
Bishop J. B. St. Vallier of Quebec, under date of July 14, 1698, assigned the Quebec Seminary priests to establish missions along the Mississippi River, from the Illinois to the Arkansas. He expressly directed them to set up residence among the Tamaroas, saying, “The location . . . is . . . the Key and necessary passageway to the nation’s beyond.”
The three priests so detailed were Father Francois Jolliet de Montigny, Father Antoine Davion, and Father Jean Francois Buisson de St. Cosme.
Passing through Mackinac, they met Tonty, who decided that he would help start the good work and handle his business on the lower river at the same time. Tonty knew the Cahokia-Tamaroa homeland from earlier trips, beginning as aide to the late great Robert Cavelier de La Salle.
They took the usual route: Lake Michigan, the Chicago portage, the Illinois river. They visited Illinois villages along the river and enjoyed civilized talk with the Jesuit fathers working among them. One tribe had a woman chief.
The Quebec party included a lay brother and 11 employees, two of them blacksmiths, in three canoes. Tonty had his own canoe and crew. Besides these official parties, five young men joined for the ride.
They entered the Mississippi on Dec. 6, 1698. That evening they camped with the Cahokias. The tribe was then living midway between Alton and East St. Louis, to use modern terms. This would place them not too far from the Cahokia mounds.
The Cahokias were mourning a recent defeat by the Shawnees and Chickasaws. When they saw their old friend Tonty, they began to weep. The visitors consoled them with presents. At noon next day the travelers reached the riverside camp of the Tamaroas on an island near the mouth of Cahokia Creek. The tribe also had another village on an upland prairie.
The Tamaroa chief came to the waterfront to welcome them. Next day, escorted by Tonty, the missionaries visited the chief in his cabin. The women and youths were so curious that they broke away a part of the cabin wall to see the black gowns.
The site was a good one. The Cahokias and Tamaroas could be combined into a flourishing mission. Perhaps their friends to the South, the Metchigamies, would also be included.
The party continued onward to the mouth of the Arkansas. Tonty was their mainstay all the way, Wherever they went he eased the missionaries’ way with the tribes who knew and trusted him.
"Now, you pray and listen to the blackrobes." He told them. Tonty of the Iron Hand was a shrewd businessman, a brave soldier and a devout Christian, all in one.
All along the way they ate off the land-shooting so many bears, deer and turkeys that they did not attempt to fire at the herds of "oxen" (buffalo). On the return up river, Father St. Cosme stayed at the Cahokia-Tamaroa village. By mid-May his rectory was finished.
The Cahokias had moved to the combined village which now numbered two thousand persons in 300 cabins. In the third week of May, the first chapel was completed. A cross was raised to the hymn, "Vexilla Regis Prodeun"- "The banners of the king advance."
Henry de Tonty wrote to Bishop St. Vallier: "As for the Illinois missions, may God help many of the decisions (concerning their future) be to His honor and glory forever."
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Henri de Tonti, soldier, was associated with René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, qv in the fur trade and in exploration of the Great Lakes region and the Mississippi Valley. He is linked to Texas history through his search for La Salle’s Gulf Coast colony.
Tonti wrote an account of his 1689 expedition, which entered eastern Texas through the Caddoan tribes, recounting both
the journey’s hardships and his observations that bespoke great promise for the region.
Tonti was born in 1649 or 1650, probably in Gaeta, Italy, the son of Lorenzo de Tonti and Isabelle di Lietto. Lorenzo de Tonti, a former governor of Gaeta and a financier of considerable note, invented a form of life insurance known as the tontine. Because of his involvement in an unsuccessful revolt against the Spanish viceroy in Naples, Lorenzo sought asylum in France.
The family arrived in Paris about 1650-either shortly after or just prior to Henri’s birth. Henri de Tonti entered the French army in 1668 as a cadet and later served in the French Navy. After losing his right hand in a grenade explosion at Labisso during the Sicilian wars, he substituted a metal hook, over which he customarily wore a glove, and thus became known as "Iron Hand." In July 1678 Tonti went with La Salle to Canada. La Salle, quickly recognizing that "his energy and address make him equal to anything," soon after his arrival was planning to send him to establish a fort near Niagara Falls.
In March 1680 La Salle left Tonti to hold Fort Crèvecoeur (Illinois), while he himself returned to Fort Frontenac on Lake Ontario. In the spring of 1682 Tonti accompanied La Salle on his descent of the Mississippi River and explored one of the branches at its mouth. His letters and memoirs of this and other expeditions comprise a body of valuable source material on La Salle and Mississippi Valley exploration.
When La Salle sailed for France in 1683 to advance his plan for planting a colony on the lower Mississippi, Tonti was left in command of Fort Saint-Louis on the Illinois River. Early in 1686, after learning that La Salle had sailed from France to seek the Mississippi from the Gulf of Mexico, he voyaged down the river hoping to join him and support his undertaking. Failing to find La Salle, he searched the Gulf Coast twenty to thirty leagues in either direction, then returned to the mouth of the Arkansas River, where he left several men to establish a trading post.
It was of this undertaking that Alonso De Leónqv heard through an Indian messenger following his 1689 Texas entrada and his discovery of the ruins of La Salle’s fort on Garcitas Creek in the area of present-day Victoria County. During most of 1687 Tonti was involved in wars with the Iroquois and the English. In the spring of 1688 he returned to Fort Saint-Louis on the Illinois to find five members of La Salle’s company-including La Salle’s brother, Abbé Jean Cavelierqv-who had traveled from the Texas settlement.
Abbé Cavelier, wishing to obtain a loan from his brother’s account to pay for passage to France, concealed from Tonti the fact that La Salle already was dead. Had he revealed the truth, Tonti might have had time to rescue the twenty-five men, women, and children La Salle had left at Fort St. Louisqv of Texas. When he learned the truth ten months later, he had no way of knowing that it was too late to save those in the meager settlement on the Gulf. First sending Jean Couture among the East Texas Indians to seek news of any survivors, Tonti himself started for the Caddoan tribes in October 1689.
Traveling up the Red River by canoe, he reached the Kadohadacho villages near the northeastern corner of the present state of Texas in March 1690. It was of this journey that Alonso De Leon heard later that year while among the Hasinai, and of which Domingo Terán de los Ríosqv was told while encamped on the Colorado River in July 1691.
From the Kadohadacho Tonti heard that seven Frenchmen remained among the Nabedache of the Hasinai confederacy, eighty leagues away. Deserted by most of his companions, he resumed his journey in April 1690. When he approached the Nabedache village, he learned of the Spanish expedition that was soon to establish San Francisco de los Tejas Mission among the Nabedache of the Hasinai confederacy. The Indians refused him guides to look for La Salle’s remnants or to take him to Fort St. Louis, which he reckoned to be eighty leagues distant.
With no course left open but to withdraw, Tonti returned eastward through flooded country, constantly facing starvation and losing the notes he had made during the journey. Despite such hardships Tonti saw great possibilities in the country he had visited for the harvest of peltry, silk production, lead mining, and a thriving commerce that would supply the Caribbean islands with lumber and agricultural products.
Early in 1700 Tonti journeyed down the Mississippi to make contact with Pierre Le Moyne, Sieur d’Iberville, who the previous year had begun the Louisiana colony. Driven by the failure of his commercial enterprises in the north, Tonti eventually joined Iberville’s colony and in 1702 was chosen by Iberville as Indian agent with the initial assignment of making peace between the Choctaw and the Chickasaw.
Tonti continued to serve the colony under Iberville’s brother, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, in reconciling Indian nations and leading punitive expeditions. In August 1704 Tonti contracted yellow fever. He died at Fort Louis de la Louisiane (Old Mobile, twenty-six miles up the Mobile River from the present city) on September 4, 1704.
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Tonti or Tonty, Henri de [both: äNrE’ du tôNtE’] c. 1650–1704, French explorer in North America, b. Italy. Serving in the French army, he lost a hand in battle; his skillful use of the appliance with which the hand was replaced was later to lead Native Americans to believe him possessed of special powers.
In 1678, Tonti accompanied the explorer La Salle to Canada as his lieutenant and was dispatched to Niagara where, among hostile Native Americans, he constructed the Griffon, the first sailboat to ply the Great Lakes W of Ontario. Tonti preceded La Salle westward to Detroit and penetrated into the country of the Illinois, whom he won over to the French interest. In 1680, left by La Salle at Starved Rock to construct a fort, he was faced by desertion of his men and the hostility of the Native Americans and was forced to winter in Wisconsin.
Meeting La Salle at Mackinac the following year, he traveled with him down the Mississippi to its mouth; they proclaimed the entire Mississippi watershed the domain of France. Tonti returned alone to the Illinois River, where he was rejoined by La Salle, and together they completed (1682–83) Fort St. Louis at Starved Rock. When La Salle returned to France, Tonti was left in charge of the fort. La Salle did not return, for he failed in his attempt to find the mouth of the Mississippi by sea.
Having no word, Tonti in 1686 descended the river in a hopeless search for La Salle. The following year he took part with a band of Illinois in the raid by the marquis de Denonville against the Iroquois. Tonti remained at Fort St. Louis, developing the new empire, until 1700, when he joined Iberville’s colony at the mouth of the Mississippi. Pierre Margry included Tonti’s account in Mémoires et documents pour servir à l’histoire des origines francaises des pays d’outre-mer (6 vol., 1879–1888; tr. Relation of Henri de Tonty, 1898).
See J. C. Parish, The Man with the Iron Hand (1913); C. B. Reed, Masters of the
Wilderness (1914); E. R. Murphy, Henry de Tonty, Fur Trader of the Mississippi
(1941).
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The following is the sad account of Henri’s younger brother, Pierre Alphonse de Tonty
Pierre Alphonse de Tonty was born in 1659 to Laurent and Angelique (de Liette) de Tonty. He had an older brother, Henri, who was part of La Salle’s expedition to the Mississippi. Henri was known to the Native Americans as "the man with the iron hand" due to an artificial hand.
On February 17, 1689, Tonty married Marianne de Belestre, daughter of Picote de Belestre (not sure which one – we know of two: one born in 1677, and his son who was born after 1710).
Some time after 1689 and before 1701, Tonty married Marianne la Marque, daughter of Francois la Marque. This was Marianne’s third marriage. On May 3, 1669, Marianne’s first husband, J.B. Nolan, died. Her second husband was Antoine de Fresnel (Fruel?) de Pipadiere.
Tonty was the Captain of Cadillac’s party which founded Fort Ponchratrain du Detroit in 1701. He was a loyal, trusted officer.
In 1703, Tonty admitted to a plot with the Jesuits of Michilimackinac to establish a new post in St. Joseph on Lake Michigan. He was pardoned by Cadillac.
In 1704, Cadillac while was in Quebec, Tonty acted (unofficially) as Commandant. At thie time, Tonty was caught embezzling company goods, along with a company commissioner, for illegal fur trade. He was removed from Fort Ponchartrain, but was later pardoned by Cadillac and returned. Tonty continued to plot against his former friend with some Native Americans.
In July 1717, Tonty was named commandant of Fort Ponchartrain. Tonty was personally responsible for all expenses at the fort, including salaries for a missionary, surgeon, soldiers and interpreters, presents for Native Americans, and clothing. He was to use the profits from trade to pay these expenses. He was neither good with finances, nor business, however, and before long, he found himself with a debt he couldn’t pay off.
His solution was to farm out the trade business to two men: Francois la Marque (his father-in-law?) and Louis Gastineau. The men took on three partners of their own: Thierry, Nolan, and Gouin. The fee they paid Tonty covered fort expenses.
The new trade "bosses" weren’t much better than Tonty and while he was commandant, annual trade "fairs" which offered twenty or more stores in Cadillac’s day, never grew above two stores — and those were owned by the same person. The trade business declined enough that community and tribal leaders filed complaints to Quebec. Tonty was called to Quebec to answer the complaints in the winter of 1721-22. Sieur de Belestre maintained the fort in his absence.
Tonty’s mistakes didn’t end there. It seems that Cadillac had given certain rights to Francois La Marque, one of the men to whom Tonty sold the trading business. For unknown reasons, Tonty didn’t honor these rights, and thus La Marque filed a compplaint with officials at Quebec. In 1724, Tonty was called to Quebec to answer to these new charges.
In 1727, Tonty went to Qeubec to welcome the new Governor of New France, Marquis de Beauharnois. He also asked the new governor for help in improvements to Fort Ponchartrain. The governor was not pleased with Tonty. His attitude worsened when Hurons settled near the fort threatened to leave if Tonty wasn’t replaced. Tonty was relived of duty effective spring 1728. He died before that date (November 10, 1727).
———- Tonti Tales from the Indian wars —————–
In the Spring of 1680, the French under La Salle built Ft. Crevecoeur in central Illinois near a Peoria village located on Lake Peoria. Henri de Tonti was put in charge of the small garrison. Tonti was a highly capable French officer who was noted for having a iron-hand. Ft. Crevecoeur suffering from shortages and desertion was soon abandoned. LaSalle ordered Tonti to relocate on the rocky promontory of Starved Rock, overlooking the Illinois River. At this time, September of 1680, Tonti only had five men (two were priests) and no construction had begun at this location.
On September 18, 1680, the Iroquois made their approach on the Illini at their village near Starved Rock, Illinois. Their war party consisted of 500-600 Iroquois and 100 Shawnee warriors. Most if not all of these were armed with flintlock muskets. The "grand Kaskaskia village" at Starved Rock had approximately 500 warriors but only 100 had muskets and the rest bows and arrows. Another 500 warriors from the village were away on a hunt.
Henri de Tonti attempted to negotiate, but it was reported that he was stabbed and nearly killed. Another source says Tonti was able to suspend hostilities for one day. All the Illini warriors could do was to cover the retreat so their women and children could flee down the Illinois river, eventually making it to near its mouth on the Mississippi (just above present day St. Louis, Mo.) After slaughtering many Illini warriors, the Iroquois burned the village, the crops of corn and even desecrated the burial grounds. Then the Iroquois pursued the Illini to the mouth of the Illinois river where the non-combatants had fled.
Here tribes of the Illini congregated for mutual defense. The Iroquois cleverly waited for the Illini tribes to disperse. It is reported that the Peoria tribe crossed over into Missouri. The Kaskaskia and Cahokia went up the Mississippi. The Moingwena went downstream on the Mississippi. But the Tamaroa stayed in the area. It was on the Tamaroa that the Iroquois attacked without mercy. 700 women and children were captured. About 350 of these were slow roasted at the stake, while another 350 were taken as slaves. In all, approximately 1,200 Illini were killed or taken captive. The Iroquois casualties were very light perhaps as few as 30 warriors killed but no reliable estimate is known.
At the abandoned Ft. Crevecoeur, the French found burnt heads and bodies of Illini stuck on skewers (The remains of captives roasted alive by the Iroquois.)
Months later in Feb. 1681, a war party of 100 Kaskaskia warriors attempted to intercept these Iroquois on their return back home. This was in the Wabash valley, of Ohio. They made several valiant attacks, the Iroquois sustaining heavy causalities, but each time they were beaten off.
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The French were determined to build a strong alliance of tribes to counter the attacks by the Iroquois. In Dec., 1682 they began building a fort at the summit of Starved Rock (near the former location of the "Grand Kaskaskia village" that was destroyed in 1681).
They named this fort, Fort St. Louis des Illinois [not to be confused with the village of St. Louis on the Mississippi, founded by Pierre Laclede in 1764 OR a later fort (Ft. St. Louis, II) constructed at Peoria in 1691. LaSalle was even successful in getting 200 lodges of Shawnee to not only make peace with the Illini, but to reside at the environs of Ft. St. Louis.
The closely related Miami tribe accepted the invitation as well. The new "La Salle Confederacy" consisted of 3,880 warriors (about 20,000 people altogether counting men, women, and children). The break out of warriors of the various groups were: 1,200 Illini; 200 Shawnee; 1,300 Miami (on the Vermilion River) ; 500 Wea (a subtribe of the Miami); 150 Piankaswaw (another subtribe of Miami); and 530 warriors of the Pepikokia, Kilatica, and Ouabona tribes (probably subtribes of the Miami).
The success of forming this new Confederacy of tribes not only goes to LaSalle but also to Henri de Tonti who personally traveled to each of these groups and convinced each of them the common need for protection.
On March 30, 1684, the Iroquois attacked Ft. St. Louis des Illinois after completely surrounding it. The siege lasted for a week but the Iroquois were unable to penetrate its defenses.
April 27, 1687, Tonti leads a combined Illini, Shawnee, French forces (Tonti’s western contingent consisted of 423 Indian warriors, and 376 French) journey to Niagara Falls to take part in a grand 2,132 man French attack on the Iroquois. The campaign which burned two Seneca villages had mixed results. Tonti forces fought exceptionally well and lost only eight men.
From 1685 to 1689 the "La Salle Confederacy" gradually disintegrates as the tribes move away from Starved Rock.
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Mary Pinchot Meyer
Image by dbking
Source: Wikipedia…
Mary Pinchot Meyer (October 14 1920, – October 12, 1964), was a Washington DC socialite, painter, former wife of CIA official Cord Meyer and close friend of US president John F. Kennedy who was noted for her great beauty and social skills.
Meyer’s murder two days before her 44th birthday in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington D.C. during the fall of 1964 would later stir speculation relating to Kennedy’s presidency and assassination. Nina Burleigh in her 1998 biography wrote, "Mary Meyer was an enigmatic woman in life, and in death her real personality lurks just out of view."
Mary Pinchot was the daughter of Amos Pinchot, a wealthy lawyer and a founder of the Progressive party who had helped fund the socialist magazine "The Masses". Her mother was Pinchot’s second wife Ruth, a journalist who worked for magazines such as "The Nation" and "The New Republic". Mary was raised at the family’s Grey Towers home in Milford, Pennsylvania where as a child she met left-wing intellectuals such as Mabel Dodge, Louis Brandeis, Robert M. La Follette, Sr. and Harold L. Ickes. Mary attended Brearley School and Vassar College, where she became interested in communism. She dated William Attwood in 1938 and while with him at a dance held at Choate Rosemary Hall she first met John F. Kennedy.
She left Vassar and became a journalist, writing for the United Press and Mademoiselle. As a pacifist and member of the American Labor Party she came under scrutiny by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Marriage with Cord Meyer
Mary met Cord Meyer in 1944 when he was a US Marine Corps lieutenant who had lost his left eye because of shrapnel injuries received in combat. The two had similar pacifist views and beliefs in world government and married on 19 April 1945. That spring they both attended the UN Conference on International Organization in San Francisco, during which the United Nations was founded, Cord as an aide of Harold Stassen and Mary as a reporter for a newspaper syndication service. She later worked for a time as an editor for Atlantic Monthly. Their eldest child Quentin was born in late 1945, followed by Michael in 1947, after which Mary became a housewife although she attended classes at the Art Students League of New York.
Cord Meyer became president of the United World Federalists in May 1947 and its membership doubled. Albert Einstein was an enthusiastic supporter and fundraiser. Mary Meyer wrote for the organization’s journal. In 1950 their third child Mark was born and they moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Meanwhile her husband began to re-evaluate his notions of world government as members of the American Communist Party infiltrated the international organizations he had founded. It is unknown when he first began secretly working with the Central Intelligence Agency but in 1951 Allen Dulles approached Cord Meyer, he became an employee of the CIA and was soon a "principal operative" of Operation Mockingbird, a covert operation meant to sway the print and broadcast media. Mary may also have done some work for the CIA during this time but her tendency towards spur-of-the-moment love affairs reportedly made the agency wary of her.
With her husband’s CIA appointment they moved to Washington D.C. and became highly visible members of Georgetown society. Their friends and acquaintances included Joseph Alsop, Katharine Graham, Clark Clifford and Washington Post reporter James Truitt along with his wife, noted artist Anne Truitt. Their social circle also included CIA-affiliated people such as Richard M. Bissell, Jr., high ranking counter-intelligence official James Angleton and Mary and Frank Wisner, Meyer’s boss at CIA. In 1953 Senator Joseph McCarthy publicly accused Cord Meyer of being a communist and the FBI was reported to have looked into Mary’s political past. Allen Dulles and Frank Wisner aggressively defended Meyer and he remained with the CIA. However, by early 1954 Mary’s husband became unhappy with his CIA career and used contacts from his covert operations in Operation Mockingbird to approach several New York publishers for a job but was rebuffed. During the summer of 1954 John F. Kennedy and his wife Jackie Kennedy bought a house not far from where the Meyers lived, Mary and Jackie became friends and "they went on walks together." By the end of 1954 Cord Meyer was still with the CIA and often in Europe, running Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty and managing millions of dollars of US government funds worldwide to support progressive-seeming foundations and organizations.
One of Mary’s close friends and classmates from Vassar was Cicely d’Autremont, who married James Angleton. In 1955 Meyer’s sister Antoinette (Tony) married Ben Bradlee of The Washington Post. On 18 December 1956 the Meyers’ middle son Michael was hit by a car near their house and killed at the age of nine. Although this tragedy brought Mary and Cord closer together for a time, Mary filed for divorce in 1958. Her divorce petition alleged "extreme cruelty, mental in nature, which seriously injured her health, destroyed her happiness, rendered further cohabitation unendurable and compelled the parties to separate."
Friendship with JFK
Mary and her two surviving sons remained in the family home. She began painting again in a converted garage studio at the home of her sister Tony and her husband Ben Bradlee. She also started a close relationship with abstract-minimalist painter Kenneth Noland and grew a friendship with Robert Kennedy who had moved into his brother’s house after John and Jackie Kennedy left in 1960. Nina Burleigh in her book "A Very Private Woman" writes that after the divorce Meyer became "a well-bred ingenue out looking for fun and getting in trouble along the way." "Mary was bad," a friend recalled.
Burleigh claims James Angleton tapped Mary Meyer’s telephone after she left her husband. Meanwhile Angleton often visited the family home and took her sons on fishing outings. Mary visited John F. Kennedy at the White House in October 1961 and their relationship became intimate. Mary told Ann and James Truitt she was keeping a diary.
In 1983 former Harvard University psychology professor Timothy Leary claimed that in the spring of 1962 Meyer, who according to her biographer Burleigh "wore manners and charm like a second skin", told him she was taking part in a plan to avert worldwide nuclear war by convincing powerful male members of the Washington establishment to take mind-altering drugs, which would presumably lead them to conclude the Cold War was meaningless. Meyer said she had shared in this plan with at least seven other Washington socialite friends who held similar political views and were trying to supply LSD to a small circle of high ranking government officials (however, Leary’s account is disputed by several writers, who point out that he wrote many other autobiographical books between 1962 and 1983 without ever mentioning her).
Mary Meyer and John F Kennedy reportedly had "about 30 trysts" and at least one author has claimed she brought marijuana or LSD to almost all of these meetings. In January 1963 Philip Graham disclosed the Kennedy-Meyer affair to a meeting of newspaper editors but his claim was not reported by the news media. Leary later claimed Mary influenced Kennedy’s "views on nuclear disarmament and rapprochement with Cuba." In an interview with Nina Burleigh, Kennedy aide Meyer Feldman said, "I think he might have thought more of her than some of the other women and discussed things that were on his mind, not just social gossip." Burleigh wrote, "Mary might actually have been a force for peace during some of the most frightening years of the cold war…"
In his biography Flashbacks Leary claimed he had a call from Mary soon after the Kennedy assassination during which she sobbed and said, "They couldn’t control him any more. He was changing too fast. He was learning too much… They’ll cover everything up. I gotta come see you. I’m scared. I’m afraid." During the summer of 1964 Meyer reportedly told friends she thought someone had gotten into her house while she was not there and later told a friend from Vasser, historian Elizabeth Eisenstein, "she thought she had seen somebody leaving as she walked in."
Murder
On 12 October 1964, eleven months after John F. Kennedy’s assassination and two weeks after the Warren Commission report was made public, Mary finished a painting and went for a walk along the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal towpath in Georgetown. Mechanic Henry Wiggins was trying to fix a car on Canal Road and heard a woman cry out, "Someone help me, someone help me." Wiggins heard two gunshots and ran to a low wall looking upon the path where he saw "a black man in a light jacket, dark slacks, and a dark cap standing over the body of a white woman."
Meyer’s body had two bullet wounds, one at the back of the head and another in her heart. An FBI forensics expert later said “dark haloes on the skin around both entry wounds suggested they had been fired at close-range, possibly point-blank”.
Minutes later a disheveled, soaking wet African-American man named Raymond Crump was arrested near the murder scene. No gun was ever found and Crump was never linked to any gun of the type used to murder Mary Meyer. Newspaper reports described her former husband only as either an author or government official and did not mention Kennedy, although many journalists apparently were aware of Meyer’s past marriage to a high ranking CIA official and her friendship with Kennedy.
When Crump came to trial, judge Howard Corcoran ruled Mary Meyer’s private life could not be disclosed in the courtroom. Corcoran had recently been appointed by president Lyndon Baines Johnson. Mary’s background was also kept from Dovey Roundtree, Crump’s lawyer, who later recalled she could find out almost nothing about the murder victim: "It was as if she existed only on the towpath on the day she was murdered." Crump was acquitted of all charges on 29 July 1965 and the murder remains unsolved (Crump went on to what has been described as a "horrific" life of crime).
Diary
In March 1976 James Truitt told the National Enquirer Meyer was having an affair with Kennedy when he was assassinated. Truitt said Meyer had told his wife Ann she was keeping a diary (which some sources have described as a sketchbook with some written text) and had asked her to retrieve it "if anything ever happened" to her. Ann Truitt, who was living in Tokyo when Meyer was murdered, called both James Angleton and Mary’s brother in law Ben Bradlee at home and asked him if he had found the diary. Bradley later said, "We didn’t start looking until the next morning, when Tony [Mary’s sister] and I walked around the corner a few blocks to Mary’s house. It was locked, as we had expected, but when we got inside, we found Jim Angleton, and to our complete surprise he told us he, too, was looking for Mary’s diary."
Angleton said he knew about Mary’s intimate friendship with Kennedy and was looking for the diary and anything else which might have information about the affair. Later at Mary’s art studio by the Bradlee home Ben and Antoinette again found Angleton, trying to pick a padlock. After he left, Antoinette found the diary and many letters in a metal box. These were given to Angleton, who later claimed he burned the diary, in which he said Mary Meyer wrote she and Kennedy had taken LSD before "they made love." However, Bradlee wrote they later learned Angleton had not burned the diary: Bradlee’s wife Tony got it back from Angleton and burned the document herself while Ann Truitt watched. Those who did read the diary reportedly said it confirmed Meyer’s intimate friendship with Kennedy but gave no suggestion it contained any information about his assassination.
Cord Meyer’s later statements about the murder
Cord Meyer left the CIA in 1977. In his autobiography Facing Reality: From World Federalism to the CIA he wrote, "I was satisfied by the conclusions of the police investigation that Mary had been the victim of a sexually motivated assault by a single individual and that she had been killed in her struggle to escape." However his former personal assistant Carol Delaney later claimed, "Mr. Meyer didn’t for a minute think that Ray Crump had murdered his wife or that it had been an attempted rape. But, being an Agency man, he couldn’t very well accuse the CIA of the crime, although the murder had all the markings of an in-house rubout."
In February 2001 writer C. David Heymann asked Cord Meyer about Mary Pinchot Meyer’s murder and he replied, "My father died of a heart attack the same year Mary was killed. It was a bad time." When asked who had murdered Mary Pinchot Meyer the retired CIA official, six weeks before his own death from lymphoma, reportedly "hissed" back, "The same sons of bitches that killed John F. Kennedy."
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C & O Canal from Chain Bridge at the base of the Palisades
NYC – LES – Seward Park: Mosaic Map
Image by wallyg
Opened on October 17, 1903, after the City of New York assumed operations of nine privately sponsored playgrounds operated by the Outdoor Recreation League (ORL), Seward Park became the first permanent, municipally built playground in the United States. According to newspaper reports, when its gates opened, an estimated 20,000 children rushed in. With its cinder surfacing, fences, recreation pavilion, and play and gymnastic equipment, the facility became a model for playground programming and design.
The city had acquired this land by condemnation in 1897 but due to lack of funds, it remained largely unimproved until the intervention of the ORL. In addition to the playground, the 1903 plan featured a large running track with an open play area in the center and a children’s farm garden. Curving paths and a north-south mall divided the park into recreational areas. The limestone and terra cotta Seward Park Pavilion was equipped with marble baths, a gymnasium, and meeting rooms. Rocking chairs were placed on the broad porch for the use of mothers tending their small children.
Seward Park underwent a major transformation in the 1930s and 1940s. A sliver of land on the east side was surrendered to the city. The Schiff Fountain (1895), designed by architect Arnold W. Brunner, was moved from nearby Rutgers Park to Seward Park in 1936. It was the gift of Jacob H. Schiff, a banker and philanthropist, to the people of the Lower East Side. Seward Park’s pavilion was demolished and a new recreation building was erected in 1941.
The 1999 renovation of Seward Park has revived several features from the 1903 plan. There is a new center oval with a large spray shower and marble mosaic map of the neighborhood. The various quotations by historic local residents were provided by the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. Other revivals of the park’s original appearance include fencing modeled after the historic fences, as well as period lighting and site furniture. The new design also considers the legacy of park namesake William Henry Seward (1801-1872), an American statesman. As senator from New York (1849-1861), Seward was an outspoken critic of slavery. As Secretary of State under Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, he arranged the 1867 purchase of Alaska from Russia. This famous bargain, once denounced as “Seward’s folly,” inspired playground equipment such as the seal spray shower and Mount McKinley play unit.
Standing proudly in park’s tot lot is Chris “Snowcat” Crowley’s bronze statue of the husky named Togo. A contemporary of Balto (whose statue stands in Central Park), Togo played a heroic role in the 1925 dash to bring an antidiptheria serum to Nome, Alaska.
