SAINTE ELIZABETH BETWEEN WASHAGO AND SEVERN BRIDGE? THE ARTIFACTS ARE HELPFUL TO POSITIONING THE FORMER JESUIT MISSION TO THE ALGONQUINS
I PURCHASED A WONDERFULLY CONSERVED PRIMITIVE STONE ARTIFACT IN WASHAGO - STILL KEEN TO FIND THE MISSION REMAINS
I HAVE REPEATED SOME OF THE INFORMATION REGARDING THE JESUIT MISSION, TO THE ALGONQUINS, CIRCA 1643-44, KNOWN AS STE. ELIZABETH, WHICH WILL SAGUAY WITH THE REST OF THE STORY, ABOUT ARTIFACTS FOUND IN THE WASHAGO / SEVERN BRIDGE AREA.
ALTHOUGH THERE IS A GREAT DEAL OF INFORMATION ABOUT JESUIT TRANSPORT IN THE 1600'S, TO AND WITHIN THE REGIONS OF SIMCOE, HURONIA AND THE GEORGIAN BAY AREA, HISTORY OF THE TRAVEL ACTIVITY IN THE MUSKOKA DISTRICT IS LARGELY IGNORED. YET SOME OF THE DESCRIPTIONS OF LANDFORMS AND FORESTS, PENNED IN JOURNALS BY THE MISSIONARIES, MIGHT WELL BE SCENES FROM SOUTH AND CENTRAL MUSKOKA. RESEARCH HOWEVER, HAS TURNED UP SOME INTERESTING NOTATIONS, WHICH SEEM TO INCLUDE MUSKOKA, AS A REGION ACTIVELY TRAVERSED BY THE JESUITS, FOLLOWING AFTER THE HUNTING AND FISHING ALGONQUINS, AND THEIR SEASONAL MIGRATIONS. INFORMATION ON ONE JESUIT MISSION, IN PARTICULAR, KNOWN AS SAINTE ELIZABETH, INDICATES IT WAS LOCATED SOMEWHERE BETWEEN THE NORTHERN SHORE OF LAKE COUCHICHING, AND POSSIBLY AS FAR NORTH AS SEVERN BRIDGE IN MUSKOKA. WHILE IT MIGHT NOT SEEM IMPORTANT TO SOME HISTORY ENTHUSIASTS, SEEING AS THE PERIOD OF THE 1640'S, WHEN THE MISSION WAS SAID TO HAVE BEEN ESTABLISHED, WAS SHORT-LIVED, IT IS STILL A WONDERFULLY DIVERSE ASPECT OF REGIONAL HISTORY THAT DOESN'T GET A LOT OF ATTENTION. MOST FEEL THE ONLY RELEVANT HISTORY WORTH CONSIDERING, WAS WHEN THE FIRST SETTLERS ARRIVED IN THE MUSKOKA DISTRICT, TO SETTLE THE VAST HINTERLAND. THIS BEGAN IN THE LATE 1850'S, SPECIFICALLY AT MCCABE'S LANDING, NOW OF COURSE KNOWN AS GRAVENHURST. WE HAVE LEARNED IN THE PAST TWENTY YEARS, THAT PRE-HISTORY IN OUR AREA HAS BEEN LARGELY UNDER-ESTIMATED, AND IN FACT, PRACTICALLY IGNORED. TODAY THERE IS SUBSTANTIALLY MORE KNOWLEDGE GATHERED, ABOUT FIRST NATIONS INHABITATIONS WITHIN THE REGION OF MUSKOKA, AND IT WAS INITIATED BY FLORENCE MURRAY, IN HER PIVOTAL TEXT, "MUSKOKA AND HALIBURTON 1615-1875," PUBLISHED BY THE CHAMPLAIN SOCIETY. SHE EXPLAINS HOW THE JESUIT FATHERS, FROM THEIR BASE MISSION AT SAINTE-MARIE IN MIDLAND, FOLLOWED THE ALGONQUINS THROUGH THE WOODLANDS, ATTEMPTING TO CONTINUE THE EFFORTS TO CONVERT THEIR PEOPLES TO CHRISTIANITY.
"THE JESUIT FATHERS FOUND, THAT AS DIFFICULT AS IT WAS TO CHRISTIANIZE THE HURONS, IT WAS NOTHING COMPARED WITH THE HARDSHIPS INVOLVED IN FOLLOWING THE WANDERING ALGONKINS FROM CAMP TO CAMP. THE JESUIT RELATIONS SHOW NO MISSIONS WHICH CAN DEFINITELY BE LOCATED IN MUSKOKA OR HALIBURTON, BUT INCLUDE TWO TO THE ALGONKINS; THE MISSION OF STE. ELIZABETH AND THE MISSION OF THE HOLY GHOST, WHICH NO DOUBT SERVED SOME OF THE INDIANS WHO HUNTED IN THE AREA. THE MISSION OF STE. ELIZABETH WAS STARTED BETWEEN 1640 AND 1644, FOR ALGONKINS WHO HAD BEEN DRIVEN FROM THE ST. LAWRENCE VALLEY BY THE IROQUOIS AND HAD SOUGHT REFUGE AMONG THE HURONS, AND FOR OTHER ALGONKINS WHO WENT SOUTH TO WINTER NEAR THE HURONS. THIS MISSION HAS BEEN LOCATED BY DU CREUX AND BY FATHER A.E. JONES, AS BEING AT THE NORTH END OF LAKE COUCHICHING, TWO OR THREE MILES SOUTH OF THE PRESENT TERRITORIAL LIMITS OF THE MUSKOKA DISTRICT." (FLORENCE MURRAY, "MUSKOKA AND HALIBURTON."
SHE WRITES, "FATHER JAROME LALEMANT'S REPORT ON THE MISSION OF STE. ELIZABETH, 1643-44: THE IROQUOIS, WHO MAKE THEMSELVES DREADED IN THE GREAT RIVER ST. LAWRENCE AND WHO EVERY WINTER, FOR SOME YEARS HAVE BEEN HUNTING MEN IN THESE VAST FORESTS, HAVE COMPELLED THE ALONGQUINS, WHO DWELT ON THE BANKS OF THE RIVER, TO ABANDON NOT ONLY THEIR HUNTING GROUNDS BUT ALSO THEIR COUNTRY, AND HAVE REDUCED THEM THIS WINTER TO COME HERE NEAR OUR HURONS, IN ORDER TO LIVE MORE SAFELY - SO MUCH SO, THAT A WHOLE VILLAGE OF THESE POOR WANDERING AND FUGITIVE TRIBES CAME NEAR THE VILLAGE OF SAINTE JEAN BAPTISTE. WE WERE OBLIGED TO GIVE THEM SOME ASSISTANCE, AND FOR THAT PURPOSE TO ASSOCIATE WITH FATHER ANTOINE DANIEL, WHO HAD CHARGE OF THE HURON MISSION, OF WHICH I HAVE SPOKEN IN THE PRECEDING CHAPTER. FATHER RENE MENARD, WHO HAVING A SUFFICIENT KNOWLEDGE OF BOTH LANGUAGES HAD, AT THE SAME TIME, CHARGE OF THIS ALGONQUIN MISSION, TO WHICH WE HAVE GIVEN THE NAME SAINTE ELIZABETH." NOTATIONS IN THE TEXT INDICATED THAT STE. ELIZABETH "WAS A NOMADIC AS WERE THE ALGONQUINS IT SERVED."
IT SHOULD BE NOTED THAT FATHER LALEMANT, WRITING IN THE JESUIT RELATIONS ABOUT STE. ELIZABETH, AND FATHER ANTOINE DANIEL, WHO SERVED AT STE. ELIZABETH FOR A SHORT TIME, WERE BOTH SAVAGELY TORTURED AND KILLED, DURING THE IROQUOIS ATTACK IN HURONIA, IN JULY 1648. FATHER RENE MANARD, ALSO AT STE. ELIZABETH, WOULD SURVIVE THE IROQUOIS ATTACKS, BUT DIE LATER IN THE WILDS OF WISCONSIN, WHILE FOLLOWING A PARTY OF ALGONQUINS.
IT ALL STARTED WITH AN AFTERNOON CHAT AT KAY'S CORNER IN WASHAGO
If a farmer or home builder, was to find the remains of an old, old iron kettle, in their turning of the soil, it could be an important clue as to the location of Ste. Elizabeth. Worn out iron kettles, forged at Sainte Marie, in Midland, were used as makeshift mission bells, that could be hit with a club, the deep ring through the heavily wooded forest, announcing a church service was soon to begin. I would really like to know about that iron kettle discovery, if and when it is ever uncovered, because the exact location of Ste. Elizabeth, of the mid 1600's, has never officially, at least, been located.
The story of Sainte Elizabeth was inspired a number of years ago, during a regular family outing to the Village of Washago. Greatly enjoying summer antique jaunts, on occasion, when not stuck behind the counter of our own shop, in Bracebridge (back in the early 1990's), Suzanne and I liked to seek out hole-in-the-wall collectible shops, where we could make some decent, previously undetected antique finds. On this particular occasion, we drove into Washago for a treat, at the former mill store on the Severn River. I had been reading up on Ste. Elizabeth previously, and I had some questions to ask…..if only I could find someone who had heard of the former Jesuit Mission.
We stopped in at one of our favorite little cubby-hole collectible shops, known as Kay's Corner, that she ran on one side of the old warehouse, while her husband did blacksmithing on the east side. After about an hour combing through her fascinating shop, and its really neat albeit attractively cluttered attic, Suzanne had come up with some terrific jewelry pieces, and the boys had scooped up twenty or thirty comic books each and a few Hot Wheels, which they collected back then. I had four good old books, a couple of art panels, and some interesting documents found at the bottom of some boxes stuffed into the hot attic. As I was pushing past the glass display case, where Kay kept some of her best pieces, my eye caught a treasure within. It appeared to be a First Nation's stone artifact, which she called an adze, but may be properly called a scraper. I hunched over to get a better look. If it was what I suspected then there was no doubt the treasure for the day had been found…..at least for me.
I asked Kay if I could have a better look at the scraper rock, with an edge on both ends of the smooth fat stone, and she obliged, telling me that it had been found in the area. She strained to lift the heavy piece even though its appearance suggested it would be light and fragile. When she set it on the glass counter in front of me, it made a loud crack onto the glass…..and she had to lift it back up to see if she had accidentally broken the top of the showcase. There was no question in my mind. This was definitely a First Nation's tool, that could date back to the period of Ste. Elizabeth or earlier. Kay indicated, as I cradled the beautiful and historic piece in my hand, that a local gardener had dug it up while working the soil for planting, that spring, and he had brought it in to see if the artifact was worth anything. Seeing as Kay wasn't going to be putting this adze back in the showcase, I then had to enquire about the price, which frankly should have been at least a hundred dollars. Seeing as she had only given the home gardener about ten bucks for the artifact, and always being modest in her pricing, I was offered the great find for twenty-five dollars. I smiled at Suzanne, and begged an early or late (I'm not sure now) birthday present, as there was no way I was going to sell this precious remnant of a long ago era; when Jesuits wandered these woods, and erected wooden crosses, to meet with the Algonquins.
No one had much of an idea, at that point, about Sainte Elizabeth, so I did most of the talking. But I just had the feeling that this stone artifact, was from an Algonquin seasonal encampment, and it stands to reason that Ste. Elizabeth would have been close by, as this was its mission purpose. It's also true, that from that first meeting of my hand, and this native artifact, a new obsession had begun…..like so many before that…..always with the same consequence of time and money. I spent hours and hours looking a maps, and reading every regional and First Nations history that touched even modestly on our region and Huronia, looking for even the smallest clue about Ste. Elizabeth. While I haven't progressed very far, in the past two decades, I have acquired quite a few more locally found stone scrapers, that have been supposedly found north of Huronia, and in the vicinity of Lake Couchiching and Washago, including a relic of native pottery which is one of my great prizes.
After purchasing the artifact from my friend Kay, I mounted it in a special glass showcase beside my desk. On occasion, when I'm short of inspiration, I will lift it out carefully, and cradle it as I did on that first day in Washago, wondering as I did then, where it might have come from, and if it was shaped by Algonquin hands, to suit a function of survival, eg. skinning a deer or bear, and if the maker had been to Ste. Elizabeth, and possibly mey face to face with the Jesuits, who clanged that old iron pot, hung from a pole in their clearing. There is a vibration to the stone piece, and holding it does promote an emotional time travel, to a tumultuous period in the history of our new country…..that ended with great suffering, to those who had established the mission of Ste. Elizabeth. Everyone who has visited my office, has had an opportunity to handle some of the gathered artifacts in my collection, and all claim to feel the same historic vibe……as I did on that occasion, when I lifted the adze from Kay's glass counter…..and knew, I had made my first legitimate connection with the Jesuit mission, I had been searching for…….but sadly, have not yet found.
It's true. I am obsessive about the artifacts I have acquired, and the ones I intend on acquiring…….and it's one of those things, antique hunters just can't quite explain…….and neither can their accountants…..which for me…..is also my wife; making it one of those double whammy situations. Just so that you know, I'm now working on three Christmases in advance, and birthdays? I'm about ten ahead, for the purchases I've begged to make in the past two years. If I've learned one thing in the antique enterprise, it's how to beg successfully, and connive to make a deal. I still have my soul, as I refuse to barter it away, but I'm down to my last shred of dignity…..so I'm hoping we don't make another big and expensive discovery, until I can get some wiggle room on my artifact acquisition budget, which has more holes than a thick slice of swiss cheese.
If I find Sainte Elizabeth, you folks will be the first to find out about it, via this blog.
Thanks so much for visiting today. More exciting stuff on the way. Oh, by the way, have you got any artifacts you're looking to get rid of? I know a poor guy who wants them! I know a woman who doesn't want me to have them! What's a collector / historian to do? I'm always jumping hurdles and leaping through hoops, just to maintain a profession. I wouldn't trade this life. It's been one adventure after another. As for spice, yup, it's been full of that too!
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