#MIHistory – June 8: Father Marquette is buried again

On this day in 1677, Father Marquette (Père Marquette) was reburied in St. Ignace by Indians who had located his grave along the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, near present-day Ludington.

Father Marquette

Marquette was a French Jesuit who founded Michigan’s first European settlement, Sault Ste. Marie in 1668, and later founded St. Ignace in 1671. Along with Louis Jolliet, he was the first European to explore and map the northern portion of the Mississippi River and Upper Great Lakes.

Born in Laon, France, in 1637, Marquette joined the Jesuit order at the age of 17. He was assigned to New France – the French holdings in North America – in 1666, and soon showed a great proclivity for learning the languages of neighboring Native American tribes. His superiors moved him further west and north along the St. Lawrence Seaway and Great Lakes, where he founded two missions in the Upper Peninsula and built relationships with Native Americans living there.

Local tribes told Marquette about an important river used for trade, and Marquette obtained permission to search for it, along with Louis Jolliet. Using rivers and portages, they found their way to the Mississippi River near present-day Prairie du Chien, Wisc. They traveled south along the river to the mouth of the Arkansas River before heading back to the Great Lakes via the Illinois River, using a locally known portage to cross from the river to Lake Michigan where Chicago now stands.

During his many travels in the Great Lakes region, Marquette contracted dysentery and died at the age of 37 along the shore of Lake Michigan near what is now Ludington in 1675. His body was disinterred and returned to St. Ignace to be reburied on June 8, 1677.

Marquette is remembered through several place names, including the city and county of Marquette in Michigan; the Pere Marquette River in the Lower Peninsula; the Pere Marquette State Forest; Pere Marquette Beach in Muskegon; Marquette University in Wisconsin; and towns named Marquette in Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois; and Marquette County, Wisc.