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MICHIGAN AS A PROVINCE 1 - 5
The king granted him a tract of land fifteen arpents (acres) square "wherever on the Detroit
the new fort should be located, " and Count Pontchartrain commissioned him as commandant of the post. He returned immediately to New France, arriving at Quebec March 8, 1701, whence he proceeded immediately to Montreal. Here he busied himself with preparations for his expedition until the fifth of June when he set out from Lachine with fifty soldiers and an equal number of artisans and traders. His officers were Captain Alphonse Tonty, a brother of Henry Tonty who was La Salle's "man with the iron hand" and faithful companion in his explorations, and Messrs. Dugue and Chacornacle, lieutenants. A Recollet priest, Father Constantine de l'Halle, accompanied the troops as chaplain, and a Jesuit, Father Vaillant, went as missionary to the Indians. The route traversed was the usual one of that time by way of the Ottawa river, thence by portage to Lake Nipissing and thence to the Georgian bay and down Lake Huron. The expedition arrived at the present site of Detroit on the 24th of July, 1701.
The first business in hand was the construction of a fort for defense against the savages. This consisted of a stockade of wooden pickets enclosing about one acre of land and nearly square. It stood on the east side of Shelby street, south of Jefferson avenue and occupied about half a present city block. The pickets were trunks of small trees six to eight inches in diameter, driven deeply into the ground as close together as possible, the interstices chinked with clay, standing ten or twelve feet high and sharpened to a point at the
top to make climbing over them uncomfortable. This fort was named Pontchartrain. Inside the enclosure wooden huts were built for the men.
MICHIGAN
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