Martin Chartier

Early life

In 1655, Martin Chartier was born in St-Jean-de-Montierneuf, Poitiers, Vienne, Poitou-Charentes, France.

In 1667, Martin Chartier arrived in Quebec with his brother Pierre and sister and his father René.

Louis Jolliet's 1672 Expedition

In 1672, Martin Chartier, along with his brother Pierre, went along with Louis Jolliet's second expedition. Louis Jolliet was an experienced mapmaker, explorer, king’s hydrographer, organist, teacher, fur trader, seigneur, geographer, and cartographer. Jolliet was chosen by Intendant Jean Talon (who in turn had been delegated his power from Governor Frontenac) to explore the Mississippi River beyond the Lakes, which the Indians alleged flowed into the southern sea. In the order the French governor refers to Jolliet as one "experienced in these kinds of discoveries and who had been already very near the river".

In December of the same year Joliet reached the Straits of Mackinaw, where with Père Marquette, he spent the winter and the early spring in questioning the Indians and preparing maps for his famous 1673 expedition also with Père Marquette, to find the mouth of the Mississippi River, to discover if it flowed into the Gulf of Mexico or the Pacific Ocean.

Louis Jolliet's 1674 Expedition

In 1674, Martin Chartier accompanied Louis Jolliet on his 1674 journey to the Illinois Territory. Louis Jolliet was a French Canadian explorer known for his discoveries in North America. Here in Illinois, Martin Chartier lived with the Shawnee in Illinois on the Wabash River.

In 1675, Martin Chartier weds Sewatha Straight Tail, his Shawnee wife, daughter of Straight Tail Meaurroway Opessa.

De La Salle's First Expedition

Martin Chartier rode along with René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle on his 1679-1680 journey to Lake Erie, Lake Huron, and Lake Michigan.

La Salle built Le Griffon, a seven-cannon, 45-ton barque, on the upper Niagara River at or near Cayuga Creek. She was launched on August 7, 1679. La Salle sailed in Le Griffon up Lake Erie to Lake Huron, then up Huron to Michilimackinac and on to present-day Green Bay, Wisconsin. Le Griffon left for Niagara with a load of furs, but was never seen again. La Salle continued with his men in canoes down the western shore of Lake Michigan, rounding the southern end to the mouth of the Miami River (now St. Joseph River), where Martin Chartier helped to build a stockade in January 1680. They called it Fort Miami (now known as St. Joseph, Michigan). There they waited for Henri de Tonti and his party, who had crossed the Lower Michigan peninsula on foot.

Tonti arrived on November 20; on December 3, the entire party set off up the St. Joseph, which they followed until they had to take a portage at present-day South Bend, Indiana. They crossed to the Kankakee River and followed it to the Illinois River. There they built Fort Crèvecoeur, which later led to the development of present-day Peoria, Illinois.

The 1680 Mutiny of Fort Crèvecoeur

Martin Chartier along with the help of Wolf assisted in the construction of Fort Miami and Fort Crèvecoeur. Fort Crèvecoeur was constructed along the Illinois River (which is about 2000 miles from Montreal).

On April 16, 1680, while La Salle was gone after he had set off on foot for Fort Frontenac for supplies, the 7 remaining soldiers mutinied, looted and pillaged the fort of provisions and ammunition, and then burned Fort Crèvecoeur down to the ground, and exiled Henri de Tonti, whom La Salle had left in charge. La Salle blamed Martin Chartier as one of the main instigators "who incited the others to do as they did." Later La Salle captured a few of the mutineers on Lake Ontario, but not Martin Chartier. Martin Chartier took the south shore of Lake Ontario headed for Albany as a part of the second desertion delegation while the others who were eventually captured were pursuing La Salle.

Joining Tonti at Starved Rock, two men who had been at the fort told him of the fort's destruction. Tonti sent messengers to La Salle in Canada to report the events. Tonti then returned to Fort Crèvecoeur to collect any tools not destroyed and moved them to the Kaskaskia Village at Starved Rock.

Crèvecoeur means "heart break" in French, and Fort Crèvecoeur was named thusly because of the many difficulties the French had in its construction, including Chartier's mutiny.

Life with the Shawnee

After the mutiny at Fort Crèvecoeur, Martin Chartier was now a French outlaw who sought and found refuge among the Shawnee. Martin Chartier made the trip from Montreal to Lake Michigan, then from Lake Michigan to the Cumberland River in Kentucky. The Shawnees that Martin Chartier met on the Mississippi River had been drawn there by La Salle.

In 1687, Martin Chartier is arrested in Montreal.

In 1689, Martin Chartier is a fur trader on the Cumberland River in Tennessee.

Birth of Pierre Chartier

In 1690, Martin Chartier and Sewatha Straight Tail (1660-1759), daughter of Straight Tail Meaurroway Opessa of the Pekowi Shawnee, had a son named Peter ("Pierre") Chartier. Peter was born on the Cumberland River in northeastern Tennessee where his father ran a trading post for a short time and is sometimes referred to as "the French glover of Philadelphia."

In 1692, Martin Chartier led a group of these Indians north to Maryland on the Potomac River, reuniting with his old acquaintances from Fort St. Louis (LeTorts, Basillons, Godin, and Dubois), and settling at a place known as Old Town.

Martin Chartier moved across the Alleghenies and was a trader at the mouth of Susquehanna River.

Martin Chartier was jailed in Saint Marie & Ann Arundel Counties as a French spy but escaped.

William Penn Approves the Chartier and Conestaga Alliance

In 1701, Martin Chartier and his family asked the Conestoga to live amongst them, and both the Conestoga and the Shawnee appeared before William Penn to receive formal permission for this arrangement.

By 1712, Martin Chartier along with his half-Shawnee son Peter Chartier had established a trading post near a Shawnee village on the Pequea Creek in Pennsylvania.

Death

Martin Chartier died in 1717.