Marquette's Death

Marquette's Death is a Michigan historical marker in Pere Marquette Township, Mason County, dedicated 1966.

South Lakeshore Dr., Pere Marquette Township

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Father Jacques Marquette, the great Jesuit missionary and explorer, died and was buried by two French companions somewhere along the Lake Michigan shore on May 18, 1675. He had been returning to his mission at St. Ignace, which he had left in 1673 to go exploring in the Mississippi country. The exact location of his death has long been a subject of controversy. A spot close to the southeast slope of this hill, near the ancient outlet of the Pere Marquette River, corresponds with the death site as located by early French accounts and maps and a constant tradition of the past. Marquette’s remains were reburied at St. Ignace in 1677.

TodayHistorical map

Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

Historical maps covering this location

1733 · A map of the British Empire in America with the French and Spanish settlements adjacent… (Digital Commonwealth, Boston Public Library)
1852 · Wisconsin (Cowperthwait, 1852) (Barry Lawrence Ruderman Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1873 · Michigan. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1874 · Colton's Michigan (1874) (Barry Lawrence Ruderman Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1897 · Southern Michigan. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)

Southern Michigan, 1897, covering the location of Marquette's Death, with a pin at the marker's coordinates — Southern Michigan, 1897, covering this location. David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries. The pin is ours, placed from the marker's coordinates.

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Marker data: Michigan History Center
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