Carl J. Weber Examines Boucherville Parish Registry
The Boucherville Registry recorded the births, deaths, marriages and baptisms in the Parish of Boucherville. The script on the opening page of the Boucherville Parish Registry matches the script on the Marquette Map and the Journal (a.k.a. diary) of a supposed Marquette Second Voyage. The script in the image below, say the defenders of the Marquette legends, is the same handwriting as on the Marquette Map and also as in the Journal of the Second Voyage. This prompts one to conclude that all three documents were 19th century forgeries intended to corroborate one another as 17th century documents. At the end of the paragraph below is "May 1668". |
Supposed Proof of Marquette's Handwriting Out of Context
Below is the wider visual context of this script as it actually appears in the Boucherville Registry. It is written at the top of the title page, where it doesn't seem to belong, before the introductory preface. Someone went into the registry and deceitfully "seeded" the document for subsequent blindsided harvesters. The registry states that its records commence in 1669, yet the Marquette text dates from 1668 (to conform with his otherwise known whereabouts). Joseph Carlton Short, a friend of his, wrote in a letter to Francis Borgia Steck, in the late 1950s, that the ink of the "Marquette script", which he physically examined in context, appeared much newer and less faded than the other writing (Steck, 1959, p. 193-201). |
Jacques Marquette Misspells His Own Name?
To confound the student even more, as Steck observes, on no other documents from the Marquette era is Jacques Marquette's first name spelled with no terminal "s". The Boucherville document leads us to believe Marquette misspelled his own name. The most quoted primary source of Marquette material, the Jesuit Relations, always has the terminal "s" in his name.
Supposed Proof of Marquette's Handwriting In Context
from Marquette Legends, by Father Francis Borgia Steck, annotations in red by Carl J. Weber