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Leroy Politsch legacy

"It was through the friendship of a rural mail carrier, Charles Griep, that I came to know about the stone, sometime in the late 1930's, and, finally in 1956 did I have the time and facilities to begin an investigation and study of it...The Ellington Stone (1988), Leroy Politsch, Politsch Collection, Quincy, Illinois.

The late Leroy Politsch (1922-2008) kept alive the lore and legend of the Ellington Stone for fifty-two years. He had over the decades corresponded with hundreds of experts in universities, museums, historical societies, etc., trying to solve the "mystery" of the Ellington Stone. But he could, from the experts, garner only that "it might have something to do with the explorer La Salle."

This association of the Ellington Stone (with its Jesuit insignia) and the activities of LaSalle should have been rejected by knowledgeable authorities from the outset. Leroy and I had a friendly disagreement about this. Given the enmity that existed between LaSalle and the Jesuit Missionaries, suggesting La Salle was directly involved with the Ellington Stone is tantamount to the Soviet Union having been behind planting the American flag on the moon.

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A New Oldest European artifact in the North American heartland

• the oldest known artifact witnessing 17th century European exploration and discovery in the Illinois territory.
• More impressively, as historic relic, it attests to the earliest 17th century European appearance generally in the American heartland and at the Mississippi River, specifically.

In addition to the Ellington Stone's legitimacy as the earliest European artifact, its date contests yet another "fact" of the historical record. For more than three centuries, hasn't it been a universal schoolbook fact that the first Europeans to "discover" the Mississippi in the 17th Century, Père Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet, were, in 1673, the first to set foot on its banks?

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Internet-available documents identify a geographic and historical context for the Ellington Stone.

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Jesuit Map of Lake Superior, 1671

Jesuit Map of Lake Superior relating to the Ellington Stone

A remarkable detail on the following map of Lake Superior contributes to further embedding the artifact in a historical context. On the 1672 -published map in Jesuit Relations, observe at the far southwest of the lake the dotted-line legend translating, "Route to the Illinois [Indians], 150 leagues toward the south." Historians, when they have occasionally mentioned it, have consistently maintained that the Jesuits had only second-hand knowledge of the "route to the Illinois," having gained what they knew from the Illinois Indians who sojourned from their homeland in the south to Lake Superior to visit the missionaries.

Jesuit Map of Lake Superior	The dotted line detail of Jesuit Map of Lake Superior at left. The legend reads "Route to the Illinois [Indians], 150 leagues toward the south."

 

This map accompanied accounts of missionary activities, 1670-71, as published for popular consumption the following year.

When mentioning it at all, historians, straining to connect the dotted line to facts of record, have remarked that the Jesuits, not having been to the Illinois homelands themselves, got the direction and distance attested on the map from the Illinois Indians, who are documented to have appeared at the 1665-established Mission of St. Esprit (seen on the map) soon after it was founded by Father Claude Allouez. The Ellington Stone argues for Jesuit first-hand knowledge of Quincy Bay..

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Could the Indians really have given data?

"Route to the Illinois, 150 leagues toward the south"? W.P. Cumming speaks to it,

In the Relations too we appreciate the importance as well as the limitations of the Indian as pathfinder. The mysterious land beyond the river or over the ridge was often familiar territory to the Indian; but his range of travel and therefore of knowledge was usually (though not invariably) limited, and even when he had come far his lack of the Europeans' surveying skills made it difficult for him to convey accurate information on routes and distances. (W.P. Cummings, The Exploration of North America, p. 32.)

Newberry Library, Ayer Collection, 48

Another map detail at left from a few years later shows "Route to the Illinois, 150 leagues toward the south." This map is attributed to Louis Jolliet and no doubt the script uses the Jesuit map above as a model. Another at right, from more than a decade later says "old route" to the Illinois (from Sarah Jones Tucker collection).

The French league was roughly 2.5 miles. A degree of latitude is 69 miles. Calculating the latitude difference between the lower edge of Lake Superior and Quincy to be about 4 degrees -- returns approximately 150 leagues.

 

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The Quincy-Beardstown Corridor at the 40th degree of latitude

Quincy has several noteworthy distinguishing geographic characteristics. Quincy Bay, an arm of the Mississippi, has one of the most welcoming and agreeable harbors on the entire river, making the bay a not unlikely stopping-off point. And even more consequential, Quincy is the eastern end of an easily traversed overland corridor. The city of Beardstown, on the Illinois River, is the western end of the corridor.

On the Illinois River, Beardstown is found on an overland journey eastward from Quincy at approximately the 40th degree of latitude . This is where de La Salle's supporters in France edited material about his having found a very large Illinois Indian settlement at latitude 40. In this region, on the Illinois river, is where the documents suggest, although I'm uncertain, he established his short-lived Fort Crèvecoeur. In studying more than a hundred very early maps, I found that this fort was consistently placed cartographically at the 40th degree of latitude (notwithstanding technologically precise latitudes from this period are hardly to be expected). Nonetheless, putting maps and the primary source documents together led me to conjecture that de La Salle's Fort Crèvecoeur could be searched for with some likelihood of success in the Beardstown Illinois area, not in the environs of Peoria Illinois, as has always been the case. I've been through the files at the Peoria Library. Over the past century there has been a succession of "finally-found-it" breakthroughs coming to naught.

On a side note, some years ago I sent detail images from about forty pre-1830 maps to a knowledgeable regional historian, Harold Tyson, of Beardstown. I had also sent a set of the forty maps to Politsch in Quincy. I shared my ideas of Fort Crèvecoeur with Tyson, and discussed with him also the Ellington Stone, Politsch's work, and the wider historical context. Tyson reported at length anecdotally on the Indian legacy of the Beardstown area and told me of his confidence in the ancient Quincy-Beardstown route that I am focusing on. My original theory to look for La Salle's fort in the Beardstown area has sparked interest in the archeological community to search for hints of its long-vanished structures there.

On a personal excursion over the major highway between Quincy and Beardstown, approximately the same overland route seen above on the map published in 1681, I was understandably excited to come upon a historical land site marker announcing the highway as the 49ers' favored overland route of the famed 1849 California Gold rush.