Sault Ste. Marie History

Sault Ste. Marie, located on the banks of the St. Mary’s River Rapids, has been a natural stopping place for travelers since mankind started using this important waterway shortly after the last ice age. Travelers had to stop here because the rapids in the river, that connects Lakes Superior and Huron, were a barrier placed there by the massive glaciers which dug out the Great Lakes system between 7,000 and 32,000 years ago.

Sault Ste. Marie was an important Indian community long before the first Europeans came to the Great Lakes. Here was the roaring rapids where Lake Superior pitched downward 21 feet to the level of Lake Huron. An early missionary described the Sault Rapids as half a league wide, or a mile and a half. The rapids was broken by many islands and great boulders. On the southern shore beside the rapids was a large plain where the Indians camped.

The permanent population of the Sault at that time was a small band of Chippewa’s numbering no more than 150 persons. But the Sault Rapids was famous throughout the Great Lakes tribes for its abundance of food. In the pools among the rocks at the foot of the rapids were enormous schools of whitefish, tailing in the fast water with their head upstream. This succulent fish was taken from the waters with long-handled dip nets.

The river was so rich in fish that one early missionary estimated that the Saulteurs  “could easily catch enough to feed 10,000 men”. As it was, the capital city of the Chippewa’s was described by a missionary in 1641 as having a population of 2,000 Indians. Another source estimated that at times in the summer there were 1,000 canoes drawn up on the shore. And here, on the banks of the river, they pitched their tepees and feasted from the time of the first spring melt to the first snows of winter, when they packed up again and went back to their winter hunting grounds. They smoked their catches to preserve the fish so it could be taken with them when they departed.

Because of its tremendous wealth of food, the Chippewa capital was considered by early explorers to be the most important Indian community in the Midwest if not in all of North America.

The first white explorers to visit the Sault found the rapids site as well-established Indian community. The first to arrive were the French and they referred to the local people at “Saulters” because they virtually lived in the rapids. “Sault” is French for rapids or falls.

It may be noted that the Saulteurs named their capital Bowating, for “water pitching over the rocks”. Brule gave the rapids their French name, Sault or Saut, and named the place Saut de Gaston after the French king of the time. The name was changed  in 1668 by Jesuit missionary Jacques Marquette to Sault Ste. Marie, in honor of the Virgin Mary. There is a debate about what the name translates to, but French speakers say “Sault” means, to “jump”, making Sault Ste. Marie the place where people come to “jump the St. Mary’s”.

The name Sault Ste. Marie, however, has stuck and thus remains the official name of the town today. Over the years passing sailors anglicized the name to “Soo”. Thus when a sailor was asked where he was heading, and he replied, “the Soo”, the inquirer immediately knew what he meant.

The first European to visit the Sault was Etienne Brule, an explorer-voyageur for Samuel de Champlain, the so-called “father” of the New France who sought a water route to the Orient by way of the Canadian Northwest Passage. Brule, who lived with Indians and learned their ways, is credited with discovering all of the Great Lakes except Lake Michigan.

In 1668, a Jesuit, Pere Jacques Marquette was sent to the Sault to establish a mission. This he did with the assistance of another priest, Father Nicholas, and a lay brother named Boheme. This mission was the first permanent wooden structure in what is now the State of Michigan, a square of cedar posts 12 feet high enclosing a chapel and a residence. The site of the mission was near the river at the foot of what is now Bingham Avenue, in the area where the Federal Building now stands.

On June 14, 1671, in the name of the King of France, Sieur de Saint Lusson took posse of the entire interior of North America in a ceremony which become known as the “Pagent of the Sault”. The English had become aware of the value of fur trading in the area of the Sault. Therefore Saint Lausson’s claim to all of North America was disregarded by the British.

Ensign Louis le Gardeur, Sieur De Repentigney by 1751 had a fort completed at Sault Ste. Marie. The Treaty of Paris in 1763 gave England control of what France had claimed in the new world. In 1782 the United States tool control of English claims south of a line through the Great Lakes.

One of the earliest settlers was fur trader, John Johnston. Johnston married a local Indian princess of the Chippewa Chief, Waub-O-jeeg. For over 40 years he and his wife were the dominant force both politically and socially in the area. Their home still stands at the river’s edge, much the same as when it was built in 1790.

The Sault flew English flags until 1783. By the Treaty of Paris following the American Revolution, the Sault acquired its third flag, that of the United States.

The Governor of the Michigan Territory, Lewis Cass, arrived in 1820 with entourage, and called the Chiefs of the Indian tribes together, offering gifts and asked them to cede to the United States 16 square miles for a military reservation. With the interception of John Johnston’s wife, daughter of Waub-O-jeeg, who convinced the Indian tribes of the futility of their stand. In 1820 the Treaty of the Sault was signed by local and area Indians and the American government represented by Lewis Cass.

Following the War of 1812, the United States, in order to preserve peace along the new northern border, called for the establishment of a fortification at Sault Ste. Marie. This came about in 1822, when Col. Hugh Brady arrived from New York with a contingent of infantrymen. They constructed their fort on the edge of an old common campground at the base of the rapids. The fort built by Brady was located in the same site where Marquette established his mission in 1669 and DeRepentigny built his fortressed trading post in the middle 1700’s. In 1893 a new site on Ashmun Hill was occupied. The Old Federal Building is now on the site of the original fort.