| Located corner Division and Johnson St. 1 block west of IL 178 Utica, IL | Coordinates Lat N 41 20.367" Lon W 89 00.761" |
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October 24, 1674 father Marquette set out from the mission of St. Francis Xavier at the present De Pere Wisconsin with two voyageurs, Jaques Le Castor and Pierre Porteret with orders to proceed to the mission La Conception among the Illinois.
From December 4, 1674 to March 30, 1675 they wintered on the banks of the Illinois Village of the Kaskankia Indians April 8 1675.
He was received there as an angel from heaven. He visited all the cabins teaching and instructing the natives. Then he resolved to address all in public. It was a beautiful prairie close to a village which was selected for the great council. The audience was composed of 500 Chiefs and elders seated in a circle around Father, and of all the young men who remained standing. They numbered 1500 men without counting the women and children.
He explained the principal mysteries of our religion and the purpose that brought him to their country. Above all he preached to them Jesus Chris, on the very eve that great day on which he had died upon the cross for them, as well as for the rest of mankind. Then he offered the Holly Sacrifice. The first parish mass in Illinois.
On Easter Sunday, all things being prepared as on Thursday, he celebrated the holy mysteries for the second time. By these two sacrifices, the first ever offered there to God, he took possession of that land in the name of Jesus Christ and gave to that mission the name of Immaculate Conception of the blessed Virgin.
Drawn from father Claude Dablon in “Jesuit relations and Allied Documents” LIX |
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