FORT DE CHARTRES HOSTS RONDEZVOUS

PRAIRIE DU ROCHER, Ill. -- The Midwest's largest gathering of 1700s-era soldiers, settlers, traders and campers will be held this Saturday and Sunday at the 22nd annual Rendezvous at Fort de Chartres State Historic Site in Randolph County, Ill.

"The Rendezvous brings people from across the country who are interested in re-enacting the settlement of the Illinois territory in the mid-1700s," said Phyllis Eubanks of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency. "It recreates the traditional French fur trapper's holiday of that time period."

All activities at the Rendezvous are free and open to the public. The event is co-sponsored by the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency and Les Coeurers de Bois de Fort de Chartres.

Activities will start each day at 10 a.m. with the posting of the colors, and conclude at 5 p.m.

Eubanks said the two-day event will include cannon firing, flintlock muzzle-loading competition, fencing demonstrations, 1700s-era military events and craft demonstrations and sales. Traditional French and contemporary American food and drink will be available.

There will be performances of colonial French music and English country dancing. A string band, the Great River Fife and Drum Corps, the Tippecanoe Ancient Fife and Drum Corps, the 42nd Royal Highlanders Band of Musick and the Colonial Fife and Drum Corps will also perform.

Fort de Chartres, which is now a national historic landmark, was established in 1720 by the French on a swampy bank of the Mississippi River. The original fort was destroyed by a flood seven years later, and was rebuilt of stone at its present site. The massive stone walls were 15-feet high, and three feet thick, and enclosed about four acres.

Eubanks said the fort became the seat of French military and civil power and was the strongest military post west of the Atlantic coast.

"The military commandant at Fort de Chartres had jurisdiction over an area from the Great Lakes to Arkansas, " she said. "Other outposts, including Fort Massac, near Metropolis, Ill., and Ouiatenon, near Lafayette, Ind., helped maintain the shaky French control over the area. All of these military outposts and the French settlements in Detroit, Ste. Genevieve, Vincennes, Ind., and Prairie du Rocher were governed from Fort de Chartres."

She said the fort never fired a shot to protect French interests. Rather, its presence, and those of the other forts in the region, usually kept the Indians in line and enabled the weak French settlements to survive at the far ends of the frontier.

Eubanks said most of the French settlers who lived near the fort were traders, who shipped furs, flour, bacon, tallow, lumber and lead by boat.

Besides the Indians, the French settlers and traders may have been the first true environmentalists in this country. "They did little to change their surroundings, preferring to use what natural materials were available," Eubanks said. "They also traded with the Indians, but did not try to evict them as later settlers would."

Eubanks said the end of the French occupation of Illinois and Fort de Chartres began with the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763.

On Oct. 10, 1765, 100 men of England's 42nd Royal Highlanders or "Black Watch" regiment marched through the gates of the fort. The French commandant and the remainder of the French garrison left the fort the next day and journeyed to what was then the new village of St. Louis.

When word reached those on the east side of the river that the Illinois territory now belonged to England, there was a mass exodus of French settlers to a new settlement started by Pierre La Clede.

Eubanks said the exodus of the French from Illinois helped build St. Louis into a major city, while villages a few miles away in Illinois struggled to stay alive. "Over the coming decades, French influence and culture would be influential in the development of Missouri, but of minor consequence in Illinois," she said. "With the departure of the French from Illinois to Missouri came the end of Fort de Chartres. It was abandoned by the British in 1722."

Eubanks said the fort's powder magazine was the only original structure still standing when the state of Illinois purchased the site in 1913. Today, the entire front portion of the fort's 15-foot wall has been reconstructed. The visitors center contains artifacts from the fort area.

Eubanks said that for the first time in nearly five years, people who live in Missouri will be able to visit the Fort de Chartres Rendezvous by crossing the Mississippi River on the Ste. Genevieve/Modoc ferry, which resumes daily operation on Saturday.

The ferry will run between Ste. Genevieve and the Illinois side of the river from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Sundays.

The toll is $4 per car, $6 for motor homes, and $10 for the larger motor homes.

After crossing on the ferry, drive east to Modoc, Ill., turn left on the blacktop road and go north to Prairie du Rocher.

To reach Fort de Chartres from the Cape Girardeau area, take Interstate 55 to Perryville, then take Highway 51 east to Chester, Ill. Turn right on Route 3 and drive north to Ruma, then turn left on Route 155 and drive west to Prairie du Rocher. The fort is four miles west of town.