Travelers on the Kaskaskia-Detroit Road

•August 7, 2024•

by Janet Roney

The 1700s French Kaskaskia-Detroit Road has captured the imagination of others before our group of hardy explorers found its route through Moultrie and Shelby Counties. Adin Baber, a Coles County historian, describes travelers gathered in a Kaskaskia inn at the end of the trail in an article for the Illinois Historical Society Journal.

“Our couriers de bois had just come in over the long trail by the shortest way from Fort Detroit…He was born and raised in a French Canadian backwoods and is a master hunter, trapper and boatman. His companion is but recently over from Old France, and sits apart, silent. He is on some mysterious errand for his King and must needs hurry on down the Mississippi tomorrow…Mostly French they are, one a trader who has brought some Spanish mares from the southwest and plans to take them to a better market at Vincennes; …another sits there, a swarthy man, a Spaniard. Some Indians stand stolidly by.” 

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