RENÉ BREHANT DE GALINÉE - A Stan Klos Website
RENÉ BREHANT DE GALINÉE,
clergyman. He was a member of the order of St. Sulpice, and accompanied
La Salle on his voyage to this country. In 1670 he visited the site of Detroit,
and is said to have been the first white man to arrive at that locality.
He parted with La Salle at the head of Lake Ontario, and
with a fellow-priest, named Dollier, coasted the southern shore of Lake Erie,
and entered the Detroit river. At one of their camping-places the altar service
was washed into the lake, and this calamity was attributed directly to the evil
one. It happened that on reaching Detroit they stumbled upon a stone image,
which Galinee believed to be a representation of the devil, whereupon, in his
exasperation, he demolished the image, and, with the help of his "coureurs des
bois," buried the fragments in the river.
He prepared a map of the great lakes, according to which
he does not seem to have known that Michigan was a peninsula. This was the
second map made of this district, the first having been drawn by Champlain in
1632.
Edited Appletons Encyclopedia by John Looby, Copyright © 2001
StanKlos.comTM
GALINEE, clergyman. He was a member of the order of St. Sulpice, and accompanied La Salle on his voyage to this country. In 1670 he visited the site of Detroit, and is said to have been the first white man to arrive at that locality. He parted with La Salle at the head of Lake Ontario, and with a fellow-priest, named Dollier, coasted the southern shore of Lake Erie, and entered the Detroit river. At one of their camping-places the altar service was washed into the lake, and this calamity was attributed directly to the evil one. It happened that on reaching Detroit they stumbled upon a stone image, which Galinee believed to be a representation of the devil, whereupon, in his exasperation, he demolished the image, and, with the help of his "coureurs des bois," buried the fragments in the river. He prepared a map of the great lakes, according to which he does not seem to have known that Michigan was a peninsula. This was the second map made of this district, the first having been drawn by Champlain in 1632.