In Illinois there is no historical association to represent the State; but the Historical Society of Chicago (begun in 1856), though suffering the loss of its collections of seventeen thousand volumes in the great fire of 1871, still survives. The principal histories of the State touching the French occupation are Henry Brown’s _History of Illinois_, New York, 1844; John Reynolds’s _Pioneer History of Illinois_, Belleville, 1852, now become scarce; and Davidson and Stuvé’s _Complete History of Illinois_, 1673-1873, Springfield, 1874. The _Historical Series_ issued by Robert Fergus pertain in large measure to Chicago, and, except J. D. Caton’s “Last of the Illinois, and Sketch of the Potawatomies,” has, so far as printed, little of interest earlier than the English occupation. H. H. Hurlbut’s _Chicago Antiquities_, 1881, has an account of the early discovery of the portage. * * * * * The Michigan Pioneer Society was founded in 1874, and has printed three volumes of _Pioneer Collections_, 1877-1880. The Houghton County Historical Society, devoting itself to the history of the region near Lake Superior,[538] dates from 1866. It has published nothing of importance. The State of Michigan secured, through General Cass, while he was the minister of the United States at Paris, transcripts of a large number of documents relating to its early history. The Historical Society of Michigan was begun in 1828, and during the few years following it printed several Annual Addresses and a volume of _Transactions_. Every trace of the Society had nearly vanished, when in 1857 it was revived. (_Historical Magazine_, i. 353.) The principal histories of the State are James H. Lanman’s _History of Michigan_, New York, 1839; Electra M. Sheldon’s _Early History of Michigan, from the First Settlement to 1815_, New York, 1856, which is largely given to an account of the Jesuit missions;[539] Charles R. Tuttle’s _General History of Michigan_, Detroit, 1874; James Valentine Campbell’s _Outlines of the Political History of Michigan_, Detroit, 1876. (Cf. Clarke’s _Bibliotheca Americana_, 1878, p. 92; 1883, p. 169; Sabin, _Dictionary_, vol. xii. p. 141.) A few of the sectional histories, like W. P. Strickland’s _Old Mackinaw_, Philadelphia, 1860, touch slightly the French period. A brief sketch of Mackinaw Island by Lieutenant Dwight H. Kelton, U. S. A., includes extracts from the registers of the Catholic Church at Mackinaw, and a list of the French commanders at that post during the eighteenth century. * * * * *