In 1717 the Regent of France was influenced by John Law, a Scottish land speculator, to draw a line from the mouth of the Illinois River, extended east, which created New France (Canada) to the north and Louisiana to the south. Law’s scheme to colonize Louisiana waxed until 1720 when the “Mississippi Bubble” burst, nearly wrecking France. On October 9, 1721, Pierre Francois de Charlevoix, a Jesuit college professor, sent by Louis XV’s Regent to search for the still undiscovered route to the Pacific Ocean passed this way. “For at this place,” he wrote in polished prose, “The River of the Illinois changes its course.... One might say, out of regret to its being obliged to pay the tribute of its waters to another river, it endeavors to return back to its source.” A VITAL WATER ROUTE The fur trade, flourishing with the Indians as middlemen, centered on the strategic Illinois waterway. The Indians controlled the region from the Fox War of the 1730’s through the French and Indian War of the 1760’s, the French having possession in name only. When the British took hold in 1763, illegal fur trading began from the newly founded St. Louis, Calhoun Point being the place of crossing. Otter, beaver, wolf, deer and martin are the peltry mentioned as abounding from the mouth of the Illinois north. By the Treaty of Greenville, Ohio, in August, 1795, the Indians ceded a twelve square mile tract at the mouth of the Illinois River, including free passage of the waterway. In 1811 trouble with Indians saw the building of a blockhouse near the mouth of the Illinois River and another at the present Meppen, across the river from Goat Cliff. Major Stephan H. Long in September, 1816, went by keelboat from St. Louis to Peoria with two soldiers and an interpreter, Francis Le Clair, the founder of Davenport, Iowa. This survey party returned overland south and west, reaching the Illinois River via the low ridge east of Quitt Point and Deerlick Hollow. The autumn of 1818 found Gurdon S. Hubbard as a clerk on a bateau as an agent of Astor’s American Fur Company. Hubbard, only 18, tells of the party passing Pere Marquette State Park singing Canadian boat songs and spending the night of November 5 at the mouth of the Illinois, bound for St. Louis. This party returned in the first week of December as Illinois was accepted into the Union. Hubbard became a legendary figure in Illinois, living a full and adventurous life in the Illinois fur trade. SETTLERS ARMY VETERANS Five veterans of the regular army were the first settlers in this region this same year. One of these, David Gilbert, settled on the bank of the lake now bearing his family name. George Finney, another veteran, platted the village of Camden in February, 1821, in the valley now bearing that name at the mouth of the Illinois river. [Illustration: Corner of interesting nature museum]