Historical

Historical. . The monument, cannons and fountain are erected on this site of Old Fort Massac. Here on the twentieth of June, 1757, a fort called Fort Ascension, later known as Fort Massac, was completed by the French under Charles Phillippe Aubry. It was destroyed by the French themselves in 1764 before this territory passed into the hands of the British. On this same spot a second fort was completed by the United States on the thirty-first of March, 1794, and was occupied by a garrison until 1814, when it was finally abandoned. George Rogers Clark on his way to Kaskaskia entered the Illinois Country with his regiment at the mouth of Fort Massac Creek, one mile above the site of this fort, on the twenty-eighth of June, 1778. It was probably here that a flag representing the sovereignty of the United States was first unfolded in this state. At some unknown place between this site and the mouth of the Ohio River, Charles Juchereau de St. Denis built a trading post, and tannery in the Autumn of 1702, and to this first settlement of Europeans in the Ohio Valley, Father Jean Mermet came to preach to the Indians the Word of God. As a memorial to these and other great events for which Fort Massac may rightly stand as reminder and symbol, this park and monument have been dedicated by the people of Illinois to bring to the remembrance of their children and children's children forever the deeds of their predecessors who won for us and our posterity this noble heritage. Let us cherish their memory with pride and affection unto the remotest generations.