Born at Laon, France, on June 1, 1637, Père Marquette was a devoted missioner and priest-explorer who died near Ludington, Michigan, on May 18, 1675. On October 24, 1674, he left the Mission of St. Francis Xavier at the present de Pere, Wisconsin, with two voyageurs, Jacques le Castor and Pierre Porteret, under orders to proceed to the Mission la Conception among the Illinois. From December 4, 1674, to March 30, 1675, they wintered on the banks of the Chicago River, then reached the Illinois village of the Kaskaskia Indians on April 8, 1675. Received there warmly, he visited the cabins, teaching and instructing the natives, then addressed a Great Council held on a prairie near the village, where five hundred chiefs and elders sat in a circle around him and fifteen hundred young men stood, not counting the women and children. He explained the principal mysteries of his religion and the purpose that brought him to their country, and above all preached Jesus Christ. Near this spot on Maundy Thursday and Easter Sunday in 1675, he offered the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, including the first parish Mass in the Illinois country, and by these two sacrifices, the first ever offered there to God, he took possession of that land in the name of Jesus Christ and gave that mission the name of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin, establishing the first Christian mission in the Illinois country.