First Mass

December 15, 1674

Photos

Documentation

• Jacques Marquette, S.J., journal, in Louise Phelps Kellogg, ed., "Early Narratives of the Northwest, 1634-1699" (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1917)

Notes

Fr. Jacques Marquette wintered at the Chicago portage from early December 1674 to the end of March 1675, on his second voyage south to found a mission among the Illinois. His own journal records, for December 15, 1674: "we said the mass of the Conception" -- the octave of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (December 8), which is why this specific day is treated as the first Mass of explicit record at Chicago, though Marquette's journal also states plainly that during the whole wintering "my illness did not prevent me from saying holy mass every day." This is a primary source, not a secondary retelling -- Marquette's own diary, published in Louise Phelps Kellogg, ed., Early Narratives of the Northwest, 1634-1699 (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1917), part of the Original Narratives of American History series. The exact site of the winter camp is traditionally placed near the mouth/portage of the Chicago River; the coordinates here are an approximate central location, not a precisely surveyed spot.