MARQUETTE, a city and port of entry of the United States, and the county seat of Marquette county, Michigan, lies on a bluff about 25 feet above a bay of Lake Superior, and is a terminus of the Marquette, Houghton, and Ontonagon, and the Detroit, Mackinac, and Marquette Railroads. Though the population of the city was only 4690 in 1880, Marquette is a place of importance as the chief shipping port for the great iron-ore region of western Michigan (787,150 tons shipped in 1881), and contains a number of blast furnaces, foundries, machine-shops, and powder-mills, while at the same time it has a reputation as a resort for invalids and tourists. A Roman Catholic cathedral, convent, and orphan asylum are among the public buildings.

MARQUETTE, Jacques, a Jesuit missionary and explorer, was born in 1637 at Laon in France, and died May 18, 1675, on the banks of a small stream, now known as the Marquette, which has its mouth on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. Having joined the Society of Jesus, he sailed for Canada in 1666, spent eighteen months in the vicinity of Three Rivers, founded the mission of Sault Sainte Marie on Lake Superior in 1668, and followed the Hurons to Mackinaw in 1671. It is mainly, however, as Joliet’s companion in his voyage down the Mississippi in 1673 that Marquette holds a permanent position in the history of discovery in America.

His narrative, first published in Thevenot’s Recueil de Voyages (Paris, 1681), is printed along with other documents relating to him in Shea’s Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley (New York, 1852).