French explorer of America, born at Ath, Belgium. He entered the order of Recollets of St. Francis, and was employed by his brethren to solicit alms at different places—among others, at Dunkirk and Calais, where the stories related by the sailors stimulated his desire to visit foreign countries. Afterward he traveled in Germany and Italy, and was regimental chaplain at the battle of Seneffe, between the Prince of Condé and William of Orange. In 1673 he was ordered to Canada, where he preached for some time at Quebec, and founded a convent at Fort Frontenac. Father Hennepin went to Niagara with La Salle’s expedition. After building Fort Créve Cœur, at the headwaters of the Illinois, La Salle returned to Canada, while Hennepin set out with two men in a canoe in 1680, descended the Illinois to its mouth, and, after sailing up the Mississippi River for some weeks, fell into the hands of a party of Sioux Indians, who carried him and his men to their country. Here he discovered and named the Falls of St. Anthony. He spent eight months among the savages. Then Daniel Greysolon du Lhut, who had come by way of Lake Superior, rescued him, and enabled him to reach Green Bay by way of the Wisconsin River. Hennepin returned to Quebec in April 1682, and soon afterward returned to France, where he published his Description of Louisiana, Recently Discovered to the Southwest of New France (1683). He was appointed guardian of the Convent of Renty, in Artois, but he soon withdrew to Holland. After laying aside his religious dress he lived in England, where he published his New Discovery of a Vast Country in America (1697). His last work was New Journey in a Country Greater than Europe, between the Arctic Ocean and New Mexico (1698). His works are invaluable to the historian, but full of exaggerations. He died in Utrecht, Holland.
