Henri de Tonti

Tonti was born around 1649 at Gaeta, Italy, and lost a hand to a grenade during French campaigning in Sicily, after which he wore a gloved metal prosthesis and was called Iron Hand. His 1689 attempt to find La Salle's abandoned settlement failed when he turned back, ill-prepared. An account of the Natchitoch people says he reached them from the Mississippi in 1690 and formed an alliance. He died of yellow fever in September 1704, and his grave is believed to lie near the Mobile River, unmarked and unknown.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort St. Jean Baptiste State Historic Site — 1.0 mi
  A reconstruction of the 1716 French fort beside the Natchitoches village, with a palisade of nearly 2,000 pine logs, a chapel and storeroom, and living-history programs, open Wednesday to Sunday.
• Natchitoches Historic District — 1.2 mi
  The riverfront blocks of the oldest permanent settlement in the Louisiana Purchase, founded in 1714 at a Natchitoches village, with a brick-paved Front Street, Cane River frontage and the largest bousillage construction in the South.
• Cane River Creole National Historical Park — 7.0 mi
  Oakland and Magnolia, two Cane River cotton plantations kept as they stood, told through the enslaved families who worked them, the 1864 and 1804 freedom seekers and the tenant farmers who stayed into the 1960s.
• Melrose Plantation — 12 mi
  The Cane River estate built on land granted to Louis Metoyer, son of Marie Thérèse Coincoin, with the Yucca House and African House, later an artists' retreat; guided tours Thursday to Sunday.

More markers nearby

• Caddo Nation — steps away
• Old Normal Hill — 1.1 mi
• Dr. John Sibley — 1.1 mi
• Northwestern State University — 1.1 mi