History of Jefferson County, New York, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 6

Author: Durant, Samuel W; Peirce, H. B. (Henry B.)
Publication date: 1878
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 862

USA > New York > Jefferson County > History of Jefferson County, New York, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 6

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Certain French writers claim that as early as 1488 one Cousin, a navigator of the city of Dieppe, on the English Channel, visited the shores of the American continent, being forced by adverse winds and currents from the African coast. He is also said to have discovered a great river. If this statement is true, it was most probably the eoast of South America that he visited.

On board his ship was one Pinzon, who became inutinous, and upon complaint being entered by his commander on the return of the ship to Dieppe, he was dismissed from the service.

It is said that he went to Spain, where he met the great discoverer, Columbus, to whom he related the particulars of Cousin's voyage, and, four years later, accompanied him on his first voyage to America, which at length furnished tangible evidence of the existence of a great continent in the Western ocean, and made his name renowned throughout the world .*

The Normans, Bretons, and Basques, those hardy sailors of the north and west of France and Spain, were early visitors to the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. It is even claimed that they were pursuing the cod-fishery previous to 1497.

There is strong evidence that this fishery began as early as 1504, and the fact is well established that in 1517 fifty Castilian, French, and Portuguese vessels were employed in the business.

" In 1506 one Denis, of Honfleur, explored the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and, two years later, Aubert, of Dieppe, fol- lowed in his track ; and in 1518 the Baron de Léry made an abortive attempt at settlement on Sable Island, where the cattle left by him remained and multiplied."+

John Verrazzano, a Florentine, visited the coast of Ameriea in 1524. He sailed along the shores, from where Wilmington, North Carolina, now stands, as far as New- foundland, from whence he returned to France. His ae- count of the voyage was the first reliable information the European nations obtained of the coast of the present United States.

The voyages of Columbus, Ponce de Leon, Cabot, and Verrazzano created an intense interest among the nations of Europe, and explorations now followed in rapid succession.

The Spaniards monopolized the southern portions of the continent as far north as northern Florida; the English oceupied the region lying between the Bay of Fundy and the Spanish possessions ; while the French, perforce, were obliged to content themselves with Nova Scotia, which they named Acadia, the Gulf of St. Lawrence, with its islands and adjacent countries, and the far-reaching valley of the river St. Lawrence. The next important voyage, following Verrazzano, was made by Jacques Cartier, a prominent cit- izen of St. Malo, in France, which port he left on the 20th of April, 1534, bound on a voyage of discovery to the Western ocean .

He visited the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Bay of Chaleurs, the island of Newfoundland, and sailed up the river as far as the island of Anticosti; but the threaten- ing storms of autumn drove him from the inhospitable shores, and he returned to France, having made only a reconnaissanec.

His discoveries were deemed of such importanee that he was commissioned anew, and on the 19th of May, 1535, again set sail with three small vessels for the New World. Encountering a furious tempest, which it happily weathered, the seattered fleet assembled at the Straits of Belle Isle. Cartier named the broad-spreading waters the Bay of St. Lawrence, which name subsequently attached to the river also.

Following up the majestic stream, he east anchor in the channel between the island of Orleans and the northern shore, being probably the first European vessels and people which the natives of that region had ever seen. The river was known to the Indians by the name of Hochelaga. On the spot where Quebec now stands a cluster of wigwams comprised the Indian town of Sta-da-co-na, in which re- sided an important chief, or king, called Don-na-co-na, who

# Sce Pioneers of France in the New World, by Parkman. 3

İ Parkman.

IIISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY, NEW YORK.

treated the adventurers with a courtesy far beyond their deserts, for the crafty Cartier, when afterwards making preparations to return to Europe, enticed the unsuspecting potentate, and a number of his chiefs and warriors, on board his vessel, when they were secured and taken to France.

Cartier explored the river as far as Ilochelaga, an Indian town which stood on the site of the present commercial city of Montreal (Mount Royal), where he arrived October 2, 1535, seventy-six years before Champlain began the foundations of the present city.

The Indian capital was fortified by a triple row of pali- sades, or heavy stockades, formed of the trunks of trces, and strongly braced together.

A similar system of fortifications seems to have been in use among all the Algonquin nations.

The place was surrounded by extensive fields of maize, ripening in the autumn sun, and the city was populous with tawny inhabitants. The high mountain overlooking Montreal Cartier visited, accompanied by troops of natives, .. and, enchanted by the magnificent prospect from its breezy summit, he named it "Mount Royal," from which the present name is derived.

Returning down the river, Cartier hauled his ships up the little river St. Charles, in front of a small palisaded work which those who had remained behind had con- structed, and here the whole force passed the winter, suf- fcring untold hardships from cold and the scurvy, which carried off twenty-six of their number before spring. This terrible disease was said to have been cured by a decoction of spruce-bark ; a remedy given them by the Indians. With the return of spring, Cartier resolved to abandon his settlement and return to France. With his captive chiefs he set sail, and on July 16, 1536, once more cast anchor under the guns of St. Malo.

The wars in which France was then involved swallowed up all minor considerations, and there was little encourage- ment at court for those who were interested in the New World.

But a champion eventually came forward in the person of Jean François de la Roque, Sieur de Roberval, a nobleman of Picardy, who had succeeded in interesting the king suffi- ciently to procure his assistance in fitting out a squadron of five vessels. Upon Roberval the king conferred the high- sounding but empty titles of " Lord of Norembega, Viceroy and Lieutenant-General in Canada, Hochelaga, Saguenay, Newfoundland, Belle Isle, Corpunt, Labrador, the Great Bay, and Baccaloos,"* and furnished him a handsome sum of money from the royal treasury, with which the five vessels were procured and equipped.

Of this expedition Jacques Cartier was made captain- general. Its objects, as set forth in his commission, were " discovery, settlement, and the conversion of the Indians."

Volunteers for the purpose of colonizing New France, as the country had been named by Cartier, not coming forward in sufficient numbers, he was authorized to select from the public prisons a sufficient number of criminals to man his vessels and strengthen his colony. The anticipated profits

of the adventure were to be divided into three equal parts, of which the king was to receive one-third, the adventurers another third, and the balance was to be reserved to cover necessary expenses.

Don-na-co-na and his chicfs were claimed to have been converted to the " true faith" and baptized, but most of them had died within a year or two thereafter.

On May 23, 1541, Cartier once more set sail from St. Malo, leaving Roberval to follow with additional supplics and emigrants as soon as they could be collected.

In due time he arrived in the St. Lawrence, where the savages met him and eagerly inquired for their chief and warriors. Cartier dissembled, and replicd that Don-na-co-na was dead, but that the rest had married and were living like lords.

The Indians pretended to be satisfied, but from that day they looked with distrust upon the French.

Three and a half leagues above the site of Quebec, Cartier erected two forts, one on the high promontory called Cap Rouge (Red Cap), and the other at its base near the river. This double fortification he named, in honor of the king, Charlesbourg Royal, and placed the Vicomte de Beaupré in command, while he with two boats proceeded up the river to explore the rapids above Hochelaga. Late in the autumn he returned, and found the garrison of Charlesbourg, with the gloom of a Canadian winter staring them in the face, in anything but a happy mood.

Roberval, so long expected, had not arrived, and for the second time Cartier was obliged to content himself as best he might with a sojourn during another period of frost and snow.

That his winter experience was anything but satisfactory, is evinced by the fact that as early in the spring as the ice would permit he broke up the settlement, embarked, and steered down the St. Lawrence.

In the mean time Roberval had met with vexatious delays, and it was not until April 16, 1542, that he set sail, with three ships and two hundred colonists, for New France. On the 8th of June he entered the harbor of St. John, Newfoundland, where he found seventeen fishing vessels lying at anchor.

Soon after the returning squadron of Cartier ran into the harbor, and when Roberval learned that the settlement on the St. Lawrence had been abandoned he was extremely indig- nant, and ordered Cartier to return. But the latter, disgusted with the experience of two winters in the bleak country, was in no mood to return to the scene of his sufferings, and weighing anchor in the night, he put to sea, and returned to France. This voyage ended the active life of Cartier, whose remaining days were passed quietly at his seigniorial mansion of Limoilou.+

The viceroy, Roberval, nothing daunted by this desertion, pushed on through the straits of Belle Isle to the Isle of Demons, or " Les Isle de la Demoiselle," lying north of Newfoundland, with which a curious legend of love, fidelity, and suffering is connected, as related by Thevet, a French writer, who was an intimate friend of Roberval and Car- tier.

# This word is said to be the Basque name for cod.

¡ This structure is said to be still standing.

HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY, NEW YORK.

Marguerite, the heroine of the tale, was the niece of Roberval .*

Sailing up the river, Roberval came to anchor under the heights of Cap Rouge. Here he erected new fortifications, mills, workshops, and dwellings, for a permanent colony. The little colony passed the ensuing winter in their dreary abode.

Famine and sickness decimated then, and a mutiny broke out among them, but it was quickly extinguished by the iron hand of Roberval, who hanged and shot several of the malcontents, and banished others. The rule of the viceroy was so severe that it is said even the Indians shed tears at his cruelty.

There is no definite. account of the fate of this colony, but it was certainly broken up not long afterwards.

For many years subsequently, no attempt was made to plant permanent colonies on the St. Lawrence. The cod fishery was, however, continued with unabated vigor by the hardy sailors of the French provinces. It is said that in 1578 there were as many as three hundred and fifty fishing vessels at Newfoundland, one hundred and fifty of them being French.

" In 1607 there was an old French fisherman at Can- seau, who had voyaged to these seas for forty-two consecu- tive years."+

The next attempt to colonize New France was made by the Marquis de la Roche, a Catholic nobleman of Brittany, who was granted a monopoly of the Canadian fur trade, and a profusion of high-sounding but empty titles.

Gathering a throng of thieves and desperadoes from the public prisons, he embarked in a small vessel, and sailed for America. Landing forty convicts upon Sable Island, off the coast of Nova Scotia, he sailed on an exploring voyage among the neighboring coasts and islands, but was driven out to sea by a furious storm, and finally returned to France, leaving the convicts to their fate.

Building huts from the fragments of an old wreck, they hunted the wild cattle, descended from those left by De Lery, eighty years before, made themselves garments from seal skins, and waited for the return of La Roche. Year after year passed, and still no succor. They quarreled and fought among themselves, and strife and disease, in the course of a few years, reduced their numbers to twelve half- starved wretches, who were finally rescned, and returned to their native land.

Succeeding La Roche came one Pontgravé, a merchant of St. Malo, who associated himself with a Captain Chauvin, of the marines, who had influence and acquaintance at court. At Tadoussac, at the mouth of the Saguenay, they established a trading station, under the tremendous preci- pices which overhang that most remarkable river. This colony also proved a failure, for, in the spring, after passing the first winter, several of the sixteen men left at the place were dead, and the remainder scattered among the neigh- boring Indians, subsisting upon charity.

CHAMPLAIN. In the closing years of the sixteenth century a new era

# See Parkman's Pioneers of France in the New World, p. 203. + Parkman.

dawned upon France. Henry the Fourth, " the bear-hunt- ing prince of the Pyrenees," had become monarch of France. Under his vigorons rule France, which had long been the prey of blood-thirsty factions, was consolidated, foreign enemies were driven from her soil, and art, industry, and commerce sprang to renewed life.

About 1598, a character, which afterwards, for nearly thirty years, stood in the van of the pioneers and rulers of the New World, came upon the scene, Samuel de Champ- lain, of Saintonge, or St. Ange. "Champlain was born in 1567, at the small seaport of Brouage, on the Bay of Bis- cay. He had risen to the rank of captain in the royal navy, but during the recent wars had served in the land forces in Brittany, where he fought for the king, under the banners of D'Aumont de St. Lac and Brissac. His purse was small, his merit great, and Henry the Fourth, out of his own slender resources, had given him a pension to maintain hinu near his person. But rest was penance to him. The war in Brittany was over. The rebellious Duke de Mereœur was reduced to obedience, and the royal army disbanded. Champlain, his occupation gone, conceived a design consonant with his adventurous nature. He would visit the West Indies, and bring back to the king a report of those regions of mystery whence Spanish jealousy ex- cluded foreigners, and where every intruding Frenchman was threatened with death."

His West Indian adventure occupied him two years and a half, during which he visited the principal ports of the islands, made plans and sketches of them, and tlien, landing at Vera Cruz, made a visit to the city of Mexico. From thence he went on a visit to Panama, where lie conceived a plan for a ship-canal across the isthmus, by which, he says, " the voyage to the South Sea would be shortened more than fifteen hundred leagues."

He kept a eurious journal of his travels, which he illus- trated, after the manner of the times, with his own hand. This manuseript is preserved at Dieppe.

From 1603 to 1608, Champlain was busily engaged with De Chastes, Pontgravé, De Monts, Poutrineourt, D'Orville, Beaumont, Sourin, La Motte, Boulay, and Fougeray in planting transient colonies in Nova Scotia (called by the French Acadie), New Brunswick, and contiguous regions, known to the French under the name Norembega; and in exploring the bays, inlets, and islands of the coast, from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to Long Island.

De Monts had obtained a fresh monopoly of the fur trade in the St. Lawrence, and in the spring of 1608 fitted out two ships, of which he gave the command,-one to Pontgrave and the other to Champlain. The former was to trade with the natives, while the latter had the harder task assigned him of planting a permanent settlement and exploring the country. Pontgrave, with a cargo of goods destined for Tadoussac, sailed from Honfleur, April 5, 1608, and Champlain, with men, arins, and stores for a colony, followed on the 13th.

Pontgrave reached the river before Champlain, and, turn- ing the rocky point at the mouth of the Saguenay, then called by the French " l'ointe de Tous le Diables," from the fury of its winds and currents, found a Basque fur- trader anchored in the stream. In response to Pontgrave's

HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY, NEW YORK.

summons, demanding a cessation of the traffie in his ex- elusive domain, the angry fur-traders, not having the fear of King Henry before their eyes, fired on him with heavy guns and musketry, wounded him and two of his men, and killed a third; and then boarded his vessel and carried away his arms and ammunition, promising to return them when they were done trading.

On the 3d of June, Champlain arrived, and found matters as above deseribed. Fearful now of the vengeance of the French commander, the Basques made haste to restore everything and make the best terms they could. A peace was signed on board their vessel, and, abandoning their traffie and furs together, the belligerent strangers betook themselves to catehing whales.

Peace being restored, Champlain held on his way up the river, and, selecting the present site of the city of Quebec,* began the first permanent settlement in what is now British America. It probably occupied the site of the present market-place of the lower town.

Not long after the commencement of the settlement, a plot was laid by a few of Champlain's mnen to assassinate him and deliver Quebee into the hands of the Basques ; but it was revealed by one who had overheard it, the ring- leaders were captured, one of them hung, and the others sent to France, where they expiated their erimes in the galleys.

Pontgravé departed for France in October, leaving Cham- plain to pass a Canadian winter as best he might. The in- evitable seurvy broke out in the colony, and, before spring, carried off all but eight of the people, while all through the dreary months famished Indians hung around the little stockade, begging for something to keep them alive.

In the spring of 1609, Pontgrave, with more ships and supplies, arrived at Tadoussac, whither Champlain hastened to take counsel with him ; and it was arranged that Pont- gravé should take charge of Quebec, while Champlain pro- ceeded to prosecute his long-cherished scheme of discoveries.

INDIAN NATIONS.

The savage nations inhabiting the valley of the St. Law- renee, at the time of Champlain's settlement at Quebee, were all members of the great Algonquin family. A tribe or nation called the Montagnais occupied the region in the immediate neighborhood of Quebec; south of them were the Abenakis tribes of northern New England ; above Hochelaga, on the Ottawa, were the Hurons, afterwards called Wyandots ; while to the southward of Lake Ontario were located the fierce conquerors of the ancient Allegewi, the future scourge of New France, and the terrible destroy- ers of all the surrounding nations,-the powerful Iroquois, or Five Nations.

It would seem that Champlain, at some time during the year 1608, had entered into an alliance with the Algonquin tribes of Canada, wherein he agreed to help them in their constant wars with the Iroquois. This alliance in after- years eost France immense treasure and thousands of lives,

and it was not until General Sullivan's terrible chastise- ment of these fieree warriors, during the Revolution, that they ceased to be formidable.

The Huron and Algonquin nations had agreed to meet Champlain in the spring with a strong war-party, and to- gether they were to make a campaign against the Iroquois. But, up to the middle of May, they had not appeared, and Champlain, impatient of further delay, started forward, ac- companied by a band of the Montagnais Indians. A short distance up the river he found his allies encamped on the shore, and together they descended to Quebee, for the fame of the white man's architecture had penetrated the wilder- ness, and the savages were anxious to look upon the strangers in their own abode. Arriving at Quebee, they indulged in a grand feast and dance, and saw and heard with astonish- ment the terrible fire-arms of the French.

Embarking in a small shallop, Champlain, with eleven men of Pontgravé's party, clad in armor, and armed with the arquebuse (a clumsy weapon, fired with a matchlock), and accompanied by his dusky forest allies, proceeded up the turbulent stream to the mouth of the river, since known under the various appellations of Riviere des Iroquois, Rich- elieu, St. John, Chambly, St. Louis, and Sorel. Reaching the falls of this stream, he sent back his shallop with the greater part of his French, and pushed on with canoes into the forest. Counting his forces above the rapids, he found there were only twenty-four canoes and sixty Indians.

Moving according to striet military rule, with flankers thrown out, and having an advance- and rear-guard, the little war-party cautiously moved southward. Entering the widening sheet of water now known as Lake Cham- plain, they became more wary, and only moved during the night, for they were nearing the bounds of a dangerous country.

On the morning of July 29 the party eneamped on the western shore, not far from where the French, under Mont- ealm, long afterwards, built Fort Carillon, captured by Gen- eral Amherst in 1759, and rebuilt and rechristened Crown Point.

This visit of Champlain was in all likelihood the first made by a European to the State of New York. Upon embarking in the evening they met a war-party of Iroquois, when both parties went on shore and fortified themselves during the night. On the morning of July 30 a battle was fought, in which the Iroquois were defeated, with the as- sistanee of the fire arms of the three Frenelimen of the party.

Satisfied with their vietory, the Indians returned to the St. Lawrence, where the Hurons and Algonquins parted company for the west, while Champlain and his companion, with the Montaignais, returned to Quebee. This was the first encounter of white men with the " Romans of Amer- ica," and in after-years the inhabitants of Canada bitterly repented in blood and ashes the improvident step taken by Champlain.

In the autumn of 1609, Champlain and Pontgravé re- turned to France, leaving Chauvin in command of Quebec.

In the spring of 1610 they both returned to New France, in the interests of De Monts, who had been made governor of Rochelle. They found the St. Lawrence and

# This name has a doubtful origin. In the Algonquin tongue it is said by Charlevoix to be Quebeis, or Quelibec, signifying a narrowing or contracting. The Micmacs called it Kibec or Kebeque. The Iro- quois called it Stadacona and the Hurons Atouta-re-quee.

HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY, NEW YORK.

the Saguenay swarming with the boats of fur-traders, and a fleet of ships lay at Tadoussac.

Proceeding up the river, they met a great army of Hurons, Algonquins, and Montagnais at the mouth of the Richelieu river. Shortly after there was a terrible en- counter in the forest near by with a band of the Iroquois, in which the latter were beaten with great slaughter, by the assistance of the French and their wonderful fire-arms, though Champlain in his curious journal gives the glory to his God. A savage scene of torture followed, and then tlre eamp broke up, and the Indians, with a erowd of prisoners, reserved for more cruel torture by the women and children, returned to their villages.

It was not long after this affair that Champlain heard of the assassination of Henry the Fourth, which rendered his return to France necessary. Placing one Du Pare in com- mand, he bade adieu once more to his wheat-fields and gar- dens at Quebec, and set sail for his native land. The following spring he was again ready for fresh adventures, and on May 13, 1611, arrived at Tadoussac, where the mountains were still white with snow. Repairing to the site of Montreal, he began, probably in June, the founda- tions of what has since grown to be the most important city in British America. For many years it was only a trading- post, and it was not until 1642 that permanent buildings were erceted, and the place began to assume the appearance of a town.

Champlain commenced his improvements on the place now partly occupied by the hospital of the Gray Nuns. He named the spot " Place Royale."

The boats of the traders from below swarined in the wake of Champlain's vessel, and his new settlement was overrun with them. Hundreds of Indians from the Ot- tawa, and regions to the north and west, assembled for purposes of trade, but the rough and insolent crowd of traders awed them, and they withdrew to a point above the rapids of St. Louis, where they begged Champlain to come and trade with them, but not to allow the erowd of traders to follow. From the Indian eamp, on his return, an in- trepid savage earried Champlain safely over the rapids in his canoe.

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History of Jefferson County, New York, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 6

Author: Durant, Samuel W; Peirce, H. B. (Henry B.) Publication date: 1878 Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co. Number of Pages: 862

Author: Durant, Samuel W; Peirce, H. B. (Henry B.)
Publication date: 1878
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 862