History of Jefferson County, New York, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers, Part 8

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 8


Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).


Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107 | Part 108 | Part 109 | Part 110 | Part 111 | Part 112 | Part 113 | Part 114 | Part 115 | Part 116 | Part 117 | Part 118 | Part 119 | Part 120 | Part 121 | Part 122 | Part 123 | Part 124 | Part 125 | Part 126 | Part 127 | Part 128 | Part 129 | Part 130 | Part 131 | Part 132 | Part 133 | Part 134 | Part 135 | Part 136 | Part 137 | Part 138 | Part 139 | Part 140 | Part 141 | Part 142 | Part 143 | Part 144 | Part 145 | Part 146 | Part 147 | Part 148 | Part 149 | Part 150 | Part 151 | Part 152 | Part 153 | Part 154 | Part 155 | Part 156 | Part 157 | Part 158 | Part 159


For the purpose of trading on the lake, and with the view of eventually using them in exploring expeditions, La Salle also constructed four small, decked vessels, and launched them at Frontenac. These were the first Euro- pean-built water eraft on Lake Ontario.


Among those who were stationed at Frontenac was the Franciscan Rècollet Friar, Louis Hennepin, afterwards famous as the companion of La Salle, and for his discov- eries on the Mississippi river. He superintended the building of a chapel for the use of himself and his col- league, Buisset, planted a huge cross in the fort, and instructed the Iroquois inhabitants of the place, which lat- ter consisted of converts to Christianity who had left their native country and become residents in Canada. Hennepin also made journeys in the neighboring waters in a canoc, and in the winter of 1677-78, in company with a soldier of the fort, crossed the northeastern extremity of Lake On- tario on snow-shoes, and made a winter-journey along the country lying eastward of the lake to the capital of the Iroquois Confederacy. They afterwards visited the Oneidas and Mohawks, and after a short sojourn retraced their steps to Frontenac, having twice passed through the present county of Jefferson.


On November 18, 1678, La Motte and Hennepin, ac- companied by sixteen men, went on board one of La Salle's small vessels, of about ten tons' capacity, and sailed for Niagara, which place they reached on December 6, after encountering many hardships. The next day he climbed the heights on the Canadian side of the river, and pushing his way over the snow-covered country discovered the great fall, of which he gave a very minute description, in the main correct, with the exception that lic vastly over-csti-


mated the height of the fall, which he placed at five hun- dred feet, and afterwards raised to six hundred. He was probably the first white man to look upon the stupendous cataract, though it was known to exist in Champlain's day.


In 1682 Frontenac was recalled from Canada, and Le Febvre de la Barre was appointed in his place as governor, with Meules as intendant, in the place of Duchesneau.


These personages arrived at Quebec in the month of August. Trouble was brewing with the Iroquois, and La Barre used every effort to conciliate them. Frontenac, just previous to his removal, had held a council with a deputation from the Confederacy, when a sort of quasi agreement was entered into by the respective parties ; but when La Barre assumed the reins of government he found matters in a critical situation. He blustered and made braggadocio speeches, and threatened a terrible vengeance upon the Indians if they did not stop plundering the French traders and murdering their allies. But the haughty savages treated the governor as of little account, and, no doubt urged on by Dongan, the English governor of the colony of New York, and the Dutch traders at Fort Orange (Albany), continued their reprisals until there was every prospect of war. La Barre repeatedly wrote for more troops, and made every preparation within his power for an expedition into the Iroquois country, in which he wrote the king that he would " perish at its head or destroy his enemies."


In the mean time every effort was made to bring about a peaceful solution of the difficulties, and to this end La Barre sent Charles Le Moyne, a veteran pioneer of Mont- real, whom the Indians had known for twenty years, as envoy to the Onondagas. He also employed the good of- fices of the Jesuit, Jean de Lamberville, who had long lived in the capacity of a missionary among them. During these conciliatory propositions La Barre continued to col- lect troops and stores at Frontenac, and built a number of vessels, ostensibly for use against the Iroquois, but really, as his enemies claimed, for the purpose of trading and sell- ing brandy to the Indians.


The new governor proved hostile to La Salle's operations, and placed every obstacle in his way in order to break up his trading-posts, and eventually monopolize the fur trade for himself and his friends. He even went so far as to give the Iroquois full liberty to attack La Salle wherever they should find him ; and in the spring of 1683 he sent the Chevalier de Baugis with canocs and men to take pos- session of La Salle's fort, St. Louis, on the Illinois river.


He also sent seven canoes and fourteen men, with a large quantity of goods, to trade with the tribes of the Illinois and Mississippi. A war-party of Senecas and Cayugas invaded the Illinois country in February, 1684, attacked Baugis in La Salle's fort, and captured and plundered the governor's seven canoe-loads of goods, making no discrimi- nation between him and La Salle. When La Barre heard of these proceedings he was furious. IIc plainly foresaw the destruction of all the northwestern tribes, the ruin of his fur trade, and its eventual transfer to the English and Dutch at Albany and New York, unless something was done immediately.


Under the influence of De Lamberville, and the numer-


34


HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY, NEW YORK.


ous presents sent them by La Barre, the Onondagas were anxious to serve as negotiators between the French and the Senecas, to which the latter finally consented.


In the mean time the English were not idle, and to win over the haughty Iroquois to their interests, Governor Dongan sent out one Arnold Viele, a Dutch interpreter, as envoy to Onondaga, the Confederate capital.


But Viele committed a great blunder at the first. He informed the Onondagas, at his first interview, that the English were masters of their country, that the Indians were subjects of Great Britain, and that they must hold no councils nor make no treaties with the French without per- mission. And here appears a celebrated character upon the scene. He was a famous Onondaga orator, and though not a hereditary chief, yet having great influence among them by reason of his eloquence.


His Indian name was Otreouati, and he was familiarly known as " Big Mouth," or " Big Throat." His French cognomen was La Grande Guela, which the historian, La Hontan, Latinized, and called Grangula, and the Scotchman, Colden, transformed into Ga-ran-gu-la, by which appellation he has generally been known. The pride of the renowned orator, as a representative of the great Confederation, was decply touched. "You say that we are subjects of the King of England and the Duke of York ; but we say that we are brothers. We must take care of ourselves. The coat-of-arms which you have fastened to that post cannot defend us against Onontio. We tell you that we bind a covenant chain to our arm and to his. We shall take the Senecas by one hand and Onontio by the other, and their hatchet and his sword shall be thrown into deep water."*


Big Mouth proudly asserted the independence of his tribe, and told the warriors to close their ears to the words of the Dutchman, who spoke as if he were drunk. Before the council broke up it was resolved that Big Mouth, with an embassy of chiefs and old men, should go with Le Moyne and meet La Barre.


While these transactions were taking place at Onondaga the French governor had completed his preliminary ar- rangements, and taken the initial step for a campaign against the Senecas, whom, he wrote the king, it was his purpose to exterminate. On the 10th of July he set out from Quebec with about two hundred men, and proceeded to Montreal, where, according to his own account, his force was increased to seven hundred Canadians, one hundred and thirty regulars, and two hundred mission Indians. The army was expected to cross Lake Ontario and rendez- vous at Niagara, where Greysolon Du Lhut, the leader of the famous courier des bois of the northwest, and La Du- rantaye, were to meet him with large reinforcements of rangers and Indians.


After a long stay at Montreal the army embarked at La Chine, crossed Lake St. Louis, and commenced the ascent of the upper St. Lawrence. Baron La Hontan, who was then a subaltern officer in one of the companies of regulars, accompanied the expedition, of which he wrote an interest- ing account. After a tedious passage the army passed the Thousand Islands and came to a halt in the harbor under


the walls of Fort Frontenac. Here it went into camp on low ground, where a malarial fever soon broke out among them, carried off a large number, and disabled many more. The governor himself was brought by it to the brink of the grave, according to La Hontan.


Discouraged by sickness and the consequent weakening of his army, La Barre came down from his lofty and threatening position, and determined to make peace even at the price of heavy concessions to the belligerent Senecas, and, with this object in view, sent Le Moyne to persuade the savages to meet him on their own side of the lake and treat for peace.


Gathering up such of his men as were able to move, he crossed the lake to the mouth of " Rivière la Famine," and prepared to meet the Indian deputies. The fever fol- lowed the troops from Frontenac, provisions failed, and La Barre was beginning to despair of accomplishing anything either by diplomacy or force of arms, when, on September 3, Le Moyne appeared at La Famine, accompanied by Big Mouth and thirteen other deputies. La Barre set a great feast of bread, winc, and fish before them, and on the morn- ing of the 4th the council began.t


The governor had sent away all his sick and disabled men previous to the arrival of the deputation, and represented to them that he had left his army at Frontenac, and brought with him only an escort. But the Onondagas were not so easily deceived. Having among them one who understood a little French, they contrived by listening among the tents in the evening to find out the true situation of affairs.


COUNCIL OF 1684.


The following description of this remarkable meeting and the speeches of La Barre and Big Mouth we take from Parkman's " Frontenac and New France," just issued from the press.


" The council was held in an open spot near the French encampment. La Barre was seated in an arm-chair. The Jesuit Bruyas stood by him as interpreter, and the officers were ranged on his right and left. The Indians sat on the ground in a row opposite the governor, and two lines of sol- diers, forming two sides of a square, closed the intervening spaces. Among the officers was La Hontan, a spectator of the whole proceeding. He may be called a man in advance of his time; for he had the caustic, skeptical, and mocking spirit which a century later marked the approach of the great revolution, but which was not a characteristic of the reign of Louis XIV. He usually told the truth when he had no motive to do otherwise, and yet was capable at times of prodigious mendacity. There is no reason to believe that he indulged in it on this occasion, and his account of what he now saw and heard may probably be taken as sub- stantially correct. According to him, La Barre opened the council as follows :


"' The king, my master, being informed that the Five Nations of the Iroquois have long acted in a manner ad-


# Colden, Fice Nations, 1727.


t The precise locality of this council is not known. It is supposed to have been in the vicinity of the mouth of Black river, and might have been in Lyons, Brownsville, Hounsfield, Henderson, or Ellis- burg. From a letter written by the commissary of the expedition it would seem to have been in the latter town, near the marshes.


35


HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY, NEW YORK.


verse to peace, has ordered me to come with an eseort to this place, and to send Akouessan (Le Moyne) to Onon- daga to invite the principal chiefs to meet me. It is the wish of this great king that you and I should smoke the calumet of peace together, provided that you promise in the name of the Mohawks, Oueidas, Onondagas, Cuyugas, and Senecas, to give entire satisfaction and indemnity to his subjects, and do nothing in future which may occasion rupture.'


" Then he recounted the offenses of the Iroquois. First, they had maltreated and robbed French traders in the country of the Illinois. 'Wherefore,' said the governor, 'I am ordered to demand reparation, and, in case of refusal, to deelare war against you.


"' Next, the warriors of the Five Nations have introduced the English into the lakes which belong to the king, my master, and among the tribes who are his children, in order to destroy the trade of his subjects, and seduce these people from the obedience they owe him. I am willing to forget this ; but, should it happen again, I am expressly ordered to declare war against you.


"' Thirdly, the warriors of the Five Nations have made sundry barbarous inroads into the country of the Illinois and Miamis, seizing, binding, and leading into captivity an infinite number of thesc savages in time of peace. They are the children of my king, and are not to remain your slaves. They must at once be set free and sent home. If you refuse to do this, I am expressly ordered to declare war against you.'


" La Barre coneluded by assuring Big Mouth, as repre- senting the Five Nations of the Iroquois, that the French would leave them in peace if they made atonement for the past and promised good conduct for the future; but that if they did not heed his words their villages should be burned and they themselves destroyed. He added, though he knew the contrary, that the governor of New York would join him in a war against them.


" During the delivery of this martial harangue Big Mouth sat silent and attentive, his eyes fixed on the bowl of his pipe. When the interpreter had ceased he rose, walked gravely two or three times around the lines of the assembly, then stopped before the governor, looked steadily at him, stretched his tawny arm, opened his capacious jaws, and uttered himself as follows :


" ' Onontio,* I honor you, and all the warriors who are with me honor you. Your interpreter has ended his speech and now I begin mine. Listen to my words.


"' Onontio, when you left Quebec you must have thought that the heat of the sun had burned the forests that make our country inaccessible to the French, or that the lake had overflowed them, so that we could not escape from our vil- lages. You must have thought so, Onontio; and curiosity to sce such a fire or such a flood must have brought you to this place. Now your eyes are opened ; for I and mny warriors have come to tell you that the Senecas, Cayugas, Onondugas, Oneidas, and Mohawks, are all alive. I thank you, in their name, for bringing baek the calumet of peace, which they gave to your predecessors ; and I give you joy


that you have not dug up the hatehet which has been so often red with the blood of your countrymen.


"' Listen, Onontio. I am not asleep ; my eyes are open ; and, by the sun that gives me light, I see a great captain, at the head of a band of soldiers, who talks like a man in a dream. He says that he is come to smoke the pipe of peace with the Onondagas, but I see that he came to knock them in the head, if so many of his Frenchmen were not too weak to fight. I see Onontio raving in a camp of siek men, whose lives the Great Spirit has saved by smiting them with disease. Our women had snatched war-elubs, and our children and old men seized bows and arrows to attack your camp, if our warriors had not restrained them when your messenger, Akonessan, appeared in our village.'


" He next justified the pillage of French traders, on the ground, very doubtful in this case, that they were carrying arms to the Illinois, enemies of the confederacy ; and he flatly refused to make reparation, telling La Barre that even the old men of his tribe had no fear of the French. He also avowed, boldly, that the Iroquois had conducted English traders to the lakes.


"' We are born free,' he exclaimed ; ' We depend neither on Onontio or Corlear. We have the right to go whither- soever we please, to take with us whomever we please, and buy and sell of whomever we please. If your allies are your slaves, or your children, treat them like slaves or children, and forbid them to deal with anybody but your Frenchmen.


1198119


"' We have knocked the Illinois on the head, because they eut down the tree of peace, and hunted the beaver on our lands. We have done less than the English and the French, who have seized upon the lands of many tribes, driven them away, and built towns, villages, and forts in their country.


"' Listen, Onontio. My voice is the voice of the Five Tribes of the Iroquois. When they buried the hatehet at Cataraqui (Fort Frontenae), in presence of your predeces- sor, they planted the tree of peace in the middle of the fort, that it might be a post of traders and not of soldiers. Take eare that all the soldiers you have brought with you, shut up in so small a fort, do not choke this tree of peace. I assure you in the name of the Five Tribes that our war- riors will danee the dance of the calumet under its branches, and that they will sit quiet on their mats and never dig up the hatchet till their brothers, Onontio and Corlear, sepa- rately or together, make ready to attack the country that the Great Spirit has given to our ancestors.'


" The session presently elosed, and La Barre withdrew to his tent, where, according to La Hontan, he vented his feelings in invective, till reminded that good manners were not to be expected from an Iroquois.


" Big Mouth, on his part, entertained some of the French at a feast, which he opened in person by a dance. There was another session in the afternoon, and terms of peace were settled in the evening. The tree of peace was planted anew ; La Barre promised not to attack the Senecas. and Big Mouth, in spite of his former declaration, consented


# The name by which the Indians ealled the gove: nor of Canada.


t Corlear was the name given by the Indians to the English and Dutch governors of New York.


36


HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY, NEW YORK.


that they should make amends for the pillage of the traders. On the other hand, he declared that they would fight the Illinois to the death ; and La Barre dared not utter a word in behalf of his allies.


" The Onondaga next demanded that the council-fire should be removed from Fort Frontenae to La Famine, in the Iroquois country. This point was yielded without re- sistanee ; and La Barre promised to deeamp, and set out for home on the following morning.


" Sueh was the futile and miscrable end of the grand ex- pedition. Even the promise to pay for the plundered goods was contemptuously broken. The honor rested with the Iroquois. They had spurned the French, repelled the claims of the English, and by aet and word asserted their independence of both."


It is a great pity that the preeise loeation of this treaty- ground cannot now be determined. That it was within the limits of Jefferson County is altogether probable ; and the spot, if known, would well deserve a monument.


But sueh matters have been badly negleeted in America, and in many instanees the living generation knows little or nothing of the history of the one preceding.


La Barre's shorteomings were understood throughout the eolonies, and diseontent was everywhere apparent. The peace of La Famine was everywhere looked upon as merely a hollow trucc, and the dangers of war were in no wise lessened, but, at the utmost, only postponed for a few months.


The intendant, Meules, lost no time in placing before the king a statement of the condition of the country, and the next returning ship from France brought the following from the king.


" MONSIEUR DE LA BARRE,-Having been informed that your years do not permit you to support the fatigues inseparable from your office of governor and lieutenant- general in Canada, I send you this letter to acquaint you that I have selected Monsieur de Denonville to serve in your place ; and my intention is that, on his arrival, after resigning to him the command, with all instructions con- cerning it, you embark for your return to Franee.


" LOUIS."


Upon the arrival of the Marquis de Denonville, he found the affairs of the colony in anything but a prosperous con- dition. The Indians of the northwest were in mortal fear lest the Iroquois should fall upon them ; the fur trade was languishing, and business generally prostrate.


The rival interests of France and England were strug- gling for supremacy in America, and each was using every effort to retain the influenec and traffic of the Indians.


A sharp correspondenee took place between Denonville and Dongan, the English governor of the colony of New York, but nothing eame of it, unless it was the further em- bittering of the colonists on both sides, and hastening that chronie condition of things which sooner or later must eulminate in open war.


The English had established a colony at Hudson's bay for the purpose of carrying on the fur trade with the north- ern Indians; and a rival Freneh company had been formed


in Canada, ealled the " Compagnie du Nord," and it was finally resolved by the latter to expel the English company. Denonville sanetioned the scheme, and though the two nations were at peace, he sent the Chevalier de Troyes from Montreal, with about a hundred Canadians, to execute it.


This adventurous company aseended the Ottawa, and, traversing the wilderness, arrived in the neighborhood of the English posts in the spring of 1686. With unparal- leled audacity, they attacked and eaptured the four strong posts owned by the Hudson's Bay Company, ineluding the shipping which was in the region. Immediately after this exploit, De Troyes, leaving one of his subordinates in eom- mand, returned, and reported his suceess to Denonville.


In the mean time, the regular foree in Canada had been increased to sixteen hundred men, and Denonville resolved to fall upon the Seneca nation, and exterminate them. The king had sent him one hundred and sixty-eight thousand livres in money and supplies, and he was in good eondition to make a sueeessful eampaign, which he hoped would set- tle the question of Iroquois supremaey, and firmly establish the fur trade of the northwest in the hands of the Freneh.


In the spring of 1687 he assembled his army, consisting of regulars, Canadian militia, and Indians, to the number of more than two thousand, at Frontenae, preparatory to erossing Lake Ontario, for the grand rendezvous at Iron- dequoit bay, and on the 4th of July he embarked his armny in four hundred bateaux and eanoes, and, erossing the out- let of Lake Ontario, proceeded along the shore towards the appointed rendezvous. About the 10th, after a tempestuous passage, the fleet eame in sight of the headlands of Iron- dequoit bay, and far off on the western horizon the army descried a multitude of eanoes advaneing to meet them. Tonti had come from Fort St. Louis, in Illinois, with six- teen French and two hundred Indians; while La Durantaye and Du Lhut, with one hundred and eighty courier des bois and four hundred Indians, had come from Michilimackinac and the straits of Detroit, to assist in humbling the terrible Iroquois.


Altogether, Indians and Freneh, Denonville found him- self at the head of nearly three thousand warriors.


" All were gathered on the low point which separates Irondequoit bay from Lake Ontario. 'Never,' says an eye- witness, had Canada seen such a sight ; and never, perhaps, will she see such a sight again. Here was the camp of the regulars, from France, with the general's headquarters; the eamp of the four battalions of Canadian militia, commanded by the noblesse of the country ; the eamp of the Christian Indians; and, farther on, a swarm of savages of every nation. Their feathers were different, and so were their manners, their weapons, their decorations, and their danees. They sang and whooped and harangued in every aceent and tongue. Most of them wore nothing but horns on their heads, and the tails of beasts behind their baeks. Their faces were painted red or green, with black or white spots ; their ears and noses were hung with ornaments of iron ; and their naked bodies were daubed with figures of various sorts of animals."*


This motley but formidable army advaneed in order of


# Parkman's Frontenac and New France.


37


HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY, NEW YORK.


battle towards the Seneca towns, twenty-two miles to the southeast of the bay. They reached the place on the second day, and, after a sharp fight with a few hundred Senecas, took possession of the ground where the largest town had stood, but which had been fired and abandoned by the enemy. The army destroyed all the provisions, and cut down immense fields of corn, killed great numbers of hogs, and laid the country waste for the space of twelve days, when it was faced to the north, and returned to the rendez- vous with the loss of five or six men killed, and about twenty wounded. The loss of the Senecas was stated at about forty killed and sixty wounded.


From Irondequoit bay the army proceeded to Niagara, where a strong stockade was built on the spot occupied by La Salle's fort, nine years previously. Leaving a hundred men under the Chevalier de Troyes, as a garrison, the rest of the great army returned to Montreal.




Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.