Our county and its people : a memorial record of St. Lawrence County, New York, Part 4

Author: Curtis, Gates
Publication date: 1894
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason
Number of Pages: 1328

USA > New York > St Lawrence County > Our county and its people : a memorial record of St. Lawrence County, New York > Part 4
USA > New York > St Lawrence County > Our county and its people: a memorial record of St. Lawrence County, New York > Part 4

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Military Expedition .- The following is an extract from the official report of Count Frontenac's expedition up the St. Lawrence to strengthen the fortification on Lake Ontario at Kingston, and to form an alliance with the several Indian tribes in that vicinity, in the year 1673, as translated from the second volume of the collection of Paris Documents, by Dr. E. B. O'Callaghan, of New York. The minute description of Frontenac's voyage up the rapids and his building on Indian Point, as well as his mention of La Galette, give an authentic starting point for the history of Ogdensburg, and in a measure con- firm the previous accounts :

The expedition left Montreal on the 28th of June, 1673, with two flat bateaux mounted with small cannon, and 120 bark canoes. On the 3d of July following they reached the island at the head of Lake St. Francis, when they found it necessary to repair their boats injured in passing the rapids. The writer states: "It is impossible to con- ceive the danger without witnessing the fatigue of those who dragged the bateaux, as most of the time they were in the water up to the arm

FRENCH DISCOVERY OF THE ST. LAWRENCE RIVER.

pits, walking on rocks so sharp that many had their feet and legs cut and covered with blood, yet their gaiety never failed them." When it was necessary they would throw themselves into the stream with incredible promptness and bravery to save a drowning companion or to secure a boat from loss. On the 8th, having encountered a severe storm, a portion of the squadron rested for the night on the north side of Ogden's Island. In the morning Frontenac received orders to proceed above the rapids to a certain point which had been designated as a depot, and return the boats to Montreal for more provisions. The rest of the squadron proceeded up the Rapid du Plat and arrived at what they designated Indian Point, as they usually found the place occupied by Indians, where they built a storehouse for their accoutrements and provisions, on the 9th day of July, 1673-the first building erected in the immediate vicinity by white men.

The writer further states that from this time forward the St. Law- rence was frequently traversed by French "voyageurs," and a port was soon afterward established at La Galette. The writer had a vague idea as to the location of this place, as he supposed that La Galette was near the site of Johnstown below Prescott, or Chimney Island ; but from the account given and the familiarity with which the facts are mentioned, it may be inferred that this place (Ogdensburg) was known by that name (La Galette) for many years previous to the date given.

In the celebrated expeditions of De la Barre, then governor of Canada, against the Iroquois in 1684, he mentioned La Galette as one of the stopping places, and indicated the necessity of placing troops in Frontenac and at La Galette in order to escort provisions and keep the head of the country well guarded and furnished. This un- fortunate expedition left Quebec on the 9th of July, 1684, and arrived at Lake St. Francis on the Ist of August, with about two hundred canoes and fifteen bateaux, where they were joined by Fathers Lamber- ville and Millet, from Onondaga and the Oneidas. They met with the usual difficulty in ascending the rapids, but for a few presents of brandy, tobacco, etc., the Christian Iroquois of the Saut St. Louis and of Montreal undertook to pass up the bateaux and the large canoes, which was successfully accomplished in two days. On the morning of the 5th of August the governor and his forces reached La Galette, where

HISTORY OF ST. LAWRENCE COUNTY.

the provisions were transferred from the canoes to a storehouse on what is now called Lighthouse Point, and a portion of the boats were sent back to Lachine for another load of provisions. The main body of the forces proceeded on their way to Fort Frontenac, when the larger canoes returned for 10,000 pounds of flour which had been left at La Galette. This expedition against the Indians failed, as did also one later in 1687.

We find further allusions to La Galette in an extract from a letter written by Father Charlevoix, dated at Cataraqoui (Indian name of what is now Kingston), May 14, 1721, which was published in Paris in 1744, fifth volume of Military Expeditions in America. Referring to the river at this point, he says : " It is only a mile wide and the lands on both sides are very good and well wooded, besides they have begun to clear on the north shore." He says further : " It would be very easy to make a road from the point which is over against the Island of Montreal, to the bay which they call La Galette [below the O. & L. C. depot site]. This route would shun forty leagues of impracticable navigation. A fort would be much better situated and more necessary at La Galette than at Cataraqoui, because a single canoe cannot pass that point with- out being seen, besides a bark can sail from the place with a good wind to Niagara in two days."

Charlevoix's description of the rapids and journey up the river agrees with others. He states that on the 8th of May, 1721, when below Rapid du Plat, a little snow fell and at night it froze as it does in France in the month of January. On the 9th he passed up the last rapid, which is a league and a half below La Galette ; he says he could not suffi- ciently admire the beauty of the country between the Galoup and La Galette. It is impossible to see finer forests, and he especially noticed some oaks of extraordinary size and height.

Sufficient evidence is furnished in the foregoing accounts to satisfy the most skeptical that this place received its French name at an early date, and the beauty of the scenery in its proper season of the year would naturally lead the enthusiastic Frenchman to exclaim, in their terms, and according to our late current expression, "It takes the cake."

THE OLD REGIME.

CHAPTER IV.

THE OLD REGIME.

Condition of the Colonies in 1659-Hochelaga and its Occupation-Contrast between the Montreal of that Period and that of To-Day-The Old Spinner-The Company of the West and its Efforts-Importations of Women-The Seignorial Grants-Stringent Rules of the Church-Intemperance-Divine Chastisement-Spirit of Discovery-De la Salle and his Western Expedition-Paucity of English Posts of Occupation.

I THE colony, for ten years or more, dating from 1657, had her internal troubles. While the heathen Iroquois raged at her door, discord rioted at the hearthstone. A strife for supremacy and rule existed between Montreal and Quebec ; also between the Recollects, the Jesuits, the Sulpitians and the Jansenists, to secure the appointment of a bishop that would be favorable to their particular views ; yet all were ready to unite against the encroachments of the heretic Huguenots. But finally the Jesuits become the ruling element in the church in the colony.

The white population in Canada in 1659 did not exceed 2,500 souls, including priests, nuns, traders and settlers. Montreal contained about forty log huts, situated along the line of St. Paul street; on the rising ground on the left was a fort, and on the right was a wind-mill. The place contained one hundred and sixty men, and only fifty of them had families or wives.

The Indian village Hochelaga was situated on the left bank of the St. Lawrence, at the foot of Lachine Rapids, in the forks of the Ottawa River, one hundred and eighty miles above Quebec. The place was used as an outpost of Quebec for about one hundred years after its dis- covery. At length the competition in the fur trade was such that it became necessary for the company to establish a trading post at this point, so that peltry might be purchased of the Indians at all times of year. Therefore, at the dates mentioned, a few huts were erected under the shadow of the fort, along a winding and well-beaten Indian trail.

HISTORY OF ST. LAWRENCE COUNTY.

This settlement may be considered the commencement of the present rich and populous city of Montreal. As the settlement increased a village was built around this crooked row without disturbing its bound- ary, and thus originated the famous St. Paul street, the narrow and zig- zag course of which has long been a source of wonder. The contrast between the conditions under which the life of the pioneers of Montreal was pursued, and those of the present day is marvelous, and scarcely to be appreciated. Deprivation and hardship of every nature has given way to luxury and all the blessings of civilization in a great city. Montreal under English economy has made wonderful progress. The deepening of the channel of the St. Lawrence above Quebec allows large vessels to pass up to the city, bringing the markets of the Old World to their doors. The canals built around the rapids above the city, and around Niagara Falls, open up a vast farming country, the products of which, with those of the lumber district of Ottawa (or the larger portion of it), go direct to Montreal, to be either consumed there or sent to foreign markets. The Lachine Rapids supply the city with an ample and never failing water power, which adds materially to the manufac- turing interests of the town. Montreal has a population of nearly half a million. It takes the lead of all the cities of the Dominion, and no doubt will continue to be the metropolis of Canada for years to come.

Yet in the midst of this beautiful and enterprising city are a few descendants of those early pioneers who cling to the customs and traditions of their forefathers. The writer was much amused, in the fall of 1854, on seeing an apple vender carding wool and spinning yarn as she sat at the foot of the steps of the Roman Catholic cathedral. The spinning implement was the same as the Roman women used three hundred years before Christ ; it was simply a pear-shaped weight of perhaps two pounds, with a stem attached about six or eight inches long. The wool was rolled around a distaff, and that fastened to a belt on her left side. On starting she twisted with her thumb and fore finger, a short thread and fastened it to the stem of the weight, holding it by the thread in one hand and with the other she gave the stem a twist, setting the ball in motion. The momentum given to the ball twisted the thread as fast as she drew it from the wool, and when the speed slackened, she gave the ball another twist, drawing out the thread as before. In

THE OLD REGIME.

this manner she continued until the ball reached the pavement, when she wound the yarn around it, and repeated the process. I questioned her in English and received a shrug of the shoulders; but anxious to know more about her quaint spinning machine, I spoke to her in French and learned that she was more than ninety years old and had learned in her younger days to spin in this manner, as there was then no other ma- chine in use. She said she was too old to learn on the new fandangle wheels at the time they were introduced.

The recently formed Company of the West, as it was named, had started with the purpose of showing the vast political possibilities of the young colony, and opening a vista of future glories alike for the church and for the king. Louis XIV. had agreed with the company to send to Canada three hundred soldiers yearly for ten years, to serve three years, after which term they could become settlers. The company was con- tinually calling for men, and the king became alarmed, for he needed men for his army at home, and said the colony must thereafter rely chiefly on its increase from within. The Sulpitians, a religious order founded at Rochelle, France, by one Olier,1 about 1630, had procured a grant of a seignorial estate embracing Montreal and several leagues above, ex- tending back from the river a long distance. This order brought over people to settle their lands. In 1659 the ship St. Andre brought to Montreal fifty settlers, comprising artisans, soldiers and peasants, with a troop of young women. There were also two groups of women wear- ing the habit of nuns, under the direction of Marguerite Bourgeois and Jeanne Mance. Marguerite was the foundress of a school of the Infant Jesus, for female children, at Montreal ; and Jeanne was directress of the Hospital St. Joseph. This "Holy Family " commenced their labors in a stable, lodging with their pupils in the loft.

The king, in order to encourage the discharged soldiers to marry and settle in Canada, pensioned them. The officers were granted as high as 1,500 livres, and the soldiers were to receive land. The Sulpitians and other parties brought out young women to become wives for their set- tlers. The king also continued the benevolent work on a larger scale. Girls were taken from the Paris hospitals, houses of refuge, and from among the peasants, while for officers' wives a better class of young

! Olier died in 1656, and his remains were enclosed in a leaden box and were said to have miracu- lous power to restore diseased limbs by a touch of the box.

HISTORY OF ST. LAWRENCE COUNTY.

ladies were brought over. Thus hundreds of girls, some proving to be grass widows, came, and were provided with husbands within a short time of their arrival. The young women were taken in charge by Mother Mary, and gave her much trouble. On one occasion, in a moment of unwonted levity, she called them " mixed goods," or the " king's girls." The matrimonial market of Quebec and Montreal was on a large scale. The girls were assorted in three classes, each class penned up for selection in a separate hall, and there submitted to the inspection of the suitor. The man was required to choose a bride with- out delay, while the women were permitted to reject any applicant who displeased them. The first question usually asked the suitor was if he had a house and a farm. Bounties were offered by the king for early marriages, twenty livres to young men who married before the age of twenty, and also to each girl who married before the age of sixteen. The father of a family was obliged to mary off his children at those ages. Bachelors were to bear additional burdens and be excluded from all honors and privileges granted to others. Bounties were offered on children, three hundred livres on families of ten children, and four hun- dred on families of twelve children. Hence in the year 1671 nearly seven hundred children were born in the colony. The immigration of women and the granting of the bounties ceased soon after the Dutch war of 1672. The lands were divided into seignorial grants among the officers, who in turn granted them in farms to the soldiers. The king furnished a wind mill, a chapel, and a chaplain to each parish, which were some three leagues apart. The habitants built their houses in a cluster, and surrounded the village with a picket palisade for protection against the Indians. For a few years the soldier farmer's life was a rough one, until he had a few acres under tillage ; but his supplies were increased by a profusion of eels, which the St. Lawrence never failed to yield in their season, and which, when smoked or salted, supplied his larder for months. " A poor man," says Mother Mary, "will have on the average ten children, with bare heads and feet and little jackets on their backs, live on nothing but pea soup and eels, and on that grow fat and strong." With such treatment the weaker died, but the stronger survived, and out of this rugged nursing sprang the hardy Canadian race of bush rangers and bush fighters.

THE OLD REGIME.

The stringent rules of the church, together with the exacting laws of the colony in regard to marriage, caused some of the more roving young men to abandon civilized life and take their chances with the Indians. Such were called coureurs de bois, or bush rangers. This class was em- ployed more or less by the fur traders in exchanging their goods, con- sisting largely of brandy, with the Indians for furs. At length intem- perance became so prevalent, especially among the Indians, that meas- ures were adopted by the clergy to put a stop to the traffic. In the summer of 1648 a temperance convention was held at the mission of Sillery, near Quebec, the first, probably, on this continent. An appeal was made to the king to do away with the traffic, and he referred the matter to the Fathers of Sorbonne, who pronounced the selling of brandy to the Indians a mortal sin. He next referred the case to the merchants, who were in favor of unrestricted trade in spirituous liquors. The argu- ment in its favor was that if the thirsty savages were refused brandy by the French, they would seek it from the Dutch and English in New York, where the Indians and their beaver skins would be sure to go. The temperance question was agitated for years, when at length the Jesuit party gained control, and prohibition, as far as the Indians were concerned, was enacted, taking effect in 1662 under the new gover- nor, Avangour, who desired to conciliate the Jesuits. A few weeks later two men were shot and one whipped for selling brandy to the In- dians. This act raised a great commotion, as men in high standing were engaged in the traffic, and influence was brought to bear to have the governor revoke the decree. A few months later a woman was im- prisoned for the same cause, and Father Lallemant came to the gover- nor to intercede for her. The governor flew into a passion and ex- claimed ; " Your brethren were the first to cry out against the liquor traffic, and now you want to save the traders from punishment. Since it is not a crime for this woman, it shall not be a crime for anybody. Henceforth there shall be full license for liqour dealers."

Disorder grew from bad to worse; men gave no heed to bishops, preachers or confessions. Father Lallemant gravely writes that as winter was drawing to a close, outraged heaven interposed an awful warning to the guilty colony. That blazing serpents flew through the air on wings of fire, and with voice as loud as thunder. A converted

HISTORY OF ST. LAWRENCE COUNTY.

squaw heard a voice in the night saying, "Strange things will happen to day;" and others heard similar warnings. "Now to pass from vision to facts," writes Father Lallemant, " at half past five o'clock on the morning of February 5, 1663, a great roaring sound was heard at the same time through the whole extent of Lower Canada, New England and New Netherlands. Everybody rushed into the streets; animals ran wildly about; children cried; men and women seized with fright knew not where to take refuge, expecting every moment to be buried under the ruins of houses, or swallowed up in some abyss opening under their feet. The earthquake continued without ceasing, with a motion like that of a ship at sea. The trees struck one against the other, with such noise and confusion that the Indians said that the forest was drunk. Considerable hills and large tracts of forest slid from their places, some into the river, and some into adjacent valleys; streams were turned from their courses; waterfalls were leveled ; springs were dried up in some places, while in others new springs appeared. A remarkable effect was produced on the St. Lawrence, which was so charged with mud and clay that for many weeks the water was unfit to drink."

It was midsummer before the shocks wholly ceased and the earth assumed her wonted calm. The accounts that have come down to us of the forewarning and the visions seen during the shock, such as spec- tres and phantoms of fire bearing torches in their hands ; also of the fiery figure of a man vomiting flames, and many other apparitions, seem somewhat ludicrous ; yet it is clear that the convulsion must have been a severe one. The writers of that day saw in this a proof that God would punish the guilty without destroying them. There was for a time following an intense revival of religion; repentant throngs beset the confessionals and altars ; enemies were reconciled ; fasts, prayers and penances filled the whole season of Lent. Wealth and privileges of all kinds were showered upon the church, and especially upon the religious orders, in the hope of purchasing pardon for past sins and favors in the next world. Yet, as was seen, the devil could still find, in the liquor traffic, wherewith to console himself.

Succeeding the notable events thus far narrated, the spirit of discov- ery and conquest in the New World continued active, and the heroic figures of the time pushed their way into hitherto unknown regions;

THE OLD REGIME.

but as they were chiefly remote from the section of which this work treats, their explorations can only be touched upon.

In the summer of 1673 the missionaries Joliet and Marquette made their way to the upper waters of the Wisconsin River and down that stream to the Mississippi, and southerly to the thirty-third parallel of latitude.

The famous explorer, Cavalier Robert de la Salle, born at Rouen in 1643, came to Canada in 1666. The priests of St. Sulpice, desiring to extend the line of settlements up the river, to form an outpost for pro- tection against the Iroquois, granted La Salle a large tract of land just above the great rapids about nine miles above Montreal. There La Salle traced the circuit of a palisaded village, built a seminary, a hospi- tal and a church, and had a flourishing settlement under way. A band of the Seneca nation spent the winter of 1668-9 with him and told him of a river called the Ohio, rising in their country and fiowing to the sea. This led in the summer of 1669 to the formation of a party and the historical explorations which took him eventually down the Ohio River as far as the rapids of Louisville. La Salle returned and was with Frontenac at the Indian council held at Cataraquoi, now Kingston. In the fall of 1674 he went to France, received a patent of nobility and a grant in seigniory of Fort Frontenac, to take possession of which he re- turned in the following spring. Here he built vessels to run on the lake, with Fort Frontenac as a base of supplies. In 1679 he built a palisade fort at Niagara. In January of the same year he built a small sailing craft above Niagara, the first on Lake Erie. On the 7th of August fol- lowing La Salle started with thirty-four voyageurs on a journey which took him through the Straits of Detroit, across Lake Huron and Green Bay, across Lake Michigan to the St. Joseph River, up that stream and across the country to the upper Kankaka; thence down to Disarters. He then returned to Fort Frontenac. During his absence, Father Hennepin, a member of the company, traversed Illinois and explored the Mississippi as far up as the Falls of St. Anthony.

In 1681 La Salle returned to his station in Illinois with men and sup- plies and in the following year descended the Ohio and the Mississippi, discovered the Gulf of Mexico and planted there, a short distance from the mouth of the Mississippi, a column of sycamore bearing the arms of

HISTORY OF ST. LAWRENCE COUNTY.

France. It should, however, be stated that the honor of discovery of the Mississippi belongs to the Spaniards, through Pamphilo de Nar- vaez, in 1528, and Ferdinand de Soto in 1539, both of whom had been exploring Florida.

After La Salle's discovery of the mouth of the Mississippi in 1682, he returned to Quebec and immediately sailed for France. The news of this vast discovery greatly excited the kingdom and plans were made for colonizing the valley of the Mississippi. France was not slow to occupy and settle the extensive country opened to her by the Jesuits." The discovery of this southern port, where they could land at all seasons of the year, gave them additional advantages over the St. Lawrence, which is closed with ice a part of the year. As early as 1688 military posts were established at Frontenac, at Niagara, at the Straits of Mack- inaw, and on the Illinois River. Before the middle of the seventeenth century, permanent settlements had been made by the French on the Maumee, at Detroit, at the mouth of the St. Joseph River, at Green Bay, at Vincennes on the lower Wabash, on the Mississippi, at the mouth of Kaskaskia, and at Fort Rosaline, the site of Natchez, and on the Gulf of Mexico at the head of the Bay of Biloxi.

At this time the only outposts of the English colonists were a small fort at Oswego and a few scattered cabins in West Virginia. It only remained for France to occupy the valley of the Ohio in order to con- fine the provinces of Great Britain to the country east of the Allegha- nies. England had colonized the sea coast from Maine to Florida and the great towns were on the ocean edge, but her claims reached far be- yond her colonies. In making grants of territory the English king had always proceeded upon the theory that the voyage of Sebastian Cabot had given to England a lawful right to the country from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. Far different, however, were the claims of France. She had first colonized the valley of the St. Lawrence to about five hundred miles from the sea, and had her colonies been limited to the St. Lawrence and its tributaries there would have been little danger of a conflict over territorial dominion. The purpose of the French, as manifested in their movements, was to divide the American continent and take the larger portion for France and Catholicism. For more than two centuries previous to that time France had been the leader of

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Our county and its people : a memorial record of St. Lawrence County, New York, Part 4

Author: Curtis, Gates Publication date: 1894 Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason Number of Pages: 1328

Author: Curtis, Gates
Publication date: 1894
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y. : D. Mason
Number of Pages: 1328