USA > New York > Essex County > The military and civil history of the county of Essex, New York : and a general survey of its physical geography, its mines and minerals, and industrial pursuits, embracing an account of the northern wilderness > Part 2
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1 Guyot.
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MILITARY AND POLITICAL HISTORY.
Portgrave sailed for France, leaving Champlain to occupy Quebec with twenty-eight men, until his return in the spring with supplies and additional colonists. What were the occupations of Champlain through the dark and gloomy weeks of autumn, and in the winter rigors of an almost arctic climate ? We can only surmise from our own conjectures, and the faint glimmerings of light his journal affords. He tells us, that he trapped foxes, and was amused in watching the futile efforts of the martins to seize the carcass of a dead dog he had suspended from a tree beyond their reach. But in fancy, we may discern him, with active zeal, employed in tracing and illustrating his journals, and wrapt in profound reveries, pondering on the hopes and projects of the future. The Indians gathered about his wooden ramparts; now, with a present supply, yielding to their insatiate habits of gluttony; and now, in the wasting pangs of famine. He doubtless heard their wild legends, and was amused and aroused by their stories of savage warfare with the Iroquois, their hereditary foes, whose far distant country, they described as a fair land, and delineated in their simple art, the lakes and streams which must be traversed to reach it.
Before the dissolving ice and bursting vegetation miti- gated their sufferings and presaged the approach of spring, the scurvy, the fell scourge of every northern colony, had desolated the little band; and when Pontgrave's vessel appeared, only eight pale and emaciated survivors re- mained to rejoice in the relief it afforded. A consultation between the leaders decided, that Pontgrave should re- main to guard the safety of Quebec, and that Champlain should pursue the project, which was the dream and pur- pose of every exploration of the age, and attempt the discovery of an avenue to the eastern world. This hope possibly inflamed the passions, which led him to accept the invitation of the Indians, to unite with them in a contem- plated war party, which was intended to penetrate deeply into the regions, upon which his mind had expatiated during the weeks and months of his gloomy seclusion.
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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY.
In May, 1609, he joined the camp of his savage allies, and while they looked in speechless wonder upon the strange apparition of a steel clad warrior, armed with weapons that discharged the lightning, he witnessed with scarcely less interest the war dances of the Indians, mov- ing by the wild tones of their music, chanting their war songs and brandishing their stone-pointed tomahawks. He engaged at their council fire, attended their war feast, and mingled in all their barbaric rites. These mystic ceremonies performed, they proceeded upon their advance into a hostile and to him an unknown country. Cham- plain embarked in a small boat with eleven European com- panions and proceeded to the mouth of the modern Sorel, where the party was augmented by large numbers of savages from the upper lakes ; but here dissension arose, and a great part of the Indian warriors returned to their homes. Champlain dismissed to Quebec all but two of his European followers. To these were added a force of sixty Indians, with a fleet of twenty-four canoes. A com- mon or timid mind would have shrank from the appalling view of the future, abandoned by feeble allies, and left almost alone to the resources of his individual courage and unyielding energies, but he saw before him the beam- ings of glory and honor that awaited the revelation of a new region ; he contemplated the rich country, the lakes, the islands, the streams that had been portrayed to his imagination, and he fearlessly and joyously entered upon his dubious mission. Champlain, as he did in all his explorations, gave to the world a minute and graphic account of this expedition, and so exact is his accuracy that the traveler may still trace his route and the scenes he describes. These productions are not alone interest- ing, as they portray the incidents of a singularly wild and romantic career; but they are of infinite value, as they illustrate savage life and exhibit their primitive habits and tactics when on the war path.
On the 2d of July, the party effected the transit of the Chambly rapids, and, having advanced some leagues up
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MILITARY AND POLITICAL HISTORY.
the river, prepared to encamp. A part of the savages, actively engaged in cutting down timber and peeling it to procure bark to cover their lodges, while others were felling large trees to form a temporary barricade. This, Champlain considered very formidable. The side of the encampment next to the river was not fortified, in order to facilitate retreat to the canoes, if necessary. The Indians dispatched three canoes in advance to reconnoitre, and, if nothing was discovered, to retire. Upon this exploration, they wholly depended for safety during the night." Against " this bad habit of theirs " Champlain expostulated, but with little effect upon a confirmed custom. They represented to him, that in war they were accustomed to divide their forces into three parts: one of which hunted to supply provi- sions ; another always ready for battle marched in a compact body; and the other formed the vanguard and advanced in front to scout, and to ascertain the trail of a foe or friends. This they readily determined by certain marks, which the chiefs of the different nations interchanged, and which upon reciprocal notices were occasionally altered. The hunters never advance before the main body, but pursue their duties in the rear and in a direction where they do not expect the presence of an enemy. In this manner they proceed until they approach the enemy's country, when they advance "stealthily by night, all in a body except the scouts, and retire by day into picket forts where they repose." They make no noise nor " build a fire, except to smoke, and eat dried meal which they steep in water."
The second day, the party entered "the mouth of the lake," and saw " a number of beautiful islands filled with fine woods and prairies." " Game and wild animals, abounded on these islands. Passing onward, the lake in its widest expanse burst upon their view, in the beauty and grandeur of its verdant shores, and its emerald islands, em- braced in its lofty and rugged mountain ramparts. Cham- plain describes the larger islands, and the rivers that " discharged into the lake surrounded by fine trees similar
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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY.
to those we have in France, with a quantity of vines,1 " handsomer than I ever saw, and a great many chestnuts."
Referring to the exuberance of the fish in the lake, Champlain related some wild tales of his savage allies. " Continuing their route" on the west side of the lake, he says, " and contemplating the country, I saw very high mountains on the east side covered with snow," and he ob- served " others to the south not less high but without snow." The Indians informed him " that here were beautiful valleys and fields, fertile in corn, with an infinitude of other fruits, and that this country was inhabited by the Iroquois." 2
They said, that the country they designed to attack was thickly settled ; that to reach it they must pass by a water- fall, thence into another lake ; from the head of which there was a transit to a river, which flowed towards the coast. The course of their projected campaign is thus intelligently unfolded to us. We discern a distinct description of their route, by the falls at Ticonderoga; the passage of Lake George, and the Hudson with its intervening transit ; and the populous country of the Mohawks. Some village pro- bably upon the banks of the Hudson was the point of their destination, and to become the scene of their ravages.
1 The wild grape vine is yet a striking feature in the natural products of the Champlain valley, where it grows in great profusion, and often attains an immense magnitude, frequently embracing the loftiest trees in its treache- rous and serpentine folds, and towering far above them, while its branches spread in every direction along the forest. I conjecture, that Champlain must have confounded the chestnut with the butternut tree, which occurs in abundance and of vast size in those localities. In a careful survey in 1852 of Essex county, I did not find a single chestnut tree growing in a native forest north of Ticonderoga.
2 The presence of snow upon the mountains of Vermont, none of which ex- ceeds five thousand feet in height, in July is incredible, and Champlain was probably deceived by an optical illusion produced by clouds or mist. I am inclined, however, to conjecture that the words " west " and " east " have been transposed. From the east side of the lake he might have seen the bold and naked peak of Whiteface from which that mountain derives its present name. It is situated in the town of Wilmington, Essex county, and stands out isolated and prominent, with its white summit a conspicuous ob- ject, which for many miles may be observed from the lake.
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MILITARY AND POLITICAL HISTORY.
Whatever might have been their purpose, it was abruptly arrested by a hostile apparition, that suddenly crossed their path. Champlain with exquisite power vividly paints the scenes that followed : " At nightfall we embarked in our canoes, and as we advanced very softly and noiselessly, we encountered a war party of Iroquois, on the twenty-ninth of the month, about ten o'clock at night, at the point of a cape which juts into the lake on the west side.1 They and we began to shout, seizing our arms. We withdrew to the water, and the Iroquois repaired on shore, arranged their canoes together and began to hew down trees with villain- ous axes, which they sometimes got in war, and others of stone, and fortified themselves very securely. Our party, likewise, kept their canoes one alongside of the other, tied to poles, so as not to run adrift, in order to fight alto- gether should need be. When in order, they sent two canoes to know if their enemies wished to fight, who answered that they desired nothing else, but that just then, there was not light to distinguish each other and that they would fight at sunrise. This was agreed to. Meanwhile on both sides the night was spent in dancing and singing, mingled with an infinitude of insults and other taunts ; such as how little courage they had, how powerless their arms, and this they should experience to their ruin. Ours, like- wise did not fail in repartee ; telling them they should wit- ness the effects of arms they had never before seen. After they had sung, danced and parliamented enough, the day broke. My companions and I were always concealed but in separate canoes of the savage Montagners.2
1 I compress this narrative as far as possible, and hope to preserve the spirit of the text.
? This name was applied to all the St. Lawrence Indians, and was derived from a range of mountains extending north-westerly from near Quebec. Dr. E. B. O'Callaghan's note on Champlain. The term Iroquois, equivalent to the Five Nations, is used in the translations of Champlain's works to avoid confusion, but was of course unknown at the period of these events. The Mohawks were known as Maquaes by the Dutch, and Agnies by the Canadian Indians. The Iroquois designated themselves Aquanu Schioni, the United People.
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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY.
" After being equipped with light armor, each took an arquebus and went ashore. I saw the enemy leave their barricade. They were about two hundred men, strong and robust, who were coming towards us with a gravity and assurance that greatly pleased me, led on by three chiefs. Ours were marching in similar order, who told me that those who bore the three lofty plumes were the chiefs, and that I must do all I could to kill them. I promised to do the best I could. The moment we landed, they began to run towards the enemy, who stood firm, and had not yet perceived my companion, who went into the bush with some savages. Ours commenced calling on me with a loud voice, opening way for and placing me at their head about twenty paces in advance, until I was about thirty paces from the enemy. The moment they saw me they halted, gazing at me and I at them. When I saw them preparing to shoot at us, I raised my arquebus and aiming directly at one of the three chiefs, two of them fell to the ground by this shot, and one of their companions received a wound of which he died afterwards. I had put four balls in my arquebus. Ours on witnessing a shot so favorable to them, set up such tremendous shouts, that thunder could not have been heard, and yet there was no lack of arrows on one side or the other. The Iroquois were greatly astonished at seeing two men killed so instant- aneously, notwithstanding they were provided with arrow proof armor woven of cotton thread and wood; this fright- ened them very much.1
"Whilst I was reloading, one of my companions fired a shot, which so astonished them anew, seeing their chiefs slain, that they lost courage, took to flight, and
1 The allusion to this armor presents an interesting and suggestive in- quiry. We know of the product of no indigenous plant, which Champlain might have mistaken for cotton. He must have been familiar with that plant. The fact he mentions implies either the existence of a commer- cial intercourse between the natives of the north and south ; or perhaps the Mohawks may have secured the cotton as a trophy in some of their southern incursions.
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MILITARY AND POLITICAL HISTORY.
abandoned the field and their fort, hiding in the depth of the forest, whither pursuing them I killed some others. Our savages also killed several of them, and took ten or twelve prisoners. The rest carried off the wounded. Fif- teen or sixteen of ours were wounded ; these were promptly cured." These events are portrayed in language, so simple, clear and descriptive that we behold it almost as if the eye rested on the spectacle. We seem to hear the cool and chivalric postponement of the battle; the war songs and chants of triumph and defiance; we witness the skill and cunning of the Hurons, in disguising the presence of their potent allies; we see the marshaling of the hostile bands; the lofty forms of the Iroquois chiefs, decorated with their waving plumage and distinguished by their armor; their astonishment without blanching at the sudden appearance of the Europeans; the intrepid Frenchman advancing in front of the Hurons; the awe and consternation with which the Iroquois see the flash of the arquebus, hear the report and behold their chieftains slain as by the thunderbolt. The scene should demand the tribute of a more graceful art than the uncouth pencil of Champlain. "After having gained this victory they amused themselves plundering Indian corn and meal from the enemy, and also their arms, which they had thrown away the better to run. And having feasted, danced and sung we returned three hours afterwards with the prisoners."
Such was the first meeting of the Christian white man and the pagan savage upon the soil of New York, but its atrocities may be referred rather to the temper of the age than to any individual malignity of Champlain. This event enkindled a hatred towards the Frenchman in the heart of the Mohawks, that was unappeased by the streams of blood that for a century and a half flowed beneath the tomahawk and scalping knife. It is a singular coincidence, and may it not be regarded as significant of the presence and retribu- tion of an overruling providence, that the first aboriginal blood shed by the Christian invader, and shed ruthlessly and
2
*
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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY.
in wantonness, was on the soil which in another age, was destined to witness the sanguinary though fruitless conflicts of the mightiest powers of Christendom for the possession of the same territory; that both moistened with their choicest blood, and which neither was permitted perma- nently to enjoy ?
Champlain places the site of this battle " in forty-three degrees and some minutes." Great precision could not have been secured under the circumstances, in his astro- nomical observations. The place was evidently in the vicinity of Ticonderoga.1
Champlain looking forth from the field of battle, upon the placid water that laved the spot, and probably exulting in the pride of even such a victory, thus baptized with innocent blood, named the lake, Champlain. His countrymen in succeeding years would have substituted the name of Mer des Iroquois, but the Anglo-Saxon and posterity averted the wrong-for the latter name was not known to the no- menclature of the Indian -and the lake still perpetuates the memory of its discoverer. On the retreat of this expedi- tion, Champlain was constrained to witness one of those appalling scenes incident to Indian warfare, the torture of a prisoner. This terrific spectacle occurred, it is sup- posed, within the present limits of Willsboro'. The suffer- ings of the victim, inflicted in all the intensity and refinement of savage barbarity, which he in vain attempted to avert, were, in mercy, closed by the arquebus of Champlain.
A few weeks later, Hudson cautiously pursuing the tidal waters of the stream to which posterity has attached his name, penetrated to a point within less than one hundred miles of the advance of Champlain, but more than eleven
'I confidently assume this position, although a somewhat controverted point, from the distinct designation of the place upon Champlain's own map. I feel assured on this subject by several other considerations, which I deem conclusive. He probably saw the falls at Ticonderoga, in the pursuit which succeeded the victory. They had no motive in accordance with the plan of the campaign to have advanced south of that place by the lake.
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MILITARY AND POLITICAL HISTORY.
years elapsed before the May-Flower approached the shores of New England.
The ensuing year, Champlain was again moving amid the voluptuous circles of Versailles, its animating spirit, thrilling and agitating the gay throng by the recital of the wonders of the new world and his own wild and strange adventures. Early in the spring, still under the auspices of De Monts who, although shorn of his vast prerogatives, persisted with unabated ardor in his colonial schemes, Champlain once more crossed the Atlantic. He ascended the St. Lawrence to an island near the mouth of the Riche- lieu, and while engaged in the orgies of an Indian feast and war dance connected with a solemn council, the approach of a band of Iroquois was announced. All rushed to the assault of the barricade of the foe. The contest was long and bloody, but victory was necessarily with the allies. In accordance with Indian custom this decisive success termi- nated the campaign, and closed to Champlain all immediate prospect of exploration and discovery. The opening season of 1611 saw Champlain again entering the St. Lawrence. He selected the position and marked out the foundations of Montreal; but fresh obstacles, interposed by the fickle and versatile Hurons, arrested his contemplated advance into the interior. While delayed by these impediments, Cham- plain, always delighting in peril and adventure, among the first of civilized men, descended the tremendous rapids of St. Louis, in a frail birchen canoe guided by an Indian pilot. But anarchy and ruin were darkly impending over the struggling colony; Henry, his firm and powerful pro- tector, had fallen beneath the knife of Ravillac. Champlain hastened across the Atlantic, his enthusiasm enlisted the sympathy and interest of the nobility, and secured the ap- pointment first of the Count De Soissons, and upon his death, that of the Prince De Condé as guardian and pro- tector of New France, with all the prerogatives of vice- royalty. In 1612 Champlain returned to Quebec, clothed with the power and insignia of sovereignty, delegated to him by De Condé. Allured by wild tales of a vast north-
-
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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY.
ern sea beyond the head waters of the Ottawa, Champlain, the next year, with infinite peril and toil, ascended that gloomy and turbulent stream in a light Indian canoe; and there in the deep recesses of the forest, which have even now scarcely been approached by the arts of civil- ized industry, he dwelt in their wigwams, feasted and danced, harangued at the council fire, and erected the cross. Deceived and disappointed, he reluctantly aban- doned the pursuit of the fabulous sea.
Montreal, fostered by the protection and policy of Champlain, was already a trading mart of importance and activity, where the French traders, bearing the products and gewgaws of other climes, assembled to meet the fleets of Indian canoes which descended the Ottawa and St. Lawrence, laded with the spoils of their widely ex- panded hunting grounds. The interposition of Condé had obtained the grant of a new concession from the government, which conferred on the association of mer- chants immense prerogatives, confirming the former pa- tent and creating additional immunities, and, in 1615, Champlain, inspired by new ardor, and with an ambition stimulated afresh, embarked, once again, for the scene of his toils and hopes. At this time, equally zealous for the diffusion of the true faith, as he was energetic in promot- ing the temporal interests of the colony, he induced seve- ral Franciscan monks to accompany him. A formal council was held with the tribes gathered at Montreal, and while the Fathers were attempting to inculcate re- ligious truths, Champlain was engaged in maturing schemes more consonant with savage passions. By this rude treaty he agreed to unite with the Indians resid- ing upon the waters of the vast inland lakes, they dimly described, who, invincible in his alliance proposed to descend from their far distant land, like a destroying tempest upon the western tribes of the dreaded Iroquois. Champlain avers that he enlisted in this enterprise "to satisfy the desire I had of learning something about that country." Le Caron, one of the Franciscans, not less
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MILITARY AND POLITICAL HISTORY.
determined and intrepid than Champlain, offered alone to accompany the Hurons to their remote wigwams, and the humble missionary was the first European who gazed upon the wide waters of Lake Huron. Champlain, again encountering the perilous navigation of the Ottawa, and threading the long pathway of the Indians reached the Lake Nepissing, and from thence was guided by the In- dians to the shores of a majestic sea, whose expanse of waters was alone bounded by the horizon. He contem- plated it with wonder and delight, and named it the " Mer- douce," to which posterity, with more aptness, has given the name of Lake Huron. Champlain stood on the north- ern shores of Huron, a thousand miles from the Atlantic, five years before the foot of the puritan pilgrim rested on the rock at Plymouth. The provident savage hosts had constructed for his use a small cabin. Here Champlain found Le Caron, who had built an altar and erected the cross, and joined by the fourteen Frenchmen who had accompanied them, the mass was said and the Te Deum chanted in this humble temple, and we may conceive, with a solemnity and fervor, that does not always mark the wor- ship of a groined Cathedral.
Amid a national jubilee the Huron warriors gathered from their scattered villages, and embarking their formida- ble bands in an immense flotilla of birch canoes, they skirted the eastern coast of the lake, bore their canoes over a transit into Lake Simcoe, descending the Trent river entered into the great lake of the Autonoronons, the modern Ontario. They traversed with singular temerity in vessels so frail, its broad waters, and concealing their canoes upon its southern shore, they advanced into the territory of the Autonoronons or Senecas. After marching several days, in which Champlain was revolted by exhibitions in varied and horrid forms of savage barbarity and habits of warfare, they arrived before the enemy's fort.1 The garrison was
' Commentators on Champlain's journal are not harmonious in locating this scene. Some assume it to have been near Lake Onondaga, while others refer it to the vicinity of Canandaigua.
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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY.
formed by the puissant Senecas, second only among the Iroquois to the Mohawks in power and martial prowess. The works were constructed with an intelligence and science, far superior to any evidences of skill that Champlain had witnessed among the aborigines. The village was enclosed by strong palisades of timbers, thirty feet high, interlocked with intervals of about six inches between, with galleries forming a parapet, defended by timbers " proof against the arquebuses." Gutters were led from a pond of water on one side, which afforded ample facilities for extinguishing fires that might be enkindled against the barricades.
The appearance of the iron clad strangers and the terrific discharge of their unknown weapons, astonished and startled, but excited no craven or panic fears in the daunt- less Iroquois. Fighting with admirable valor, they re- treated within their fortifications. Under the direction of Champlain, the Hurons constructed a tower higher than the walls with a protection against the arrows and stones of the Iroquois, which was "carried by two hundred of the strongest men and placed within a pike's length in front." On this " were posted four arquebusiers." An effort was made by the Hurons to burn the palisades, but the fire was promptly extinguished. "They went to the water and discharged in it such abundance, that rivers, it may be said, spouted from their gutters." The Senecas, although suffer- ing severely from the arquebuses, fought with an undaunted courage, that extorted the admiration of Champlain, and far surpassed their savage foes in conduct, taunting them with cowardice in enlisting the white men in their quarrels. The science and tactics of Champlain were totally defeated by the perpetual improvidence and insubordination of his Indian allies. " This moved him," he says, " to use some pretty rude and angry words," but he generously remarks : " they are excusable, for they are not soldiers."
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