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 3
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The discomfited and intractable Hurons, after a siege of several days, in spite of the expostulations of Champlain, determined to abandon the enterprise and retreat. He,
BATTLE BETWEEN CHAMPLAIN AND THE INDIANS OF WESTERN NEW YORK.
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wounded by arrows in the knee and leg, was bound to the back of a vigorous savage, " like an infant in its swaddling clothes," and carried many leagues, until his impatience and suffering revolted.1
Although he denounces in bitterness and vexation the absence of discipline, obedience and system with the Indians, he warmly commends the skill they exhibited in effecting their retreat, " placing the wounded and old people in the centre, the warriors without breaking their lines march in front, on the wings and in the rear."
The winter that was approaching, the bold and indomi- table pioneer passed in the gloomy lodge of a Huron chief, and in visiting the more remote tribes of the Algonquins; in the care of his wounds, in the reveries of his sleepless mind, and in communing with the savages on the themes which invigorated his energies and continually fired his imagina- tion. But he who had braved death on so many battle-fields and amid the storms of the ocean, nearly lost his life from cold and exposure in the bleak forest of the Algonquins. Hunting on a dark day at the close of autumn without a compass, he lost his course, and wandered nearly three days bewildered in the masses of a trackless wood. When the frosts of winter had transformed the streams and morasses into icy avenues, Champlain again sought the villages of the Nipissings. He found the devout Le Caron in the same solitary wigwam, occupied in his missionary services, arranging a catechism and studying the Huron dialect. With the anchorite, Champlain spent several weeks, and then together, the soldier and the monk stimu- lated by the same brave and lofty spirit, but wielding far different weapons, visited in remote regions amid the wild recesses of nature tribes of savages before unknown to the Christian world.
Once more restored to active life and civilization, Cham- plain erected, in defiance of the grovelling cupidity of
1 This is his language : " As soon as I could bear my weight I got out of this prison ; or, to speak plainer, out of hell."
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superiors, the castle of St. Louis. When the expense was grudged, "It was not best," he said, "to yield to the passions of men, they sway but for a season, it is duty to . respect the future." Returning from one of his period- ical visits to France in 1616, Champlain bore with him his wife, young and beautiful, whose charms seem to have melted the stoicism of the children of the forest into delighted admiration.
In 1628, he gloriously defended Quebec from an attack of the English, almost without arms or provisions, by the glory of his name and the energy of his courage, and only capitulated his famishing garrison when the last hope of relief had failed. But it was an abortive triumph to his conqueror. Peace soon gave Champlain his liberty, and restored Quebec to France.
Before and subsequent to these events, the checkered career of the explorer had been impressed by perpetual trials, perplexities and vicissitudes, with alternate depres- sions, and a return to power and position. Vanquishing by his inflexible perseverance and profound sagacity the hostilities of rivals and the evasions of a despotic govern- ment, he returned the last time in 1633, to the state his wisdom and zeal had created, invested by Richelieu with all his former prerogatives. Having suppressed the Indian excitement which had agitated his province, conciliated the jarring jealousies and angry feuds of mercenary traders and arbitrary officials, and amply ass erted and perfected the dominion of his sovereign over a vast region, Champlain died in 1635, and is commemorated in the annals of the country he served so ably and with such fidelity as " the father of New France."
Champlain has no peer, either in the brilliant lists of French or Anglo-Saxon discoverers of the age, in the magnitude of his services, the hardy daring of his exploits, in the courage and ability by which he achieved them or the capacious grasp of intellect that moulded the destinies
1 Bancroft.
1
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of half a continent. Twenty times he crossed the Atlantic1 in tiny shallops from twelve to twenty tons, scarcely equal to an ordinary fishing boat, and with a celerity that is rarely surpassed in the voyages of the present day ; he ex- plored boundless forests, penetrated unknown lakes, over- came the turbulence of wild and strange rivers, associated with the savages in every form, encountered dangers and toils in it all their aspects, and gave to his country a do- main far more magnificent in its proportions than the territories of the proudest kingdom of Europe. In an age reeking with venality, he never descended from his lofty pursuits to contend for sordid wealth or emolument. Nurtured in a licentious court, even when removed from the restraints of society, his piety and virtue attracted the wonder and excited the reverence of his savage asso- ciates. His justice and good faith created an unbounded ascendancy throughout the wide-spread Algonquin tribes, and in after years their love and veneration still lived undiminished for " the man with the iron breast."2
CHAPTER II. INDIAN AND COLONIAL WARS.
I am not aware that any evidence exists, that the en- virons of Lake Champlain witnessed the missionary labors of the Jesuits ; but we can with difficulty believe, that a region so near and accessible, would have been unexplored by the deep devotion and ardent enthusiasm, which im- pelled them to bear the cross and to find their neophytes upon the remote shores of Lake Superior.
The policy inaugurated by Champlain and pursued as a cardinal principle by the vice-regal government, in form-
1 Thoreau.
2 For the materials of this chapter, in addition to the journals of Cham- plain and his cotemporaries, and the general historians, I am largely indebted to the facts compiled by Mr Parkman, and the views expressed in the glow- ing and nervous pages of Thoreau.
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ing an intimate alliance with the Algonquins, although successful in its immediate object, the cherishing of the union and affections of the tribes of New France, in its results, excited the unyielding feuds and hostility of the formidable Mohawks, and entailed upon the French more than a century of fierce and bloody savage warfare. The western tribes of the Iroquois rarely yielded to the sub- jects of France, but the stern and implacable Mohawks, never. Between them and France occasional periods of peace or rather armed truces intervened, but at no time did there exist a cordial harmony, when "the hatchet was buried too deeply to be uncovered."
The French government, while it maintained the sove- reignty of New France, wielded a powerful influence over all the aboriginal tribes, within its vast limits. The pre- ponderance of England, even in the councils of the Iro- quois, was often disputed by France, and rendered by her machinations, precarious and inefficient. The " chain of friendship," between France and the confederacies of the Hurons and Algonquins never was broken or became dim. The gay and joyous manners of the French won the heart of the savage. The solemn grandeur, and the imposing formulas and pomp of the catholic rituals, attracted his wonder and admiration and fascinated his senses, if they did not subdue his feelings. His appetites were pampered, and his wants supplied with a lavish prodigality, the re- sult perhaps of governmental policy rather than that of Christian charity. To the mind of the Indian, these traits of the French were favorably contrasted with the cold, severe, and repulsive habits of the Englishman, with the unimposing forms of his religious rites, and with the close and parsimonious guard the British government held over its treasury and store houses.
The annals of Lake Champlain is a blood-stained recital of mutual atrocities. The feuds of the peoples of Europe and the malignant passions of European sovereigns, armed the colonies of England and the provinces of France, in conflicts where the ordinary ferocity of border warfare,
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MILITARY AND POLITICAL HISTORY.
was aggravated by the relentless atrocities of savage bar- barism. Each power emulated the other, in the consum- mation of its schemes of blood and rapine. Hostile Indian tribes, panting for slaughter, were let loose along the whole frontier, upon feeble settlements, struggling amid the dense forest, with a rigorous climate and reluctant soil, for a precarious existence. Unprotected mothers, helpless infancy and decrepit age, were equally the victims of the torch, the tomahawk and scalping knife. Lake Champlain was the great pathway, equally accessible and useful to both parties, of these bloody and devastating forays. In the season of navigation, they glided over the placid waters of the lake, with ease and celerity, in the bark canoes of the Indians. The ice of winter afforded them a broad, crystal highway, with no obstruction of forest or mountain, of ravine or river. If deep and impassable snows rested upon its bosom, snow shoes were readily constructed, and secured and facilitated their march.
Although this system of reciprocal desolation impeded the progress of civilization in the territories of each power, and repelled from the frontier, bordering upon the lake, all agricultural and industrial occupations, both England and France asserted an exclusive right to the dominion of the territory. France based her claims of sovereignty upon the discovery of Acadia, and the gulf and river St. Lawrence, and subsequently upon the discoveries of Champlain. Before that event we have seen, she had conveyed to De Monts a parchment title to the entire re- gion extending to the meridian of Philadelphia. The original charter of Virginia asserted the claim of England to the 45th parallel of latitude, while the other grants extended her sovereignty to the waters of the St. Law- rence. The ultimate acquisition of the title of Holland, by the cession of New Netherlands, fortified these preten- sions, which England alleged were matured by the re- cognition in the treaty of Utrecht, of her paramount sovereignty over the possessions of the Iroquois, or as the
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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY.
Iroquois assumed a broad and formal protectorate as a trust for their benefit and safety. Blood and treasures were profusely expended in the assertion of hostile claims, founded on these ideal assumptions to a rude and howling wilderness.1 A long series of ferocious but inde- cisive wars prevailed between the French and the Iroquois, signalized by mutual woes and cruelties, and by alterna- tions of victory and defeat. To avenge former sufferings as well as to arrest future incursions, the government of New France, in 1665, determined to attempt the destruc- tion of the fastnesses of the Mohawks. The annals of war exhibit scarcely a parallel to the daring intrepidity, the exposure and suffering of that expedition.
The point of contemplated attack was distant almost three hundred miles, and to secure the more perfect secrecy, and an assurance of surprise, the season selected was the most rigorous of winter. "M. Courcelles, the governor of Canada, on the 29th of December, 1665, began his march with scarcely six hundred men, to seek out their inveterate enemies, the Mohawks." The snow that covered the ground, " although four feet deep, was hard frozen." The French were enabled, by the aid of the Indian snow shoes, to march rapidly along this surface. The use of horses was impossible, and it was equally im- practicable for the troops, who consisted of about equal proportions of Indians and whites, to carry on an expedi- tion so long and laborious, with their own supplies. "The
1 The clause in the treaty of Utrecht, which bears upon this question and which excited for many years elaborate and angry diplomatic discussions is this : " The subjects of France inhabiting Canada and others, shall in future give no hindrance or molestation to the Five Nations or cantons of Indians, subject to the dominion of Great Britain, nor to the other natives of Ame- rica who are in friendly alliance with them. In like manner, the subjects of Great Britain shall behave themselves peaceably towards the Americans who are the friends or subjects of France and they shall enjoy on both sides full liberty of resort for purposes of trade." The treaty secures to the In- dians, equal freedom, " to resort to the colonies of either power for trade," and then continues, " but who are and who ought to be accounted subjects and friends of Britain and France is a matter to be accurately and distinctly settled by commissioners."- Doc. Col. Hist., ix, 964.
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governor caused slight sledges to be made in good num- bers, laying provisions upon them, drew them over the snow with mastiff dogs." 1 Thus traversing Lake Cham- plain, they had at night, no covering but the clouds, the freshly fallen snow, or the boughs of the forest. Sur- mounting perils and toils like these, the French approached the Mohawk territory; but bewildered amid pathless snows, and exhausted and paralyzed by cold and hunger, they were only preserved from destruction by the active although ill-requited beneficence of a small Dutch settle- ment, standing on the outer verge of civilization. The potent influence and urgent intercessions of a prominent, although private citizen of Schenectady, averted from the suffering and defenseless Frenchmen, the vengeance of the exasperated Mohawks. It is rare that an individual, who, like Arent Van Corlear, moves quietly along in life without any prominence by official station, or brilliant deeds, secures the universal reverence of both friends and foes, while living, and to his name an honored place in history, by the pure force of probity and beneficence. Deeply loved by the Indians for his integrity and virtues, his influence over them was unbounded, and long after his death, they were accustomed, in their speeches and treaties, as the term of highest respect and reverence known to their hearts, to call the governor of New York - Corlear.2 His benevolent zeal in the preservation of the forces of De Courcelles, was gratefully acknowledged by the colonial government, and De Tracy, the governor general, with expressions of the warmest regard, urged on him a visit to Quebec.3 In the year 1667, Corlear accepted a courtesy so marked, and with the purpose of aiding in the negotia- tion of a peace between the French and Mohawks, accom- panied by embassadors of the Iroquois, who, at his request, had received a safe conduct, commenced the long and perilous journey. While making the passage of Lake
1 Relations of the march, etc., Doc. Col. Hist., III, 118.
2 Idem, III, 559, et passim. 3Idem, III, 128, 152, et passim.
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Champlain, " he was drowned by a sudden squall of wind, in crossing a great bay."1 I have no hesitation in refer- ring to Pereu or Willsboro' bay, in Essex county, as the scene of this catastrophe.2 The lake, for many years afterwards, was known as Corlear's lake ; 3 and locali- ties and the scenes of events are frequently established in documents of the period, by references to the " place where Corlear was drowned."4 It is an impressive and almost painful commentary upon the practice of the age, as I remarked upon an analogous instance in the life of Cham- plain, that the purity of Corlear did not shrink, while thus shielded by the mantle of an honored guest, from the very equivocal "promise to perfect the chart of the lake, with the French forts, and how it borders on the Maquais river."5 We will not resist the emotions of a sad and tender sensibility, when we reflect that this noble and benignant man, on a mission of peace and concilia- tion, found a grave beneath the waters of Champlain, and within the borders of our own country.
A treaty of professed peace succeeded this event, but it seems to have formed no restraint upon the predatory spirit of either the Mohawks or the French. Two years had not elapsed, when a second expedition, guided by the venerable De Tracy himself, the governor general of New France, assembled at the Isle la Motte in Lake Champlain. Far more formidable than the preceding, it embraced one thousand two hundred combatants, borne by a fleet of three hundred bateaux and canoes, and strengthened by two pieces of artillery, which they transported to the remotest hamlets of the Iroquois.
1 Relations of the march, etc., Doc. Col. Hist., III, 156.
2 No body of water which he could, in a usual course, have traversed on the lake, corresponds so strictly with this description. I am strongly forti- fied in my conjecture, by the statement of Dr. O'Callaghan, that an ancient map exists in the office of the surveyor general of the state, on which Pereu bay is named Corlear's bay.
$ Idem, III, 554, 815. 4 Idem, 815, 817.
6 Nichols to Corlear, Jan. 9, 1666, idem, 145.
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MILITARY AND POLITICAL HISTORY.
Intimidated by the power of this armanent, the Mohawks 'abandoned their fortified villages, and "these barbarians were only seen on the mountains at a distance, uttering great cries and firing some random shots."1 Having planted the cross, celebrated mass, and sung the Te Deum on the spot, "all that remained was to fire the palisades and cabins, and to destroy all the stores of Indian corn, beans, and other products of the country found there." The re- treat of the French, from this abortive attempt, was deeply calamitous. Forts were erected at Sorel and Chambly to protect the province from the incursions of the Iroquois by the lake. The Mohawks, wily as powerful, were, by their habits and position, intangible ; no blow could reach them. Suddenly bursting in 1689, with great force into Canada, they besieged and captured Montreal, and menaced the empire of New France with utter extinction. This move- ment averted a contemplated attack upon New York by Frontenac through Lake Champlain, and of a fleet by sea.
In the ensuing winter an event occurred, preeminent even in the atrocities of that warfare for its deliberate and ferocious cruelty. The people of Schenectady, that vil- lage whose Christian charity had saved the forces of De Courcelles from an appalling fate, reposed in a profound security. Although warned of impending danger, they had relied for protection upon the intense severity of the season, and an unprecedented depth of snow. A band of French and Hurons, conducted by ruthless partisans, pre- cipitating themselves in a march of twenty-two days along the course of West Canada creek, fell 2 in a winter's midnight upon this doomed and undefended hamlet.3 A common
1 French report. 2 Col. Hist., v, 656.
3 This is opposed to the generally received idea that this road was along the line of Lake Champlain. A route by West Canada creek implies an avenue of communication between Canada and the Mohawk valley different from that afforded by the usual line traversed by the French, either from Oswego or by the way of Lake Champlain. The route mentioned pos- sibly had a terminus on the St. Lawrence, near the mouth of the Black river. Writers constantly advert to the use of such an intermediate channel ; but their attention does not seem to have been directed to its locality or
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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY.
ruin involved the entire population. The blood of many mingled with the ashes of their dwellings. Some, half. clad, fled to Albany amid the cold and snow, while others were borne into a hopeless captivity.
After perpetrating this massacre, the French made a rapid and disastrous retreat, pursued by the rigors of a destroying climate, and the vengeance of a fierce enemy.
Other sections of the English colonies were visited with similar and simultaneous assaults, tending only to aggravate national animosities, without attaining either military or
character. Sir John Johnson, it is stated, when he violated his parole and fled with the mass of his tenantry to Canada, consumed nineteen days, with great exposure and suffering, in traversing the wilderness by some interior line, known to him and the Indians. But no further light is thrown upon a question, which to my mind, is invested with much geographical and historical interest. I will venture the presumption, that, at this period more than one familiar route had been established through the vast prime- val forests, which embrace the western confines of Essex county, which still exist essentially in their original gloom and solitudes. No other route would have been available, when both Oswego and Champlain, as often ' occurred, were in the occupation of a hostile power. The valleys of the streams which flow into the Mohawk and Hudson, and which almost mingle their waters with the affluents of the St. Lawrence, might have been ascended, and the lakes and rivers of the wilderness may have been used with great facility for a canoe navigation. A few trifling carrying places would have interposed only slight impediments, and when closed by the frosts of winter, these waters could still afford a most favorable route of communication. Other avenues through this wilderness were undoubtedly accessible, but my own observation has suggested one which I will trace. The upper valley of the Hudson may have been penetrated, until the line is reached of a small branch, which starting from the lakes in the vicinity of the Adirondac works, finds its way to the Hudson. Passing up the valley along which this stream gradually descends, the inaccessible range of mountains would be avoided. Thence traversing the Indian pass in nearly an imperceptible ascent, the plains of North Elba would be reached and these open upon the vast plateau of the wilderness, along which the Racket rolls a gentle current, adapted to the Indian canoe, to the St. Lawrence. This idea posssibly explains the origin of the modern name which has been assigned to the wonderful structures known to the natives as Otneyarh, the place of stony giants.
Gentlemen of great intelligence and careful observation have assured me that they have noticed evidences in the wilderness of other ancient pathways disclosed by still open tracks, the vestiges of rude bridges and the mouldering remains of coarsely hewn vehicles calculated for manual transportation.
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political results. These inflictions awakened the colonies to the perception, that safety and protection depended on con- certed action, and that they were strong alone in harmo- nious union. From such convictions, which at a later period were matured by the convention at Albany, ema- nated the first idea of an American congress. That body, constituted of delegates from Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York, assembled in 1690 at the city of New York. It was then resolved to combine their efforts for the sub- jugation of Canada. Massachusetts redeemed her engage- ment, to equip a fleet to assail the French possessions by sea. New York and Connecticut assumed the respon- sibility of effecting a descent, by a land force, upon Mont- real and the forts upon the Sorel. An army was assembled at Lake George, and a flotilla of canoes, constructed for the purpose, wafted the army, powerful in numbers and appointments, down that lake to Ticonderoga. Transport- ing their armament to Champlain, they again embarked with high aspirations and in confidence of success. Some further progress was made, when suddenly a defective commissariat, with dissensions and divisions, constrained a retreat, and with it blasted every scheme of the projected attacks. The immense disbursements of the colonies in sustaining these extended efforts, exhausted their feeble resources, and left them almost powerless for the defense of their own frontier.
In this crisis, and during the year 1690, John Schuyler, a name distinguished by a long line of patriots and soldiers, organized a volunteer band of about one hundred and twenty " Christians and Indians," on a predatory incursion, into the French province. Traversing Lake Champlain and the Sorel, in silence and caution, he landed without detection in the vicinity of Chambly. Secreting his canoes and provisions, he penetrated, with a singular temerity and no less singular success, to La Prairie, amid numerous forces of the French, and far within the line of their fort- resses. The merciless storm fell upon an unsuspecting
3
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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY.
rural population, engaged and rejoicing in their harvest. In the fell spirit that characterized these scenes, none were exempted from slaughter or captivity. The "scalps of four women folks," were among their trophies. Dwellings, barns, products of the field, "and everything else which would take fire," were remorselessly consigned to the flames.1 The next year, Peter Schuyler, a controlling spirit in the colony, and who swayed an unlimited influence over the rude affections of the Mohawks, collecting three hundred whites and warriors of the tribe, daringly pursued the track of his brother, and assailed the same region. With great labor, Schuyler constructed bark canoes at White Hall, and Ticonderoga ; some of which were of large dimensions equal to the transportation of twelve men. He traversed the lake slowly and with great caution, advanc- ing, as he approached the object of his expedition, by night. Scouts, formed of whites and savages, were thrown cau- tiously in advance.2
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