USA > New York > Franklin County > The north country; a history, embracing Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Oswego, Lewis and Franklin counties, New York, Volume 1 > Part 6
USA > New York > Jefferson County > The north country; a history, embracing Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Oswego, Lewis and Franklin counties, New York, Volume 1 > Part 6
USA > New York > Lewis County > The north country; a history, embracing Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Oswego, Lewis and Franklin counties, New York, Volume 1 > Part 6
USA > New York > Oswego County > The north country; a history, embracing Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Oswego, Lewis and Franklin counties, New York, Volume 1 > Part 6
USA > New York > St Lawrence County > The north country; a history, embracing Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Oswego, Lewis and Franklin counties, New York, Volume 1 > Part 6
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Within a year a crude little fort with four stone bastions, shaped like towers, at the corners, with moat, entrenchment and palisade, had been constructed, crops had been planted, Indian long houses erected and a small garrison brought on from Montreal. La Pre- sentation became a place to be reckoned with. Down at Johnstown, Col. William Johnson began to get reports from his traders of the mission and became worried. Father Picquet was "debauching" the Indians, he complained in a letter to the Board of Trade, which was another way of saying that he was winning them over to France. The English admitted that he had made a hundred converts from
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Onondaga, the Iroquois capital, alone, and alleged that Picquet taught the Indians that the King of France was the eldest son of the wife of Jesus Christ. This, however, was probably the Indian misinter- pretation of the doctrine that the church was the spouse of Christ. But the English had reason for concern. In 1749 Father Picquet had six heads of Indian families at La Presentation. The following year he had eighty-seven and in 1751 he had over 1,500.
The colonial dreams of France and England had now reached a stage where a great conflict was inevitable. From the Gulf of the St. Lawrence to the mouth of the Mississippi a thin line of French forts and trading posts barred British advance westward and northward. Along a frontier as yet vague and indistinct, trouble was brewing. In the Ohio country there were conflicting claims and armed clashes, and in Northern New York, scheming and double dealing with two strong men playing the game of empire. Down at Johnstown was Col. William Johnson, ruling like a medieval baron a great forest domain. With an Irish gift of ready speech, adept at flattery, none too scrupulous as to personal morals but honest in his dealings with the Indians Johnson had developed a tremendous influence with the Iroquois. That influence he was not slow to turn to the advantage of his royal master. It was Col. Johnson, so the Indians said, who inspired the Mohawks to attack and partially destroy the fort at La Presentation in 1748. The fact that England and France were at peace meant nothing to Johnson, who knew that the frontier had a law of its own and no one better than he understood what a menace the little fort at the mouth of the Oswegatchie was to the interests of King George.
At La Presentation was Father Picquet, then a man of forty, more of a political agent than a priest and more of a soldier than either. It was his duty to convert the Indians, it is true, but if he could persuade them also to destroy Oswego, well, so much the better. As a matter of fact Father Picquet had definite instructions with respect to Oswego but was cautioned to work entirely through the Indians and outwardly to act towards the English "with the greatest politeness." This was common, international practice in the eight- eenth century and neither Picquet nor Johnson saw anything strange in it.
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FORT OSWEGO AT OSWEGO IN 1855 (FROM AN OLD PRINT)
De Witt & West.
THE DE WITT C. WEST, AN OLD TIME NORTHERN NEW YORK LOCOMOTIVE
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In all the territory now included in Northern New York the white and gold flag of France waved only over La Presentation, unless the little Tarbell Indian settlement, soon to be known as St. Regis, might be called a French post. Here the Tarbells had recently come with their friends from the Mohawk settlement at Caughnawaga. The Tarbells were white but had lived so long among the Mohawks to be Indian in everything but color. Soon the little settlement of St. Regis was to grow and a chapel was to be erected, in which, according to legend, the bell stolen in the Deerfield massacre many years before, was to hang. But St. Regis at this time was still nothing but a clus- ter of bark huts in the depth of the forest. La Presentation was much more pretentious with its fort, chapel, saw mill, garrison, storehouse and fields of waving corn. Father Picquet sought to teach his converts to raise hogs and chickens. In this he was only moder- ately successful, the Indians preferring to leave such tasks to the squaws. He made more progress in teaching the naked Onondagas and Oneidas to sing hymns, this being the sort of ceremony they loved, but it was in leading his "praying Indians" to war that he had his greatest success.
FORT OSWEGO
From La Presentation stretching southward was a great forest empire, populated only by wolves and panthers. The shore line had been rudely charted and a few, hardy fur traders knew of the for- est trails from the St. Lawrence to the Iroquois country, but in the main the interior was as little known as it had been in the days of the Jesuits. The French had known the Oswegatchie for a century but still thought it had its origin in Black Lake. The Black river, the largest stream in the whole territory, was practically unknown and seldom appeared on the maps. But the French did know that thirty leagues from La Fresentation by the water route was that thorn in the side of France, Oswego. For over a quarter of a cen- tury now bearded French fur traders on their way to the western posts never failed to scowl when they passed the huge blockhouse with the Union Jack waving gayly to the breeze. They knew that Oswego was a constant threat to the French trade with the west. They knew it was the peep hole through which their enemies could
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watch the French batteaux and canoes moving westward to La Belle Riviere, Presque Isle and Fort Duquesne. Oswego represented the might of England in the forest. It was a formidable stronghold. The British had boasted that it could never be taken unless battered to pieces by artillery and who could bring artillery through the rapids of the St. Lawrence? In the shadow of the fort clustered the houses of the traders where for two beaver skins the Indians could purchase as good a silver bracelet as they could at the French post of Niagara for ten. The Indians preferred French brandy to English rum, but business was business and an increasing number of them found their way to Oswego.
Within the next few years Oswego was to figure mightily in the affairs of two great nations. Says Arthur Pound, that most recent and most entertaining biographer of Sir William Johnson: "On that silver strand by Ontario's blue waters Montcalm performed one of those dazzling feats of arms and one of those clement acts of victory which have exalted his name, and the momentary defenders experi- enced on the same occasion a sinking spell as complete as any ever recorded of American arms. There Sir Jeffrey Amherst, not yet the Lord Jeff of college song, passed with army and armaments on the three-headed expedition which ended French rule in Canada by tak- ing Montreal. And there at last Sir William Johnson had his most triumphant moment when he received the submission of the great Chief Pontiac after their duel of wits, words and war had gone against the rebel aborigine."
Directly across the lake from Oswego rose the ramparts of old Fort Frontenac, on the site of the present Kingston. A way station to the west, a rendezvous of bearded fur traders and Indians, the post was of the utmost importance to the French in maintaining their control over Lake Ontario, but little improvement had been made in it since the days of Frontenac and La Salle. Such was the situation in Northern New York and its vicinity as the clouds of war loomed darker. Outwardly peace still reigned and Abbe Pic- quet, the "Apostle of the Iroquois," and Col. William Johnson of the Mohawks matched wits and bided their time. Then a youthful Vir- ginian surveyor, George Washington, struck the spark that started the war.
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THE SEVEN YEARS WAR
Up the St. Lawrence, sweating Canadian boatmen guiding the heavy batteaux, came the French soldiery bound for the Ohio country. At La Presentation, the warlike abbe had his Indians ready and when the first French expedition moved westward, with it went the Indians of La Presentation, painted and greased and ready for battle. With them went a white, silk banner, richly em- broidered with fleur de lis, crosses and symbols of the various Iro- quoian clans. The year after Abbe Picquet had started his mission at La Presentation, Bishop de Pontbriand with his suite ascended the rapids and paid a visit to the little post. The bishop brought with him a banner, made by the nuns of the congregation, for the La Presentation Indians. It was intended for church ceremonials and the Indians were very proud of it. So when they went to war they took it with them. It waved before Fort Necessity when Wash- ington surrendered, appeared in the smoke of battle at Fort William Henry, Fort Edward, Schenectady and Oswego and had its last baptism of fire on the Plains of Abraham.
The first wartime expedition in the Northern New York area was that of Lieut. de Lery against Fort Bull on the Mohawk. In March, 1756, when the forests were still blanketed with snow the French commander with his little force of French, Canadians and Indians, numbering in all less than 400 men, set out from La Presen- tation. It was a long trek to the English settlements to the south- ward and the white men were bundled to the ears in their bearskin coats. Leading the Indians was no other than the warlike abbe, Picquet. All marched on snowshoes in a long, single file that crawled like a black snake through the wild forest lands of the Black river country. For days and days the little army marched southward, half- famished, chilled by the cold and forced to dig holes in the snow to sleep. On March 25, over two weeks after the expedition had left La Presentation, Abbe Picquet gathered about him his painted In- dians, the bearded Canadians and the shivering French grenadiers and sang a high mass. The end of the journey was near at hand. That same day the French scouts brought in six Oneida prisoners. In the cold, gray of the dawn two days later the French ambushed a long line of wagons, carrying provisions to the fort. The famished
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attackers threw themselves upon the supplies and satisfied their hunger for the first time in many days. Nine flat boats were cap- tured at the same time. White and red soldiers knelt in the snow while Abbe Picquet imparted a general absolution. Then came the attack. The fort was taken by storm and Father Picquet's Chris- tian Indians massacred everyone in the fort with the exception of three persons who succeeded in hiding. One of the Englishmen had fired the powder magazine when he saw all was lost and the French and their allies had hardly time to flee before the entire structure was hurled into the air by a terrific blast. De Lery, knowing that the English from Fort Williams, a few miles away, would soon be on the scene, started the long march back through the wilderness. The little army crossed the divide between the Mohawk and the Black rivers and descended Black river to its mouth. There, for- tunately for them, they found French troops from Fort Frontenac waiting in Black River Bay and in their batteaux they returned to Fort La Presentation in triumph, bearing scores of green scalps and a few prisoners.
THE CAPTURE OF OSWEGO
Until about fifty years ago the remains of an old palisade were visible on Six Town Point, now an island but then a long, narrow point of land bordering Henderson Bay in what is now Jefferson county. Here the French maintained for many months an observa- tion post, spying on the English at Oswego, and the little, log fort was appropriately named Fort L'Observation. The commander of this post was Captain Coulon de Villiers who had captured Fort Necessity and had received the surrender of George Washington. He was the brother of that Coulon de Jumonville whose killing by Washington and his men had really started the war. De Villiers later commanded at Niagara. He was one of the most resourceful of the French commanders and it was he who was sent to build the little stronghold among the brambles and the underbrush of Six Town Point. It was not a small detachment he commanded, viewed in the light of those days, and consisted of possibly a thousand all told, French, Canadians and Indians. From the start they proceeded to make themselves disagreeable to the English at Oswego. They
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ambushed Captain Bradstreet's boatmen proceeding down the Os- wego river with supplies for the fort. At first the attack was suc- cessful but the English finally gained the upper hand and pursued the French and Indians into the forests. This attack seems to have given the English the first information they had that there was a French post containing a considerable force only a few miles from Oswego.
Fortune had seemed to smile on the French thus far in the war. Gen. Braddock had suffered his crushing defeat and the Union Jack no longer waved west of the Alleghenies. Fort Bull had been de- stroyed with thousands of dollars worth of munitions of war. And now the white and gold flag of France waved only a few leagues from the great English stronghold of Oswego. The Marquis de Montcalm, small in stature but big in military genius, now com- manded the French forces in Canada and the dream of Abbe Picquet seemed about to be realized for Montcalm was determined to attack Oswego. French forces constantly passed up the St. Lawrence on their way to Fort Frontenac where the concentration was to take place. Finally Montcalm, himself, came and tarried for a day at La Presentation, the guest of Abbe Picquet. His aide de camp, Bou- gainville, had left a vivid description of the little post, bustling with wartime preparations and with war parties of Indians constantly coming and going. Five hundred Iroquois camp fires burned at La Presentation then and the thrifty Bougainville sagely remarks that every one cost the French king one hundred crowns. He was amazed to see the naked Indians going through military drills like French- men, their drill masters being none other than Father Picquet and his assistant, Abbe de Terlaye.
The English had greatly strengthened Oswego after the outbreak of hostilities, appreciating the importance of the post as a means of retaining the friendship of the Six Nations. In 1756 there were three forts located at the mouth of the river. On the east bank, in the middle of a high plateau, was Fort Ontario, constructed of pick- ets some eight or nine feet high. A ditch, eighteen feet wide and eight deep, surrounded the fort. On the opposite bank of the river was old Fort Oswego, a blockhouse with walls three feet thick. This was surrounded by a stone wall. Fort George, called by the men "Fort Rascal," was situated beyond Fort Oswego on a hill and was
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a rather poorly constructed enclosure of pickets. The post was gar- risoned by perhaps 1,600 men, but the garrison was half mutinous and there were many sick men.
Montcalm was now at Fort Frontenac with some 3,000 men. Sieur de Rigaud de Vaudreuil, governor of Three Rivers, had crossed to de Villier's little fort at Six Town Point, with some 700 men and had taken command. With him went the engineer, Des Combles, who surveyed the ground and made a map of the territory from the Bay of Niaoure (Black River Bay) to Oswego. Finally on August 4th Montcalm was ready to start. Canadian scouts and Indians from La Presentation were sent to watch the road between Albany and Oswego and to cut all communications with the fort. Montcalm then crossed to Wolfe Island with two battalions of troops. All day be hid on the island but when night fell the batteaux pushed off for the mainland. All night the men rowed silently through the dark- ness, the Indians in their bark canoes leading the way. Just as the sun arose above the great trees of the forests, the French com- mander with his two battalions set foot on Six Town Point. A little later came the second division with the cannon captured from Brad- dock in his disastrous defeat and now to be used against the Eng- lish in what was destined to be one of the most important engage- ments of the war. Finally came the hospital corps and the rear guard.
Six Town Point and all the adjoining territory were now over- run with French troops, Canadians and Indians. No such force had ever before landed on the shores of Northern New York. Here were French grenadiers of the battalions of La Sarre and Guienne in their white uniforms, men of the Bearn battalion of the famous Irish Brigade in their characteristic, red uniforms, faced with the green of their native land, hundreds of Indians from Oswegatchie hideous in war paint and bear grease but bearing new French mus- kets and iron hatchets, and Canadian militiamen and woodsmen, as familiar with this forest warfare as the Indians, themselves. And lined up on the shores were scores of heavy, brass field pieces, each bearing the broad arrow of King George. Years before an English officer had said that Oswego was impregnable against any- thing but artillery and no enemy would ever be able to bring artil- lery through the woods to make an attack. He had reckoned without
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Montcalm who brought into the North Country a completely equip- ped army. Oswego was to have its test of fire.
De Rigaud's Indians and Canadian scouts set out in advance, skirting the sandy shore until they reached Sandy Creek Bay. There they waited for the main body which arrived about midnight and encamped for the night. The next morning the march was resumed and on August 11th at daybreak the French army encamped scarcely a mile from Fort Ontario. A week had been consumed by Montcalm in getting his forces across Lake Ontario, yet so skillful was the advance made that the English knew nothing of the approach of the French until the day before the seige of the fort started. The French soon had their artillery playing on the star-shaped breast- work at the mouth of the Oswego river. Realizing that Fort Ontario would soon be battered to pieces by the heavy guns, Colonel Mer- cer, commandant at Oswego, signalled the troops there to abandon the fort and join his forces at Fort Oswego. The fate of the post was now sealed. The French toiled all night and mounted a strong battery in abandoned Fort Ontario and soon 12-pound shot were tearing away the rotten masonry of Fort Oswego. De Rigaud and his Indians and woodsmen forded the river and took position in the woods above the fort. Col. Mercer was cut in two by a cannon ball. The garrison was disheartened. A council of war was held but it was the cries and entreaties of the terrified women, of whom there were a hundred in the garrison, which decided. The white flag ap- peared at the top of the flagpole on the old, stone trading post. Cries of "Vive le Roi" sounded from the French trenches when it was seen that the English were prepared to surrender. The French had reason to be delighted. One of the strongest English positions in America had been captured. Over 100 cannon, many ships, vast quantities of supplies and ammunition were taken and some 1,600 prisoners of war. The Indians, who had found rum, proceded to slaughter some thirty of the prisoners. Montcalm was forced to give them rich presents in order to prevent a general massacre. The three forts were burned to the ground and in the midst of the still smok- ing embers the French caused a great cross to be erected to com- memorate the victory. Volley after volley of musketry were fired by the French regulars, the great guns roared and the drums rolled. As Montcalm and his staff stood at attention a tall priest picked his
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way through the charred remains to the cross. It was the Abbe Pic- quet, "Apostle of the Iroquois." It was his moment of greatest tri- umph.
The French cause was now at its peak. Lake Ontario was entirely under the control of Montcalm. Oswego reverted to the wild beasts. From Quebec to La Presentation and from Niagara to Fort Duquesne there were rejoicings. Montcalm had scored a tremendous victory. The Iroquois flocked to Oswegatchie bearing pelts. Abbe Picquet even brought a number of chiefs to Montreal where they gazed in astonishment at Montcalm, who was anything but a stalwart man. "You are small, father," said the spokesman of the Indians, "but we see in your eye the altitude of the pine and the flight of the eagle." For some time comparative peace reigned in the region which is now Northern New York. The English talked of raiding La Presentation but nothing came of it. They were too busy in the Lake Champlain region where the theatre of war had now shifted. Late in 1757 Capt. Bellestre with a detachment of regulars, Cana- dians and Indians arrived at La Presentation and from thence pro- ceded to Black River Bay, ascended Black river, crossed the divide and then descended the Mohawk, finally attacking German Flats, killing many of the inhabitants and taking many prisoners. The fol- lowing winter Indians from La Presentation invaded the Schen- ectady region and attacked Fort Kouri. War parties were contin- uously leaving Oswegatchie on snowshoes for the Mohawk and al- most always returned with scalps.
Then the tide began to turn. Picquet's Indian scouts, prowling about the Bay of Niaoure (Black River Bay) were astonished to find the bay filled with barges loaded to the gunwales with red- coated British regulars and blue-coated colonials. It was Bradstreet's army on its way to attack Fort Frontenac, principal French depot on Lake Ontario. The Indians sped across the lake to carry the news to the old Norman nobleman, de Noyan, who commanded Frontenac, but with his few gunners and fewer guns he was able to make only a superficial defense. The old fort crumbled under the fire of Bradstreet's heavy guns. Without the loss of a single man the English captured the fort and French domination of Lake On- tario was at an end. Louisburg fell soon after. French Canada was cut in two. Governor de Vaudreuil rushed reinforcements to Ni-
TO BRIG GEN- Z. M. PIKE U.S. A. AND HIS OFFICERS KILLED IN BATTLE OF YORK UPFER CANADA APR. _ 27 -1213.
MONUMENT AT SACKETS HARBOR ERECTED TO BRIG. GEN. PIKE AND HIS OFFICERS, KILLED AT THE BATTLE OF YORK
CARRYING THE CABLE DURING THE WAR OF 1812. (FROM AN OLD PRINT)
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agara. When Abbe Picquet returned to La Presentation from Mon- treal he found it a concentration camp of the first magnitude. Dup- lessis-Fabert's army was there enroute to Niagara. The place was alive with Indians, militiamen, marines and regulars. A short time after the French abandoned Fort Duquesne. "Peace is a necessity or Canada is lost," wrote Montcalm. It was the beginning of the end.
THE FALL OF LA PRESENTATION
At La Presentation plans were made for a last stand. Northern New York was covered with snow that fell in October. The winter was a particularly rigorous one. Supplies were short but the want was not so keenly felt in La Presentation where game was plentiful. The Indians brought news of the English plans. Johnson was to strike in the spring, they said. The British were waiting for the ice to break up and were as "many as there are flies in the heat of the summer." It was apparent that La Presentation was not strong enough to stand a seige. The French decided to abandon the post. The little island, today called Adams Island but then the Little Ile- aux-Galops, was strongly fortified. The Chevalier La Corne came up the St. Lawrence with 1,200 men and aided in digging the en- trenchments. Indians from La Presentation and St. Regis hung about the flanks of the British army concentrated near the Oswego river. The British, under Prideaux, moved to Oswego and en- camped on the ruins of the old fort and La Corne and his force fol- lowed the old Onondaga war trail to Oswego to attack them. With him were Abbe Picquet and his Indians. But the attack failed and the French and Indians retreated to La Presentation. Niagara fell, Quebec was beseiged and the fortunes of the French seemed very low indeed. Picquet moved his Indians and his mission to Picquet Island and La Presentation was abandoned to the bears and the foxes. Preparations were made to defend the rapids. Fortifications were placed on all the small islands. Canadian and Indian sharp- shooters were to defend every portage. All the trails were blocked. Picquet worked tirelessly. Even the vacillating and weak governor, de Vaudreuil, was constrained to write la Corne, who commanded the defense of the rapids, "Allow me, Sir, to assure M. L'Abbe Pic- quet of my profound respect and I renew my confidence in the care
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which he takes to increase the zeal and strengthen the attachment of the Indians to the French."
On September 19th, 1759, an Indian courtier, spent from hard traveling, reached La Presentation with the news that Quebec had fallen and Montcalm had been killed. The following day in the im- provised chapel, Abbe Picquet sang a solemn funeral mass for Mont- calm and the others who had died on the Plains of Abraham. It must have been an impressive scene, the stalwart priest in worn vestments, the serious-faced officers, the militiamen and the Indians, soldiers of a lost cause, gathered there in the little bark chapel in the wilderness to pay their last tribute to their dead leader.
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