USA > Pennsylvania > Erie County > The history of Erie County, Pennsylvania, from its first settlement > Part 3
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HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY.
About 1750, Governor Shirley, of Massachusetts, in writing to Secretary Robinson, proposed the plan of building one or two vessels on each of the lakes-Erie and Ontario-with which, and a few small fortified places of shelter upon the Ohio, he expected to curb the French, who were at this time the frequent occasion of difficulties and murders. Two years after, General Braddock named Presqu'ile as a suitable place to build vessels for securing the navigation of Lake Erie, which, he says, "together with those designed for Lake Ontario, would make the English masters of the great lakes and the Ohio country, until the French can get a force upon those lakes, which it seems very difficult, if not impossible for them to do when our vessels are cruising upon them." General Braddock also requested that a magazine of pro- visions in the back of Pennsylvania be established, from whence to supply himself by a road through the mountains to the waters of the Ohio-" the road to extend to Venango and Niagara, which would be of infinite use in subsisting the troops, as that region abounds more with provisions than any other colony in North America."
The estimation in which Presqu'ile was held one hundred years ago will be seen in a letter dated August 7, 1755, from Lieutenant-Governor De Lancy to Secretary Robinson : "The third method of distressing the French is by way of Oswego ; to go thither we pass, as I observed before, through the coun- try of our Indian friends-by water it is a much less expen- sive carriage than by land-from Oswego we may go westward by water through Lake Ontario to Niagara. If we become masters of this pass, the French cannot go to reinforce or victual their garrisons at Presqu'ile, Beeve River, or on the Ohio but with great difficulty and expense, and by a tedious, long passage. From the fort at Niagara there is a land carriage of about three leagues to the waters above the falls ; thence we go to Lake Erie, and so to the Fort Presqu'ile ; and if we take that, the French can carry no supplies of pro- visions, nor send men to the head of Beeve River (Le Bœuf) or to the Fort Du Quesne on the Ohio, and of course those forts will be abandoned. The same batteaux which carry the train, provisions, etc., for the army to Oswego may carry them to
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HISTORY OF ERIE COUNTY.
Niagara, and being transported above the falls, the same may carry them to Presqu'ile, the fort on the south side of Lake Erie, so that it will be practicable to bring the expense of such an expedition into a moderate compass- far less than the ex- pense of wagons, horses, etc., which are necessary in an expe- dition by land from Virginia to Ohio ; besides that, proceed- ing from Virginia to Fort Du Quesne, if it be taken, it is only cutting off a toe, but taking Presqu'ile you lop off a limb from the French and greatly disable them."
Relating to the commerce of Lake Erie, we find that as early as 1669 the Hudson's Bay Company was incorporated, and transported its goods, provisions, and peltries in batteaux for many years after.
In 1789 the British 'had vessels on Lake Erie for the trans- portation of his Majesty's troops and effects. The subject of commerce and shipping on Lake Erie is continued in Chapter XI.
CHAPTER III.
The English and French Claims-Construction of Forts Presqu'ile (Erie) and Le Bœuf (Waterford)-Washington's Visit-Condition of these Forts in 1756, '57, '58, and '59-Their Desertion after the Taking of Fort Niagara-Tradition in Erie-Major Rogers takes Possession for the English in 1760.
THE treaty of Aix-la-chapelle, of 1748, which closed the war in Europe, left the boundaries of the French and English possessions in America undefined. In the opinion of the French, the discovery of the mouth of the St. Lawrence and of the Mississippi entitled their sovereign to the territory watered by those streams. The abstract of Sieur de Cham- plain, 1612, claims for them the possession of all the countries from Florida to Cape Breton prior to any other Christian nation. Afterward this was renewed by Sieur de la Salle, with thirty Frenchmen, among whom were Mons. Joliet, priest and superior of the seminary at Montreal, and Father Marquette, who made a tour of Lake Erie and took possession of the circumjacent lands. Celeron de Bienville, with a com-
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pany of 300 men, was serit out by the Governor of Canada in 1749 to make peace among the tribes and to renew the French possession of the country. He dispensed presents to the In- dians, reminded them of their former friendships, and warned them not to trade with the English. He also nailed leaden plates to the trees, and buried them in the earth at the con- fluence of the Ohio and its tributaries. One of these plates was found a few years since at the junction of the Great Kanawha and Ohio, dated January 18; another at Muskin- gum the 16th of August ; and a third at Venango (Franklin). The following is a literal translation of the one last named : "In the year 1749, in the reign of Louis XV., King of France, we, Celeron, commandant of a detachment by Monsieur the Marquis of Galissoniere, commander-in-chief of New France, to establish tranquillity in certain villages of these cantons, have buried this plate at the confluence of Toradakoin, this 29th of July, near the River Ohio, otherwise beautiful river, as a monument of renewal of possession which we have taken of the said river, inasmuch as the preceding kings of France have enjoyed this possession and maintained it by their arms and by treaties, especially by those of Ryswick, Utrecht, and Aix-la-Chapelle."
The Indians regarded these plates with suspicion, and said, "They mean to stcal our country from us" ; and these sus- picions were not groundless, for in a few years the French un- ceremoniously possessed themselves of their best tracts for trading-houses and fortifications.
June 30, 1749, a letter was received by express from General Clinton, purporting that two New England men, on their re- turn from Canada, where they had been to solicit the release of some prisoners, reported that they saw an army of 1,000 French ready to go on some expedition, and they were in- formed it was to prevent any settlements being made by the English on Belle Riviere; whereupon it was determined to dispatch a messenger to Mr. George Croghan, with a request that he would go immediately to Allegheny, and on his arrival send away a trader, or some person he could confide in, to the lakes or to the eastward, to discover whether any French were coming in those parts, and if any, in what num-
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ber, and what appearance they made, that the Indians might be apprised and put upon their guard.
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January, 1750 .- The Governor informed the council that three several letters, of an extraordinary nature, in French, signed "Celeron," were delivered to him by the French traders who came from Allegheny, informing him that this Captain Celeron was a French officer, and had the command of three hundred French and some Indians sent this summer to Ohio and the Wabash from Canada, to reprove the Indians for their friendship to the English, and for suffering the English to trade with them. The Governor sent one of the letters to the proprietaries in London, and another to the Governor of New York, that the same might be laid before the ministry.
A letter from George Croghan, dated Logstown, in Ohio, December 16, 1750, contains the intelligence that he arrived the 15th, and was told by Indians that they saw Jean Cœur 150 miles up the river, where he intended building a fort. The Indians he had seen were of opinion that the English should have a fort or forts on this river to secure the trade. They expected a war with the French the next spring.
February 6 .- In a letter of Governor Clinton, dated Fort George, January 29, 1750, is the following: "I send you a copy of an inscription on a leaden plate stolen from Jean Cœur, in the Senecas' country, as he was going to the Ohio."
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The claim of England to this region was founded on a grant of King James the First, dated 1606, and confirmed in 1620, to divers of his subjects, of all the countries between north lati- tude 48° and 34°, and westward from the Atlantic Ocean to the South Sea-not a right only to the seacoast, but to all the inland country from sea to sea. England had, also, through commissioners from Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, purchased western lands from the Six Nations. This treaty was held at Lancaster in 1744, between 252 Indians, with Conrad Weiser as friend and interpreter, and the Governor of Pennsylvania, with Col. Thomas Lee and Col. William Beverly, of Virginia. The commissioners of Maryland paid for their purchase £220 in goods; Virginia, £220 in gold and the same amount in goods, with promises that more should be
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paid as settlements increased. The chief subsequently dis- puted the sale of any lands west of the Warrior's Road, which was at the foot of the Allegheny ridge. In reality the Indians were intoxicated through the whole conference, and it was only through much ingenuity and persuasion that they were induced to sign a deed confirming the Lancaster treaty in its full extent, which was effected at Logstown, seventeen miles below Pittsburg, in 1752.
The year before, in 1751, it was rumored that the French were aware of the difficulties they would have to encounter in maintaining their position in New France, and were taking measures to meet them. Capt. Lindsay wrote Col. Johnson, to whom all such affairs were referred, " that Bunt and Black Prince's son with their fighters had come in, and that the French had built two forts, one at Niagara carrying place, and the other on the Ohio River by Joncaire; that they had heard a bird sing that a great many Indians from his castle, and others from the Five Nations, were gone to Swegage"; in fine, that the English would lose all the Indians if they did not bestir themselves.
Early in 1753 the French sent out a detachment from Mon- treal to erect other fortifications, to make good their claim by force of arms if they met with opposition, and to oblige all English subjects to evacuate. Oswego they were instructed not to molest in consideration of Cape Breton-any other post the English had settled near or claimed was to be reduced if not quitted immediately. A narrative of this expedition from Montreal, and the building of Forts Presqu'ile and Le Bœuf, is to be found in the following deposition of Stephen Coffin, which was made to Col. Johnson, of New York, January 10, 1754. Coffin was a New Englander who had been taken prisoner by the French and Indians of Canada, at Menis, in 1747. He had served them in different capacities until 1752, when, being detected in efforts to escape to his own country, he was confined in jail in Quebec ; on his release he applied to Governor Du Quesne to be sent with the forces to Ohio. In his own words-" The deponent then applied to Mayor Ramsey for liberty to go with the army to Ohio, who told him he would ask the Lieut. de Ruoy, who agreed to it;
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upon which he was equipped as a soldier and sent with a detachment of 300 men to Montreal under the command of Mons. Babeer, who set off immediately with said command by land and ice for Lake Erie. They in their way stopped to refresh themselves a couple of days at Cadaraqui Fort, also at Taranto on the north side of Lake Ontario, then at Niagara Fort fifteen days from thence.
"They set off by water, being April, and arrived at Chada- koin (Chautauqua) on Lake Erie, where they were ordered to fell timber and prepare it for building a fort there, according to the Governor's instructions ; but Mr. Morang coming up with five hundred men and twenty Indians, put a stop to the erect- ing a fort at that place, by reason of his not liking the situa- tion, and the River Chadakoin being too shallow to carry out any craft with provisions, etc. to Belle Riviere. 1 The de- ponent says there arose a warm debate between Messieurs Babeer and Morang thereon, the first insisting on building a fort there, agreeable to instructions, otherwise, on Morang giving him an instrument in writing to satisfy the Governor on that point, which Morang did, and then ordered Mons. Mercie, who was both commissary and engineer, to go along said lake and look for a situation, which he found, and re- turned in three days, it being fifteen leagues to the southwest of Chadakoin. They were then ordered to repair thither; when they arrived, there were about twenty Indians fishing in the lake, who immediately quit on seeing the French. They fell to work and built a square fort of chestnut logs, squared and lapped over each other to the height of fifteen feet. It is about one hundred and twenty feet square, a log- house in each square, a gate to the southward, another to the northward, not one port-hole cut in, any part of it. When finished, they called it Fort Presqu'ile. The Indians who came from Canada with them returned very much out of
1 Lieutenant Holland of the English fort at Oswego observed Morain (or Morang) with his fleet pass that point on the fourteenth of May, and dispatched letters immediately to Colonel Johnson and Governor Clin- ton. He stated to the latter that there were "thirty odd French canoes," and that common report in Canada made the French army to consist of 6,000 men and 500 Indians of the Coyhnawagas, Scenondidies, Ono- gonguas, Oroondoks, and Chenundies tribes, who would not engage to go to war with the English, but would hunt at so much per month for the army. -
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temper, owing, it was said among the army, to Morang's dogged behavior and ill usage of them ; but they (the Indians) said at Oswego it was owing to the French misleading them, by telling them falsehoods, which they said they now found out, and left them. As soon as the fort was finished, they marched southward, cutting a wagon road through a fine, level country twenty-one miles to the river-(leaving Captain Derpontency with one hundred men to garrison the Fort Presqu'ile). They fell to work cutting timber boards, etc., for another fort, while Mr. Morang ordered Mons. Bite with fifty
men to a place called by the Indians Ganagarahare, on the banks of Belle Riviere, where the River Aux Bœufs empties into it. In the meantime, Morang had ninety large boats made to carry down the baggage, provisions, etc. to said place. Mons. Bite, on coming to said Indian place, was asked what he wanted or intended. He upon answering said, 'it was their father, the Governor of Canada's intention to build a trading house for them and all their brethren's con- venience' ; he was told by the Indians that the lands were theirs, and that they would not have them build upon it. The said Bite reported to Morang the situation was good, but the water in the River Aux Bœufs too low at that time to carry any craft with provisions, etc.
" A few days after, the deponent says, that about one hun- dred Indians, called by the French the Loos, came to the Fort La Riviere Aux Bœufs to see what the French were doing ; that Morang treated them very kindly, aud then asked them to carry down some stone, etc. to the Belle Riviere, on horse- back, for payment, which he immediately advanced them on their undertaking to do it. They set off with full loads, but never delivered them to the French, which incensed them very much, being not only a loss, but a great disappointment. Morang, a man of very peevish, choleric disposition, meeting with those and other crosses, and finding the season of the year too far advanced to build the third fort, called all his officers together, and told them that, as he had engaged and firmly promised the Governor to finish these forts that season, and not being able to fulfill the same, he was both afraid and ashamed to return to Canada, being sensible he had now
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forfeited the Governor's favor forever. Wherefore, rather than live in disgrace, he begged they would take him (as he then sat in a carriage made for him, being very sick sometimes) and seat him in the middle of the fort, and then set fire to it and let him, perish in the flames, which was rejected by the offi- cers, who had not the least regard for him, as he had behaved very ill to them all in general. The deponent further saith, that about eight days before he left the Fort Presqu'ile, Chevalier Le Crake arrived express from Canada in a birch canoe worked by ten men, with orders (as the deponent after- ward heard) from the Governor Le Cain (Duquesne) to Morang to make all the preparation possible against the spring of the year to build them two forts at Chadakoin, one of them by Lake Erie, the other at the end of the carrying place at Lake Chadakoin, which carrying place is fifteen miles from one lake to the other. The said Chevalier brought for M. Morang a cross of St. Louis, which the rest of the officers would not allow him to take until the Governor was acquainted with his conduct and behavior. The Chevalier returned immediately to Canada.
" After which, the deponent saith, when the Fort La Riviere Aux Bœufs was finished (which is built of wood stockaded triangularwise, and has two log-houses on the inside) M. Morang ordered all the party to return to Canada for the winter season, except three hundred men, which he kept to garrison both forts and prepare materials against the spring for the building of other forts. He also sent Jean Cœur, an officer and interpreter, to stay the winter among the Indians on the Ohio, in order to prevail with them not only to allow the building of forts over there, but also to persuade them, if possible, to join the French interests against the English. The deponent further says that on the 28th of October last, he set off for Canada under the command of Capt. Deman, who had the command of twenty-two batteaux with twenty men in each batteau, the remainder being seven hundred ; and sixty men followed in a few days. The thirtieth arrived at Chadakoin, where they stayed four days, during which time M. Peon, with two hundred men, cut a wagon road over the carrying place from Lake Erie to Lake Chadakoin, being
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fifteen miles, viewed the situation, which proved to their liking, and so set off November the third for Niagara, where we arrived the sixth. It is a very poor, rotten, old wooden fort with twenty-five men in it. They talk of rebuilding it next summer. We left fifty men there to build batteaux for the army against the spring, also a storehouse for provisions, stores, etc. Stayed here two days, then set off for Canada. All hands, being fatigued with rowing all night, ordered to put ashore to breakfast within a mile of Oswego garrison ; at which time the deponent saith that he, with a Frenchman, slipped off and got to the fort, where they were concealed until the enemy passed. From thence he came here. The deponent further saith, that beside the three hundred men with which he went up first under the command of M. Babeer, and the five hundred Morang brought up afterward, there came at different times, with stores, etc., one hundred men, which made in all fifteen hundred men, three hundred of which remained to garrison the two forts, fifty at Niagara ; the rest all returned to Canada, and talked of going up again this winter, so as to be there the beginning of April. They had two six-pounders and seven four-pounders, which they in- tended to have planted in the fort at Ganagarahare (Frank- lin), which was to have been called the Governor's Fort; but as that was not built, they left the guns in the Fort La Riviere Aux Bœufs, where Morang commands. Further the deponent saith not."
The Indians of New York and the Allegheny country, as we have seen, were allied to Great Britian. A deputation of seven French Indians had been sent to Onondaga, the head- quarters of the Six Nations, to couciliate them and to prepare the way for this expedition from Canada .. Although many of the Indians favored the French, yet the deputation were in- formed promptly that they would not be allowed to settle upon their lands. Andrew Montour, an Indian interpreter who was present at the conference, having some commission from the Governer of Virginia, on his return conveyed the intelli- gence to him, and also to Governor Hamilton of Pennsyl- vania. The latter addressed the Colonial Assembly on the subject, urging the necessity of protection for the friendly
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Indians, and suggesting the discomfort of having French forts within the limits of the province, together with the probability of the Indians deserting them for a power willing to afford them protection.
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The same year (1749) Celeron, in the name of Louis, took possession of the Ohio valley. An association was formed by twelve Virginians, among whom were found the names of . George and Augustus Washington, called the Ohio Company, which petitioned the king for a grant of land beyond the mountains. Their object was not so much to cultivate the soil or promote settlement, as to monopolize the Indian trade, to purchase and export furs, to sell goods, and erect trading houses and stores. The government readily assented to the project, as it promised quiet and prompt possession of the Ohio valley, in opposition to the advances of the French, and granted them 500,000 acres of land west of the Alleghenies. Of this land, two fifths was to be selected immediately, the whole was to be free from quit rent ten years, one hundred families were to settle upon it, and a garrison was to be maintained at the expense of the company as a defense against the Indians ...
Christopher Gist was sent out to explore and report to the corporation, and in 1752 he, with eleven other families, made the first settlement west of the mountains. This was upon land presumed to belong to the company, and is now called Mount Braddock, being in Fayette County.
The news of the encroachments of the French having ob- tained, and the Ohio Company feeling aggrieved, applied for aid to Governor Dinwiddie, who claimed the country as a part of Virginia, and was also interested as a stockholder of the company. In Gen. Washington, then but a youth, Governor Dinwiddie saw one fitted to lead in this difficult expedition.
On the 30th of October, 1753, accompanied by Gist, the pioneer, Van Braem, a retired soldier, who had a knowledge of French, and John Davison, Indian interpreter, he set out for the wilderness.
The instructions given Washington were to communicate at Logstown with the friendly Indians, and to request of them an escort to the headquarters of the French, to deliver his letter and credentials to the commander, and demand of him
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an answer in the name of the British sovereign, and an escort to protect him on his return. He was to acquaint himself with the strength of the French forces, the number of their forts, and their object in advancing to those parts, and also to make such other observations as his opportunities would allow.
The Indians were not well satisfied as to the rights of either the French or English. An old Delaware sachem exclaimed, "The French claim all the lands on one side of the Ohio, and the English on the other; now where does the Indian's land lie?" "Poor savages ! between their father the French, and their brothers the English, they were in a fair way of being lovingly shared out of the whole country." Three of the sachems, Tanacharison, or Half-King, from his being subject to another tribe, Jeskakake, and White Thunder, accom- panied Major Washington from Logstown, as they had been directed by Governor Dinwidde, as well as for the purpose of returning to the French commander the war belts they had received from them. This implied that they wished to dis- solve all friendly relations with their government. These Ohio tribes had been offended at the encroachments of the French, and had a short time previously sent deputations to the commander at Lake Erie, to remonstrate. Half-King, as chief of the Western tribes, had made his complaints in per- son, and been answered with contempt. "The Indians," said the commander, "are like flies and mosquitos, and the num- bers of the French as the sands of the seashore. Here is your wampum, I fling it at you." As no reconciliation had been offered for this offense, aid was readily granted by them to the English in their mission.
From Washington's journal we get the following particu- lars : On their arrival at Venango 1 (Franklin) they found the
1 " The original drawing of Fort Venango by the French engineers is still in existence, being in the possession of William Reynolds, Esq., Meadville. In the vicinity of the fort several choicespecies of grapes are still growing, a line of them extending from its center to the base of the hill. They have been bearing so long that the minds of men 'runneth not to the contrary.' No doubt the original shoots were brought from ' La Belle France.'"
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