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AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE

Volume I

"The Sailing of the Griffon"
Wall Panel in the Historical Building, Buffalo.
Painted by H. T. Koerner

AN OLD FRONTIER
OF FRANCE
The Niagara Region and Adjacent
Lakes under French Control

BY

FRANK H. SEVERANCE
Author of "Old Trails on the Niagara Frontier,'
"Studies ofthe Niagara Frontier," "The
Story of Joncaire," etc.

ILLUSTRATED

IN TWO VOLUMES
Vol. I

NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1917

Copyright, 1917,
By FRANK H. SEVERANCE

I

TO
ANDREW DICKSON WHITE
EDUCATOR, DIPLOMAT
MY TEACHER IN YOUTH, MY
FRIEND THROUGH MANY YEARS
These volumes are inscribed aa a testimonial
of personal regard and in appreciation
of his distinguished services to
his fellow men

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Acknowledgment is due, for help received, to many persons.
My inquiries led me to the Canadian Archives when that of
fice was under the charge of the late Douglas Brymner, whose
cordial assistance and friendly interest in my undertaking it
is pleasant to recall. I am no less under obligations to the
present Dominion Archivist, Dr. A. C. Doughty, and to his
librarian, Miss Magdalen Casey. In Paris, in that ancient
portion of the Louvre known as the Pavilion du Flores, which
the Government has used in recent years as a depository of
maps and documents, the late M. Victor Tantet first showed
to me the original drawings of Chaussegros de Lery the elder,
according to which Fort Niagara was built; and since I might
not carry off the originals, assisted me in procuring copies
of these and other useful material. It was a friend, resident
at Grenoble, who searched the parish records of St. Hugues
church in that old town to discover the baptismal name of
Captain Francois Pouchot. The Rev. J. J. Aboulin of St.
Ann's church, Detroit, has obligingly supplied data from the
records of that ancient parish, relating to Chabert-Joncaire
and family. From Mrs. John P. Bronson of Monroe, Mich.,
a great-great-granddaughter of Chabert-Joncaire, and from
Mr. F. H. Maisonville, Detroit, also of the same family, I have
received welcome assistance. Mr. Lewis Johnstone of Tomp-
kinsville, N. Y., very kindly supplied the letters written from
Niagara during and after the siege by the Rev. John Ogilvie.
Mr. Benjamin Suite of Ottawa, to whom I have more than
once appealed, with unstinted courtesy and patience has given
me the benefit of his great knowledge of French Canadian fami
lies and institutions. I have also been the beneficiary of many
librarians and officers of institutions; among others Mr.
George Parker Winship, late of the Carter Brown library,
Providence, R. I.; Mr. Clarence S. Brigham, American An-
vii

viii ACKNOWLEDGMENT
tiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass.; Mr. Wilberforce Eames,
formerly of the Lenox, now of the New York Public Library;
Mr. Victor H. Paltsits, New York Public Library ; Messrs. A.
J. F. Van Laer and Peter Nelson, New York State Library,
Albany ; Mr. W. H. Cathcart, Western Reserve Historical So
ciety, Cleveland, O. ; Mr. Clarence M. Burton, the Burton Li
brary, Detroit.
To this list it is a pleasure to add the names of my long
time friends, Mr. John Miller of Erie, Pa., and Mr. Brayton
L. Nichols, of Westfield and Buffalo, with whom, on sundry
pleasant occasions, I have traversed the old portage roads,
from Presqu' Isle (Erie) to Le Bceuf, and from Westfield to
Chautauqua Lake, and gained some familiarity with conditions
of old.
It may not be out of place to add that during the prepara
tion of this work I have passed over every portage route touch
ing these lakes, and have visited every place of historic import
on the lakes and the portages mentioned in the narrative. As
for the Niagara, with its wealth of scenic and historic sites
and associations, its picturesque portage and its gray old fort,
it has been my pleasure-ground, from lake to lake, for more
than thirty years.
F. H. S.
Buffalo, N. Y.

PREFACE
My purpose in the following study has been to record, with
all useful detail, the events of French occupancy in the region
of the Niagara and adjoining lakes; and I would here antici
pate a possible criticism — that my pages are overladen with
details — by stating that it was a desire to know what had
happened in the region during the time it was dominated by
France, a desire to make the facts available for others, and an
inability to find many of them in existing works, that induced
me to write the narrative that follows.
If I have seldom turned aside from the mere recording of
events, to remark on the policies of the Powers which were
rivals in the region, or on the consequences of their conduct, it
is because I have felt that the truest exposition of these am
bitions of courts, these failures or achievements of Ministries,
lay in setting forth as simply and clearly as possible, the things
that were done. The student of history, like the scientist,
is on safest ground when he draws his conclusions from an as
semblage of facts. Such a contribution to historical study,
this work is designed to be; and those most familiar with the
subject will perhaps be first to note that the narrative here
offered supplements rather than duplicates existing works of
wider scope. An especial aim has been, to present new matter ;
minimizing, so far as consistent, the narration of episodes else
where adequately recorded.
The customary claim of those who have engaged at all in
research work, may fairly be made here: The work is based
on original sources. Events relating to Franciscan and Jesuit
missions are necessarily drawn from the published Relations
of those Orders. For La Salle and his times, I have trusted
to the documents collected by Pierre Margry, and have made
more ample use of them, it is believed, than has heretofore
been done, in relation to the particular region here under study.
ix

x PREFACE
The narrative of La Hontan, written by a participant in the
events described, is assuredly a source, and a useful one, for
our history. To the journals of De Baugy, Perrot, Ma-
lartic, Captain Pouchot, Bonnefons, Captain La Force and
others existing only in French editions, I am also much in
debted. Chapters Ten to Fifteen, printed in the Publications of the
Buffalo Historical Society, Vol. IX., under the title, "The
Story of Joncaire," have been revised and are here given their
proper place. In writing them much that was useful was
found in the London and Paris documents which constitute
respectively volumes five and nine of the " Documents relative
to the Colonial History of the State of New York." Other
sources drawn on for this portion of the narrative are, the
Provincial Records of Pennsylvania and the unprinted " Cor
respondance Generale " of the Paris Archives. Considerable
use has been made of the collection known as the Moreau St.
Mery papers. There is also some slight indebtedness to the
short but precious " Histoire du Canada " of the Abbe de Bel
mont ; the " Histoire de l' Amerique septentrionale " of De
Bacqueville de La Potherie (Paris, 1722) ; the works of Charle
voix and one or two other chroniclers who were contemporary
with the events of which they wrote. Very slight use has been
made of Hennepin, who gives us little not found in more trust
worthy form elsewhere.
The Messrs. Joncaire, father and sons, in this work receive
for the first time, I venture to claim, something of the atten
tion to which their services entitle them. Much that I give
regarding Chabert Joncaire 2d, and his brother officers here
abouts, during the. last years of the French control, especially
Hugh Pean and Duverger de St. Blin, is drawn from their own
memoirs and depositions. These were printed in Paris in 1763
but appear to have remained unused by if not unknown to
most students of the subject. Mr. Parkman knew them, and
possessed some of the reports of the " Affaire du Canada " ;
and in the library of Harvard University, the present repos
itory of many of his books, I have found it a pleasure to study
his own copies of these very rare volumes. But Mr. Park-

PREFACE

xi

man had no occasion to draw from them, what they have so
richly afforded me: that is, a wealth of details regarding the
operations of the French on the Niagara and the Lakes in the
last few years of their domination.
More important than even the rarest printed source here
drawn upon, are the unpublished manuscripts without study
of which this story could not be told. These include the jour
nals of Chaussegros de Lery, the originals of which are owned
by Laval University, at Quebec; the Sir William Johnson
papers at Albany, most of which I was so fortunate as to have
studied before their partial destruction in the fire of March
29, 1911; the orderly-book of Joseph Bull, and another pre
served by John McKenzie of the 44th Royal Scots, kept dur
ing the Niagara campaign of 1759; the diary of Lieut.
Christopher Yates ; numerous letters and documents from many
sources, which are acknowledged in the following pages; and
above all, the great collections of manuscript material, some
study of which I have made in the library of the British Mu
seum, the Public Record Office, London, and various deposi
tories in France; but which are now in large measure accessi
ble, by means of trustworthy copies, in the Archives Office at
Ottawa.

CONTENTS VOLUME I PAGE
Acknowledgment  vii

Preface

CHAPTEE I
EARLY KNOWLEDGE OF THE NIAGARA
Scope and Character of This Study — Progress of Knowl
edge of the Lake Region, as Shown by Early Maps —
How the World Learned of the Great Cataract . . 1
CHAPTER II
BEGINNINGS
First White Man in the Niagara Region — Probabilities
Regarding Brule and Grenolle — Franciscan and
Jesuit Missions — Daillon, Brebeuf and Chaumonot . 13
CHAPTER HI
FRANCE TAKES POSSESSION
Dominion of France Over Lake Erie Formally Proclaimed
— De Casson and Galinee — Joliet and Pere — The
Uncertain Adventures of La Salle — French Entry
Upon Lake Ontario  23
CHAPTER IV
A FAMOUS EPISODE
La Salle and His Lieutenants of 1678 — Fort de Conty
— Building and Voyage of the Griffon — An Adven
ture on Lake Erie as Related by La Salle .... 36
CHAPTER V
A DRAMA OF DISASTER
Story of the Rascals Who Robbed La Salle — Tonty the
Faithful — Jacques Bourdon, a Fine Figure in Niag
ara History — La Salle's Account of a Lake Ontario
Tragedy  54

xiv CONTENTS
CHAPTER VI
FOLLOWERS OF LA SALLE page
Return of Accault and Hennepin — La Salle's Last Visit
to the Niagara Region — The Achievements of Tonty
— Grim Comedies of the Wilderness  72
CHAPTER VII
LA BARRE'S FIASCO
Perrot Brings " The Army of the South " to Niagara —
Awakening of English Interest in the Region —
Trade Rivalry Develops a Tragedy — Misadventures
of Johannes Rooseboom  86
CHAPTER VIII
DENONVILLE'S CAMPAIGN
The Expedition of 1687 — The Case of Marion La Fon
taine — The Building and Abandonment of Fort De
nonville — Father Lamberville's Narration — Con
flicting Records  103
CHAPTER IX
WILDERNESS STRIFE
English Claims Reasserted — Adventures of the Baron
La Hontan, Explorer of the South Shore of Lake
Erie — The Revenge of Dubeau — Frontenac's Raid
of 1696  130
CHAPTER X
JONCAIRE THE ELDER
The Dominant Figure of His Time on the Niagara — The
Embassy of Clerambaut d'Aigremont — Two Nations
Strive for Trade Control — Raudot Pictures
Joncaire  146
CHAPTER XI
ACTIVITIES OF JONCAIRE
The Murder of Montour — Joncaire Wins English En
mity — A Trade Episode of 1717 — The House by the
Niagara Rapids — A Stormy Visit from Lawrence
Claessen  171

CONTENTS xv
CHAPTER XII
NIAGARA AND THE WEST page
Early Travel by the Niagara Route — First White
Women of the West — The British Covet the Niag
ara Trade — The Huguenot Spy of the Niagara . .197
CHAPTER XIII
" A HOUSE OF PEACE "
The Building of Fort Niagara — Services of Joncaire,
Longueuil and De Lery — Joncaire's Letters from
the Fort — An Important Outpost for France in
America  225
CHAPTER XIV
A TROUBLESOME TREATY
Political Aspect of the Strife on the Niagara — The
Tactful Course of Governor Burnet — Fort Niagara
and the Fur Trade — Incidents of a Picturesque
Traffic  251
CHAPTER XV
ANNALS OF THE WILDERNESS
The Ventures of Joseph La France — The Niagara Mu
tiny of 1729 — Father Crespel at Niagara — Death
of Joncaire the Elder — The Mysterious River
Conde  277
CHAPTER XVI
SONS OF THE ELDER JONCAIRE
The Varied Services of Philippe Thomas, Daniel and
Francois de Joncaire — The Valuable Memoir of
Daniel — Expedition of 1739 and Discovery of Lake
Chautauqua — A Niagara Incident  303
CHAPTER XVII
IRONDEQUOIT AND OSWEGO
Claims and Contests for Strategic Harbors — Projects of
Governor Clarke and His Successors — Features of
the Fur Trade at Oswego — Fort Niagara Threat
ened  333

xvi CONTENTS
CHAPTER XVIII
THE NIAGARA-OHIO ROUTE page
Inseparable in Tracing the Story of Trade and War —
Tragic Episodes in the Development of the Great
Contest — The Brothers Joncaire on the Ohio —
The Niagara Portage Fort  358
CHAPTER XIX
THE FUR TRADE IN THE '40'S
Perplexities of a Contractor — Effect of the War of
1744 — Founding of Toronto — The Convoy System
— Celoron's Expedition of 1748  386
CHAPTER XX
TWO FAMOUS EXPEDITIONS
Celoron's Undertaking of 1749 — Adventures of the
Brothers Joncaire — The Chautauqua Portage —
Great Britain Warned from the Ohio — The Abbe
Picquet Comes to Niagara  407

ILLUSTRATIONS

VOLUME I

Page

VIEWS
" The Sailing of the Griffon "  Frontispiece
(From the painting by Herman T. Koerner.)
" The Building of the Griffon " (Hennepin) . . Op.
The Shipyard of the Griffon, modern view .
An imagined Griffon 
A Lake Ontario brig of 1757 
The Niagara at Lewiston 
The Niagara Gorge 
" A House of Peace " : The Castle, Fort Niagara
Kalm's "Niagara," 1751 
Old Fort Oswego 
One of Celoron's lead plates 

PORTRAITS

Two alleged portraits of La Salle
The Marquis de Denonville
De Beaujeu 

MAPS AND PLANS
" An old Frontier of France " 
Long Point Bay, Lake Erie 
Signatures attached to the Five Nations' deed of
July 19, 1701 
De Lery's map of Lake Ontario, 1728 .
The great house, Fort Niagara, plans, 1727 •
Second story, the great house, Fort Niagara
Map of 1745, with Chautauqua Lake and portage Op.

46 48 5050
186
214226 330

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70

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70

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372

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Page

52

<<

190

tt

236

tt

240

tt

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Page

320

AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE

Volume I

Scale of Miles

M.-N ¦JVORK^.

AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
CHAPTER I
EARLY KNOWLEDGE OF THE NIAGARA
Scope and Character of this Study — Progress of Knowl
edge of the Lake Region, as shown by early Maps — How
the World learned of the great Cataract.
I invite the reader to a survey of events in the region of the
Niagara and the Lower Lakes while it was under French con
trol, and of events elsewhere which had a direct bearing thereon.
The picturesqueness and variety which make the scenic features
of this region world-famed pertain also in no slight degree to
its history. Our chronicle is perforce a tale of adventure.
Erie and Ontario, styled the Lower Lakes, were part of the
highway by which France gained the interior of the continent.
Their story begins later than that of the St. Lawrence, later
indeed than that of the Ottawa and the Upper Lakes, by which
the West was first reached. Forming part of the story of both
East and West, the region also has a concrete history of its
own. By " the Niagara region," to which much of our narrative
will relate, is meant not merely the borders of the river from
Lake Erie to Ontario, but more or less broadly the country
contiguous to both lakes and river. It is a region especially
linked with the old routes southward into the Ohio Valley, by
portages from the eastern end of Lake Erie, which with the
Niagara formed for many years a continuous and important
highway into the heart of the continent. No study of the
Niagara region in the days of the French is anything but
fragmentary and inadequate if it fails to view the Niagara as
a portion of a great thoroughfare which crossed the divide
south of Lake Erie and had as its main objective the posts of
the Ohio Valley, the Illinois country and communication with
Louisiana.

2 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
For many years the Niagara was of less value to the French
as a gateway to the Western Lakes than as part of a road,
difficult, but practicable, to the Ohio. It must be borne in
mind that when the French spoke of the Ohio, they meant also
the Allegheny; so that Le Boeuf Creek, down which they
voyaged from present Waterford in Pennsylvania, and the
Conewango, fed by Chautauqua Lake, brought the Ohio within
a very few miles of Lake Erie. In lack of better roads, the
expeditions of the French followed these usually inadequate
waterways until, below Warren and Franklin, they found a
deeper and more reliable current.
With this delimitation of field, the study here entered upon
is seen to be chiefly that of a highway; of coming and going.
We do not enter upon the story of Detroit. Of the present
settlements on Lake Erie the city of Erie is the only one which
has any considerable ties with the French period. On Lake
Ontario numerous communities do have, notably Kingston and
Oswego ; and in less degree, Toronto. Of the cities and towns
on the Niagara River, those that are now least were, in French
days, greatest. Our tale must largely relate to old Fort
Niagara on the Lake Ontario shore at the mouth of the river,
to the Fort Little Niagara above the falls, its site now included
in that of the city of Niagara Falls, New York, and to the
fourteen miles of road between, forming in old days the arduous
Niagara portage. In particular, the story to be told is of
that portion of the Niagara River below, or north, of the great
cataract. Speaking generally, one may say of this portion of
the river, since the advent of the white man, that its annals are
longer by a century and a half than are those of Buffalo and
its populous vicinity at the other end of the river. The most
populous portion of the Niagara frontier to-day will figure
least in our story of it under French domination. The most
stirring, the most dramatic, the most significant, events will
be found centering around the old fort at the mouth of the
river, the sole remaining habitation which testifies to the period
of French control on the Niagara.
That period ended with the surrender of Fort Niagara in
July, 1759. It is less easy to fix the date of its beginning.

EARLY KNOWLEDGE OF THE NIAGARA 3
One might say, with little fear of competent contradiction, that
the course of history hereabouts was modified by French influ
ence as soon as the tribes dwelling by these lakes had news of
the advent of Jacques Cartier on the lower St. Lawrence in
1535. The same could be said of most of the American con
tinent as far west as the Mississippi. Yet for well nigh a
century after that arrival we find only scant tradition, too
vague, too little related to the present purpose, to make it
worthy further consideration.
Not even the exploits of Samuel de Champlain can be said
to have materially modified the course of Indian events in the
region under notice, except as they may have deepened into
hostility the natural antipathy which the occupants of a land
feel toward a murderous invader. It was Champlain who in
1609, on the lake that bears his name, first showed the Iroquois
the death-dealing magic of the musket, and kindled a fire of
hatred toward the French, on the part of the Iroquois tribes,
which that nation was never able to overcome, and had abundant
reason to rue. We do not know the exact date of the forma
tion of the Iroquois League ; but there is no question that from
Lake Champlain to Lake Erie the news of that baptism of
gun-fire was quickly spread and dramatically told ; so that even
among the Neuters on the Niagara and to the north of Lake
Erie, and among the Eries to the south, Champlain's rash act
made the conception of Frenchman synonymous with that of
foe. His sojourn among the Hurons to the north of Lake
Simcoe, 1615-16, and subsequent passage across Lake Ontario
and into Central New York, could have had no more direct
effect upon the tribes of the Niagara region than to give them
a keener apprehension than before of a new element to be
treated with, and, inferentially, a new enemy. Champlain's
interpreter, Etienne Brule, the hero of adventures and a narrow
escape from death among the Andastes, supposedly on the head
waters of the Susquehanna, is conjectured to have been at or
in the vicinity of the Niagara, between September, 1615, and
the summer of 1618; but conjecture is not history.
Before entering further upon a narrative of events in the
region we propose to study, it is well to consider briefly the

4 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
spread of knowledge regarding it. This is best accomplished
by an examination of a few early maps.
The slow acquisition of knowledge respecting the Great Lakes
is realized when one studies the early maps. The Sixteenth
century maps, while they show a gradually increasing accuracy
in the Atlantic coast line of the American continent, and in
the location of the West Indies, are grotesque and conjectural
regarding the interior. The early voyagers received some in
formation of the interior from the aborigines whom they met
near the sea. It was some such vague report carried over-seas
that led the Venetian map-maker, Zalterii,1 to put on his map
of 1566 a large unnamed river which crudely stands for the
St. Lawrence, and then to show, south of it, a large " lago,"
emptying into the sea by a short river " S. Lorenzo." Several
later maps, long intervals apart, gradually straighten out the
St. Lawrence, but the region of the Great Lakes is left a blank,
or filled in with the imaginings of the engraver.
From the time of Cartier, maps of the northeast part of
America indicate the St. Lawrence River.
Mercator's great world-map of 1569 vaguely indicates lakes
as sources of the St. Lawrence. So does a map of Ortelius,
1570. Many other Sixteenth century maps practically copied
the suggestions of Mercator and Ortelius, with little approach
to greater accuracy. The globe of Emeric Molineaux, made
in 1592, and still preserved in London, shows a small lake,
inland in America beyond the St. Lawrence. His map of 1600
shows this lake, very large, communicating with the sea to the
north and the St. Lawrence to the east. This is the proto
type of the Great Lakes.
The map of Marc Lescarbot, 1609, shows a " saut," or fall,
at the extreme west of his great river ; no doubt indicated be
cause of Indian report of Niagara.
The fact that there was a great cataract far up the sources
of the St. Lawrence was known to the early navigators and
settlers, and to map-makers in Europe, before any accurate
information of the Great Lakes was ascertained.
Champlain's map of 1612 gives us, in a fashion, the St.
i Harrisse, No. 295.

EARLY KNOWLEDGE OF THE NIAGARA 5
Lawrence, and, for the first time, Lake Champlain. The St.
Lawrence flows from a large unnamed lake (Ontario) into the
western end of which empties a stream, the outlet of a " great
lake 300 leagues long." Near the mouth of the connecting
stream is marked : " Waterfall." This is the Niagara cataract.
A stream corresponding to the Genesee River, flows into the
unnamed lake from the south; and also from the south, cor
responding to the Oswego River, another stream enters the
lake. It has its source in a large " lac des irocois," which
stands for all the small lakes of Central New York.
The " America " of Henrico Hondio, 1631, delineates a
singularly swollen St. Lawrence, with several tributaries each
having its source in a lake. None of these lakes bears a name,
but the southwestern branch or tributary shows two lakes, and
above the stream which joins them are the words " Premier
sault." 2 That this " first fall " among the sources of the St.
Lawrence, is a hearsay record of Niagara, there can be little
doubt. This map of 1631, though made so many years after
Champlain discovered the lake that bears his name, and after
Hudson sailed up the river that bears his name, shows neither
the river nor the lake, but does show, though far from right,
the southern extremity of Hudson's Bay.
Champlain's map of 1632 records information gained by him
from 1614 to 1618. He had visited Georgian Bay in 1615,
crossing thence by Lake Simcoe and the River Trent to Lake
Ontario. He crossed that lake near its eastern end, and ad
vanced into Central New York, probably to Onondaga Lake.
In view of this personal knowledge, one would expect greater
accuracy than his map of 1632 shows. It is in fact exceedingly
crude. Lake Ontario, styled Lac S. Louis, is shown with some
approximation to its true shape and position. Lake Huron
(" Mer Douce ") is shown as a vast body of water, extending
as far east as the middle of Lake Ontario ; south of it, reaching
like a river west of Ontario, is an island-dotted stretch of
water, receiving two large rivers from the south. At the west
ern end of Ontario is marked a fall, of which an accompanying
explanation says: "Waterfall, very high, at the end of St.
2" America noviter delineata, auct. Henrico Hondio," 1631.

6 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
Louis fall [sic: lake], where several sorts of fish are stunned
in their descent." This is Niagara. The residence of native
tribes is indicated, but nothing on this famous map has the
accuracy that shows personal knowledge. Its distortions are
negative proof that Champlain did not visit Lake Erie or the
Niagara region.
The Hudson and Lake Champlain both appear on De Laet's
map of 1633. The same map shows the " Lac des Yroquois,"
or Ontario, as a small body of water, while to the westward
lies a " grand lac," in which are merged all the other of the
Great Lakes group. But here is no hint of any fall in the
connecting river.
Bearing date 1650, the " North America " of N. Sanson
d' Abbeville, a royal geographer, shows the St. Lawrence River
somewhat more correctly than its predecessors. Ontario, bear
ing also the name " L. de St. Loys" [St. Louis], is to the
northeast of an unnamed lake, though the lands to the north
of it are marked " N. Neutre " (Neuter nation) and those to
the south " N. du Chat " (Nation of the Cat). The two lakes
are joined by a river, but no indication of a fall is given. The
Detroit, Lake Ste. Clair and Lake Huron are sketched, with
out names; Superior and Michigan are very erroneously indi
cated, their western bounds not being drawn in at all.
Sanson's map of " Canada or New France," dated 1656,
shows a marked advance. Connecting Ontario, or " Lac de
St. Louys " with the lower lake, now for the first time marked
" L. Erie, ou de Chat," is a river much too long, but broken
by a fall marked " Ongiara sault " — a spelling shortened from
the earlier " Onguiaahra." Here then is a map published in
Paris by the official map-maker of the kingdom, 13 years before
La Salle came into our region, which located and named the
great fall he is sometimes said to have discovered. The same
map shows the Genesee River, the small lakes of Central New
York, and many other details not set down on earlier maps.
The modern spelling of " Niagara " is first noted in a memoir
of La Chesnaye, 1676 ; and in printed books, in Hennepin's
" Louisiane " of 1683.
The detail of the Lower Lakes and Niagara region is for

EARLY KNOWLEDGE OF THE NIAGARA 7
the first time shown with approximate accuracy in Galinee's
map of 1670. It gives the St. Lawrence and Ottawa River
routes and the lake shores along which Galinee and his com
panions passed in 1669—70. It is a sketch map, and such
reproductions as have been made are in facsimile,3 without the
usual niceties and adornments of the engraver. It has the
singular feature of presenting the region mapped as though
viewed from the north, so that, to read most of its many in
scriptions, it must be laid before the student with the south
at the top. The outlines of the lakes, distances, etc., lack
the accuracy of the surveyor, although Galinee had some repute
as a geographer. But its inaccuracies are more than offset
by its fullness of record. Numerous data are given along the
south shore of Ontario. The Genesee River is indicated, though
carried inland but a short distance. Several villages in the
Seneca country are located, and a " fontaine de bitwme " — the
earliest indication, on a map, of the oil and gas phenomena.
The Niagara, much too long, has the cataract marked : " Fall
which descends, by report of the natives, more than 200 feet."
Galinee does not claim to have seen it, and the drawing of the
upper river, in which no islands are shown, and of the eastern
end of Lake Erie, which is wholly without description, is
further proof, were any needed, that he did not explore the
region. His route into Lake Erie, by the Grand River, is
shown. Long Point, vastly exaggerated, is called " Presqu'
Isle de Lac D'Erie," and its bay is the " Petit lac d'erie." In
the middle of the lake he very honestly writes : " I show only
what I have seen until I see the rest." The south shore is not
drawn at all.
Another great advance is found in Coronelli's map of the
western part of Canada or New France, published at Paris
in 1688. Here we have the whole Great Lakes system, shown
with considerable accuracy and much notation. Evidently all
the known designations of all the lakes are here recorded. One
is entitled : " Lac Frontenac, ou Ontario et Skaniadorio ou
St. Louis." Our more southerly lake appears as " Lac Erie
ou Teiocharontiong et Lac de Conty et du Chat." A note
a Except in Faillon, which has a redrawn and engraved reproduction.

8 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
adds: "It empties into Lake Frontenac." Niagara Fall is
shown, " 100 tois en perpendkulaires," i.e., 640 feet — which
somewhat excuses the subsequent exaggerations of La Salle,
Hennepin and La Hontan. Forts Frontenac and Conty are
shown, the latter where Fort Niagara stands to-day. On the
south shore of Lake Ontario, say 40 miles east of the Niagara,
is " Cap Enrage." A small unnamed stream enters Lake Erie
at about the confluence of Eighteen Mile Creek.
Coronelli's " U Amerique septentrionale," etc., Paris, 1689,
shows the Great Lakes on a smaller scale and with less detail
than in the preceding. The lower Ohio is shown, its conjec
tured middle course by dotted lines; but nothing is indicated
of its head waters or the Chautauqua or Presqu' Ile portages.
Coronelli's " Partie orientale du Canada " (eastern part of
Canada), etc., Paris, 1689, includes the eastern end of Lake
Erie, and the Niagara. The fall is shown ; and the river above
mentioned (map of 1688), flowing from the southeast, is shown
somewhat longer than on the earlier map, but still unnamed.
All of the Coronelli maps give many Indian locations in the
region around Lake Ontario.
Most of the maps of Guillaume Delisle, though of later date
than Coronelli's, do not show our region so well as do the
Italian's. Delisle's " North America," published at Paris in
1700, locates Forts Niagara and Frontenac, but lacks, in our
region, numerous details of the earlier maps.
A Delisle map of 1703 (" Mexique," etc.) shows the lower
portion of the lakes, with " F. Denonville " for Fort Niagara ;
and skirting the south shore of Lake Erie runs an extension of
the Wabash " otherwise named Ohio or beautiful river." Chau
tauqua Lake is not shown, or any correct delineation of the
two great sources of the Ohio. Another Delisle map of 1703,
the " Canada," has the Ohio system wrong, as in the foregoing ;
marks a town of Niagara on the west side of the Niagara River
opposite Fort Denonville, and indicates the falls. In Lake
Erie the present Long Point is named East Point (" Pte. de
I'Est "). The Central New York lakes are shown, and several
Indian villages in the region are located, one of them, Tegaron-
dies, on the south shore of Lake Ontario. On the north shore

EARLY KNOWLEDGE OF THE NIAGARA 9
are Fort Frontenac, " Kinte," Gandaraeque, Gandastiago, and
Teiaiagon, the latter approximating the present Toronto.
De Fer's map of Canada, published in Paris in 1702, indi
cates Fort Niagara as on the west side of the river ; marks the
falls " of a half league " — in width ; and on the south shore
of the lower lake, which is blunderingly named " Lac Frie,"
is an unnamed fort. At so early a date no white man's con
struction had been made there.
Delisle's " Map of Louisiana and of the course of the Missis
sippi," published at Paris in 1718, shows nothing essentially
new for the Lower Lakes region. Fort Denonville is shown,
although it had not existed for 30 years. The falls are marked
" 600 feet high " ; and in Lake Erie " La Grand Pointe " indi
cates Long Point. No data are given for the east and south
shores of Lake Erie except the western end where a deep bay
with three islands is marked " Lac SandousJce." The Ohio is
still made a tributary of the Wabash, with its sources to the
east of Lake Erie.
In 1719, Herman Moll's map, " A new and correct map of the
whole world," shows the Great Lakes, one named " Errie,"
another " Frontignac," and between them " the great Fall of
Niagara." His " North America " of the same date, puts
Fort Denonville on the west side of the Niagara River; and
into the southeast corner of Lake Erie — truly enough a
" corner," as engraved — runs the considerable river Conde,
rising in a lake far to the southeast, in Virginia. This mys
terious Conde figures on many maps, but not on those of the
French geographers. Moll's "America" of 1720 shows this
river ; has " Fort Deonville " (sic) misplaced as before, and
lakes " Frontenac " and " Irrie " extremely ill drawn.
The maps of the French engineer Jacques Nicolas Bellin mark
further progress towards a correct showing of our region. His
" Louisiana, course of the Mississippi and neighboring coun
tries," dated Paris, 1744, shows the fort and fall of Niagara ;
east of the fort " le grand marais " or great swamp ; and
among other small streams emptying into Ontario from the
south, is " R. aux Beufs " or Oak Orchard Creek. The
Genesee River is fairly well shown, but not named. Long

10 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
Point in Lake Erie is for the first time so named. Also, for
the first time, the Ohio is drawn with something like accuracy,
receiving the Wabash as a tributary; and having one of its
sources in " Lac Hiatackonn," near Lake Erie — a clear indi
cation of Lake Chautauqua, which appears to have been first
made known by the expedition of 1739.
A year later, Bellin's map of " The Western part of New
France " shows Chautauqua Lake without any name, but marks
the portage between it and Lake Erie. Three small streams
empty into the eastern end of this lake, the most northerly one
being perhaps the first delineation which may be regarded as
Buffalo Creek. Along the unnamed Genesee River is printed:
" River unknown to the geographers, full of falls and cas
cades." East of this river in the country of the Senecas, is
marked " Fontaine Brulante," or burning spring, probably the
first cartographical indication of our gas wells since Galinee
in 1670. Numerous Indian towns are designated on the Upper
Allegheny ; and Le Boeuf River and Lake are shown.
Ten years later, another of Bellin's maps shows the in
creased knowledge that had come from French incursions into
and occupancy of this region. The Niagara portage is indi
cated. The Genesee is marked with its early name, Casconchia-
gon, and " Lac Tjadakoin " is an approach to our " Chautau
qua." The valley of the Upper Allegheny is full of data. On
Lake Erie, the contour of which is considerably corrected, now
appear Presqu' Isle peninsula and fort; but across the lake
Long Point has once more become " Grande Pointe."
Numerous other maps there are that show the Lower Lakes
and upper Ohio regions under the French. One of them, pub
lished in the year of the Conquest at Augsburg (with French
text) by Matthieu Albert Lotter, presents some features of
interest ; but for the student who would know this region as it
was known by the French in the last years of their control, there
is nothing better than the later maps of Bellin, save one, and
that the very useful, epoch-making, one may quite say famous
map, published in Philadelphia in 1755 by Lewis Evans.
In 1755 there was printed and published by Benjamin Frank-

EARLY KNOWLEDGE OF THE NIAGARA 11
lin and D. Hall, in Philadelphia, a quarto pamphlet entitled,
" Geographical, Historical, Philosophical, and Mechanical
Essays. The first, containing an analysis of a general Map
of the Middle British Colonies in America," etc. The map
accompanying, about 26 by 19 inches, shows the Middle British
Colonies and a part of New France. The work — map and
pamphlet — was by Lewis Evans, the first American who won
distinction as a map-maker. Ten different editions of this
famous map were published between 1755 and 1807, with none
of which Evans had anything to do. He died, poor, in 1756 ;
but his map, although criticised, had such great excellencies
that it was appropriated, re-engraved and piratically copied,
by numerous British publishers. Evans' work is the basis of
Kitchin's map of 1756 ("The Middle British Colonies in
America," etc.) ; of the Jefferys map of 1758 ; and of others
issued before, during and after the Revolution, notably that
by Thomas Pownall, in 1776.4
It shows the Lower Lakes and Niagara region better than
any other map, up to that time. Correctly located, on the
east side of the Niagara, are Fort Niagara, and the swamp
to the east of it, the lower rapids, and the " Portage, 8 M."
around the Falls. Near the upper end of the portage is
marked : " Fishing battery." The current of the Niagara
opposite the present city of Buffalo is indicated as " swift."
On the west side of the river, near Lake Ontario, it is marked:
" Gentle." " The great rock " which Hennepin mentions, is
indicated on the west side at present Queenston; and the cata
ract is named Oxniagara, the " x " being a character to repre
sent the guttural " gh " or " ch," often shown in early printed
books by a device somewhat like the figure 8. Chautauqua
Lake and portage are marked " Jadaxque," but the distance
is erroneously given as 20 miles. Presqu' Isle portage, shown
with approximate accuracy, is indicated as 15 miles. Western
New York and the territory north and south of Lake Erie
abound in data not so well given on earlier maps; but the
* For an account of the fortunes of the Evans map see "Lewis Evans
His Map," etc., by Henry N. Stevens, London, 1905.

12 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
region between the Genesee River — here called " Kaskuxse or
L. Seneca " — and Lake Erie is a blank, with only a suggestion
of Buffalo River.
Many other maps might be mentioned which present some
feature of interest in our region. For instance, the map of
Lake Ontario and the Iroquois country which accompanies the
Jesuit Relation of 1664-65, has for " Niagara " the unusual
form " Ondiara." The map which accompanies Hennepin's
" Louisiane," 1683, styles our Fort Niagara as " Fort du
Conty," and carries Lake Erie or " Lac du Conty," as far
south as Virginia. The map in La Hontan's " Nouveaux
Voyages," printed at The Hague in 1709, shows on the pres
ent site of Buffalo, a " Fort Suppose." It also shows the
large River Conde, entering the eastern end of Lake Erie from
the southeast. Herman Moll, in his map above noted, may have
borrowed this mysterious river from La Hontan.
The exaggeration of the height of Niagara Falls did not
begin with La Salle or Hennepin, but as stated above, is to be
found on maps antedating the latter's work. Long after the
true altitude was ascertained and published, careless or igno
rant map-makers continued to give the cataract excessive
height. Even as late as 1740, or about that date, George Will-
dey's large folio map of North America, made and published in
London, has the legend : " Niagara cataract, it falls 600
feet."5 t> The Evans' map has " Oxniagara," " Jadaxque," etc., the " x " being a
modification of a character used by early writers to represent an Indian
guttural. Similarly, a character like a figure "8" open at the top was
employed. In the few cases in which this occurs in the following pages,
the " 8 " is used.

CHAPTER II
BEGINNINGS
First White Man in the Niagara Region — Probabilities re
garding Brule and Grenolle — Franciscan and Jesuit
Missions — Dallion, Brebeuf and Chaumonot.
The first white man known to have voyaged on any of the
Great Lakes was Champlain, who skirted the shore of Georgian
Bay, and crossed Lake Ontario. There is strong probability,
but no proof, that he was preceded on Lake Ontario by his
young interpreter, Etienne Brule. The meager records which
tell of this man, warrant the inference that Brule crossed On
tario, or coasted its western shores before Champlain was on
its waters; and that he saw the mouth of the Niagara, if not
the falls, which Champlain never saw nor clearly learned of.
No adventurer in our region had a more remarkable career
than Brule. But little of it is known. He was with Cham
plain on his journey to the Huron country. He left that
explorer in September, 1615, at the outlet of Lake Simcoe and
went on a most perilous mission into the country of the Andas-
tes, allies of the Hurons, to enlist them against the Iroquois.
The Andastes lived on the headwaters of the Susquehanna and
along the south shore of Lake Erie, the present site of Buffalo
being generally included within the bounds of their territory.
Brule appears to have come down the valley of the Humber,
early in September of the year named. If that was his route,
he stood on the shore of Lake Ontario before any other white
man had looked upon its waters, and he made his discovery at
the mouth of the Humber, the present site of Toronto. Later
that same month Champlain crossed the lake near the eastern
end, his exact route being matter of disagreement among those
who seek to make clear his writings. Champlain is also our
principal source of information regarding Brule, who appears
to have crossed Ontario, or skirted its western shores, to the
vicinity of the Niagara. From this point he gained the Sus-
13

14 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
quehanna, but by what route is conjectural. He was taken
captive by Indians, and tortured, but survived, escaped, and
rejoined Champlain. As the knowledge of the country gained
in his wanderings would naturally have been communicated to
Champlain, and as that explorer, on his map of 1632, does not
show Lake Erie or indicate Niagara Falls, the inference is
warranted that Brule did not see either the lake or the
cataract.1 Resting the matter wholly upon our best authority — the
writings of Champlain — we find two striking facts, which
give to the somewhat uncertain figure of this French interpreter
a sure and shining place in the annals of our region:
First. Brule's exploration which led him across or around
the western end of Lake Ontario, and through Western New
York more than five years before the Pilgrims set foot on
American soil, was not the idea of his great employer, but
Brule's own. He was not ordered, but had sought the privilege
of the expedition. Parkman's phrase, " Pioneer of pioneers,"
in no sense applies more truly to him than in connection with
the history of the region here under study.
Second. It was Brule who took back to the Huron mission
word of the Neuter nation in the Niagara peninsula, which led
to the first visit to these wilds of a Christian missionary — the
Franciscan, Joseph de la Roche Dallion.2
It was in October, 1626, that this priest set out from the
i Original sources which afford some knowledge of Brule are Champlain
and Sagard, from whom Parkman has drawn. The reader is also referred
to Benjamin Suite's paper, " Etienne Brule," in Trans. Roy. Soc. Can., 3d
ser. 1908; and to Consul W. Butterfield's work, "History of Brute's Dis
coveries and Explorations," Cleveland, 1898. Obed Edson {Mag. of Hist.,
Mch-Apr., 1915) concludes that Brute's route is shown by the dotted line
on Champlain's map, 1632. See Shatter's "Champlain," III, p. 208; Win
sor's " Cartier," p. 117.
2 Spelled also " Daillon " or " d' Allion," the latter form suggesting origin
from the name of a place, as is common in the French. Charlevoix some
times wrongly has it, " de Dallion." I have followed the spelling as given
in the priest's own signature to a letter to a friend in Paris, dated at
"Tonachin [Toanchain], Huron village, this 18th July, 1627," and signed
" Joseph de la Roche Dallion." This letter is the chief source of our knowl
edge regarding the visit to the Neuter nation in 1626-27.

BEGINNINGS 15
Franciscan mission in the Huron country, with two French
companions, Grenolle and Lavallee, and journeyed by Indian
paths six days through the forest, apparently skirting the
western end of Lake Ontario and coming to the Niagara at or
near its mouth. Brule had " told wonders " of the Neuters —
a statement (in Dallion's narrative) which somewhat indicates
the route of the interpreter. If he had personal experience
with the Neuters, on his journey to the Susquehanna, he un
doubtedly saw something of the Niagara and mid-lake region
which was their abode.
Dallion remained among the Neuters for three months, mak
ing sojourn at several of their villages. He was back at the
Toanchain mission station in the Huron country by July, and
there he wrote at some length the story of his missionary visit
to the Neuters. His account, in a letter to a friend in Paris,
is the earliest document known relating to a personal experience
in the Niagara region. He tells of his kind reception at one
village after another. At the sixth village a council was held,
at which the priest told the assemblage, " that I came on behalf
of the French, to contract alliance and friendship with them,
and to invite them to come to trade. . . . They accepted all
my offers, and showed me that they were very agreeable. . . .
I made them a present of what little I had, as little knives and
other trifles. ... In return, they adopted me, as they say —
that is, they declared me a citizen and child of the country, and
gave me in trust — mark of great affection — to Souharissen,
who was my father and host." This name, or title, of the
worthy savage, is the first designation in history of any indi
vidual resident in our region; and the simple barter between
his people and the priest was for this region the beginning of
recorded trade.
Under Souharissen's sway were 28 " towns, cities and vil
lages," besides " several little hamlets of seven or eight cabins."
Careful students of the episode are of opinion that Dallion
crossed the Niagara and visited Neuter towns east of the river,
apparently resting that conclusion on the following passages
in his letter above quoted from :

16 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
After this cordial welcome our Frenchmen returned, and I re
mained, the happiest man in the world, hoping to do something there
to advance God's glory, or at least to discover the means, which
would be no small thing, and to endeavor to discover the mouth of
the river of the Hiroquois, in order to bring them to trade. . . .
I have always seen them constant in their resolution to go with
at least four canoes to the trade, if I would guide them, the whole
difficulty being that we did not know the way. Yroquet, an Indian
known in those countries, who had come there with 20 of his men
hunting for beaver, and who took fully 500, would never give us any
mark to know the mouth of the river. He and several Hurons as
sured us well that it was only 10 days' journey to the trading-place;
but we were afraid of taking one river for another and losing our way
or dying of hunger on the land.3
It is a perplexing passage. By " river of the Hiroquois,"
or Iroquois, was usually meant the St. Lawrence; but Dallion
here appears to allude to the mouth of the Niagara, as a place
of trade; yet, if he had crossed that river, one is at a loss to
understand his statement that " Yroquet [which may or may
not mean, an Iroquois] would never give us any mark to know
the mouth of the river."
Disregarding all commentators, who are sometimes prone to
make deductions to support theories, and taking for guide
Dallion's own story — the only known original " source " in
the matter — one is warranted in saying that his missionary
journey of 1626-27 apparently brought him into the Niagara
region. It is idle to attempt to be more explicit.
If he was in the region, one may say, as of Brule a dozen
years before, that he probably saw Niagara Falls; but if
so, it is more remarkable in the case of an educated priest,
than of an unlettered forest ranger, that he did not mention
them. a Dallion's letter is to be found in Sagard's "Histoire du Canada," Paris,
1636, and in Le Clercq's " Premier Etablissement de la Foy dans la Nouvelle
France," Paris, 1691; but Le Clercq omits the passages relating to trade.
One modern investigator, Dr. John Gilmary Shea, concludes that the above
allusion is to Niagara River and the route through Lake Ontario; and
in this the Very Rev. W. R. Harris evidently coincides; the reader is
referred to his " History of Early Missions in Western Canada," Toronto,
1893.

BEGINNINGS 17
The mention of Grenolle and Lavallee again brings the stu
dent to the borderland of the unknown. Since they were sent
with the priest as guides, it is clear they were not merely
engages at the mission, but voyageurs who had some knowledge
of the land into which they were going. It is to be wished
more light could be focused on Grenolle, who plainly was a man
of uncommon resolution and energy. According to Sagard,
it was he who had accompanied Brule to Lake Superior, and
brought back the first " lingot " of red copper. Such hardy,
half-savage forest rangers as he no doubt made up the van
guard of white man's advance into the Niagara peninsula, the
land of the Neuters. A few names we know ; of many others we
have no trace. " Many of our Frenchmen," says the Jesuit
Relation of 1640-41, " have in the past made journeys in this
country of the Neuter nation for the sake of reaping profit
and advantage from furs and other little wares that one might
look for. But we have no knowledge of any one who has gone
there for the purpose of preaching the Gospel, except the Rev.
Father Joseph de la Roche Dallion, a Recollect."
The priest recites many acts of ill-usage to which he was
subjected. In the spring of 1627, Grenolle, and probably
others, came to him, and escorted him back to the Huron village,
which was their haven in the wilderness. Much of Dallion's
difficulty in the region was due to his ignorance of the lan
guage. He himself records that " being the greater part of the
time without an interpreter, he was constrained to instruct
those whom he could, rather by signs than by word of mouth."
That such efforts, amidst savage conditions, should have been
well nigh barren of result, calls for no comment here.
The historian Sagard, writing prior to 1636, urged that
French traders be sent to winter among the Neuter villages;
but we find no record, after Dallion, of any white man's pres
ence on Lakes Erie or Ontario, or on the Niagara, until Novem
ber, 1640, when two Jesuit fathers from the Huron mission
came into the territory where Dallion had so devotedly labored,
14 years before. These were the missionaries Jean de Brebeuf
and Joseph Marie Chaumonot. With their visit the Niagara
region first emerges from the hazy uncertainty of Brule's wan-

18 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
derings and even of Dallion's mission, and its chronicles become
definite. It is possible that, after Champlain, white men had entered
or passed through Lake Ontario, earlier than we know. The
Jesuit Brebeuf, in his Relation of 1635, explaining why he
went to the Huron mission by the Ottawa River, says : " It is
true the way is shorter by the Saut de St. Louys and the Lake
of the Hiroquois [Ontario], but the fear of enemies, and the
few conveniences to be met with, cause that route to be unfre
quented." 4 It could not have been unfrequented or deserted,
had it never been frequented, or used.
The mission of Brebeuf and Chaumonot to the Niagara in
1640 has been much and beautifully written of by those who
have emphasized the spiritual and psychological aspects of the
experience. Stripped of these, it still remains a considerable
adventure. Setting out on November 2d, from the Huron mission, which
has been determined as in the present town of Medonte, Ontario
(near Penetanguishene, on Georgian Bay), the Jesuits made
their way to the banks of the Niagara. Their probable path
has been determined, as through the present towns of Beeton,
Orangeville, Georgetown, Hamilton and St. Catherines. They
passed the winter in the Neuter villages, the victims of much
cruel usage, insult and even bodily harm. In February, 1641,
they returned to Huronia.
Of this experience Brebeuf himself wrote but little. In a
letter to the Rev. Mutius Vitelleschi of Rome, he summed it up
with singular brevity : " This last mission [to the Neutrals]
fell to the portion of Father Calmonotus [Chaumonot] and me.
We spent five months therein, and in truth we suffered much." 5
Father Chaumonot does not appear to have written of it at
all ; self-effacement characterized them both ; but Jerome Lalle-
ment, completing Le Jeune's Relation of 1640-41, gives details
of which we must take note.
Having told of the desire which had long been felt, at the
Huron mission, to carry Christian truths into the villages of
* In the original, " en red le passage desert."
5 The original is in Latin.

BEGINNINGS 19
the Neutral nation, and of the choice, for that mission, of
Fathers Brebeuf and Chaumonot, Father Lallement writes of
the journey, four days south or southeast, " to the entrance
of the so celebrated river of that nation, into the Ontario or
lake of St. Louys." The Niagara was " celebrated " in 1640 !
" On this side of that river," he continues, meaning the west
side, " are the greater part of the villages of the Neuter nation.
There are three or four beyond, ranging from east to west
towards the nation of the Cat, or Erieehronons." The east
ernmost village of the Neutrals is supposed to have been in
the vicinity of Lockport. Somewhere near the eastern end of
Lake Erie their territory was joined by that of the Eries
(The Cat nation), most of whose people dwelt to the south of
Lake Erie, as the Neutrals did to the north. Of the Niagara,
Father Lallement continues :
This stream or river is that through which our great lake of the
Hurons, or fresh-water sea, empties; it flows first into the lake of
Erie, or of the nation of the Cat, and at the end of that lake, it
enters into the territory of the Neutral nation, and takes the name
of Onguiaahra, until it empties into the Ontario or lake of Saint
Louys, whence finally emerges the river that passes by Quebek,
called the St. Lawrence. So that, if once we were masters of the
coast of the sea nearest to the dwelling of the Iroquois, we could
ascend by the river St. Lawrence without danger, as far as the
Neutral nation, and far beyond, with considerable saving of time
and trouble.6
Here we have, in this Relation of Lallement to his Superior,
the first recognition and statement of the desirability of French
control over the region of the Niagara and the Lower Lakes.
All unconsciously, a gentle priest, consecrated to the service
of the Prince of Peace, had struck the keynote of a call to
strife which was to be waged for more than a century to
come. There is no known earlier reference to the Niagara, by name,
than the passage above quoted. Champlain, as early as 1604,
s Lallement to the Rev. Father Jacques Dinet, Provincial, S. J., etc. ; the
narrative is dated at the mission of St. Mary's in the Huron country,
May 19, 1641.

20 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
in his very rare book, " Des Sauvages," had alluded to the
Great Lakes and a cataract, his statements being based on
reports made to him by the Indians in 1603. These statements
were virtually repeated in Lescarbot's " Histoire de la Nouvelle
France," published in 1609 ; but neither in those works, nor in
the narratives of the Franciscan missions which had preceded
the Jesuits in the region, does the name of Niagara occur.
Lallement's spelling of " Onguiaahra " was an attempt to rep
resent the Neuter — or possibly the Huron — pronunciation of
the river's name. A simpler spelling of approximately the same
sounds is " Ongiara." The river and fall were known by this
name until La Salle's day. Father Hennepin's " Louisiane "
of 1683 is the earliest work in which we have the modern spelling
of " Niagara," though it occurs in that form in documents at
least as early as 1676.
Half a dozen years after Lallement another Jesuit makes
interesting allusion to the cataract without using the name.
This is Father Paul Ragueneau, who writes in the Relation
of 1647-48:
Almost due south from the country of the same Neutral nation, we
find a great lake nearly 200 leagues in circumference, called Erie;
it is formed by the discharge of the Freshwater Sea [Huron], and
throws itself over a waterfall of frightful height, into a third lake,
named Ontario, which we call Lake Saint Louys.
Father Lallement wrote at graphic length of the Neuters,
into whose vaguely-known history it is unnecessary to enter in
the present narrative. It may be noted, however, that the
name of Neuter, or Neutrals, was given them by the French,
and represents, not so much their actual relationship towards
neighboring nations, as the French conception of their atti
tude towards the irreconcilable Iroquois and Hurons.
And here it may be noted that throughout the period of our
narrative, chiefly in the earlier years, there were feuds and
raids, hostile expeditions, or friendly alliances, between the
tribes, especially between the Iroquois and the less warlike
peoples to the westward, into the story of which we do not
enter. Often these friendships or enmities among the aborigines

BEGINNINGS 21
affected their attitude towards the whites. History, always a
palimpsest, is never more so than in its annals of our region,
where, beneath the records of our race, are dimly seen those
of alien early folk, whose story in its last days is involved with
that of the white man, and in its more ancient periods recedes
through imperfect records, through legend and myth, until it
grows illegible on the parchment of time, lost in the realm of
the unknowable.
Nearly 40 years elapsed after Champlain before we have
clear proof of a white man on Lake Ontario. It was July 30,
1654, when Father Simon Le Moine, bound for the land of
the Onondagas, reached in his canoe " the entrance of a great
lake, called Ontario." Keeping close to its eastern shore, cross
ing, when the water was quiet enough, from headland to head
land of its great bays, skirting the shore to the mouth of a river
— perhaps the Salmon, possibly the Oswego — he gained no
personal knowledge of the vast expanse to the westward. On
August 20th, he would again embark for the return journey,
but the lake, he says, was in a fury. The next day, he and his
companions did venture forth and followed the coast until, on
the 23d, they " arrived at the place which is fixed on for our
house and a French settlement. Beautiful prairies, good fish
ing, a resort of all nations." I find nothing by which to deter
mine this place, nor did any French settlement result from his
journey. Something of the eastern end of the lake was seen by the
priests Joseph Chaumonot and Claude Dablon, in 1655; and
by the Jesuit Father Paul Ragueneau, who, leaving the Onon
daga mission in March, 1658, found so much ice on the Lake
Ontario shore that his men had to cut it away with axes, to
make a passage for their canoes. Ragueneau's actual experi
ence with the lake was even less than Le Moine's.
In the Relations of these and other early missionaries, bits
of information about Ontario and Erie, usually based on
Indian report, were year by year recorded. In a Relation for
1664-65 is given with some detail, an account of the Thousand
Islands. " After leaving this melancholy abode," as the writer
oddly designates it, " the Lake is discovered appearing like

22 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
unto a sea without islands or bounds, where barks and ships
can sail in all safety."
Governor De Courcelles, in 1671, with a view to lessening
Iroquois hostility, came with a flotilla of canoes to the entrance
of our lake, paddled up to the Sulpician mission at Kente,
where he summoned the chieftains to a council, then hastened
back to the securer precincts of Quebec. It was a brave enough
show of power and dominion, with something of display and
ceremony to impress the red man; but he did in fact merely
peep into Lake Ontario; the splendid panorama of its far
shores he never saw.

CHAPTER III
FRANCE TAKES POSSESSION
Dominion of France over Lake Erie formally proclaimed —
De Casson and Galinee — Joliet and Pere — The Uncer
tain Adventures of La Salle — French entry upon Lake
Ontario.
The first formal effort made by France to take possession of
the Niagara and Lake Erie region was in 1669. The course
of earlier exploration, as of earlier missionary effort, had lain
more to the north. In the 54 years that had elapsed since
Champlain reached Lake Huron by the Ottawa River route,
many had followed that highway : Nicolet in 1634 ; Jogues and
Raymbault in 1641 ; Radisson and Grosseilliers apparently in
1654 — certainly in 1656; Father Rene Menard in 1660;
Father Allouez in 1665; Marquette in 1668; and Joliet in
1669. These had all reached the Lakes by the Ottawa and
Lake Nipissing route. It was an arduous journey, but the
Algonquin Indians of that region were counted as friends of the
French; the Iroquois to the south were enemies, at least until
1667. Knowledge had come of still other routes to the Great Lakes,
as yet but vaguely known. One route skirted the north shore
of Lake Ontario to Toronto, thence by portages, and the waters
of Lake Simcoe and convenient streams, gained the shore of
Georgian Bay at Penetanguishene. Still another was by
portage from the head of Burlington Bay, at the extreme west
of Lake Ontario, to the Grand River, down which canoes readily
made their way to Lake Erie. But prior to 1669, neither
trader nor priest is known to have attempted to reach the West
or Southwest by the Niagara route.
In the summer of this year, the Sulpicians of Montreal de
termined to send a small expedition to the westward. The pre
ceding year they had planted a mission on the Bay of Quinte,
where Trouve and Fenelon (half-brother of the distinguished
23

24 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
abbe of that name) had now labored for a year among the
"Iroquois of the North," a fugitive band of Cayugas, who,
when hard pressed by their ancient foes, the Andastes, had
crossed Lake Ontario and settled on what is now called Wel-
ler's Bay.
The activity of the Jesuits may have spurred the Sulpicians
to extend their missionary work. The Government found it an
auspicious time for exploration, and not only dispatched its
own emissaries to learn of the reputed copper deposits of Lake
Superior, but gave permit to an exploring project supported
by private means. This and an expedition organized by the
Sulpicians of Montreal were induced to join forces; and when
the consolidated company at length set out it was under the
command and guidance of three men destined to play a very
important part in our regional history.
Three more striking figures were not to be found in all
Canada. One of them, Francois Dollier de Casson, had been,
in his native France, a trained soldier. As cavalry captain
under the great Marshal Turenne, he had won a reputation
for bravery. Tales are told of his physical strength: with
arms extended, he could hold a man, seated, in each hand.
Like the saintly Brebeuf, he comes into our history with almost
the qualities of a demi-god ; and though the lapse of centuries
and the admiration of the devout may have magnified these
attributes, clear it is that he was in fact an extraordinary man.
Active and capable as a soldier, he leaves the camp for the altar,
and becomes a priest of the Sulpician order in the Diocese of
Nantes. In 1666 he is sent to Canada, where he naturally
seeks and shares in the most adventurous and arduous service
open to him. He attends Governor de Tracy in his momentous
expedition against the Mohawks — momentous, in that it gives
to Canada, for nearly 20 years, the respite of some measure
of peace with the Iroquois. We next find Dollier sent as chap
lain to Fort Ste. Anne, a new outpost of France and of the
church, on Isle la Motte, near the outlet of Lake Champlain.
He found the garrison at death's door with disease, and by
his ministrations, physical and spiritual, brought them new
life. He passed the winter of 1668-69 among the Nipissings,

FRANCE TAKES POSSESSION 25
preaching, baptising, and studying the language. When Quey-
lus, the Sulpician Superior at Montreal, conceived the project
of establishing a mission somewhere in the Far West, among
tribes that never yet had received the gospel, his choice natu
rally fell on the stalwart soldier-priest, Dollier de Casson.
With him was Rene de Brehant de Galinee, of a noble Breton
family ; a man of mathematical and astronomical training, with
skill in map-making; qualities useful in an exploring expedi
tion. And with these two, Rene Robert Cavelier, de La Salle, the
young adventurer of Rouen, who, after a brief service with
the Jesuits, had come to Canada, and acquired the seignory
on Montreal Island which he called St. Sulpice, but which the
world will always know as La Chine. Eager for western ex
ploration, he sold his establishment, put the proceeds into ca
noes and equipment, and was about setting out by himself,
when he was induced to join forces with the Sulpicians. Who
was the acknowledged leader, seems to be nowhere a matter
of record. Dollier de Casson was 49 x years old, Galinee's
age is unknown, that of La Salle 26. The elder man may
have been given precedence; but La Salle had not the tempera
ment for service under any one.
It is foreign to the present purpose to enter into the detail
of their expedition except as relates to our immediate neigh
borhood; the rest, elsewhere amply recorded, may here be
briefly summarized.
Leaving Montreal on July 6th, with nine canoes and 21
men, two of the canoes being those of attendant Senecas, they
skirted the eastern and southern shores of Lake Ontario, as
far as Irondequoit Bay. Thence, pushing southward into the
Seneca country of Central New York, they reached the village
of Boughton Hill, near present Victor. They hoped here to
get guides who should conduct them to the Ohio, but were dis
appointed. The Indians dwelt on the dangers of such an un
dertaking. More than a month the Frenchmen lingered here
i According to Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, L, 320, where he is said to
have been born " about 1620." Dr. Coyne, editor and translator of Galinee's
Journal, says Dollier de Casson was 33 years old at the date of the journey.

26 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
— an interval long enough for the restless La Salle to have
made considerable journeys, but if he did we have no record
of them. A captive was burned at the stake, to the abhorrence
of the more humane of the whites; and finally, despairing of
further progress to the southward, they returned to Ironde-
quoit and continued westward.
It is to Galinee's journal that we turn for the story of the
journey. Although few exact dates are given, it was about the
middle of September that the expedition reached the mouth of
the Niagara. " We discovered a river," says Galinee, " one
eighth of a league wide and extremely rapid, which is the out
let or communication from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. The
depth of this stream (for it is properly the river St. Lawrence)
is prodigious at this spot; for at the very shore there are 15
or 16 fathoms of water, which fact we proved by dropping our
line." They were the first Europeans known to have reached the
Niagara by Lake Ontario ; and this is the first description per
taining to the river by any one known to have reached it. It
is the first of which we can say, " This man saw what he wrote
of." The earlier accounts by the Jesuits might have been
written from hearsay; but Galinee, Dollier de Casson and La
Salle crossed the river at its mouth, and Galinee clearly re
corded it.
He is equally clear about what he did not see. The In
dians told them of the great cataract, which was " higher than
the tallest pine trees; that is, about 200 feet. In fact, we
heard it from where we were." But, he adds, " our desire
to go on to our little village called Ganastogue Sonontoua
Outinaoutoua prevented our going to see that wonder." He
adds other descriptive statements, but leaves it plain that the
expedition continued westward along the lake shore, with no
detour whatever up the Niagara.
They passed up Burlington Bay, and leaving it near the
present city of Hamilton pushed on by Indian path towards
the Grand River. On September 24th, plodding through
swamp and forest, they were greatly surprised to meet Joliet,
Pere and their men, coming eastward. Joliet had been sent

FRANCE TAKES POSSESSION 27
by Governor Courcelles to learn the truth about reported cop
per deposits on Lake Superior. Going thither by the Ottawa
route, he had failed to find the copper, and now, under Indian
guidance, was following a route no white man had ever taken.
He had come down Lake Huron, through the rivers then un
named, which we know as St. Clair and Detroit, and had skirted
the north shore of Erie to the mouth of the Grand River, up
which he had traveled.
Joliet is the first white man known to have passed through
any part of Lake Erie. That lake, unlike all the others, was
" discovered " from the westward. Had he continued a day
or so longer on its waters he would have reached the Niagara
and would have had the glory of adding the great cataract
to the possessions of his King. His own name, too, would
have belonged to the region even more certainly than it does
to the Mississippi. Fame coquettes with the adventurer, whom
she may crown, or forget. Never was the uncertainty of her
favor more strikingly shown than in the case of these two
young men, Joliet and La Salle, who meet in the Beverley
swamp of Canada.
The result of that meeting was that La Salle parted com
pany with the Sulpicians. Galinee gives details, most of which
we must pass over. " M. de la Salle, having gone hunting,
brought back a high fever which pulled him down a great
deal in a few days. Some say it was at the sight of three large
rattlesnakes he found in his path whilst climbing a rock that
the fever seized him," and the writer indulges in a disserta
tion on the frightful nature of rattlesnakes, leaving the reader
with a suspicion that he did not wholly attribute La Salle's
course to this cause.2 At any rate, on September 30th, they
parted, apparently in friendly fashion, and after Mass was
said, Father Dollier administering the Sacraments, La Salle,
2 Brodhead, in his usually accurate " History of the State of New York,''
says that " after observing the Falls of Niagara, La Salle was seized with a
violent fever, which obliged him to return to Montreal" (II, 163), a state
ment not substantiated by any known authority. Galinee's Journal clearly
states that the party of which La Salle was a member in 1669 crossed the
Niagara at its mouth but did not go to view the falls. Jared Sparks' life
of La Salle makes no mention of this expedition of 1669.

28 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
Joliet and their retinue took the path to Burlington Bay;
Dollier with seven other Frenchmen, one Dutchman and de Cas
son, Galinee and several Indians, passed down the Grand River,
and embarked on Lake Erie. In the meeting with Joliet they
had learned things which upset their plans. The original pur
pose would have carried them to tribes already reached by
Jesuit missionaries; but Joliet had told them of the Potta-
watamies, to whom no missionary had yet gone. Their zeal
kindled for this work and they now undertook to reach these
people, following such directions as Joliet had given. The
lateness of the season compelling them to go into winter quar
ters, they built a shelter that served as dwelling, as chapel,
and as storehouse, the site of which may be seen to this day ; 3
and they erected a cross, placed the royal arms at its foot,
and took formal possession of the Lake Erie country in the
name of Louis the Magnificent. The Act of taking possession,
dated October, 1669, is signed by Francois Dollier and De
Galinee, respectively priest and deacon, the former for the
Diocese of Nantes, the latter of the Diocese of Rennes. Joliet
in his passage is not known to have tarried for any ceremony.
To these two stalwart sons of Brittany, therefore, belongs
precedence in asserting the sway of the white man over this
region. The document runs as follows:
We the undersigned, certify that we have seen, on the lands of the
lake named Erie, the arms of the King of France attached to the
foot of a cross, with this inscription: " The year of salvation 1669,
Clement IX. being seated in the chair of St. Peter, Louis XIV.
reigning in France, Monsieur de Courcelles being Governor of New
France, and Monsieur Talon being Intendent therein for the King,
there arrived in this place two missionaries of the Seminary of
Montreal, accompanied by seven other Frenchmen, who the first of
all European people have wintered on this lake, of which they have
taken possession in the name of their King, as of an unoccupied
territory, by affixing his arms which they have attached here to the
foot of this cross. In testimony whereof we have signed the present
certificate. »The exact spot was identified in August, 1900, at a meeting of the
Norfolk (Ont.) Historical Society. See Ontario Historical Society " Papers
and Records." IV, XXV.

FRANCE TAKES POSSESSION 29
Here they abode until March. On the 23rd of that month,
1670, being Passion Sunday, says Galinee, " we all went to the
lake shore to make and plant a cross in memory of so long a
sojourn of Frenchmen as ours had been." 4
With Joliet, when he set out from Montreal, was the Sieur
Jean Pere; and he was apparently with him in the return jour
ney ; for Galinee, describing the meeting of the two expeditions
west of Lake Ontario, speaks of " two Frenchmen . . . who
were on their way from the Ottawas." If Pere was Joliet's
companion through Lake Erie to the Grand River, he should
have place in our narrative, no less than Joliet; but he is at
best a shadowy figure. Even the name, sometimes Pere, some
times Pere, and sometimes Perray, is, in a measure, conjec
tural, and has led to confusion with Nicholas Perrot, and even
Francois Marie Perrot, both well defined figures. This Pere,
who is credited with the discovery of a copper mine on Lake
Superior, apparently returned to Montreal in 1670. The
next trace of him is in 1677, when he is with La Salle at Fort
Frontenac. In November, 1679, Frontenac wrote to the King
that Governor Andros at New York " has retained there, and
even well treated, a man named Pere, and others who have
been alienated from Sieur de la Salle, with the design to em
ploy and send them among the Outawas, to open a trade with
them." The Intendant, Duchesneau, wrote to Seignelay that
" a man named Pere, having resolved to range the woods, went
to Orange to confer with the English, and to carry his beavers
there, in order to obtain some wampum beads to return and
trade with the Outawacs ; that he was arrested by the governor
of that place, and sent to Major Andros, Governor General,
whose residence is at Manhatte; that his plan was to propose
to bring to him all the coureurs de bois with their peltries."
So bold a plan of diverting the fur trade evidently failed, for
Pere was sent to London and held a prisoner for eighteen
months.5 One suspects him to have been the " Mons. La
*The scene of this ceremony was near the harbor entrance of Port
Dover. Some memorial stone or tablet should be set up in the vicinity, and
the site of the priests' lodging also marked.
b N. Y. Col. Docs., Ill, 479.

30 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
Parre " whom Dongan sent to Canada, September 8, 1687,
" with an answer to the French Governor's angry letter."
On Franquelin's map of 1688 the present Moose River of
Hudson's Bay is named Pere. The geographer Bellin says it
was so named for its discoverer. While these scattered facts
indicate a man of varied adventures and exceptional activi
ties, they do not clearly establish his place in our history ; but
that he is entitled to some place in it, is probable, from his ap
parent association with Joliet and La Salle in 1669. He and
Joliet may indeed have accompanied La Salle back to the
Niagara after parting with the Sulpicians; and these three
worthies may have entered the Niagara and visited the Falls,
making then and there the actual " discovery " of the cataract.
If they took the south shore route through Lake Ontario,
with which La Salle was familiar, they all saw the Niagara.
It was not Joliet's fear of the Iroquois, but his Indian guide's
fear of the Andastes, the tribe at the east and south of Lake
Erie, which had kept him from coming on through the lake.
If, on the other hand, Joliet and Pere followed the north
shore, what became of La Salle? His movements, from the
time when he parted from Dollier de Casson and Galinee, have
not been clearly followed, and probably never will be. Ga
briel Gravier, in an elaborate work6 published in 1870, ex
plicitly states that after the visit of La Salle and his com
panions to the Senecas in August, 1669, and after they had been
denied guidance to the Ohio, La Salle " set out again on the
way in the hope that chance would furnish him with guides.
He did in fact meet an Iroquois who conducted him along the
Niagara to Lake Erie, and in five days, to the western ex
tremity of this lake." This statement, of the highest impor
tance, if true, in substantiating a claim of priority in the
region, is absolutely unsupported by any known documentary
evidence. Some slight indication of his whereabouts in the two years
that followed his meeting with Joliet is afforded by the docu
ments. In February, 1671, Colbert wrote to Talon of " the
« " DScouvertes et Etablissements de Cavelier de la Salle de Bouen dans
I'Amirique du Nord," Paris (also Rouen), 1870, p. 58.

FRANCE TAKES POSSESSION 31
resolution you have taken to send Sieur de la Salle towards the
South ... to discover the South Sea passage."7 That La
Salle was absent on such a journey in this year is a fair in
ference from a statement in a letter from Talon to the King,
dated Quebec, November 2, 1671 : " Sieur de la Salle has not
yet returned from his journey to the southward of this coun
try." That he was back in 1673 is matter of clear record. In
May of that year Frontenac sent him to Onondaga to summon
the Iroquois, to a meeting at Kente. In July La Salle wrote
to Frontenac, advising the Count that 200 Indians would come
to see him, the meeting-place being changed to Cataraqui.
Of many subsequent events in La Salle's career, bearing
more and more upon the region we are studying, it is super
fluous to enter into detail. In 1674 he petitioned for a grant
on Lake Ontario; his prayer was granted by royal decree,
May 13, 1675. The new establishment which he there built
up, he named Fort Frontenac; and although its earlier name
of Cataraqui was often applied to it, for many years there
after, for convenience in this narrative it will be referred to as
Fort Frontenac.
On this same May 13, 1675, La Salle was granted a patent
of nobility; and three years later (May 12, 1678) he was
licensed " to endeavor to discover the western part of New
France " — an ingenuous phrase, establishing claim before dis
covery. For the execution of this undertaking, La Salle was
authorized " to construct forts in the places you may think
necessary." Armed with this authority, he fitted out his fa
mous expedition of 1678.
Several modern writers have undertaken to show that La
Salle, between 1670 and 1673, not only discovered the Ohio,
and passed down its waters to present Louisville, but that he
is entitled to great distinction in the annals of Western New
York for having discovered Niagara Falls, voyaged on Lake
Erie (prior to 1679), and having been the first white man on
the site of Buffalo. Still another concludes that he was the
discoverer of Chautauqua Lake, and entered the Ohio by that
i N. Y. Col. Docs., IX.

32 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
route. But all of these claims are unsupported by evidence
from trustworthy source authorities.
It is to be noted that from La Salle's own day, the English
doubted, or pretended to doubt, and denied, much that the
French claimed for La Salle. In 1686, while the explorer was
yet alive, Governor Dongan sent to England a map showing
" a great river discovered by one Lassal a French man from
Canada." Whether he referred to the Mississippi or the Ohio,
or to the combined water-way which they make, it was an in
discreet admission, for presently the English set up the claim
that the French had no claim to the Ohio region by discovery.
Some attempt has been made to show that La Salle was
on the Niagara between 1670 and 1678. A possible basis for
such a claim is found in the English translation of reports and
memoirs of Denonville, one of which says that La Salle's ship
above the Falls sailed in 1677. It also states that La Salle
had employed canoes in trade " for several years in the rivers
Oyo, [Ohio], 8abache [Wabash] and others"; this, prior to
1677. The English translation of Denonville's Act of taking
possession of Niagara in 1687, says that La Salle built cabins
and established settlers at Niagara in 1668, and that the lodg
ings were burned " 12 years ago," i. e., in 1675. In 1688
Denonville mentions " two writings drawn up by Sieur La
Salle for the benefit of Moyse Hilser (sic), dated at Fort
Crevecceur the 1st and 2d March, 1680, which afford evi
dence of the said Sieur de La Salle's residence and trade at
Niagara in 1676." He further says that La Salle had built
a store, forge and other buildings at Niagara in 1676.
Of these statements — assuming that the English transla
tions are accurate — it need only be observed that they are
palpable errors; that Denonville's dates in 1687 do not agree
with his statements of 1688; and both are disproved by au
thentic and well-known documents. We have no proof that
La Salle entered the Niagara prior to December, 1678.
Frontenac was the father of Fort Niagara. Scarcely had
he completed his palisades at Cataraqui — which post here
after becomes Fort Frontenac — than we see him projecting
another establishment. November 13, 1673, he writes to the

FRANCE TAKES POSSESSION 33
Minister of Finance that by the aid of another fort at the
mouth of the Niagara and a vessel on Lake Erie the French
could command the Upper Lakes. The Minister, Colbert, re
plying in May, 1674, counsels the Governor against undertak
ing exploration of the interior. He is explicit in stating the
royal will. " His Majesty's view is not," he wrote under date
of May 17th, " that you undertake great voyages by ascend
ing the River St. Lawrence, nor that the inhabitants spread
themselves, for the future, further than they have already
done. . . . He deems it much more agreeable to the good of
this service that you apply yourself to the clearing and settle
ment of those tracts which are most fertile and nearest the
sea-coasts and the communication with France, than to think
of distant discoveries in the interior of the Country, so far off
that they can never be settled or possessed by Frenchmen."
Yet the cautious Colbert immediately added two exceptions to
this rule. Frontenac might take possession of countries
" necessary to the trade and traffic of the French " which were
" open to discovery and occupation by any other Nation that
may disturb French commerce and trade " ; and he might seek
to establish himself in any country which would afford to
France a sea communication from the interior more southerly
than the mouth of the St. Lawrence.
In view of the privileges allowed in the exceptions, Frontenac
could not have been greatly hampered by the general rule.
He was convinced that by establishing Fort Frontenac he had
secured to the French the allegiance of the Iroquois, and fur
thered the safety of the missionaries. In the General Memoir
on the state of Canada in 1674, which he sent to Colbert in
November of that year, he pledges the support of Fort Fron
tenac without cost to the King, promises to pull it down if its
abandonment were insisted on, and says: ". . . It is cer
tain that the Country will never be thoroughly formed until
it will have towns and villages. This however will never be
accomplished unless by following the example the English and
Dutch have set in their country; which is, to designate the
place where the Indian trade will be carried on, with a pro
hibition to pursue it in private settlements, or to take pos-

34 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
session of rapids and carrying places. It is thus our neigh
bors have built up Manatte and Orange.8
" Sieur Joliet, whom Monsieur Talon advised me, on my
arrival from France, to dispatch for the discovery of the
South Sea, has returned three months ago, and discovered
some very fine countries, and a navigation so easy through the
beautiful rivers he has found, that a person can go from
Lake Ontario and Fort Frontenac in a bark to the Gulf of
Mexico, there being only one carrying-place, half a league in
length, where Lake Ontario communicates with Lake Erie.
A settlement could be made at this point and another bark
built on Lake Erie. These are projects which it will be pos
sible to effect when Peace will be firmly established, and when
ever it will please the king to prosecute these discoveries."
If Joliet advised Frontenac to fortify and hold the mouth
of the Niagara, he must have done it on the strength of what
de Casson, Galinee or La Salle had told him when they met
in the wilderness. The priests were not likely to give much
heed to such a matter, but La Salle was exceedingly likely to
see the advantage of a post at this point. For that matter,
enough information about the Niagara region had already
reached Frontenac to enable him to appreciate the desirability
of a post there. The passages above quoted are the first of
ficial record counseling the erection of a fort on the Niagara.
The specific annals of Fort Niagara therefore date from
November 13, 1673, and to Louis de Buade, " Count de Paluan
and de Frontenac," belongs the credit for the inception of
the enterprise.
That considerable knowledge of the Lower Lakes and
Niagara region was possessed by French officials in Canada
before the time of La Salle's great undertaking, is indicated
by many documents. In a memoir of M. de La Chesnaye,
written in 1676, occurs a statement of the size of the Lakes:
" Ontario is 200 leagues in circumference, Lake Erie, above
the Niagara, 250 leagues, Lakes Huron and Michigan together,
552 leagues " — a singular attempt at precision. " Com
munication may be had by vessel through these lakes. There
s New York and Albany.

FRANCE TAKES POSSESSION 35
is only the Niagara portage of two leagues, above Lake On
tario. All who have been in these lakes say they are an earthly
paradise, full of game and fish, and with the best of lands.
The way into this vast country is by the great river [St. Law
rence], and Lake Ontario and through the Niagara. It would
be made easy, in time of peace, by establishing families at
Niagara for the portage, and by building vessels on Lake
Erie. I should find no difficulty about that."
These suggestions, it will be noted, were made three years
before La Salle built the Griffon.

CHAPTER IV
A FAMOUS EPISODE
La Salle and his Lieutenants of 1678 — Fort de Conty —
Building and Voyage of the Griffon — An Adventure on
Lake Erie as related by La Salle.
No episode in the history of the Great Lakes has received
more attention from writers than the coming of La Salle in
1678, and his operations and adventures of the years follow
ing.
Sparks was the first to recognize the large importance and
significance of La Salle as a figure ,in American history. Park-
man was drawn to him as to one with spirit somewhat akin to
his own, wrote of him with wonderful clearness and apprecia
tion, and with a fullness and accuracy that make most subse
quent studies of him superfluous. Marshall established certain
facts of peculiar import in the Niagara region. Margry with
his mass of documents, and followers claiming overmuch for
their hero; Shea with his subtle study, granting to the hero
too little; these and a host beside, French, British, Canadian,
American, have now for many years been adding to the
abundant literature of the subject. A detailed recital of La
Salle's exploits on the inland waterways of America would be
now in large degree superfluous. Yet these exploits, so far as
they relate to the Niagara and adjacent lakes, belong to our
story and must be chronicled. The more familiar facts may
be stated briefly; while less familiar phases of the episode,
if not shown in new light, may at least be viewed from a new
angle. Frontenac wrote to Colbert (November 11, 1674) that
Joliet, who had returned three months before, had discovered
splendid countries " and a navigation so easy by the fine rivers
that he had found, that from Fort Frontenac on Lake On
tario, one could go by boat even to the Gulf of Mexico with
but one unlading to make in the strait where the Lake Ontario
36

A FAMOUS EPISODE 37
falls into Erie " — a most strange slip for Frontenac to make
— "which is perhaps a half league in length, and where a
house should be built and another barque on Lake Erie. These
are Projects," he adds, " which can be attended to when peace
is well established and it shall please the King to push on
these discoveries."
In May, 1675, the French Government granted certain
privileges to La Salle. The mature Frontenac and the young
and ardent La Salle were not unlike in temperament. The
latter's activity and ambition commended themselves to the
former's judgment and policy. La Salle was willing to assume
the responsibility of Fort Frontenac, and to give up his es
tates in France for it; and on May, 1675, it was granted to
him as a seigniory and he was ennobled. This first fortified
spot on Lake Ontario now became the base of operations,
from which the occupation of the Niagara was conducted. At
St. Germain, May 12, 1678, the King and the Councilor Col
bert signed the license giving La Salle permission to pursue
his explorations, or, in the words of the precious document,
" to discover the Western part of New France." " There is
nothing," said Louis, " We have more at heart than the dis
covery of that country, where there is a prospect of finding
a way to penetrate as far as Mexico. . . . These and other
causes Us moving hereunto, We have permitted, and by these
Presents, signed by Our hand, do permit you to labor in the
Discovery of the Western part of New France, and for the
execution of this undertaking, to construct forts in the places
you may think necessary, where of We will that you enjoy
the same clauses and conditions as of Fort Frontenac ... on
condition, nevertheless, that you complete this enterprise
within five years, in default whereof, these presents shall be
null and void; and that you do not carry on any trade with
the Savages called Outaouacs 1 and others who carry their
beavers and peltries to Montreal; that you perform the whole
at your expense and that of your associates, to whom we have
granted, as a privilege, the trade in Cibola 2 skins."
La Salle lost no time. He sailed from Rochelle — that his-
1 Ottawas. 2 BufFalo, i. e., bison.

38 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
toric old port which was the point of departure for many an
American undertaking — July 14th; he was at Quebec Sep
tember 15th — an average voyage for those days; and was
soon after fitting out his expedition.
From Fort Frontenac he planned an exploration to the
west and south, and for the prosecution of the fur trade. Late
in 1678 he sent 14 or 15 men to the Upper Lakes^ with goods
for trade. They traveled by canoe, but which route they took,
whether by the Ottawa River, the Simcoe portage or the
Niagara and Lake Erie, is nowhere stated ; but that they went
by the Niagara portage and Lake Erie is evident from Tonty's
statement that La Salle " sent me with five men to the strait
and separation of Lake Huron from that of Erie, to join 14
Frenchmen to whom he had given rendezvous in that place."
Had they gone by a more northern route La Salle would not
have made the Detroit the place of meeting. Tonty's state
ment practically establishes the fact that 14 Frenchmen
passed up the Niagara before La Salle is known to have done
so; and that they, Tonty and the five men with him, preceded
La Salle in voyaging through Lake Erie.
Having sent off this advance party of traders, La Salle
sent another company of 16 men, ship-carpenters, blacksmiths,
and other artisans, to the Niagara, to build a vessel above the
falls, in which to continue his explorations. Under command
of the Sieur de la Motte, and accompanied by the missionary
Louis Hennepin, they sailed from Frontenac November 18th,
in a brigantine of 10 tons.
On December 6th they entered the Niagara River. The
next day Hennepin and five companions, in a canoe, ascended
the river until stopped by the rapids ; then proceeded on foot,
on the Canada side, to Chippewa creek. Returning to the
brigantine they reported that they had not found a suitable
place for the proposed ship-building. December 15th, they
sailed and towed the brigantine up the river to the foot of
the rapids, moored her on the American side — present Lewis-
ton — and devoted the next three days to building a store
house, which they surrounded with palisades. It was the first
white man's structure on the Niagara.

A FAMOUS EPISODE 39
The Senecas showing signs of hostility, it was thought ad
visable to visit' their village, some 80 miles to the eastward, to
placate them with gifts and speeches. La Motte, Hennepin
and four French companions, one of whom was Anthony
Brassart, interpreter, left the cabin at Lewiston, upon this
mission, on Christmas Day, 1678, returning January 14,
1679. They had met with but a dubious success.
In the meantime La Salle and his chief lieutenant, Henri de
Tonty, who had remained at Frontenac to procure supplies
and materials for the vessel which was to be built, sailed on a
brigantine of 20 tons, bound for Niagara. On the way they
landed near the mouth of the Genesee River and went inland
to the Seneca village Tagarondies, to treat with the natives.
La Salle had been there in 1669 with Dollier de Casson and
Galinee. Now, the Senecas granted to him — what they had
not granted to La Motte and Hennepin — the sought-for per
mission to build on the Niagara. Returning to the brigantine,
La Salle sailed for the Niagara, but becoming impatient with
her slow progress, he and Tonty were set ashore, apparently
in the vicinity of Oak Orchard Creek. Setting out to walk
thence along the high bank to the mouth of the Niagara, La
Salle ordered the pilot to steer for the Niagara, if the wind
came from the northwest, to run into shelter at the river of
the Senecas — that is, the Genesee — until it changed. The
pilot and crew left to themselves, did as they pleased. On
January 8, 1679, they left the little vessel at anchor, and
went to sleep on shore. The wind rising, they were unable to
regain the vessel, which dragged her anchor, struck and was
wrecked. It was a grievous loss, for she was loaded with
everything needed in the enterprise. Several canoes, also laden
with goods, were lost.3
La Salle and Tonty followed the shore westward, no doubt
walking for the most part along the edge of the high bank
which for much of the distance commands an extended view.
s "Relation des descouvertes et des voyages du Sieur de La Salle,"
etc., Margry I, 442. According to this document the place of shipwreck
was ten leagues from the Niagara. Tonty says nine leagues. (Relation,
Quebec, Nov. 14, 1684.) Marshall locates it near Thirty Mile Point.

40 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
Reaching the Niagara on the evening after they had left the
brigantine, they were taken across the mouth of the river by
friendly Indians, and given a supper of white-fish and corn
soup. The way in which La Salle divided and scattered his force-
is at times striking. For instance, at this juncture, when the
two leaders are at the mouth of the Niagara, a part of his
men are supposed to be making their way westward in Lake
Ontario in the brigantine. Of the men under La Motte, some
are at Lewiston, others with La Motte, and far in the Seneca
country; and fifteen, as we have noted, under an unknown
leader, with their canoes filled with trading goods, have van
ished up the Lakes. This scattering of forces, as we study
the career of La Salle, is constantly to be remarked. Often,
it was no doubt necessary. At other times, it told against
safety and success.
With his usual impatience La Salle, accompanied by Tonty,
set out at midnight, "by moonlight," to join La Motte and
his company; but when the cabin under Lewiston heights was
reached, they found La Motte and those who had gone with
him to the Seneca town still absent.
It is recorded that the next day, leaving Tonty at Lewiston,
La Salle went up the river — whether wholly unaccompanied
or not is not told — and located the spot where he would
build his boat. Undoubtedly, he followed an Indian path
through the forest, which afterwards became the old portage
road, coming out on the river above the upper rapids. He
found a favorable place for constructing his vessel on the east
bank of the Niagara just south of the mouth of Cayuga Creek.
A narrow but deep channel was separated by an island from
the main river.
La Salle returned to Lewiston; then, with increasing impa
tience at the prolonged absence of La Motte and Hennepin,
to the mouth of the river, where he learned of the loss of his
vessel on Lake Ontario. At once he set out along shore to the
scene of the disaster. What ensued, between him and the un
faithful pilot, is not recorded. One readily perceives, how
ever, that it was an anxious time, with the success of the whole

A FAMOUS EPISODE 41
great adventure in jeopardy. It was the sort of crisis that
tests leadership; and the outcome shows that whatever quali
ties of leadership La Salle lacked, he was not easily discour
aged. There was much coming and going. On January 22d we
find La Salle with Tonty and Hennepin at the shipyard above
the falls. On the way there, La Salle visited the great cataract,
which he is not known to have seen before. Carpenters and
blacksmiths were set to work, cabins were built and a chapel,
all of logs and bark. Who that knows the climate of the
Niagara region in January can conceive the degree of comfort
afforded by these hasty and inadequate structures. Indian
hunters helped out the supply of food. The keel of the boat
was laid, January 26th; and with the work seemingly well
under way, La Salle returned to Fort Frontenac, to appease
his creditors and obtain more supplies. The journey was
made on foot, with two companions. They wore snowshoes,
and a sledge drawn by a dog carried their luggage. Their
only food was a bag of parched corn, which gave out before
the journey over the ice and through the forests was accom
plished. La Salle was accompanied as far as the mouth of the Niagara
by Tonty; and on February 1st, before starting on his long
tramp over the ice, " he traced at the outlet of the river a
fort which he named Fort Conty."4 This is the first white
man's construction on the site of Fort Niagara.
The first building erected on the Niagara by civilized men
was the palisaded house at Lewiston, built by La Motte and
his men, December 16 to 18, 1678. In January various con
structions were made at the shipyard above the falls ; but it was
not until February 1, 1679, that ground was broken on the
present site of Fort Niagara.
The question is often asked, " Did La Salle really fortify
the present site of Fort Niagara ? " Let two of our ancient
authorities answer. Hennepin, in- his most trustworthy nar
rative, ("La Louisiane") puts the matter thus: "It is at
the mouth of Lake Frontenac [Ontario] that a fort was be-
* Tonty's Relation in Margry, I, 577.

42 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
gun, which might have been able to keep the Iroquois in check
and especially the Tsounontouans [Senecas], the most nu
merous and most powerful of all, and prevent the trade which
they carry on with the English and Dutch, for quantities of
furs which they are obliged to seek in the western countries,
and pass by Niagara going and coming, where they might be
stopped in a friendly way in time of peace, and by force m
time of war; but the Iroquois, excited by some persons envi
ous of the Sieur de la Salle, took umbrage so that as they
were not in a position to resist them, they contented them
selves with -building there a house defended by palisades which
is called Fort de Conty and the place is naturally defensive,
and beside it there is a very fine harbor for barks to retire
to in security."
La Salle's own account, written at Fort Frontenac August
22, 1682, is more edifying yet: " The Iroquois did not oppose
the construction of the fort commenced at the discharge of
Lake Erie ; 5 but the loss of the first bark having obliged me
to use most of my men, during the whole winter, for the
transport of what I had saved from it, I contented myself
with making there two redoubts 40 feet square, upon a point
easy of defense, made of great timbers, one upon another,
musket-proof, and joined by a palisade, where I put a sergeant
and several men, who during my absence e allowed all this
work to burn, through negligence; and not being in condition
to reestablish it, there remains there only a magazine."
In his memoir of 1684 La Salle wrote : " There is a house
at the mouth of the Niagara River, the most important on
the whole lake, to cut off the trade of the English, and which
the barques of the Fort [Frontenac] can reach in two days;
it cost about 2000 livres. It is all that remains from the
fire which happened at the little fort which had been built
there." 7
5 He alludes to the entire Niagara as " the discharge."
« His word is " voyage," referring to his journeys of 1679-80.
t Denonville, writing to Seignelay, Oct. 27, 1687, said: "The post I have
fortified at Niagara is not a novelty since Sieur de la Salle had a house
there which is in ruins since a year when Serjeant La Fleur, whom I placed
at Cataracouy, abandoned it through the intrigues of the English who so-

/

A FAMOUS EPISODE 43
Here then is the history of the first fort on or near the site
of the present Fort Niagara, told by the man who caused it to
be built. Who superintended the work? Not La Salle, for
he presently returned to Fort Frontenac; not Tonty, for he
was busy at the shipyard above the falls. The man chosen
by La Salle for this work was Dominique de la Motte-Lussiere,
who had come to Canada with him the preceding year. He
should not be confused with a far more distinguished soldier,
Pierre de Saint Paul, Sieur de la Motte-Lussiere, a captain of
the Carignan regiment and the builder of Fort Ste. Anne on
Isle La Motte, named for him, in Lake Champlain. Several
other soldiers of France serving in America bore the name La
Motte, and more than one writer has confused them. One
was Jean Deleau, Sieur de la Motte, who commanded at Cham
bly in 1677. Another was Claude de la Motte, Marquis de
Jourdis (or Jordis), killed by the Iroquois in 1687. Still an
other was Louis de la Rue, Chevalier de la Motte, a lieutenant,
who was killed by the Iroquois at St. Francois-du-lac, in
1690. To Dominique de la Motte-Lussiere was entrusted the actual
construction of La Salle's proposed fort. But he very soon
took a final departure from the Niagara.
There is preserved 8 a letter in which La Motte described
his relations with La Salle. " In March, 1678," he writes,
" I had the good fortune to meet M. de La Salle, who engaged
me for his company in the discovery which he has made in
the Illinois, promising me a share in his fortune. I resolved
to follow him everywhere, with no guarantee except his prom
ises." He joined La Salle at Rochelle and embarked with him.
Who can doubt that during the tedious voyage much talk was
licited the Senecas to expel him by threats." We know but little of La
Fleur. In 1679 he was at Fort Orange (Albany) and narrowly escaped
being sent a prisoner to New York. Through him news reached Quebec
in November, 1679, of war between England and France. In 1684 he was
stationed at Frontenac. A letter of 1709 (Ramezay to Vaudreuil) speaks
of a fort on the Hudson "where La Fleur lived," apparently in British
interest. s Margry, II, 7-9.

44 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
had of this marvelous region into which they hoped to come!
La Motte continues:
" We arrived at Katarouqui November 8th, after a very fa
tiguing journey; and a few days later, complying with La
Salle's orders, that I should go to Niagara and choose a spot
for a fort, to protect the building of a barque, I set out on
Christmas Day from Niagara with presents and went on foot
through the woods to the Senecas, at least 80 leagues going
and coming." The barque was to be built above the Falls;
and one may well question how a fort near Lake Ontario
could protect it. The storehouse which was built there, was
a convenience when supplies from Fort Frontenac were to be
landed and forwarded over the portage. The documents no
where mention the construction by La Salle of a fortified build
ing above the falls, either at the head of the portage or at the
shipyard. La Motte gives some particulars of the visit to the Senecas,
by which, he says, a quantity of corn was secured in trade,
nineteen minots of which he sent to Frontenac " by Gastaret
and the Gascon," and 22 minots were sent to Tonty, " who I
found at the cape where the first barque was wrecked; and
18 minots of which I brought in in the said brigantine after
having fished up an anchor which M. de Tonty had lost in the
lake. I set out the next day to return to Frontenac, to take
command there, under orders of the Sieur de La Salle, en
dorsed by the Count de Frontenac. All these exposures
brought about such a severe inflammation of the eyes that I had
to go down to Montreal, in the fear of losing my sight." He
adds a complaint because La Salle had never reimbursed him
for services rendered.
The relations of La Motte and La Salle at the last are
curious. In the earlier part of this Niagara episode, there
is nothing to show that La Motte was not worthy of the
trust imposed upon him. Perhaps his rough experience among
the Senecas soured him against the expedition. He lacked
physical endurance, and snow-blindness or some other affec
tion nearly robbed him of his sight. He was sent to Fort
Frontenac, but seems immediately to have gone on down to

A FAMOUS EPISODE 45
Montreal, though still, apparently, in La Salle's service.
There is a letter dated Niagara, January 27, 1679, in which
La Salle writes to La Motte as follows : " Sir, I will say no
more concerning the sentiments I hold as to your zeal and
your courage. It only remains for me to beg you to have
as much firmness with respect to our people, and to beg that
their discontent shall cause no change in what you shall once
have resolved upon, and what I shall have asked of you."
The letter — the first one on record as having been written
from the Niagara — concludes with a postscript admonition
for La Motte to "be careful of the new hatchet." "That
wonderful instrument the Ax " was a precious thing in the
wilderness in those days.
In the letter above quoted from, La Motte virtually says
that La Salle used him in the Niagara wilderness all winter —
in fact, nearly a year, for he j oined La Salle's party in France,
March, 1678 — and then sent him back to Montreal with
nothing but promises. La Salle, on the other hand, com
plained bitterly of La Motte's treachery, and his attempts to
estrange the men from the expedition.
Bidding adieu to his chief, Tonty returned to the shipyard.
On the way thither he turned aside to view the great fall. " I
may say," he afterwards wrote, " that it is the most beautiful
fall in all the world. According to our reckoning, it descends
perpendicularly 500 feet and is at least 200 toises 9 in width.
It throws up vapors which can be seen 16 leagues away, and it
can be heard a like distance when the weather is calm. When
swans and bustards 10 become caught in the current, they are
unable to take flight, and are dead before reaching the bot
tom of the fall."
La Motte's letter n gives him the credit of recovering the
wrecked brigantine. He also says that it was he who had the
» Equal to 1279 feet, the toise being 6.39459 feet. The actual width of
the gorge opposite the American fall is 1250 feet; but the width of the
American and Horseshoe falls together is more than 4,000 feet.
io Tonty's word is outarde. What he mistook for the Old World bustard,
might have been any of our large aquatic fowl. Charlevoix uses outarde,
which Shea renders as Canadian goose. (Bernicla Canadensis.)
n In Margry, II, 7-9, where it appears without date or address.

46 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
brigantine hauled up " into a ravine between two mountains,
by means of a capstan, so that it would be safe from the ice
which in great quantity came from Lake Erie and over the
Falls." The ravine is still to be seen in the river bank above
Lewiston. Hennepin gives the credit for the preservation of
the craft to Thomas Charpentier of Artois, of whom we hear
no more in all the adventure; he was apparently among those
who returned to Fort Frontenac.
Not the least interesting phase of this episode is the part
taken in it by the missionary priests of the Franciscan order.
Father Hennepin, whose association with La Salle began in
France, is the principal historian of that part of it relating to
the Great Lakes. It is unnecessary here to recite the familiar
failings which discredit his books for the use of the student.
It is enough to bear them in mind as one turns to his often
valuable narrative. It was Hennepin who signalized the entry
of their brigantine into the Niagara, December 6, 1678, by
leading in the chant of Te Deum, and by offering prayers.
Although La Motte, who commanded the vessel, had little
regard for priests or the faith they professed, many of his men
were no doubt devout, and shared in a service which dignified
what Hennepin regarded as a discovery. He it was, too, who
on December 11th, celebrated the first Mass ever said in the
region. The records afford no hint as to which side of the
river may claim this service; or whether indeed it were not
held on board the boat; but it was on the eastern side of the
river, at present Lewiston, that the first altar for Christian
worship in this region was set up.
By his own accounts, Hennepin bore an important part in
much of the work that went forward. By the accounts of
others, he was at any rate busied with secular as well as re
ligious duties. He shared in the unproductive embassy to the
Senecas, and he passed many times up and down the river,
carrying burdens or messages. One of the bark cabins built
for the workmen at the shipyard was set aside for his use as
chapel, in which he held service on Sundays and other occa
sions. When the Griffon was launched, he blessed it, and sang
Te Deum. His miscellaneous activities included the keeping of

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A FAMOUS EPISODE 47
a journal, at which, he tells us, Tonty took umbrage. Whether
so trifling a thing made him think of leaving the expedition, it
is not worth while to inquire. Hennepin set out to return to
Frontenac, accompanied by one Charon, who also cherished
resentment, for some cause unknown, against Tonty. Charon
we hear no more of; Hennepin came back, and when La Salle
presently returned to the Niagara, he brought three other
priests. One of them was Gabriel de la Ribourde, 64 years old,
but capable and zealous; one was Zenobe Membre; and the
third was Melithon Watteau. Among all the picturesque in
cidents of these eventful months on the Niagara, nothing is
more striking than the picture of the aged Father Ribourde,
willingly shouldering whatever burden needed to be carried,
and toiling cheerfully up and down the Lewiston heights, those
" three mountains " which figure so impressively in the early
narratives. When the Griffon finally sailed, Hennepin, Membre and
Ribourde sailed with her; but Father Watteau stayed behind,
with a clerk and a few soldiers and laborers, to care for the
goods left at the head of the portage. What his experiences
were, during the months that followed, are unrecorded; but
he may fairly take his place as the first resident priest, min
istering to white men, in what we know as Western New
York. Through the winter and spring of 1679 the construction of
the boat went forward. Tonty was in command, but not a
practical boat-builder. Hillaret appears as chief of the skilled
artisans. There was little disturbance from the Senecas, most
of the warriors being absent on an expedition south of Lake
Erie. A few lurked about ready to plunder or do any possible
harm. One, pretending drunkenness, tried to kill the black
smith, " but," says Hennepin, " was vigorously repulsed by
him with a red-hot Iron-barr, which, together with the Repri
mand he received from me, oblig'd him to be gone." As the
boat took shape on the stocks the Senecas planned to burn
it, but the plot was revealed by a Seneca woman who was
friendly with one of the workmen. La Salle was sternly in
tolerant of loose relations between his men and the native

48 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
women. In this case, however, the evident devotion of the
daughter of the forest to a white admirer saved the ship, and
introduces into the chronicle, somewhat hazily it is true, the
only woman who figures in the seventeenth century history of '
the Niagara region.12
From this time on, the work was hurried, under guard, and
in May the hull was launched, to the amazement of the In
dians, who had never seen anything like it. Anchored in the
stream, greater security was felt, and the workmen hung their
hammocks under the deck and slept there, in preference to the
huts on shore. What with fear of the savages, dread of
starvation, resentment because wages were overdue, and an
utter lack of zeal for the enterprise, the workmen had been in
unhappy humor from the outset. One of them deserted,
through the wilderness, towards the distant English settle
ments. Stress is laid, by Hennepin, on the greater security which the
men enjoyed on board the vessel, than in their huts on shore.
If the Griffon were built and launched, as supposed, in the
eastern arm of the Niagara just south of the mouth of Cayuga
Creek, she floated, between the east bank and Cayuga Island,
in a very narrow channel. The Senecas, if in any force, could
readily have gained and boarded her; but they were a good
deal in awe of " the floating fort."
That news of La Salle's work on the Niagara soon reached
the English is shown by a letter of Governor Andros to Mr.
Blathwayt, dated " N. Yorck y* 25th of March 1679." 13 in
which we read:
An indian Sachem reports that ye frensh of Canada intend this
year to send a Garrison or setlem* into one of their towns where these
Xtian captiues were a this ye lake wch being of import ile endeauor
to preuent but if Efected will not only endanger all ye indian trade,
but expose all y8 King's plantations upon this continent where they
please they pretending no bounds that way.
12 The incident recalls one of like character, in the early history of
Detroit, when the garrison was saved from probable massacre by the dis
closures of an Indian woman to one of the soldiers.
« N. Y. Col. Docs., III., 278.

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A FAMOUS EPISODE 49
La Salle had personally little to do with the building of the
Griffon. He drove the first bolt, January 26; but after that
he was most of the time absent, trying to procure supplies
and to adjust his involved finances with merciless creditors.
It was Tonty who met the problems of the shipyard; and at
one time it was La Salle's plan to have Tonty sail the Griffon
to the westward. " May 20th," says the Tonty relation, " the
Sieur de La Forest, major of Fort Frontenac, sent to me or
ders from M. de La Salle to go with the barque which was of
40 tons, through the lakes, to notify the Illinois that he was
about coming to live with them, by the King's order. I took
the barque as far as the entrance to the lake, and finding there
a great rapid, it was impossible to ascend, because of a strong
head-wind." 14 Tonty sailed her to an anchorage under the
shelter of Squaw Island.
La Salle did not return to the Niagara until August. " He
found his barque ready to sail," says the official relation, " but
his men told him they were unable to get it up to the entrance
to Lake Erie, not being able to sail against the Niagara River
current. La Salle made them all embark. Thirty persons
with three Recollet missionaries, arms, provisions, merchandise
and eight little cannon of cast-iron or brass.15 Finally,
against the opinion of his people, he managed to ascend the
river. He set sail when the wind was very strong, and they
towed 18 it in the most difficult places, and so came happily to
the entrance of Lake Erie."
Hennepin says : " Most of our Men went ashoar to lighten
our ships [sic], the better to sail up the Lake. The wind
veering to the North-East, and the Ship being well provided,
we made all the Sail we could, and with the help of Twelve
Men who hall'd from the shoar, overcame the rapidity of the
i*His words are: " un foudre de vent."
ib The original is canon de fonte, which may be either iron or brass.
ie In the original this word is fouir, which means only, to dig. Margry
comments on it, and questions whether it should signify aller a la perche,
that is, was poled up the stream; or whether it should be regarded as a
copyist's error for touer, to tow. Hennepin's account, and the conditions
of the river, as known, are satisfactory evidence that the Griffon was
towed, along shore, past the upper rapids.

50 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
Current, and got up into the Lake." 1T While they were wait
ing for a favorable wind, La Salle had his men " grub up some
land, and sow several sorts of pot-herbs and pulse," says
Hennepin, " for the conveniency of those who should settle
themselves there, to maintain our Correspondence with Fort
Frontenac." The site of this first tilled land on the Niagara
is of some interest. Hennepin says it was on the west side of
the river; inconvenient, one would suppose, if the men were
all lodged on the east side.
No one knows how the Griffon looked. In his first book
Hennepin wrote : " This vessel was only of about 45 tons
and which we might call an ambulant fort." In his second
work, 14 years later, he spoke of her as of " but 60 tons."
We learn from Hennepin that she was a boat with a keel, and
a deck under which the men " hang'd their hammocks." She
was a sailing craft, but how she was rigged we are nowhere
told, nor whether she had one mast or more — though we may
infer two, from an allusion to " topmasts." Hennepin styles
her " ship," while he calls the smaller craft on Lake Ontario
" brigantine " ; but one would hardly be warranted in inferring
from this that the Griffon was full ship-rigged. " She carry'd
five small Guns, two whereof were Brass, and three Harquebuze
a-crock.18 The Beakhead was adorned with a flying Griffin,
and an Eagle above it ; and the rest of the Ship had the same
Ornaments as Men of War use to have " — whatever that may
mean. This is all the description we have of the first vessel on the
Lakes above the Falls; nothing of dimensions, length, beam or
draft, nothing definite as to her tonnage or rig — but she had
ornaments like a man-of-war! Writers and artists, giving
rein to fancy, have constructed various Griffons, some of them
elaborate enough to tax the resources of the best shipyards
of old France. Reason and reflection cannot accept these
" "New Discovery," Eng. ed., 1698. Garneau (Bell's trans., I, 261)
has the singular statement of La Salle: "He has the honor of founding
the town of Niagara. The vessel he built there he called the Origin."
He elsewhere says the Griffin was built " some six miles above the Falls."
is Fr. a croc, with a prop or support.

An Imagined "Griffon"
The Commonest Picture ofthe Pioneer Vessel on Lake Erie

A Lake Ontario Brig of 1757
From a Sketch by Captain Pouchot, in the British Museum

A FAMOUS EPISODE 51
works of the imagination. We know that the boat was built
in a hurry, at the Niagara River side by a few workmen, ham
pered by lack of supplies, lack of tools, of iron, of food even,
and with none too much zeal for their task. Crude beyond
question she must have been. That she was seaworthy at all
is greatly to the credit of the men who built her. Some of
them could evidently build better than Hennepin could de
scribe.19 More than one writer, beguiled by the undoubted charm and
picturesqueness of this great adventure, has pictured La
Salle and his companions as sailing prosperously and serenely
through a summer sea to the delectable regions of the Detroit.
They have perhaps overlooked La Salle's own account of diffi
culties into which they soon run. Lake Erie, all untried
though it was by any craft larger than the red man's canoe,
was reputed not only to lack harbors, but to be full of shoals
and sand-bars. However ready his reckless men may have
been, to press on and take chances, or how rebellious, the
leader himself showed caution and some knowledge of condi
tions. It was, apparently, the first night out from the Niagara
that the Griffon narrowly escaped shipwreck. La Salle him
self tells of it:
i» In August, 1879, there was celebrated at Grosse Pointe, Michigan,
the 200th anniversary of the passage of the Gri fon: In the historical ad
dress of Mr. Bela Hubbard, on that occasion, it is stated that the Griffon
" was a two-masted schooner, but of a fashion peculiar to that day, having
double decks, and a high poop projected over the stern, where was the
main cabin, and over this rose another and smaller cabin, doubtless for
the use of the commander. The stern was thus carried up, broad and
straight, to considerable height. Bulwarks protected the quarter deck."
(Mich. Pioneer Coll. Ill, 650.)
The printed program of the day's exercises bore a picture of the craft
that admirably conformed to the orator's description; but whether the
artist got his design from the speaker's description, or the speaker merely
described the picture as the artist drew it, is not specified. Certain it is,
that neither of them gave any authority for the data so confidently pre
sented. As conceived by Mr. Herman T. Koerner, an artist who painted a
wall panel in the Historical Building at Buffalo, the Griffon was not
schooner-rigged, but a brig of the hermaphrodite type, with yards and
square-sails, even on the jib. Numerous other designs attest by their variety
to the utter absence of authenticity, beyond deductions of probabilities
— and some of these are highly improbable.

52

AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE

Night came on, and a thick fog concealed the shore, from which
we supposed ourselves some ten leagues distant. I heard breakers
about a league ahead of us. Everyone thought it was but the ordi
nary sound on the lakes when the wind changes, which is always
heard from the side it comes from, and the pilot wished to crowd on
sail to gain an anchorage before we stranded ahead; but as I knew
that these two sand banks extended out very far, and as I was of
opinion we were near the one which was in fact just ahead of us, I

Long Point Bay, Lake Erie.
Showing Galinee's route, 1669-70, and the course of the Griffon, 1679.

ordered, notwithstanding everybody, that we change the course and
bear east northeast, instead of as we were going, west northwest
with a light wind from the southeast. We sailed two or three hours,
sounding constantly, without finding bottom; and still we heard the
same noise ahead of us. They all insisted that it was only the wind,
and I, that it was the sand-bar which made a circle and surrounded .
us on the north side, from west to east. In fact, an hour later, we
suddenly found only three fathoms. Everyone worked ship, I tacked
and bore to the southwest, always sounding without finding bottom-

A FAMOUS EPISODE 53
At length the fog lifted, my conviction proved true, and they all saw
that they owed their escape from danger to me.20
Following the general trend of the north shore the Griffon
had blundered into Long Point Bay and narrowly escaped
wreck on Long Point. This experience is in a measure proof
that Tonty was not on board. Having canoed through these
waters he would have known the danger and told of it.
La Salle's avowed purpose on this voyage was the explora
tion to its mouth of the great river to the westward of the
Lakes. If, half a dozen years before, he had already found
his way down the Ohio, one may naturally inquire, why did he
not follow that route, instead of incurring the labor and ex
pense of building a vessel on Lake Erie. Two answers may be
made. He contemplated not only a voyage to the Gulf, but
an exploration of the upper Mississippi — though, as the sequel
shows, he never attempted this himself, but sent others.
A more impressive answer is, that he sought to profit by the
fur trade of the lake region. It offered him a revenue for the
prosecution of his exploration, but it involved him in difficul
ties and in a measure undermined his success.
20 Letter of La Salle, Fort Frontenac, Aug. 22, 1682. Margry, II, 230.
Parkman does not mention the incident.

CHAPTER V
A DRAMA OF DISASTER
Story of the Rascals who robbed La Salle — Tonty the
Faithful — Jacques Bourdon, a fine Figure in Niagara
History — La Salle's account of a Lake Ontario Tragedy,
The story of the men who stole La Salle's goods, destroyed
his buildings and deserted from his service, if it could be truly
and fully recorded, would be the rarest narrative of adventure
the history of the Great Lakes affords. Much of it belongs
to the region we are studying, and something of it should have
place in these pages.
The loss of the brigantine on Lake Ontario, which La Salle
ascribed to treachery, forewarned him of what he had to ex
pect from his men. From the outset, there were discord and
discontent among them. Some were Normans, some were
Canadians — and even at that early day many sharp dis
criminations were made against the habitant. The man whom
they had to obey, for more than eight months on the Niagara,
was an Italian soldier. The priests were Flemings — natives
of the Spanish Netherlands. Such worthy men as Dautray
and Boisrondet no doubt comprehended, in a measure, the aims
and ambitions of their great leader, and were zealous for ex
ploration and discovery. Most of the others thought more
of the opportunity to profit by trade with the Indians, lawful
or otherwise; and some had no soul above getting food and
their promised wage.
When the Griffon sailed, she had on board, according to one
account,1 23 men; according to another,2 34, this perhaps
taking into account Indian hunters and servants. Some of
the company were, naturally, men whom it is not worth the
i Margry, II, 31, where the paper entitled " Priliminaires de I'explora-
tion" states that La Salle " s'embarqua avec vingt-deux hommes pour
traverser le lac erii."
2 Hennepin. 54

A DRAMA OF DISASTER 55
student's thought to consider, yet others of the baser sort
were destined to such evil activities in our region that record
should be made of them. As for the rest, among them were
several of ability and character, whose part in our history
has been overshadowed, if not lost, by the deeds of their leader.
Who were they? From the imperfect and contradictory
records, it is not easy to be conclusive. We know that La
Salle himself sailed on the Griffon. As the breeze filled her
sails, and she cut her cautious course through the waves of
Lake Erie, he must have experienced a moment of exultation,
rare in his baffled career, over a long-cherished purpose accom
plished. Was Tonty with him? He had gone on in advance by
canoe, with five men ; but Tonty himself is made to say, in the
account of La Salle's journeys attributed to him, that after
having gone the length of Lake Erie by canoe in two days —
no slight achievement — he returned to Niagara and sailed
with La Salle on August 7th. Other and better authorities
indicate that he did not sail on the Griffon from Niagara, but
joined it in the Detroit.
Tonty was in the service of La Salle; yet in many respects
his actual achievements surpass those of his leader, while his
steadfast and trustworthy character commends him to our
esteem and admiration. It was Tonty, far more than La
Salle, who gave personal attention to the operations on the
Niagara in 1678-79. He it was who built the Griffon. He
voyaged the length of Lake Erie before La Salle had ventured
upon its waters — unless one accepts the claims of eulogists
who profess to find certain evidence of La Salle's travels in
those hazy years of 1669-72. When the Griffon sailed, if
Tonty were aboard, La Salle and her pilot would have profited
by information of the lake which Tonty picked up in his swift
canoe journey; that they had need of more we have already
seen. It was to be Tonty who made the establishment on the
Illinois, of which La Salle hoped for so much. When, harassed
and impatient, he was exhausting himself in unfruitful jour
neys back and forth, Tonty held on. And when most of their
men turned thieves and traitors, and deserted, Tonty still held

56 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
on, sturdy, resourceful and discreet. When La Salle vanished
down the Mississippi and nothing was heard of him for months,
it was Tonty who went far down the unknown river in quest
of him. When Governor Denonville undertook to discipline
the Iroquois of Central New York, in 1687, it was Tonty who
came again to the Niagara, leading a great war party of Illi
nois. He shared in the campaign, and returning to the
Niagara, saw Denonville begin a fort on the scene of his own
activities of eight years before. We have no record of his
presence on our river, after that; but from what we know of
his career, here and elsewhere, the statement is warranted that
of all the men who shared in the varied drama enacted in
America by the soldiers and servitors of France, none played
his part with greater sincerity and credit, none is more en
titled to the respect and admiration of posterity, than the
Italian knight, Henri de Tonty.
Three Franciscan missionaries there were on board: Fath
ers Louis Hennepin, Zenobe Membre and Gabriel de la Ribourde.
The first named was to have his share of adventures and to as
sert himself in years to come as the historian of the expedition,
but with such conceit, exaggerations and mendacities that the
student is now amused, now exasperated and at all times per
plexed by the uncertainty of pages which should give us a
clear record. Father Ribourde, aged 64, was to die a few
months later in an Illinois wilderness by the hand of a Kicka
poo savage. Father Membre's destiny it was to share in La
Salle's unhappy fortunes to the very end and to become the
most trustworthy historian of his later years.
Father Watteau and Sergeant La Fleur, with a few soldiers,
remained on the Niagara. The Canadian, Charon, returned
to Fort Frontenac, and so, apparently, did Anthony Brassart,
the interpreter.
Fifteen of La Salle's men had gone west by canoe before
he began operations on the Niagara. Five others had accom
panied Tonty to the Detroit, also by canoe. The names of
the men in these advance parties are not recorded except when,
as deserters, they reappear at Mackinac, on the Niagara and
Lake Ontario. Some, therefore, whose names are known, may

A DRAMA OF DISASTER 57
have been in the advance parties, or may have sailed on the
Griffon. There was the pilot, Luc, fated to perish with ship and crew
of five among the islands of Lake Michigan, in trying to navi
gate the Griffon back to the Niagara.
Among the more trusty who stood with La Salle as he sailed
into Lake Erie was Jacques Bourdon, the Sieur Dautray, son
of Jean Bourdon, first procurer-general of Quebec ; " always
very faithful," La Salle said of him. Dautray is to be right-
hand man, and serve him well, on many occasions. Here too,
were Andre Henault; Collin; Michael Accault and Antoine
Auguel, otherwise known as Du Gay, and because he was from
Picardy called " Le Picard " ; these two, with Father Hennepin,
were to explore the upper Mississippi. In La Salle's service
were also the Parisian, the Sieur de Boisrondet ; La Chapelle ;
Noel Le Blanc; Pierre You; L'Esperance, La Salle's servant;
and one or more Indian hunters.
It was a strangely mixed lot : a few gentlemen, soldiers who
had proved themselves in service, missionary priests, crafts
men, mechanics and dubious habitants who only needed oppor
tunity to turn villain. By no means least in evidence in the
motley crew was Moyse Hillaret, ship carpenter. Another
carpenter, Francois Sauvin, was called La Roze ; 3 a black
smith, Le Meilleur, is oftener mentioned as La Forge; others
were La Violette; Martin Chartier; Duplessis, Jacques
Monjault; La Rousseliere; Baribault; Lacroix. Highly
poetic, some of the names, but a more rascally and unfaithful
crew never sailed.
Moyse Hillaret, ship carpenter, was a ring-leader for mis
chief from the first. He and his fellow workmen were afraid of
the Indians, and when the brigantine bringing previsions was
wrecked on Lake Ontario, they were greatly depressed by fear
of starvation. One can readily picture them loudly discussing
the situation and caring less for exploration than for their
dinner. They were in fit mood to listen to the proposals of
" a villian amongst us," as Hennepin has it : " That pitiful
Fellow has several times attempted to run away from us into
» So spelled in the documents. Margry, II.

58 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
New York, and would have been likely to pervert our Carpen
ters, had I not confirm'd them in their good resolution, by the
Exhortations I us'd to make every Holy-day after Divine
Service ; in which I represented to them, that the Glory of God
was concern'd in our Undertaking, besides the Good and Ad
vantage of our Christian Colonies; and therefore exhorted
them to redouble their diligence, in order to free ourselves
from all those Inconveniences and Apprehensions we then lay
under." Hennepin never underestimates his own importance
and influence; but as, to this day, the French-Canadian priest
has a great hold and restraining influence on even the most
lawless and perverse young men of his parish, so Father Henne
pin undoubtedly did help to keep the faint-hearted and false
hearted to their task on the banks of the Niagara. More
potent yet was the wilderness itself. Only a brave and re
sourceful man dared run away.
As for " the villian amongst us " of whom he writes, he
may have meant Noel Le Blanc, who, according to Tonty,
made great trouble. Whoever he was, he takes his unenviable
place in history as the first labor agitator of the Lower Lakes.
The fortunes of the 15 who had gone up the Lakes in the
autumn, with a rich quantity of La Salle's goods, must often
have been discussed in the shanties by the Niagara. Men
who lightly regarded the rights of ownership, may well have
envied these adventurers their opportunity, and have been
disposed to act for themselves, whenever they could do so
with profit or safety. Of loyalty to La Salle among the
workmen there was none.
When Tonty rejoined La Salle on board the Griffon, in the
Detroit, he brought the unhappy news that most of the advance
party of 15 had deserted, taking La Salle's goods for their
own use; and when La Salle set foot ashore at Mackinac he
was surprised to find some of his men there, whom he supposed
had gone on long before to the Illinois. They told him that
they had been kept back by reports which had reached them
since their departure from Frontenac. " They had been told
that his undertaking was chimerical, that his barque would
never reach Mackinac, that they had been sent to certain ruin,

A DRAMA OF DISASTER 59
and several other like reports, which had discouraged and de
bauched most of their comrades, whom they had been un
able to persuade to continue the journey, and that six of them,
Saint Croix, Minime, Le Barbier, Poupart, Hunaut [or He-
nault] and Roussel (called La Rousseliere), had deserted,
stolen and carried off nearly 4000 livres of merchandize; and
that the others had wasted or used for their own subsistance at
Mackinac, where provisions were very dear, more than 1300
livres." 4
Four of these men La Salle arrested at Mackinac. Tonty
captured two at Sault Ste. Marie — Henault and Roussel ; but
was delayed so long by adverse winds that La Salle went on
without him. Some of the advance party of 15 appear to
have been taken along, a new source of treachery and danger.
Others escaped and vanished in the wilderness; possibly mak
ing their way to the English, as many renegade Frenchmen
did; wandering to distant tribes, or meeting the early death
which is usually the fate of the violent and the outlaw.
La Salle and his uncertain following, good and bad, made
their way to the Illinois River, where a fort was built and a
boat begun for exploration of the great river. With these
undertakings, elsewhere so fully and ably recorded, the pres
ent work is not concerned. From Green Bay, in September,
the Griffon had been dispatched for Niagara, but she only
reached the Port of Missing Ships. Loaded with furs and
still having on board a large amount of the goods and material
which had been put into her before she sailed from the Niagara,
her loss was a staggering blow to La Salle.
In March, 1680, not knowing of his loss, he set out with
four French companions and an Indian hunter for Fort Fron
tenac. He needed supplies for his men, material for the new
boat, and was anxious to know the fate of the Griffon. The
story of the Lakes, rich as it is in adventure, has no episode
surpassing this in hardihood.
By canoe and on foot, they came across Southern Michigan,
but not without grave experiences. Reaching the Detroit, La
Salle dispatched two of his men, by canoe, to Mackinac, to
*" Relation officiate." Margry, I, 449.

60 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
learn if possible, the fate of the Griffon. With his faithful
hunter and two white companions, he crossed the Detroit on a
raft. Let his own narrative 5 tell what ensued :
We followed on foot the shore of Lake Erie until, the continued
rains and the great thaw having flooded all the woods, the Indian
and one of my men succumbed to exhaustion due to constant walking
through water, so that, at SO leagues from the fall of Conty 6 they
were taken with a very violent fever, inflammation of the chest and
a vomiting of blood, which obliged me, with the man who remained
well, to build a canoe for carrying them. This we did in two days;
and the day after Easter I arrived at the fall of Conty, where I
found still other causes for anxiety, learning, from two of my men
who had wintered there, of the loss of the ship in which were the
goods which you and M. Plet were sending here, at least the great
part of them; the return to France of the men who were to come for
the Illinois establishment, the disturbance which my brother had
caused in my affairs, and the urgency of those from whom I had
borrowed a quantity of goods payment for which I could easily have
arranged, if those to whom I entrusted them had not stolen them.
But that which gave me the greatest grief, was, to have no news
of my barque, by the arrival of which I would have remedied every
thing; and the loss of which was not only considerable because of
the value of its contents, which with the hull and rigging of the boat
amounted to more than 10,000 crowns,7 but because it made impos
sible the execution of my enterprise by reason of the distance and
the cost of transport by canoe to places so distant; besides the rig
ging and ship fittings, and quantity of provisions, arms, ammuni
tion, tools, iron, goods and utensils which were cared for by seven
or eight men in a cabin above the fall of Conty, where they had been
carried with great cost, and where they were cared for during the
winter, running risk of being stolen, as indeed a part of them were,
and not being able to care for them, while they were in shipment,
except at great expense.
o Letter of La Salle, in Margry, II, 63-64.
6 That is, Niagara. La Salle had called his fort at the mouth of the
river Fort de Conty; and the name of this prince was for a long time
applied to Lake Erie; but so far as observed, the letter here quoted from
is the only record in which the great cataract is also styled " Conty."
' La Salle's word is escus (modern spelling, 4cu). Reckoning the crown
at three francs, he estimated his loss on the Griffon at more than $6,000;
but the purchasing power of the franc was probably greater in La Salle's
day than in ours.

A DRAMA OF DISASTER 61
This was the consolation which I found on my arrival after a
journey of 450 leagues. There still remained 70 before reaching
Fort Frontenac. The men who had attended me not being able to
go on, I took three fresh men from the fall of Conty; and, the rain
being incessant until May 10th, I did not reach Frontenac until
the 6th.
At the worst season of the year for such an undertaking,
La Salle had journeyed, in part by canoe, but mostly on foot,
more than a thousand miles in 65 days, including numerous
detentions. It was a wonderful thing to do. He was in his
37th year — at the zenith of physical vigor. If we knew
nothing of him save this achievement, we could picture him as
of exceptional determination and physical endurance.
As he was first to sail into the West, from the Niagara, so
was he the first white man to arrive at the Niagara, from the
West. On his way, at the mouth of the Miami, he had hoped for
news of the Griffon. Later, on the Detroit, he still cherished
a hope of finding her. It was not until he stood once more on
the bank of the Niagara where she had been built, and found
no trace of her or her men, but only news of loss and misfor
tune crowned by misfortune, that he abandoned all hope of
this venture, on which he had staked so much. No wonder
that he writes in irony of the " consolation " that awaited him
there. We have seen him in what may well have been a mo
ment of exultation, as he sailed out of the Niagara into the
untried lake. Now, eight months later, again on the Niagara,
with his ventures gone wrong, a victim of knavery, he would
appear a pathetic figure, but for the fact that there is nothing
in word or act to indicate that his spirit was broken. How
ever some of his deeds in later years may be construed, there
is nothing throughout the time of his activities on the Niagara
and adjoining lakes, that does not breathe of fine resolution
and undaunted courage.
La Salle's companions, in this hard journey, were Dautray,
Henault, La Violette, Collin, and his Indian hunter. On his
way, at the little post at the mouth of the St. Joseph, he found
Chapelle and Le Blanc, whom he had sent to Mackinac in

62 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
search of the Griffon. They were now returning. That they
had not deserted, speaks well for their loyalty, up to this time.
Which were the two men dispatched from the Detroit to
Mackinac, is not known, but Dautray was one who came
through to the Niagara, enduring the fatigues of the journey
better than any one save La Salle himself. Taking three of
the men who had spent the winter at Niagara, to go on with
him to Frontenac, La Salle sent Dautray back with four men,
to Tonty.
Much has been written of the hardihood of La Salle; yet
here is his faithful follower, Jacques Bourdon, the Sieur Dau
tray, who had shared in his leader's most adventurous exploit,
setting out at once from the Niagara to retrace all those wil
derness leagues until he shall rejoin Tonty on the distant Illi
nois. His name appears in the documents sometimes as Jean,
sometimes as Jacques. There were two brothers bearing these
names, sons of Jean Bourdon, Sieur de St. Francis. The
father was a man of standing in the Quebec colony, and was a
public prosecutor at the time his son Jacques joined La Salle.
The son Jean was styled Sieur de Dombourg, and Jacques the
Sieur D'Autray (or Dautray), from seigniories which they
received from their father. In September, 1672, Count Fron
tenac granted a passport to Father Crepieul, Jesuit, the Sieur
Dautray and others, to trade with the Indians and to winter
at Lake St. John, " about 70 leagues above Tadousac.8 Jacques
is said to have been born at Quebec in 1637. He joined
La Salle in 1675; shared in the preparatory work on the
Niagara, and sailed on the Griffon in 1679. He was to have
many grim adventures in the West ; was to be one of four who
accompanied La Salle in his search for Tonty in November,
1680 9 and one of three who first discovered and passed through
the mouths of the Mississippi. When in April, 1682, La Salle
found himself at the delta of the great river, he followed the
channel to the west, Tonty took the middle channel, and Dau
tray explored the eastern pass. In the culmination of the
great adventure, the Canadian Jacques Bourdon, Sieur Dau-
s Paris Docs., IX, 995.
» The others were Henault, Pierre You and an Indian hunter.

A DRAMA OF DISASTER 63
tray, shared equally with La Salle and Tonty. Little is re
corded of him, but that little is all good. His deeds and his
fidelity entitle him to remembrance in the annals of the Lakes
and the Niagara. His rank prior to engaging with La Salle
was that of lieutenant, and his service was in the first company
of troops maintained in Canada by the Minister of Marine and
Colonies. In 1687 he accompanied Tonty in Denonville's cam
paign against the Iroquois, a service that brought him again to
the Niagara. After that affair he went down to Quebec, then
returned to Montreal, planning to return to Fort St. Louis
of the Illinois, where he had " house and seigniory " ; but he
passed the winter in Montreal. In the spring of 1688, having
escorted a party to Frontenac, he was returning when he was
killed by the Iroquois. Such, in brief, was the career and the
fate of the man who, after Tonty, stood closest to La Salle ; a
man who shared, and merited, the confidence and affection of
his leader.
Dautray was the first man, after La Salle, to leave the
Niagara for the West. He filled two canoes with arms and
provisions, and with three soldiers who had spent the winter on
the Niagara — La Violette, Dulignon and Pierre You, and
a servant of La Salle called La Brie, paddled up the river and
followed the north shore of Erie to the Detroit. He was di
rected by La Salle to pick up and take along with him two sol
diers, Nicolas Crevel and Andre Henault, who with Jacques
Messier had been sent to Mackinac. At Niagara La Salle
and Dautray had learned that an Iroquois war party was
about setting out for the Illinois and it was desired to forewarn
Tonty. Dautray pressed on and joined Tonty at Fort Creve
cceur; while Crevel and Messier, with Laurent, bearing a mes
sage from Tonty to La Salle, telling of the thefts and deser
tions from Fort Crevecceur, did not return to that point with
Dautray, but hastened eastward until, at Fort Frontenac, they
found La Salle loading his brigantine with new supplies for
the Illinois.
At Niagara, La Salle had become convinced of the loss of
the Griffon. At Frontenac, more heart-breaking news was to
reach him. On July 22d, three of his men arrived with a

64 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
message from Tonty. They had evidently followed the route
of La Salle, Dautray and others, across Michigan, down Lake
Erie to Niagara. How many of these intrepid and wonder
fully quick " voyages " those old days saw ! Tonty had dis
patched four men, but on the way one had either got lost or
deserted. On the day named, as La Salle was busy loading his
brigantine with goods for Tonty's relief, Jacques Messier,
Nicolas Crevel and Nicolas Laurent (who is also called La
Chapelle) appeared and gave him a letter from Tonty. It
told him that Moyse Hillaret and others, who were supposed
to be building the vessel in which he planned to proceed with
his exploration, had stolen what goods they could lay hands
on, and run off.
All those months of toil on the Niagara, all those years of
planning and outlay, had gone for naught. The great under
taking was a failure.
On a day in the early summer of 1680 several canoes made
their unaccustomed way out of Lake Erie and down the swift
Niagara. They were beached above the fall, on the American
side. Of the men who stepped ashore, a number were French.
Ragged and unshorn, foul and half starved, they had made their
way back from the ruined Fort Crevecceur on the Illinois. The
leader of the disreputable band was Moyse Hillaret, La Salle's
master ship-builder. With him were Noel Le Blanc and Fran
cois Sauvin ("La Roze"), ship carpenters, and the black
smith Jean Le Meilleur (" La Forge "), hero of the episode of
the murderous Seneca and the red-hot iron. They were a
quartette of precious rascals, who seem to have hung together
in acts of villainy from the outset, and who might very well
have been hanged together, with wholesome justice. With
them, or joining them soon were other renegades: Jacques
Richon, Jean La Croix, Petit-Bled, Martin Chartier, Bois-
dardenne, Jacques Monjault, Pierre Poupart, Jean Roussel,
Nicolas Duplessis, Baribault, all deserters from La Salle's
service; and the outlaw Turcot, a fugitive from justice, a thief
and assassin, who ten years before had fled into the wilderness.
Just where the men from the West picked him up is not clear,
but they were together on Lake Ontario, if not on the Niagara.

A DRAMA OF DISASTER 65
Led on by Hillaret, they broke into La Salle's little store
house above the falls, where, finding a cask of wine, they
broached and drank it — not a surprising act, under the cir
cumstances. Hillaret helped himself to a quantity of cloth
and other articles. Everything that had been stored there, of
any value, was appropriated. Then the canoes were portaged
to the lower river and the thieves took their way into Lake On
tario, where they separated into two parties, eight of them,
including Richon and Lemire, carrying a quantity of La Salle's
furs, following the south shore in the hope of reaching Albany ;
the others, numbering about a dozen, crossing to the north
shore, by which they hoped to gain the St. Lawrence and
Montreal. Messier and Laurent reached La Salle, at Frontenac, July
22nd and gave him Tonty's letter, with the news of the destruc
tion of Crevecceur, and the desertion of all the men. One
questions how it happened that these messengers and the run
away thieves had not fallen in with each other on the way down
the Lakes, as they probably all came by the Niagara route.
La Salle may well have been stunned by this new proof
of calamity, but instead, he was roused to righteous wrath.
He at once took nine men aboard the barque which he had been
loading with supplies for Tonty. His own account of what
followed deserves place in the annals of Lake Ontario:
I sailed at once in my barque, with nine men to seek them [the
deserters] and ordered 15 others to follow me, but they were unable
to come on, the wind several times compelling even me to return.
Finally, on August 2nd, I anchored at the head of an island on one
side of which they would have to pass, to go to New York,10 as some
few have done. About four in the afternoon I saw a canoe in which
were two of my people, who, having fallen in with the deserters,
hastened day and night to tell me that they were 20 in number, and
that, not content with what they had done on the Illinois, they had
destroyed the redoubt which I had left on the river Miami, had taken
the beaver which I had deposited at Mackinac, and pillaged the
store-house above the fall of Conty; that they had separated into
two bands, that eight had taken the route for New York and 12 that
io " A la Nouvelle-Hollande."

66 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
for Fort Frontenac; resolved, if they encountered me, to kill me
and to fire only on me; that they could not be far away and were
coming in two canoes, six in each.
I immediately sent these two habitants on to the fort with orders
that every one there should arm and mount guard at three different
passes, so that, if the marauders escaped me by night, they would be
arrested by the others. I left the barque with five well-armed men,
and went by the other side of the island, which is five leagues long,
to discover their fire at night. I continued three leagues further,
and at daybreak was at the end of a traverse " called Okoui, where
I saw two canoes coming straight towards us, as the woods near us
prevented them from seeing us.
When they were half a league or so from us, I took after them,
and as their two canoes were separated some distance, we came up
to the first, in which were five men. I had ordered my people, in
giving chase to these canoes always to follow in a line (en queue),
because that would lessen their danger ; and, in case of resistance, to
bring down the head man ; because, the Governor being dead, as they
cannot change places in these canoes, they can do no more than turn,
and cannot fire accurately nor even at all without turning the canoe.
Overtaking them, I, with gun ready to fire, ordered the rascals to
come with me ; and when my two men raised their guns, they had to
submit. I took away their arms and put every thing, with their
provisions and baggage, in my canoe, and then attacked their second
canoe, which yielded readily, having only two men, the five others
having made another canoe, which lagged behind and which I was
told should arrive the next day.
The prisoners acknowledged to me all that I have been told by
the two habitants. I put them in prison, at the fort, and set out at
once to catch the others, about four in the afternoon. At six in the
evening, I saw a canoe a league away. I made for it, but as it was
only half a league from land, and I a league and a half, before I
could prevent, it gained a point, where they landed, but around
which, for the distance of a league, it was impossible to set foot
ashore because it was a steep rock at the foot of which the waves
of the lake beat. I drew near, however, within gunshot and saw
that there were five deserters, and thieves who waited, each behind
11 Two very common words in the old French records of the Lakes are
portage, a crossing by land, and traverse, a crossing by water. The voyage
through Lake Ontario, from Fort Frontenac to the Niagara, is often called
la grande traverse. Modern English has adopted the former word, but not
the latter.

A DRAMA OF DISASTER 67
a tree, and as we afterwards learned, with their guns loaded with
three balls. I could scarce restrain my men who wished to land,
openly; but as those who paddled my canoe did not wish to go
nearer, through concern for me, I on my part would not permit them
to expose themselves, but remained with four, guns ready, to pre
vent the runaways from embarking, while I sent four others to land
at a distance and circle round in the woods behind the thieves.
They followed them by land, with guns ready; but the canoe going
too fast for them, my people made landing a league away, but night
coming on, they had to reembark and return along shore to land
nearer the cabin of the runaways, fearing that if they came by
night through the woods from a distance, the noise of rotten wood
and branches snapping under their feet would make known their
approach. They had not gone far when they encountered those they sought,
who had embarked without our seeing them, the night being very
dark. Having ordered them two or three times to stop, and seeing
that on the contrary they put themselves on the defensive, my men
charged, killing two and capturing the three others whom they
brought to me and whom I put in irons [at the fort], until the
arrival of Count Frontenac, who was expected soon.
La Salle goes on to tell how, the next day, he set out in pur
suit of those who had taken the south shore route, for the New
York colony. Head winds and heavy seas delayed him so long
that he gave up the chase. Leaving orders with Sergeant La
Fleur to watch for them, should they reappear in the lake,
La Salle completed his preparations. Undaunted by the fail
ure and losses of the year past, he now made a new start, with
plans modified by experience and the exigencies of his situa
tion. There are different accounts, seemingly at variance, of the
route he now took. Father Membre explicitly states that La
Salle left Fort Frontenac in his barque, July 23, 1680, but
was so detained on Lake Ontario that he did not reach " the
straits of Lake Conty \i. e., the Niagara] till the close of the
month of August. Everything," continues the priest,
" seemed to oppose his undertaking. He embarked in the be
ginning of September on Lake de Conty."
Parkman, relying on a letter of La Salle, says that " he

68 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
ascended the river Humber ; crossed to Lake Simcoe, and thence
descended the Severn to the Georgian Bay." Had the his
torian made further citation from what is perhaps the most
valuable of the La Salle documents, at least for this part of
his career, he would have cleared up the seeming contradiction.
La Salle, as usual, divided his forces ; went himself with 12 men
by the Simcoe route, but sent the others with the heavier freight,
by Niagara and Lake Erie. The blacksmith, two sailors, two
soldiers and a rope-maker, with boatmen and hunters, came
through the Niagara; while La Salle, Dautray, a surgeon,
three soldiers, two sawyers, two masons, and two laborers
undertook the Simcoe route, which, though shorter, was more
difficult for the transportation of heavy goods, because of the
long portage.12 The Niagara party soon lagged behind.
They carried iron, hemp, tar, sails and tools, 300 pounds of
lead, powder and guns. There were always the winds of Lake
Erie to reckon with ; and although they had left Frontenac be
fore their leader,13 yet La Salle reached Mackinac, and lingered
there, and went on, before they came.
Noel Le Blanc, apparently reconciled, was again with La
Salle. The explorer was too great to be vindictive — and
boat-builders were hard to find. There had been, also, a re
conciliation and new agreement with Moyse Hillaret.
La Salle's course towards his recalcitrant followers, was
magnanimous. We find no record of attempts at punishments ;
there is abundant record of pardon. More than 60 men, at
one time and another, deserted from his service. " It will not
be found," wrote a friendly hand,14 " that he has killed or caused
to be killed one, although he has had arrested or arrested him
self more than 20. It is true that two of them were killed in
1680, but it was neither in his presence nor by his order.
12 La Salle says he arrived at Lake Simcoe the 23d Aug. (Margry, IL,
115.) It was there he arrested two of his deserters, Gabriel Minime and
Grandmaison. is Membr6 says the departure from Fort Frontenac was on July 23d,
which may refer to the canoes that came to Niagara. La Salle says he set
out Aug. 22d. He also says he reached lake Simcoe (" au bord du lac
Toronto") on the 23d; hardly credible.
i*" Mimoir pour Monseigneur le Marquis de Seignelay," in Margry, II,
286.

A DRAMA OF DISASTER 69
These two, with their comrades, deserted from the Illinois,
stole what they could carry away, ruined the fort of the Illi
nois or of Crevecceur, and that of the Miami, carried away the
skins which he had at Mackinac, pillaged and ruined the house
of Niagara, and determined to kill him. He himself arrested
seven of them without doing them any other harm; and the
other five, refusing to surrender, and wishing to fire on his
people, two among them were killed. He had the right to
pursue them, in quality of governor and master, — and by nat
ural right as [they were] deserters, thieves, enemies and as
sassins; and he would have been blamable had he not put
forth all his efforts to capture them."
" As for the bad treatment which they say I give my people,"
wrote La Salle,15 " there is not the least truth in it, and there
is no other proof than the complaints of those who have de
serted and robbed me, to whom is given as much credence as
to honest men; and the contrary justification is easy to make,
as since that time not one has left me, not even those whom
I have pressed into service, and who have been with me seven
or eight years. Their accounts prove that I owe them noth
ing, and I hope they have done nothing except at the instiga
tion of my enemies ; but as the cabal is powereful here, I need
a strong recommendation in order to have justice."
Of the ultimate fortunes of the deserters little precise in
formation is afforded by the documents. While La Salle was
in the West, and before he learned the fate of the Griffon,
deserters from the party which he had sent on in advance had
reappeared in the East. In November, 1679, Governor Fron
tenac informed his king that Governor Andros, at " Man-
hatte," was sending all the Frenchmen that fell into his hands
to Barbadoes, but that he has retained there [New York]
and even well treated a man named Pere, and others who have
been debauched from Sieur de la Salle, with the design to
employ and send them among the Outawas, to open a trade
with them." We shall see presently how the English and
Dutch were helped in their first trading ventures on the Lakes
by renegade Frenchmen.
is La Salle, letter from MissilimacMnac, Oct., 1682. Margry, II, 290.

70 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
The names of the two who were killed near Fort Fron
tenac are not given ; nor is the treatment specified which Count
Frontenac meted out to the prisoners, save in one or two cases,
notably that of the turbulent ship-carpenter, Moyse Hillaret.
This worthy, being taken before the Intendant, DuChesneau,
made no denial of his deeds, but boldly sought to justify them.
He gave his own version of the trouble on the Illinois. He
testified that six of the men ran away from Fort Crevecceur
" about the time of the king's fete " ; 16 that Accault, Du Gay
and Father Hennepin set out on their journey to the country
of the Sioux, February 28th, and that on March 2d La Salle
left the camp with four men, for his forced march to Fort
Frontenac. After they had gone La Chapelle and Le Blanc
arrived from a fruitless journey to Lake Michigan, and told
the few men left at Fort Crevecceur that Fort Frontenac had
been seized by the Sieur Guiton and La Salle's creditors, that
La Salle was a ruined man and would never come back. So
they took counsel as to what they should do. Le Blanc's re
ports were the final discouragement needed. In Hillaret and
the blacksmith he found kindred spirits. They figured, accord
ing to Hillaret, that La Salle owed them nearly three years'
wages, at the rate of 800 livres per year for each carpenter
and 1,000 for the blacksmith. They determined to pay them
selves with anything they could lay hands on, and go away.
Hillaret's declaration 17 recites at length what they took: guns,
powder and lead, clothing, hatchets, an old kettle, canoes and
a quantity of furs. The testimony of Monjault, La Croix and
Petit-Bled agreed with that of Hillaret, who also showed a note
from La Salle, for the amount due.
At Mackinac, La Salle learned to a certainty of the ship
wreck of the Griffon. A hatch, a bit of rigging, a cabin
door, the end of a flagstaff and some bales of rotted furs,
washed ashore, told the story. In view of these and other de
tails stated by La Salle, there would seem to be little warrant
for any longer making a mystery of the fate of the Griffon,
ib "The King's fete" means the King's birthday, which in this case was
on September 5th.
" Made at Montreal before Du Chesneau, Aug. 17, 1680.

Two Alleged Portraits of La Salle
(See Appendix)

Jacques-Rene de Brisay,
Marquis de Denonville

A DRAMA OF DISASTER 71
On this journey La Salle met and arrested two others who
had deserted his service, Gabriel Minime and Grandmaison.
They were thieves and scoundrels, but he appears to have
added them to his force. The doctor above mentioned was
Jean Michel; he accompanied the explorer to the Gulf, and
he was one of the witnesses of the ceremony by which La Salle
claimed the Mississippi Valley for France, April 9, 1682.
Others who went by the Simcoe route in this summer of
1680 were Andre Henault and Pierre You, tried and trusty
men ; Tamisier, who died ; and one named Baron.
With La Salle's troubles and adventures of the months that
followed, the present chronicle is not concerned. In May,
1681, he returned to Mackinac, where he found Tonty and
Father Membre. With the latter, he continued by canoe to
Fort Frontenac, but by which route seems to be nowhere spec
ified. At Montreal, August 11, 1681, he made his will. In
it he acknowledged his great obligations to his cousin, Fran
cois Plet, to whom, in event of his own death, he gave Fort
Frontenac and its dependencies, " as well as all my rights
over the country of the Miamis, Illinois and others to the
southward, with the settlement among the Miamis, in the state
it may be at the time of my death; that of Niagara and all
others that I may make up to that period, with all the vessels,
boats, long-boats, goods, chattels and real estate, rights, priv
ileges, rents, buildings, and other things to me belonging which
may be then found thereon." So far as the Niagara was con
cerned, it was the emptiest of bequests. Long before his death,
all traces of his fleeting occupancy of these shores had van
ished.

CHAPTER VI
FOLLOWERS OF LA SALLE
Return of Accault and Hennepin — La Salle's Last Visit to
the Niagara Region — The Achievements of Tonty —
Grim Comedies of the Wilderness.
Michel Accault, Du Gay the Picard, and Father Henne
pin, after their wanderings in the land of the Sioux, accom
panied Du Lhut to Green Bay and Mackinac; at the latter
place they spent the winter of 1680—81. In the spring of
1681, Accault, Du Gay and Hennepin came by canoe through
Lake Huron and the Detroit, to the Niagara. Hennepin's ac
count of their return mentions his companions but once by
name, and always exhibits himself as the life and leader of
the journey. That he was not, we know from La Salle's own
words: "I sent a canoe up the Mississippi (fleuve Colbert)
... in charge of two of my men, Michel Accault and the
Picard, to whom the R. P. Hennepin attached himself," etc.
And Accault was still leader of the party, when they stepped
ashore above Niagara Falls. One must regret that we have
only Hennepin's account of the journey or of this his last
sojourn in the region. None of them appears to have been
burdened by any sense of obligation to La Salle. It is not
recorded that they made any effort to rejoin him, or to re
port to him the result of their travels since he sent them out.
Hennepin tells us of their success in getting game, as they
came through Lake Erie. They were " upon a large point of
land which runs itself very far into the water " — probably
Long Point — when they saw a bear far out in the lake.
" We could not imagine how this creature got there ; 'twas
very improbable that he should swim from one side to t'other,
that was 30 to 40 leagues over." It being calm, two of the men
paddled off to poor Bruin, and after firing many shots, over
came him, attached him to the canoe and towed him ashore,
" with much ado, and great hazard of their lives. We had
72

FOLLOWERS OF LA SALLE 73
all the leisure that was requisite," continues Hennepin, "for
the dressing and ordering him, so as to make him keep; and
in the mean time took out his Intrails, and having cleans'd and
boil'd them, eat heartily of them. These are as good a dish
as those of our Sucking-Pigs in Europe. His Flesh served us
the rest of our Voyage, which we usually eat with Goats-flesh,
because it is too fat to eat by itself." x
With his companions, Hennepin revisited the falls " and
spent half a Day in considering the wonders of that prodigious
Cascade." Of this, his last visit to the region, which was
apparently in May, he wrote in the " Nouvelle Decouverte "
a very long account, repeatedly referring to the cataract as of
more than 600 feet in height, with space behind the falling water
" big enough for four Coaches to drive a breast without being
wet " ; and other equally edifying observations.
They carried their canoe " from the great fall of Niagara,
as far as the three Mountains [Lewiston], which are two
leagues below, in all which way we perceiv'd never a Snake,"
though he had just assured his readers that the vicinity of the
falls was infested with them. At the mouth of the river he
looked for La Salle's fort : " We thought we should find some
Canadians at the Fort of the River which we had begun to
build, at the beginning of our Discovery : but these Forts were
only built for a Show, to cover the secret Hopes M. de la
Salle had given to the French Court." He charges La Salle
with having used the protection of the French Court for " his
own private Interest," and repeatedly assails with misrepre
sentation and more subtle implication the leader to whom he
owed everything.
" The Fort of the River of Niagara was become a deserted
place," he writes, of his last glimpse. With his companions,
he followed the south shore of the lake ; and after a stop among
the Senecas of the Genesee, crossed to Fort Frontenac, where
he found Sergeant La Fleur, still commanding in La Salle's ab
sence, and Father Luke Buisset. After a sojourn for rest
i " New Discovery," London, 1698, p. 214. Like other early writers,
Hennepin speaks of goats as a game animal in the Lakes region. Refer
ence is probably to the deer.

74 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
and devotion, he made his way to Quebec and soon sailed for
France.
It is unnecessary here to add to the literature of Hennepin,
already ample and exceedingly varied in valuation of the
priest's writings. We give him due recognition for the part he
bore in our regional history; and merely append the following
decree of Louis XIV., addressed to Governor de Callieres and
the Intendant, De Champigny, in 1699 :
His Majesty has been informed that Father Hennepin, a Dutch
Franciscan who has formerly been in Canada, is desirous of return
ing thither. As his Majesty is not satisfied with the conduct of the
Friar, it is his pleasure that if he return thither, they arrest and
send him to the Intendant at Rochefort, to whom his Majesty will
communicate his intentions in his regard.2
In August, 1681, with a new company, La Salle is once more
on the Niagara, on his way west. Of this visit Le Clercq
says : 3
We have said that Lake de Conty empties into Lake Frontenac
by a channel 14 or 15 leagues long and by a cataract or waterfall
100 fathoms high. The current of this channel is of extraordinary
rapidity. One of the canoes, launched a little below the mouth of
the lake, was carried away by the current, but the men and goods
were saved. This accident caused a delay of only one day. At
last the Sieur de la Salle, after sending new orders to the Sieur de la
Forest, commandant at Fort Frontenac, and leaving men at Fort de
Conty, embarked on Lake de Conty on the 28th of August in the
year 1681, and at the beginning of November arrived at the river of
the Miamis.
Now came the realization of his dreams, the accomplish
ment of the thing at which he had twice before failed. Down
the great river he went; and when on April 9, 1682, at the
mouth of the Mississippi, he named the region " Louisiana,"
and formally took possession of it in the name of God and
2 N. Y. Col. Docs., IX, 701.
s A footnote in Margry, II., 164, says that the discoverer returned to
the West by the Lake Simcoe route. Parkman says the same thing, with
out citing any authority. ("La Salle," ed. 1889, p. 273.) Our quotation
from Le Clercq is the narrative of Membre.

FOLLOWERS OF LA SALLE 7S
King Louis XIV, there were with him four of the men who
had first come in his service to the Niagara in 1678 and re
mained faithful ever since: Tonty, Father Membre, Dautray,
and Francois de Boisrondet. The others were Jacques
Cauchois, Gilles Meneret, Jean Dulignon, Nicolas La Salle,
and La Metairie, the notary from Fort Frontenac.
It is to be noted that La Salle, on reaching the Arkansas,
in March, 1682, took formal possession of the country, with
civil and religious ceremonies and the raising of a cross. Sim
ilar observances, in April, at the mouth of the Mississippi,
proclaimed the discovery and claimed the region for France.
But never did he or those under him, hold such service on the
Niagara or the Great Lakes. It was the customary proclama
tion of discovery; and had been made on the north shore of
Lake Erie in 1669 by Galinee and Dollier de Casson; but no
such proclamation, nor any claim to priority in the Niagara
region was ever put forward by La Salle.
La Salle retraced his way up the Mississippi, and after a
long illness reached Mackinac, whither he had sent Tonty.
The first news which came east of his exploration of the
Mississippi to its mouth came from Tonty, who at Mackinac
announced the great achievement. The lateness of the sea
son caused La Salle to abandon his plan of proceeding to
Quebec; with his lieutenant he returned to the Illinois, where
the winter of 1682—83 was spent in fortifying Starved Rock,
in trade, and in attempts to strengthen the little colony. In
the meantime Count Frontenac was recalled and was suc
ceeded as Governor of Canada by La Barre, who was no friend
to La Salle, nor inclined to give any aid in his undertakings.
On the contrary, he wrote disparagingly of him to the Minis
try, prevented supplies from being sent to him, and in the
spring of 1683 confiscated Fort Frontenac and all that La
Salle had there. In the fall of that year the explorer passed
eastward; by which route seems nowhere to be specified. He
reached Quebec in November, and finding his case hopeless in
Canada, soon after sailed for France. He was never again in
the region the history of which we here trace.
Assuredly, of all leaders of really great undertakings, who

76 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
did achieve a measure of success, and whose names are the
enduring endowment of history, Robert Cavelier de La Salle
was in some respects the most unfortunate. The ordinary
hardships of exploration were the least of his troubles. He
could meet fatigue and starvation with a light heart. The
coldness and austerity which repelled many, seemed to win him
the respect and in some cases the devoted allegiance, of the
Indian. But from first to last, throughout his great Amer
ican adventure, he was beset by a succession of misfortunes
most of which, it would seem, ordinary care and good man
agement could have averted. His vessels were wrecked, his
goods were lost, his possessions at Fort Frontenac were con
fiscated, his enemies were busy at Court. His men robbed him,
burned his buildings, and deserted. Some to whom he gave
his trust, turned traitor, and finally one of his miserable fol
lowers shot him in the back and he died in a Texas swamp.
He had a perfect genius for making enemies and a knack of
defeating his own aims by surrounding himself with untrust
worthy and incompetent men.
Of the few who remained faithful, one alone stands conspicu
ous. That one was the Italian, Tonty. He supplied the sort
of ability La Salle did not possess, and he served the adven
turer with patient and sturdy fidelity. There are few charac
ters prominent in Niagara history which stand scrutiny better,
or more enlist the admiration than the Knight Henri de Tonty,
the Man with the Iron Hand. His part in the history of the
region here under study rivals La Salle's in importance and
extends over a longer period of years.
Although there is no satisfactory or adequate biography
of Tonty, there is, seemingly without exception, among stu
dents and writers, high appreciation of his worth.4 He was
a son of the Neapolitan banker Lorenzo Tonti whose name
4 See especially "Les Tonty," by Benjamin Suite, Trans. Roy. Soc.
Canada, vol. XI; also the pamphlet, "The Man with the Iron Hand," by
Henry E. Legler. (Milwaukee, 1896.) Parkman says much of him, al
ways with warm appreciation: "There are very few names in French-
American history mentioned with such unanimity of praise as that of Henri
de Tonty. Hennepin finds some fault with him, but his censure is com
mendation." (" La Salle," ed. 1889, p. 441 note.)

FOLLOWERS OF LA SALLE 77
is preserved in the word tontine, descriptive of the insurance
system he devised. Born in 1649 or 1650, Henri became a
cadet in the French army in 1668. It was perhaps French
influence which led him to change the spelling of his family
name, numerous autographs exist showing it written " Tonty."
He also sometimes spelled his first name " Henry." He saw
much active miUtary service and in Sicily, in 1677, at the
siege of Messina, according to accepted accounts, his right
hand was torn away by a grenade. He afterwards wore a
hand of metal, covered by a glove. One esteemed writer5
says it was of silver, others say it was of iron; so that the
wearer of the metal member has come to be commonly styled
" the Man with the Iron Hand," by which picturesque and sug
gestive phrase La Salle's capable administrator is designated
in many works. But if we may trust the earliest chronicler
who mentions it, the false hand was neither of silver nor iron,
but copper. Bacqueville de la Potherie, contemporary with
Tonty, says in his history published in 1722 : " The Chevalier
de Tonty had a wrist of copper covered usually with a glove.
This gentleman, in an engagement at Messina, received a sabre-
stroke on the fist and was made prisoner. He himself cut off
the [wounded] hand with a knife, without waiting for a sur
geon to perform the operation. . . . The Indians greatly
feared it ; they called him Iron-Arm [Bras-de-F er~\ ; he often
broke their heads and teeth with a blow of the fist when he
had difficulty \derneles~\ with them. They did not know, at
first, that he had this wrist of copper." Parkman speaks of
the efficacy of this gloved member as a corrective influence
among the savages and adds that they regarded Tonty as a
" medicine " of the first class. It is clear, however, that
Tonty's ability to deal with men, be they red or white, did
not depend on his prowess in cracking skulls or knocking out
teeth. It was the Prince of Conti who recommended Tonty to
La Salle. That the explorer found him satisfactory may be
gathered from a letter which La Salle wrote to his great pa-
s " Duluth was a cousin of Tonty with the silver hand." Winsor, " Car-
tier to Frontenac," p. 273.

78 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
tron, soon after reaching America. It is dated " Quebec, Oc
tober 31, 1678," and says:
" You well know Tonty's honorable character and agreeable
disposition, but perhaps you would not have thought him equal
to tasks which call for a hardy constitution, knowledge of the
country and the use of both hands. Nevertheless, his energy
and cleverness make him equal to everything. At this mo
ment, when everybody dreads the cold, he is beginning the con
struction of a new fort, 200 miles from here, to which I have
taken the liberty of giving the name of Conti. It is situated
near the great cataract, more than 120 toises6 in height."
This letter shows what La Salle proposed for Tonty, rather
than what he had yet done. Tonty was still at Fort Fron
tenac ; and when the Niagara was reached, as preceding pages
show, his chief charge was the construction of the Griffon.
The prince to whom this letter was addressed was Louis-
Armand de Bourbon, eldest son of Armand, the first Prince of
Conti, and nephew of the great Conde. Born in 1661 he was
in his eighteenth year when in 1678 he appears as La Salle's
patron. To what extent he aided the explorer, either with
funds or influence, is not known; but that there had been sub
stantial proof of his interest and friendship is evident from
La Salle's letters, and from the great honor which he sought
to bring to his patron by bestowing on his fort, on the great
cataract, and on the lake which we know as Erie, the name of
Conti. If these were bestowed in the hope of favors to come,
there is nothing in the subsequent fortunes of La Salle to in
dicate that he profited from thus adding to the map of Amer
ica the name of one of the greatest families of Europe's most
brilliant court. The name Conti — or " Conty," for it appears
both ways with equal authority — did not long stay on the
map. Apparently no one but La Salle himself used it for the
designation of Niagara Falls. In the very year of La Salle's
death it was replaced, as the name of the fort at the river's
mouth, by Denonville, who was not too modest to give his own
eThat is, more than 750 feet! Father Hennepin's exaggeration in this
matter is familiar; but the reader will note that La Salle's letter was
written two months before Hennepin saw the Falls.

FOLLOWERS OF LA SALLE 79
name to the fort he built where the feeble Fort Conti had been.
For some years the name was retained for the lake ; but geog
raphers soon settled upon one spelling or another of the In
dian name which for a century and a half has been written
" Erie." The youthful prince whose name was so evanescent a part
of our regional history was the least distinguished of a very
distinguished line. There is a striking incongruity between
the broad plans and far-reaching ambitions of La Salle and
the relative insignificance of his patron. The few lines that
history accord him deal chiefly with his faults. Like many a
noble youth of his time, he seems to have played a man's part
while little more than a boy. But if frivolous and dissipated
at court, he was brave and capable as a soldier. He served
in the imperial army in the campaign of Hungary against the
Turks and took a brilliant part in the battle of Gran, 1685.
He died in that year, some two years before La Salle was mur
dered ; and is probably remembered far less for the aid he gave
to exploration in America than for the fact, mentioned in all
notices of him, that he married M'lle de Blois, a natural daugh
ter of Louis XIV and M'lle de La Valliere. The great beauty
of his wife has been celebrated in verse and prose by La
Fontaine and Mme. de Sevigne.
It is unnecessary to trace in detail the service of Tonty
during the years that followed. Much of it has already been
indicated. It was he who built Fort Crevecceur, as it was
he who built the Griffon. He was left in command when, in
March, 1680, La Salle, Dautray and others set out for Can
ada. Cares and privations on the Illinois brought on a long
sickness. In the summer of 1681 he was in Montreal, with La
Salle and Membre. Returning westward in August, their
loaded barque sailed from Frontenac to Trajagou.7 Of this
passing Tonty wrote : " The father and I went on board, and
landed the first day at Niagara, below the fall of the river;
there we were forced to put our baggage and merchandise upon
sledges, and so conduct them to the Lake Herie, where we re-
embarked in a canoe to the number of 20 persons, as well soul-
?On Bellin's map of 1745, Tejaiagon, near present Toronto.

80 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
diers as mariners." By the same account, they gained the
Miami, where La Salle joined them in November.
In 1682 he accompanied his chief to the mouth of the Missis
sippi, and on April 9th signed his name to the proces-verbal
by which the country was claimed for France. He came again
to the Niagara in 1687, to share in the expedition of Denon
ville against the Senecas; but the chief scene of his activities,
for some years, was Fort St. Louis of the Illinois. He ap
pears to have visited Montreal in 1696, but we have no note
of his presence on the Niagara later than 1687. In 1702 he
joined Iberville in Louisiana, and in 1704, apparently in the
vicinity of Mobile, he died. He never received any recom
pense from his Government for his long and faithful service
in America.
Henri de Tonty has sometimes been confused with his
younger brother Alphonse, who was commandant at Detroit in
1704, and later, bearing for many years an important part in
that colony. A yet younger brother bore the name of Henri,
but has no part in the history of our region.
That the example of the restless and dauntless La Salle ex
erted an influence over the young men of his time, is certain.
Many a less worthy adventurer sought to follow his course;
less indeed by way of exploration, than in prosecution of the
Indian trade. The Government of the colony found nothing
more difficult to cope with, than the unlicensed, law-defying
coureur de bois. In 1682, there was a marked outbreak of this
feve* for the forest. Many young men secretly went into the
Indian trade, without Government permits, and greatly to the
disturbance of licensed traffic. The Sieur de La Chesnaye who
at heavy cost had fitted out several canoes for western barter
complained to La Barre, who was so influenced by La Chesnaye's
representations that he issued an order addressed to the Iro
quois, giving them leave to appropriate all the goods and pel
tries which they might be able to seize from French voy
ageurs, if the latter were not able to show passports like one
which he sent to them. It was an extraordinary commission to
put in the hands of savages, and it resulted about as might
have been foreseen. As two of La Chesnaye's canoes, coming

FOLLOWERS OF LA SALLE 81
from the country of the Ottawas, laden with furs, and in the
charge of Beauvais de Tilly, essayed to pass the Niagara, they
were promptly stopped by the alert Senecas posted there, and
ordered to show their passes. As ill luck would have it, they
had either lost or left them ; whereupon the grim sentries of the
Niagara, listening to no explanation, promptly appropriated
all there was, and sent the Frenchmen on to Montreal, empty-
handed, to tell La Barre that his agents on the Niagara were
carrying out his orders. When La Barre sent De Longueuil
to the Niagara, to explain the situation and recover the goods,
the Indians retorted, " fiercely," that their young men had but
carried out the Governor's orders ; and even the adroit De
Longueuil had to return empty-handed. " Behold," says a
memoir of the time, " the first preliminary step to the cruel war
which we have sustained in consequence and which has even
threatened the abandonment of the colony." 8
In 1680 La Salle had taken his second departure from Lake
Ontario. His establishment at the mouth of the Niagara had
burned, yet the spot was one of frequent resort by Indians
of the West, and offered too much in the way of trade to be
neglected. After his chief had gone, La Fleur, at Frontenac,
stocked the barque and sent it up the lake for furs. Its re
ception at the mouth of the Niagara was notable. " Some of
the Sinnekes," says a quaint English record, " and some of the
Onnondages went aboard of a French barque att Onnyagaro,
that was come to trade there, and took out of the said Barke
a Caske of Brandy and cutt the Cable." The date of this pleas
antry is fixed by a statement that " this was done in the Gov-
er'nt of Sir Edmond Andrews [Andros]." 9
It was not the only lawless seizure at the mouth of the Ni
agara. Some three or four years later a similar incident is
reported. During an examination at Albany in 1687 the Sen
ecas acknowledged that " about a year agoe," a Frenchman
named Grandmason — an Anglicised spelling — came with a
s " M4moire sur le Canada," 1689.
8 Statement of the Five Nations to Gov. Dongan, Albany, Aug. 6, 1687.
N. Y. Col. Docs., III., 441. Andros ceased to be Governor of New York
Colony in October, 1680,

82 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
partner " to a place called Aquarage neer to Onnyagaro,"
where the Senecas and Onondagas took a hundred beaver skins
away from him ; but they justified this act as having been done
under orders, " hee having noe passe neither from His Ex-
cell'cy the Govr nor the Govr of Canada " ; but, said the In
dians, we gave the hundred beavers back again. The poor In
dian was never more perplexed than in these days of budding
rivalry for the fur trade.
" Aquarage " can not be more definitely located than that it
was near Niagara.
No authority is found to show that Count Frontenac ever
voyaged beyond the Bay of Quinte on the north, or Oswego on
the south, in the lake that for many years was designated by
his name.10 He knew of the portage at Niagara, but was mis
informed as to its length. " A person can go," he wrote, No
vember 14, 1674, in reporting Joliet's discoveries, " from Lake
Ontario and Fort Frontenac in a bark to the Gulf of Mexico,
there being only one carrying-place, half a league in length,
where Lake Ontario communicates with Lake Erie. A settle
ment could be made at this point and another bark built at
Lake Erie." «
The few records that have come down to us, of this period
on the Lakes, are wholly of acts of violence. Lake Erie was
io The allusion in a note in the Jesuit Relations (Thwaites ed., LX., 319)
to a voyage of Frontenac to Niagara in 1676, is beyond question an inad
vertence. The authority on which the editor makes the statement, is a
letter of Louis XIV. to Count Frontenac, Apr. 28, 1677; but that letter, as
printed in the N. Y. Col. Docs., IX., 126, speaks only of the Governor's
"voyage to Fort Frontenac."
The historian Brodhead makes the missionary Gamier a visitor at
Niagara in 1683. "Gamier," says Brodhead, "who for three years had
been left alone among the Senecas, now [1683] felt no longer safe, and
escaped from Niagara to Fort Frontenac." (" History of the State of
New York," 1st ed., II, 378). But the document Brodhead cites, states
that Gamier "escaped in the bark which was anchored in a little river
seven leagues from their village, and where all the Iroquois used to come
to trade." (De Meulles to De Seignelay, Quebec, July 8, 1684.) This an
chorage probably was Irondequoit, which is approximately the distance
mentioned from Garnier's mission at Gandougarae, a few miles from present
Canandaigua; but it was more than 100 miles from the mission to the
mouth of the Niagara.
" N, Y. Col. Docs., IX, 121,

FOLLOWERS OF LA SALLE 83
still too little under the sway of the white man fairly to come
as yet into history at all; but on Lake Ontario various en
counters took place, some of them vaguely recorded, while of
many more, beyond question picturesquely melodramatic, no tale
can be told. By 1682 the Iroquois, irritated by various acts
of the French, were spurring up their bravery in frenzied
dances and proclaiming their purpose " to put Onontio in the
kettle." Theft and murder became common incidents, and no
white man could count his life safe in the region through which
the Senecas ranged. Even Father Carheil was mobbed. Not
the least stirring episode of 1682 happened in the Niagara
River, where the Sieur La Marque had anchored the little
barque. He had sailed hither from Cataraqui, probably for
trade; but the playful Senecas boarded the vessel in force,
trussed up the pilot, beat the Frenchmen and made off with
1300 livres' worth of goods.12 Soon after the warrior Black
Kettle, with his band appeared at Cataraqui itself, broke into
the storeroom and carried away a quantity of clothing. Of
fenses of this sort and worse gradually accumulated, until, as
De Courcelles handed the colony over to La Barre, there was
deemed ample warrant for an expedition of chastisement.
At this time there was three primitive sailing craft on Lake
Ontario, making their base at Fort Frontenac, which was lit
tle more than a store for the Indian goods. Not merely the
sailing-craft, but fleets of laden canoes, were sent to the wild
and hazardous shores to the westward, to trade with the In
dians. The mouth of the Niagara was a favorite place for this
trade; in 1683, according to the report above cited, "there
were seven or eight canoes trading at the Falls of Niagara for
the interest of the said fort," by which statement the fault-find
ing De Meulles sought to show that Frontenac was using the
fort and the trading facilities of the lake, not for the King,
but for his own profit.
There were ever to be met the hazards of a hostile fron
tier, even at Fort Frontenac. In May, 1684, a band of Senecas
beached their canoes on the strand, and carried their peltries
12 The Abbe de Belmont records this affair, without further detail. No
mention is found of it elsewhere.

84 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
to the fort, where the storekeeper, one Champagne, made bar
ter with them; but when, through fear or niggardliness, he
refused them drink, the stalwart and reckless savages made
rough-house of the whole fort. They stole everything they
could lay hands on ; then, according to the old chronicle, " sup
posing we were at profound peace, they restored all the
merchandise," but this incredible renunciation was not until
their sportive humor had been somewhat appeased, " after hav
ing given Champagne and the handful of people there a sound
drubbing, and drank as much brandy as they pleased; which
clearly proves," triumphantly concludes our disgruntled offi
cial, " that the General uses this Fort only as a store for the
trade throughout Lake Ontario." 13
From the days of La Salle and Denonville down to the re-
establishment of the French on the Niagara, the story of Lake
Ontario appeals by its very meagerness to the imagination.
Never wholly deserted by traders, it was, as we have seen, more
than once the theater of scenes of violence and outlawry. The
French, realizing more and more its splendid possibilities, sent
into it goodly store of trading goods; and, at least until the
temporary abandonment of Fort Frontenac, kept in commis
sion one or two primitive brigantines, which skirted the for
ested shores, made port of call wherever barter could be had,
and cruised without hindrance and with no mean seamanship
these lonely wilderness waters. Wind and wave and seasons'
changes, seemingly so fickle, were then as now ; but the intrepid
navigator of those distant years had little to rely on save his
own resources and the Providence which attends the daring.
There were no charts to show channel or reef, rock or shoal,
save such as he might sketch from his own discoveries; no
lights to warn or guide; no harbors even, save such as nature
made; yet every glimpse we have of the life of old, shows the
lake sailors of those days as a happy-go-luoky crew who knew
the ins and outs of Ontario's shores, rocky isles and tortuous
channels, as no manner of men have known them since, and
who bore into every bay and anchorage the white flag of the
Bourbon kings.
w Ib.

FOLLOWERS OF LA SALLE 85
To-day, the leisured yachtsman making holiday, moors his
shining craft in some pellucid cove. As evening falls, the lap
of the wavelets at his vessel's side, the incense of his ruminative
pipe, lull his soul into a receptive sense of sights and sounds
unheeded in the bright and busy day. Dimly through the dusk,
around the neighboring point he sees a strange-shaped vessel
glide. He hears the creak of a gaff, the muffled clatter of low
ering sail, calls and commands in a tongue half known, half
strange; the splash of an anchor and the rhythm of a run
ning chain. The August moon makes silhouette of a distant
pine, the drowsy breeze brings refrain of some foolish, haunt
ing melody of the old regime, of the days when the hardy sons
of France, sailing these wilderness waters as their own, still
like the children they were, sang the songs of An jou, of Brit
tany or Lorraine. Lulled to the border-land of sleep, our sum
mer sailor vows to seek at daybreak the unknown craft — but
with the first sun-glint, his thought is for the morning plunge,
the glorious swim; and like the vanishing wisps of mist, fades
the memory of his brief and shadowy comradeship with the old-
time voyageurs and sailors of the Ontario sea.

CHAPTER VII
LA BARRE'S FIASCO
Perrot brings " the Army of the South " to Niagara — Awak
ening of English Interest in the Region — Trade Rivalry
Develops a Tragedy — Misadventures of Johannes Roose-
boom.
The student of Great Lakes history under the French is fa
miliar with the attempt made by Governor La Barre, in the
summer of 1684, to discipline the Iroquois for certain out
rages they had committed against the French. Many chron
iclers of these events have set forth the story of La Barre's ad
vance, as far as the mouth of Salmon River — the La
Famine 1 of old chroniclers — at the southeast of Lake On
tario; where they ran short of food, and sickened and died of
fever, while he concluded a truce with the Iroquois, having
gained nothing frrm them save their contempt. The expedi
tion, which was to have struck terror to the hearts of the Five
Nations, ended (as the early historian Colden delightfully sums
it up), in " a Scold between the French General and an old
Indian." Nothing ever attempted by the French in America
was more futile; yet at the outset, however lacking he may
have been in ability, La Barre displayed abundant zeal. He
talked of crushing the Iroquois; and to this end sought to
enlist all the French allies to the westward. In June two mes
sengers, the Sieurs Guillet and Hebert, were sent by the Ot
tawa route to the posts and missions of Mackinac and Green
Bay, with orders to Durantaye and Du Lhut, to gather as
many as possible of the Ottawas, Hurons and other western
enemies of the Iroquois, and come to his aid. They were to
i The exact site has been subject of much discussion. The shore forma
tion, north of Salmon River, is largely the steep sand dunes, with swamps
behind them — a formation characteristic of many places on the Lakes,
especially the east end of Ontario, and the eastern part of the north shore
of Erie. 86

LA BARRE'S FIASCO 87
rendezvous at Niagara whence they were to advance under
French escort, to operate with La Barre's force.
It was at best a costly and difficult project to carry out.
The western allies — often allies only in the fancies of the
French — were by no means eager to meet the Iroquois in the
latter's own stronghold. At Niagara they were on the border
of a region which they had learned to shun. What followed
the spreading of La Barre's order among the tribes of north
ern Michigan and Wisconsin, has been much less dwelt upon
by historians than the episode of La Famine; yet the events
in the west and at Niagara proved, in sequel, of very grave
consequence to the French colony, and demand a place in the
story of the region here under special consideration.
From this point of view, it is not La Barre who is the
principal actor, nor even his great captains, Durantaye
or Du Lhut, but a picturesque expert of the wilds, Nicholas
Perrot. Born in 1644, we only know, of his early years, that he came
to Canada, a mere lad, received some smattering of educa
tion and was soon in the service of the Jesuits as donne or
engage. Accompanying a priest to a distant mission, he be
came the practical man of the establishment, looking after the
necessaries of life while the missionary was more concerned
with things spiritual. Some years of this service, the latter
part of it among the Pottawatamies, naturally qualified Per
rot for independent action. By 1665 he had left the mission
service and was a recognized trader, and for half a century
or so his story, for the most part, belongs to Wisconsin. At
times, service for the colony, or the undertakings of trade, car
ried him far to the west and north and east; but not the least
adventurous of his experiences was his coming to the Niagara
in the summer of 1684.
La Barre had sent, none too lavishly, presents to the Otta
was and other tribes whose help he wished. They took the
guns and blankets and tobacco, but found excuses. Du Lhut
and Durantaye had in large measure failed to rouse them for
the expedition. The former meeting Perrot at Mackinac,
urged this difficult recruiting upon him. No one, said Du Lhut,

88 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
was so well qualified for this work as Perrot, " because," says
that worthy, " of the ascendency I had over their minds."
Perrot thereupon set out, " on a Sunday, after holy Mass,
to go among these nations, who listened to me and received my
presents." They only delayed to get their canoes ready, so
that eight days later 400 Ottawas, including their chiefs and
veteran warriors, were in rendezvous in Saginaw Bay. Other
bands were induced to join in; one chief visited the villages
in the vicinity and after haranguing them, came back followed
by 100 young men. Perrot was acclaimed leader of the Ot
tawas; besides whom there was a horde of the Foxes (" People
of the Bay ") and Hurons, with a considerable retinue of
Frenchmen, gathered from these distant posts.
The great flotilla set out for Niagara, but the passage down
the Lakes was a succession of difficulties. The third day out
from Saginaw a French soldier accidentally shot himself and
the Ottawas saw in his death presage of evil to come. A little
later, among the islands of the Detroit River, a herd of deer
was seen, swimming, and a young man, firing upon them from
a canoe, broke his brother's arm. " This second accident,"
writes Perrot, " made such an impression on the Ottawas that
they would have turned face-about if I had not persuaded the
father of the wounded man to oblige his son to declare pub
licly that he had only left his own country in the resolve to per
ish, arms in hand, facing the Iroquois." He did, in fact, die
later of his wound, and it required all of Perrot's tact and per
suasion to hold the Ottawas.
In Lake Erie, tempestuous weather drove them ashore, two
leagues from Long Point, and during the eight days that they
waited the Ottawas grew more and more restive, complaining
that, if they were away from home so long, their families would
starve. As they appeared quite on the point of deserting, Per
rot taunted them with cowardice.
" It is not without reason," he jeered, " that you weep for
your women. ... It is surprising that you have come even
this far. You are dastards who know nothing of war, you
have never killed men, you have never eaten one unless he were
given to you bound hand and foot."

LA BARRE'S FIASCO 89
It was a bold course to take, surrounded thus by hundreds
of angry savages, but Perrot knew his ground. They did not
lay hands on him, but they did retort with every vile word
which shame and anger could suggest. " You shall see," they
cried, " whether we are men, when it comes to fighting, and
if you don't do your duty, like us, we will break your head."
" You need not take that trouble," answered Perrot, " for at
the first war-cry you will take to your heels."
A result of these taunts was that the Ottawa chiefs stirred
up their braves, and strove among themselves as to which
should lead the others, in the great battle with the Iroquois, to
which La Barre had summoned them. Unaware of it, Perrot
had somewhat overshot the mark, and was soon to find himself
in grave danger from an excess of zeal, more embarrassing than
the cowardice of which he had accused them.
Another contretemps befell. During the detention at Long
Point, some Ottawas in the woods, amusing themselves by
whistling like deer, were mistaken by some Frenchmen for the
animals they imitated; a glimpse of white, seen through a
thicket whence the whistling came, was taken by the Frenchman
for the breast of a stag, at which he fired ; wounding not only
the wearer of the shirt, but another Ottawa who followed him.
Once more the camp of the Ottawas was thrown into a fever
of excitement, anger and fear contending; they were plainly
foredoomed; but some of the bolder accused the French of
treachery : it was high time to abandon the expedition when the
French had begun to kill them.
Once more Perrot assembled the chiefs and reasoned with
them. The wounded man was brought forward to prove that
though wounded he was not dead. Under Perrot's stimulating
influence this one declared that he(was going to die further on
— beyond the Niagara, in the land of the Iroquois — and that
he had left his own country for that purpose. One of the
braves, uncle to the wounded man, addressed the crowd. " You
may all quit and go home," he cried, " but as for me and my
nephew, we shall follow the French everywhere." An example
of this sort sufficed. Once more the Ottawa hordes were pla
cated, and all continued the route.

90 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
Could one have stood, on a September day of that long-van
ished year, on the sightly bluff where now citizens of Buffalo
love to resort of a summer evening, overlooking the outlet
of Lake Erie, he would have gazed upon a wonderful sight.
Paddling around the point of the western (now the Canada)
shore, and gliding into the swift current of the Niagara, came
canoe after canoe, the large decorated war canoes of the Up
per Lakes, manned by a horde of lithe, stalwart, naked war
riors, with much, no doubt, of grease and vermilion, something
of feathers and bear-claw necklaces, and beyond question, oc
casionally a din of yelling. More and more they came, an
endless flotilla, until the river as far as eye could scan, was
alive with them; borne swiftly down, until, where the river di
vides and slackens, above Grand Island, they swept into the
western channel, crossing at Buckhorn Island, and before long
landed above the Falls and began the great portage. There
were more than 700 warriors, all told: Some 600 Ottawas,
Foxes, Sacs and Hurons; with 150 French, summoned from
many a remote post of western lake and prairie, scarcely less
wild than their red-skinned comrades ; and with them, among
other officers, Du Lhut, the greatest of the coureurs du bois,
Durantaye, and Perrot. Red men and white, it was the great
est oncoming the Niagara had known within recorded days.
No such retinue attended La Salle, or the arduous progress of
the missionary priests. The West had come, under special
spur, and in league with France, in angry mood, to smite once
and for all, the mighty League of the Iroquois.
While this " Army of the South," as La Barre called it,
was making the portage around the falls, spies were sent down
to the mouth of the river, not so much to look out for ene
mies, as to see if any vessels had come. While still in their
wigwams at Mackinac or Green Bay they had been made ex
pectant of finding here, arms, ammunition and food. They
found nothing, nor sign of any boat or messenger. The
French, then, had deceived them, perhaps entrapped them!
Bringing their boats and burdens by the old path down Lewis-
ton Heights, and paddling down the quiet stretch of river to

LA BARRE'S FIASCO 91
Lake Ontario, came the horde of western tribesmen, and with
them the perplexed French. Flaming with passion, the Ottawa
chiefs demanded a council.
" You have told us," cried their spokesman, " that we are
not men. We will show you, Frenchmen, that we are brave;
and we tell you, that since you have lied to us, promising us
fine things which we don't see, we are going to the Iroquois
village." Perrot and his companions tried to dissuade them from the
rash attack which their threat implied, and urged them to
wait. " The vessels have been delayed by head winds," they
said, but the Indians doubted. Then it was proposed that the
chiefs go on with the French in their canoes by the north shore,
to Fort Frontenac, " where the French would give us news of
the army; and there we would await the army or follow it if
it had taken the field." The Ottawas now taunted the French,
for lack of valor ; and while some were for going to Frontenac,
others clamored for an advance on the Iroquois, the braves
making a great hubbub. The French argued that it was im
prudent to lead 300 Frenchmen against 1500 Senecas, under
the escort of the Ottawas, already exhausted with the march
and under the influence of bad omens. Messengers went to the
Ottawa camp, to reason with them. As soon as they were
told that the French, who until then had been masters of the
march, now gave them liberty to lead, " they did not hesi
tate," says the old historian La Potherie, " to put their canoes
in the water and set out on the north shore route, which they
had ardently wished to do, leaving behind those of a contrary
opinion." Camp was made that night on the lake shore. At midnight
they were startled by the report of a gun across the water
opposite the camp. " To arms ! " they cried. " The Ottawas
showed their zeal by running to the guards. Then they heard
a voice which said in the Ottawa tongue, that a French vessel
had come to Niagara. Everything that had passed was for
gotten and joy became universal. Eight Ottawas arrived im
mediately in a canoe, and reported that a barque had anchored

92 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
the evening before in view of Niagara. The officers dis
patched a canoe to inform [the vessel] of the arrival of the
Ottawas, who would at once repair there."
" When the Ottawas learned, on returning to Niagara,
that peace had been made with the Iroquois, they belched a
thousand abuses upon the French, who however persuaded
the more important chiefs to go to Montreal to see the Gov
ernor General."
There appear to be but two contemporary or original ac
counts of the coming of the western tribes to the Niagara in
1684: Perrot's own journal, and the history of La Potherie,
first published in 1722. Both are at times obscure. La Hon-
tan, who was with La Barre in the expedition to La Famine,
merely alludes to the western recruits. La Barre himself, in
his memoir dated Quebec, October 1, 1684, says: "I had or
dered one of the barks to go to Niagara to notify the army of
the South to return by Lake Erie to Missilimakinack ; she had
a favorable passage ; found it had arrived, only six hours pre
viously, to the number of 700 men, 150 French and the re
mainder Indians." A number of the chiefs accompanied the
French officers to Montreal where La Barre did what he could
to placate them. As for the horde of disappointed savages,
they made their sullen way up the Niagara and back over the
hundreds of weary miles to their western lodges. There was
no heart left in them, in spite of all their boasting, for an
attack on the Iroquois; but there was kindled a great resent
ment towards the French.

In 1683 there was issued from the Paris printing shop of
Sebastian Hure's widow, " Rue St. Jacques, at the Picture of
St. Jerome, near St. Severin," the first and most trustworthy
of Father Hennepin's works, the " Description de la Louisiane."
This little duodecimo, long since become one of the scarce and
costly Americana sought for and treasured by discriminating
bibliophiles, not only gave to the world the first circumstantial
account of scenes and events in the incomparable Niagara
region during La Salle's visits, sojourn and departure, 1678-9,

LA BARRE'S FIASCO 93
but made plain alike to France and to her jealous neighbors,
the audacious enterprise with which the courtiers of Louis
were pressing on in the far wilderness of America to gain new
dominions for his crown. It is a striking fact that, although
the adventures of La Salle, as graphically narrated by the
Recollect, must have attracted considerable attention, and
could hardly have escaped the cognizance of Charles II. and his
ministers, yet no English publisher seemed to think it worth
while to make what no English public called for — an Eng
lish translation of the book. True, the Enghsh of that day,
who could read at all, were quite as likely to know French
as English; yet translations were then published of other
French works. The " Louisiane " was not translated. New
editions did not follow each other in the Sixteenth century
with the rapidity of the present, but their issuance was per
haps more significant. In 1684 another Paris printer, Amable
Auroy, issued more copies of the priest's wonderful adventures,
and four years later still another Paris edition appeared. The
work was printed in Italian at Bologna, in 1686, in Dutch at
Amsterdam in 1688, and in German at Nuremberg in 1689 and
again in 1692. Of this and Hennepin's other works edition
followed edition, in several languages and with many variations,
to test or tantalize the modern bibliographer; yet the
" Louisiane " was not reprinted in England, nor has it been
from that day to this; though to no people in the world, the
French excepted, did these inland exploratory enterprises
carry so much significance. To the English it was the sig
nificance of a menace. The only edition of Hennepin's
" Louisiane " in the English tongue was published in New
York in 1880, by the translator, the indefatigable John Gil-
mary Shea.
It was in the same year that the now quaint and rare
" Louisiane " was sent out from the Widow Hure's shop, that
Colonel Thomas Dongan was sent out by the British Crown to
be Governor of the colony of New York. The colony had been
English less than 10 years ; it was still only English by treaty,
rather than by any preponderance of English population. Up
to his coming, the Niagara frontier, as a vantage ground for

94 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
trade or a strategic point for war, seems not to have attracted
the attention of either the English or the Dutch. But Don
gan immediately turned his thoughts to the far western
regions inhabited by the Five Nations whose allegiance was so
essential not only to the security of the English towns, but to
the prosecution of the fur trade. In 1684, at Albany, a treaty
was held with these nations. The Senecas were represented
and formally submitted to King Charles and by that acquies
cence nominally put the region under the British rule. It
may be noted, in passing, that the next year when the Duke of
York came to the throne, he decreed that the Archbishop of
Canterbury should hold ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the
whole colony of New York. Those students who delight in
determining the first visitor, the first settler, the first in au
thority and the like, for a given region, will not fail to note
the significance of the above decree. As a matter of fact,
however, nothing is more unlikely than that the Senecas who
sojourned on the Niagara at this period, or even the Dutch
and English traders who gave them rum for beaver-skins, ever
heard of the Archbishop of Canterbury, or cared a copper for
his ecclesiastical jurisdiction, either on the Niagara or even in
the settlements on the Hudson.2
Many a student of this period of American history has found
delight in the correspondence between Governor Dongan of
New York, and La Barre's successor, the Marquis de Denon
ville. Their letters are not only delightful, but exceedingly
illuminating. The official exchange of epistles began with
formality and courtesy; but presently each was accusing the
other of bad faith and underhand dealing. Strong feeling
was developed, and as it blazed into wrath, the truth came
out. Chief among matters in dispute was the right of the
English, which Dongan claimed and Denonville indignantly
denied, to trade with the Western tribes. Dongan, on the other
hand, taxed the French with violation of treaty agreements in
z Dongan's instructions laid emphasis on the necessity of winning over
the Iroquois from the French. See, Sir John Werden to Dongan, Nov. 1,
1684; same to same, Dec. 4, 1684; etc. In August, 1685, we find Dongan
recommending that the English build a fort " on this side of the great lake,"
i. e., Ontario; and in Feb., 1687t that one be built at "Oneigra."

LA BARRE'S FIASCO 95
attempting to establish themselves on the Niagara. The con
tention, involving as it did, the British claim to right of access
to the Lakes, has received some attention from historians, but
not, as is called for in the present study, with particular re
gard to the Niagara region.
What with the work of the missionaries, of La Salle and his
companions, the French had come to look upon the Great Lakes
as their own. Dongan, caring only for the region because of
the beaver trade, ignored and denied these sweeping claims.
He knew something of La Salle's operations on the Niagara.
Now early in 1686 word came to him by a deserter from Canada
that the French proposed to establish themselves there once
more; whereupon he wrote from Albany, May 22d, to Denon
ville: " I am informed that you are intended to build a fort at a
place called Ohniagero [Niagara] on this side of the lake
within my Master's territorys without question (I cannot be-
leev it) that a person that has your reputation in the world
would follow the steps of Mons. Labarr, and be ill advised
... to make disturbance . . . for a little pelttree."
Denonville replied that the deserter's story was " devoid of
all foundation," yet wanted it understood that the region in
question was indisputably under French control. " Certainly
you are not well informed," he wrote, " of all the entries into
possession [prises de possessions] which have been made in
the name of the King my Master, and of the establishments of
long standing which we have on the land and on the lakes;
and as I have no doubt but our Masters will easily agree among
themselves ... I willingly consent with you that their
Majesties regulate the limits among themselves, wishing noth
ing more than to live with you in good understanding; but
to that end, sir, it would be very a propos that a gentleman, so
worthy as you, should not grant protection to all the rogues,
vagabonds and thieves who desert and seek refuge with you,
and who, to acquire some merit with you, believe they cannot
do better than to tell you many impertinances of us, which will
have no end so long as you will listen to them."
Dongan was not the man to let such an observation pass

96 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
without retort. He did more : he fitted out an English expedi
tion and sent it up the Lakes after furs. It is the first known
appearance on these Lakes of any white men save in French in
terest. No detailed account of that expedition is known. We do
know that in the fall of 1685 Dongan licensed certain men of
his colony, to trade English goods among the tribes to the
westward. He granted such a permit to Abel Marion la Fon
taine, one of the deserters of whom the French Governor had
complained. His name appears in various forms in the early
records, but the " Marion " of one report, the " Abell Mar-
rion " of another and " La Fontaine Marion " of a third, are
one and the same. As he had experience on the Lakes, his pres
ent service was to act as guide and interpreter. Leadership of
the expedition was entrusted to Johannes Rooseboom, a young
Dutchman of Albany, member of a family long prominent in
New York colony. Eleven canoes, laden with goods for bar
ter and the indispensable rum, set out from Schenectady, made
their way up the Mohawk and by the Oneida lake route to
Ontario. Skirting the south shore to Niagara, they made the
great portage and paddled into Lake Erie — the first white
men, not French or in French service, known to have reached
these waters. It was a bold and hazardous undertaking, but
Rooseboom proved equal to it. A swift course was taken to
the Upper Lakes, where they were welcomed by the Hurons and
Ottawas, who had never received so much for their furs, or
tasted a more agreeable liquor than the rum which answered its
purpose even better than the Frenchman's brandy. With
canoes deeply laden with furs, Rooseboom made his way back,
unharmed, notwithstanding that Denonville sent an officer to
Niagara to stop him. Rooseboom merits some distinction in
the annals of the Great Lakes, for this achievement. The ex
pedition had been accomplished in three months, and Dongan
was so pleased that he proposed another for the next year.
His correspondence with Denonville, after this adventure,
naturally did not abate in plain speaking. Both gentlemen
were Catholics, and the French Governor had counted on this
unity of faith for some cooperation, at least in matters per-

LA BARRE'S FIASCO 97
taining to the spiritual welfare of the savages: but Dongan,
good Catholic as he was, was ever alert for the interests of his
own king and colony.3 Moreover, he had the Irish gift of wit.
When Denonville indignantly wrote : " Think you, Sir, that
Religion will make any progress whilst your merchants will sup
ply, as they do, eau de vie in abundance, which as you ought
to know, converts the savages into demons and their cabins into
counterparts and theatres of Hell," Dongan blandly replied:
" Certainly our Rum doth as little hurt as your Brandy and
in the opinion of Christians is much more wholesome."
In due time — nor was it long, for news spread fast even in
those days — Denonville learned of this English invasion. Re
porting it to the Minister, Seignelay, he urged the construc
tion of a strong French post at Niagara, to put a stop to fur
ther English expeditions.
The year 1686 was a year of preparation. Denonville had
no intention of repeating La Barre's fiasco of 1684. Immedi
ately on declaring war, he wrote, early in the year, to the Min
ister, his intention was " to fortify in the best possible manner
the post at Niagara ; this is of the greatest consequence in order
both to furnish the people facilities of getting their peltries
from the Outawas and other distant places, and to secure a
retreat for the Illinois, in case they be pressed by the Iroquois.
But it would be proper to send masons from France, as the
wages of those of this country are 3 livres and 3 livres 10 sous
a day, and they are moreover indifferent workmen. It is so
much the more necessary to fortify that post," he added, " as it
is to be feared that the English will seize on it, if not antici
pated." The general apprehension of all Canada spoke in
that sentence. Since the advent of the vigorous Dongan the
apparition of the English on the Niagara haunted every hour
of the French. The Minister replied in due season that His
Majesty approved of fortifying the mouth of the Niagara, but
the Governor must be very careful to keep expenses down ; and
the faithful Colbert lays down two things to be observed:
8 A tablet in Gov. Dongan's memory, erected in 1911, on St. Peter's
church in Barclay Street, New York City, by the Knights of Columbus, is
a merited if tardy tribute to his worth and services.

98 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
First, Denonville was not to build but one fort a year, begin
ning with the most urgent ; second, he was to " construct only
slight fortifications, suitable for warding off a surprise, as he
has not to do with any power capable of carrying on a siege,
so that a simple wall with loop-holes (creneaux), and a ditch
and palisades outside, are the only works admissible in that
country." The King further told the Governor that he must
make the soldiers do the work, but that " 4 or five masons and
20 laborers " should be sent. It is touching to find, in this
same letter, an anxious inquiry from the King as to the where
abouts of La Salle. " Let him [Denonville] communicate
every particular he will learn of that gentleman, and afford
him every protection he will stand in need of, should he return."
When Denonville upbraided Dongan, that vigorous adminis
trator warned him not to build any fort " at a place called
Ohniagero [Niagara] on this side of the Lake — within my
Master's territories, without question," and immediately set
about fitting out another expedition.
Operations were planned on a more ambitious scale than in
the preceding year. The adventurers were to go up the Lakes
and among the western tribes, in two divisions. The first di
vision left Albany September 11, 1686. Captain Rooseboom
again led the party, with the refugee La Fontaine as guide.
Some Englishmen may have been included, but most of the men
were youths of Albany, members of prominent Dutch families.
Among them were sons of Arent Schuyler, and Johannes, eldest
son of Jan Jansen Bleecker. Numbering 34 in all (" 29
Xtians, 3 Mohoukes and 2 Mahikander Indians " — i. e. Mo
hawks and Mohicans), with 20 canoes, the expedition came as
before, up the Mohawk and through Oneida Lake, its passage
being promptly reported to Denonville by the Jesuit James de
Lamberville ; but though the French might learn of their pass
ing they could not stay them. Rooseboom and his band, which
included two Indians from each of the Five Nations, were to
winter among the Iroquois, proceeding to their western trade
in the spring. This they appear to have done, though no
record is known of their experiences until spring. Having
passed through Oneida Lake in the fall, as we know from

LA BARRE'S FIASCO 99
Lamberville's report, and relying on their canoes for further
progress, they probably wintered in the vicinity of the Oswego,
coming on to the Niagara in the spring ; unless they had passed
the Niagara before winter checked them, in which case they
msut have hibernated at some spot on the north shore of Lake
Erie. In either event they were the first white men, not French,
to sojourn in the region. In May they continued their way
towards Mackinac.
As soon as the waterways were free from ice, in the spring
of 1687, Dongan dispatched a second division of this party of
traders, entrusting its command to an interesting character,
" a Scotch gent named McGregor." Dongan's " Scotch gent "
was Colonel Patrick MacGregorie, who had come to America
from Scotland, with a number of followers, in 1684. According
to Dongan, he had formerly served in France, and, plausibly,
brought with him certain prejudices which in the New York
colony did not impair his value for the bold service he was
now to undertake. After an apparent residence on Staten
Island he removed to the Highlands, turned his attention to the
Indian trade and mastered the Indian tongue — probably the
Mohawk. It is plain that he enjoyed the friendship of Don
gan, who in 1686 appointed him Muster Master General of the
Militia of the Province of New York, and soon after, in the
same year, commissioned him for this expedition. Dongan
gave him orders " not to disturb or meddle with the French.
I hope," he adds, " they will not meddle with him." The hope
was natural but futile, for the Scotch colonel was considerably
meddled with before he got back.
MacGregorie's band set out with 20 laden canoes. Like
Rooseboom's party, they made the dread Niagara portage —
dreaded both for its toil, and for the risk of attack — and
passed swiftly through Lake Erie, unharmed. Promptly
learning of their passage, Denonville sent Desbergeres and an
armed force to the Niagara, to intercept their return. Des
bergeres and his men haunted the lower reaches of the river,
but events to the westward made their precautions unneces
sary. The two English parties had been ordered to join forces at

100 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
or near Mackinac, and on completing their trading to return
by the Niagara route to Albany, under the command of Mac-
Gregorie. All would have gone well had the French been
less alert; but Denonville, having resolved to attack the Iro
quois in this summer of 1687, had sent orders to his lieutenants
at western posts to come on to Niagara, with such French and
Indian forces as they could muster, and join his army in its
proposed raid. Obeying these orders, early in May, La
Durantaye with a horde of savage followers, paddling south
along the Lake Huron coast some 60 miles from Mackinac, sud
denly encountered Rooseboom's party, bound north. No spe
cial correspondent or moving pictures have recorded for us
what happened, nor is there any very graphic account of it.
Something of struggle, fierce and picturesque, there inevitably
was. Rooseboom and his men were all made prisoners and
their goods " which would have bought 8,000 beavers," were
confiscated and pillaged. There appears to have been a re
turn to Mackinac, no doubt a debauch and a distribution of
English goods on far easier terms to the savage recipient than
even the unlucky Dutchmen had contemplated.
Soon Durantaye and his greatly augmented company, in
cluding the prisoners, took their exultant way once more down
Lake Huron. Below Fort St. Joseph, " at the Detroit of
Lake Erie," they fell in with DuLhut, from the Detroit post,
and Tonty who had come on from the Illinois country, with his
wild recruits. All then coming on towards the Niagara, they
encountered MacGregorie and his party. The disparity of
force was too great for long resistance. The three French
officers now had a horde of savages — by one account 1500.
That MacGregorie was a stout-hearted adventurer, may be
granted ; but surrender was preferable to death. The French
appropriated all his trading goods, " which by computation
would have purchased to that Troop eight or nine thousand
Beavers " ; and with the two parties of English captives, con
tinued on the way to Niagara. Both divisions of Dongan's
force had been well supplied with rum, which some of the west
ern Indians had never tasted. "The French divided all the
Merchandize among the Indians, but kept the Rum to them-

LA BARRE'S FIASCO 101
selves, and got all drunk," says Colden's early chronicle. It
was a critical time, for while the carouse was on, a part of the
Indians were trying to persuade another part to kill the French
and cast in their lot with the English. These arguments failed,
and as soon as the rum allowed, the consolidated expedition con
tinued its way toward Niagara.
It is a picture which the imagination may be allowed to
dwell upon: the triumphant French, with their English and
Dutch prisoners under guard, if not in thongs, and none too
tenderly cared for ; the horde of exultant and painted savages
from the north and west. The advance was by canoe, a pic
turesque train of crowded barques, the red warriors making
the wooded walls of Lake Erie echo with their cries. French,
Dutch, English and Indians together, it surpassed in diversity
and in numbers La Barre's " Army of the South " of 1684.
It was no slight achievement for Durantaye, Tonty and Du
Lhut to have gathered this host of western Indians, and to
bring them in fair accord to the banks of the Niagara, scene
of their disappointment of three years before. That these
officers had thus been able to overcome the natural resentment
of the western tribes towards the French speaks well for their
tact and ability in so difficult a service. The savages were no
doubt strengthened for the time being in their allegiance to the
French by the two-fold victory on the Lakes. For the mo
ment, among the motley horde at the mouth of the Niagara,
British influence had disappeared.
Whoever attempts to trace the story of the Niagara fron
tier at this period in all its bearings will find himself led far
afield. While Dongan was so stoutly maintaining his sov
ereign's rights, that sovereign himself, swayed by the exigencies
of European politics, was taking steps which largely nullified
Dongan's efforts. Louis had sent to London a special am
bassador, the Count d'Avaux, " on purpose " to bring about an
amicable settlement of disputed boundaries in America — which
meant Hudson's Bay to the north, the Niagara and Lakes region
to the south. It was found " a thing which it was not possible
to decide." Later, King James through his Ministers pro
posed a Treaty of Neutrality. This treaty, signed at White-

102 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
hall November 26,4 1686, pledged the rival Powers to maintain
peace between their subjects in America, and that neither
should interfere with the other in his war upon " wild Indians."
The treaty did not mention the Iroquois as subjects of Great
Britain, and therefore virtually authorized Denonville to con
tinue his operations against them, while it restrained Dongan
from interfering. This treaty was received at New York, and
published as law required, June 8, 1687. Anthony L'Espinard
of Albany was dispatched to Canada with a copy of it for
Denonville's edification. That official however had already
received a copy of it direct from King Louis, with orders to
execute it. More important yet was the coming of 800 French
regulars, under the command of Philippe de Rigaud, Chevalier
de Vaudreuil, a soldier who is to play an important part in our
story. Thus strengthened both by royal approval and by
troops, Denonville hastened his preparations for a campaign
against the Iroquois.
The Treaty of Neutrality weakened the British cause in that
it did not specify that the Iroquois were British subjects.
While the French had good ground for disputing it, the mere
claim, if it had the sanction of a treaty, would have given Don
gan ample warrant for arming the Iroquois and for insisting
on a British establishment for trade on the Lakes or the
Niagara. Without that warrant, he assumed rights which
the treaty did not give him, and continued to deal with the
Iroquois so far as they would consent, as though they were ac
knowledged subjects of his king.
* Nov. 10, O. S.

CHAPTER VIII
DENONVILLE'S CAMPAIGN
The Expedition op 1687 — The Case of Marion La Fontaine —
The Building and Abandonment of Fort Denonville — ¦
Father Lamberville's Narration — Conflicting Records.
Denonville's great captains of the West — Durantaye, Du
Lhut, Tonty and La Forest — with their traders, coureurs de
bois and savages, and with the militant Jesuit from Mackinac
Mission, Rev. Jean Enjalran, made camp at the mouth of our
river, June 27th. De la Forest, who on many occasions was
the messenger, hastened by canoe along the north shore of
Lake Ontario, to inform Denonville that the western allies
were at Niagara. The day before he set out from Niagara
a barque had sailed for that point from Frontenac, loaded with
provisions and ammunition. Denonville heard with satisfac
tion of the capture of the English and Dutch traders, and has
tened the preparations for his great assault upon the Iroquois.
His army which with great toil and some loss had been 18 days
in coming from Montreal to Frontenac, mustered about 2,000
men, regulars, militia and Indians. Leaving a reserve force
at this post, he set out July 4th for the south shore and on the
10th landed at the appointed rendezvous, now known as Iron-
dequoit Bay. As his 400 canoes and bateaux drew near shore,
they were joined by the force from Niagara. From Quebec
on the east, from villages on the Upper Lakes a thousand miles
removed to the westward, the two forces had chanced to reach
the appointed rendezvous at the same hour. It was not merely
the red man who saw in this fortunate arrival omen of a suc
cessful undertaking. The party which had come down the
Lakes included " about 180 of the most active men of the colony
and about 400 savages." These figures, reported to Denon
ville by La Forest, must be accepted as more trustworthy than
the 1,500, which was reported by some of the captives.
As soon as camp was made Denonville considered the cases
103

104 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
of the prisoners, in whose abject persons he saw the humiliation
of his redoubtable rival, Dongan. Men like MacGregorie and
Rooseboom were dangerous encumbrances especially at the
opening of a doubtful campaign against the Iroquois. All of
the prisoners therefore were sent on to Frontenac, under
guard; all except the Frenchman, La Fontaine, who in a way
was held accountable for the intrusion of the first English
force into the region of the Great Lakes. By Denonville's
order, he was shot.
There is no mention in Denonville's journal of the execution
of La Fontaine. Even a great general, in relating his own
deeds, may be reticent on such a point; especially, as was the
case in this instance, when it was freely denounced as without
warrant. There was in Denonville's expedition, a most in
teresting character, the Baron La Hontan, in whose adven
tures the curious student of the history of our region will find
much entertainment. Years after, in 1703, in a book published
at Amsterdam, La Hontan told the story of the military mur
der of La Fontaine. He was " unjustly shot to death," says
La Hontan. " His case stood thus : Having traveled fre
quently all over this continent, he was perfectly well acquainted
with the country, and with the savages of Canada; and after
the doing of several good services for the King, desired leave
from the Governor-General to continue his travels, in order to
carry on some little trade; but his request was never granted.
Upon that he resolved to remove to New England, the two
Crowns being then in peace. The planters of New England
gave him a very welcome reception; for he was an active fel
low, and one that understood almost all the languages of the
savages. Upon this consideration he was employed to con
duct the two English convoys . . . and had the misfortune
to be taken along with them. Now to my mind, the usage he
met with from us was extremely hard; for we are in peace
with England ; and besides, that Crown lays claim to the prop
erty of the Lakes of Canada."
De Baugy, who was aide de camp to Denonville, explicitly
says in his journal: x " This same day [July 11] a French-
i " Journal d'une expedition contre les Iroquois en 1687," etc. This in-

DENONVILLE'S CAMPAIGN 105
man was made to ' pass by the arms.' He had been captured
with some of the English and had been a deserter from the
colony for several years. He was executed in conformity with
an order which M. the Marquis had received from His
Majesty." 2
In the Rooseboom party were two Dutchmen, Nanning
Harmetsen and Fredrych Harmetsen. In MacGregorie's com
mand was Dyrick van der Heyder. These three worthies, after
many adventures, reached New York, where on September 7,
1687, they were summoned before Mayor Nicholas Bayard and
made a sworn statement of what had befallen them. To this
statement we are indebted for some of the foregoing particu
lars. The Dutchmen averred that all the members of Roose-
boom's and MacGregorie's parties were carried prisoners to
Niagara, where the French had now (at the time of their de
position) built a fort. From Niagara all of the prisoners save
one were sent to " Cadarackque " (Kingston). There they
" were very barbarously treated ... by the French Com
mander inforcing them to labour grievous hard in drawing the
Bark to bring materialls for to strengthen and building the
Fort and otherwise." They were afterward sent to Montreal,
then to Quebec, where they " were put out to farmers and
others for to work for their victuals." If Rooseboom and
MacGregorie were better treated than the rest the narrative
does not reveal it. The three Dutchmen and one other made
their escape in the night from Quebec and five days later
reached Albany, making the journey by water. They had
other experiences interesting in themselves, but less intimately
associated with our immediate subject than the fate of the one
prisoner above excepted. The Dutchmen said they all " were
sent from Onyagra [Niagara] to Catarackque a Fort beyond
the Lake, except Abell Marrion one of Captain Roseboom's
teresting and useful journal had its first and only publication in Paris in
1883 — 296 years after it was written. No translation has appeared.
2 According to an undated Memoir on Canada (No. 474, MS. in Quebec
Provincial Archives) La Fontaine underwent still another form of death:
" Le conseil de guerre fut tenu qui condamna La Fontaine Marion a avoir
la teste cassie; ce qui fut exicutie sur la champ." — Coll. de Manuscrits
. . . relatifs a la Nouvelle France, I, 561.

106 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
Troop was by sentence or order of Gov'r De Nonville shott to
death because hee was Frenchman born, altho' a subject of
his Majesty of England and having a passe from his Ex-
cellcy [Dongan] with the rest of the Troop." From this the
inference would be warrantable that " Marrion " was shot at
Niagara — the first of war's victims under the English flag
on the Niagara border. It is not safe, however, to rest con
clusions even on such a contemporary affidavit. The Dutch
men were ignorant men ; they were prisoners themselves when at
Niagara and no doubt swore, in their statement before Mayor
Bayard, not only of things they themselves had seen, but to
what they had merely been told at Cataraqui, Montreal and
Quebec. The narratives of La Hontan and De Baugy leave
no room for doubt in the matter.
Rooseboom and MacGregorie were taken to Montreal.
Later in the same year they were released, under orders from
France, and lost no time in returning, the former to his family 3
8 See " A Brief History of the Ancestors and Descendants of John Rose-
boom (1739-1805) and of Jesse Johnson (1745-1832)," Cherry Valley, N. Y.
[1897]. The first American Roseboom (the name being variously spelled,
in early records, Roosenboom, Rooseboom, Roseboom) was Hendrick
Yannsen Rooseboom, who appears to have come from Holland about 1655.
In 1662 he bought a house and lot "in the village of Beverwyck on the
hill," now a part of Albany. All of the Albany Rosebooms are descended
from him. His son. Captain Johannes the trader, was probably born in
Albany in 1661. After the episode above recorded he appears to have
settled down at Albany to less adventurous ways. He married Gerritje
Coster in 1688. In 1692 he was an assistant alderman and in 1700 alderman
of the 2d Ward, holding office several times. In 1700 he was serving at
Fort Albany as Lieutenant in Captain Johannes Bleecker's Company. . . .
He was "buried in the church," Jan. 25, 1745, aged about 84. It is
worthy of note that a grand-nephew of Captain Johannes Roseboom
(grandson of his younger brother Myndert), was the Major (afterwards
Colonel) Myndert Roseboom who was adjutant, or assistant adjutant of
the division of General Amherst's army which in 1759, under Prideaux,
went against Fort Niagara. An original Order-book which he kept on that
expedition begins April 13th, with the troops at Albany, the orders being
given by Colonel Corsa, under Colonels "Pridieu," Johnson (afterwards
Sir William), and Bradstreet. Some of the regiments are as given by
Roseboom, "the 44th, L. Royals, late Forbeses, Inniskillings, Royal High
landers, Abercrombie's, Mury's, Pardoe's and four battalions of Royal
Americans." Only a part of these went to Niagara. Leaving Albany May
8th, he is with the troops as they march through the Mohawk "Valley, the
supplies being carried in whale-boats and bateaux on the river, and reach
ing Oswego on June 27th, where the book closes.

DENONVILLE'S CAMPAIGN 107
in Albany, the latter to New York. Sir Edmund Andros sent
him, the next year, against the Indians east of Pemaquid. He
was eventually killed in the city of New York, in March, 1691,
in an attempt to reduce the Leisler party, which held the fort
against the Government. The last trace of Patrick Mac
Gregorie is a statement that he was buried with public honors.
The men who came to Canada in 1685 with Denonville (350
soldiers, 20 officers) formed neither a regiment nor a battalion,
but were added to the militia under the misleading title, " De
tachment of the Marine." They were not a detachment, but
a corps complete of themselves, and formed no part of any
regiment from France. They were not of the Naval service
(" La Marine "), but were equipped and paid by the " Bureau
of the Marine and the Colonies " which governed Canada. The
permanent militia which from 1670 to 1760 furnished the small
garrisons of Canada came also to be called " the Marine."
Originally the service of the Detachment was that of scouts
and skirmishers (eclair eur s, tirailleurs), being exempt from or
dinary maneuvers of battalion and regiment. It was an ideal
troop for the American service, though Denonville's experi
ence of 1687 may have somewhat shaken his faith in it. The
officers, originally all French, were gradually replaced until,
from about 1710, they were all Canadians. When occasion re
quired more men for service, these officers assumed command of
the militia recruits who in time of peace were farmers and small
tradesmen. At the close of the French regime the Marine, sol
diers and officers alike, were all Canadian, and with few ex
ceptions remained in Canada under English rule. This per
haps explains why in the military archives of France, little or
nothing is to be found of them.
It is foreign to the purpose of the present narrative to enter
upon the detail of Denonville's warfare against the Iroquois.
The story of this inglorious episode has been more than once
recorded, with all possible fullness, by competent hands; it
suffices here to summarize its principal features.
Leaving a force of 400 men to garrison the redoubt which
had been thrown up on a point of land at the entrance of the
bay, and sinking their boats under its protection, Denon-

108 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
ville on July 12th began his march with some 1,600 troops and
Indians southward through the woods. On July 13th they en
gaged the enemy, who made an unsuccessful attempt to ambush
the invaders. According to Denonville's own account there
were of the Indians 800 men under arms in this engagement, of
whom he was told 40 were killed, more than 50 wounded. Other
minor encounters followed, but the Senecas were illusive and
many soon fled beyond the reach of the invader. The princi
pal engagement took place near the present town of Victor.
Denonville's soldiers burned three other villages, one in East
Bloomfield, another near West Mendon, Monroe County, the
third not clearly located; they destroyed the old corn and the
growing crop, to an amount estimated at the incredible total
of 1,200,000 bushels. They feasted on green corn and roast
pig, many hogs being found in these Seneca towns ; and suffer
ing more from their own indiscretion than from the assaults
of the enemy, they marched back to Irondequoit Bay, reach
ing the redoubt on July 24th.
The chastisement which Denonville was to have visited upon
the Senecas had ridiculously failed. He had broken a wasps'
nest, but had thereby only stirred up and angered the wasps.
The villages he had burned would be quickly rebuilt. The
heaviest loss he had inflicted lay in the destruction of the crops,
but not even that meant serious discomfiture to the Senecas,
allied as they were with all the undisturbed fraternity of the
Long House — and was there not Dongan at Albany, where the
King's warehouse overflowed with gifts for the Senecas?
One statement in Denonville's journal calls for our attention.
At the entrance of the small village of Gannounata ( apparently
some two miles southeast of the present village of East Avon),
" we found the arms of England, which the Sieur Dongan,
Governor of New York, had placed there contrary to all right
and reason, in the year 1684, having ante-dated the arms as
of the year 1683, although it is beyond question that we first
discovered and took possession of that country, and for 20
consecutive years have had Fathers Fremin, Gamier, etc., as
stationary missionaries in all their villages."
It was at the Albany treaty of July, 1684, that the Mo-

DENONVILLE'S CAMPAIGN 109
hawks, Oneidas, Onondagas and Cayugas had asked Dongan
to give them the arms of the Duke of York, to put up on their
" castles." Dongan was alert to pledge them this " defense "
against the French. Later, in August, the Seneca sachems
reached Albany, shared in the treaty-making, and received like
assurances of protection and good will. " I sent the arms of
his Royal Highness now his Majesty," Dongan wrote later, " to
be put up in each Castle as far as Oneigra [Niagara], which
was accordingly done." From his point of view, shared neither
by the French nor his Indian proteges, all of Central and
Western New York, as far as the Niagara, came under British
domination by formal treaty of August 5, 1684. On that day,
in a speech at Albany, the Senecas thanked the Governor for
the Duke's arms, which he had given them " to be put in our
castles as a defense to them."
Just what sort of fabrication these " arms " were, one hesi
tates to say. No historical museum is known to contain one
of these early relics, no history trustworthily pictures them.
However made, painted or graven, they evidently pleased the
Indians, who could fasten them to a post by the principal path
entering the village, or over the door of the chief sachem's lodge.
Probably the Indians themselves brought them into Western
New York; nor is it likely that any was put up farther west
than the Seneca villages of the Genesee Valley, notwithstand
ing Dongan's assertion that this emblem of authority was to
be seen " as far as Oneigra," for at that period the Senecas had
no " castles " in the vicinity of the Niagara.
At Irondequoit, July 25th, Denonville's first care was to send
off a barque with the sick and wounded, among them Father
Enjalran, to Frontenac and thence down the river, with news
of the expedition to date. The redoubt that had been thrown
up was leveled, the palisades broken down and burned, that
nothing might be of service to the enemy. The boats were
made ready and on the 26th the army was on its way to
Niagara. Denonville had trouble with his Indian allies who
feared to go to Niagara, not daring to hunt on the borders of
the enemy's country. They were finally persuaded, but their
reluctant and shifty attitude decided the Marquis to do quickly

110 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
what ne had resolved upon at Niagara, and get away as soon as
possible. When his force was embarked, the regulars and the
Ottawas led the way ; the militia were so slow that he left them
in the rear. Only 10 leagues did the flotilla of canoes make the
first day. On the 27th, they were halted by a gale. On the
28th, the boats with the militia having come up, all went for
ward again, but wind and wave made progress slow ; and finally,
on the night of the 29th, they went into camp three leagues
from Niagara. Taking advantage of the lull of the night
hours (the lake breeze being found to come up with the sun),
they broke camp at moonrise; and through the calm, hushed
hours of the summer night, lighted by the harvest moon, the
army paddled and rowed its myriad small craft along the
high bank which formed the shore, and at five in the morning
of July 31st reached the entrance of our river and quickly
made camp on the commanding spot which La Salle had occu
pied nine years before.
Two Mohawk Indians who had served with the French in
Denonville's campaign, were that summer taken prisoners by
the English and carried to Albany, thence down the river to
New York, where, in Fort James, August 31, 1687, they were
examined before Stephen van Courtland [Cortland] regarding
Denonville's expedition and the plans of the French. They
both gave long accounts of the battle with the Senecas and the
destruction of villages and crops. As interpreted by Akus
Cornellius, a Schenectady Dutchman, their stories are none too
lucid. One of these Indians, Kakariall, had served with the
French on the expedition, but on reembarking at Irondequoit,
was in a canoe with others who refused to go to Niagara.
" Two dayes," his statement runs, " they stayed at Irondekatt,
then the Govr. gave orders to go by water to Oniagoragh
[Niagara], which the Christian Indians refused and went back
to Cadaraghie, but 10 or 12 canoes with French went after
them, who at last persuaded them to go along to Oniagoragh,
except two Cannoes (whereof this Deponent was one) and some
River Indians, who escaped." He adds particulars about the
fort building at Niagara, -but as they are hearsay, may be
omitted.

DENONVILLE'S CAMPAIGN 111
His companion, Adandidaghko, was taken to Niagara, and
gave some details:
The Govr. gave orders that the whole army should goe directly
to Oneageragh, butt the Xtian Indians refused itt butt would returne
to Kadaraghie, and soe went that way, the Govr. forthwith followed
them with seven Canoes [in] each seven Menn, and stopt them
saying, " What is the matter that you leave us ? it is better that wee goe
and returne together."
Butt they would not, till one Smiths John stood up and spoke very
loud, saying to the rest of the Xtian Indians :
" You hear what the Governor's will is, that wee should go up
with him; if wee doe not, he will force us to it; come, you are lusty
Men, let us goe with him."
Soe they were perswaded, and returned back with the Govr.
Severall Canoes endeavoured yett to escape, butt were so watched
by the French, that they could not except two or three Canoes that
stole away; so were forced to go with the French along the shore
side of the Lake till they came to Oneagoragh, being two days by
the way, where the French made a Fort, and put two great gunns
and several Pattareras in itt, with fouer hundred Men to bee there
in Garrison.4
Never before has so distinguished a company gathered on the
banks of the Niagara. For the moment, the military branch
of the administration of New France is centered here. With
Governor de Denonville and the Marquis de Vaudreuil is Denon
ville's second in command, the Knight Louis Hector de Cal-
lieres-Bonnevue, Governor of Montreal, a veteran of 20 years'
military service before he came to Canada in 1684; he is des
tined later to succeed Count Frontenac as Governor of Canada.
Here too is the Chevalier de la Troye, another veteran who has
successfully led an expedition against the English on Hudson's
Bay; Denonville, the year before, writing to the Minister,
Seignelay, had spoken of de la Troye as " the most intelligent
and most efficient of our captains; he has that excellent tact
required for the exercise of all qualities needed to command
* Board of Trade, N. Y. papers, (London docs.), Ill, N. Y. Col. Docs.,
Ill, 433-435.

112 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
others." Still another interesting figure in the group is
La Forest, Major of Fort Frontenac, where La Salle had left
him in command in 1679. When La Barre seized that fort, La
Forest returned to France, but at the present period of our
story, Fort Frontenac has been restored to him. He has
served in the Illinois country, and later is to command at Fort
St. Louis (present Peoria) and Detroit. His early service is
peculiarly identified with Lake Ontario. No one knew it bet
ter than he, and his services were much in demand when a ca
pable messenger was to be sent across its uncertain waters.
In command of one battalion is Dorvilliers, an experienced
officer who had gone at the head of his troop in 1682 to Fort
Frontenac. He had reconnoitered Lake Ontario and the
Seneca country and made a plan, showing the location of the
Indian villages before La Barre set out on his attempt of
1684. In that expedition Captain Dorvilliers had commanded
the rear guard. The experiences of the sick camp of La
Famine were his ; and he was La Barre's special messenger to
France, to report on it all to Louis and his counsellors. His
praises are sounded in many letters of the time. Denonville
styled him " a man of much prudence and intelligence," and
sent him to command at Fort Frontenac, successor of La
Forest. Note has been made of the service he was called to
perform in guarding the Niagara pass against the MacGregorie
expedition. However he may have failed in that, he had gained
an acquaintance with the region perhaps as intimate as was
possessed by any one in Denonville's command.
Denonville's entire force, that landed this August morning
where now Fort Niagara stands, consisted of four battalions
of regular troops, each battalion made up of four companies ;
three battalions of militia, recruited from the habitants — for
the most part the untrained Canadian farmer and villager ; and
four distinct bands of savages, known respectively as of the
Mountain [Montreal], the Sault, Sillery and Arhetil. Ac
cording to De Baugy, there were 353 Indians, not counting the
Ottawas and others from the West who although they no doubt
tarried at Niagara were not held there for any service.
The companies of soldiers and militia were small. The larg-

DENONVILLE'S CAMPAIGN 113
est, a militia company headed by Captain de la Ferte, in the
battalion of Longueuil, numbered 58 men; the smallest, that
of De Repentigny in the battalion of La Valterie, also militia,
had but 36 men. The regular troops ranged from 41 to 46 men
per company. De Baugy, who gives a detailed enumeration of
the entire force, says there were 843 regulars, 804 militia, and
353 Indians, not counting those from the west; and that this
force arrived at Niagara in 142 canoes and 198 bateaux; but
his totals do not agree with his details. The total force
was about 2,000 men. There were two extra heavy bateaux,
each of which carried a small cannon and 15 men (habi
tants). To Denonville, this attainment of Niagara was the fruition
of long-cherished hopes. From the hour of his arrival in
Canada, he had planned, and worked, for the armed occupation
of this frontier. His reports to De Seignelay contain, over and
over, allusions to it. He had not counted on destroying the
Seneca nation by his raid; but he had hoped to achieve some
thing substantial by occupying the Niagara. " It is an indis
pensable necessity," he had written in November, 1686, " to
establish and maintain a post of 200 men at Niagara, where
married farmers ought, in my opinion, be placed to make clear
ances and to people that place, in view of becoming, with barks,
masters of Lake Erie. I should greatly wish to have a mill at
Niagara." He believed Dongan was about to plant a company
of his English, Scotch and Dutch adventurers there, and he so
told the Minister. " Were the English once established there,
they must be driven off, or we must bid adieu to the entire trade
of the country." And he begged for " two good battalions
and the funds necessary to sustain the movement and to occupy
the post at Niagara." King Louis gave personal study to the
region, as we know from the Royal endorsals on the documents ;
approved the fortifying of Niagara, and the necessary expense
therefor; but Denonville was cautioned by his Majesty '"to
construct only slight fortifications, suitable for warding off a
surprise, as he had not to do with any power capable of carry
ing on a siege, so that a simple wall with loop holes [creneaux~\
and a ditch and palisades outside, are the only works admissi-

114 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
ble in that country." He was further admonished to employ
the soldiers and " to oblige those of the country to work."
The preceding year he had ordered Dorvilliers to Niag
ara, with the Sieur de Villeneuve, a draughtsman sent out
from Paris. Denonville's estimate of this man is striking.
" Though a very good, very correct and very faithful draughts
man, he has not, in other respects, a well-ordered mind and is
too narrow to be qualified to furnish any views for the estab
lishment of a post, and to be entrusted with the exclusive super
intendence of it." In a subsequent letter he calls him " a fool,
a rake and a debauchee who must be tolerated because we have
need of him." Denonville begged that Vauban might send him
a better man, a request evidently not granted, for it was Ville
neuve who surveyed the site and drew the plans for the works
which Denonville now set about creating.
" I have selected the angle on the Seneca side formed by the
Lake and the river," he wrote, a little later ; " it is the most
beautiful, the most pleasing and the most advantageous site on
the whole of that Lake; the map and plan of which you will
have if Sieur de Ville Marie [sic: Villeneuve] will take the
trouble, for I tormented him considerably for it."
Beautiful and advantageous it seemed to Denonville, this
August morning as he landed with his army. Although the
men had toiled all night at the oars, there was no time for rest,
for the Governor was determined to show to the Indians, espe
cially those from the West, that here was to be " a secure
asylum, in order to encourage them to come this winter to war
in small bodies." He was also spurred by the fear of Seneca
a TTJcLCK* M. de Villeneuve's plan was simplicity itself. A square, with
bastions at the angles, to be surrounded by a high and stout
palisade, was traced out on the level ground in the natural
angle of lake and river. It was a treeless spot then as now, de
nuded in days immemorial by countless Indian camps which at
certain seasons had been pitched there. The regular soldiers
were set at clearing the bushes and small growth; the militia
were set at work making the pickets. Denonville notes as the
chief inconvenience of the site, the distance that timber and

DENONVILLE'S CAMPAIGN 115
firewood had to be brought. This work, he says, was the more
difficult, " as there was no wood on the ground suitable for
making palisades, and from its being necessary to haul them
up the hill." Two thousand 5 pickets, 16 feet long, sharpened
at one end, were cut and conveyed to the ground. This work
was accomplished on the 30th, meanwhile the soldiers had dug
the trench where they were to be planted. The next day the
soldiers set 700 of them, using four crude pile-drivers which
they made. " We wished to make two or three chevrons," says
De Baugy, " but the necessary tools were lacking, the barques
not being able to come in because of contrary winds." Finally,
a canoe was sent out to the little wind-bound vessels, two leagues
away, for the tools.
The next day the wind allowed the vessels to draw in, and
work went faster. The French soldiers trimmed and sharpened
the palisades, the militia set them in the earth. This day three
bastions were begun ; and Denonville, deeming that some meas
ure of security was gained, ordered the militia to embark.
Denonville was thoughtful of many things. He sent off
Du Lhut e and one companion to the Detroit River to engage
the Indians of that region to bring game to the garrison dur
ing the winter. Tonty was sent out to warn friendly tribes
near by to be watchful of the Iroquois. The Italian came back
at night to report that he had seen, lurking in the vicinity,
Iroquois in white shirts, an unheard of thing for savages " who
go naked, and smear themselves with clay, in order to be less
easily seen." Denonville sent Tonty forth once more, this
time with a company of 60 men and three or four drummers, to
scare off the enemy — if there were any. Protected thus by
martial rub-a-dub in the neighboring forest, the militia de
parted " right after dinner " (sur Vapres disnee), while the
regular soldiers continued the work, which was to be known as
Fort Denonville. A permanent garrison of 100 men was de
tailed for the post under command of De Troyes as senior cap-
si cannot reconcile De Baugy's figures. His words are: "On a tir&
la place, d'un quarri que Von veut entourer de 100 pieux; pour cet effet,
les habitants ont eu ordre d'un faire 2000," etc.
• De Baugy has " du Hault," but Du Lhut is evidently intended.

116 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
tain, with another captain and two subalterns. Leaving also
Vaudreuil on the spot for a few days to complete the fort and
get in a supply of firewood, Denonville and his officers and
some troops departed.
Setting out from the mouth of the Niagara very early in the
morning, the flotilla skirted the shore to the westward, as the
militia had done, and as, a little later, Vaudreuil and the rest
of the army were to do, the entire force returning to Frontenac
by way of the north shore. They had no mind to attempt the
Iroquois side of the lake. Band after band, the western sav
ages took their way up the Niagara and through Lake Erie,
or overland by the forest trails to the Detroit; and the little
garrison of Fort Denonville, a timorous, depressed, ineffective
company, buried in the hostile wilderness, took up the petty
details of routine on which life itself depended.
The first day out, Denonville and his retinue made rapid
progress — " 13 good leagues," says De Baugy, with greater
accuracy than is sometimes the case in his journal. This
brought them to the traverse across Burlington Bay, which
they made by moonlight " for fear the wind would surprise us."
Camp that night was at Point Onoron,7 where the Marquis
overtook the militia. A thunder storm delayed them on the
5th. They were also delayed by the feebleness of the men.
" In each canoe that had six men, not more than three were
able to row." On the 6th, they saw the barque which had
taken the sick and wounded from Irondequoit to Fort Fron
tenac; it was now on its way to the Niagara with provisions
for the garrison, in charge of one Gaillard. On the 8th, they
were overtaken by the two barques which they had left at
Niagara, now bearing Vaudreuil and the last of the army ; and
on the 9th they all made Frontenac. Without accompanying
the army farther east, we must return to the cheerless huts that
were huddled within the palisades of Fort Denonville.
Scarcely had the commissary, Gaillard, unloaded his stores
and sailed away, leaving De Troyes and his men to themselves,
then it was discovered that the provisions were bad. Some of
the casks were soaked with sea water, the flour had got wet, the
i Not identified.

DENONVILLE'S CAMPAIGN 117
biscuits were full of weevils. A feeble attempt was made to
raise vegetables, but the season was now late, and what few
seed they had, scarce sprouted. The soldiers proved indiffer
ent fishermen and worse hunters ; fear of the Iroquois took the
heart out of them. They dared not send out small parties;
one such party lost two men by the ever-watchful Senecas ; an
other party that ventured into the forest was never heard from.
Summer waned, autumn faded into the chill and dreary win
ter; and as the days dragged on, with no visits from their
western allies, bringing game, the scurvy looked in upon them,
starvation came and took command. If any attempt was
made to get relief from Frontenac or Montreal, the inadequate
old records do not tell of it. Father Jean de Lamberville, to
whom this flock looked for counsel and encouragement, early
fell desperately sick. The veteran De Troyes sickened and
died. Death was a familiar caller at all the cabins within the
palisades. In six weeks the garrison lost 60 men. In March,
20 more died; and the handful of wasted men remaining would
soon have joined their fellows, but for the arrival of a Miami
war party, led by Michitonka. Twelve out of the 100 were
all that were left. Two or three of the strongest, the priest
among them, set out with some of the Miamis and made their
way by the margin of the lake to Frontenac ; and the lake being
open, early in April, a relief boat was sent to the unhappy post.
With the relief came Captain Desbergeres and the Jesuit priest
Milet. It was near the end of Lent, and one of Father Milet's first
acts was to mark out the site for the erection of a great cross.
Hewn of oak, it was 18 feet tall, and on the crosspiece Father
Milet himself traced the symbols for the legend:
Regnat, Vincit, Imperat Christus.
These words, abbreviated, were cut in the oak, and midway
of the line, the symbol of the Sacred Heart. On Good Friday
the cross was set up and blessed, in the middle of the square,
among the graves where lay De Troyes and 80 of his men.
The renewed garrison included some capable men — the sieurs
De la Mothe, LaRabelle, Demuratre de Clerin, de Geraerais,

118 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
Chevalier de Tregay, all lieutenants or other officers, and others
of repute; and the summer passed without incident, save that
Iroquois war parties constantly hung about, keeping the garri
son under tension. Meanwhile its fate was considered in Paris.
As it was a question of giving up either Frontenac or
Niagara, Denonville decided to maintain the former, and to
abandon Niagara. With the slight means at his command,
the revictualing of Niagara was expensive. His hope, too, that
western tribes would make it a base of incursions into the
Iroquois country of central New York, had not been realized.
Louis approved; and so, in September the bark La Generale
sailed to the mouth of the Niagara, but not with reinforce
ments or provisions — she had come to take away Desbergeres
and his homesick garrison. The guns were put on board, as
were the other meager effects of value. The palisades on the
south and east sides of the fort were broken down. Elsewhere
the wind had already done this work, so that, had an Iroquois
war party appeared, they might readily have entered. But
the cabins and other buildings were left standing, with doors
ajar, to welcome who might come, Iroquois or wolf. Father
Milet took from above his door a little sun-dial. " The shadow
of the great cross falls divers ways," he said; and leaving all
stripped and forlorn, with the great cross standing in the little
square, on the morning of September 15th, the melancholy gar
rison sailed away. Before embarking the men were gathered
about the cross by the priest, who said a final Mass. The
last recorded act at Fort Denonville was one of devotion.
The foregoing account is based on Denonville's own narra
tive 8 of the establishment of Fort Denonville ; on the statement
of the " Condition in which the Fort of Niagara was left in
1688 " 9 witnessed by the Rev. Jean Milet, Desbergeres and
others; and related papers. There exists however another
document 10 which gives many additional details and merits at
tention. « " M6moir of the voyage and expedition . . . against the Senecas," 1687.
» Paris Docs., IV, N. Y. Col. Docs., IX; 386-388.
io "Mimoire pour 1690" in Collection de Manuscrits . . . relatifs A la
Nouvelle France," vol. 1, published by the Legislature of Quebec, 1883.

DENONVILLE'S CAMPAIGN 119
According to this narrative, a messenger reached Montreal
in February with word that the garrison at Fort Frontenac
were all sick with the scurvy. De Callieres fitted out a com
pany of militia with supplies, which set out from Montreal
early in March. They were detained at La Chine for some
weeks, then proceeding by canoe, a force of 80 in all — 30 sol
diers, six officers, six navigators, the rest voyageurs commanded
by M. de St, Cirq. The commander of the whole relief
expedition was the Chevalier D'Eau. The memoir contin
ues: We arrived at Fort Frontenac about the 20th of April, where we
found the garrison reduced to 12 or 15 persons, which made us con
clude that Niagara would be no better off. A vessel was promptly
made ready; meanwhile St. Cirq set out with his Canadians and
some of the sick. When at the isle of Tonniata xl several canoes set
off to hunt, two of them fell into an Iroquois ambuscade which killed
one party and carried off the other. It was impossible to go to their
aid; the rest of the company hastened on to Montreal.
Finally the barque was equipped with 15 soldiers and four officers,
a Jesuit, the captain and 10 sailors. As the captain missed his route
in leaving the fort, because he had drunk too much wine, we did not
reach the Niagara until the 12th of May, at midnight. One of their
officers came alongside and told us that all the garrison was well,
but when we were in the fort we saw quite the contrary, since there
were more than 80 coats hung along the palisades. Indeed there
were but three officers and four soldiers who were well, and five
or six dying men whom they put on board the barque. One of them
died while being carried, the others were soon cured.
There were 80 Miamis whom we found camped there who had
come about the end of April. The garrison believed they would all
have died, had not the savages often gone hunting, so that there was
no lack of deer and wild turkey.
They told us that Monsieur de Troyes, commandant, had died
May 8th, and that it was to him they ascribed the principal cause of
the sickness; because the previous autumn he had cut down the ra
tions, and refused to kill a cow he had; except for this they would
Although the memoir is headed " 1690 " there can be no question that the
incidents related are of 1688.
n Probably the Grenadier island of to-day. "Five or six leagues from
La Galette is an island called Tonihata." — Charlevoix, III, 194.

120 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
have had the hay which was to have been put in the soldiers' mat
tresses, but this obliged them to sleep on the ground.
This severity made the garrison resolve to mutiny, to cut the
throats of the commandant and several other officers with whom they
were not pleased, and to choose a commander who should lead them
to the English at New York. Of aU the garrison, only three refused
to j oin in the plot. The evening before this plan was to be carried
out, a large Iroquois war party 12 appeared before the fort, who
kept up a skirmish and held the garrison in suspense for several
days. This made them delay their plan, and several falling sick,
the scheme was abandoned.
The 80 Miamis who were camped about the fort did not wish to
return to their own country without making an attempt against the
Iroquois. About 65 of them set out to surprise some Seneca vil
lages. When they were near they fell into an ambuscade, there was
an exchange of shots and the Miamis fled. There was but one Iro
quois killed, whose scalp they took. The first who returned to the
fort told us that all the Miamis were defeated. Their women, who
had remained at the fort, began to wail and kept it up for three
days, when the fugitives began to come in one after another, so that
only one man was missing.
The next day they made ready to depart. We set them across
the river in bateaux, and from there they went on through the
woods to the Detroit, crossing from there to their own country.
Four days later the missing man appeared. He had been eight
days without food, and had an arrow through his thigh. Our sur
geon pulled it out, drawing it through the thigh, the savage not
flinching, and in a few days he was healed.
About the middle of September two barques arrived with orders
to the commandant to burn the fort, to bring back all the effects to
Frontenac and to send the garrison to Montreal; all of which was
accomplished in four days. So we returned to Frontenac, and took
a bateau for Montreal, carrying the Miami with us.
There is nothing in this account which cannot be reconciled
with Denonville's official report, except the burning of the fort.
It is substantially the account of Gedeon de Catalogne, who in
1686 had served at Hudson's Bay under the Chevalier de
Troyes. He was at Frontenac or Montreal in the spring of
« Belmont says 40 canoes,

DENONVILLE'S CAMPAIGN 121
1688 when it was resolved to send a relief force to Niagara.
He took service in it.
According to long accepted records, the Jesuit Jean de Lam-
berville was with the afflicted garrison at Fort Denonville, was
attacked by the scurvy and removed to Fort Frontenac, being
succeeded at Niagara in the spring of 1688 by Father Milet.
Let us examine the testimony bearing on the priest Lamber-
ville's part in the campaign.
The memoirs of neither Denonville nor De Baugy refer to
Jean de Lamberville as having been at Niagara. The latter
makes no mention of him at all. The former alludes to his
Onondaga mission, and to his return to Fort Frontenac, June
30th, from Onondaga, with Indian hostages. Denonville set
out on his expedition against the Senecas, July 4th. He does
not say he was accompanied by any chaplain, although Fa
ther Enjalran joined him at Irondequoit, having come from
the West with Tonty. Receiving a serious wound, he was
sent down to Fort Frontenac, and did not return to Niagara.
Although it was the custom to assign a chaplain to a garri
son whenever possible, and although Father de Lamberville
is generally stated to have ministered at Niagara until he was
incapacitated by disease, satisfactory proofs in the matter have
not been found. On the other hand, a letter by De Lamber
ville, lately come to light, appears to show that he first went
to Niagara on the vessel that carried supplies, in the autumn
of 1687, and that he returned with it to Fort Frontenac.
It nowhere appears that he was with Denonville in the
Seneca country. The Rev. Jacques Bruyas either accompanied
Denonville, or joined him at Irondequoit; but returned from
Irondequoit to Frontenac, not coming to Niagara.
At Totiakton, the largest of the Seneca villages, July 19th,
the Rev. Francois de Gueslis Vaillant, with Denonville and his
officers, signed the formal Minute of taking possession of the
Seneca country.
Both Vaillant and Bruyas were at times intimately associated
with the elder Joncaire. Father Vaillant's mission work, prior
to Denonville's raid, and for some years afterward, was carried
on among the Senecas ; no other Jesuit of the New York mis-

122 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
sions is known to have labored nearer the Niagara; but no
mention is found of the presence on this river of either of these
priests. So far as appears, Denonville and his army came to the
Niagara unaccompanied by any chaplain; but De Lamber
ville soon came, with the vessel bringing supplies, from Fron
tenac. His own account of the voyage 13 is one of the most
graphic narratives we have of early adventure on Lake On
tario, and is best given, in main part, in the priest's own
words :
The day before our departure from Cataroqui, the Iroquois, who
were hemming us in, had fired on the crew when yet at the wharf,
and wounded a sergeant, who died after receiving the last Sacra
ments. Hardly had we doubled the point than an Iroquois fired at
us. It was the signal for the Indians to leave their camp, where
they had been for several days enjoying the good cheer they had
taken from the French near the Rapids.
A great number had been invited to witness the attack on our
barque. If they took it they would starve out our friends at Ni
agara. Several canoes pursued us and made for a little island, in
tending to intercept us, for on account of the shallows we had to
pass very close to it. Other Indians ran along the shore to capture
us in case we landed. Suddenly the wind dropped, and we were
becalmed. The savages were all around, but out of gunshot. We
prayed, and I exhorted the men to fight to the death rather than be
taken and tortured. We had four cannon called pierriers for dis
charging stones, twelve muskets, with two arquebuses and six gre
nades. We determined not to fire all at once, but one after the
other; while two of us were to keep loading. Our deck had no
guards, so we had to lie down while fighting. A shower of bullets
swept over us. We replied by a volley from both sides of the
barque. Some of the Indians fell in their canoes and were carried
off, but their place was taken by others.
Four canoes bolder than the rest came close up to us, but we
stopped them with our arquebuses and the pierrier, which had thirty
stones in it. That discharge riddled the canoes and made them
is The original MS. is in the British Museum. It does not appear in the
" Relations " as edited by Thwaites, but is quoted in a more recent work,
" Pioneer Priests of North America," by Rev. T. J. Campbell, S.J., who
speaks of the manuscript as "recently discovered."

DENONVILLE'S CAMPAIGN 123
draw off to the island to attend to the wounded and repair the dam
age to their boats. They came again to the charge, not doubting
that half of our number had fallen under their furious fusillade.
But no one had yet been hit. Just then they remarked that there
was no fire from the stern and they made for it, but a cry, " they
are boarding us ! " from one of the soldiers caused a rush in that
direction with swords and grenades, but at that moment a slight
wind sprung up and we began to move.
I was engaged in loading the muskets and sticking out two
arquebuses from the stern to scare the invaders. The puff of wind
gave us courage, and we drifted slowly past the island.
Just then a chief started out with five or six canoes to head us off.
He stood up brandishing his weapons and then aimed at the pilot
and a sailor who were defending the bow, but they dodged in time
and escaped the shot, and immediately aimed at him and tumbled
him over with a shot in the neck and another in the body, as I after
wards learned. But his companions would not withdraw, when one
of onr soldiers, a Breton, who had been in the German wars, rushed
to the pierrier and at the risk of his life, for he had to stand up,
applied the match, and in a flash a shower of stone balls sunk the
canoe to the bottom. The Breton was not hurt, but two Indian
bullets passed through his hat.
It was the last effort of the savages. The wind freshened, and
the distance widened between us, and they, fearing to go out in the
open, withdrew. The fight had lasted three-quarters of an hour.
Three hundred bullet holes were in our sails; many of the ropes
were cut, but thanks be to God, none of our halliards was injured.
We were a league away and were again becalmed, but the Indians
did not follow us.
Next morning we started with a west wind and a cloudy sky. Off
in the distance we saw the fires of the Iroquois. We kept out in the
lake, for a storm was approaching. The lake was soon like the
ocean in its fury. Great waves washed over us, but we did not
dare to put in, for fear of the enemy. Often we thought we were
going to the bottom. Finally, after fourteen days of hard weather,
we saw in the distance the flag of Fort Niagara. Our joy may be
imagined. We could see the Iroquois skulking around as we landed.
We had scarcely unloaded when the Commandant thought it would
be advisable to return, because the wind was favorable and our
friends at Cataroqui would be anxious. On the 18th of October we
reached Cataroqui. The Indians had been hanging about the fort

124 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
all the time, behind 200 cords of fire wood which we had heaped up.
They were waiting for our return, but lost patience and decamped
the day before we arrived, after setting fire to all our wood and
killing a soldier, whose death revealed their ambuscade.
It is clear, by the priest's own account, that he returned to
Frontenac in October. Who then was chaplain at Fort
Niagara during that terrible winter of scurvy and starvation?
Was there a later passage of a bark from Frontenac to Niagara,
bringing the priest, De Lamberville, a second time, to stay
through the winter? Where the records are not obscure, they
are silent; and conjecture is not history.
Years afterward, when De Lamberville was in Paris, he wrote
a long letter 14 to a friend in China, in which he recalled some
of his experiences in the Lake Ontario region. The battle with
the Indians on the lake, above related, is again told in differ
ent language, and the statement made that the Uttle bark was
attacked by 800 Iroquois, in their canoes ; " they were about
to overwhelm us with their numbers, when Heaven was fa
vorable to our prayers and sent us a wind which swept us away
from their fury when they thought to grasp their prey, and to
avenge upon us the death of their comrades."
In this letter he continues : " I was afterward obliged,
through obedience, to remain in this ill-fated rendezvous with
140 soldiers, whose chaplain I was." This appears to refer
not to Niagara, where the garrison had never been more than
100 men, but to Frontenac. De Lamberville in this letter
mentions neither place by name, but proceeds with a long ac
count of how they (in the unnamed fort) were beset by the
Iroquois, so they " could get neither wood, water, nor fresh
food." He tells how the scurvy broke out in the garrison and
" carried off about a hundred men." He says that he caught
the disease and was near dying, when " an officer of our troops
unexpectedly came over the snow, with 30 men, 15 of whom
were Iroquois, friends and Christians." He does not state
where they came from, but says " they had marched 80 leagues
i* Dated " Paris, this 23d of January, 1695." The name of the missionary
to whom he wrote is not known.

DENONVILLE'S CAMPAIGN 125
over the snow, with their food, clothing and arms." Allow
ing 2% miles to the league, this about as closely approximates
the distance from Montreal to Frontenac, as it does that from
Frontenac to Niagara, if the latter journey were shortened
by crossing the western end of the lake on the ice. In other
words, it does not help to clear up the mystery. De Lamber
ville continues with a graphic account of his removal from the
afflicted fort, which runs in part as follows :
They found us in a very bad condition ; and for fear of remaining
themselves in this fort, — where the unwholesome air made them
feel, from the first, the beginning of this singular malady, — they
resolved to depart immediately, and to make all possible haste, that
they might not be surrounded or encountered by the enemy. This
officer, who was my friend, having learned from the surgeon that I
had only one or 2 Days to live if they did not get me away from
this post, undertook to remove me who was half dead. He refused
to accord the same favor to some others, even officers, — who after
ward died, but who were less ready for death than I was, — alleg
ing the length of the journey, and the inclemency of the season; the
necessity of carrying their arms, provisions, and blankets; and the
necessity for making great haste on account of the enemy, who were
following in their track. He undertook to do for me what he would
not do for another. Having entreated him to let me die, and to
consent to substitute in my place a sick officer, he absolutely refused.
Accordingly, as I had become useless from that time, on account
of the condition in which I was, the rest of the garrison received
general absolution, while they supported me by the arms; then hav
ing bound me upon a sledge, to which 2 great dogs were harnessed,
they set out, passing over a frozen lake. The ice broke, and, care
fully bundled upon this sledge, I was in this condition plunged into
the water. The dogs which were attached to it kept me above the
ice, to which they held fast with their claws. To rescue me from
this peril needed carefulness, because the ice which surrounded me
was broken on all sides. Finally, when they were drawing me out
of the water, the rope broke, and I ran the risk of being drowned.
Being withdrawn from the water and again placed upon the ice, the
dogs were too much fatigued; and some French Canadians and sol
diers who were with us took the trouble to drag me, now over the
ice, now over the snow, by turns, — without discontinuing their
march, because the Iroquois were following in their track; and be-

126 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
cause they wished to keep the advantage that they had over them,
for fear that they might attack us.
The narrator says that the journey lasted seven and a half
days, when they reached Montreal. " It was in February,
1688, that this occurred." He was taken to the Seminary of
St. Sulpice, but did not recover from the effects of the ordeal
for two and a half years.
A winter journey on foot from present Kingston to Mon
treal in seven days and a half means 35 miles a day; a thing
within reason; but a journey from Niagara to Montreal in
that time and under the desperate conditions that existed, is
inconceivable. Accepting Father De Lamberville's letters as
wholly trustworthy, the conclusion is inevitable that his af
fliction did not occur at Fort Denonville, the Niagara of to
day. This conclusion overthrows a story which appears to have
been accepted from the days of La Potherie and Charlevoix.
Our examination of the matter, an effort to discover the truth,
has at least shown in some measure the existing conditions at
this most critical time in the fortunes of New France. Denon
ville's ineffective raid into Central New York gave to French
enterprise on the Lower Lakes a serious set-back. It so roused
the ire of the Iroquois that Fort Denonville was abandoned,
and Fort Frontenac greatly reduced. Nearly a third of a
century is to elapse before the French again venture to estab
lish themselves on the Niagara.
Still another version there is of the fate of Fort Denonville,
which may have place here, if only to illustrate what a wide
variety of statements may be given currency and accepted as
trustworthy facts. In a memorial prepared by the Commis
sioners of Trade and Plantations in 1697, regarding the rights
of the British Crown over the New York Indians, occurs the
following statement:
A new war broke out and those Indians made divers inroads into
Canada, blocked up the Fort of Onyagra and starved the French
garrison in it; so that a priest was the only man that survived, and

DENONVILLE'S CAMPAIGN 127
cutting all communication between the French and their fort at
Cadaraqui, forced the garrison (about the beginning of this present
war with France) to quit that place; in doing which the French
blew up one of the bastions, and left the rest entire, which with a
quantity of ammunition came into the Indians' possession.15
One aspect of Denonville's ill-fated venture on the Niagara
demands a word. It is unique in the early annals of the region
in not having trade as its chief occasion and impetus. It was
a part of Denonville's ineffective attempt to discipline the Iro
quois by fighting them. Could the garrison on the Niagara
have been spared long enough to feel secure, trade operations
would naturally have sprung up ; but nothing of the sort appears
in the short and tragic history of the post. Its real purpose
shows forth in a Government communication, written a few
months before its abandonment: "His Majesty highly ap
proves their [Denonville and Champigny] having caused one
[fort] to be built at Niagara, and is persuaded that it will af
ford friendly Indians, and particularly the Illinois, an oppor
tunity to harass the Iroquois this winter by small parties who
will find a sure retreat in that post." 16 But when the resentful
Iroquois sent an angry delegation to Montreal, to demand the
demolition of the fort, Denonville, knowing he could not maintain
it, acceded to their demands.
The officer who had been placed in command of the rescued
garrison merits further notice. Raymond Blaise Desbergeres
de Rigauville, born between 1655 and 1660, was of the
parish of St. Pierre, city of Orleans. He had married, about
1680, Anne Richard de Goigni, by whom he had a son, Nico
las, born about 1682. The father ranked as lieutenant. In
1685 he was made captain and came to Canada in the troops of
Denonville. On the death of De Troyes, he came with the re
lief party to Fort Denonville and commanded on the Niagara
until the abandonment of the post. In July, 1689, he fought
a duel with Captain Francois Lefebvre, Sieur Duplessis, in
which he received a sword cut; it is recorded that Duplessis
« N. Y. Col. Docs., V, 76.
i« The Minister (Seignelay) to Denonville and Champigny, Mch. 8, 1688.

128 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
afterwards paid him 600 francs. In 1691, with his family, he
is at Chambly, where he was in command, 1692-95. His wife
had evidently died, for in 1694 he married Jeanne-Cecile
Closse, widow of the fort major Jacques Bizard. She died
in 1700. Desbergeres rebuilt the fortifications of Chambly
and later complained that the Government had not reimbursed
him for large personal outlay. In the summer of 1696 we find
him with a military expedition on Lake Ontario and in Cen
tral New York, making war on the Onondagas. In 1709
he again commands at Fort Chambly, and on November 13th
of that year, at the isle Dupas in Lake St. Peter, takes a third
wife, Marguerite Vauvril de Blazon, widow of Major Lambert
Boucher de Grandpre. The next year he was made Major
of Three Rivers, which rank he held at death. He was buried
at Montreal July 21, 1711. His son Nicolas, spoken of as
Rigauville, is to have a part in our regional history scarcely
less important than that of the father, being in command at
Fort Niagara for many years.
An incident connected with the service of Desbergeres has
been preserved, which though trivial, somewhat illustrates sol
dier life at these frontier posts.
When he came to the relief of the Niagara garrison in 1688
Desbergeres brought with him a favorite dog named " Vingt-
Sols " (Twenty Sous), which rendered good service as sen
tinel. A son of this dog was called by the soldiers " Mon
sieur de Niagara." Taken by his master to Chambly, he de
veloped a fondness for running through the woods to a neigh
boring post, La Prairie de la Madelaine, where there was an
other dog. Seeing that he went and came faithfully, the sol
diers fastened letters to his collar, which never failed of de
livery. In this way was established the dog-post (poste a,
pataud) which was so useful and became so famous that Des
bergeres applied to the Intendant at Quebec for the allowance
of a daily ration for Monsieur de Niagara, and it was granted.
Further, he was formally added to the garrison list, and at
roll-call would reply — or some one would reply for him if he
was not there — " En course " or " a la chasse." It is edify-

DENONVILLE'S CAMPAIGN 129
ing to read that " this continued, even several years, after his
death." 17
it The story of "Monsieur de Niagara" has been a favorite one with
French Canadian writers, and has been retold with variations and details
here omitted, for two hundred years. Sometimes it is ascribed to Chaus
segros de Lery, who lived long after " M. de Niagara " had trotted his last
course. It really originated with Gedeon de Catalogne, who was both
author and soldier, and who came to Niagara with Desbergeres and may
be said to have "personally known" this useful servitor of the King.

CHAPTER IX
WILDERNESS STRIFE
English Claims Reasserted — Adventures of the Baron La
Hontan, Explorer of the South Shore of Lake Erie —
The Revenge of Dubeau — Frontenac's Raid of 1696.
It will readily be believed that after the stirring events of
this summer of 1687, the correspondence between the rival gov
ernors did not abate in vigorous expression. On hearing of
MacGregorie's expedition, Denonville had written in broad
terms, accusing Dongan of perfidy. The English Governor re
plied : " I have been informed that you are told I have given to
Indians orders to rob the French wherever they could meet them.
That is as false as 'tis true that God is in heaven." Denon
ville refused to release MacGregorie and the other prisoners,
on the ground that Dongan was supplying the Senecas with
guns and ammunition. If he was not doing so directly, it
became easy for the Five Nations to get these and other goods
at Albany. August 21st the French Governor wrote again,
upbraiding Dongan for sending the expeditions to Mackinac,
" where no Englishman ever had put a foot and where our
Frenchmen have been established over 60 years." Dongan
replied that he had given no passes for his people to trade at
Mackinac, but among the Ottawas, " where I thought it might
be as free for us to trade as for you." " 'Tis a very hard
thing," he observed in a subsequent letter, " that all the Coun-
tryes a Frenchman walks over in America must belong to Can
ada." This conception of the French theory and practice of
occupancy evidently pleased him, for he uses the idea often
in his letters. In reply to Denonville's agents, in February,
1688, speaking of MacGregorie's seizure, he observes : " I
am sure it was out of the Government of Canada, except a
Frenchman by tredding upon the earth makes itt belong to
that Collony."
Finally Denonville sent back Major MacGregorie, and
130

WDLDERNESS STRIFE 131
with him, at Dongan's suggestion, two agents, Father Fran-
ciscus Valiant, a Jesuit, and Elambert Dumont, a layman, to
treat with Dongan and try to reach terms of agreement. It
does not appear that they met to discuss the situation; but
they exchanged a series of papers in which the claims of the
respective colonies were urged sometimes with vigor and adroit
ness, sometimes with evasion and sophistries. Dongan de
manded the " breaking down " of the fort at Niagara ; the re
storation to his men of all they had been robbed of, or its
equivalent; and the return of the prisoners. The arguments
were long, and their exchange continued through the month of
February, 1688. At length Father Valiant "demanded"
that the points at issue be referred to the two kings, and that
a truce for 15 months be agreed upon : " within this time we
shall hear what the two kings shall have agreed upon concern
ing the limits, the Fort of Niagara, and the restitution of
the goods ... if they command the forts to be demolished,
the goods to be restored, then those shall be demolished and
these be restored." " Governor Dongan," urged Father
Valiant, "says that he had power to send Major Maggre-
gorys and others to the Ottowawas, because he does not ac
knowledge them for the subjects of the King of France. Had
not we the selfsame reason to say we had power to build a fort
on Niagara to make war with the Indians, seeing for better
reasons we do not acknowledge them for subjects of the King
of England ? " Addressing Dongan the priest continued :
" You demand, first, the fort in Niagra to be demolished.
This cannot be granted; first, because it is built there by the
command of the Most Christian Kinge, and therefore it must
be demolished by his command; secondly, because it would not
be reasonable to demolish it before there be a general peace,
since in the meantime we have need of the fort to protect our-
selfs from the Indians untill there bee something concluded
concerning the limitts. This only I can declare and grant,
that foresaid fort does not give us any other right to those
Indians, than what we pretend to have longe since." And
the other points in Dongan's demand were as stoutly and in
geniously argued, only to be as ably rebutted by the redoubt-

132 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
able Dongan. In his last paper to the French agents occurs
this striking sentence: " [As] for the 5 nations of Indians
being the Kinge of Englands subjects, I know no better judges
than themselves, and very ancient records of there [their]
submission which is a very just title and farr better than that
of yours (of a poore Frenchmans goeinge with a pack upon his
back) to Onyagro."
In less than a month after Denonville built his fort at
Niagara, Governor Dongan had known all about it and was
taking council with the Iroquois for its overthrow. He
gathered the chief men of all the Five Nations in the city hall
at Albany, August 5th, discussed with them Denonville's raid
and fort-building at Niagara, and told them he was laying
these things before the King. " I think it very necessary,"
he added, " for the brethren's security and assistance, and to
the endamageing the French, to build a fort upon the lake,
where I may keep stores and provisions in case of necessity,"
and he urged them to tell him " where he might build," and
to " looke' out sharpe for fear of being surprized " as " the
strength of the French will be at Cadarahqui and Onyagaro,
where they build a fort now."
Dongan submitted the whole weary dispute to the Earl of
Sutherland, Lord President of the King's Privy Council, send
ing his report over to London by John Palmer. The suc
ceeding half century was to see many special messengers dis
patched to Whitehall in behalf of British claims on the
Niagara and the Great Lakes, but none of them was a more
picturesque figure in our colonial history than Palmer. An
English lawyer, he had come to New York about 1675 from
Barbadoes. He is soon spoken of as " Captain " Palmer ;
was made King's Ranger for Staten Island and held other of
fices. He was a close friend of Governor Dongan, who in
1684 made him the first judge of the New York Court of Oyer
and Terminer. The story of his imprisonment in later years
is part of a very stirring chapter of New York and Massachu
setts colonial politics, but it was as " Judge " Palmer, one
of the most influential men in Dongan's administration,

WILDERNESS STRIFE 133
that he now visited London, and laid before Sutherland Don
gan's representation of what should be done to secure the
Niagara region to Great Britain. The following extracts
from the Governor's long report will suffice to illustrate the
arguments relating to the Niagara and the Lakes, as well as
the singular spelling of that period:
My Lord: When his Maj'ts Commands came to my hand a
Father and another gent were here who came along with Magregory
from ye Gov'r of Canida. They would not come to any agreement
to demolish the ffort at Onijagaro [Niagara] nor to restore the
Goods alleadgeing it was set up by ye French Kings Direction, and
that they had no orders for pulling it downe, all there drift was to
gain a cessation for 15 Monthes and that the matters in Difference
might be referred for a Decision at home: upon which I called the
chieffe of the five nations of Indians together who are now with
me, and I proposed it to them, to see what there opinions would be,
who unanimously agreed not to consent to any thing 'till these De
mands were complyed wth also they desyred that what goods were
taken from them they might be returned, and another fort that lyes
in ye way of there Bever hunting broaken downe, for say they wee
are in prison so long as they are standing, and further that ye Fort
at Cadaracqui might also be destroyed saying ye French had no
right to it, and that they only gave leave to one La Sail to have
a man there to Dress there armes as they came from hunting, and
since the French have built a stone fort there ; as to Onyagaro they
have not the least pretense of right to it, only that a poor French
man went there to trade with ye Indians; they may have the like
pretence to all those parts of America, for they doe the same almost
everywhere. Considering how feeble and helpless if not hopeless the
establishment was, the student peruses with some skepticism
the glowing reports that were sent to France. One questions
whether Denonville believed all he wrote. There even was pre
pared a " Memoir on the advantage of the establishment of a
Fort at Niagara," inspired if not written by the Governor, in
which, after setting forth that the British were seeking to
seduce the Iroquois and to possess themselves of the control of
the Lakes and the fur trade, it was stated:

134 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
Now, that things are changed by the favor of God, and the King
takes care of that country, it appears very easy to return the com
pliment to those English if, as there is reason to hope, his Majesty's
arms are victorious over the Iroquois, and these are reduced; par
ticularly by erecting a fort at Niagara with a strong garrison for
the protection of the settlers who will establish themselves there in
order to clear the land, which is most excellent, and to carry on the
trade in furs with the Iroquois Indians, who do all their hunting
on the lands belonging to the King's domain. The English will
thus be deprived of a trade in peltries amounting to 400,000 livres
yearly, which will be very beneficial to the French colony.
All the inhabitants of said Niagara will pay to the revenue
(fertne) of his Majesty's domain the duty of one fourth of the
beavers, and one-tenth of the moose (orignaux) the same as at
Quebec. This will increase, by a large sum, the King's revenue in
said country, and should his Maj esty think fit to leave it to a private
person when the Iroquois are pacified, inasmuch as the establishment
of the said Niagara must be considered a newly discovered country.
Persons will be found who will give a considerable sum for the
privilege of receiving the duties on the beaver and moose which will
be reported from said Niagara.
Among the followers of Denonville who shared with him the
campaign against the Senecas and the building of Fort Denon
ville on the Niagara, was the young Gascon already mentioned,
Louis-Armand de Lorn d'Arce, better known as the Baron de
La Hontan, the seigneurial designation being derived from his
ancestral village of La Hontan in the Basse-Pyrenees. Com
ing to America in 1683, a lad of 17, he served in Canada for
ten years. His career as a whole, his picturesque personality,
and his vivacious writings in many editions have been made so
familiar to students of that period that it may suffice here
briefly to narrate the incidents of his career on and near the
Niagara. Fort Denonville, he tells us, was built in three days. On
August 1, 1687, Denonville's savage allies took leave of him
with elaborate speech-making, of which La Hontan made re
port. The western tribes assured Denonville that they were
pleased to see a fort so conveniently placed, since it would
" favor their retreat from any expedition against the Iroquois."

WILDERNESS STRIFE 135
They urged him to continue to make war, winter and summer,
upon the Iroquois, and pledged their help. " Mr. Denon
ville," says our chronicler, " gave them fresh assurances of his
intention to carry on the war, in spite of all the efforts of
the Iroquois, and, in a word, protested that he would prose
cute this design so vigorously that in the end these barbarians
should be either quite cut off, or obliged to shift their seats,"
i.e., remove elsewhere.
On the very day of this impressive leave-taking, Denonville
dispatched La Hontan on service to the westward. A com
pany of picked men was assigned him. His brother officers,
he says, " made me presents of Cloaths, Tobacco, Books, and
an infinity of other things, that they could spare without any
inconveniency, because they were then upon their return to
the Colony." The story of his American adventures, as after
wards published, purports to be a series of letters to his rela
tives; that from which we quote, though probably penned in
Portugal in 1694, is dated "Niagara, August 2, 1687," at
which time he was undoubtedly on our river. " The Men of
my Detachment," he continues, " are brisk proper fellows, and
my Canows both new and large." In company with Duluth
and Henri de Tonty, and followed by a horde of savages, the
young officer embarged at Niagara, August 3d. At the en
trance to Niagara gorge, where navigation stops, they met
Claude Grisolon de la Tourette, brother of Duluth, who had
come with a single canoe alone all the way from Mackinac, to
join Denonville's army.
La Hontan tells at length of the passing of the portage.
" Before we got at any beaten or level Path, we were forced
to climb up three Mountains, upon which an hundred Iroquese
might have knocked us all on the head with stones." Before
the portage was accomplished they discovered, he says, " a
thousand Iroquese that marched towards us. . . . We were in
danger of losing our Lives as well as our baggage; for we
had not embarked above the Fall half a quarter of an hour,
when the Enemy appeared upon the Streight side. I assure
you, I 'scap'd very narrowly ; for about a quarter of an hour
before, I and three or four Savages had gone 500 paces out

136 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
of our Road to look upon that fearful Cataract; and 'twas
as much as I could do, to get at the Canows before they put
off. To be taken by such cruel Fellows was to me no trifling
thing," and he quotes with the aptness of the scholarly wit he
was: "'II morir e niente, ma il vivere brugiando troppo."'*
La Hontan's much quoted description of the Falls, which
he found " seven or eight hundred foot high," may here be
omitted. After rowing all night, their party " arrived next
morning at the mouth of the Lake, which appeared to be in
different rapid. Then we were secure from all danger, for
the Iroquese Canows are so dull and large that they cannot
sail near so quick as those made of Birch-bark. The former
are made of Elm-bark, which is very heavy, and their form is
very aukard; for they are so long and broad that 30 Men
row in them, two abreast, whether sitting or standing, and the
sides are so low that they dare not venture 'em upon the
Lakes, tho' the wind be very slack." We may smile at La
Hontan's " 800-foot " Niagara Falls, and hesitate to accept
the 1000 Iroquois on the portage ; but we cannot deny the ac
curacy of his pages in countless other matters. He was a close
observer, a clear and entertaining writer. There is no record
of his time more valuable in many ways.
The boats skirted the north shore of Lake Erie, portaged
across Long Point instead of going around it, and on Sep
tember 6th entered the Detroit River. For some months La
Hontan was stationed at the little Fort St. Joseph on the St.
Clair at the entrance to Lake Huron — the fort which Du
luth had built in 1686, to keep the English out of the upper
Lakes. The Jesuit missionary, Avenau, joined him; and he
says he " waited with impatience for the arrival of one Tur
cot and four more of the coureurs de bois " whom Denonville
had promised to send, to hunt for the post. They did not
come, but four Canadians, expert hunters, brought in game
enough to keep them alive. It may be observed in this connec-
« " To die is nothing, but to live in the midst of fire is too much," al
luding to the Iroquois custom of burning prisoners.

WILDERNESS STRIFE 137
tion that had the garrison at Niagara in 1687-8 consisted of
fewer French soldiers and more Canadians, they probably would
have come through in better condition. The former, knowing
nothing of American forest life, were infantile in their ineffi
ciency and timorous inability; the latter knew how to hunt,
and to live; and, as the coming years were to prove, were a
better reliance for frontier fighting than the troops of France.
Turcot we have already met, with La Salle's deserters.
Outlaw that he was, he was probably no worse than many
others of his time, harbored in Indian lodges and at distant
posts. La Hontan would have preferred him to the priest. In
December there came in upon him a band of Hurons led by
one Saentsouan. The season being too late to proceed further
in their canoes, these and their " baggage " were left with La
Hontan, while they marched overland to Niagara, doing the
300 miles in 10 days. Somewhere in the Iroquois country they
fell upon a village, killed many, carried off 14 prisoners and
four women, and returned with a loss of but three men.
" Among the Captive Slaves, there were three who had made
part of the number of the 1000 Iroquese who mean'd to ap
pear before my Post without any delay." This news, he says,
" gall'd me to the last degree," and made him very careful of
his corn. But the Iroquois did not trouble him. In the spring
of 1688 he went to Mackinac, for corn; then appears to have
wandered, with hunting and war parties, to Sault Ste. Marie,
and far east of Lake Huron, not returning to his post on the
St. Clair until July 1st. On the 3d he set out again, ap
parently with only an Indian escort, " and stood to the south
side of the Lake Erie."
This is the first account we have of any exploration of the
south shore; the pity is, it tells us so little, and some of that
so wrong. La Hontan claims to have crossed through the
islands of the western end of the lake, thence to have skirted
the shore as far as the " River of Conde," where he says they
arrived July 17th. On the map published in his book, a dotted
line shows his route. The Conde is drawn as a large stream,
entering the lake from the southeast at the extreme south
eastern point of the shore. Its actual prototype is probably

138 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
the Cattaraugus, although La Hontan says it was 20 leagues
(about 50 miles) from the outlet of Lake Erie. It " runs 60
leagues in length without cataracts," says our explorer, " if
we may credit the savages, who assur'd me that we may go
from its source to another river that falls into the sea, with
out any other land-carriage than one of a league in length,
between the [one] river and the other." There is here evi
dently some vague notion of the Allegheny but no clear idea
of distance. La Hontan's " river of Conde " found little ac
ceptance with geographers; on most of the maps, later than
his, it is not shown; but it does reappear, many years after,
to the great misleading of certain theorists; as will be duly
related. La Hontan says he saw only the mouth of the Conde, where
they landed July 17th, and " the savages fell to work cutting
down trees, and making a redoubt of stakes, or pales, for the
security of our canows and baggage, and for a safe retreat
to our selves in case of necessity." He stayed in the redoubt
while a war-party marched off, up the river, intending to sur
prise a village of Cayugas, who came there to fish. Two days
later his Indians came running back, pursued by " not less
than 400 " Iroquois. There follows an involved account of
their further progress by canoe to a little island, where they
found shelter in a creek; though one is at a loss to locate
this at the eastern end of the lake, unless indeed they had
turned westward and were on the peninsula opposite Erie.7
There were several encounters between La Hontan's Ottawas
and the Iroquois, who had with them 18 Miami prisoners.
There was an ambuscade and an attack. Owing to the haste
of the Ottawas in firing most of the enemy escaped, " abating
for 10 or 12 whose heads were brought into the little fort
where I stayed. The Slaves indeed were all retaken, and so
rescued from the Cruelty of these Tygers." With this La
Hontan says he rested satisfied; the captives were stowed in
the canoes and the party steered for the Detroit which was
i La Hontan's map shows an island in Lake Erie at the entrance to the
Niagara, but the dotted line, indicating the voyage of 1688, does not reach
it. The map does not show Presqu' Isle peninsula.

WILDERNESS STRIFE 139
gained August 13th ; some days were spent in hunting, and on
the 24th they were at Fort St. Joseph.
Despite its confusion and the exaggeration of the river
Conde, the account of this expedition along the south shore of
Lake Erie is too explicit and circumstantial in many respects
to be regarded as fiction. When La Hontan invented his nar
rative he did not give precise dates for incidents such as are
indicated above. Of those who had sailed Lake Erie before
him, Joliet, Galinee, Tonty, La Salle and Dautray make up
the honor-roll, but none of them had touched the south shore;
nor do we find record of any white man who had, prior to this
coming of La Hontan in 1688.
Arrived at his lonely and neglected post of St. Joseph, La
Hontan found awaiting him Michitonka and his band of 80
Miamis, just come from Niagara, where they had saved the
remnant of the garrison from utter starvation, as already nar
rated. Michitonka's people were wild with joy at receiving
from La Hontan their captive tribesmen, of whose plight they
had not known. On his part La Hontan first heard from the
chief what had befallen at Niagara. " Michitonka acquainted
me," he writes, " that after he went to the Fort of Niagara,
with a design to make some Expedition into the Country of
the Tsonontouans [Senecas], he found that the Scurvey had
made such a terrible havock in that Fort, that it had swept
off the Commander and all the Soldiers, bating 12, who had
the good luck to get over it, as well as M. De Bergeres [Des
bergeres], who by the advantage of a hale Constitution had
stemm'd the raging Violence of that Distemper." We have
noted the fact that Desbergeres came to Niagara in the spring,
with the relief party. The Miami chief further reported, not
quite accurately, that Fort Frontenac was as badly off as Fort
Denonville. La Hontan reflected on this and other news that Michitonka
gave him; nor did it take him long to decide that his proper
course was to abandon Fort St. Joseph, service at which he
had always found irksome. He called a council which " came
to this Resolution : That since the Marquis de Denonville had
a mind to clap up a Peace, and the fort of Niagara was abdi-

140 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
cated, the fort I then commanded would be of no use." He
had ammunition and provisions for not more than two months.
He decided to abandon his charge, a decision which he as
sures us, " afforded matter of Joy to the Soldiers, who were
afraid of being obliged to a more rigorous course of Abstinence
in that Post than they had formerly undergone ; for the meas
ures of a critical Abstinence do not sit well upon a Soldier's
Stomach." Loading what they could into their canoes, they
set fire to the fort, August 27th, and as the smoke of the
burning huts and palisades rolled above the clearing, they
paddled off for Mackinac. The following winter, according
to his own account, he spent in travels far west and south.
He claims to have explored a great river which he calls " Long,"
coming into the Mississippi from the west; but this part of
his narrative lacks the explicitness of the voyage along the
south shore of Lake Erie, and is commonly regarded as fic
tion. He reappeared at Mackinac in May, 1689, and at Mont
real in July, going down by the Ottawa River route. Instead
of being censured or broken in rank because of the irregular
ities of his western service, he was chosen by the Governor
(Frontenac) as a special messenger to Paris to announce the
failure of the English expedition under Phips. He is back
again in Canada in 1691, but does not again come into our re
gion, nor need we here follow further his personal adventures.
In a letter which purports to have been written at Nantes,
October 25, 1692, first printed in his work in 1703, La Hon
tan outlines a plan for fortifying the Niagara and adjacent
lakes, which he says he submitted " above a year agoe," say
in 1691, to Frontenac, " and is what he would have me still
to undertake " :
I project, therefore, to build and maintain three Forts upon the
course of the Lakes, with some Vessels that shall go with Oars,
which I will build according to my Fancy ; but they being light, and
of great carriage, may be managed either with Oars or a Sail, and
will also be able to bear the shocks of the Waves. I demand 50
Seamen of the French Biscay, for they are known to be the most
dexterous and able Mariners that are in the World. I must also
have 200 soldiers, chosen out of the Troops of Canada.

WILDERNESS STRIFE 141
I will build three little Castles in several places ; one at the mouth
of the Lake Errie, which you see in my Map of Canada, under the
name of Fort Suppose, besides two others. The second I will build
in the same place where it was when I maintained it, in the years
1687 and 1688 . . .; and the third at the Mouth of the Bay of
Toronto, upon the same Lake.
" Fort Suppose " is shown on La Hontan's map on the east
bank of the Niagara at the outlet of Lake Erie — obviously
on the high bank where the United States Government in 1844
built Fort Porter. Our young officer evidently recognized the
strategic and commanding value of that point. He was the
second writer (Hennepin being conceded the first) to allude to
the site of the present city of Buffalo.
His second fort or " little castle " was to have stood on
the site of the burned Fort St. Joseph where Fort Gratiot was
afterwards built, at the entrance to Lake Huron ; the third ap
parently on Georgian Bay, which he calls Toronto. In La
Hontan's time Lake Simcoe bore that name, which was also
applied to the portage to Lake Huron. The end of the por
tage on Georgian Bay is evidently the site designated. He
asked for 90 men for the defense of these forts, and argued
that by means of the vessels on the Lakes he could easily bring
a horde of Western savages to the Niagara — unloading them,
doubtless, under the guns of Fort Suppose — and fall with
such irresistible fury on the Iroquois that these enemies of
the French would be forever quieted, or annihilated. This fan
tastic project, submitted to Frontenac, won such approval that
— according to La Hontan — it was seriously laid before Pon-
chartrain; but that great Minister found many reasons why
it should not be undertaken: First, France could not spare
the seamen La Hontan asked for. Second, the King had or
dered Frontenac to make peace with the Iroquois, not to kill
them. Third, not least of the reasons, because when the forts
and vessels were ready the friendly savages would prefer war
to beaver trapping and the French Ministry thought it better
to promote the fur trade than feuds among American savages.
Thus La Hontan's project, the first ever devised for the de
fense of the upper Niagara, the site of Buffalo and the neigh-

142 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
boring lake, came to naught; whereupon he, not one whit
cast down, turned to other employments and adventures, where
we may not follow him. Still it is with some regret that we
dismiss him from our story. He was no doubt a rather im
proper young man, if his living were as free as his writing;
but he was certainly a clear-headed man who did his own think
ing, with a wit all the more enjoyable because used at the ex
pense of ponderous, conceited folk who took their sham selves
seriously. His mocking spirit made him no friend of the cler
ics. A youth, fond of adventure and abounding in vitality,
he wrote with the cynicism of an aged courtier who had dis
covered that the world is hollow. About to make a most
promising marriage, La Hontan deserted the waiting maid, to
the great scandal of Quebec. " A solitary life is most grate
ful to me," he boasts, " and the manners of the savages are
perfectly agreeable to my palate." Into the wilderness of the
Lakes and the Niagara he brought books, some of the world's
greatest, and quoted from Homer or from his beloved Lucian
to illustrate the traits of the savages. He came to know sev
eral Indian tongues as he knew Greek, Latin, Italian and his
native French, and discovered a beauty and nobiUty in the
aborigines' philosophy of life which made him ever more sa
tirical and contemptuous of the follies and shams of European
society. A victory over the English — at Placentia — being
ascribed to his genius and valor, he declared there was no
just ground for such praise; and when Louis XIV recognized
his services by making him Lieutenant of Newfoundland and
Acadia, he insisted that it was an honor mistakenly bestowed.
His career to the end is full of ups and downs, and the sum
of his achievements is not great. He stands alone in the early
history of our region, conspicuous for his jaunty humor, his
freedom from cant and pretense, and as our study of his work
inclines us to conclude, for his priority as an explorer of the
south shore of Lake Erie.8
s It will suffice here to refer the reader who seeks further of La Hontan,
to two excellent studies: J. Edmond Roy's " Le Baron de La Hontan," in
Can. Roy. Soc. Proceedings, 1894; and Thwaite's Introduction to the
edition of La Hontan's "New Voyages," pubUshed by McClurg, Chicago,

WILDERNESS STRIFE 143
In these early years the Indians who appeared on the lower
Lakes and the Niagara were quite as apt to be of western tribes
as of the Iroquois, with which people, especially the Senecas,
we have come to associate the region. The Missisaugas, who
had villages to the west of the Niagara, were of Algonquin stock.
The Miamis, whose war parties often roamed hither, and who
saved the remnants of the garrison of Fort Denonville, were
a people of southern Michigan and neighboring lands. The
Ottawas, Sauteurs, and other tribes from the Northwest, came
down the Lakes for war or trade. The Foxes and Sauks went
west from the Niagara region.9
Not long after the abandonment of Fort Denonville, one
Dubeau, a Canadian half-breed, son of a Frenchman and a
Huron woman, who is described as " one of the strongest men
in the country," was taken captive by the Iroquois, who bound
him and guarded him closely. As he could speak their lan
guage he gained their good-will, so that they trusted him a lit
tle and guarded him less closely. " One night, as they were
near Niagara, all being asleep and the fire dying down, Dubeau
arose, took a hatchet, killed all eight of them, and made his
way to the Ottawas." 10 A brief record of a tragedy typical
of the region and the time.
There are few annals of Lake Erie at this period. Cadillac,
after three years at Mackinac, went down to Quebec in 1697,
where he reported that he had " put several parties in the
field against the Iroquois, and our allies came back from them
victorious, having killed or taken prisoners 102 warriors of
the tribe of the Sonnontouan [Senecas]. The last fight took
place on the water, in Lake Erie, with equal numbers; and it
1905. Of the very many editions of La Hontan the English edition of
1703 (the year in which the first French issue appeared), is rather better
reading than the French; few books give us better the English idiom of
the period; and it admirably preserves the manner and spirit of the original.
La Hontan at his best wrote with a classic pen; the grossness and in
decencies found in a part of his work are by some attributed to an alleged
colaborator or editor, the publisher Nicolas Gueudeville, an unfrocked
French friar.
» Coll. Wis. Hist. Soc, III, 265.
io The incident of Dubeau is recorded in the Memoire ascribed to Cata
logne.

144 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
was so fierce that, both sides having come to land with their
canoes, they dispatched each other with their knives. There
remained on the field 40 Iroquois and there were 15 prisoners ;
our allies sustained a small loss." n Here is a rare chapter
of Lake Erie history, the details of which may only be found
in the imagination.
We do not undertake here a minute study of events at Fort
Frontenac, elsewhere recorded by competent hands. It will
suffice to note that its destruction was ordered in 1688, when
Niagara was abandoned. Denonville, writing in 1690, says
he " sent orders to the captain commanding Fort Cataracouy "
— apparently Valrenne — " to abandon that post after hav
ing sapped the walls by piling timber well smeared with tar
against them." Instead of burning the fort, Valrenne under
took to blow it up. The garrison withdrew to Montreal, but
enough of the structure remained to serve as shelter for the
Indians of the neighborhood.
The year before, three barks had sailed the lake; two of
them built at La Salle's orders, now scarcely seaworthy; a
third built by La Barre. During the temporary abandonment
of Fort Frontenac, they probably made their base at what was
later known as La Galette, near present Ogdensburg. It was
not until 1696 that the ruinous fort was repaired and newly
garrisoned. The student cannot fail to observe a singular inconsistency
in the policy and conduct of the French, for many years after
their entry into the Lower Lakes as a theater of action. De
pendent in large measure for the success of their undertakings
on the good will of the aborigines, over and over again they
thwarted their own ends by antagonizing the natives on whom
they must rely. Often the pretext was, that the Indians were
the allies of the English; but the result was none the less dis
astrous. Even if no tradition lingered of Champlain's mur
derous invasion of 1615, Denonville's raid on the Seneca vil
li Frontenac to the Minister for Colonies, Oct. 15, 1697. Some further
reference to this fight is contained in an unpublished narrative by M. de
Champigny of events in Canada, 1696-97; it is stated that there was an
ambuscade and fight on Lake Erie, in which 60 Iroquois were slain or
drowned. (Coll. Moreau St. Miry, Vol. VI.)

WILDERNESS STRIFE 145
lages in 1687 not only made all French operations within strik
ing reach of the Senecas more hazardous, but naturally in
clined the Senecas to view with favor the friendly offers of the
English, who like themselves were treated as enemies by the
French. There were numerous episodes of the sort, which do
not fall within the scope of our narrative, the effects of which
were like that of the raid of 1687. In the summer of 1696
the veteran Frontenac, in retaliation, made an expedition
against the Onondagas which was in effect a repetition of the
unhappy achievement of Denonville nine years before. It
must have mention here, as it marks another step in the grad
ual entry of the French into Lake Ontario. With a motley
force of French regulars, Canadian militia and Indian allies,
Frontenac set out from Montreal, July 4th. Twelve days
brought his army to Fort Frontenac, 12 more to the mouth of
the Oswego. Passing up this river, they gained the villages
in the vicinity of Onondaga Lake, but the nation had fled.
A lame girl and an old man were taken, and the latter tor
tured to death. Villages of the Onondagas and Oneidas were
burned, and crops destroyed. Then the " army " retraced its
way, crossed the eastern end of Ontario and regained Quebec,
to await proofs that the blow had produced a chastened and
friendly feeling throughout the Six Nations.12
12 It was this expedition of 1696 which inspired Alfred B. Street's once
popular metrical romance, " Frontenac." With all its erudition, real or
assumed, it mingles many statements which will perplex the reader who
has regard for the facts; as for instance, in Canto III.:
In the soft twilight's darkening glow,
Near the wild shores of Ontario. . . .
.... a brigantine creeps
Round one of the points to the push of
her sweeps.
Only by poetic license can a brigantine be found on the lake at that date.

CHAPTER X
JONCAIRE THE ELDER
The Dominant Figure of His Time on the Niagara — The Em
bassy of Clerambaut d'Aigremont — Two Nations Strive
for Trade Control — Raudot pictures Joncaire.
In tracing the history of the Niagara region, one comes to
a time when records seem to vanish and exploits to cease. The
story of the early cross-bearers and explorers is much more
than twice told. The splendid adventuring of La Salle has
been made the most familiar chapter in the annals of the Great
Lakes. After him, in the closing years of the seventeenth cen
tury, a few expeditions, a few futile campaigns and fated under
takings, have been meagerly chronicled. We read of La
Barre's foolish and fruitless plans, of Denonville's pathetic and
calamitous establishment at the mouth of the Niagara. But
with the passing of La Salle from the pages of our regional his
tory, the light wanes, the shadows deepen. We are come to the
Dark Decades on the Niagara.
So one may fairly designate the first forty years of the
eighteenth century. Speaking broadly, they are a part of the
century-long strife between France and England for American
supremacy. There were periods, it is true, in these decades,
when the rivals were nominally at peace. The Treaty of Rys-
wick, after King William's War, proclaimed a peace that was
kept from 1697 till 1702; and following Queen Anne's War,
the Treaty of Utrecht warded off armed hostilities from 1713
to 1744. Thus for thirty-five years — seven-eighths of the
period under notice — there was political peace between France
and England; but on the Niagara, and the Great Lakes which
it joins, there was never a day in all those forty years when the
spirit of commercial warfare was not active.
During these years, the American colonies of the rival Pow
ers were developing along widely divergent lines. France es
tablished her distant posts, throughout the lake and trans-
146

JONCAIRE THE ELDER 147
Alleghany region, her very energy weakening her for future de
fense. The English colonies, and New York in particular, de
voted themselves more to developing the home territory. Both
cajoled and bargained with the Indians, both exhausted them
selves in fighting each other. It was the time when the slave
trade was encouraged; when piracy flourished. But recently
were the days when Captain Kidd and Morgan and Blackbeard
and their kind " sailed and they sailed " ; and the attention of
New York's Governors was divided between lawless and red-
handed exploits on the seas, the quarrels of their legislative
councilors, and the interference of the French in their reach for
the fur trade.
Throughout these Dark Decades there is a figure in our
regional history which, strive as we may, is at best but dimly
seen. Now it stands on the banks of the Niagara, a shadowy
symbol of the power of France. Now it appears in fraternal
alliance with the Iroquois; and anon it vanishes, leaving no
more trace than the wiliest warrior of the Senecas, silently
disappearing down the dim aisles of his native forest. Yet it
is around this illusive figure that the story of the Niagara cen
ters for forty years.
This man is the French interpreter, soldier, and Seneca by
adoption, commonly spoken of by our historical writers as
Chabert de Joncaire — more accurately, as Chabert de Jon
caire the elder. He never attained high rank in the service;
he was a very humble character in comparison with several of
his titled superiors who were conspicuous in making the his
tory of our region during the time of his activity hereabouts.
But it was primarily through his skilful diplomacy, made effi
cient by his peculiar relations to the Indians, that France was
able to gain a foothold on the Niagara, for trade and for
defense, and to maintain it for more than a quarter of a cen
tury- His baptismal name was Louis Thomas de Joncaire; his
seigneurial title, Sieur de Chabert. The son of Antoine Marie
and Gabriel Hardi, he was born about 1670,1 in the little town
of St. Remi, of the diocese of Aries, in Provence. As a child,
iTanguay gives this date. A report of 1732 says he was born in 1668.

148 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
he may have played amid the mighty ruins of Roman amphi
theaters and palaces, and have grown up familiar with monu
ments of a civilization which antedated by many centuries the
Christian era.
The date of his coming to America is uncertain; possibly
with the troops of the Marine, largely from Provence, which
accompanied the Chevalier de Vaudreuil in 1687. Some years
his senior, Vaudreuil often appears as his patron and staunch-
est friend, defending his character when vilified, and com
mending him for favor and promotion. Other evidence tends
to indicate that he accompanied Frontenac to America in the
capacity of quartermaster (marechal-des-logis) in the autumn
of 1689. We find him holding this rank in the Governor's
Guard in 1700. June 14, 1704, the King at Versailles named
Joncaire an ensign in the colonial troops and approved his
going, the following winter, to live with the Senecas. From
1706 he is a lieutenant of the Marine. In an official letter
of 1738 he is mentioned as having served as interpreter since
1701. At an early period Joncaire and several companions were
taken captive by the Iroquois. The exact date does not ap
pear. In view of his relations to Vaudreuil, he may have ac
companied that officer in the expedition against the Senecas
in 1687; but his capture by the Senecas was probably in 1692
or 1693. The earliest account of Joncaire's early years ap
pears to be that contained in a letter written by M. Raudot
the younger — son of the Intendant Raudot, and for a time
joint administrator with him — to the Minister, Ponchartrain.2
Under date of Quebec, November 1, 1709, M. Raudot informed
the Minister that " The Sieur Jonquaire, officer of the troops
of this country and interpreter of the Iroquois, who has the
confidence and friendship of M. de Vaudreuil, does not con
duct himself, as it appears to me, for the good of His Majesty's
service. I have the honor of giving you his history and of
Another, of 1735, speaks of him as 60 years old, which would make his
birth year 1675.
z Preserved in the Correspondance GMrale. So far as I have noted, it
has never been published.

JONCAIRE THE ELDER 149
showing you his character; you can judge him for yourself."
Raudot continues:
He is a man who talks much, who brags, and even lies. He
boasts a great deal of his influence with the Senecas, and makes it
appear as great as possible.
If an upright man, he cannot possess these traits ; but he adds to
them something of ingratitude, not refraining on every occasion to
show contempt for his benefactor. He thinks thereby to increase
his own importance, insinuating by his talk that it was necessary
to come to him in Iroquois matters ; but the most reputable men think
differently, believing that if he had not been consulted, affairs would
have gone better.
He has been a soldier in this country, and was taken captive by
the Senecas. As they were fastening him to a stake, to burn him,
without knowing what he did, he gave a blow of his fist on the nose
of one who held him. It made the savage's nose bleed, averted the
tragedy and saved his life, since he was soon adopted, the savages
admiring a man who dared, alone, defend his life among many
enemies. It is from him, Monsieur, that I have drawn this history, which
seems to me fabulous, it being the custom of the Indians to burn
people whom they think brave, treating them more cruelly than
others. But, at any rate, he was adopted, remained with them,
gained their regard and confidence, and did not return to the colony
until we made peace with these nations.
M. Raudot continues with an account of Joncaire's subse
quent service, which will presently be related. The passage
quoted above is the earliest known account of Joncaire's cap
tivity, and was derived from him. Some years later the his
torian Bacqueville de La Potherie published a somewhat differ
ent version:
He was taken in a battle; the fierceness with which he fought a
war chief who sought to bind him in order to burn his fingers, until
the death sentence could be carried out, induced the others to grant
him his life, his comrades having all been burned at a slow fire.
They [the Iroquois] adopted him, and the confidence which they
had in him thenceforth, led them to make him their mediator in all
negotiations.3 8 La Potherie was a contemporary of Joncaire, and his "Histoire de

150 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
This passage, which is apparently the basis of versions of
the affair by modern writers, has been variously " enlarged
and improved " ; but it is worth noting that the man who
wrote down Joncaire's own much simpler account in 1709 de
clared that he did not believe it. Raudot, however, was just
then trying to make a case against Joncaire. There is no
reason to doubt that worthy's captivity, however writers may
have decked it with imaginary incidents. On that captiv
ity, and Joncaire's subsequent adoption, depended the course
of history in Western New York for half a century. Jon
caire passed much of his subsequent life among the Senecas,
and though he won distinction for his service to his king
and the cause of Canada, he seems never to have forfeited the
confidence of his red brethren. He did not, like many pris
oners of the period, wholly sever his connection with his own
people. On the contrary, his intimacy with the Senecas proved
of the greatest value to Canada in the promotion of her plans
for trade.
Whenever Joncaire may have been taken prisoner, he was
released in the autumn of 1694, with twelve other prisoners,
one of whom was M. de Hertel,4 a French officer whose services
were of some note at a subsequent period. Father Milet, who
Ii 'Amerique septentrionale A published in Paris in 1722, contains the fullest
early account of Joncaire's captivity after Raudot's I have been able to dis
cover. La Potherie is apparently Parkman's authority; yet I find no other
basis than the passage above quoted for the following, in " Frontenac and
New France under Louis XIV": "The history of Joncaire was a note
worthy one. The Senecas had captured him some time before, tortured his
companions to death, and doomed him to the same fate. As a preliminary
torment, an old chief tried to burn a finger of the captive in the bowl of
his pipe, on which Joncaire knocked him down. If he had begged for
mercy, their hearts would have been flint; but the warrior crowd were so
pleased with this proof of courage that they adopted him as one of their
tribe, and gave him an Iroquois wife." Evidently the historian has read
into the meager account of La Potherie certain picturesque — and highly
probable — details drawn from his own knowledge of Indian customs and
character. As for Joncaire's Indian wife, her existence is also highly
probable; but I find only circumstantial proof of it in contemporary rec
ords. * " Orchouche, avec les Ouiengiens, ramPne 13 enclaves; entre autres, M.
de Hertel et M. de Joncaire." — Belmont, " Histoire du Canada," p. 36. The
Abbe de Belmont was Superior of the Seminary at Montreal, 1713 to 1724.
His MS. history is in the Royal Library at P&ris.

JONCAIRE THE ELDER 151
had been held a prisoner among the Oneidas since 1689, was
returned to the French at the same time. Joncaire had then
lived among the Senecas for several years, and had been adopted
by a Seneca family to fill the place of " a relative of impor
tance," whom they had lost. " He ingratiated himself so much
with the nation," says Colden, " that he was advanced to the
rank of a sachem, and preserved their esteem to the day of
his death; whereby he became, after the general peace, very
useful to the French in all negotiations with the Five Na
tions, and to this day they show regard to his family and
children." 5 There is no implication here, nor in any other
writer who may be called contemporary with Joncaire, that
he married a Seneca woman. On March 1, 1706, at Montreal,
he married Madelaine le Guay, by whom, from 1707 to 1723,
he had ten children,6 several of whom died in infancy, and but
two of whom came to bear a part in their country's history.
The eldest child, Philippe Thomas de Joncaire, born January
9, 1707, is known by his father's title, Chabert, and by many
writers the two are more or less confused.7 The seventh child,
Daniel, " Sieur de Chabert et Clausonne," sometimes called
Clausonne, was born in 1716. Both of these sons followed in
their father's footsteps, and for many years are conspicuous
figures in the history of the Niagara region.
The first public service in which we find the senior Joncaire
employed was not until six years after his release by the Iro
quois. He was at the conference in Montreal, July 18, 1700,
between the Chevalier de Callieres and six deputies from the
Iroquois, two from the Onondagas and four from the Senecas.
sColden's "History of the Five Indian Nations of Canada" (London,
1747), p. 179.
eTanguay, "Dictionnaire Geniologique." The following data are given
regarding Joncaire's children: Philippe Thomas, b. Jan. 9, 1707; Madelaine,
b. May 8, 1708, d. 1709; Jean Baptiste, b. Aug. 25, 1709, d. 1709; Louis
Romain, b. Nov. 18, 1710; Marie Madelaine, b. April, 1712, d. 1712; Louis
Marie, b. Oct. 28, 1715; Daniel, b. 1716; Madelaine Therfcse, b. March 23,
1717; Louis Marie, b. Aug. 5, 1719; Fran?ois, b. June 20, 1723. The family
home seems always to have been at or near Montreal. Madame de Joncaire,
mother of these children, is buried in the church at Repentigny.
Tin Parkman's "Half Century of Conflict," Joncaire and his oldest son
are spoken of as the same person, and no distinction is made between them in
the index.

152 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
Pledges of peace were made in the figurative language em
ployed on such occasions. Callieres was solicitous about cer
tain Frenchmen and Indian allies of the French who were still
held in the Iroquois country. The deputies declared their
willingness to restore them, and asked as a special favor that
Joncaire return with them, to fetch out the captives. This
request was granted, Father Bruyas and the Sieur de Mari-
court being also sent along, the two former to the Onondagas,
Joncaire to the Senecas. " Our son Joncaire," the chiefs
called him ; and before the council broke up, they solemnly gave
to Callieres three strings of wampum. " We give these," they
said, " in consequence of the death of Joncaire's father, who
managed affairs well, and was in favor of peace. We inform
Onontio, by these strings of wampum, that we have selected
Tonatakout, the nearest blood relation, to act as his father
instead, as he resembles [him] in his disposition of a kind
parent." We are to understand that this father who had died
was the adoptive father, according to the Seneca custom. The
Governor expressed sympathy; approved the appointment of
the new father ; and gave the Senecas a belt " in token of my
sharing your sentiments; and I consent that Sieur Joncaire
act as envoy to convey my word to you and to bring me back
yours." 8 This so pleased the chiefs that they consented that
four of their people should remain at Montreal until their re
turn. Callieres at this period was more concerned in making a
firm peace with the savages south of Lake Ontario than with
getting any foothold on the Niagara. In fact, for the time,
he avoided any movement in that direction. The next spring,
when he sent La Mothe-Cadillac and Alphonse de Tonty to
make their establishment at Detroit, he had them follow the
old Ottawa route, " by that means," he announced beforehand
to Pontchartrain, " avoiding the Niagara passage so as not
to give umbrage to the Iroquois, through fear of disturbing the
peace, until I can speak to them to prevent any alarm they
might feel at such proceedings, and until I adopt some meas
ures to facilitate the communication and conveyance of neces-
s N. Y. Col. Docs., IX, 711.

JONCAIRE THE ELDER 153
saries from this to that country through Lake Ontario." Cal
lieres knew that the Minister had very much at heart the suc
cess of the project on the Detroit; it was not politic to urge
at the moment the advantages to be gained from a hazardous
experiment on the Niagara. The band that built Fort Pon-
chartrain, thereby laying the foundations for the city of De
troit, went thither by the Ottawa route; and although there
was an occasional passage by way of the Niagara — a few of
which we can trace, more of which, no doubt, we are ignorant of
— yet for some years from the time we are now considering,
the principal coming and going between the Upper Lakes and
the lower St. Lawrence was by the northern route.
Joncaire spent the summer of 1700 among the Senecas in
the furtherance of his mission. There were no permanent
Seneca villages at this time west of the Genesee. By Septem
ber 3d he was back again at Montreal, with Father Bruyas and
Maricourt from the Onondagas, nineteen " deputies " of the
Iroquois and thirteen prisoners for restoration to the French.
Joncaire had found no little trouble in inducing them to re
turn. Many a French soldier was brought by the fierce Sen
ecas a trembling, fainting captive into their lodges, only to be
adopted as one of the nation. An alliance with a young squaw,
by no means always uncomely, quickly followed. The rigors
and discomforts of the frontier post and wilderness campaign
prepared him to accept with philosophy if not with entire
satisfaction, the filth and rudeness of savage life. In the mat
ters of cruelty and barbarity, the French soldier of the period
was too often the equal to his Indian brother. The freedom
of the forest life always appealed to the Gallic blood. There
was adventure, there was license, there were often ease and
abundance among his savage captors. If at times there were
distress and danger, these, too, he had known in the King's
service. Small wonder, then, that among such captives as
saved their scalps by reason of some exhibition of a dauntless
spirit, there were many who preferred to abide with the red
men, in their villages pleasantly seated in the beautiful valleys
of Central New York, to a return to the duties and privations
of service in Canada. Once more among the French, they knew

154 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
they need never look for mercy again from the Iroquois into
whose hands they were ever likely to fall. Their point of view
must have been entirely familiar to Joncaire; though on this
and subsequent occasions he seems faithfully to have sought to
induce them to return.
The matter of Indian wives, which hardly calls for our
further consideration save in relation to the family of Jon
caire, did receive at one time and another, a good deal of at
tention from the Canadian Governors. Officially Canada al
ways opposed these alliances, as did the Church. Actually,
they occurred with great frequency wherever the two races
were thrown into such social intimacy as pertained to the fron
tier and the wilderness. Frontenac himself was said to have
had half-breed descendants, of whom were the prominent fam
ily of Montour; but this statement, much repeated by writers,
is apocryphal. Vaudreuil, in 1706, issued an order forbidding
Cadillac to let his men in the Detroit settlement take Indian
wives because " experience showed they became good-for-noth
ings and their children the same." A report of 1709 says of
Vaudreuil: "He has had to order Joncaire to get rid of one
Montour, who springs from such a marriage. It appears that
all children born of it make all the trouble possible for the
French." Whatever may have been Joncaire's course, he kept a singu
larly strong hold on the affections of the Senecas. With the
party that went up to Montreal in September, the Senecas
sent along a young man. " When Joncaire was in our coun
try," said one of their spokesmen to the Governor, " the father
of this youth whom we restore, was his master; but now it is
Joncaire who is master of this young man. We give him in
order that if Joncaire should .happen to die, he may be regarded
as his nephew and may take his place. Therefore it is that
we give him up to Onontio, whom we beg, with the Intendant,
to take care of him and to confine him should he become wild."
And Callieres, as in duty bound, promised to care for the youth,
and to " furnish him everything he shall require to qualify him
for filling some day said Sieur Joncaire's place."
For some years following Joncaire was much employed on

JONCAIRE THE ELDER 155
missions of this sort; now sojourning among the Onondagas
or the Senecas, to secure the release of prisoners or to spy
on the emissaries of the Enghsh ; now back at Montreal, inter
preting at councils. In the negotiations of the time he was
indispensable. At the general council at Montreal in the summer of 1701,
at which assembled not only representatives of the Iroquois,
but the tribes from Mackinac and the West, Joncaire found
himself for the time being in an embarrassing position. The
western tribes, after great difficulty, had been induced to send
hither the French and Iroquois prisoners, for exchange. Here
appeared the Rat, that greatest and most eloquent red man
of his day, of whose eloquence, intelligence and nobility of char
acter many writers from La Potherie to Parkman have testi
fied. The Rat handed over to Callieres his Iroquois prisoners,
and demanded to know why the Five Nations were not deliv
ering up theirs ; they were not acting in good faith, he said.
The Iroquois replied, through their orator Teganeout, that
their young men had charge of the prisoners, and that the lat
ter were unwilling to leave the lodges where they had lived since
childhood; were they French or Western Indian, it mattered
not ; they had forgotten their own people and were attached to
those who had adopted them, significantly adding that Joncaire
had not very strongly urged their return.
Joncaire arose in the council, acknowledged his fault, and
begged the Senecas, his brethren, to help him accomplish the
matter hereafter. High words followed, but later reconcilia
tion was effected.
A few days afterward, the council being still in session, the
Rat died. In the obsequies that followed, Joncaire was singu
larly conspicuous. The body of the great Huron chief lay in
state at the Hotel Dieu, in an officer's uniform, with side arms,
for he held the rank arid pay of an officer in the French army.9
After the Governor General and Intendant had sprinkled the
corpse with holy water, Joncaire led sixty warriors from Sault
St. Louis to the bier, where they wept for the dead, bewail
ing him in Indian fashion and " covered him," which figurative
» Charlevoix, Shea's ed., V, 147.

156 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
expression signifies that they gave presents to his tribesmen.
After the imposing funeral, at which the ritual of the Roman
Catholic church was blended with military usage and Indian
rites, Joncaire led another band of Iroquois to condole with
and compliment the Hurons, with significant gifts of wam
pum. In these acts Joncaire was undoubtedly at work, not only for
his Government, but for the Senecas and his own interests,
which from now on center more and more on the western
boundary of the Five Nations cantons. French interests on the
Niagara were not to be jeopardized by a needless rupture with
the Hurons.
At a council at Onondaga, in September, 1701, Joncaire en
countered Captain Johannes Bleecker and David Schuyler, sent
out from Fort Orange, as their report has it, " to hinder the
French debauching of our Indians." The English reports of
these transactions are less formal and correct than are those
of the French; but their vigorous phraseology, heightened by
the ignorant or whimsical spelling of the time, adds a reality
and picturesqueness to the chronicle which the Paris docu
ments lack. Joncaire had brought an abundance of the goods
which the Indian craved, a part at least of the store intended
for the families who consented to release their prisoners in
exchange. Captain Bleecker and his companion were irritated
at the success which Joncaire and his fellows had among " our
Indians." " We understand," said Bleecker, " the French are
come here to trade. Do you send for us to come with such
people, if you send for us for every Frenchman that comes
to trade with you, wee shall have work enough and if you will
hearken to them they will keep you in alarm Continually we
know this is the contrivance of the Priests to plague you Con
tinually upon pretense of Peace and talk [to] you until you
are Mad, and as soon as these are gott home, the Jesuits have
another project if you will break your Cranes [craniums?]
with such things ; we advise you brethren when the French
comes again, lett them smoak their pipe and give them their
bellyfull of Victualls and lett them goe."
The Dutch emissaries of the English on this occasion heard

JONCAIRE THE ELDER 157
Joncaire take the Indians roundly to task because they prom
ised more than they performed in the matter of returning pris
oners. He spoke as one who had nothing to fear, and conse
quently his words had weight. After some days of it,
" Monsieur Jonkeur went his wayes," says the English record,
and the Dutchmen went back to Albany, their chief concern be
ing, as from the first, to secure the trade of the Five Nations to
themselves. Their plans for that trade, even at this period,
involved the control of the Niagara River.
From further worry over the friendship of the Iroquois,
Callieres was spared by death, May 26, 1703; and a new and
stronger Onontio took his place at the head of the adminis
tration in Canada. This was the Chevalier de Vaudreuil, whose
part in the history of our region is to continue important for
many years.
Like his predecessor, he had had experience with the Seneca
in his native wilds. As we have seen, Vaudreuil had come
out from France just in time to join Denonville's expedition
of 1687. He shared in that inglorious campaign, coming to
the Niagara at its close, and helped to build the fort which
was destined to be the scene of one of the most tragic episodes
in the history of French occupancy in America. Vaudreuil's
personal knowledge of the Niagara pass had no doubt its in
fluence in shaping his policy towards the Iroquois. In a let
ter to the Minister, Pontchartrain, November 14, 1703, his first
communication after the death of Callieres, he speaks of Jon
caire's recent return from a three months' sojourn among the
Senecas, and declares the intention of sending him back to win
ter among them. This he did, but at the first breaking up of
the ice in the spring, Joncaire appeared at Fort Frontenac
with the news that the English were preparing to hold a gen
eral meeting of the Iroquois at Onondaga.
The neutrality of the Five Nations had now become the
chief object of solicitude for the French. Joncaire was speed
ily sent back to the Senecas, and with him the priest Vaillant,
that their combined efforts might defeat the seductive over
tures of the English. Once more at Onondaga, the great capi
tal of the Iroquois, he met his old adversary, Peter Schuyler.

158 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
The Indians were as ready to listen to overtures from one party
as the other. This attitude alarmed the French. Joncaire
posted off to Quebec to inform Vaudreuil, and was sent back
with messages to Ramezay, at Montreal.
Under the sanction of the French at this time Indian par
ties fell upon certain New England settlements with dire re
sults. We must accord to Joncaire a share in the instiga
tion of these attacks. He was also an intermediary in nego
tiations with the Senecas, regarding an attack upon them by
the Ottawas; we find him writing to the Governor, from the
Seneca capital, under date of July 7, 1705, that " the partisans
of the English in these villages do all in their power to induce
the young men to avenge the attack made by Outtaouais on
them, and that they are restrained only by the hope of recover
ing their prisoners, and by the proceedings they have seen me
adopt." The King and his Ministers at Versailles came to have great
interest in the peculiar services rendered by Joncaire. " His
Majesty," wrote Pontchartrain to Vaudreuil, June 9, 1706,
" approves your sending Sieur Jonqueres to the Iroquois, be
cause he is esteemed by them and has not the reputation of a
Trader. ... I have no doubt of the truth of the information
Sieur Jonquieres has given you respecting the intrigues of
the English among the Iroquois. Continue to order him to
occupy himself with breaking them up, and on your part, give
the subject all the attention it deserves."
There is among the Paris Documents 10 of the year 1706,
a paper entitled : " Proposals to be submitted to the Court
that it may understand the importance of taking possession
of Niagara at the earliest date, and of anticipating the Eng
lish who design to do so," etc. It is unsigned. It does not
appear to have been written either by Vaudreuil or the In
tendant, though it was probably by the order of the former
that it was sent to Versailles. It shows that now, seventeen
years after the abandonment of Denonville's enterprise, the
expediency of again attempting a permanent establishment
on the Niagara was being considered. It is worth while to
10N. Y. Col. Docs., IX, 773-775.

JONCAIRE THE ELDER 159
note the principal points in favor of the proposition, as they
were drafted for the edification of the King.
Niagara was claimed to be the best of all points for trade
with the Iroquois. It would, serve as an entrepot to the es
tablishment at Detroit. With a bark on Lake Ontario, goods
could be brought from Fort Frontenac to the Niagara in a
couple of days, thus effecting a great saving in time, with
less risk of loss, than by the existing canoe transportation.
" It is to be considered," argues this document, " that by this
establishment we should have a fortress among the Iroquois
which would keep them in check; a refuge for our Indian
allies in case of need, and a barrier that would prevent them
going to trade with the English, as they begin to do this year,
it being the place at which they cross."
The foregoing statement fixes, if not exactly the date at
which traders in the English interest made themselves a fac
tor on the Niagara, at any rate the date when the French
began to think they had, and seriously to fear them. In this
crisis, they turned to Joncaire, whom the writer of these
" Proposals " cites as " an officer of the Marine forces in Can
ada, who has acquired such credit among the Iroquois, that
they have repeatedly proposed and actually do suggest to
him, to establish himself among them, granting him liberty
to select on their territory the place most acceptable to him
self, for the purpose of living there in peace, and even to
remove their villages to the neighborhood of his residence, in
order to protect him against their common enemies." This
was no doubt true, and goes far to show how closely affiliated
with the Senecas Joncaire had now become. But the proposi
tion that follows is a singularly guileless and child-like speci
men of statecraft.
It was urged that the English would take no alarm if this
good friend of the Senecas, this soldier who lived with the
Indians in their lodges, should go to the banks of the Niagara
" without noise, going there as a private individual intending
simply to form an establishment for his family, at first bring
ing only the men he will require to erect and fortify his dwell
ing, and afterwards on pretence of conveying supplies and

160 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
merchandise there, increasing their number insensibly, and
when the Iroquois would see that goods would be furnished
them at a reasonable rate, far from insulting us, they would
protect and respect us, having no better friends than those
who supply them at a low rate." The document goes on to
show how a monopoly of the beaver trade at Niagara may be
secured, and to discuss the necessity of underselling the Eng
lish, a thing which the French at this period could not do,
especially in the price of powder and lead, which the English
furnished very cheaply to the Indians.
It is suggested in the " Proposals " that the King " grant
ten or twelve thousand weight of gunpowder and twenty or
thirty thousand weight of lead, which would be yearly reim
bursed to him at the rate his Majesty purchases it from the
contractor. This would counterbalance the price of the Eng
lish article; and then as our powder is better, we would thereby
obtain the preference; become masters of the trade and main
tain ourselves at peace; for it cannot be doubted that those
who will be masters of the trade will be also masters of the In
dians, and that these can be gained only in this way."
All of this was to be accomplished by Joncaire's clandestine
establishment at Niagara. The King was reminded, somewhat
presumptuously, that the Niagara enterprise, on a liberal
scale, " would be of much greater advantage and less expense
than carrying on a war against Indians excited by the Eng
lish." Though obviously true, this was hardly the way in
which to win favor with the war-racked Louis. The " Pro
posals " conclude as follows :
After having exposed the necessity of the establishment of this
post; the means of effecting it without affording any umbrage to
the Iroquois, and the most certain means to maintain peace and
union with the Indians, it remains for me to add, as respects the
management of this enterprise, that it would be necessary to pre
vent all the improper Commerce hitherto carried on, by the trans
portation of Brandy into the forest, which has been the cause of
all existing disorders and evils. In order to avoid these it would
be proper, that the Court, had it no other views, should give the
charge of this business to our Governor and Intendant who in order

JONCAIRE THE ELDER 161
to maintain the King's authority in Canada and to labor in concert
for the public peace, would always so cooperate that the whole would
be accomplished in a manner profitable to religion, trade and the
union with the Indians, which are the three objects of this estab
lishment. There is in this a suggestion of priestly authorship. The
whole document smacks more of the clerical theorist than of
the soldier, the trader or the practical administrator of af
fairs. Its recommendations were not followed, though it had
its effect, along with other causes, in bringing about an in
vestigation into the state of affairs, not only on the Niagara,
but at other points of trade on the Lakes.
In 1707 Joncaire was sent farther afield, on a mission among
the Illinois. When complaint was made of his conduct by
one Riverin, the Minister wrote back that the accusation
against Joncaire was false, and that Riverin himself was not
above joining in cabals. No further hint is found of the na
ture of the affair. A promise, in this year, that Joncaire
should have promotion,11 bespeaks a continuance of official
confidence in him. To Joncaire himself the Minister wrote:
" I have received your letter of September 3d of last year. M.
de Vaudreuil informs me of what you have done among the
Iroquois in the journeys you have made by his order, and I am
satisfied with your conduct. Continue punctually to execute
the orders of M. de Vaudreuil and I will remind the King of
your services; but at present there is no vacancy in the
Canadian troops."
A document of the time of singular interest, is a letter from
the Minister, Pontchartrain, to La Mothe-Cadillac, in which,
replying to a proposal of the latter to connect Lakes Erie and
Ontario by a canal, it is remarked: "It does not seem to me
that we can at present undertake the junction of the Lake On
tario with Lake Erie by a canal, as you propose, because of
the expense. However, send me an analyzed statement (" un
memoire raissonne "), with a plan and estimate of cost." 12
11 The Minister to de Vaudreuil, June 13, 1707; same to Joncaire, June
30, 1707.
12 The Minister to Cadillac, June 30, 1707.

162 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
As early as August, 1705, we find the English complaining of
" Jonkeur the French interpreter who lives in the Senekas
country." As he first went to the Senecas in the winter of
1704, his advent on the Niagara was probably about that time.
From that time also, date the references, in both French and
English records, to trade on the Niagara. It was in a sense
a renewal of the earlier occupancy which had ended so la
mentably with the abandonment of Fort Denonville. French
occupancy of the region then ceased, nor was it resumed for
30 years ; but in that period there was probably never a season
when some attempt at trade on the river or at its mouth, was
not made by the French. A few of these attempts, sometimes
disastrous, are noted in our narrative. It was the presence of
Joncaire, or of traders who relied on his influence with the
Indians, that drew to the vicinity in 1707 bands of those un
certain nomads whom we vaguely know as Mississagas. Their
later occupancy of the Niagara region is less definite than
that of the Senecas. They were probably the people who
had greeted La Salle in 1678 ; and seem to have shifted about
in the region east of Lake Huron and north of Lake Erie, as
conditions of sustenance or warfare suggested; but in 1707
word was carried to Albany that two sachems of a western na
tion " called Wississachoos " — which is held to mean the same
as Mississagas — " were come to the Senecas country & ac
quainted the 5 Nations, that there were Three Castles of their
Countrymen come to settle at a place about 8 Miles above
Jagare," 13 that is, Niagara. The reference is not to the
falls, but to the mouth of the river, and the proposed settle
ment appears to have been what was later known as the Missis
saga village near Chippewa Creek.
The English had frequent reports not only of the deeds but
of the designs of the French in the Niagara region. The New
York Indian records 14 often contain entries that read as
13 N. Y. Indian Records, Wraxall's Abridgment.
14 By " New York Indian Records " I mean specifically the manuscripts
so styled, being records of transactions of New York's Indian Commis
sioners and the Indians from 1678 to 1751. In 1754, Peter Wraxall wrote
an abridgment of a part of these records, which was preserved in four folio
manuscript volumes. The fire in the Capitol at Albany, in 1911, destroyed

JONCAIRE THE ELDER 163
though the French had not merely a trading-post but a fort
even, on the river, some years before Joncaire actually built
there. These reports no doubt arose from the temporary so
journs which traders made, in a neighborhood so favorable for
their purpose. In May, 1708, word reached Albany that the
French were about to build " at Oghj agere or the Great
Falls." 15 In July of 1708 the English were warned against
" a fort at Ochjajare." 16 A truer revelation of what the
French were actually doing is found in an Indian complaint,
July 5, 1715, " that there are some evil designs intended by the
French, who keep a party of men at the Carrying Place of
Jagare." 1T Such records, many of which might be cited, suf
ficiently establish the presence of French traders on the
Niagara, some years prior to the time when Joncaire built
his trading-post.
Louis XIV was by no means satisfied with the informa
tion he received through regular channels regarding the con
dition and prospects of the lake posts. He accordingly de
vised a plan for a fuller and more trustworthy report. Un
der date of June 30, 1707, instructions were sent from Ver
sailles to M. de Clerambaut d'Aigremont at Quebec, imposing
upon him a task which called for no little perspicacity and
tact. This gentleman, who was serving as sub-delegate to the
Intendant, the Sieur Raudot, was directed to visit Fort Cata-
racouy (i.e., Frontenac, now Kingston, Ont.), Niagara, De
troit and Missilimackinac, " to verify their present condition,
the trade carried on there and the utility they may be to the
Colony of Canada." The letter of instructions was long and
explicit on many delicate matters regarding which the King
wanted light. The administration of La Mothe-Cadillac at
Detroit was especially to be inquired into, as many complaints
them. Fortunately, they had been copied, for Professor Charles H.
McIIwain of Harvard University, who in 1915 published them, with a
scholarly introduction and many useful notes, under the title " An Abridg
ment of the Indian Affairs," etc. In view of the destruction of Wraxall's
MSS., citations from them in my narrative are referred to Professor
Mcllwain's printed volume.
iBMcIIwain's "Wraxall," 54.
16 76., 57.
it lb., 105.

164 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
and contradictory reports had reached the Court. Of Niagara
the letter of instructions said :
His Majesty is informed that the English are endeavoring to seize
the post at Niagara, and that it is of very great importance for the
preservation of Canada to prevent them so doing, because were they
masters of it, they would bar the passage and obstruct the com
munication with the Indian allies of the French, whom as well as
the Iroquois they would attract to them by their trade, and dispose,
whenever they please, to wage war on the French. This would
desolate Canada and oblige us to abandon it.
It is alleged that this post of Niagara could serve as an entrepot
to the establishment at Detroit, and facilitate intercourse with it by
means of a bark on Lake Ontario; that in fine, such a post is of
infinite importance for the maintenance of the Colony of Canada,
and that it can be accomplished by means of Sieur de Joncaire whom
M. de Vaudreuil keeps among the Iroquois. His Majesty desires
Sieur d'Aigremont to examine on the spot whether the project be
of as great importance for that colony as is pretended, and, in such
case, to inquire with said Sieur de Joncaire, whether it would be
possible to obtain the consent of the Iroquois to have a fort and
garrison there, and conjointly, make a very detailed report of the
means which would be necessary to be used to effect it, and of the
expense it would require; finally to ascertain whether it would be
desirable that he should have an interview with said Sieur Joncaire,
and that they should have a meeting at Niagara.
Word had reached Louis, which he was loth to accept, that
Vaudreuil kept Joncaire among the Iroquois for the purpose
of carrying on profitable trade with them, and of destroying
the establishment at Detroit. Not the least difficult commis
sion with which d'Aigremont was charged was to inform him
self as to Joncaire's conduct, and report thereon.
There were further instructions, in a letter from the Minister,
Pontchartrain, July 13th; but for some reason, probably be
cause the season was far advanced, d'Aigremont did not under
take his mission until the following summer. On June 5,
1708, he set out from Montreal in a large canoe, amply pro
visioned but carrying no merchandise for trade. It was in
fact the King's express; and so well did his sturdy men ply

JONCAIRE THE ELDER 165
their paddles, up the swift St. Lawrence, through the tortuous
channels of the Thousand Isles, coasting the uncertain lakes —
fickle seas even in midsummer — making the great carry around
the cataract of Niagara, and hastening by lake and river, that
they accomplished the journey as far as Missilimackinac, stop
ping at the designated points long enough to observe and take
testimony, and were back again at Montreal, September 12th.
D'Aigremont's report, addressed to Pontchartrain, is dated
November 14th; so that, allowing an average passage to
France, more than a year and a half elapsed from the day
when the King made known his will regarding a special investi
gation into the lake posts, till he received the report of his
emissary. That report is a document of exceptional value for the exact
data it affords. At Fort Frontenac, where Captain de Tonty
was in command, d'Aigremont took the depositions of Indian
chiefs and other principal men, much of it tending to show that
Tonty pursued an arbitrary and selfish policy in his dealings
both with Indian hunters and French soldiers ; " yet it is to be
remarked," writes the King's reporter, " that notwithstanding
all these petty larcenies, Mr. de Tonty is deeply in debt; an
evident proof that they have not done him much good. What
may have driven him to it is, the numerous family he is bur
dened with, which is in such poor condition as to excite pity."
After pointing out the difficulty of keeping the Indians from
carrying their peltries to the English, and the advisability of
maintaining and strengthening Frontenac, d'Aigremont goes
on to tell of his visit at Niagara.
He had left Fort Frontenac on June 20, 1708, and on the
27th rounded the point that marks the mouth of the Niagara ;
it had taken him a week to follow the north and west shores
of the lake from Tonty's disturbed establishment. Joncaire
had been appraised of his coming. " I found him," writes
d'Aigremont, " at the site of the former fort." " After con
versing some time respecting this post, he admitted, My Lord,
that the advantages capable of being derived from it, by
fortifying it and placing a garrison there, would be, namely —
that a number of Iroquois would separate from all their vii-

166 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
lages, and establish themselves there, by whose means we could
always know what would be going on in those Villages and
among the English, and that it would be thereby easy to ob
viate all the expeditions that could be organized against us.
" That the Iroquois would trade off there all the moose,
deer and bearskins, they might bring, as these peltries could
not be transported to the English except by land, and conse
quently with considerable trouble.
" That the Mississaguets settled at Lake Ste. Claire, who
also convey a great many peltry to the English, will not fail in
like manner to trade off their moose, deer and bearskins there.
" That the Miamis having, like the Mississaguets, demanded
by a Belt of the Iroquois a passage through their country to
Orange to make their trade, would not fail to sell likewise at
Niagara the skins that are difficult of transportation by land,
and this more particularly as the English esteem them but
little. But, My Lord, these considerations appear to me of
little importance in comparison with the evil which would arise
from another side. This would be, that all the Beaver brought
thither by any nations whatsoever would pass to the English
by means of their low-priced druggets, which they would have
sold there by the Iroquois without our being ever able to pre
vent them, unless by selling the French goods at the same rate
as the English dispose of theirs, which cannot be.
" It is true that this post could be of some consideration in
respect to Detroit to which it could serve as an entrepot for
all the goods required for purposes of trade there, which could
be conveyed from Fort Frontenac to Niagara by bark ; a vessel
of forty tons being capable of carrying as many goods as
twenty canoes. Though these goods could, by this means, be
afforded at Detroit at a much lower rate than if carried by
canoes to Niagara, the prices would be still much higher than
those of the English. This, therefore, would not prevent them
drawing away from Detroit all the Beaver that would be
brought there.
" The post of Niagara cannot be maintained except by es
tablishing that of La Galette [on the St. Lawrence, a little
below present Ogdensburg], because the soil of Fort Fron-

JONCAIRE THE ELDER 167
tenac being of such a bad quality, is incapable of producing
the supplies necessary for the garrison, its last one having
perished only from want of assistance, as they almost all died
of the scurvy."
D'Aigremont discussed at length the advisability of creating
an establishment at La Galette as a base of supplies for
Niagara; but he did not think a post could be established at
Niagara at this time with entire success : " At least great
precautions would [need be] taken at the present time, and
whoever would propose an extensive establishment there at once
would not fail to be opposed by the Iroquois. Such cannot
be arranged with them except by means of Mr. de Longueuil
or of Sieur Joncaire, one or other of whom could propose to
settle among them at that point, as the Iroquois look on these
two officers as belonging to their nation. But my Lord,"
d'Aigremont significantly adds, " the former would be pre
ferable to the latter because there is not a man more adroit
than he or more disinterested. I do not say the same of the
other, for I believe his greatest study is to think of his private
business, and private business is often injurious to public af
fairs, especially in this colony, as I have had occasion fre
quently to remark."
D'Aigremont thought there was so little prospect that the
post of Niagara could be established, that he did not take the
trouble to report an estimate of the expense such a project
would incur; but bearing in mind the King's remarks regard
ing the motives which led Vaudreuil to keep Joncaire among the
Iroquois, he replied to this point as follows :
" I do not think the Iroquois will suffer the English even
to take possession of that post [Niagara], because if they
were masters of it, they could carry on all the trade inde
pendent of the former, which does not suit them.
" The Marquis de Vaudreuil sends Sieur de Joncaire every
year to the Iroquois. He draws from the King's stores for
these Indians powder, lead and other articles to the value of
2,000 livres, or thereabouts, which he divides among the Five
Nations as he considers best. Some there are who believe that
he does not give them all, and that he sells a portion to them ;

168 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
or at least that he distributes it to them as if it were coming
from himself, thereby to oblige these Indians to make him pres
ents. What's certain is, that he brings back from those parts
a great many peltries. I am assured that they reach fully
1000 annually; in the last voyage he made, he brought down
two canoes full of them. He left one of them at the head of
the Island of Montreal [" bout de Visle "], and had the peltries
carted in through the night. As for the rest, My Lord, I do
not know whether the Marquis de Vaudreuil has any share in
this trade."
The Minister acknowledged this report in due time. Writ
ing from Versailles, July 6, 1709, he said : " In regard to the
post of Niagara, it is not expedient under any circumstances;
and as there is no apprehension that the Iroquois will take
possession thereof, it is idle to think of it. Therefore we shall
not require either Sieur Longueil, or Sieur Jonquair [sic]
for that " ; and he added that he would have the latter " watched
in what relates to the avidity he feels to enrich himself out of
the presents the King makes these Indians, so as to obviate
this abuse in future." Even though Joncaire were chargeable
with undue thrift, Pontchartrain evidently felt that he was by
all odds the best man to manage the Iroquois in the French in
terest. We here encounter insinuations against the character of
Joncaire. In the King's service, he was charged with using
his opportunities to enrich himself. There are many allusions
to this not very surprising matter, from now on. He continued
for several years to come, in much the same employment as that
which we have noted. He never lost the confidence of Vau
dreuil — possibly, as the foregoing correspondence may have
suggested to the reader, because they were allied for personal
profit in a surreptitious fur-trade. In November, 1708, we
find the Governor commending him in a letter to the Minister.
" Sieur de Joncaire," he writes, " possesses every quality re
quisite to ensure success. He is daring, liberal, speaks the
[Seneca] language in great perfection, hesitates not when
ever it is necessary to decide. He deserves that your Grace
should think of his promotion, and I owe him this justice, that

JONCAIRE THE ELDER 169
he attaches himself with great zeal and affection to the good of
the service."
Joncaire at this period, 1708-9, was much of the time at
Onondaga, doing what he could to counterbalance English
influence. This was a task which yearly grew more and more
difficult. Although Joncaire to the end of his days retained
the good will of the Iroquois, and especially of the Senecas,
he saw the hold of the French upon them gradually weakened,
the temptations of English trade gradually and effectively
strengthened. Conflicting reports reaching the Minister regarding Jon
caire, he wrote for enlightenment : " There is in Canada an
officer named Joncaire, interpreter with the Iroquois. His
conduct is equivocal. Some say he is a man not merely neces
sary but faithful, worthy of all confidence. Others declare
that he abuses the trust placed in him, in the distribution of
goods, and that he turns Government supplies to his own
profit." 18 He ordered the Governor to investigate : " If
guilty, have him make restitution, and put an honest man in
his place."
In compliance with this order, a long report on Joncaire was
written by the younger Raudot, son of the Intendant. From
it we have already drawn the story of Joncaire's escape from
the stake, and Seneca adoption. Raudot, evidently willing
enough to paint the interpreter as black as possible, told the
same story that d'Aigremont had included in his report — that
Joncaire unloaded his furs at the head of Montreal Island and
had them carted into the town secretly by night.19 He even
undertook to sketch Joncaire's public service.
He had been, wrote Raudot, one of Frontenac's guardsmen,
until he became exempt from service. Callieres had made him
an officer, and both of these Governors had employed him as in
terpreter with the Iroquois. He had been sent to the Senecas
with presents, and to reside, whereas Maricourt lived among
is Orders of Pontchartrain, Versailles, July 6, 1709.
19 The date of Raudot's long letter to Ponchartrain, giving virtually the
history of Joncaire's earlier years, is Nov. 14, 1709. D'Aigremont's report
bears date Nov. 14, 1709. The accusations against Joncaire were no doubt
matters of common knowledge.

170 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
the Onondagas. When this officer died, Joncaire, becoming
the chief representative of France among the Iroquois, under
took to move the chief council-place of the Iroquois from the
Onondagas to the Senecas. This stirred up the Onondagas;
and as for a time they saw no more French coming to them
with presents, they more readily inclined to the overtures of
the English. Raudot made it appear that the Onondagas
were ready to " raise the hatchet " against the French. He
even pretended to fear that the other Iroquois nations would
join with the Onondagas, " with the exception of the Senecas,
who have always been firm in our alliance." This Joncaire,
who was thus pictured as responsible for great risks to his
country, and the raising of many enemies, was being paid 400
livres a year as interpreter, besides which he received 300
livres for outfit, etc., for each journey he made. Raudot
thought he should be required to pay this back " when peace
comes." " No one doubts, Monseigneur," added this informer,
" that the Sieur de Joncaire receives gifts from his savages, in
return for those he gives, or that he trades with them, since
besides the gifts he carries them from the King's storehouse,
he takes along quantities of other merchandise. They claim
there is never a journey that does not bring him in two or
three thousand francs (deux a trois cents pistoles). I cannot
however believe that he gives the King's presents as coming from
himself, the Indians knowing very well who sends them; but he
could mix a part of them with his own trade — or, rather, as
he is beloved by these savages, receive large presents from
them for what he gives. It is a difficult thing," is the inform
er's smug and somewhat superfluous observation, " to know
the truth."

CHAPTER XI
ACTIVITIES OF JONCAIRE
The Murder op Montour — Joncaire wins English Enmity —
A Trade Episode of 1717 — The House by the Niagara
Rapids — A stormy Visit from Lawrence Claessen.
Meanwhile, there came a critical time. Schuyler and others
in the English interest, were very active at Onondaga; re
ports reached Vaudreuil that the Iroquois were declaring
against the French, that troops were about setting out from
Fort Orange to strike a blow. The French missionaries,
Lamberville and Mareuil, were frightened or cajoled into leav
ing. A party of drunken Indians burned the chapel and
priest's house at Onondaga, being set on thereto, the French
believed, by Schuyler. Joncaire and his soldiers were at Sodus
Bay, some 45 miles away, when this happened. He sent word
of it, June 14, 1709, by canoe to M. de la Fresniere, command
ing at Frontenac. His letter 1 shows that he was thoroughly
iThe letter referred to, sent from Sodus Bay ("Bay of the Cayugas")
to M. de la Fresniere, commanding at Fort Frontenac, is one of the few
documents written by Joncaire known to be in existence. Its phraseology
helps us form a just idea of the writer, who expresses himself, not as a rough
woods-ranger might, but as one accustomed to letters and good society.
This letter, as printed in N. Y. Col. Docs., IX, 838, is as follows:
Bat of the Catugas, 14 June, 1709.
Sib — Affairs are in such confusion here that I do not consider my sol
diers safe. I send them to you to await me at your fort, because should
things take a bad turn for us, I can escape if alone more readily than if
I have them with me. It is not necessary, however, to alarm Canada yet,
as there is no need to despair. I shall be with you in twenty or twenty-five
days at farthest, and if I exceed that time, please send my canoe to Montreal.
Letters for the General will be found in my portfolio, which my wife will
take care to deliver to him. If, however, you think proper to forward
them sooner, St. Louis will hand them to you. But I beg of you that my
soldiers may not be the bearers of them, calculating with certainty to find
them with you when I arrive, unless I exceed twenty-five days.
The Revd. Father de Lamberville has placed us in a terrible state of
embarrassment by his flight. Yesterday, I was leaving for Montreal in the
best possible spirits. Now, I am not certain if I shall ever see you again.
I am, sir and dear friend, your most humble and most obedient servant,
ije Joncaire.
171

172 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
alarmed for the safety of himself and men. Regaining his as
surance, he went back to the Senecas.
Towards the end of April, 1709, as Joncaire and his men
were at a place " called by the Indians Ossaroda being upon
the Creek that lyes opposite Cayouges," that is, Sodus Bay,
they encountered the half-breed interpreter Montour, with 10
sachems of western tribes on their way to Albany. Here was
a clash of rival interests, the story of which is best told in
the language of the old record 2 which preserves it :
The sd French Interpreter Jean Coeur advised Montour to turn
back again otherwise he would oblige the 5 Nations to kill him, upon
wch he replied he would perform his Journey to this Place [Albany] .
Jean Ceur then desired him to smoak, he replied he had no Tobacco.
Jean Ceur then gave him a little, Montour took out his knife to
cut it, Jean Ceur then asked what he did with such a little Knife &
desired Montour to give it him & he would give him one that was
better. As soon as Jean Ceur had the Knife he flung it away at
the same time there stood a French Man behind Montour with a
Hatchet under his Coat who cut the sd Montour into his Head &
killed him, whereupon the 10 Sachems come to Cayouge with Mon
tour would have killed the French Interpreter Jean Ceur & all his
Company if it had not been for the sd Montours Brother in Law
who prevented it.
Joncaire's return to the Senecas at this time won for him
more warm praise from Vaudreuil, who wrote to Pontchar
train that Joncaire, "by his return to the Senecas, has given
evidence of all the firmness that is to be expected from a worthy
officer who has solely in view the good of his Majesty's service."
One reason for Joncaire's enmity towards Montour was that
the latter had turned traitor to the French, and not only
thwarted their aims among the Iroquois, whenever he could,
but induced bands of western Indians, bringing furs for trade,
to carry them to Albany, rather than make barter with Jon
caire. Later this year Joncaire went to Montreal with Father
d'Heu and a French blacksmith who had been for some years
2 Wraxall's " Abridgment of Indian Affairs." The details here given
have been nowhere else noted.

ACTIVITIES OF JONCAIRE 173
in the Seneca villages, and a band of some forty Senecas as
escort. In July, 1710, the French took alarm lest the Iroquois should
join the English in a threatened expedition against Canada.
Longueuil and Joncaire, with ten other Frenchmen and some
Indians, hastened to Onondaga, where the French, through
Joncaire, as interpreter, made an exceedingly vigorous har
angue, threatening the Indians with dire vengeance if they
shared in the hostile movement. " If you do," said Joncaire
(as reported in the English documents), "we will not only
come ourselves, but sett the farr Nations upon you to destroy
you your wifes and Children Root & Branch. ... Be quiett
and sett still." There was a divided sentiment in this council,
but finally the French influence appeared to prevail, though a
delegation of Indians soon appeared in Albany to inform Gov
ernor Robert Hunter of all that Joncaire had said, and to re
ceive English assurances of friendship. On the other hand,
a little later, Vaudreuil reported the matter to the Minister.3
He begged of Monseigneur Pontchartrain that he specially re
member the services of Joncaire and Longueuil, " who expose
themselves to being burnt alive, for the preservation of the
country in keeping peace with the Iroquois, who without them
would inevitably make war." Joncaire, he added, has the same
influence among the Senecas that Longueuil has with the
Onondagas. Notwithstanding that Joncaire, the preceding
summer, " was obliged to stay among them, and to send back
his soldiers, in fear lest they would be put in the kettle, expos
ing himself alone to the caprice of these people in order to
endeavor to keep the peace," yet he still continued to receive
their favor, " as if himself a Seneca." At this time, the French
flattered themselves that they could count on the friendship
of all of the Five Nations except the Mohawks, who were most
under English influence.
We find Joncaire, in September, carrying messages from
M. de Ramezay, commandant at Frontenac, to Vaudreuil at
Montreal. It was from Joncaire that the Governor received
s Vaudreuil to Pontchartrain, Nov. 30, 1710. There are numerous allu
sions to the matter in the documents.

174 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
the first intelligence of the preparations which the English
were making at Boston and elsewhere, to attack Canada.
When Ramezay, in 1710, marched against the English,
Joncaire commanded the Iroquois from Sault St. Louis and
the Mountain, who made up the rear of the army ; and he was
probably with Vaudreuil, in September of that year in the
advance to Chambly in quest of the English. More urgent
matters in the East for a time withdrew the attention of Gov
ernment from the Niagara and its problems. Still, no emer
gency could arise which could make Vaudreuil forgetful of
the Iroquois.
For the next few years Joncaire continued to go back and
forth between Montreal, where he acted as interpreter, and
the Seneca villages, where he was supposed to be at work
to offset the influences of the English, chiefly as made mani
fest through Peter Schuyler. We find record that he was
among the Senecas in 1710 and again in 1711.
At a great war-banquet in Montreal, in August, 1711, at
which 700 or 800 warriors assembled, " Joncaire and la Chau-
vignerie first raised the hatchet an3 sang the war-song in
Ononthio's name." This was on receipt of the news that the
English were preparing to attack Quebec. Many of the In
dians answered the cry of the warlike Joncaire with applause,
only the Indians from the upper country hesitating, because
they had, almost all, been trading with the English ; but in the
end, twenty Detroit Hurons taking up the hatchet, all who
were present declared for the French. The incident shows
of what great value Joncaire was to the cause of the French
at this critical time, in holding for them the good will of the
Iroquois and tribes to the westward.
The next year, 1712, he was for a time in command at
Fort Frontenac, in place of the Sieur de la Fresniere, who
was incapacitated by fever. At this time the Senecas were
much disturbed over matters to the westward. They feared,
in the event of an outbreak against Detroit or by the tribes
at the Sault, that they would be beset on the Niagara side.
They sent a large delegation to Montreal, but declared to
Vaudreuil " that they should not speak unless Sieur de Jon-

ACTIVITIES OF JONCAIRE 175
caire were present." That officer arrived from Fort Fron
tenac in September. We have not the details of the con
ference that followed ; but the Senecas made their usual pledges
of confidence in the French. At the same time, other tribes
assembled at Onondaga were showing decided preference for
the English, and sending word to the Indians at the Sault, re
questing them " to remain passive on their mats, and not to
take any sides," whatever might happen.
For the next few years I find little trace of Joncaire; but
there is no reason to suppose that he did not continue in the
same service as for the preceding years.
By his influence among the Iroquois, Joncaire was enabled
to render a peculiar service in the summer of 1715. The post
of Michilimackinac was distressed through lack of provisions.
An appeal was made to Dubisson, commanding at Detroit ; but
he sent word that the corn supply had run so short that he
had been obliged to send the Sieur Dupuy to the Miamis to
try to buy of them, but it was doubtful if they could supply
enough. In this extremity Ramezay appealed to Joncaire,
who went among his Iroquois friends in the villages of Central
New York and bought 300 minots of corn — about 900
bushels. This he made the Indians carry to the shore of Lake
Ontario, some twenty leagues from the place of purchase.
There it was loaded into the canoes for Capt. Deschaillons and
dispatched to the distressed post; but all of this occasioned
such delays that a hundred Frenchmen and Canadians were
allowed to leave Mackinac and go down to Montreal to win
ter. In the autumn of 1716, on his return to Montreal from the
Iroquois cantons, Lieut, de Longueuil had called the attention
of MM. de Ramezay and Begon to the need of a " little estab
lishment " " on the north [east] side of Niagara, on Lake
Ontario, 100 leagues from the fort of Frontenac, a canoe
journey of seven or eight days." Such a post, he claimed,
would attract the Mississagas and Amicoues to trade with the
Iroquois, when the latter went to hunt in the vicinity of Lake
Erie. He also proposed that a barque should be built to
serve as a transport between Frontenac and Niagara, claiming

176 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
that it would be a sure means of conciliating the Iroquois and
of gaining a great part of the fur trade which now went to the
English. With such a post at Niagara, it would be possible
to keep the coureurs de bois from trading in Lake Ontario,
either by seizing their goods or arresting the traders, who
were working mischief for the traffic at Fort Frontenac. De
Ramezay, in communicating these views to Vaudreuil, com
mented that if such a post were approved, the trade there
should be kept to the King's account.4 The Marquis de Vaud
reuil would not agree to establish this post at Niagara until
the Iroquois should ask for it. The council approved, grant
ing permission to proceed as suggested, if the Senecas wished
it. This proposed establishment was never built, but we have
in Longueuil's suggestions another form of the project which
some four years later was to take shape in the Magazin Royal
at Lewiston, and nearly ten years later in the permanent
foundation of Fort Niagara. Due recognition must be taken
of Longueuil's foresight at this time. Apparently to him,
and not to Joncaire, is due the suggestion which later ripened
into the Niagara establishment. Though employed for many
years in similar service, the one among the Onondagas, the
other with the Senecas, and though equally commended, in dis
patches to the Minister, for their zeal and sagacity, a certain
distinction attaches to Longueuil and his part in our history,
which is not shared by Joncaire ; a distinction due no doubt to
family and social standing, rather than to native ability or de
votion to the service.
Perusal of the New York Indian records for the first three
decades of the Eighteenth century — down indeed to the day
of his death — discovers endless complaints of Joncaire and
his activities. His usefulness to the French can in a way be
demonstrated from the trouble he made for the English, and
for the Dutch traders at Albany, and the Indians in English
allegiance. One tale that was told of him was that he had
tried to stir up the Senecas " to kill and plunder all the farr
Indians " that came to the Niagara or Lake Ontario to
*MM. de Ramezay and B6gon, at Quebec, to the Council of Marine,
Paris, Nov. 7, 1716.

ACTIVITIES OF JONCAIRE 177
trade.5 Albany lent a ready ear to anything that was alleged
against this arch-enemy; who went his way, in the service of
King and country, with singular zeal and amazing influence.
Coming from Montreal to what is now Western New York,
in December, 1716, he found the Seneca villages ravaged by
small-pox. A band of 300 warriors, which set out to attack
the Illinois, returned because their chief had died of this dis
ease, which more than once, in the years we here study, took
heavy toll from the Iroquois and the tribes to the south and
west. The evil reports which the English had spread, regard
ing Joncaire, so influenced even his Seneca friends, that they
questioned if he had not come among them as a spy ; and when
he went back to Montreal a high chief accompanied him, to
learn if the French were preparing to attack them.6
October 24, 1717, at a conference, apparently held at Onon
daga, the Senecas made the surprising inquiry, if Joncaire
were not among them " only as a Spy." He had spent the
winter of 1716—17 in the Senecas' country. In spite of his
affiliation and long-standing friendship with the Senecas, " a
rumor prevailed that he had been sent thither to amuse them
whilst preparations were being made to march against them
in the Spring." 7 This suspicion of Joncaire was undoubtedly
due to the influence of the English, which by this time had be
come predominant among the eastern Indians of the Federa
tion. Even the Senecas were wavering and doubtful. Jon
caire, when charged with being a spy, " did all in his power
to disabuse them ; but though highly esteemed among and even
adopted by them, he could not succeed in removing their sus
picion, for at the moment of his departure for Montreal, they
sent a chief of high character with him to know from him whether
it were true that he designed to attack them."
So reads the somewhat obscure document. The object of
sMcIlwain's "Wraxall," 68.
6 Record of the incident is preserved in the Correspondance Gine'rale.
(MS. vol. 38.)
t Proceedings in the Council of the Marine, June 25, 1718, signed L. A.
de Bourbon and Le Marechal D'Estrees. The document is marked: "To
be taken to my Lord the Duke of Orleans." See N. Y. Col. Docs., IX,
876-878,

178 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
the embassy to Montreal was obviously to learn, not from
Joncaire but from Vaudreuil, if any steps were to be taken
hostile to the Senecas. Later, a delegation of chiefs and forty
others arrived and were given audience by Vaudreuil. With
elaborate ceremony they bewailed the death of the old King,8
gave to Vaudreuil a belt which they begged he would send to
the young King, whom they asked to take them under his pro
tection; and did not omit the usual request at these confer
ences, that Joncaire, the de Longueuils, father and son, and
de la Chauvignerie, " Should be allowed to go into their villages
whenever they would wish to do so, or should be invited by
their nations. They added, that they were fully aware that
there were some people (meaning the English) whom this would
not please, but no notice must be taken of such ; that they were
the masters of their own country, and wished their children to
be likewise its masters, and to go thither freely whenever M.
de Vaudreuil should permit them." This declaration of mas
tery in their own country illustrates anew the unstable and
bewildered state of mind in which the Five Nations then were.
Some years since, they had formally deeded their country to
William III ; and on more than one occasion they had acknowl
edged the authority of the French.
In June, Alphonse de Tonty left Montreal for Detroit, at
which post he had been granted the privilege of trade, on con
dition that he would confine his operations to the jurisdiction
of Detroit, nor send goods for sale to distant tribes. In cross
ing Lake Ontario, on his way to Niagara, he met nine canoes,
all going to Albany to trade. Three were from Mackinac, three
from Detroit and three from Saginaw. Tonty endeavored to
head off this prospective trade for the English, and succeeded
so well, heightening his arguments by substantial presents,
that they all agreed not to go to Albany, but to go with him
to Detroit.
Two days later, when this imposing flotilla was within six
miles of Niagara, they fell in with seventeen canoes, full of
Indians and peltries. In reply to his inquiries, these also ad
mitted that they were going to Albany to trade, though they
s Louis XIV had died Sept. 1, 1715.

ACTIVITIES OF JONCAIRE 179
added that they were coming to Detroit afterwards. Tonty
was equal to the emergency. Inspired by self-interest as well
as loyalty to his Government, " he induced them also to aban
don their design, by the promise that the price of merchandise
at Detroit should be diminished, and he would also give them
some brandy." 9 There followed a judicious distribution of
this potent commodity.
One is tempted to conjure up the scene. Here were twenty-
six laden canoes, not counting Tonty's own boats. They had
come long journeys from remote and widely separated points,
and their one objective point was the Englishmen's trading-
place on the Hudson. But no sooner do they come under the
blandishments of the Frenchman, and scent the aroma of his
brandy-kegs, than these long-cherished plans so arduously fol
lowed, are thrown to the winds. They beach their canoes at
or near the point of Niagara. A cask of liquor is broached,
and Tonty permits the thirsty savages " to buy two or three
quarts of brandy each, to take to their villages. But they first
agreed that it should be carefully distributed by a trusty per
son." In spite of these reassuring precautions, the transaction
seems somewhat to have burdened his mind, for he thought it
well to explain that " he hoped the council would not disap
prove of what he had done, nor of the continuance of the same
course, as he had no other intention than merely to hinder
the savages from going to the English."
He succeeded fairly well in that purpose. After the dis
tribution of brandy, they all ree'mbarked, seven of the canoes
promising to go to Montreal. Tonty sent back with them his
trusty interpreter, L'Oranger, to keep them from changing
their minds as they paddled down the lake. " He was only
able to conduct six of them to Montreal; the seventh escaped
and went to Orange."
Meanwhile ten canoes joined the commandant's own re
tinue; all paddled swiftly up the Niagara to the old landing,
made the toilsome portage around the falls and pushed on to-
9 Report of L. A. de Bourbon, secretary, Council of Marine, Oct. 12,
1717.

180 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
gether for Detroit, where they arrived July 3d. It was a
typical move in the game that was being played, and France
had gained the point.
This expedition was notable for its use of the Niagara route.
Only a few years before we find Vaudreuil explaining to the
Minister that he dispatched the Sieur de Lignery to Mackinac,
and Louvigny to Detroit, by the Ottawa River route, because
the Senecas had warned him that a band of Foxes lay in wait
for plunder at the Niagara portage, or on Lake Erie.10 If
this were not duplicity on the part of the Senecas, it shows that
war parties from the West foraged as far east as the Niagara ;
notwithstanding the supposed jealousy with which the Senecas
guarded it.
Again we lose sight of Joncaire for a time; but the events
of 1720, a date of great importance in the history of the
Niagara, indicate that he was long busy with plans for giving
the French a foothold on the river, and that even his Seneca
friends had increasing cause to regard him with suspicion.
The attention of the Government was turning more seriously
than ever before, to the Niagara passage as a means of reach
ing the upper posts. A " Memoir on the Indians of Canada, as
far as the River Mississippi, with remarks on their manners
and trade," dated 1718, affords an interesting glimpse of our
river at that period:
The Niagara portage is two leagues and a half to three leagues
long, but the road, over which carts roll two or three times a year,
is very fine, with very beautiful and open woods through which a
person is visible for a distance of 600 paces. The trees are all
oaks, and very large. The soil along the entire [length] of that
road is not very good. From the landing, which is three leagues up
the river, four hills are to be ascended. Above the first hill there
io Vaudreuil to the Minister, Oct. 15, 1712. In a subsequent letter,
Nov. 6, 1712, Vaudreuil speaks of the band of Otagamis (i. e. Outagamis,
otherwise Foxes or Sacs), led by one Vonnere, who lay in wait at the
Niagara portage, so that an expedition for Detroit led by M. de Vincennes
was sent by the Ottawa River route, "not only to avoid these savages, but
to prevent the convoy from being pillaged by the Iroquois," etc. The name
"Vonnere" is found elsewhere in the more probable form " Le Towmrre,"
i. e., "Thunderbolt."

ACTIVITIES OF JONCAIRE 181
is a Seneca village of about ten cabins, where Indian corn, beans,
peas, watermelons and pumpkins are raised, all which are very
fine. These Senecas are employed by the French, from whom they
earn money by carrying the goods of those who are going to the
upper country; some for mitasses,11 others for shirts, some for pow
der and ball, whilst some others pilfer; and on the return of the
French, they carry their packs of furs for some peltry. This por
tage is made for the purpose of avoiding the Cataract of Niagara,
the grandest sheet of water in the world, having a perpendicular fall
of two or three hundred feet. This fall is the outlet of Lakes Erie,
Huron, Michigan, Superior, and consequently of the numberless riv
ers discharging into these lakes, with the names of which I am not
acquainted. The Niagara portage having been passed, we ascend
a river six leagues in length and more than a quarter of a league in
width, in order to enter Lake Erie, which is not very wide at its
mouth. The route by the Southern, is much finer than that along
the Northern shore. The reason that few persons take it is, that it
is thirty leagues longer than that along the north. There is no need
of fasting on either side of this lake, deer are to be found there in
such great abundance; buffaloes are found on the South, but not on
the North shore.
This valuable Memoir, long and full of explicit informa
tion regarding the lake region, and the country and peoples
to the west as far as the Mississippi, is of unknown author
ship. It was probably written by some French officer assigned
to a western post. As regards the Niagara, it antedates by
three years the visit of the Jesuit Charlevoix, and it gives us
our first information of Seneca settlement on the banks of
the river. Although throughout these earlier years and for
some time yet to come the Ottawa route was used more than
the Niagara, yet there can be no doubt that, prior to 1720,
many an expedition to the West had passed this way. Many
a canoe, coming now singly, now in pairs, now in numbers,
had no doubt carried the coureur de bois, and the trader with
his merchandise, from Lake Ontario up the beautiful stretch of
green water till stopped by the rapids in the gorge ; had made
11 According to O'Callaghan, this is another instance of the adoption of
Indian words by Europeans. Mitas is not a French but an Algonquin
word for stockings or leggings, in the " Vocabulary " of La Hontan, II, 223.

182 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
the steep climb up those " mountains " and followed the well-
worn path of the long portage until, in navigable water above
the great cataract, a new embarkation could be made with
safety. Many a voyageur, too, returning from the West, as
messenger from one of the upper posts or with canoes laden
with packets of skins, had no doubt braved the dangers and
difficulties of the Iroquois route, that he might sooner reach
Frontenac and the settlements down the St. Lawrence. Some
of these expeditions we have traced; but when one studies the
history of Detroit and Mackinac and the various establish
ments on Lake Michigan, and notes the frequent communica
tion they kept up with Montreal, he can but conclude that,
notwithstanding the known use of the Ottawa route, there
must have been many a hardy traveler on the Niagara of
whose presence there is no more record in history than there is
trace of his keel in the waters he traversed. Joncaire himself,
known and welcomed throughout the country of the Senecas,
was probably on the river many a time since his meeting with
d'Aigremont, on the site of Fort Denonville; but not until
1720 do we find official record to that effect.
Early in May, 1720, Joncaire appeared at Fort Fron
tenac. The previous year, at the beginning of harvest, he
had laden his canoe with trinkets, " small merchandizes," pow
der, lead, not forgetting the useful belts of wampum and the
equally useful brandy, and had crossed over to the Long House
of the Iroquois. Here, in the heart of our New York State,
he had wintered, part of the time at the great Seneca village
and part of the time at the little village.12
It was by the instructions of Vaudreuil and Begon that he
made this sojourn, the design being that he should win for the
French such favor that they might carry out undisturbed the
12 In 1720 "the great Seneca village" was apparently at the White
Springs, one and one half miles southwest of Geneva. It later removed to
a location some two miles northwest of Geneva, where it was long famous
as the Ga-nun-da-sd-ga of the Senecas, otherwise Kanadesaga. "The
Seneca castle called Onahe," mentioned further on in our narrative, was at
this period about three miles southeast from the present village of Canan-
daigua. These locations are in accordance with conclusions reached by
the late George S. Conover of Geneva, than whom probably no one has
made a more thorough study of the subject.

ACTIVITIES OF JONCAIRE 183
orders which the Court had promulgated in 1718, namely, the
building of magazines and stockaded houses at Niagara and
other Lake Ontario points.
The winter had been well spent. He brought back with
him to Frontenac not merely several bundles of peltries, but
good tidings which a council was quickly summoned to hear.
The Senecas were most favorably disposed towards their father
, Onontio, and to the uncle Sononchiez, by which name they
had come affectionately to designate Joncaire. Their father
and their uncle, their message ran, were masters of their land.
" The Indians consented not only to the building of the House
of Niagara but also engaged themselves to maintain it. And
if the English should undertake to demolish it they must first
take up the hatchet against the Cabanes of the two villages of
the Sennekas." 13 Such, at any rate, was the message as de
livered to the delighted council.
No time was lost. In " 10 or 12 days " a canoe was packed
with goods : " Some pieces of Blew Cloth three dozen or
thereabouts of white Blankets for the use of the Indians half a
Barrel of Brandy &c " ; and with eight soldiers and young La-
Come — son of Captain de La Corne, Mayor of Montreal —
the expedition set out gaily for our river. The season was pro
pitious, the voyage short and successful. They entered the
mouth of the Niagara and pressed on up the river to the head
of navigation. Here, at the beginning of the portage on the
east side of the gorge, where Lewiston now stands, " the Sieur
de Joncaire & le Corne caused to be built in haste a kind of
Cabbin of Bark where they displayed the Kings Colors & hon
ored it with the name of the Magazin Royal."
Joncaire did not linger long, but went very soon to confirm
his peace with the Senecas, leaving La Corne in command.
From the Senecas' village he hastened back to Frontenac.
There he took into his canoe as compagnon du voyage John
Durant, the chaplain of the fort, from whose memorial are
drawn in part the data for this portion of our narrative. They
voyaged together to Quebec, arriving September 3d, and Jon
caire was granted early audience with Vaudreuil and the In
is Durant's Memorial, N. Y. Col. Docs., V, 588.

184 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
tendant, to whom he told what he had done. Vaudreuil was
pleased, and the next day bestowed upon him the title of Com
mandant at Niagara, and bade him hasten back to that pre
carious post. There was joined to this new dignity an order
for the inspection of the magazine " established in the Lake of
Ontario. This Magazine is situate on the west of the Lake for
the Trade with the Missasague otherwise called the Round
Heads distant about thirty leagues from that of Niagara.
The House at the bottom of the Lake 14 was built by the Sieur
de Anville a little after that of Niagara." 15 The Sieur Dou-
ville had built another house, for trade with the Ottawas, at
i*I. e., foot, west end. The allusion is probably to a trading station at
Burlington Bay, designated in some French maps as " Le fond du Lac."
is The builder of the trading-post at the head of Lake Ontario, the
builder of the trading-post on the Bay of Quinte, and the officer who spent
the winter of 1720-21 on the Niagara, are apparently the same man, vari
ously designated in the printed documents as " the Sieur de Anville," " the
Sieur D'Agneaux," and "the Sieur D'Ouville." The name is also to be
found written 'd'Auville" and "d'Agneaux." Some of these variants are
doubtless due to illegible manuscript, or inaccurate copying. He appears
to have been the same officer who, at a conference with the Iroquois at Que
bec, Nov. 2, 1748, signed his name " Dagneaux Douville." He was a lieuten
ant in the detachment of Marine troops serving in Canada. In 1750 he is
spoken of as " Sieur Douville," commandant of Sault St. Louis ; and in 1756,
when he shared in another conference with Indians at Montreal, as "Lieut.
Douville." I find it impossible, from the allusions in the records, to be definite re
garding French officers in the Canadian service, who are designated as
"Douville." Philippe Dagneau Douville, Sieur de la Saussave, born 1700,
was commandant at Toronto in 1759. His brother, spoken of also as
Sieur de la Saussaye, was at Niagara, en route for Detroit, in 1739. The
latter appears to have been the Alexandre Dagneau Douville who served
among the Miamis, 1747-48; who was sent out from Fort Duquesne in 1756,
on a foraging expedition, and was killed the next year in an attack on a
fort in Virginia. A "Douville" was second ensign under Capt. Duplissis
in 1729; was with De Villiers at Green Bay in 1730, in which year he
married Marie Coulon de Villiers. "Douville" was also interpreter at
Fort Frontenac in 1743. If, as seems probable, it was Philippe who was
at the conference in Quebec in 1748 — Alexandre being among the Miamis
in that year — then it was probably Philippe whose connection with the
trade on Lake Ontario is noted in the text. The confusion is increased
by the record that in 1728 " Rouville la Saussaye " was the lessee of the
trading-post at Toronto ; but whether there is any relation between Rouville
la Saussaye, the trader, and Douville de la Saussaye, the soldier, I leave
for future determination, or those who may have more exact information
in the matter.

ACTIVITIES OF JONCAIRE 185
the foot of the Bay of Quinte. " They leave to winter in all
their new forts," says Chaplain Durant, " but one Store Keeper
and two Soldiers." Here indeed, was service for the King,
a living immurement in the wilderness ; yet the careers of men
like Joncaire show how alluring this forest life, in spite of all
its hardships and hazard, proved to many a soldier of New
France. Joncaire set out from Montreal, about the middle of October,
1720, to winter at Niagara. His two canoes were laden deep
with goods from the King's storehouse. His escort numbered
twelve soldiers, but at Frontenac six were left behind. There
were evidently delays, at Frontenac or beyond, for as he skirted
the south shore of Ontario his journey was stopped by ice
thirty-five leagues from the Niagara. He put in at the Gene
see and wintered there.
Into what extremity this failure of expected relief plunged
the occupants of the bark cabin at the mouth of the Niagara
gorge, we are not told. La Corne does not appear to have
wintered there, for Durant records that " the Sieur D'Ouville
had stayed there alone with a soldier, waiting the Sieur de
Joncaire." Probably the friendship of the Senecas preserved
them, but Joncaire's failure to arrive in the fall with goods
to trade kept the storehouse empty till spring, to the no small
embarrassment of the French and disappointment of the In
dians. There exist of this episode, as of many others that form
our history, two official accounts, one French, the other Eng
lish. In the abstract of Messrs. de Vaudreuil and Begon's
report on Niagara for 1720, it is set forth that " the English
had proposed to an Iroquois chief, settled at Niagara, to send
horses thither from Orange, which is 130 leagues distant from
it, for the purpose of transmitting goods, and to make a per
manent settlement there, and offered to share with him what
ever profits might accrue from the speculation. The English
would, by such means, have been able to secure the greatest part
of the peltries coming down the lakes from the upper coun
tries; give employment not only to the Indians who go up
there and return thence, but also to the French." The reader

186 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
will note the delightful impudence of this last proposition.
The report continues : " They [the French] have a store
there well supplied with goods for the trade; and have, by
means of the Indians, carried on there, up to the present time
and since several years ago, a considerable trade in furs in
barter for merchandise and whisky.16 This establishment
would have enabled them to purchase the greater part of the
peltries both of the French and Indians belonging to the upper
country." It is clear that the English were about to attempt
an establishment on the Niagara, had not the French fore
stalled them.
It is not easy to reconcile the various dates, or lack of dates,
in the English and French records of this establishment. It
was on October 26, 1719, that Vaudreuil sent Joncaire to carry
to the Five Nations a favorable word from the King, and the
presents above mentioned. He was charged to tell the Senecas
that if the English came to Niagara they — the Senecas —
should fall on them and seize their goods. It was agreed with
Begon that La Corne the younger and an engage should spend
the winter of 1719-20 on the Niagara, and that they were to
open trade the following spring, on the Royal account. Their
presence, it was argued, would keep the English away, and
help the trade at Frontenac.
An Indian reported at Albany, in July, 1719, that the
French were building at Niagara. He had been at the Seneca
Castle called Onahe, within a day's journey of Niagara, and
there met some Ottawas who had asked the French at Niagara,
how they came to make a fort there without asking leave of
the Five Nations ; and the French had replied, " they had Built
it of their Own Accord, without asking any Bodys Leave and
Design'd to keep Horses and Carts there for Transportation of
Goods," etc.17
Either the date of the above is too early by a year, or it
refers to a structure built some time in 1719, which was suc
ceeded by the larger Magazin Royal, which, according to ex
plicit accounts, both French and English, was built in the lat-
i«"Ea« de vie de grain."
« N. Y. Col. MSS. in State Library, Albany, Vol. LXI, fol. 157.

ACTIVITIES OF JONCAIRE 187
ter part of May, 1720. In the report sent by Vaudreuil and
Begon to the Minister, under date of October 26, 1720, it is
stated that " on the representation made by the Sieur de Jon
caire, lieutenant of the troops, as to the importance of this
post and of the quantity of furs which could be traded for
there, they are making there a permanent establishment (" un
etablissement sedentaire ") . We have charged him to have
built there by the savages a picketed house (" une maison de
pieux ") to which [construction] he pledged them last spring."
The same report recites the visit to the Senecas of Messrs.
Schuyler and Livingston, their names appearing — grotesquely
distorted, as is usually the case with English or Dutch names
in the old French documents — as " le Sr. Jean Schult, com
mandant, et le Sr. L. Euiston, maire a Orange "! The bark
house was obviously surrounded by palisades — a strong, high
fence of sharpened stakes. If the text of the French report
may be accepted, the Indians themselves bore a willing hand in
its construction.
Durant's memorial makes no mention of a visit at Magazin
Royal in behalf of the English, but there was one. The work
on the bark house under the Niagara escarpment was no sooner
begun than word of it was carried eastward through the lodges
and villages of the Six Nations. In April of 1720, Myndert
Schuyler and Robert Livingston, Jr., had set out from Albany
for the Seneca Castle, to hold one of the conferences which the
Commissioners of Indian Affairs so frequently ordered at this
period. Here, May 16th, they took the Indians to task be
cause the French " are now buissey at Onjagerae, which ought
not to be Consented to or admitted." The English emissaries
went on to remind their Seneca brethren of the promises that
had been made " about twenty-two years agoe to secure their
Lands and hunting Places westward of them ... to the
Crown of great Brittain to be held for you and Your Poster
ity." The French, they continued, " are now buissy at
onjagera which in a Manner is the only gate you have to go
through towards your hunteing places and the only way the
farr Indians conveniently came through where Jean Coeurs
[Joncaire] with some men are now at work on building a

188 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
block house and no Doubt of a Garrison by the next Year
whereby you will be so Infenced that no Room will be Left for
you to hunt in with out Liberty wee know that in warr time
they could never overcome you, but these proceedings in build
ing so near may be their Invented Intrigues to hush you to sleep
whilst they take possession of the Heart of Your Country this
is Plainly seen by us therefore desire you to Consider it rightly
and sent [send] out to spy what they are doing at onjagera
and prohibite Jean Coeur building there, for where they make
Settlements they Endeavour to hold it so that if he takes no
notice thereof, after given in a Civil way, further Complaints
may be made to your brother Corlaer, who will Endeavour to
make you Easy therein."
This ingenuous appeal having been emphasized, according
to custom, by giving a belt of wampum, the sachems retired
to think it over. Six days later — May 22d — the sachems
of the Senecas, Cayugas and Oneidas assembled, and in behalf
of their own peoples and of the Mohawks and Onondagas, spoke
to the English delegates at length and with the customary
Indian grandiloquence. Regarding the French intrusion at
Niagara they said, in part :
" You have told us that you were Informed the French
were building a house at Onjagera which As you perceive will
prove prejudiciall to us & You. Its true they are Either
yett building or it is finished by this time wee do owne that
some Years agoe the Five Nations gave Trongsagroende
Ierondoquet & onjagera and all other hunting Places west
ward to ye Crowne to be held for us and our posterity Least
other might Incroach on us then we also partition the hunt
ing Places between us and the french Indians but since then
they are gone farr within the Limits and the french got more
by setling Trongsagroende and we must Joyne our Opinion
with yours that if wee suffer the french to settle at onjagera,
being the only way to ward hunting, wee will be altogether shut
up and Debarred, of means for our lively hood then in deed
our Posterity would have Reason to Reflect on us there fore
to beginn in time wee will appoint some of our men to go thither
to onjagera and Desire you to send one along so that in the

ACTIVITIES OF JONCAIRE 189
name of the five Nations Jean Coeur may be acquainted with
the Resolve of this Meeting and for biden to proceed any further
building, but ordered to take down what's Erected."
Having thus confirmed the English in their assertions, and
pledged their own friendship, the sachems through their spokes
man gave the belt of wampum and passed on to other matters.
At the end of the conference three chiefs were appointed to go
to Niagara to expostulate with the French ; and Messrs. Schuy
ler and Livingston deputed to go with them their Dutch in
terpreter, Lawrence Claessen.
This man, whose name in the old records is variously spelled
Claessen, Clawsen, Clausen, Claese, Clase or Clace, acquires
some importance in our record from the fact that he is the
first representative of English interests known to have visited
the Niagara in other than a clandestine way. With the ex
ception of Rooseboom and MacGregorie and perhaps one or two
others of their class, he is the first white man, not of France or
in the French interest, known to have reached the region.
Moreover he is a typical example of a class of men who at this
period were indispensable alike to the English and French,
He was an Indian interpreter, a go-between, the medium of com
munication between the English and the Indians. Though not
a soldier, he was for his people in other ways the counterpart
of Joncaire among the French; and although his experiences
appear to have been less hazardous and romantic than were
that adventurer's, yet his life, for a score of years before we
find him at Niagara, had been successfully devoted to a calling
which demanded exceptional knowledge and tact, and which
brought no lack of arduous experiences.
As early as 1700 he was serving the English as interpreter
in their councils and treaties with the Five Nations. He was
apparently even then no novice at the trade, for the next year
the Mohawks gave him about three acres on small islands in
the Mohawk, in proof of their gratitude because of his fair
ness as an interpreter. He was a witness, July 19, 1701, to
the deed by which the Five Nations conveyed their beaver-
hunting grounds to King William. It is a strange document,
containing among the attached signatures the pictographic

190

AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE

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ACTIVITIES OF JONCAIRE 191
devices of sachems of each of the Five Nations ; and quit-claim
ing to the English Crown all the country of the Iroquois south
of Lakes Ontario and Huron, on both sides of Lake Erie and
as far west as Lake Michigan, " including likewise," specifies
the deed, " the great falls oakinagaro " [Niagara]. This
vast area, 400 miles wide by 800 miles long, an empire in itself
and now the seat of millions of people, the home of commerce
and of culture, but then the wilderness which the Iroquois
claimed as his hunting-ground, and because of its resources of
fur the bone of contention between Europe's greatest Powers,
was absolutely given, with every rivet and clamp of legal verbi
age which the language of the law, redundantly profuse then
as now, could command — " freely and voluntarily surrendered
delivered up and forever quit-claimed . , . unto our great
Lord and Master the King of England called by us Corachkoo
and by the Christians William the third and to his heires and
successors Kings and Queens of England for ever." And the
sole compensation for this transfer was to be liberty on the
part of the Five Nations to hunt as they pleased in this domain,
and to be protected by the English in the exericise of that right.
From this date on for many years Claessen continued to act
in a confidential capacity and as interpreter. The colonial
records afford many glimpses of him. In 1710 he was sent
to the Senecas' country, " to ye five Nations to watch ye
motions of ye French & to perswade those Indians to give a
free passage to ye farr Indians through their Countrey to
come here to Albany to trade."
On this mission, at Onondaga, July 17th, he encountered
Longueuil and Joncaire. He was among the Indians at Onon
daga again in the spring of 1711. Two years later we find
him, with Heinrich Hanson and Captain Johannes Bleecker,
holding an important conference at the same great rendezvous.
Whenever the Indians went to Albany to confer — and that
was often, at this period — Claessen was summoned to inter
pret. On such occasions, the communications from red men
to Governor, or vice versa, were made through successive in
terpretations. Thus it was customary, on these occasions, for
the sachem to make his speech, paragraphed, so to say, by the

192 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
gift of wampum belts. This speech Claessen, who, perhaps
alone of all the white men present, understood the Five Na
tions dialects, repeated, more or less accurately, in Dutch.
Usually it was Robert Livingston, secretary for the Indian
Commissioners, who knew both Dutch and English, but not
Indian, who translated what Claessen had said, for the benefit
of Governor Burnet, who understood only English.
Sometimes there was still further interposition of lingual
media. Such was the case at a conference at Albany in 1722
between Governor Spotswood of Virginia and the Indians. On
this occasion there was speech-making by the Delawares.
Here Claessen's knowledge failed him, so another interpreter,
James Latort, was called in, to convert Delaware into Mohawk
or Dutch.
More tedious yet was the work of the interpreters at a con
ference held at Albany in 1723 between the commissioners of
Indian affairs and representatives of western tribes — the
" farr Indians " of the quaint old records. Claessen could
not understand them, but a Seneca who had been a prisoner
among them could, and interpreted to Claessen, who in turn
interpreted to the commissioners ; thus after three transforma
tions the message reached a record in English. The wonder
is, not that there were so many misunderstandings, but — if
one may judge from the dispatch of business — that there were
so few.
There were other interpreters employed by the English at
this period; among them Captain Johannes Bleecker and Jan
Baptist van Eps, a man who was sent on important missions
among the Senecas, and may not unlikely have found his way
to the Niagara; his name, in some of the reports of Indian
speches, appears rather startlingly as John the Baptist.
There was even a Dutch woman, Hilletje van Olinda, employed
as " interpretress " at Albany in 1702. But none other in his
time seems to have borne so important a part as Lawrence
Claessen. In 1726 he was one of the witnesses to a trust deed
by which the Onondagas, Cayugas and Senecas confirmed to
Governor Burnet, as representative of King George, the quit
claim deed which the Five Nations had executed in 1701. The

ACTIVITIES OF JONCAIRE 193
terms of the latter instrument are not so sweeping as in the
former case. The country deeded is from the Salmon River,
in Oswego County, New York, to Cleveland, Ohio, a strip sixty
miles wide back into the country from the water front, and
carefully specifying that it includes " all along the said lake
[Erie] and all along the narrow passage from the said lake
to the Falls of Oniagara Called Cahaquaraghe and all along
the River of Oniagara and all along the Lake Cadarackquis,"
etc.18 Small wonder, in view of these sessions in good faith,
that the English vigorously contested all French establish
ment on the Niagara.
Two years after the signing of this deed, Claessen was in
vited to Oswego, to mark out a land grant for the King. " We
know none so proper," said the sachems to Governor Mont
gomery, " as Lawrense Clausen the Interpreter, who is one of
us And understands our Language." " I consent," replied his
Excellency, " that Lawrence Clausen the Interpreter go up
with you as you desire to mark out the Land you are to give
his Majesty at Oswego, And as he [the King] is your kind
father I expect you will give him a Large tract." This was
on October 1, 1728. As late as November 23, 1730, we find
him just returning to Albany from Onondaga and reporting to
the Indian Commissioners the latest news regarding Joncaire,
which will be noted presently as we trace the career of that
worthy. In all the thirty years during which we have sight of Law
rence Claessen, no service on which he was employed is re
corded with greater detail than that which brought him to the
Frenchmen's " Magazin Royal " on the banks of the Niagara
in the spring of 1720. In his journal of that visit he has left a
pretty vivid account of the way in which his mission sped.
After a week of travel from the Seneca town Claessen and
the three Seneca chiefs, on the last day of May, arrived at
the " Magazin Royal." They found it a good-sized house,
" Forty Foot long and thirty wide," but it was not ample
enough to afford them a hospitable reception. It was occu
pied, according to the English account, by a French merchant
is From the original roll in the office of the Secretary of State, Albany.

194 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
and two other Frenchmen — one of them Douville. Joncaire
does not appear to have been there when Claessen arrived.
The French account says that the Englishman (Claessen) told
La Corne, " whom M. Begon appointed to trade at that place,
to withdraw, and that they were going to pull down that house.
La Corne answered them that he should not permit them to do
so without an order from Sieur de Joncaire, who on being ad
vised thereof by an Indian, went to the Senecas to prevent them
consenting to that demolition."
The argument between Claessen and La Corne was a heated
one. Claessen told the latter he had been sent, in company
with the sachems, " to tell you that the Five Nations have
heard that you are building a house at Octjagara [Niagara],
and the said sachims having considered how prejudicial that
a French Settlement on their Land must consequently prove
to them and their Posterity (if not timely prevented) where
fore they have sent me and them to acquaint you with their
resolution that it is much against their inclination that any
buildings should be made here and that they desire you to de
sist further building and to leave and demolish what you have
made." The French merchant was at no loss for defense. "We
had leave," he replied, " from the young fighting men of the
Senecas to build a house at Niagara. My master is the Gov
ernor of Canada. He has posted me here to trade. This
house will not be torn down until he orders it."
The three sachems with Claessen scouted the idea that the
young fighting men of their nation had given or could give
permission for the French to establish themselves on the bank
of the Niagara. " We have never heard," they said, " that
any of our young men had given such leave for making any
building at Octjagara."
Claessen did not tarry long. Returning by way of Ironde
quoit, he there encountered new evidence of French enterprise
in a blacksmith whom the Governor of Canada had sent among
the Senecas to work for them " gratis, he having compassion
on them as a father," and in three French canoes loaded with
goods, bound up for Niagara. By June 7th he was back at

ACTIVITIES OF JONCAIRE 195
Seneca Castle, where he called together the chiefs and young
warriors for a council. When they met, Joncaire appeared
with them. Claessen told the assembly what had been said at
Niagara ; whereupon the Indians, old sachems and young war
riors alike, joined in a disclaimer. The French, they said,
had built the house at Niagara without so much as asking their
leave, and they desired " that their brother Corlaer may do
his endeavour to have yB said House demolisht that they may
preserve their Lands and Hunting." They suggested that the
English at Albany write to the Governor of Canada and insist
that the house be destroyed.
Here Joncaire broke in. He had listened to the Senecas'
disclaimer, but now he assumed a taunting tone. Interrupt
ing Claessen he exclaimed : " You seek to have the house at
Niagara torn down only because you are afraid that you —
you traders at Albany — will not get any trade from this
Seneca nation and from the Indians of the far West. When
we keep our house and people at Niagara we can stop the Sen
ecas and the Western Indians too from trading with you.
That is the trouble with you. You are not afraid that we
keep the land from the Senecas."
" The French," disputed Claessen, " have made this settle
ment at Niagara to encroach on the Five Nations, to hinder
them in their hunting, and to debar them from the advan
tage they should reap by permitting a free passage of the
Western Indians through the Seneca castles. What is more^
you impose on these people in your trade. You sell them goods
at exorbitant rates. For a blanket of strouds you demand
eight beavers, for a white blanket six, and other goods in pro
portion ; whereas they may have them at Albany for half those
prices." And the assembled Indians gravely affirmed that it
was so.
Lawrence Claessen went back to Albany, leaving Joncaire
for the time victorious. He prevailed on the vacillating Sen
ecas not only to spare but to protect the house by the Niagara
rapids, arguing that they themselves would profit from it,
and emphasizing the argument, we may be sure, by a discreet
bestowal of gifts.

196 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
For the Senecas, this occurrence was but another step to
wards an inevitable end. For the French, it was a great
achievement. The adroit Joncaire had crowned the efforts of
more than forty years ; for ever since La Salle had built his
first house on the river the French had longed for its perma
nent possession. The achievement won for Joncaire new ex
pressions of regard. In the report of the Governor and In
tendant for 1720 one may read : " No one is better qualified
than he [Joncaire] to begin this establishment [Niagara],
which will render the trade of Fort Frontenac much more con
siderable and valuable' than it has ever been. He is a very
excellent officer; the interpreter of the Five Iroquois Nations,
and has served thirty-five years in the country. As all the
Governors-General have successfully employed him, they have
led him to hope that the Council would be pleased to regard
the services he will have it in his power to render at this con
juncture." 19
"Local tradition fixes the site of Magazin Royal on the present Bridge
Street at Lewiston, a few rods east of the tracks of the International Rail
way Company, and within a stone's throw of the bank of the Niagara.
Here, at the south side of the road, just at the edge of the steep slope that
stretches to the upper heights, one may yet trace the outlines of what ap
pears to have been a well, and of the foundation of a building; scarcely
however of Joncaire's cabin, but very plausibly of a house which later oc
cupied the site, regarding which the late Rev. Joshua Cooke, for many
years a resident of Lewiston, wrote to the present chronicler: "I have a
particular interest in the spot, for in 1802, eighty-one years after Joncaire
built, my grandfather built his pioneer home on the spot — the first white
man's home on the Niagara, after Joncaire." The old ferry road followed
the general direction of the present Bridge Street, but ran a little to the
north of it, in a ravine of which a portion still remains, at its junction
with the river. Within recent years the building of the electric road along
the river bank, the reconstruction of the suspension bridge at this point,
and the cutting and grading incident to this work, have greatly changed
things thereabouts.

CHAPTER XII
NIAGARA AND THE WEST
Early Travel by the Niagara Route — First White Women op
the West — The British Covet the Niagara Trade — The
Huguenot Spy of the Niagara.
The reader who has followed our narrative thus far may
long since have concluded that it deals only with strife and
contention. Such in truth is its chief character to the very
end; but a few glimpses of the region in its more peaceful as
pect may be had. On the Niagara the French made no attempt
at settlement, save in very limited fashion under the protec
tion of Fort Niagara and at the upper and lower ends of the
portage. Here were never laid the hearthstones of a peace
ful community, nor is there found in the documents of the time
any serious proposition for the establishment of a settlement
on the Niagara which might in a few years raise its own grain,
vegetables and live stock, and become measurably self-support
ing, as was Detroit. The development of that settlement
brought to the Niagara as travelers many who were to be
prominent in the early annals of the City of the Straits. No
doubt the real aristocracy of Detroit — if so typically demo
cratic a community has an aristocracy — may be made up of
descendants of the 50 soldiers and 50 Canadians who went with
Cadillac in 1701 ; and to that list would belong the wives of
Cadillac and Alphonse de Tonty who with their retinue passed
up the Niagara the following year.
From about the close of the Seventeenth century the Niagara
route to the West was more and more used, superseding the
more difficult way of the Ottawa River. That northern route
was followed, although, it is recorded, against his will, by
Antoine de La Mothe-Cadillac in 1701, when with his fine com
pany he went to found the present city of Detroit. Leaving
La Chine May 5th, the banks of the Detroit were reached July
24th. The Founder of Detroit has no place in the story of
197

198 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
the Niagara, save that, in later years, he passed this way.
When in the summer of 1701 his wife resolved to join him in
the West, she chose to go by the Niagara route. She was
Marie-Therese Guyon-Dubuisson, a Quebec maiden, daughter
6f a well-to-do merchant. She married La Mothe-Cadillac in
1687, and is often mentioned, in the documents of the time,
as Madame de La Mothe. Setting out from Quebec, Sep
tember 10, 1701, with her little son, she was joined at Mont
real by the wife of Alphonse de Tonty, who before marriage
was Anne Picote. With a few other women, wives of soldiers
and servants, and an escort of Canadians, they came on to
Fort Frontenac, where they passed the winter. As soon as
the ice allowed, in the spring, they followed the south shore
of Ontario and entered the Niagara. There were no horses
on the great portage, and unless Madame Cadillac was car
ried, sedan-chair fashion, or drawn on a hand-sled, a device
much used on the portages, she and her women companions
must have climbed the Lewiston heights and plodded on foot
the eight miles of forest path that brought them to the river's
marge above the cataract. The white men of the party and
the Indian boatmen carried the canoes and supplies; and re-
embarking, all passed up the river into Lake Erie and van
ished to the westward. There very likely was at least one
night's sojourn on the river, and a visit to the Falls; but we
have no record of it.
Madame Cadillac, Madame Alphonse de Tonty and their at
tendants were the first white women on the Niagara, the first to
pass through any of the Great Lakes.
Very few women come into our story, from first to last.
Rarely is it possible to trace the influence of feminine associa
tion in all the annals of this region under the French. All
the more conspicuous, therefore, becomes this visit of the First
Woman of the West, one who by all accounts, was lovely in
person, energetic and capable to an exceptional degree. A
pleasant glimpse of her is afforded by a letter from the Jesuit
Father Joseph Germain,1 who wrote to Cadillac at the time
of the departure of his wife on her great journey: "Every-
i Germain to Cadillac, Quebec, Aug. 25, 1701.

NIAGARA AND THE WEST 199
one here admires the magnanimity of these two ladies who cer
tainly have courage to undertake so laborious a journey to
go and join their husbands, without fearing the great difficul
ties or the fatigue or other inconveniences which must be en
dured by roads so long and so rough for persons of their
sex. Well! Sir: is it possible to show more sincere conjugal
affection or a firmer attachment? Some one said pleasantly
to them the other day that they would pass for heroines. But
on some other ladies, more fastidious, saying to Madame de
La Mothe, in order to dissuade her from this journey, that
that would be well if they were going to a pleasant and fer
tile country, where they could always get good company, as
in France, but they could not understand how people could
make up their minds to go to an uncultivated and uninhabited
place where they could not but have a very dull time of it in
such great solitude, she very discreetly replied that a woman
who loves her husband as she ought to do has no attraction
more powerful than his society in whatever place it may be;
all the rest should be indifferent to her ; those are her opinions."
If the ladies of Quebec were astonished at the temerity of
Mesdames Cadillac and Tonty, the Iroquois of the Niagara
were much more so. " It is certain," wrote Cadillac,2 " that
nothing [ever] astonished the Iroquois so greatly as when they
saw them. You could not believe how many caresses they of
fered them, and particularly the Iroquois who kissed their hands
and wept for joy, saying that French women had never been
seen coming willingly to their country." They reasoned that
the proclaimed peace was indeed sincere, since women of this
rank came amongst them with confidence.
Robert Reaume, Joseph Trotier dit Desruissaux, and Tous-
saint Pothier dit Laverdure, were engaged by written con
tract, September 5, 1701, to escort Mme. de La Mothe-Cadil
lac, Mme. Alphonse de Tonty and their children, from Montreal
to Detroit, and at the same time to accompany Francis Mary
Picote de Belestre " and his equipages " on the same trip.
Robert Reaume did not settle in Detroit but his sons Hyacinth
and Peter did.
2 Cadillac to Pontchartrain, Quebec, Sept. 25, 1702.

200 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
Happy dames, to make that momentous journey under the
escort of servitors whose very cognomens spoke to them of
rushing streams and forest greenery ! Favored of Fortune was
Madame Cadillac, thus to pioneer her sex into that Great
West, which has now become — may we not say — more than
any other part of the globe, the Woman's world !
Cadillac himself was no stranger to the Niagara region,
first passing through the river, apparently, in 1702. Al
though he first went to Detroit by the Ottawa route, he sub
sequently passed back and forth through the Lower Lakes, more
than once. Of one experience, in the summer of 1706,
his letters hold some record. Returning from Quebec, while
on Lake Ontario, four or five boats did not get on so well as
the others, and finally disappeared. Cadillac sent one of his
men, Mons. de Figuer, to find them and say that Cadillac would
wait for them at " the fort of the Sables," that is, Irondequoit,
a convenient stopping-place, but not a fortification. There
he did wait, eight days. Finally he went on, with a Seneca
escort of 26 men, led by a chief, Touatacoute. Reaching De
troit, Cadillac wrote to the Marquis de Vaudreuil, asking that
the deserters be arrested : " I hope you will send back the
wives of Chanteloup and La Roche de St. Ours; also the men
St. Jean and Parisien of my company, with their wives, these
two rascals having deserted or taken a holiday out of mere
wantonness." He further says that these men, in coming
through Lake Ontario, had put in at the bay of Goyagouin —
that is, Sodus, " and visited the large village of Sonontoua
to take letters to the Jesuit who resides there, who apparently
charged them to take the answers to Montreal." The Iro
quois had promised Cadillac that they would escort the missing
Frenchmen " up to the portage at Niagara " ; St. Jean did in
deed present himself at Fort Sables, while the others apparently
went down the river. Cadillac thought they deserved to pass
the winter in prison, but wanted them sent back to Detroit in
the spring.3
3 These and other details are given in a letter of Cadillac to de Vaud
reuil, Aug. 27, 1706; see also, account of a "talk" between de Vaudreuil
and the Senecas, Sept. 4, 1706.

NIAGARA AND THE WEST 201
Among the things which Cadillac thought essential to the
welfare of Detroit was the destruction of Fort Frontenac, a
new fort to be built " 25 leagues lower down at a place called
La Palette" [sic: Galette], near present Ogdensburg; and,
to be rid of the difficulties of the Niagara portage. On this
point a document of 1708, summarizing certain letters of Cadil
lac, says : " It would be necessary to make a junction be
tween Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. He says that he knows,
for that [purpose], a way and a canal which has remained un
known to everyone else' until now." He may have had the
Grand River and western end of Lake Ontario in mind ; if not,
one is at a loss to know what he did mean. Two years later
the Sieur d'Aigremont, reporting on conditions at Lake posts,
wrote :
When I passed the portage at Niagara it did not appear to me
that any communication between Lake Ontario or Lake Erie could
be made that could avoid this portage, and if M. de la Mothe knows
a means of doing so, I think he is the only man in the country who
does. But, My Lord, even if it were true that a communication with
Lake Ontario or Lake Erie could be made it could only be done with
very great expense and it would not follow from that, that Detroit
would be able to obtain from Montreal any help it might need in
case of war with the Iroquois, for such help could not even be given
to Fort Frontenac, which has to be passed through on the way to
Detroit.4 We know from his own letters that the Jesuit missionary
Francois Vaillant 5 was on the Niagara in 1701. Writing to
Cadillac from Fort Frontenac, September 23, 1701, the priest
speaks of meeting " Mme. de la Mothe," the wife of Cadillac,
and adds : " On Lake Erie I met Quarante Sols, the Huron.
... As regards the Iroquois whom we met on the way, we
did not find them much opposed to your settlement ; some even
testified to me their joy that when going hunting on Lake Erie,
they will find at Detroit [in exchange] for the skins of the
* D'Aigremont to Pontchartrain, Oct. 18, 1710.
5 The name often occurs as Valiant or even Valliant; but the priest's
own signature is as above; more fully, Francois Vaillant de Gueslis. He
went to Canada in 1670; died at Moulins, Sept. 24, 1718.

AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
roebuck, stag and hind, all they want." As fear of the Iro
quois had been one reason for the tardy use of the Niagara
route, Father Vaillant's report was reassuring. The Huron
chief Quarante Sols — in plain English, Forty Sous — seems
to have been constantly passing up and down the Lakes, and
beyond question was a familiar and influential figure in the
Niagara region. Father Marest, at Mackinac, October 8,
1701, wrote that Father Vaillant " was much mortified thai
he was not able to pass this way, either going to Detroit or
returning," evidence that the priest returned to the western
mission by the way of Niagara and Lake Erie. Many another
Jesuit of those early years undoubtedly knew our region of
whose passing or temporary sojourn on the Niagara no rec
ord is preserved. Among them was Father Claude Aveneau,
who appears to have passed through Lake Erie to his Miami
mission on the St. Joseph, where he served from about 1702
to about 1708. One might conjecture that Point Abino on
the north shore of Lake Erie near the Niagara, formerly spelled
" Abeneau " (and several other ways), derives its name
from some association with this missionary; but proof is
lacking. In the 58 years that followed the establishment of Detroit,
prior to the English conquest, there was a constant migra
tion thither. After the first few years, practically all of it
was by the Niagara route. Under the protection of the mid
summer Convoy, at first one or two families ventured the
hazards of wilderness and of wave, to join husband, father or
sweetheart in the West. As the Niagara portage was made
safer, and travel facilities improved, this class of travel greatly
increased. From the precious records of Ste. Anne's church,
Detroit, running back unbroken to that beginning year of
1701, and from numerous public or family documents, the
patient antiquarian might compile a long list of the families
who thus passed the Niagara portage in the first half of the
Eighteenth century. It was the first well-defined migration
into the Middle West, and it was for the most part of fine qual
ity. Much has been said of the lawless and evil character of
forest rangers, unscrupulous traders and loose-living boatmen

NIAGARA AND THE WEST 203
and soldiers, in this region; one may not conclude that such
was the character of all. Many who figure here were of the
other social extreme. Most of the officers of the military, and
many a civilian, called by duty to these lakes, bore names
long honored among the noblesse of France. Many a younger
son of a noble family turned to service in America, tempted
by the certainty of adventure or the chance of preferment and
distinction, if not by the substantial offers of land-grants and
bounties with which Louis XIV lured them on. Thus it came
about that even as the feudal system was dying out in France
it was revived and continued, in some of its features, in Can
ada, by the granting to prominent colonists or soldiers of
achievement, of tracts of land, called seigneuries. Most of
these, on the St. Lawrence and its tributaries, were of a half
league water front, with a depth of two or three leagues. To
these " seigneuries " were given the ancestral or place names
with which the family had been identified in France. As the
seigneuries were divided for sons and sons' sons, so seigneurial
designations multiplied, so that brothers figure in our history
by different appellations, and sons lose their patronymic in
common usage. The royal grant to Cadillac was not called
a seigneury, nor do we find any on the Lakes, save La Salle's
at Kingston and one to the Chevalier Le Gardeur de Repent
igny, at Sault Ste. Marie. No grant, however called, was made
on the Niagara ; but Cadillac in 1703 asked that one be made
to him on the north shore of Lake Erie :
The Grand river, thus called in Lake Erie, near to the end of
this Lake ... is supplied on its banks and in the interior with
large numbers of mulberry trees, the ground also is perfectly suited
to them. If you will have the goodness to grant me six leagues
frontage on both sides and as much in depth, with the title of
Marquis, and with higher, middle and lower jurisdiction, with hunt
ing, fishing and trading rights, I will establish a silk industry by
sending for suitable people from France for that purpose who would
bring the necessary number of silk worms. If you grant me this
favor, I will take steps to bring them over by the first ships so that
they may arrive here before winter.6
« Cadillac to Pontchartrain, Aug. 31, 1703.

204 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
Note has been made of the journey of Mesdames La Mothe-
Cadillac and Tonty by the Niagara route in 1702. In the
years following, wives, children, and other relatives of offi
cers, soldiers and tradesmen at Detroit, similarly passed,
usually with the Convoys. Sometimes the relatives went with
the officers, a great family party; and if there were hardship
and danger, we may be sure there were gayety and good cheer
as well. So went, in 1705 or '06, the family of Peter Maillet
and his stepson John Francis Peltier; in 1706, Peter Robert,
moving his family west two years later; in 1707, Stephen
Campeau; Michel and Jacques Campeau, about 1710; and in
other early years, Cuillerier de Beaubien, Trotier des Ruis-
seaux, Chesne St. Onge, Godefroy de Roquetiade, Godefroy de
Marboeuf , Charles and Pierre Barthe, Gode de Marentette —
the list might be greatly extended.
In 1706, after Cadillac had been given exclusive control
of the settlement on the Detroit, there was a notably large
migration thither from the old St. Lawrence towns. One list 7
enumerates 48 persons who with their possessions went in this
summer to share the fortunes of the new colony. Beyond ques
tion, most of them journeyed by the Niagara route. In May,
1706, two brothers, Jean and Paul Lescuyer, brought 10 head
of cattle and three horses, the first domestic animals known
to have been taken west of Lake Ontario.
The greatest travel to the westward, in any one year dur
ing the period of French control in our region, was in 1749.
A record of 1750 mentions the passing of 12 families, composed
of 57 persons, up the Niagara, bound for Detroit.
Most, perhaps all of the commanders at Fort Pontchartrain
(or Detroit) after Cadillac, and at many other western posts,
passed up and down the Niagara and through our lakes, some
of them many times. Some of these belong to the story of
the Niagara as well as the Detroit, and will be duly noted.
When Picote de Belestre went out to his post in 1712, his
wife Catherine went with him. She was of the family Trotier
de Beaubien, and a former husband was Jean Cuillerier. These
i Compiled by C. M. Burton; in Mich. Hist. Colls. XXXIII, 271.

NIAGARA AND THE WEST 205
are ancestors of a numerous bne, prominent to this day in De
troit and vicinity.
Notes of this sort might be greatly multiplied; but these
may serve to remind the reader that all was not strife on
the Niagara in those distant days; may help somewhat to
fill out the picture with reminders of the ever-swelling stream
of passers-by, many of whom were of noble lineage, many more
of whom were to found large and worthy families in the heart
of America. It was usually the son, sometimes the grandson
of the original settler from France, who made this second mi
gration. Most of those who went to the Detroit and else
where in the West, in the early years of the Eighteenth cen
tury, were born on the lower St. Lawrence — Quebec, Three
Rivers, Montreal ; but their parents as a rule were born in Nor
mandy or neighboring provinces.
That it was the day of small things, in trade as in war,
may be illustrated by a statement of provisions, munitions and
merchandise sent to the Lake Ontario posts — Frontenac,
Niagara, head of the lake, and Bay of Quinte — for the year
1722-23. The total Government outlay for the three sorts
of supplies was 29,800 livres, 17 sous, 6 deniers. Furs from
these points, not including Quinte, in 1722, netted 18,178
livres ; in 1723, 22,732 livres. This of course was by exchange.
In the same season, wages of employees at Frontenac came
to 900 livres; the storekeeper at Niagara received 400 livres
per annum and the gunsmith the same. The pay of six sol
diers was 180 livres each. In the two years named, there was
charged to transportation on Lake Ontario, 1050 livres. The
total expense of administering these posts, 1722—23, was 35,-
2101i, 17s, 6d; total receipts from sale of peltries 40,9111i,
8s, 6d — a profit of 5701i, lis — or a little over $1000 a
year! This was the trade for which Joncaire labored and
lived with the Iroquois, for which the Niagara was occupied,
for which two great Powers contended!
The day of small things, it indeed was ; but of great things
potentially. Far greater figures the fur trade was presently
to yield, although the Eighteenth century did not think in

206 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
millions, as the Twentieth is compelled to. A handful of sol
diers could seize half a continent; another handful could dis
possess them. Nothing is clearer, in our study, than that
France did much, with a small force. The significance of
events and achievements was independent of numbers.
Projects for lake navigation, of which, for some years after
the disastrous ending of La Salle's venture, nothing is heard,
naturally enough were revived in connection with the estab
lishment of Detroit An unsigned and undated document, prob
ably by Cadillac, sets forth that if a settlement were made
on the Detroit, " it has been determined to build boats at
Katarakoui to convey the necessary articles as far as Niagara
where a fort will be constructed in order to keep carters there
who will carry out the portage of them; they will be received
by other boats which will convey them here," that is, to De
troit. Another document, on the necessity of a post on the
Detroit, is endorsed : " These plans are to have barges at
Fort Frontenac for navigating Lake Ontario, and at the fort
that would be established for navigating the lakes above the
Fall of Niagara." But control of the Niagara portage was
essential, and that was slow in coming. Detroit had existed
20 years before Joncaire gained a permanent lodging on the
Niagara, and was a quarter century old before the building
of Fort Niagara offered some encouragement to Detroit and
other western posts that shipping facilities by way of Lake
Erie might be improved. Although sundry proposals are
found, for the construction of sail vessels above the Falls, noth
ing of the sort was ever accomplished by the French, who down
to the Conquest used nothing larger on Lake Erie than canoes
and bateaux, some of them, it is true, large for such craft,
and fitted with sails. Detroit seems to have made no effort to
build even the smallest of schooners. The Griffon was not only
the first deep-water bottom sailed by the French on Lake Erie,
but it was the last.
The British plans for getting a foothold on Lake Erie and
the Niagara at this time are revealed in various documents.
A " Representation of the Lords Commissioners for Trade
and Plantations to the King upon the State of His Majesties

NIAGARA AND THE WEST 207
Colonies and Plantations on the Continent of North America,"
dated September 8, 1721, sets forth at length that it would be
of great advantage to build a fort in the country of the Seneca
Indians, near the Lake Ontario, " which, perhaps, might be
done with their consent by the means of presents, and it should
the rather be attempted without loss of time, to prevent the
french from succeeding in the same design, which they are now
actually endeavouring at." We have already alluded to other
forms in which this design was shown. It reappears in various
ways, in numerous documents and publications of the time.
There ensued between the Marquis de Vaudreuil in behalf
of Canada, and Governor Burnet, an exceedingly spirited cor
respondence ; one of those epistolary dialogues — duels, rather
— which by their exhibitions of human nature do so enliven
the record of the long strife for supremacy in America. Jon
caire had left Montreal in September, 1720, for the house by
the Niagara rapids. He carried with him a generous stock
of articles of trade, powder, lead and brandy, for he had
heard, among the Senecas the preceding autumn, that the Eng
lish were coming to carry on trade at Niagara. He was to
stay on the Niagara and among the Senecas until the follow
ing June and had orders to pillage the English, if they ap
peared. Governor Burnet, down in New York, was quickly
apprised of it, and made known his mind to Vaudreuil. He
began with compliments worthy of a French courtier. He had
come to his post in September last, he wrote, with an inclina
tion to salute his neighbor to the North by a cordial notifi
cation of his arrival. " I heard such a high eulogium of your
family and of your own excellent qualities that I flattered my
self with a most agreeable neighborhood, and was impatient to
open a correspondence in which all the profit would be on my
side. But I had not passed two weeks in the province when
our own Indians of the Five Nations came to advise me, that
the French were building a post in their country at Niagara ;
that Sieur de Joncaire was strongly urging them to abandon
the English interest altogether and join him, promising them
that the Governor of Canada would furnish better land near
Chambly, to those who would remove thither; and would up-

208 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
hold the rest against the new Governor of New York, who
was coming to exterminate them ; . . . that an effort was mak
ing to persuade them to close the passage through their coun
try, to the English, in case the latter should disturb the post
at Niagara, and that M. de Longueuil had gone thither for
that purpose, and to complete the seduction of the Indians
from their ancient dependence on Great Britain." He explains
why he has not waited for instructions from the Court before
writing in the matter, and continues : " You will perceive, by
the Treaty of Utrecht, that all the Indians are to be at lib
erty to go to trade with one party and the other; and if ad
vantage be taken of the post at Niagara to shut up the road
to Albany to the Far Indians, it is a violation of the Treaty
which ought justly to alarm us, especially as that post is on
territory belonging to our Indians, where we were better enti
tled to build than the French, should we deem it worth the
trouble." He charges Vaudreuil with unseemly haste in seizing
" disputed posts " ; renews his expressions of regret, and
adroitly adds that he believes that " most of these disorders are
due to this Joncaire, who has long since deserved hanging for
the infamous murder of Hontour [Montour] which he com
mitted. I leave you to judge whether a man of such a charac
ter deserves to be employed in affairs so delicate."
Canada's Governor replied, seriatim, to all the counts which
Burnet undertook to score against him. Burnet, he said, was
" the first English Governor-General who has questioned the
right of the French, from time immemorial, to the post of
Niagara, to which the English have, up to the present time,
laid no claim." He declared that the French right there had
continued since La Salle's first occupancy; that Fort Denon
ville was given up in 1688 because of sickness, " without this
post, however, having been abandoned by the French"; a
claim which, to say the least, shows that Vaudreuil possessed
qualifications that would have made him an adept in certain
occupations of the law. He denied that there had been any
dispute between the French and Indians as to the erection of
Joncaire's trading-house, denied that there was any infraction
of the treaty of peace, or that French occupancy of the Ni-

NIAGARA AND THE WEST 209
agara interfered in the least with the Western Indians who
could still carry their trade to the English if they saw fit. As
to Joncaire, Governor Burnet was assured that he had been
misinformed as to that useful man's character and qualities,
" as he possesses none but what are very good and very meri
torious, and has always since he has been in this country most
faithfully served the King. It was by my orders that he killed
the Frenchman named Montour, who would have been hanged
had it been possible to take him alive and to bring him to this
colony." The letter concludes with formal expressions of es
teem, and the rather superfluous hope that the explanations
would be satisfactory.
He himself had the satisfaction, the next year, of having
his conduct approved by the King. " His Majesty has ap
proved of the measures M. de Vaudreuil adopted to prevent the
execution of the plan formed by the English of Orange to de
stroy the establishment at Niagara; and of the steps he took
to dissuade the Iroquois from favoring them in that enterprise,
and thereby to hinder the English undertaking anything
against that post or against those of the Upper Country. His
Majesty recommends him to endeavor to live on good terms
with the English, observing, nevertheless, to maintain always
His Majesty's interests."
A document of 1720,8 on the need of a trading-post at
Niagara, makes the interesting statement that the English had
proposed to an Iroquois chief, residing at Niagara, to send
him horses, if he would turn the trade to them, and to divide
profits with 'him. It accuses the English of sending 20 hogs
heads of rum annually to the Senecas, besides what they for
warded through the Senecas to tribes west of the Niagara. A
few weeks later,9 the French had word that the English were
coming with 200 men to demolish Joncaire's trading-post, and
that four of the Iroquois nations had joined with them to do
this. Vaudreuil wrote to Peter Schuyler, who commanded at
s " Mimoire sur la necessity de faire un Etablissement au bas du Portage
de Niagara a deux lieues du Lac Ontario pour y faire la traitte avec les
Sauvages," etc. It bears date Oct. 26, 1720.
9 " Conseil de Marine," Jan. 1, 1721,

210 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
Albany in the absence of the Governor, asking as to the truth
of this report, and making the usual defense of French claims
to the Niagara. Belief in this alliance against them was evi
dently general and genuine among the French, for in April
we find Joncaire himself informing the Baron de Longueuil
that the Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas and Mohawks had
agreed to join the English in an assault on the house by the
Niagara rapids, but that the Senecas had refused to join them.
Vaudreuil promptly issued orders (April 18, 1721) for an
expedition to proceed to Niagara, to hold a conference with
the Indians there, to show them that it was to their interest to
maintain the house " for which they have asked, and which they
helped to build," and not permit the English to make any estab
lishment on the river. This conference ended, he was to pro
ceed to the Onondagas, taking Joncaire with him.10
A spectator, on May 19, 1721, looking lakeward from the
high bank where now old Fort Niagara keeps impotent guard,
would have seen, swiftly skirting the shore from the eastward,
a flotilla of King's boats and bark canoes, some crowded
with soldiers, others laden deep with merchandise. Not in
many a year had so imposing a company come to the Niagara.
The lower reaches of the river are quickly accomplished, and
as the voyagers make landing below Magazin Royal, they re
ceive hearty welcome from Chabert Joncaire, surrounded by
delighted and greedy men, women and children from the Seneca
and Mississaga lodges on the river bank. The first greeting,
a deferential one, is for Charles Le Moyne, Baron de Longueuil,
lieutenant governor of Montreal. With him are the Marquis
de Cavagnal, son of the Governor-General of Canada, Cap
tain de Senneville, M. de Laubinois, commissary of ordnance,
Ensign de La Chauvignerie the interpreter, de Noyan, com
mandant at Frontenac, and John Durant, state chaplain at
that post. Each of the three King's boats brought six soldiers,
and there were valets and cooks, so that Longueuil's party
numbered twenty-eight or more. Besides these, two bark ca
noes had each borne eight men and a load of merchandise,
one destined for the storehouse at Niagara, the other for trade
io Corr, Gin,

NIAGARA AND THE WEST 211
among the Miamis at the upper end of Lake Erie. Still an
other canoe brought, with De Noyan and the chaplain, four
soldiers and an Indian.
For Longueuil, it was, as above indicated, a diplomatic visit
of grave import. He and La Chauvignerie were also under or
ders from the Court to join Joncaire at Niagara and go with
him among the Senecas to distribute presents and thank them
for the good will they had shown the French in permitting the
construction of Magazin Royal. For the Marquis de la Ca
vagnal and Captain de Senneville, it was largely a pleasure
trip : they " had undertaken that voyage only out of curiosity
of seeing the fall of the water at Niagara," says Chaplain Du
rant, thus indicating probably the first sight-seeing tourists j as
distinguished from all other travelers on the Niagara.
It was not in the nature of things, however, that young men
of the spirit and enterprise of Cavagnal and Longueuil should
rest content with sentimental gazing. They had, in fact, the
serious purpose, in compliance with an order laid upon them
by the Governor himself, " to survey Niagara and take the
exact height of the cataract." This apparently had never been
done before. It is plain, from their wild guesses and exaggera
tions, that neither Hennepin nor La Hontan attempted it, nor
do they report an attempt by any one connected with the ex
peditions of La Salle or Denonville.
It is matter of regret that no official report of this first meas
urement of the falls is known. We learn of it from a verbal
interview which took place in Albany five months later. On
October 10th of this year the Hon. Paul Dudley of that town
gleaned some facts from one Borassaw — so the English re
port spells his name. This man (a French Canadian, prob
ably a boatman or possibly a trader), said he had been at
Niagara seven times, and was there the last May, when the
height of the falls was taken by Longue Isle, St. Ville and
Laubineau — in which perverse spelling of the Hon. Paul Dud
ley we may recognize Longueuil, Captain de Senneville and
Laubinois. They used, the Frenchman said, a large cod-line
and a stone of half a hundred weight, and they found the per
pendicular height " no more than twenty-six Fathom ; his

212 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
Words were vingt et six Bras." This height, 156 feet, indi
cates that the measurement was made at the eastern edge of the
American Fall, which spot, known in our day as Prospect
Point, was undoubtedly the natural and most frequented place
of observation, from days immemorial. The height which de
Cavagnal and his companions reported in 1721, was within a
few feet of the height as known today.
Mons. " Borassaw " told still further of Niagara wonders.
He thought that if the total descent of the river, including the
lower rapids, were taken into account, the earlier reports of
the height of the fall might not be far out of the way. He
mentioned the terrible whirlpools, and the noise, which Mr.
Dudley decided was not so terrible as Father Hennepin had re
ported, since one could converse easily close by; and dwelt
especially upon " la brume," the mist or shower which the falls
make : " So extraordinary, as to be seen at five Leagues dis
tance, and rises as high as the common Clouds, In this Brume
or Cloud, when the Sun shines, you have always a glorious
Rainbow." The Canadian's graphic account of Niagara phe
nomena served a good purpose in toning down the earlier exag
gerations ; but, reported Mr. Dudley, " He confirms Father
Hennepin's and Mr. Kellug's Account of the large Trouts of
those Lakes, and solemnly affirmed there was one taken lately,
that weighed eighty-six pounds." u
Two or three days 12 after the arrival of Longueuil and his
retinue, there came two other canoes ; one laden with merchan
dise bound for Detroit ; in the other were four traders and the
famous Jesuit, Father Charlevoix.
It was " two o'clock in the afternoon " of May 22d that
Charlevoix reached the mouth of the Niagara. He had passed
the neglected waste, the site of Denonville's and La Salle's
n See *' An Account of the Falls of the River Niagara, taken at Albany,
Oct. 10, 1721, from Monsieur Borassaw, a French native of Canada. By
the Hon. Paul Dudley, Esq., F. R. S.," in Philosophical Transactions, Royal
Soc, London, 1722. Dudley's record of Borassaw is also given in Vol.
Ill, "The Gallery of Nature and Art" (6 vols.), 2d ed., London, 1818. See
also Vol. XIII of La Roche's " Mimoires litir. de la Grande Bretagne,"
La Haye, 1721-26.
12 Durant says May 21st; Charlevoix says he arrived at Niagara on the
afternoon of May 22d, — " Journal Historique," Letter XIV.

NIAGARA AND THE WEST 213
earlier establishments, not stopping until he reached Joncaire's
cabin — "to which," he wrote a few days later, "they have
beforehand given the name of fort: for it is pretended that
in time this will be changed into a great fortress." There
were here now, all told, some fifty Frenchmen, a most distin
guished company to be found, this May evening of the year
1721, harbored together in a rough house under the Niagara
escarpment at the edge of the rapids. Here these comrades
in arms and adventure feasted together on fresh fish which
Seneca and Mississaga boys brought them from the river,
with roast venison or other provision from the forest, well
prepared by Longueuil's own cooks; not forgetting the com
fort of French liquors or other luxuries which the traveler of
quality was sure to carry with him into the wilderness. They
gave the priest a welcome at the board, and he, being no ascetic,
was glad to join them. It is a pleasure to conjure up the
jovial gathering — a rare occasion in a history which usually
presents to the student a dismal and distressed aspect, often
deepening into tragedy.
The French officers were extremely well satisfied with what
they found on the Niagara. A council was held at which the
Senecas made their usual facile promises and Joncaire spoke
" with all the good sense of a Frenchman, whereof he enjoys
a large share, and with the sublimest eloquence of an Iro-
quoise." The officers were to set off on their mission the next day.
That evening a Mississaga Indian invited them to a " festi
val," as Charlevoix calls it ; and although by this time he was
not without some acquaintance with Indian ways, the priest
found it " singular enough." As this is the first " festival " on
the banks of the Niagara which has been reported for us, the
reader may find pleasure in joining the party, with the Jesuit
historian for mentor :
" It was quite dark when it began, and on entering the cabin
of this Indian, we found a fire lighted, near which sat a man
beating on a kind of drum ; another was constantly shaking his
chichicoue, and singing at the same time. This lasted two
hours and tired us very much as they were always repeating

214 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
the same thing over again, or rather uttering half articulated
sounds, and that without the least variation. We entreated
our host not carry this prelude any further, who with a good
deal of difficulty showed us this mark of complaisance.
" Next, five or six women made their appearance, drawing
up in a line, in very close order, their arms hanging down, and
dancing and singing at the same time, that is to say, they moved
some paces forwards, and then as many backwards, without
breaking the rank. When they had continued this exercise
about a quarter of an hour, the fire, which was all that gave
light in the cabin, was put out, and then nothing was to be per
ceived but an Indian dancing with a lighted coal in his mouth.
The concert of the drum and chichicoue still continued, the
women repeating their dances and singing from time to time;
the Indian danced all the while, but as he could only be dis
tinguished by the light of the coal in his mouth he appeared
like a goblin, and was horrible to see. This medley of danc
ing, and singing, and instruments, and that fire which never
went out, had a very wild and whimsical appearance, and di
verted us for half an hour; after which we went out of the
cabin, though the entertainment lasted till morning." The dis
creet father naively adds to his fair correspondent : " This,
madam, is all I saw of the fire-dance, and I have not been able
to learn what passed the remainder of the night." He specu
lates at length on how the chief performer could have held a
live coal in his mouth; the Indians, he is told, know a plant
which renders the part that has been rubbed with it insensi
ble to fire, " but whereof they would never communicate the dis
covery to the Europeans." With the known properties of co
caine and some other drugs in mind, this explanation would
seem in a degree plausible; against the theory is the fact that
the pharmacopasa has pretty thoroughly tested all the plants
which the Indian of these latitudes could have known. There
was probably a good deal of charlatanry about the exhibition
which so puzzled the good priest.
To Charlevoix, the environs of Magazin Royal were far
from pleasing. Most of the modern visitors who resort to
the vicinity in thousands every summer, find the prospect un-

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NIAGARA AND THE WEST 215
commonly attractive. Here the wild gorge of the Niagara
ends, and between alluvial banks the beautiful river, as if
wearied with its struggles above, continues at a slower pace to
ward the blue Ontario. At landings, on the Lewiston or
Queenston sides, are steamers with flags a-flutter waiting for
the throngs of tourists. Trolley-cars shuttle back and forth,
their road-beds scarring and changing the old slopes. On the
Canadian side, cedars and other wild growth still soften the
outlines of the heights, crowned with a noble Corinthian shaft
in memory of the heroic Brock. A bridge, the second that
has swung across the river at the mouth of the gorge, and, on
the American side, a steam railroad, have still further con
tributed to the obliteration of natural outlines. But nothing
short of a cataclysm can destroy the beauty of the place. The
heights are green and pleasant, easily reached by winding roads,
crowned with grain-fields and* orchards. Below are the quiet,
picturesque villages of Lewiston and Queenston, and all the low
country is a garden.
Not so did it appear to Charlevoix, who protested that
"nothing but zeal for the public good could possibly induce
an officer to remain in such a country as this, than which a
wilder and more frightful is not to be seen. On the one side
you see just under your feet, and as it were at the bottom of
an abyss, a great river, but which in this place is like a torrent
by its rapidity, by the whirlpools formed by a thousand rocks,
through which it with difficulty finds a passage, and by the
foam with which it is always covered. On the other, the view
is confined by three mountains placed one over the other, and
whereof the last hides itself in the clouds. This would have
been a very proper scene for the poets to make the Titans at
tempt to scale the heavens. In a word, on whatever side you
turn your eyes, you discover nothing which does not inspire a
secret horror." This shows a favorite form of the exaggera
tion to which the priest was addicted ; he has elsewhere described
mere oak trees as reaching " to the clouds."
After the departure of the officers, he made the long por
tage and continued his journey. Once up the heights, he ac
knowledged a change of sentiment, " Beyond those unculti-

216 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
vated and uninhabitable mountains, you enjoy the sight of a
rich country, magnificent forests, beautiful and fruitful hills;
you breathe the purest air, under the mildest and most tem
perate climate imaginable." His passage up the Niagara, it
will be remembered, was at the end of May. He visited the
falls, of which he wrote on the spot a long description, send
ing it back to Montreal by some voyageurs whom he met at
the entrance to Lake Erie; whence, on May 27th, he continued
his long canoe voyage to the westward. The goods for trade
and for the post at Detroit were laboriously packed over the
portage. Boatmen and Indians, sweating and straining, bore
inverted on their shoulders the long bark canoes, up the steep
heights and along the forest path to quiet water above the
cataract. Setting out in the other direction, our tourist officers, with
De Noyan, Laubinois and Durant, departed on the 22d, and
on reaching the lake turned their prows westward, to make their
way to Fort Frontenac along the north shore of the lake.
Nearly a month later Chaplain Durant, making his way to
Albany with a delegation of Indians, met Joncaire at the mouth
of the Oswego River. " I asked him," the chaplain writes,
" what he had done with these savages upon the subject of the
voyage he had undertaken to them. He answered me, ' I have
beat the Bush and Mr. de Longueuil will take the birds. Our
voyage will do him honor at the Court of France,' and ex
plained himself no further." A little advanced on his way,
above the Oswego falls Durant met Longueuil and La Chau
vignerie. " Have you succeeded," he asked, " in engaging the
Five Nations to defend the Post of Niagara? " They an
swered that the chiefs of the Senecas, Cayugas, Oneidas and
Onondagas had given them " good words," promising to tell
him further at Montreal, and hurried on towards Lake On
tario. The French officers were little inclined to make a confidant
of the priest, and with good reason, for he was then, as he had
been at Niagara, virtually a spy in the English interest. John
Durant was a Recollect, a Frenchman who claimed to be of
Huguenot family, which, perhaps, accounts for his resolve to

NIAGARA AND THE WEST 217
change both his country and his religion. Apparently his Ni
agara visit suggested the way to him. He had been stationed
at Fort Frontenac, and returned thither from Niagara; but
on June 13th he deserted that post and his charge, and with
an Indian escort set out for Albany, where he stated his case
to Governor Burnet, and gave him a journal of what he had
seen and heard at Niagara. It is from that journal that a
portion of the foregoing narrative is drawn.13 Burnet made
Durant the bearer of his own report to the Lords of Trade in
London, together with a letter commending the author for fa
vor and suggesting reward for his services. In due time the
thanks of the Lords of Trade were sent back to Governor Bur
net, with the assurance that " we have done what we could for
his [Durant's] service, tho' not with so much success as we
cou'd wish " ; 14 and we hear no more of Chaplain Durant, the
Huguenot Spy of the Niagara.
William Burnet was appointed Governor of the Colonies of
New York and New Jersey, April 19, 1720. He was no sooner
established in his new office than he began a zealous campaign
against the advances of the French. In his first communica
tion to the Lords of Trade, September 24, 1720, just one week
after his arrival in New York, he stated that " there may be
effectual measures taken for fortifying & securing the Fron
tier against the French, who are more industrious than ever
in seducing our Indians to their Interests & have built trad
ing Houses in their country." In November, reporting the
result of the Legislative Assembly of 1720, he declared it his
intention to build a new fort at Niagara and a small one at
Onondaga. He complained that the French " tryed to seduce
the Sinnekees " by sending priests among them, grotesquely de
claring this to be a breach of the treaty which required the
French " not to molest the Five Nations " ! " This," he added,
" besides their continuing to fortify at Niagara shews how much
they take advantage of the unsettled state of the limits between
the Crowns." 15
is See Durant's Memorial, etc., N. Y. Col. Docs., V, 588-591.
" Lords of Trade to Burnet, Whitehall, June 6, 1722.
is Burnet to the Lords of Trade, June 18, 1721.

218 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
" When I get the King's presents to the Indians, which I
hope will be dispatched," he suggestively wrote, " I propose
to go into the Indian country through the five nations and give
them these presents at their own homes when I come among
the Sinnekees I will propose to them my design to build a Fort
at Niagara & leave a whole company of souldiers to guard it
and be a defence to the Indians against the French and to make
this succeed the better I intend to give land to the officers and
souldiers & to the Palatines and all others that will go there
by this means in a year or two the country which is very fruit
ful will maintain itself and be the finest Settlement in the
Province because it is seated in the Pass where all the Indians
in our dependance go over to hunt and trade with the Farr
Indians it will likewise make it practicable to have another
settlement above the Fall of Niagara where vessells may be
built to trade into all the Great Lakes of North America with
all the Indians bordering on them, with whom we may have an
immense Trade never yet attempted by us and now carried on
by the French with goods brought from this Province."
The project does credit to the Governor's zeal and enthusi
asm, but it came to naught, so far as Niagara was concerned.
In a representation to the King the following year, the ad
vantage is urged of building a fort " in the country of the
Seneca Indians, near the Lake Ontario, which, perhaps, might
be done with their consent by the means of presents, and it
should the rather be attempted without the loss of time, to
prevent the French from succeeding in the same design, which
they are now actually endeavoring at " ; 16 and the King's at
tention was especially directed to Burnet's Niagara scheme,
but no royal encouragement was given. The Governor him
self, in his report to the Lords of Trade for 1721, reviews at
length the protest he had made to the Canadian Governor be
cause of the French establishment at Niagara, but says noth
ing more of his own proposition for that river. He had sent
instead a small company to carry on trade at Irondequoit Bay.
The Palatines, whom he had considered as available Niagara
colonists, had objected to such an exile in a distant and prob-
i« "State of the British Plantations in America," 1721.

NIAGARA AND THE WEST 219
ably hostile wilderness, and had been given their now historic
lands on the Mohawk.
One phase of the establishment at Irondequoit must be noted
in tracing the history of the Niagara. The company of seven
young Dutchmen who spent the winter of 1721-22 at Ironde
quoit, were under the command of Captain Peter Schuyler, Jr.
To him Governor Burnet gave explicit instructions for the
regulation of trade and the control of his party. In a post
script to his letter of instructions he wrote:
" Whereas it is thought of great use to the British Interest
to have a Settlem* upon the nearest part of the lake Eree
near the falls of Iagara you are to Endeavour to purchase in
his Majesty's name of the Sinnekes or other native propriators
all such Lands above the falls of Iagara fifty miles to the south
ward of the said falls which they can dispose of."
If young Schuyler made any efforts to make this purchase,
the record of it is not known. When he returned with his band
to Albany in September, 1722, Joncaire still continued com
mandant at Magazin Royal, and trade-master of the Niagara
region. In June, 1722, the Lords of Trade, replying to Burnet's
proposition of a year and a half before, hoped that the fort
which he would build on the Niagara would effectually check
the efforts of the French at that point, but advised him to
" take the consent of the Indian Proprietors " before he built.
A year later — June 25, 1723 — Burnet wrote that if he
could get the Two-per-cent. Act confirmed, he should be " very
ernest to build a Fort in the Indian Country among the Sinne
kees," but subsequent events showed that he no longer thought
Niagara the place for his establishment. The statement of a
contemporary English historian, that a number of young men
were at this time sent into Western New York " as far as the
Pass between the Great Lakes at the Falls of Iagara to learn
the language of these Indians & to renew the Trade," 1T — that
is to build up a direct traffic with the Western Indians which
had been neglected for the easier barter of English goods to
the French — apparently refers to the short-lived establish-
" Colden's " Account of the Trade of New York," 1723.

220 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
ment at Irondequoit, already referred to. Evidence is lacking
to show that the English or Dutch gained any foothold on the
Niagara at this period.
In 1724, with due consent of the " Indian Proprietors,"
Burnet made his famous establishment at the mouth of the
Oswego River, which was the foundation of the present city
of Oswego. At the time no one was dreaming of future cities.
It was but a new move in the century-long game for the fur
trade. One might say, with some accuracy, that it was Jon
caire's trading-house on the Niagara that provoked the English
to make a like establishment, though much better built, at Os
wego; and it was the English at Oswego that spurred the
French to hasten the construction of the stone Fort Niagara.
A broader statement of the situation, however, would show that
these establishments by no means represented all the efforts
which the rivals were putting forth at this period to secure the
Indian trade.
The English in particular were successful in other ways.
One of the first legislative acts passed under Burnet had aimed
to put a stop to the direct trade between the English and the
French. It had long been the custom for Albany traders to
carry English-made goods to Montreal, selling them to the
French who in turn traded them to the Indians. The English
could supply certain articles which were more to the savage
taste than those sent over from France; and they could afford
to sell them at a lower price. Having stopped the peddling
to the French, Governor Burnet made strong efforts to draw
the far Western Indians to Albany for trade direct with them.
In these efforts he was fairly successful. Bands of strange
savages from Mackinac and beyond, accompanied by their
squaws and papooses, presented themselves at Albany, where
their kind had never been seen before. They had come down
Lake Huron, past the French at Detroit, and through Lake
Erie; and paddling down the swift reaches of the navigable
Niagara had made the portage, reembarking below the heights
and at the very doorway of the French trading-house; with
some interchange, no doubt, of jeers and imprecations, but none
of furs for French goods; and following the historic high-

NIAGARA AND THE WEST 221
way for canoes, they skirted the Ontario shore to the Oswego,
then passed up that river, through Oneida Lake and down the
Mohawk, until they could lay their bundles of beaver skins be
fore the English, on the strand at Albany.
This was, indeed, a triumph of trade. They spoke a lan
guage which the traders there had never heard, but they brought
many packs of furs; and with, perhaps, a double interpreta
tion, the business sped to the entire satisfaction of the Enghsh.
These people came in various bands ; about twenty hunters, in
the spring of 1722 ; and in the spring of 1723 over eighty, be
sides their numerous train of women and children ; with sundry
other parties following. They traveled over 1,200 miles to get
to Albany.
Burnet was delighted with this proof that even with their
Magazin Royal at the foot of the Niagara portage, the French
did not by any means have a monopoly of the business. The
English emissaries in the country of the Five Nations were as
active as ever was Joncaire, and at this period appear to have
been even more successful. Burnet attributed the increased
trade to the stoppage of the English-French barter above men
tioned and to " the Company whom I have kept in the Sinne
kees Country whose business it has been to persuade all the
Indians that pass by to come rather to trade at Albany than
at Montreal, and as the Indians that come from the remote
Lakes to go to Canada are commonly in want of Provisions
when they come below the falls of Niagara, they are obliged to
supply themselves in the Sinnekees Country where our people
are and then they may take their choice where they will go,
which considering the experience they have now had of the cheap
ness of Goods in this Province, we need not fear will be uni
versally in our favor." 18
So well disposed were these Western Indian traders towards
the English, that they entered into a " League of Friendship "
at Albany, which both Governor Burnet and Surveyor-General
Colden construed as a desire to join the Six Nations, "that
they may be esteemed the seventh Nation under the English
Protection " — a matter for which the English were presumably
is Burnet to Lords of Trade, June 25, 1723.

AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
far more eager than was the ancient League of the Iroquois,
now, alas, past the splendid meridian of its strength. Its re
maining energies were to be dissipated in the strife of the usurp
ing strangers.
Burnet's dealings with the Five Nations were conspicuous
for fairness and sagacity. In order to thwart the French, and
bring the Western fur trade to the New York Coloriy, he could
afford to be generous, especially to the Senecas, whose aid was
indispensable. In his first meeting with them, at Albany, in
September, 1721, he so won their good will that they declared
they would not let the French fortify Niagara. The French,
they protested, had deceived them there some thirty years ago,
pretending to get permission to build a storehouse, and then
fortifying it without permission; but, said the Indians, we
pulled it down. They did not exactly promise to do so again,
but said : " We are resolved as soon as any French come to
the Five Nations to tell them to pull down that trading House
at Onjarara, and not to come either to settle or Trade among
us any more."
The protestations of friendship at this council, on the part
of the Five Nations — still referred to as the Five Nations,
though since the inclusion of the Tuscaroras in 1715, really
become six — were somewhat warmer than usual. The con
ference was shared in by the Governor " and diverse gentlemen
from New York that attended his Excellency," by Captain
Robert Walters, Cadwallader Colden and James Alexander of
the Royal Council, by the twelve Commissioners of Indian
Affairs, headed by Colonel Peter Schuyler, by the Mayor and
Aldermen of Albany, and, no doubt, by such unofficial specta
tors as could gain admission. The Mohawks, Oneidas, Onon
dagas, Cayugas and Senecas were all represented by painted,
be-feathered and greedy sachems. Their chief spokesman was
not content, before so august an assemblage, with the more or
dinary pledges of friendship.
" We call you Brother," he said, holding out the belt of
wampum, " and so we ought to do, and to love one another
as well as those that have sucked on [one] breast, for we are
Brethren indeed, and hope to live and dye so," and he prom-

NIAGARA AND THE WEST
ised on behalf of the Five Nations "to keep the Covenant
Chain inviolable as long as Sun & Moon endure." It is not
impossible that the Indians had wind of the great present they
were to receive — " as noble a Present," Burnet wrote after
wards, "as ever was given them from His Majesty King
George." At the close of the formal proceedings the Indians
told the Governor that they heard he had lately been married.19
" We are glad of it," they said, " and wish you much Joy And
as a token of our Rejoycing We present a few Beavers to your
Lady for Pin Money," adding with amusing frankness, " It is
Customary for a Brother upon his Marryage to invite his
Brethren to be Merry and Dance."
The Governor did not disappoint them. The gifts which
he now spread before them would have filled a warehouse. The
list, which has been preserved,20 is not uninstructive. There
were given to the Indians on this occasion five pieces of strouds
[worth at that time £10 per piece in New York and upwards
of $13 at Montreal], five of duffels, five of blankets, four of
"half thicks," fifty fine shirts, 213 Ozibrigg21 shirts, fifty
red coats, fifty pairs of stockings, six dozen scissors, fourteen
dozen knives, four dozen jack-knives, five dozen square look
ing-glasses and thirty dozen of round hand-mirrors, twenty-
eight parcels of gartering and twelve of binding, twenty pounds
of beads, twenty brass kettles, fifty guns, 1,000 pounds
of powder in bags, 200 pounds of bar lead, ten cases of ball,
1,500 gun-flints, twelve dozen jewsharps, six and one-half bar
rels of tobacco, and last, but very far from least, a hogshead
of rum. There were besides private presents to the sachems,
including guns, powder, shirts, laced coats and laced hats,
and special portions of liquor. Even this was not enough.
i» He had married a daughter of Abraham Van Home, a prominent New
York merchant.
20 Minutes of Conference at Albany, Sept. 7, 1721, kept by Robt. Liv
ingston, Sec'y for Indian Affairs.
21 A coarse linen much used in the Indian trade. The name is often
written "Oznabrigg," but the correct form is Oznaburg, after the city so
named in Germany, whence these linens were originally imported. The
name came to be applied to coarse linens made elsewhere. " Duffels " were
coarse woolen cloths, the name probably derived from Duffel in the Nether
lands.

224 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
Governor Burnet " in the name of his Majesty, Ordered them
some Barrls of Beer to be merry withall and dance, which they
did according to their Custom and were extreamly well Satis-
fyed." And back to their several villages the loaded retinue went;
up the Mohawk, to Onondaga; the diminishing party contin
uing, now by lake and stream, now filing along the old trails,
to the Seneca towns in the valley of the Genesee and to the west
ward. Red coats, hand-mirrors and new guns were hard argu
ments to be overcome by the pinched French at Magazin Royal.
It was on the strength of the good will of the Senecas, won
at this conference, that Burnet ventured to send his young
men, under Captain Schuyler — son of Peter Schuyler, Presi
dent of the Council — to attempt a settlement at Irondequoit
on Lake Ontario. Burnet hoped that others would join him
there ; but caused it to be clearly understood that the place was
indisputably in the Indians' possession. It was merely to serve
as a depot of English goods, where Western traders, who would
pass by the French establishment on the Niagara, were to be
supplied on terms far more liberal than the French could afford.
With the one possible exception of powder, the English could
furnish everything used in the Indian trade more cheaply than
the French, supplying, of course, rum instead of brandy, a
substitution to which the red man made no demur, so long as
the quantity was ample.

CHAPTER XIII
"A HOUSE OF PEACE"
The Building of Fort Niagara — Services of Joncaire, Lon
gueuil and De Lery — Joncaire's Letters from the Fort
— An Important Outpost for France in America.
We are now come to the point in our story where the testi
mony of the ancient manuscripts is quickened, vivified by an
existing landmark. The stone house popularly known as the
" castle," the most venerable of the group of structures in
the Government reserve of Fort Niagara, dates, in its oldest
parts, from 1726. It is the oldest edifice in the Northern
United States, west of the Mohawk. Vaudreuil conceived the
project of it; Longueuil the younger and Joncaire gained the
uncertain consent of the Five Nations for its erection; and
Gaspard Chaussegros de Lery, the King's chief engineer in
Canada, determined its exact location and superintended its
construction. Joncaire's efforts to secure for the French a more efficient
stronghold on the banks of the Niagara than his palisaded
storehouse under Lewiston Heights, began at least as early as
1723. They probably were unceasing from the time of his first
occupancy of the neighborhood, but in the year named the
correspondence shows that his efforts were directed toward
definite achievement. On August 23d, Joncaire wrote from
Niagara to the Governor that the Iroquois had agreed that a
regular fort should be built on the Niagara, " but that it should
be a little fort of palisades, in which 300 men could defend
themselves." This was but an entering wedge for the more substantial
structure which the French had resolved to build. When
Vaudreuil learned, December 8, 1724, of the operations of the
English at Oswego, he realized that another move in the game
must be made by the French if they would retain even a share
225

226 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
of that portion of the fur trade which made the Great Lakes
its highway to market. Joncaire's feeble establishment was in
danger of eclipse, of being cut out, by the rum and other su
perior inducements which the English were so lavishly offering.
It is evident that the Governor studied the situation thoroughly
that winter. By spring he had made up his mind. He wrote
to the Minister, May 25th, that, should the English under
take to make a permanent establishment at Oswego, nothing
remained but to fortify Niagara. He could say " fortify "
to the Minister, though to the Iroquois declarations must con
tinue to be made, that their devoted father — Onontio —
sought only to build a trading-house — a storehouse — any
thing, so long as it was not called fort. He proposed first to
build tWo barques on Lake Ontario, which should not only carry
materials for the proposed construction at Niagara, but could
cruise the lake and intercept Indian parties on their way to
trade with the English. The building at Niagara, the Minis
ter was informed, " will not have the appearance of a fort,
so that no offense will be given to the Iroquois, who have been
unwilling to allow any there, but it will answer the purpose of
a fort just as well."
The Intendant, M. Begon, approved the project. Under
date of June 10, 1725, he wrote to the Minister, that in view
of the great importance of doing everything possible to pre
vent the English from driving the French from Niagara, " we
have determined to build at Fort Frontenac two barques to
serve in case of need against the English, to drive them from
that establishment [Niagara] and also to serve for carrying
materials with which to build a stone fort at Niagara, which
we hold to be necessary to put that post in a state of de
fense against the English J' as well as against the Iroquois.
He added that these boats would be very useful in time of peace,
sailing between La Galette, Frontenac and Niagara, and carry
ing provisions, munitions of war, merchandise for trade, and
peltries, reducing the expense below that of canoe service.
" They will serve also as far as Niagara for the transport of
provisions, merchandise and peltries for all those belonging to
the posts in the upper country, or who go up with trade per-

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" A HOUSE OF PEACE " 227
mits. The freight which they will be able to carry will com
pensate the King for the cost of construction.
" I sent, for this purpose, in February last, two carpenters
and four sawyers, who arrived at Fort Frontenac, traveling
on the ice, the 26th of the same month. I am informed that
during the winter they cut the wood needed and have barked
and sawed a part of it. I have also sent nine other carpen
ters and two blacksmiths, who set out from Montreal on the
15th of last month, to hurry on the work, that these boats
may be ready to sail the coming autumn." 1
A postscript to this letter adds : " Since writing, M. de
Joncaire has come down and tells me that the Iroquois will
not interfere with building the boats, and will not oppose
the Niagara establishment, asking only that there should not
be built there a stone fort."
As the years passed, it was Joncaire who more and more
represented the power of France on the Niagara. He it was
to whom the Governor of Canada entrusted the delicate busi
ness of maintaining amicable relations with the Senecas; and
on his reports and advice depended in considerable measure the
attitude of the French towards their ever-active rivals. In
November, 1724, Vaudreuil had written to the Minister that
in order to retain the Five Nations in their " favorable dis
positions," he thought he " could not do better than to send
Sieur de Joncaire to winter at Niagara and among the Senecas.
According to the news to be received from Sieur de Joncaire,"
added the Governor, " I shall determine whether to send Sieur
de Longueuil to the Onontagues, among whom he has consider
able influence."
That Joncaire's news was favorable, is evident from the
sequel; for Longueuil was sent to the Onondagas, from whom
he gained a dubious consent that the French might build a fort
at the mouth of the Niagara. In June, 1725, Joncaire went
down from the Seneca Castle — near present Geneva — to
i These barques were commanded by sailing-masters Gagnon and Goue-
ville. Each had four sailors, with six soldiers to help. A memorandum
states that the operations of the vessels in 1727 cost 5775 livres, 3 sols
(sous), 11 deniers. A sailor received for a season's work 530 livres, the
masters 803 livres each.

228 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
Quebec, where he assured the Intendant, Begon, that the Iro
quois were pledged not to interfere with the construction of the
two barques then building at Fort Frontenac, " nor oppose the
establishment at Niagara, only requiring that no stone fort
should be erected there." According to the French reports,
this last stipulation was soon set aside, for in the dispatches of
Vaudreuil and Begon to the Minister, dated May 7, 1726, tell
ing of Longueuil's mission to the Five Nations, one reads as
follows :
" He repaired next to Onontague, an Iroquois village, and
found the Deputies from the other four villages there waiting
for him; he got them to consent to the construction of two
barques, and to the erection of a stone house at Niagara, the
plan of which he designed."
This mission of Longueuil proved an eventful one. He was
charged to cross Lake Ontario to order the English to with
draw from Oswego. A curious meeting ensued. At the mouth
of the river he found 100 Englishmen with sixty canoes. They
stopped him, called for his pass, and showed him their instruc
tions from the Governor of New York, not to let any French
man go by without a passport. Then the doughty Canadian,
not relishing the idea of being under English surveillance,
turned to the Iroquois chiefs who were present, and taunted
them with being no longer masters of their own territory. His
harangue had the desired effect. The Indians, galled by his
words, broke out against the English with violent reproaches
and threats. " You have been permitted to come here to
trade," they said, " but we will not suffer anything more."
They promised Longueuil that in the event of a French war
with the English, they would remain neutral ; and the delighted
emissary turned his back on the discomfited Englishmen, who
dared not interfere, and accompanied by a large volunteer ret
inue of Indians, continued his journey to Onondaga.
Here the deputies of the Five Nations gathered to meet
them. He showed them the plan he had designed for a house
at Niagara. The report as subsequently laid before the Minis
ter and Louis XV, says " a stone house." It is by no means
certain that Longueuil gave the Indians this idea. According

" A HOUSE OF PEACE " 229
to the version they gave, when taken to task the next year by
Governor Burnet, the French officer told the Onondagas " that
he had built a Bark House at Niagara, which was old and be
gan to decay, that he could no longer keep his goods dry in it,
and was now come to desire leave to build a bigger house,
wherein his goods might be safe from rain, and said that if they
consented that he might build a house there and have vessels in
Cadaracqui Lake [Ontario], he promised it should be for their
good, peace and quietness, and for their children's children,
that the French would protect them for three hundred years."
The Senecas were reported to have protested ; they sent a wam
pum belt to the Onondagas, with the warning that " in case
the French should desire to make any Building or Settlement
at Niagara or at Ochsweeke [Lake Erie] or elsewhere on their
land, they should not give their consent to it." But the Onon
dagas, " being prevailed upon by Fair speeches and promises,
rejected the Sinnekes belt, and gave the French leave for build
ing at Niagara." It was Joncaire, as we have seen, who over
came the objecton of the Senecas. Returning from their coun
try, he brought word that they would not hinder the construc
tion, though he had previously cautioned Vaudreuil not to at
tempt a stone building. But the elder Longueuil, writing to
the Minister under date of October 31, 1725, explicitly says
of his son's achievement : " The Sieur de Longueuil, having
repaired to the Onondaga village, found there the deputies of
the other four Iroquois villages. He met them there, he got
them to consent to the construction of the two barques and to
the building of a stone house at Niagara." It was to be no
fort, but " a house of solid masonry, where all things needed
for trade with the Indians could be safely kept, and for this
purpose he would go to Niagara to mark out the spot on
which this house might be erected, to which they consented."
The sequence of events in this affair affords a striking illus
tration of the way in which things were taken for granted, or
work undertaken before official sanction was obtained or funds
made available. The two barques, without which the construc
tion of Fort Niagara would have been impossible, were being
built before the Indians had given their consent to it. The

230 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
consent of the Indians to the erection of the fort was not gained
until after its erection had been fully determined upon by the
French; and all of this important work was well in hand long
before the Department in France had provided funds for it.
The plan of the Niagara house, which is spoken of as designed
by Longueuil, was sent to the Minister in France, with an es
timate of the cost, amounting to 29,295 livres. Various esti
mates are mentioned in the dispatches of the time. De Maure-
pas, perplexed by a multiplicity of demands, endorsed upon
these dispatches : " It seems necessary to forego, this year,
the grant of 29,295 li., and 13,090 li. for the house at Niagara
and the construction of the two barques." At Versailles,
April 29, 1727, Louis expressed his satisfaction at the con
struction of Fort Niagara, and promised to " cause to be ap
propriated in next year's Estimate for the Western Domain,
the sum of 20,430 li., the amount of the expense, according to
the divers estimates they have sent, and as the principal house
at the mouth of the river must have been finished this spring,
his Majesty's intention is, that Sieur s de Beauharnois and
Duypuy [Dupuy] adopt measures to rebuild the old house next
Autumn. This they will find the more easy, as the two barques
built at Fort Frontenac will aid considerably in tranporting
materials. His Majesty agrees with them in opinion that the
Iroquois will not take any umbrage at this, for besides being
considered only as the reconstruction of the house already
there, it will be used, at least during the Peace, only for Trade.
They will, meanwhile, adopt with those Indians such precau
tions as they shall consider necessary, to neutralize any new
impressions of distrust the English would not fail to insinuate
among them on this occasion. This must prompt them to have
the work pushed on with the greatest possible diligence." The
King afterwards disapproved of any further outlay for " the
old house," and Joncaire's establishment at the head of the
lower navigation on the Niagara was never rebuilt.
It was true then, as now, that building expenses do not always
work out according to specifications. In October, 1727, we
find Dupuy trying to explain his heavy expenses : " The
house at Niagara cost infinitely more than the 29,295 li.

" A HOUSE OF PEACE " 231
granted for last year. The expeditions which we have had to
send there in 1726 and this year have greatly increased the
cost of freight and transportation of provisions needed there."
Vaudreuil had hoped to have the vessels on Lake Ontario
ready by the autumn of 1725 ; but no record is found stating
that they sailed to the Niagara that year. The testimony of
the correspondence, so far as known, shows that the vessels
did not carry building material or workmen to the Niagara
until navigation opened in the spring of 1726.2 The Baron
de Longueuil wrote, October 31, 1725 : " The two barques
have been finished this autumn, they will be ready to sail next
Spring, and to carry the stone and other material needed for
building the stone house at Niagara," etc. They were to take
out on their first voyage, ten masons and four carpenters and
joiners, besides the 100 soldiers with six officers detailed for
the enterprise. A report of the Intendent Begon, May 20,
1726, says: "The two barques built at Fort Frontenac are
ready to sail, they will carry to Niagara the materials neces
sary for building the house."
Vaudreuil, as we have seen, had written that Longueuil had
designed a plan for the proposed establishment on the Niagara,
and it may have been in accordance with the suggestions of
this soldier that the work was begun ; but for such a construc
tion as was desired, expert engineering ability was required.
There was but one man in Canada qualified to undertake the
task, and to him the Baron de Longueuil — then Governor ad
interim, wrote under date of March 28, 1726 :
" I beg Monsieur Chaussegros de Lery, engineer, to work
without let-up in building the Niagara house, which he will
place wherever he shall judge it most advisable. It is a
work of absolute necessity, the old house being of wood and
offering no means of preservation, unless it is fortified. It is
moreover of the greatest consequence to profit by the favorable
2 The local histories and narratives relating to Fort Niagara usually
give the date of its commencement as 1725. There is some discrepancy of
dates in the documents, or copies of original documents, which I have ex
amined; but it is plain that work on the "castle" was not begun until
June, 1726. That the reader may know on what I base my conclusions,
I have given in my narrative ample extracts from the documents themselves.

232 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
disposition of the Iroquois in regard to us. I undertake to
have this expense approved by the Court."
Gaspard Chaussegros de Lery, who now becomes an impor
tant figure in the story of the Niagara, was the son of an
engineer of Toulon, where he was born, October 13, 1682.
Trained to his father's profession, we find him, in 1706, serv
ing in the army of Italy, and gaining glory and a wound at
the siege of Turin. A later service in the squadron of the
Marquis de Forbin, took him to the coast of Scotland and
won him a captain's rank in the infantry regiment of Sault.
When the navy board (for so we may render " le conseil du
marine ") decided in 1716 to undertake a more extensive sys
tem of fortifications in Canada, it chose de Lery to carry
out the royal plans. These included an elaborate refortifica-
tion of Quebec, the building of a wall around Montreal and
subsequently of other works at Chambly, Three Rivers and
other points, as well as the construction of prisons and public
buildings. De Lery came at once to the scene of his labors,
perfected the plan of what he proposed to do at Quebec, and
returning to Paris, submitted it to the King. His plans and
estimates were approved and he returned to Canada to press
forward the work. The correspondence of the time shows
that he was much embarrassed by lack of sufficient appropria
tions ; a fact which gives special point to the closing statement
in M. de Longueuil's letter, assigning him to Niagara. Not
having received any order from the Court to undertake this
work, de Lery was apprehensive that the King would not ap
prove. However, relying on the assurance of Longueuil, he
devoted himself to it in the summer of 1726. Under date of
July 26th of that year the Baron de Longueuil wrote to the
Minister :
" It is for me to inform you of the measures which I took
this last spring for the establishment of the post of Niagara
. . . and of my plan for sending to Niagara as soon as navi
gation was open, in order to forestall the English, and to be
gin early to work on the house of which we have had the honor
to send you the plan, in order that it may be completed this
year. M. Begon assured me that he would send the workmen

" A HOUSE OF PEACE " 233
I had asked for, as soon as the ice went out, and that M. de
Lery would come to Montreal at the same time. He arrived
here in March ; and in April I sent the workmen with a detach
ment of a hundred soldiers, commanded by my son and four
other officers. As soon as they arrived at Niagara, I learn
by these officers, M. de Lery had laid out the house in another
place than that which I had proposed to him, and which had
seemed to me most suitable in order to make us masters of the
portage, and of the communication between the two lakes. He
will no doubt give you his reasons.
" The work has been very well carried on and the fortifica
tions are well advanced. The barques which were built last
year at Frontenac have been of wonderful aid. They sent
me word the tenth of this month that the walls were already
breast high everywhere. There has been no opposition on the
part of the Iroquois, who on the contrary appear well satisfied
to have us near them; but the English, restless and jealous
of this establishment, have seduced and engaged several Seneca
chiefs to come and thwart us with speeches of which I send
herewith a copy, and which have had no other effect than to
reassure us of the good will of the Iroquois." He expresses the
hope that the house at Niagara will be finished this year, refers
to the Dutch and English at Oswego, and adds : " The un
easiness I have felt, because of the English and Dutch, who had
threatened to establish themselves at Niagara, and my fears lest
the Iroquois would retract the word they gave last year, have
not permitted me to await your orders for the construction of
this house. I beg you to approve what I have done through
zeal for the good of this colony."
One of the " four other officers " referred to in the fore
going letter, as having shared in the building of Fort Niagara,
was the Sieur de Ramezay, " Chevalier of the Royal and Mili
tary Order of St. Louis," etc., as later memoirs recount his
titles. He was only an ensign in the colonial troops in 1720,
when he entered upon his Canadian service; and he remained
in the garrison at Montreal until the spring of 1726, when he
was appointed lieutenant and sent to Niagara. Another who
shared in this undertaking was a son of Lieutenant Le Verrier.

AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
The youth " showed good qualities in his service at Niagara,"
but becoming sick was sent back to Quebec. Still another un
fortunate was the Sieur de la Lojge, who received so severe an
injury in one of his eyes, at Niagara in this summer, that it was
feared he would lose the sight of both; he was sent to Quebec
and thence to Paris, that he might have the attention of the
famous oculist, St. Yves.
On April 28, 1726, the Baron de Longueuil appointed his
son Charles Le Moyne (then a captain, afterwards second
Baron de Longueuil) to be the first commandant of Fort
Niagara — not then built, but destined to be the focal point of
all our regional history under the French. The letter making
the appointment directed the young man to repair to Niagara
with a detachment of troops, to superintend the construction
of the fort; and called upon the officers and soldiers of the
detachment, and especially upon Joncaire, and upon all trav
elers passing by way of the Niagara, to acknowledge his au
thority.3 On September 5th the new commandant wrote from Niagara
that the new house was very much advanced, and would have
been finished had it not been for the sickness that broke out
among the workmen, 30 of whom had been ill ; but that the place
was then enclosed and secured.
De Longueuil, who knew the region well, had proposed that
the stone house should stand farther up the river, and on going
to the Niagara, after his successful conference at Onondaga,
had decided to place it " on a most advantageous elevation,
about 170 feet from the old house, and some 130 feet from the
edge of the river; the barques could there be moored to shore,
under the protection of the house, of which they could make
later on, a fort with crenelated enclosure or wooden stockade " ;
but de Lery decided otherwise, holding that the angle of the
lake and river not only commanded the portage and all com
munication between the lakes, but enabled the French to keep
watch over Lake Ontario, so as to prevent the English from
• The letter, which is of peculiar interest, since it records the appoint
ment of the first in the long succession of commandants at Fort Niagara,
will be found in the Appendix.

" A HOUSE OF PEACE " 235
going to trade on the north shore of that lake. The English
could not cross the lake in their bark canoes; to reach the
north side, the natural route was by skirting the shore, from
Oswego to Niagara and westward. Hence, even though de
Lery had placed the fort at the portage, the English might
easily have seized the mouth of the river, and by controlling
Lake Ontario, have blockaded the French in their fort and
starved them into a surrender. They could have made it im
possible for assistance to reach it from the base of supplies,
Frontenac, or the river towns; and they could have made it
equally impossible for the garrison of Fort Niagara to with
draw. The two barques which the French counted so greatly
upon, for communication with the new establishment, would
often find it a tedious if not impossible matter to beat up to
the portage against seven miles of steady current ; whereas the
post, if placed at the mouth of the river, would always be
accessible, these vessels making the passage from Fort Fron
tenac and return, in fair weather, in about fourteen days. All
of these reasons are so cogent that one can but wonder that an
officer of Longueuil's experience should have considered any
other spot than that fixed upon by de Lery. The latter's
capabilities as a military engineer were sometimes called in
question. Montcalm, more than a quarter century later, spoke
of him not only as " a great ignoramus in his profession," add
ing, " it needs only to look at his works," but declared that
he " robbed the King like the rest " of the men who served as
engineers-in-chief in Canada.4 Be that as it may, de Lery's
judgment in locating Fort Niagara was justified by the cir
cumstances. When the foundations of the stone house were laid and the
walls were rising, de Lery traced a fort around them. He
made a map of the lake, showing the mouth of the river, and
prepared plans and elevations of the house. The drawings
were forwarded to the King, and are described in the abstract
of dispatches. The portion of the works which it was found
impossible to complete, before the winter of 1726-27 set in,
* Montcalm to M. de Normand, Montreal, April 12, 1759. Paris Docs.,
X, 963.

236

AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE

" A HOUSE OF PEACE " 237
he colored yellow. He may have procured part of his stone
from the Heights (" Le Platon "), his timber from the marsh
west of the river; but most of the stone was brought
from the vicinity of Fort Frontenac, in the two barques.
With the map there was also sent a memoir " to
make plain my reasons for placing the house [" maison a
machicoulis"] at the [entrance of the] strait, where it now
stands, and where the late Marquis de Denonville, Governor-
General of this country, had formerly built a fort, with a garri
son." He sent also a plan and estimate for a small house at
the Niagara portage, adding: "This house will be useful in
time of peace, but in case of war with the Indians, it could
scarcely be maintained, on account of the difficulty of reliev
ing the garrison." The memoir continues :
" I arrived, June 6th, with a detachment of troops, at the
entrance to the river Niagara. The same day I examined it,
with the masters of the barques. We found it not navigable
for the barques." The examination must have been most su
perficial, for once past the bar at the mouth, they would have
found a deep natural channel for seven miles.
" I remarked, in beginning this house, that if I built it, like
those in Canada, liable to fire, should war come and the sav
ages invest it, as was the case formerly with Mons. Denon
ville's fort, if it caught fire the garrison and all the munitions
would be wholly lost, and the [control of the] country as well.
It was this which determined me to make a house proof against
these accidents. Instead of wooden partitions [" cloisons "]
I have had built bearing-walls ["des murs de refend"], and
paved all the floors with flat stones. ... I have traced around
a fort of four bastions; and in order that they may defend
themselves in this house, I have made all the garret windows
machicolated ; the loft [" grenier "] being paved with flat
stones on a floor full of good oak joists, upon which cannon
may be placed above this structure. Though large it would
have been entirely finished in September, had not some French
voyageurs coming from the Miamis and Illinois, in passing this
post, spread the fever here, so that nearly all the soldiers and
workmen have had it. This has interfered with the construction

238 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
so that it has not been completed in the time that I had expected.
There remains about a fourth of it to do next year. This will
not prevent the garrison or traders from lodging there this win
ter." That his own services should not be overlooked he added :
" I have the honor to inform you, Monseigneur, that my jour
neys to Niagara have occupied nearly five months."
Two sets of plans of this building, drawn by de Lery, are still
preserved in Paris. One set is dated Quebec, January 19, 1727
— while the great house was under construction. Later plans,
dated 1738, endorsed by de Lery and son, show substantially
the same interior arrangement ; thus indicating that for a num
ber of years the structure was used as originally designed.
The rear of the structure was towards Lake Ontario. The
main or south front had three doors, two of them long since
converted into windows. On the ground floor, at the right of
the middle vestibule, were the store where barter with the In
dians was carried on, and the clerk's room. Opposite was the
guard-room. The bakery, with its outside oven, store-room
for provisions, two other store-rooms and a powder magazine,
were ranged along the north side of the corridor, in the middle
of which was a well. The elevation shows that the windows of
the ground floor were protected with iron bars.
An interesting feature of the floor above was the chapel with
its altar, at the southwest corner of the building. This was
discontinued after a separate chapel was built. A guard-room
and chambers filled most of this floor, except at the northeast
corner, where was a kitchen, the old fireplace of which may still
be seen.
The stairs are to-day as originally drawn by de Lery. The
roof and great chimneys show changes, including a part of a
structure at one time used by the United States Government
as a lighthouse.
The old " castle," or " mess house," as it is indifferently
called, still stands, probably the oldest building in the northern
United States west of the Mohawk, the scene and center of
stirring and significant events not only in the days of the French
but through the stormy vicissitudes of the American Revolu
tion and the War of 1812.

" A HOUSE OF PEACE " 239
De Lery's apprehensions regarding official approval of his
choice of site for Fort Niagara were set at rest the next spring
by the following letter from the new Minister of Marine :
The Marquis de Beauharnois and M. Dupuy have forwarded to
me the maps and plans which you sent to them, with data explain
ing your reasons for building the Niagara house where the late Mar
quis de Denonville had reared a wooden fort, which time has de
stroyed, instead of placing it at the portage where the old house
stood. His Majesty is pleased to approve it. He is gratified with
your zeal and the diligence with which you have conducted the
work. . . . The Marquis has asked for you the Cross of St. Louis.5
While the King's engineer was busy with the plan and actual
construction of the fort, Joncaire and his long-time friend
and associate, the younger Longueuil, were fully occupied in
keeping the savages in good humor. There is no known basis
for the story that the French, resorting to stratagem, planned
a hunt which should draw the Indians away from the spot un
til the building had progressed far enough to serve as a de
fense in case of attack.6 Such a story does not accord with
Joncaire's known relations with the Senecas.
It was a singular council that was held on the Niagara —
probably at the old house at Lewiston — on July 14, 1726,
between the younger de Longueuil and representatives of the
Five Nations. Addressing himself to the officer, one of the
chiefs referred to the conference of the preceding spring, and
holding out a wampum belt, said : " I perceive my death ap-
6 Maurepas to Chaussegros de Lery, Brest, May 13, 1727. In later letters
it is stated that M. de Lery was to receive the coveted decoration on Sept.
25, 1727.
e " It is a traditionary story that the mess house, which is a very strong
building and the largest in the fort, was erected by stratagem. A consider
able, though not powerful, body of French troops had arrived at the point.
Their force was inferior to the surrounding Indians, of whom they were
under some apprehensions. They obtained consent of the Indians to build a
wigwam, and induced them, with some of their officers, to engage in an ex
tensive hunt. The materials had been made ready and while the Indians
were absent the French built. When the parties returned at night they had
advanced so far with the work as to cover their faces and to defend them
selves against the savages in case of an attack." — " The Falls of Niagara,"
by Samuel DeVeaux, Buffalo, 1839.

240

AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE

Qy -cans Zcjutuitianf d& /a, noun-e/Zc^ y/tanron, a ?7ZaeAicou/ur
Jutiut- a. ia. cota dt, U0atsrdas+/ac Ontario, a J&vtrez* dc la. &tuurt*cU,ruaaara^
ElautfUMf da eotC du, ftori

Eltuaium, du.C8tt. aUtydua
g n  p? q

idian, 2c uafoat, au£Uz<&* G&a.

I !> i *¦

* \Jyiytu

The great stone house at Fort Niagara, 1727.
From the original plans of Chaussegros de Lery, preserved in the Archives
of the Colonies, Paris.

A HOUSE OF PEACE "

yianAtlu. artmur. i5faat~>

241

Jio-iy-b't. « ChOf>tl£t->

li*-» "i  n r, ¦ iri 11 «t_
CetiuJrr \

Second story of the great house, as planned by De Lery.
The lower story ("Rez-de-chaussee") is shown on the opposite page.
preaching. It is you and the English who come to destroy us.
I beg you, cease your work until I may hear your voice another
time. Put the time at next September, when I will show you
what is in my heart, as I hope you will open yours to me."
The shrewd commandant of Niagara was not to be diverted
from his purpose. " Here is your belt, my son," he said,
taking up the wampum. " I fold it and put it back in your
bag." The return of the wampum always signified a rejection
of proposals. " I put it back, not purposing to discontinue
the works which they have sent me to do here. I hold fast to
your former word, which consented that there should be built
here a new and large house, to take the place of the old one,
which can be no longer preserved.
" I do not consider these words you now speak as coming
from you Iroquois^ but as an English speech which shall not stop
me. See, here on the table are wine and tobacco, which go bet
ter than this affair, which must be forgotten and which I reject."
As this " talk " was not confirmed by a belt, a second coun
cil was held at the unusual hour of midnight (" tenu a minuit "),
at which a much finer belt of wampum was offered and ac
cepted, with longer speeches, in which the Senecas promised
to stand by the pledges which the Onondagas had made. " It

242 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
is not only for the present that I speak," said a chief, '" but
for always. We join hands for good business, we five Iroquois
nations, and may we always keep faith, and you do the same
on your side."
At the very outset of this new undertaking, the success of
which he had so much at heart, Philippe de Rigaud, Mar
quis de Vaudreuil, died at Quebec, October 10, 1725, and was
buried in the church of the Recollets at Chateau St. Louis.
It would be superfluous here to enter upon a review of his
long and on the whole successful administration ; but it is per
tinent to our especial study to recall his relations to the
Niagara region. In France, as early as 1676, he had served
in the Royal Musketeers. In the year of his arrival in Can
ada, 1687, we find him commanding a detachment of the troops
of the Marine, engaging in the Iroquois compaign with Denon
ville, and sharing in the establishment of the ill-fated
Fort Denonville at the mouth of the Niagara. The knowl
edge of the region gained then, undoubtedly affected his direc
tion, throughout many years, of the endeavors of Joncaire
and the younger de Longueuil. Soon after his first coming to
Niagara, he was promoted to the rank of captain, for gal
lantry in the defense of Quebec against Phipps. He was dec
orated with the Cross of St. Louis for a successful Indian cam
paign; and in 1698, when Callieres succeeded Frontenac as
Governor of Canada, the Chevalier de Vaudreuil succeeded
Callieres as Governor of Montreal. It was in 1703 that he
again followed Callieres, in the highest office of the colony.
Though not a Canadian by birth, his connections by marriage
were Canadian, and more than any other Governor up to that
time, he identified himself with colonial interests. The French
in military or civil office in Canada were by no means always
devoted to the welfare of the country; but Vaudreuil seems
for the most part to have served it like a patriot. Throughout
the twenty-two years of his administration, he had ever in view
the promotion of the fur trade, the extension of French in
fluence on the Lakes. His master-stroke in these efforts was
to be the establishment of Fort Niagara, regarding which Louis
XV had written to him with his own hand: "The post of

" A HOUSE OF PEACE " 243
Niagara is of the greatest importance, to preserve the trade
with the upper countries." The King no doubt had derived his
impressions from Vaudreuil's representations, but none the less,
royal sanction was useful. Now, on the eve of achievement,
his hand is withdrawn and another is to take up the work.
Louis XV. selected as the successor of Vaudreuil, Charles,
Marquis de Beauharnois, a natural son of Louis XIV. He
had been an office-holder in Canada a score of years prior
to this date, having in 1702 succeeded M. de Champigny as
Intendant. In 1705 he was appointed " Director of the Marine
Classes " in France, but he was captain of a man-of-war when,
January 11, 1726, Louis XV commissioned him to be Governor
of Canada, an office which he was to administer until 1747,
thus becoming a factor of no little consequence in the particular
history that we are tracing. In the interim between Vaudreuil's
death and the arrival of Beauharnois, that is, until September
2, 1726, the first Baron de Longueuil was the chief executor
for Canada. He solicited the governorship, but was without
influence; the Court, it is said, was advised not to appoint a
native Canadian. But the post which was denied him was, later
on, to be filled by his son.
Chabert de Joncaire of the trading-house at the portage
is spoken of at this period as the commander at Niagara ; 7
it is not plain, however, that he was in command of troops
at the new fort. In July, 1726, the son of the lieutenant
governor of Montreal was sent with a small body of men to
garrison the fort and complete the works. This man, with
whom begins a succession of commandants of Fort Niagara
which continues to the present day, was Charles Le Moyne the
second — Le Moyne, it will be borne in mind, being the family
name of the Baron de Longueuil. The first of that title was
now a veteran of seventy years. The new commandant, too,
had seen many years of service for the King in America, and
had been on the Niagara before this time. As early as 1716
he had made a campaign beyond Detroit, into the Illinois coun
try, and had been reported as killed. We have noted his great
influence with the Indians ; but the few glimpses afforded of him
t N. Y. Col. Docs., IX, 979.

244 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
in the official documents give little idea of his personality, save
in one respect ; he was, at a somewhat later period than we are
now considering, very corpulent, so that, in the language of
the chronicle, he was " illy adapted for travel." He was forty
years old when he came to command the new fort on the Niag
ara. Three years later he was to succeed, on the death of his
father, to the title and estate of baron.
It should not be overlooked that this new establishment,
which marked a new advance of France and was a new ex
pression of that Power, short-lived though it was to be, in the
Lake region and Mississippi Valley, identifies with the story of
the Niagara a scion of the greatest Canadian family of its
period, and, in certain aspects, one of the most important and
influential families concerned in making the history of America.
Charles Le Moyne the immigrant, son of a tavernkeeper of
Dieppe, played his part in the New World as pioneer, inter
preter, and trader, marvelously prosperous for his day and
opportunities. But the family fame begins with his many
sons, several of whom appear on the pages of Seventeenth and
Eighteenth century history by the surnames drawn from their
seigneurial rights and estates. One of these sons, Charles,
was that first Baron de Longueuil whom we have seen as a ma
jor in La Barre's expedition; campaigning with Denonville
against the Senecas ; helping in the establishment of the ill-
fated fort on the Niagara which was built in 1687, and subse
quently serving his King in many capacities, not least impor
tant of which was that as negotiator with the Iroquois, thus
paving the way for the erection of the new Fort Niagara.
These were incidents in his later years while serving as lieu
tenant governor of Montreal. In his more youthful days, and
while his numerous younger brothers were still children, he
had served in France; as one appreciative student has ad
mirably summed it up — " had, with his Indian attendant,
figured at Court as related by the Duchess of Orleans in one of
her letters to her sister, the Countess Palatine Louise; had
married the daughter of a nobleman, a lady in waiting to her
Royal Highness of Orleans ; and had built that great fortress-
chateau of Longueuil, the marvel of stateliness and elegance

" A HOUSE OF PEACE " 245
of the day for all Canada; and had obtained his patent of
nobility and title of Baron." 8 Of his brothers, six — Iberville,
Saint Helene, Maricourt, Serigny, Bienville, Chateauguay —
have written their names on the continent from Hudson's Bay
to the Gulf of Mexico, none more largely or lastingly than
Jean Baptiste Le Moyne, who as Bienville is known as the
Father of Louisiana. And of his sons, Charles Le Moyne the
second, born in 1687, was the captain, the chevalier and (on
the death of his father) the second Baron de Longueuil; the
adopted son of the Onondagas, the comrade and friend of Jon
caire, and the first commandant of the new Fort Niagara.
A glimpse of the fort, during this interesting period of
construction, is afforded by a letter written by the younger
Longueuil to his father the baron. It is dated " Niagara,
5th September, 1726," and runs in part as follows:
There are no more English at Oswego or at the little fall. The
last canoe which has gone to winter had to go on to Albany to find
brandy, and they assure me that there is not one in the whole length
of the lake or the river. This is the third canoe that has told me
the same thing. If I meet any in the lake or going down, I will have
them pillaged.
It will he October before I can leave here, and I do not know
when we shall have finished. Sickness has constantly increased.
We have now more than thirty men attacked by fever, and I find
that our soldiers resist better than our workmen. If they could
work, we should not have enough of them to put the house in state
of security this month. It would certainly have been finished this
year, but for the sickness. I mean the stonework, for M. de Lery
having sent away the sawyers, we have not enough planks to half
cover it. The master-carpenter is sick and has done nothing for
fifteen days. We shall cover what we can, and then close the gable
with the joist of the scaffolding. (". . . bouchera le pignon avec
les madriers d'echafaudage.") If they (the gables) are not en
tirely enclosed, they will at any rate be protected by the walls all
around. He adds that as soon as possible, he shall send back the
married men, who are good-for-nothing weepers (" les pleureux
S Grace King's "New Orleans," p. 15,

246 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
qui ne valent rien "), no doubt a true-enough characterization
of the home-loving habitant, who in the savage-infested wilder
ness of the Niagara found himself homesick even to tearfulness.
Among the French officers at Niagara in the summer of
1726 was Pierre Jacques Payen, Captain de Noyan; who
wrote, probably in the fall of that year,9 to the Marquis de
Beauharnois, as follows:
As I believe, monsieur, that you have not recently been informed
regarding the establishment at Niagara, I crave the honor of telling
you as to the condition of the house when I left there, and such news
as I learned on my way.
I set out from Niagara the 8th of this month. The works would
have been finished by this time, had not frequent rains and the vio
lent fevers which attacked nearly all our workmen, long delayed
their completion.
There remained yet twelve or fifteen days' work of masonry to
do, and there is reason to fear that the timber framework is not yet
ready to put up. Whatever diligence M. de Longueuil may have
been able to use, he could not procure planks enough to cover it.
The letter continues with a graphic account of negotiations
between the English and the Iroquois, as it was reported to
Captain de Noyan at Fort Frontenac. It is but another ver
sion of the unsuccessful negotiations of Peter Schuyler — this
time disguised in the old French as " Joan Sckuila." " You
know," Schuyler is reported to have harangued to the tribes,
" you know that the French are building a fort at Niagara in
order to reduce you to slavery — and you are resting with
your arms crossed. What are you thinking of? We are all
dead, brothers, you and I, if we do not prevent our loss by
the destruction of this building. Look at these barques, which
will carry you off captive. It is for you to say whether they
have been built by your consent." And after listening to more
• The copy of M. de Noyan's letter which I have followed in the Archives
office at Ottawa, bears date Feb. 22, 1726. The original obviously was
written some months later than that, probably in September. The old
form of indicating September — " 7bre " — may very likely have been mis
read by a copyist. September 22d also accords with the date of a report by
de Noyan, given in an abstract of despatches relating to Niagara. — N. Y.
Col. Docs., IX, 978.

" A HOUSE OF PEACE " 247
in like strain, the Indians returned Schuyler's wampum belt,
and replied with cool sarcasm that he always said the same
thing to them. " Yes," they added, " it is we who have de
sired these boats, we consented to what our son [M. de
Longueuil] asked of us, we repent of nothing. ... It is a
thing done. We have given our word."
It was at this council that Schuyler asked the consent of
the Five Nations for the English to build a trading-house op
posite the French post [" batir aussi a Niagara une maison
vis-a-vis celle de votre Pere "] ; but to this proposition they
returned the wampum, saying they would have nothing to do
with it, and Schuyler could arrange as best he might with
" Onontio." There is a triumphant tone in Captain de Noyan's
letter, reporting this defeat of the English at so critical a
time. English enmity now centered on Joncaire, who was re
garded as the chief instrument of their discomfiture. It was
reported that certain Seneca chiefs were bribed to make way
with him. One of the few letters written by Joncaire which
are preserved, was written at the end of 1726, at Fort Niagara,
apparently to his friend the younger Longueuil, then command
ing at Fort Frontenac. It runs in part as follows:
Niagara, 26 December, 1726.
I am obliged to you for the notice which you gave me by your
letter of December 28th, concerning the council which was held be
tween the Iroquois nations and the Governors of Boston and New
York. Tagariuoghen, chief of the Sault Ste. Louis, and one named
Alexis, chief of the Lake of the Two Mountains, have just acknowl
edged to us the design of the English, and the promises which the
Iroquois made to them, concerning the house at Niagara, and me. I
learned the same thing toward the end of November at the Seneca
village where I had gone, after giving the necessary orders for the
Niagara garrison, to reply to a belt which the Iroquois had sent to
the Governor at Montreal.
I found in this village only coldness towards us and any good
words which I could say to them were scarcely listened to. The next
night, toward midnight, they wakened me for a council; and being
come there, they begged me to treat peaceably with them, that there
was no need of heat on the part of any of us.

248 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
First, they said, the house at Niagara did not please them; that
they strongly suspected that it was only the Onondagas who con
sented to its construction, and that the four other nations had no
part in it.
Second, that M. de Longueuil had promised to make a present of
three barrels of powder and a proportion of balls to each nation,
but they had seen nothing of all that.
They held out to me a belt for these things, but I would not touch
it, and contented myself with telling them that their belt was a rat
tlesnake which would bite me if I took it in my hand, and that
moreover their father Onontio had sent me to Niagara to listen to
good words and not to bad.
As to the house in question, it was the strongest pillar of the five
Iroquois nations, since M. de Longueuil had intended in making it
to deliver them from the slavery in which they had for a long time
been. But [I said], as I saw that I was speaking to deaf men, I
told them that they might make their speeches to people who knew
how to answer. The Iroquois replied:
" We hear you. You say that we should address Onontio. That
was indeed our first thought, for our resolution is made for next
spring." The next day I noised it about that I saw clearly that their minds
were divided, but that I hoped that they would find for us, as much
as for the English, and that it was useless for them to talk to me of
abandoning the building (" de vider le plancher "), they could be
assured that I should not quit Niagara until they had cut my body
to pieces to give pleasure to the English — and that even then they
would have to deal with people who would come to look after my
bones. I have still a trick (" un plat de mon metier ") to show
them in the spring — I put it aside till then, since my emissaries are
not at the village, and whether it succeeds or not I shall promptly
send my two oldest sons to Montreal to inform my superiors of the
state of affairs in this country.
One must restrain the Iroquois [ ? Senecas] in every way in this
present affair, but it is necessary to interpose the Onondagas, and
say to the Iroquois nations: Since when do you make no longer
one body with the Onondagas? You have told us every year that
what one Iroquois nation does or says, all the others agree to.
Since when is all that changed? How comes it that when the Eng
lish ask you which nation it was that gave permission to the French
to build at Niagara, that in the presence of you all the Onondaga

" A HOUSE OF PEACE " 249
replied fiercely, " It was I." How happens it that you did not dis
pute this before the English ?
After all, I hope that the Holy Spirit which commonly gives to
those who govern the State more light than to others, will furnish
enough means to our superiors to confound the Iroquois and so
reestablish peace.
As for me, trust to my looking out for myself against the assassi
nation which the English have at all times wished to accomplish.
Whoever undertakes it will have half the risk. I will serve him
as they do in Valenciennes.
I beg you to communicate what I send you to Messieurs de
Beauharnois, to the Intendant, and to our Governor at Montreal, and
above all to so inform M. de Longueuil that he will be assured of
the care which I take in the present affair.
A little later Joncaire wrote again to the younger de
Longueuil at Fort Frontenac:
". . . Inform our superiors of what has happened to me
in this country. It is for them to direct what I should say
and do. The Iroquois will go down to Montreal next spring
to demand that we pull down the house at Niagara. If they
destroy it," adds Joncaire with a fine touch of the Gascon, " it
will only be when I, at the head of my garrison, shall have
crossed in Charon's barque — I shall show them the road to
victory or to the tomb." Nevertheless, he adds the fervent
hope : " May God change the hearts of those who are against
us." It was not until the end of another season — October 17,
1727 — that Chaussegros de Lery reported to the Minister
that the house at Niagara was entirely finished, surrounded
with palisades and furnished with a guard-house to prevent sur
prise by the savages. Referring to the English at Oswego,
he could not refrain from calling attention to the fact that
events had justified his choice of site for Fort Niagara: " The
English are established at the mouth of Oswego River, they have
built a little fortified work [" petite redoubt a machicoulis "]
and keep a garrison there. The French have always been mas
ters of this post and of the south side of Lake Ontario. If
they had built the stone house as proposed at the portage, it

250 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
is certain that the English would have made another on Lake
Ontario. This house at the portage appears to me useless.
The old one, with some small repairs, will serve yet some years."
He adds that if he " had been the master " the last year it
would have been easy for him to establish the French at Oswego
as well as at Niagara; evidently forgetting for the moment
that he had not established the French anywhere, however
satisfactory from an engineering point of view his services
on the Niagara had proved. Our study of the documents
makes clear that Fort Niagara was made possible, under the
encouraging policy of Vaudreuil, only by the devotion and
personal influence of the younger de Longueuil and the elder
Chabert de Joncaire.
Left to themselves, without provocation from the English,
the Senecas and neighboring tribes would have found Fort
Niagara a blessing. They did indeed, so find it for a good
many years. At a conference between Beauharnois and the
Onondagas, August 19, 1734, the Indians spoke of the good
ness of the French Governor in sending Joncaire 10 to them.
In the same speech the Onondaga orator, holding out a wam
pum belt, said:
" Father, here is an old message we bring back to you. It
was given to the Five Iroquois Nations, nine years ago, by
our late son, Longueuil, when the house at Niagara was built.
He promised that it would be a House of Peace for us and
for our children, down to the third generation and farther;
he assured us also, that we should enjoy the peace that he
attached to that House. Nothing afforded us more pleasure,
and we pray you to give us assurance of the promise, by re
newing it to us."
" I assure you," replied the Governor, " that the House
at Niagara will be a House of Peace for you and your chil
dren, as long as you please."
io Philippe Thomas, eldest son of the Joncaire whose story we have
traced.

CHAPTER XIV
A TROUBLESOME TREATY
Political Aspect of the Stripe on the Niagara — The Tact
ful Course of Governor Burnet — Fort Niagara and the
Fur Trade — Incidents of a Picturesque Traffic
What may be termed the political situation in the country
of the Six Nations, and especially among the Senecas who
kept the Western Door of the Long House, in the years from
the building of Joncaire's house at Lewiston to the construc
tion and garrisoning of Fort Niagara, 1720-26, admirably
illustrates the difficulty of treating with the Indian. Even
the noble Iroquois was fickle, given to double-dealing; yet
it was a duplicity inherent in a lower degree of social develop
ment than that from which his Caucasian tempters approached
him. The wisest of their sachems were statesmen in some mat
ters, children in others. The Senecas adopted Joncaire ac
cording to their ancient custom, and through him gave the
French their foothold on the Niagara. At the same time,
tempted by the trade inducements of the English, they helped
the Western tribes to go to Albany, to the confusion of the
French, and allowed the English to get and to keep a footing
in their own territory.
So matters continued until Longueuil, by his coup de maitre
of 1725, gained permission in a council at Onondaga to build
what soon proved to be a fort, in Seneca territory. We have
already traced the steps of that construction, as recorded in
the reports of the French. When Burnet heard of it, as he
speedily did, down in New York, he may well have wondered
what all his fair speeches to the Indians had accomplished,
what all the tiresome councils had amounted to, of what avail
the many lavish gifts.
At the September council at Albany in 1726 he took the tribes
to task. How is it, he demanded, have you given your consent
to the French, to build this house at Niagara? The answer
251

252 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
was characteristic, but far from satisfactory. One Ajewach-
tha, an Onondaga sachem, was the mouthpiece for the occasion.
When Longueuil was among the Onondagas last year, said the
sachem, the Senecas heard what his errand was, and " sent a
Belt of Wampum, . . . that in case the French should desire
to make any Building or Settlement at Niagara or at Ochs-
weeke 1 or elsewhere on land, they should not give their consent
to it. . . . The Onondagas being prevail'd upon by Fair
speeches and promises, rejected the Sinnekes belt, and gave the
French leave for building at Niagara." De Longueuil, the
sachem added, had promised that the French would protect
them for three hundred years.
Did the land at Niagara, asked Governor Burnet, belong
to the Onondagas, or to the Senecas, or to all the Six Nations ?
The Seneca sachem, Kanaharighton, replied that it be
longed to the Senecas particularly.
Do the sachems of the other Five Nations acknowledge
that? They all said it did; not only the land at Niagara belonged
to the Senecas, but the land opposite it, on the other side of
Lake Ontario.
What business then, asked Burnet, had the Onondagas to
grant the French permission to build there, when the land be
longed only to the Senecas?
" The Onondagas say it is true they have done wrong, they
might better have left it alone and have left it to the Sinnekes
whose Land it is, they repent of it and say that People often
do what they afterwards repent of."
The Onondaga further explained that the consent which
had been given by his people, without leave of the other na
tions, was in accordance with their old customs ; one nation
often spoke in the name of all the rest in the League. If the
others afterwards approved of it, it was well; if any of them
disapproved, the pledge was void. The Six Nations had sent
Seneca and Onondaga sachems with a belt of wampum to the
French at Fort Niagara, to protest against the proceedings
i " Called by the French Lac Erii." — Marginal note in New York Coun
cil Minutes, XV, 87.

A TROUBLESOME TREATY 253
and ordering the work to stop. But the French had not the
red man's regard for the talking belts. We can not stop work,
they said, with what show of gravity and regret may be im
agined; "being sent and order'd by the Governour of Canada
to build it," they " durst not desist from working." But they
readily promised that Joncaire, who was soon going to Mont
real, should inform the Governor that the Six Nations wished
the work stopped ; " he would bring back an Answer at Onon
daga by the latter end of September (when the Indian corn was
ripe), and then they threw their Belt back and rejected it by
which they had spoke, and said they thought they were sent by
the Govr of New York, on which they [the sachems] replyed
that they were not sent by him, but by the Sachims of the
Six Nations, and did not know who had given the French that
liberty, that they did not know it, and desired that they would
name the Sachims who had given their leave, on which they
[the French] did not reply, but said that when the House was
finished 30 souldiers would be posted there with Officers and
a Priest." This and much more the Indians told Governor Burnet. In
the same breath, the Onondagas took all the blame to them
selves, and charged the French with perfidy. The Governor
adroitly explained to them that France and England were
at peace, and gave them to understand that it was not the
English, but the Six Nations, whose interests were threatened
by the new fort at the mouth of the Niagara. He read to
them that portion of the Treaty of Utrecht which bore on the
matter. The chief question, he gravely pointed out, was,
whether the fort was prejudicial to them in their hunting, or
to the Western Indians who might, wish to come for trade. If
they said it was not, His Excellency had nothing to say, and
the French had done well; but if the Six Nations found
it prejudicial to their interests, and complained of it to him,
he would lay the matter before the English King. The In
dians replied:
" Brother Corlaer, . . . you ask if we approve of the build
ing at Niagara ; we do not only complain against the proceed
ings of the French in fortifying Niagara on our Land contrary

254 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
to our inclination and without our consent, to pen us up from
our chief hunting-place, but we also humbly beg and desire
that Your Excell: will be pleased to write to His Majesty King
George that he may have compassion on us, and write to the
King of France to order his Governour of Canada to remove
the building at Niagara, for we think it very prejudicial to
us all." And this the Governor agreed to do.
Nothing could be finer than the temper and adroitness with
which Burnet conducted this matter. At the opening of the
conference his attitude was that of accuser, of one deeply
wronged; the attitude of the Indians that of culprits and
deceivers. This aspect of their relations was quickly annulled
by the calm, judicial air which the Governor gave to his in
quiries. With rare insight into Indian character, he so pre
sented the case that they became the wronged parties, the
French the sole offenders, and himself merely the gracious friend
who sought to do all he could in their behalf.
This conference was held on September 7th. Two days later,
the Governor made a long, impressive speech to the sachems.
He reviewed the relations of the Five Nations to the French
from the earliest days, not failing to show that the latter had
been constant aggressors and treacherous enemies, and he pic
tured the building of the fort at Niagara as a new affront,
which endangered the very existence of the Confederacy. His
words had their intended effect. The sachems renewed their
protestations, in terms of singular earnestness. " We speak
now," said Kanackarighton, the Seneca, " in the name of all
the Six Nations and come to you howling. This is the reason
for what we howl, that the Governor of Canada incroaches on
our land and builds thereon, therefore do we come to Your Ex
cellency, our Brother Corlaer, and desire you will be pleased
to write to the great King, your Master, and if Our King will
then be pleased to write to the King of France, that the Six
Nations desire that the Fort at Niagara may be demolished.
This Belt we give to you, Our Brother [Corlaer], as a token
that you be not negligent to write to the King, the sooner the
better, and desire that the letter may be writ very pressing."
Not the least gratifying point to the Governor in this

A TROUBLESOME TREATY 255
harangue was the expression " our King." The treaty com
missioners at Utrecht, thirteen years before, had agreed that
the New York Indians were subjects of Great Britain; but the
Indians themselves were sometimes provokingly oblivious of the
relationship. Governor Burnet took advantage of the complaisant and
suppliant mood of the sachems to suggest that, since they
were asking the King of Great Britain to protect them in their
own lands, it would be most proper " to submit and give up
all their hunting Country to the King, and to sign a deed for
it," as it had been proposed to do twenty-five years before.
He intimated that had it been done then, they would have had
a fuller measure of protection from the English. After con
sultations, the proposition was accepted, and the deed of trust,
which had been executed July 19, 1701, was confirmed and
signed by Seneca, Cayuga and Onondaga sachems. Thus at
Albany, September 14, 1726, in the thirteenth year of George
I, was deeded to the English, a sixty-mile strip along the south
shore of Lake Ontario, reaching to and including the entire
Niagara frontier.
The mighty League of the Iroquois had atoned for their
blunder of letting the French build Fort Niagara in their do
main, by giving it to King George. From this time on the
" stone house " was on British soil ; but it was yet to take the
new owner a generation to dispossess the obnoxious tenant.
The Albany conferences ended, after the usual gift-giving
and feasting, the Iroquois deputies leisurely departed by trail
and river, to their several seats to the westward. Burnet
journeyed down to New York, where on September 27th he
made report to the Council at Fort George, of all he had con
certed with the Six Nations. " I flatter myself," he said, " that
I have contributed not a little to fix them in their duty to his
Majesty, their affection to this Government, and their just
apprehensions of the ill designs of the people of Canada in
fortifying so near to them at Iagara." 2 The next winter he
sent a man to live among the Senecas, but not to trade with
them. Whoever this representative was, or what his success,
z Journal, Legislative Council; reprint, Albany, 1861, p. 539.

256 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
he counted but little against the activities of Joncaire. A year
later (September 30, 1727), Burnet assured the Council that
this agent had been " very active . . . that pressing instances
might be made at the Court of France against the stone house
at Niagara." 3
The fifteenth Article of the Treaty of Utrecht is as follows :
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 America who are in friendly alliance with
them. In like manner, the subjects of Great Britain shall behave
themselves peaceably towards the Arnericans who are subjects or
friends of France, and they shall enjoy, on both sides, full liberty of
resort for purposes of Trade. Also the natives of these countries
shall, with equal freedom, resort, as they please, to the British and
French Colonies, for promoting trade on one side and the other,
without any molestation or hindrance on the part either of British
or French subjects; but who are, and who ought to be, accounted
subjects and friends of Britain or of France is a matter to be accu
rately and distinctly settled by Commissioners.
This was assented to by the representatives of England and
of France, who signed the treaty of which it is a part, at
Utrecht, April 11, 1713. In due time it was promulgated in
the Colonies. England in the Valley of the Mohawk, and
France on the Great Lakes, were at work, with such seductive
influences as they could exert, for the friendship of the sav
ages and a greater profit from the fur trade. It was not, how
ever, until Joncaire's cabin stood at the foot of the Niagara
rapids, that the English took genuine alarm at what they re
garded as the impudent encroachment of the French, and fell
back upon the terms of the treaty for a definition of rights.
It has been related, that in 1721 Governor Burnet made
a spirited protest against the establishment of Joncaire's trad
ing house, of which Vaudreuil had made an equally spirited, but
not equally logical, defense. Protests of this sort being so ob
viously of no avail, correspondence on the subject between the
s/6., p. 555.

A TROUBLESOME TREATY 257
Governors seems to have ceased. But when word reached Bur
net of the new fort at the mouth of the river his ire was kin
dled afresh. On July 5, 1726, he wrote to M. de Longueuil,
then acting Governor, pending the arrival of Beauharnois, a
vigorous, but by no means offensive letter on the subject. He
had learned, he wrote, that about a hundred Frenchmen were
at Niagara, commencing the erection of a fort, " with the de
sign of shutting in the Five Nations, and preventing the free
passage of the other Indians at that point to trade with us
as they have been in the habit of doing." He expressed his
surprise that the French should undertake a project so ob
viously an infraction of the Treaty of Utrecht; denied that
La Salle's brief occupancy of the region gave the French any
rights, and reminded the Governor that the lands at Niagara
belonged to the Five Nations. " Should the fortifying Niag
ara be continued," he added in conclusion, " I shall be under
the necessity of representing the matter to my Superiors, in
order that the Court of France, being well informed of the
fact, may give its opinion thereupon; as I have heard that it
has already expressed its disapprobation of the part Mr. de
Vaudreuil took in the War of the Abenaquis against New Eng
land." *
Burnet sent his friend Philip Livingston, of the Colonial
Council, to Montreal with this letter, and begged of M. de
Longueuil considerate treatment of the messenger. The mes
senger was well enough received, but the reply which the Cana
dian soldier sent back, under date of August 16th, was far
from apologetic. " Permit me, Sir, to inform you," it ran,
" that it is not my intention to shut in the Five Iroquois Na
tions, as you pretend, and that I do not think I contravene the
Utrecht Treaty of Peace in executing my orders from the
Court of France, respecting the reestablishment of the Niagara
* French translations of several of Burnet's letters are preserved in
the Correspondance Ginirale; also a translation of a letter relating to
Niagara, from the Duke of Newcastle to Walpole, dated "Vitchall"
[Whitehall], May 15, 1726; and the various memoirs regarding Niagara
which were prepared during the discussion; one of them makes 20 closely-
written folio pages, in the Canadian Archives transcript. Their purport
is sufficiently shown in our narrative.

258 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
post, whereof we have been the masters from all time. The
Five Nations, who are neither your subjects nor ours, ought
to be much obliged to you to take upon you an uneasiness they
never felt, inasmuch as, so far from considering that the estab
lishment at Niagara may prove a source of trouble to them,
they were parties to it by a unanimous consent, and have again
confirmed it in the last Council holden at Niagara, on the 14th
of July last."
De Longueuil, it will be observed, squarely contradicted the
clause in the treaty which declared the Five Nations to be " sub
ject to the dominion of Great Britain." His audacity was
symbolical of the entire policy of France on the wilderness
frontiers at this period. This feature of Baron de Longueuil's
reply may well have surprised the English Governor. It would,
no doubt, have surprised him still more had Longueuil meekly
yielded to his demands, and promised to leave the Niagara.
It was to be expected that he would base the French claim
on the flimsy pretext of continuous right from La Salle's day ;
but that, in addition to this claim, he should have the effrontery
to deny and defy the plain declaration of the treaty, was matter
for amazement.
As we have seen, at the Albany conferences with the In
dians, in September, Burnet had promised to lay the case —
their case, as he made it appear to them — before the King.
With his unfruitful correspondence with Longueuil fresh in
mind he was more than willing to do so. Before the close of
the year — presumably by the first ship that served, which hap
pened to be the Old Beaver, Mathew Smith, master, — he dis
patched long letters on the subject, both to the Lords of Trade
and to the Duke of Newcastle, King George's Secretary of
State. For the edification of the former, he rehearsed at
length all that had taken place; told of the action taken at
the conferences with the Indians; exulted a little, as was nat
ural, in announcing that they had signed a deed surrendering
the land they lived in to the British Crown; and enclosed a
copy of the deed with this explanation of the fact that it was
signed by only three of the nations : " The Maquese [Mo
hawks] and Oneydes live nearest to us, and do not reach to

A TROUBLESOME TREATY 259
the French lake, and therefore there was no occasion to men
tion the matter to them, and if I had proposed it publickly to
them, it might soon have been known by the French, and have
produced some new enterprize of theirs, so that I thought it
best to do it with a few of the chief and most trusty of the
three nations who border upon the Lakes."
He sent to the Lords copies of his correspondence with
Longueuil, and called especial attention to that officer's denial
of the Treaty. "The Treaty says," wrote Burnet, "'The
five Nations or Cantons of Indians, subject to the Dominion
of Great Britain.' Mr. De Longueuil denys it expressly and
says, ' Les cinq Nations qui ne sont ny vos Sujets ny les
Notres.' The Five Nations who are neither your Subjects nor
ours." He pointed out the other aggravating and inconsist
ent features of Longueuil's letter.
To His Grace the Duke the Governor made a more concise
but equally strenuous report, adding his " most earnest appli
cation " that Newcastle would " obtain His Majesty's direc
tions, that strong instances may be made at the Court of
France for this purpose, which I hope will be successful at a
time when there is so firm an alliance between the two Crowns.
. . . This is a matter of such consequence to His Majesty's
Dominions in North America that I humbly rely on Your
Grace's obtaining such a redress, as the Treaty entitles this
Province and the Six Nations to, from the French, which can
be [no] less than a demolition of this fort at Niagara." 5
The Duke of Newcastle put the whole matter into the hands
of Horatio Walpole, with instructions from King George that
he should present it " in its full light " to the Ministers of the
Court of France, " and to use all the necessary arguments to
prevail on them to dispatch orders to the officer commanding
in Canada to demolish that fort, and His Majesty doubts not
but they will comply as soon as they shall be informed pre
cisely of the state of this affair." 6 Walpole prepared a
memoir on Fort Niagara which he submitted, May 9, 1727, to
b Burnet to the Duke of Newcastle, N. Y., Dec. 4, 1726.
6 Duke of Newcastle to the Hon. Horatio Walpole, Whitehall, April 11,
1727.

260 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
the aged Cardinal de Fleury, Prime Minister of France.7 In
it he rehearsed at length the grievances which Burnet had
communicated. Beyond the employment of a more polished
style, Walpole's memoir on Niagara added nothing to the
facts or the arguments as we have already reviewed them. At
the end of his recital of facts, Walpole added the following:
It is to be remarked, that the Nations in question are formally ac
knowledged, by the Treaty of Utrecht, to be subject to and under
Great Britain, and in virtue of the same Treaty they and all the
Indians are to enjoy full liberty of coming and going for the pur
pose of trade, without molestation or hindrance. Now, the pass at
Niagara is that by which the Far Indians are able to repair to the
country of the Five Nations, and also the only one by which the
Five Nations themselves can go into their own territory to hunt;
and in spite of the benevolent and innocent views Sieur de Longueuil
pretends to entertain in building such a fort, the Indians cannot be
reputed to enjoy free trade and passage so long as they are bridled
by a fort built on their own territory, against their will, and which
absolutely subjects them to the pleasure of the French, wherefore
they have recourse to their Sovereign and King, the King of Great
Britain, who cannot refuse to interest himself strongly, as well on
account of these subjects as for the maintenance of Treaties.
In this smooth, featureless form, the innocuous phrases of a
somewhat perfunctory diplomacy, Louis XV received the
English protest against the building of Fort Niagara — that
protest for which the Iroquois' sachems had gone to Albany
" howling," and which they had begged should be " writ very
pressing." Kanackarighton, the daubed and greasy Seneca,
and Horatio Walpole, the courtier, were vastly farther apart
than even the Court of France and the Niagara wilderness —
of which it is plain Walpole's ideas were of the vaguest. Many
a forest ranger would have laughed at his claim that the fort
at the mouth of the Niagara kept the Senecas from their hunt
ing grounds. The germ of this specious plea lay in Burnet's
benevolent suggestion to the Senecas, but it helped make a case
i De Fleury, formerly preceptor to the King, in 1726 succeeded the Duke
de Bourbon Conde as Prime Minister of France, being then seventy-three
years old. He lived until January, 1743,

A TROUBLESOME TREATY 261
against the French, and there were few either at Whitehall or
the Court of Louis competent to criticise or likely to question
it. Indeed, had the red Indians themselves made their " howl "
before the French King and his Ministers, the result, beyond
the infinite diversion which they would have made, would
scarcely have been different. Even while the English pro
test was taking its official course, Louis and his Ministers were
affirming that " the post at Niagara is of the utmost impor
tance for the preservation to the French of the trade to the
upper country," and were considering the amounts to be spent
on " the reconstruction of the old house at Niagara [Joncaire's
Magazin Royal], the expense whereof, amounting to 20,430
li, may be placed on the estimate of the expenses payable in
1728 by the Domain of the West." 8
King George I died June 11, 1727 ; and, in Canada, in 1726,
the Marquis de Beauharnois had succeeded the Baron de
Longueuil; but the Niagara contention continued. Burnet in
the spring of 1726 having built and fortified a stone house at
Oswego, the new Governor of Canada at once assumed the
aggressive; sent a formal summons to Burnet to withdraw his
garrison thence within a fortnight, and " to cast down the
block house and all pieces of work you raised up contrary to
righteousness," " or else His Lordship the Marquis of Beau
harnois will take measures against you and against your un
just usurpation as he will think fit." With a fine solicitude
for a rigid adherence to the Treaty of 1713, the humor of
which must even then have shown itself to Burnet, if not to
Beauharnois, the French Governor accused the English Gov
ernor of " a plain contravention to the Treaty of Utrecht,
which mentions that the subjects of the two Crowns shall not
intrench upon one another's land, till the decision of the limits
by the judges delegated to that end " — a decision which was
never made, for the commissioners contemplated by the 15th
Article of the Treaty were never appointed. The English con
tention, as afterwards formulated by Walpole in his memoir
s Abstract of Despatches relating to Oswego and Niagara, N. Y. Col.
Docs., IX, 979. The remark quoted above, on Niagara's importance, is a
note by the King himself.

262 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
on Fort Oswego, was that their fortification at that point was
no violation of the treaty, " since the Commissioners to be
named would have nothing to determine relative to the coun
tries of the Five Nations, who are already declared by the
Treaty of Utrecht to be subjects to the Crown of England."
This was a perfectly just deduction from the obvious intent
of the treaty.
Burnet replied to the arrogant demand of Beauharnois with
his usual spirit and good sense; reminding him that when he
(Burnet) had protested against the operations of the French
at Niagara, he had been content with writing to Court, for the
English Ambassador to make dignified and decorous presenta
tion at the Court of France : " I did not send any summons
to Niagara, I did not make any warlike preparations to in
terrupt the work, and I did not stir up the Five Nations to
make use of force to demolish it, which I might have done
easily enough." In a long letter, he defended his right, under
the treaty, to build at Oswego, and denied again the right of
the French to occupy Niagara : " It is true, sir, that I have
ordered a stone house to be built there [at the mouth of the
Oswego], with some contrivances to hinder its being surprised,
and that I have posted some souldiers in it, but that which
gave me the first thought of it, was the fortified and much
larger house which the French have built at Niagara, upon the
lands of the Five Nations."
In due time report of this correspondence reached the Lord
Commissioners of Trade. Under date of December 21, 1727,
they referred it all once more to Newcastle; and His Grace
in turn placed it in the hands of Horatio Walpole. Recall
ing the memoir on the subject of Fort Niagara which Walpole
had made the year before, Newcastle wrote to him:
Both that Memoir and his Eminence's answer to you, promising to
give orders to examine this matter, and to decide according to jus
tice, led us to expect that there would not be any more cause for
complaint, but as, instead of seeing it remedied, His Majesty has
been advised that the French think of encroaching still further on
the countries under his obedience in said quarter, he has deemed it
expedient that you again apply to the Court of France to induce it

A TROUBLESOME TREATY 263
to transmit the most precise orders to the Governor of Canada to
abstain from attempting anything contrary to the Treaties, so that
all these differences between the subjects of the two Crowns may
be terminated in such a manner that the Indians may visit each other
without molestation, and the Five Nations receive such encourage
ment and protection from His Majesty as they must naturally
expect from their Sovereign.8
The result of these instructions was Walpole's memoir on
Oswego, laid before the Prime Minister of France, March 9,
1728. .. The 15th Article of the Utrecht Treaty continued a fruit
ful source of disagreement for many years to come. In 1748
we find Governor Clinton of New York carrying on an epis
tolary dispute with La Galissoniere, who had succeeded de
Beauharnois, over this same debatable Article. The French
Governor had his own interpretation of it, alleging that it
" does not name the Iroquois, and though it did so, it would
be null in their regard, since they never acquiesced therein:
we have always regarded them as Allies in common of the Eng
lish and French, and they do not look on themselves in any
other light." " You are misinformed," replied Clinton, " for
they have done it [i.e. submitted themselves to Great Britain]
in a solemn manner, and their subjection has been likewise ac
knowledged by the Crown of France in the Treaty of
Utrecht." 10 This disparity of view between the two coun
tries continued as long as France held Canada.
For a decade and more following the building of the new
fort, Joncaire the elder continued active in matters relating
to the interests of the Niagara. He was not military com
mandant, except apparently for a short period; nor was he
in charge of barter with the Indians at that post. Coming
and going, now at the Seneca villages, now at Niagara, or
again at his home in Montreal, he continued in the military
service, but always charged with the special duty, which ac-
» Newcastle to Walpole. The letter as printed in N. Y. Col. Docs., IX,
959, is dated "Whitehall, 16th May (O. S.), 1726," but the year should be
1728. io Clinton to La Galissoniere, Fort George in New York, Oct. 10, 1748.

264 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
corded well with his frequent service of interpreter, of cul
tivating cordial relations with the Senecas, and of reporting on
the movements of the English — duties in which later on his
eldest son is to succeed him, when the father is assigned to a
new field of activity.
From the day when Chaussegros de Lery broke ground for
the great stone building at the angle of lake and river, life on
the Niagara became more and more complex. The building
operations drew thither hordes of curious and jealous Indians.
The trading-post at present Lewiston was still maintained, and
in its neighborhood, at the foot of the portage, as well as at the
head of the long carry, were settlements of the Senecas, many
of whom found profitable employment in helping traders and
travelers up and down the steep hills. Although the Mississau-
gas had not yet made their village across the Niagara from
the new fort, they made temporary camp there and haunted
the region in numbers during this busy summer. However
deserted and desolate these lake and river shores may have
been when winter shut down, and the wolf's long howl at the
edge of the forest answered the west wind in its sweep over
the bleak lake, there was varied life and activity when the ice
broke up. Then came endless flotillas of bark canoes, loaded
with peltries. The fur trade was old, long before the stone
house at Niagara was built. Into the general history and
conditions of that trade, it is unnecessary to go in these chap
ters. But certain features of that trade, and of the attendant
life, heretofore unrecorded save in the long-neglected docu
ments, may profitably be set down here in illustration of the
conditions of the time on the Niagara and the Lower Lakes.
The great purpose of the French in building the new fort
on the Niagara was to regain the fur trade which was fast
slipping from them into the hands of the English. The strat
egic advantage of the military occupation of the strait was
not overlooked ; but it was far less by way of preparation for
a future contest at arms with England, than to secure purely
commercial advantage, that the work was undertaken. And,
from the French point of view, it was high time that some
thing decisive be done. More and more the Western tribes,

A TROUBLESOME TREATY 265
who ravaged the great beaver-bearing grounds of the upper
lake region, were being drawn to Oswego and Albany by the
superior allurements of the English. Longueuil, reporting to
his father the baron concerning his Onondaga mission of 1725,
wrote that he had seen more than a hundred canoes on Lake
Ontario, making their way to Oswego. How to stop this trade
was a matter of grave consequence to Canada. Returning
from Onondaga, he had encountered many canoes, propelled
by Nipissings and Sauteurs from the Huron regions, making
their way into Lake Ontario by the Toronto River, and all
headed for the mouth of the Oswego. The new barques, he
reflected, should stop this. The Baron de Longueuil, in re
porting his son's discoveries, added the further information
that sixteen Englishmen had gone to trade at the Niagara port
age, " where they appear to have wintered, having taken there
a large quantity of merchandise. They even came within a
day and a half of Frontenac, and have drawn to them by
their brandy nearly all the savages, which has done so great
an injury to the trade of these two posts that they will not
produce this year a half of their usual amount." The French
at this time heard some things that were not so. There are
many reports that the English intended to establish them
selves at Niagara; such rumors had been current at Montreal
and Quebec ever since 1720, when the English had proposed
to put horses on the Niagara portage; the profits of that en
terprise were to be shared with a Seneca chief who was to
represent the English. But that project came to naught, nor
is there convincing proof that the English, either in 1720,
1725, or at any other time, were on the Niagara in trade, dur
ing the French occupancy.
More credible, however, was the further news, gathered by
the younger Longueuil in this momentous summer of 1725,
that English and Dutch traders at Albany had bought 200
bark canoes from the Ottawas and Mississaugas, tribes which
at this period carried most of their peltries to the British.
Longueuil saw more than sixty of these canoes, making the
Oswego portage. It looked to him as though the English were
bent on pushing into the upper country and utterly destroy-

266 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
ing the French trade, " or to come in superior number to Ni
agara to make an establishment there, and to prevent that
which we plan to do." Longueuil took his hundred soldiers
to Niagara in the summer of 1726, not more to employ them
as laborers on the stone house, than to patrol the lake and to
stop the English canoes which were fully expected to swarm
down upon them. The English did not come, but the hundred
soldiers were maintained there, apparently, a year or more.
Their return to Quebec is noted under date of September 25,
1727. The French did what they could to check the growing Eng
lish trade. Voyageurs passing through Lake Ontario were
commanded to follow the north shore, from Frontenac to
Niagara. If found near Oswego, they were liable to seizure
and confiscation. In 1729, this order was renewed, emanat
ing from the King himself, and the commandant at Fort Fron
tenac was cautioned to enforce it. It was proposed that two
canoes, carrying trustworthy men, should cruise on the lake
and intercept any traders headed for Oswego. In the spring
of 1736, Beauvais, commandant at Fort Frontenac, learned
that two traders, Duplessis and Deniau, were making for
Oswego. Alphonse de Tonty was sent after them. He over
took them four leagues from the mouth of the Oswego River,
confiscated the 300 pounds of beaver in their canoe, and car
ried them back to Frontenac, whence they were sent to Mont
real and imprisoned. After a trial and fine of 500 livres each,
which they were too poor to pay, they were further impris
oned for three months. The hope was expressed in the dis
patches that this example would " always restrain those who
might be inclined to drive a fraudulent trade."
At Niagara Captain de Rigauville, whose command of that
garrison extended over several troubled years, exerted himself
constantly to keep traders from passing along the south shore
of the lake. His faithful services at Niagara won for him spe
cial recognition in the dispatches. In 1733 promotion was
asked for him; but we find him, some years later, still in the
same rank and at the same post.
France and England being nominally at peace, the Cana-

A TROUBLESOME TREATY 267
dian officials were wary when it came to actual conflict with
their adversaries in trade; they showed a wholesome respect
for the English ability and willingness to come to blows; but
armed strife would have availed them nothing in the circum
stances. The main thing was to draw the Indians. To this
end, the Government was urged, time after time, in the annual
and special reports of the Governor and Intendant, to pro
vide ample store of goods for Fort Niagara. In 1728, the
Minister is specially begged to send goods in great abundance
to the new house at Niagara, that the Indians may be kept
from going to the English. Year after year this request is
repeated in the dispatches. Occasionally the Indians found
fault with the quality of the ecarlatines X1 supplied by the
French, or with the price in barter; but the one thing that
killed the fur trade at Fort Niagara was the restriction put
on the sale of brandy. A report of 1735 says, of the trade
at Niagara and Frontenac, that it becomes yearly less and
less, in proportion to the expenses incurred for it by the Crown.
" These two posts, which some years before had produced
52,000 li. of peltries, for the past four years yielded only 25,-
000 to 35,000 li." All this loss was charged to the cessation
of the brandy supply. The priests were reported to have re
fused to confess any one engaged in trading brandy to the
Indians, and the storekeepers at Niagara and Frontenac were
so disturbed by the decree of the bishop, forbidding the traffic,
that they preferred to relinquish their posts rather than fall
under the ban of the church as a cas reserve.12 Beauharnois,
mournfully reviewing the situation, admitted that it was diffi
cult to let the savages have brandy and keep them from get
ting drunk, " but it is equally certain that nothing so keeps
them from trading with the French as the refusal to let them
have liquor, for which they have an inexpressible passion."
Two years later we read that the trade at Niagara and Fron-
n Ecarlatines, i. e., scarlatines, as some of the old records have it;
probably coarse woolen stuff. Cf. icarlates, an old word for hose or leg
ging. Not to be confused with icarlate ("scarlet"), for some icarla-
tines were blue.
12 Cas reservi, a grave offense, decision in which is reserved for the
bishop or other superior officer of the Church.

268 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
tenac is no better. " The suppression of the brandy trade,
added to the bad quality of ecarlatines and low price of
beaver, disgust the Indians who come there to trade — they
pass on to Oswego." And still later, in 1740, the Sieur
Boucherville, then recently in command of the garrison at
Niagara, gave several reasons to the Intendant, Hocquart, to
show why trade was so bad at that post. First, he said, for
several years past the brandy trade had been forbidden at
Niagara; and every year there came down from the upper
country many canoes loaded with beaver and deer skins, but
if on reaching Niagara the Indians could not get brandy they
would not part with their peltries, but continued on to Oswego.
Besides that, Indian traders in the pay of the English con
stantly intercepted the hunters as they came from the west and
north, securing their peltries and effectively blocking the op
portunities for trade with the French at Niagara.
The Intendant consulted with the Minister at Versailles as
to what might be done; but that dignitary was able to sug
gest nothing more effective than to send messages to the chiefs
of the Mohawks, the Oneidas, and the Onondagas, who were
the intermediary agents of the English, that they must cease
favoring the English trade, or their canoes would be stopped
and pillaged. M. de Beaucourt was sent to a council at
Onondaga, charged with this delicate mission. The assembled
chiefs listened, apparently in complacent humor, and sent him
away with the equivocal assurance that they would spread his
words among the villages.
In 1740 the Sieur Michael (sometimes written " St.
Michael ") succeeded Boucherville as commandant at Fort
Niagara, being sent there because of his supposed ability to
build up trade; but in official circles at Quebec, as no doubt
generally in the gossip of the day, the opinion prevailed that
if the fur trade at Fort Niagara was to flourish the amount
of the annual lease should be reapportioned with regard to the
traffic ; and be accompanied by a freer dispensation of brandy.
The fur trade at the posts was carried on in two ways;
either by lease (bail), the Intendant giving lease-hold to the
highest and best bidder for the trade of a post, and the rent

A TROUBLESOME TREATY 269
giving the exclusive rights to the lessee throughout the extent
of his post; or by permits (conge), the Governor granting
permissions to trade in certain forts. These permits were
granted in great numbers to persons whom the Governor
judged proper. Those who received permits paid a certain
sum (redevance) yearly. The proceeds, whether by lease or
by conge, were received by the Governor, who distributed them
in pensions or perquisites to certain officers, in gifts and alms
to widows and children of officers, or other expenses of this
sort. If at the end of the year, there remained any funds ac
cruing from this source, they were turned into the general treas
ury.13 The posts of Frontenac, Niagara and Toronto at first were
leased, but after a trial of that system, they were reserved for
the King's trade, because of the keen rivalry of the English
in these quarters. The lessees of these posts having put on their
goods prices which seemed too high to the Indians, the Eng
lish sent wampum belts among the tribes, with intelligence
of the goods and liquor which they had at Oswego, and which
they offered at lower prices than the French. As a conse
quence, the Indians would not stop to trade at Niagara. To
checkmate this move, it was necessary to cancel the lease at
Niagara, and at the other trading-posts on Lake Ontario ;
and by successive reductions in the price of goods,, to regain
the Indian trade. Niagara was more convenient for the In
dians than Oswego, being nearer to their hunting grounds.
The reduction of prices at Niagara, however, was carried so
far that goods were sold there on royal account at less than
they had cost the King. For some years, there seemed no
middle course. The French saw that they must submit to this
loss at Niagara, or renounce the Indian trade and abandon
the whole region to the English. After all, this diminution in
the price of merchandise was less a real loss than a diminished
profit, because the furs which the King received in trade were
sold at Quebec, bringing as much as and sometimes more than
the price paid by the King for goods traded to the Indians.14
W'Mimoire pour M. Francois Bigot ..." Paris, 1763, p. 21.
i* Bigot to the Minister, Sept. 30, 1750.

270 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
So unsatisfactory was the state of trade, in the years fol
lowing the erection of the stone house, that it was proposed
once more to change the system of trade there. D'Aigre
mont wrote to the Minister, October 15, 1728: "I believe it
will be advantagebus to lease the posts of Niagara and Fron
tenac, for there is now much loss in the trade made on the
King's account, and it will always be so."
In 1727 we find Beauharnois complaining of Dupuy's man
agement of the trading-posts. " He has farmed out for 400
francs the post at Toronto to a young man who is not at all
fit. M. d'Aigremont, to whom M. Dupuy sent the agreement
for signature, refused to sign, saying that he would talk about
it with the Intendant, showing him that this would work great
wrong to the trade at Frontenac and Niagara." Notwith
standing all that, Dupuy returned the agreement next day, but
he refused to sign, alleging that he knew of another man who
for some years past had offered a thousand crowns 15 for the
lease. The statement, which M. de Longueuil confirmed, illus
trates the favoritism and " graft " for which the administration
of the colony was soon to become notorious.
Although the building of the stone house at Niagara did
somewhat stimulate the traffic at that point, it by no means
removed all difficulties. The King's account suffered much
at the hands of incompetent, careless or dishonest agents. In
the year 1728 Saveur Germain Le Clerc, who was in charge
of the trading at Niagara in 1727, died after a long illness,
during which his accounts were so neglected that M. d'Aigre
mont, reporting on the trade of the posts for that year, was
unable to find out what goods or stores had been traded or
used at Niagara; and he despaired of being able to tell any
better the following year, " M. Dupuy having sent to Niagara
to replace the Sieur Le Clerc, a man who is scarcely able to
read and sign his name, notwithstanding representations which
I have made regarding it. This man is Rouville la Saussaye,
to whom was leased last year the post at Toronto for one
year for 400 livres. He still has that lease, which is not com
patible with his employment as clerk (" commis ") and store-
is " Mille esaus." The value of the icu is usually given at 2s. 6d. English.

A TROUBLESOME TREATY 271
keeper (" garde-magazin ") of Niagara. This lease-hold
which is at the foot of Lake Ontario and which has been ex
ploited in the King's interest in past years as a dependency of
Fort Niagara, ought not to be leased to the storekeeper in
charge of trade at Niagara, because of the abuses which may
spring from it — this man may send off to the Toronto post
the Indians who come to Niagara, under pretext that he has
not in the storehouse there the things they ask for. Further
more he might make exchanges of good peltries for bad ones,
and besides could intercept all the Indians in Lake Ontario,
and so utterly ruin the trade at Forts Niagara and Frontenac."
The representations of M. d'Aigremont were not without
effect, for Rouville la Saussaye was soon succeeded by one La
Force, who held the post for some years, though evidently not
greatly to the King's profit. He carried on the barter with
the Indians at Niagara, apparently in a loose way, with little
or no balancing of books or auditing of accounts, from 1729
till 1738, when the Intendant, Hocquart, suspecting that all
was not right, sent the Sieur Cheuremont to Niagara to in
vestigate. The result was that La Force was found to be a
debtor to the King's account in the amount of 127,842 chats.
The chat or cat of the French fur-traders was probably the
raccoon,16 and the meaning of La Force's singular indebted
ness is best given in the words of M. Hocquart : " According
to the traders' method of keeping accounts, the cats are re
garded at Niagara as [the unit of] money by means of which
they estimate the price of goods and of peltries. For instance,
a blanket will sell for eight cats, a pound of beaver-skin for
two; similarly with other articles of merchandise and furs."
The Sieur Cheuremont informed Hocquart that he had reck
oned on La Force's account all the provisions, stores and goods
i« Chat and chat sauvage are terms which are very often encountered in
the old reports, and would naturally be taken to mean wild-cat — either the
Lynx rufus or the Canadian lynx, Lynx Canadensis. A careful study of the
subject by J. G. Henderson, in a paper read before the American Associa
tion for the Advancement of Science, 1880, reaches the conclusion that the
chat of the early traders was really the raton of France, or in English, the
raccoon. The fisher (Mustela canadensis), also often called wild-cat, is
believed to be the pecan or pekan of the French-Canadian traders.

272 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
for trade which had been shipped to him, with allowance for
all that he had used, and accepting his own figures as to goods
sold. The Intendant summoned the involved commissary to
Quebec, but when he demanded an explanation of the deficit,
La Force could only say that Cheuremont had made such cal
culations as he chose; as for himself, he had traded according
to the established tariff. This tariff, he said, did not take
into account the goods which were ruined, and he adduced yet
other reasons for his great shortage. La Force had long had
the reputation of a man of probity; there was nothing on
which to base a charge against him of theft. The Intendant
therefore reached the conclusion that there had been nothing
worse than great negligence in La Force's conduct of affairs,
" and that his numerous family of eight or nine children had
considerably increased the expenditures." Cheuremont toiled
for three months in a vain effort to straighten the Niagara ac
counts ; meanwhile La Force was asking to be paid 1000 livres
which he claimed due him each year, but which were withheld
from him.
The Intendant finally in 1739 replaced La Force with the
Sieur Le Pailleur, whom he describes as " the most honest man
I can find for this employ." And again there were obstacles to
a business-like administration of the post. Le Pailleur had
scarcely taken up the duties at Niagara when he had an ad
venture with a mad bull, being dragged over two arpents of
road, and thus put hors d'etat for work, so that for the year
1739 he was unable to keep up his trading accounts or even to
make an inventory of merchandise in the storehouse.
There are preserved many reports regarding skins received
at the Lake Ontario posts in these years. Niagara, Fron
tenac and Toronto are often summed up in one schedule.
These lists, enumerating the number of each sort of fur re
ceived, with the price allowed, are not without interest, for
they illustrate not only the state of the market, but the rela
tive abundance of different animals taken by the Indians.
Some of the old French names of species are difficult to iden
tify. In the following schedule of furs received at Niagara
and Frontenac, season of 1727, " chat " has been rendered as

A TROUBLESOME TREATY 273
raccoon, " vison " as mink, " pecan " as fisher (Mustela cana
densis), and " loup-cervier " as wolverene (Gulo luscus). Valuation
Kind. Number. Per Skin.
Castor  beaver  2580 7 li. 6s.
Chevreuil  buck   295
Chevreuils verts... buck (green)  1875
Boeufs Illinois . . . .bison  4
Cerfs  red deer.  844
Orignaux  moose  7
Chats  raccoon  448 28s.
Loutres  otter  167
Loups-cerviers . . . .wolverene 
Loups-de-bois  wolf 
Martres  marten 
Grands ours  bear 
Oursons  cub . v 
Ours moyens  bear, half-grown. . . .
Pecans  fisher 
Pichoux  polecat 
Reynards rouge. . . .red fox 
Visons  mink 
Rat musques  muskrat 

167

3 li. 5s.

8

7 li.

4
247

3s.
3 li. 9s.

378

3 li. 12s.

52 8
^60@38s.
84
104
4 li. 9s.
55s.
6
55s.
5
10s.
8
Is.
6d.
The above is one of many lists and schedules to be found in
the reports of the trading-posts. Niagara and Frontenac are
invariably coupled, and no separate mention is made of To
ronto, which for trade purposes was regarded as a part of
Niagara. Toronto was at first treated as a separate lease
hold. Later, it was made virtually a branch of Niagara. In
1729 we find the storekeeper at Niagara directed to send goods
to Toronto as needed, the accounts to be included with those
of his own post.
While the beaver market continued good, and the animals
themselves abundant, many other fur-bearing animals whose
skins are now highly prized, appear to have been neglected by
the trappers. The beaver was the great staple and object of
trade, although at times the market so fell off that there was
little if any profit in the business as carried on by the French.
274 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
Of all our fur-bearing animals the. beaver was the most widely
distributed. Wherever the conditions of lake or pond, marsh
or forest supplied him with the means for his natural habitat,
there he was to be found. But the records, even at the very
beginning of the French occupancy on the Niagara, indicate
that at that time the beaver-hunting grounds were some dis
tance west and north of the old Iroquois stronghold of Cen
tral and Western New York. In Joncaire's day the main sup
plies for the trade at Niagara appear to have been brought
by Indians from the territory north of Lake Erie, the country
around Lake Huron, and the remoter regions of the Lake Su
perior section. In 1739 we find Beauharnois making strenu
ous efforts to increase the beaver trade by establishing posts
among the Sioux. In that year, as at some earlier periods,
war between tribes had interfered with the hunting; while
other tribes, which gleaned some of the best beaver grounds,
the Ottawas and Saulteux of Lake Huron, persistently refused
to stay their loaded canoes at Fort Niagara, drawn to the
English " by the brandy distributed without measure, and cheap
goods." The attention paid to the beaver trade in the official cor
respondence of Canada, even in its relation to the Lower Lake
posts during the years we are considering, would fill an ample
volume. The larger aspects of that trade cannot be consid
ered, here, the present aim being only to remind the reader
that the quest of the beaver, more than anything else, brought
Fort Niagara into existence.
There were amusing difficulties, in those days, on the part
of the storekeepr at Niagara, and his brother traders else
where, in trying to make the Indians understand the basis of
exchange. They could never be made to recognize the dis
tinction between the skins of the full-grown and half-grown
animals. One exasperated report compares the confusion
growing out of this classification, to the selling of an old robe
de chambre, of which the sleeves and bottom of the gown are
sold at one price, and the back and facings at another, " ac
cording as the parts of this robe were near the body." At
a meeting of agents and merchants at Chateau St. Louis in

A TROUBLESOME TREATY 275
Quebec in 1728, it was agreed that, beginning January 1, 1730,
full-grown and half-grown beavers should be taken on a valua
tion of 3 li. 10s. per pound, and " castor veulle " (undressed
fur) at 48s. per pound; a reduction from rates than prevail
ing. At this meeting was again heard the inevitable complaint
that any effort to make the Indians recognize distinctions in
beaver pelts made them carry their furs to Oswego.
The famine of 1733 contributed to the diminution in the re
ceipt for beaver, and by a fire in April of that year at Mont
real, more than 2000 pounds were burned.
The combined trade at Forts Niagara, Frontenac, and the
head of the lake during the season of 1724—25 showed a profit
of 2382 livres, 3 sols, 9 deniers — about $476 on the present
basis of values. A report of 1725 says : " Two hundred and
four ' green ' deer-skins and twenty-three packets made up of
various furs are left at Fort Frontenac or Niagara, which is
a mere trifle, and shows how the English have taken nearly
all the trade away from Niagara. They even come to trade
within ten leagues of Frontenac. Moreover the price of furs
has so fallen that bear-skins have been sold this year for 47s.
apiece." It is difficult to fix the purchasing power of the sol
(sou) at that day, but at its nominal value of a half -penny
(English) , it puts the price of a bear-skin in 1725 at less than
half a dollar.
The falling off in trade in 1725, over 1724, is striking.
Furs from the three posts above designated realized, in 1724,
29,297 li. 10s. ; in 1725, only 9,151 li. 15s. 6d. Against the
total receipts of 38,449 li. 5s. 6d. in the two years, there were
charged 36,067 li. Is. 9d. for expenses, leaving the balance
of profit as above given. One item of expense was the salary
of 600 livres paid to the storekeeper or agent at Niagara.
In these figures and many others to like purport which are
contained in the records, are to be found the real reason for
building the stone Fort Niagara. The effect of that enter
prise was immediate. In 1726, long before the new work was
finished, we read : " The house at Niagara had a good ef
fect on the beaver trade." Yet for that year, receipts from
Niagara, Frontenac and " head of the lake " were only a little

276 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
over 8,000 li., with expenses of over 13,000 li. " This trade,"
says a note of October 20, 1726, " is so poor only because the
English were all the spring and part of the summer in the
neighborhood of Niagara and gathered in all the best skins.
There were also coureurs de bois from Montreal who spent the
winter in trade at Fort Frontenac, who made a good deal of
money there. Added to all that, the price of skins has greatly
fallen."

CHAPTER XV
ANNALS OF THE WILDERNESS
The Ventures of Joseph La France — The Niagara Mutiny of
1729 — Father Crespel at Niagara — Death of Joncaire
the Elder — The Mysterious River Conde.
A not infrequent source of disturbance and annoyance at
Fort Niagara was the passing of unlicensed voyageurs and
traders, many of whom brought retinues of savages, their ca
noes fur-laden, and tauntingly defied the commandant at the
river's mouth. As early as 1727 we found record of men of
this class from Louisiana, coming down Lake Erie on their
way to Montreal, and of Canadians passing up the Niagara
on their way to the Mississippi, making off with cargoes of
goods for which they had not paid. Efforts were made at
Niagara to arrest this class of free-booters. One Claude
Chetiveau de Roussel, who came up the Mississippi and through
the Lakes without a passport, was arrested, put on board ship
at Quebec, and sent to the Rochefort prison. In 1732 per
emptory orders were given to the commandant at Niagara, that
the goods of all traders seeking to pass up or down the river
without a permit, should be seized.
As the great stone house neared completion and life at the
mouth of the Niagara passed from the bustle of construction
/ / to the routine of a small garrison, Longueuil relinquished com
mand once more to Joncaire; but in the latter's absence, in
the season of 1727, a man named Pommeroy — the documents
speak of him merely as " Monsieur " — was in command at the
fort. The change was scarcely made when an incident oc
curred which illustrates a condition no doubt arising often
in those days. One Desjardin, a resident of Detroit, arrived
at Niagara, " bound up " as the phrase is in modern lake traf
fic, with a canoe loaded with merchandise. When his pass
was called for by Le Clerc, in charge of the trade at Niagara,
he replied that a companion trader, Roquetaillade, who was
277

278 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
a little ways behind with three more canoes, had the passes for
all four. The next day Roquetaillade arrived with a permit
for only three canoes. Desjardin, whose representations were
seen to be fraudulent, had taken his goods across to the west
side of the Niagara. Le Clerc deemed that the circumstances
warranted him in seizing the cargo. With the younger Jon
caire (Chabert junior) and other soldiers he crossed the river
and confiscated the goods in the name of the King. The con
tents of the canoe would have stocked a country store in more
modern times, and indicates the needs and whims of the far-
off post of Detroit at this early day. There were goods for
the Indians and goods for the French settlers and their wives :
four packages of biscuit, six sacks of flour, a sack of gun-
flints, numerous guns, a bundle of leather, a large covered ket
tle and seven small kettles, 322 pounds of lead in five sacks,
and other things, all of which were taken to the storehouse
at Niagara. When the packages were opened there they re
vealed men's clothing, four pairs of children's shoes, a pair of
women's slippers, boys' and men's shoes, fifteen small hatchets,
a barrel of prunes and another of salt, a white blanket and
two red ones, two pieces of the woolen fabric called calmande,
with rolls of other weaves indicated as estamine au dauphme,
and indienne or cotton print. Still another package contained
wax, cotton wicks for candles, French thread ("fil de Rennes "),
cotton cloth, shoemaker's thread, and blue cotton stockings
for women; — perhaps the earliest indication we have of the
bas bleues in the Lake region. The confiscation of such a cargo
of frontier necessities was a serious loss to the unlucky Des
jardin. His large bark canoe (" canoe d'ecorse de huit
places ") was also confiscated. Such was the penalty for fail
ure to comply with the prescribed regulations of trade.
Perhaps worthy of note, in these minor annals of the fron
tier, are the names of the soldiers which with those of Le Clerc
and Joncaire, Jr., are signed to the report of the seizure, under
date August 21, 1727. Here we meet, as it were, St. Maurice
de la Gauchetiere, La Jeunesse de Budmond, L'Esperance de
Port Neuf, Sans Peur de Deganne, St. Antoine de Dechaillon,
St. Jean de Lignery, and Bon Courage de Deganne. Surely,

ANNALS OF THE WILDERNESS 279
with Youth, Hope, Fearlessness and Good Courage for com
rades in the wilderness, to say nothing of the saints, life at
Fort Niagara in the gray old days could not have been wholly
forlorn. On a day in the spring of 1735 two canoes, deeply laden,
came skirting the northern shore of Lake Erie to the dis
charge; took the good channel through the little rapids, and
were speeded along at a pace of some six to eight miles an
hour, past the low shores over which Buffalo now extends.
In the wider reaches of the river at the head of Grand Island,
where the current slackens to some two miles, the red voyageurs
plied again the paddles, and soon made the ancient landing
at the margin of the river above the great cataract. Here,
as they stepped ashore, the party was seen to consist of eight
Indians and their employer, a half-breed trader, who though
well-nigh as dark-skinned as his followers, spoke the French
of Quebec with fluency. There was a quick agreement with
the resident Senecas, who carried his packs and his canoes
over the old portage path, down to the lower river, receiving
for their labors one hundred beaver-skins. Reembarking, the
little flotilla hastened out of the Niagara and on along the On
tario shore to Oswego fort, where the suspicious trader stayed
on the strand with his canoes, sending the Indians into the fort
to dispose of his furs. The sale accomplished, he made his way
westward, once more stole his way past Fort Niagara, and after
gaining again the upper river, hastened on, weary league on
league, until he finally came again to his abiding-place at Mis-
silimackinac. This was Joseph La France. His father was a French Can
adian, his mother of the nation of Sauteurs, living at the falls
of St. Mary, between Lakes Superior and Huron. Here he was
born about 1707. His mother died when he was five years
old, and his father took him to Quebec, where he spent six
months and learned French. Quebec had then, according to
the subsequent testimony of La France, " 4 or 5,000 men in
garrison, it being about the time of the Peace of Utrecht."
Returning to his people at St. Mary's, he resided there until
the death of his father in 1723, when the son, then sixteen,

280 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
embarked upon the career of an independent trader. He took
what furs and skins his father had left him, went down to
Montreal by the Ottawa-river route, disposed of his goods and
returned to acquire a new stock for barter. For the next ten
years or so he seems to have taken his furs regularly to the
French. In 1734 he adventured in new fields, going down the
Wisconsin to the Mississippi, and down that stream to the
mouth of the Missouri, returning by the same route.
In 1735, stealing by night past the French settlement at
Detroit, for fear of being stopped, he came down Lake Erie,
on his way to try the English at Oswego. As on the Detroit,
so on the Niagara, he appears to have avoided the French,
whom he subsequently reported to have " a fort on the north
side of the Fall of Niagara, between the Lakes Errie and
Frontenac, about 3 Leagues within the Woods from the Fall,
in which they keep 30 Soldiers, and have about as many more
with them as Servants and Assistants ; these," he added, " have
a small trade with the Indians for Meat, Ammunition and
Arms." 1 Probably his dealings with the English became
known to the French; for later, when he went again to Mont
real with a cargo of furs, although he gave the Governor a
present of marten-skins and 1000 crowns, for a license to
trade the following year, the Governor would neither give the
license nor restore the money, charging La France with hav
ing sold brandy to the Indians, and threatening him with im
prisonment. La France escaped from Montreal, and toilfully
made his way up the Ottawa, reaching Lake Nipissing, after
forty days of paddling and portaging. At Mackinac he gath
ered another stock of furs and set out once more to try his
fortunes with the French; but on the way to Montreal, in the
Nipissing [French] River, he suddenly met the Governor's
brother-in-law with nine canoes and thirty soldiers. They took
all he had and arrested him as a runaway without a passport ;
but he made his escape through the woods at night, and after
i La France was the first man of whom we have record, to cross from
Lake Winnipeg to Hudson's Bay. The account of his presence on the
Niagara is found in Vol. II of the " Report from the Committee appointed
to enquire into the State and Condition of the Countries adjoining to
Hudson's Bay, and of the Trade carried on there," etc., London, 1749.

ANNALS OF THE WILDERNESS 281
weeks of hardship returned to St. Mary's, resolved to be done
for ever with the French. Having lost all, he determined to go
to the Enghsh at Hudson's Bay. His subsequent adventures
belong to the history of the fur trade of the far north and
west. His testimony, given in an enquiry regarding the oper
ation of the Hudson's Bay Company, affords many useful
glimpses of the conditions of the time.
La France was the type of a class of men who at this pe
riod were a source of great trouble alike to the French and
the English. The French especially, at Frontenac, at Niagara
and Detroit, were exasperated by their disregard of the conge,
their unlicensed brandy-selling to the Indians, and their jour
neys to the upstart British post at Oswego. As La France
made his way past Fort Niagara, with canoes loaded to the
gunwale with winter furs, the French of that little garrison, if
not indeed Joncaire himself, may have noted the passing, stand
ing impotent to prevent it, or perchance enraged by the yells
and derisive cries of the defiant freebooters, no longer at pains
to conceal themselves when once safely past the fort.
There developed in England at this time a considerable out
cry against the monopoly enjoyed by the Hudson's Bay Com
pany ; and an ingenious advocacy of free trade in North Amer
ican fur-gathering. The experiences of Joseph La France
provided a fruitful text for those who, like the author of " An
Account of the Countries Adjoining to Hudson's Bay," etc.,
undertook to show their countrymen and their king how Brit
ish trade might be extended in the Lake Erie region, and the
French at the Lake Erie and Niagara posts utterly routed.
Arthur Dobbs, who combined with the long-existant British hos
tility to the French, a bitterly critical attitude towards the
Hudson's Bay Company, set forth at length in his book views
which no doubt met the approval of many of the British pub
lic of his day. Curiously enough, one of his strongest argu
ments was based on a map-maker's blunder. On the large map
which accompanies his work, the Great Lakes are shown, with
" the great fall of Niagara " properly indicated at the out
let of " Conti or Errie Lake." The whole region of the Lakes
is shown, as accurately on the whole as on many another map,

282 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
up to that time; but running into Lake Erie, a few miles
south of the present site of Buffalo, the unknown geographer
has borrowed, from a dubious source of 40 years before, a
stream of considerable size, and named it " Cond6 River."
The Conde River originated with La Hontan, on whose map
of 1703 it first appears. Its reappearance, in Dobbs's book
is curious, inasmuch as the best maps, from La Hontan to
1744, show nothing of the sort. On Coronelli's " Partie orien-
tale du Canada," etc., 1689, a small unnamed stream is shown
entering Lake Erie at this point. De l'Isle's map of 1703
shows no stream at that point, nor do most others. La Hon
tan names it and gives its source in a small lake farther east
than the eastern end of Lake Ontario. In the minutes of the
Provincial Council of Pennsylvania, January 25, 1747, is an
allusion to the Indians at " Canayahaga, a place on or near
the river Conde, which runs into the Lake Erie." Its real pro
totype, in the annals of earlier explorers, may have been the
Cattaraugus or Eighteen-Mile Creek ; but here we have it, shown
unduly large, as the only stream entering Lake Erie, its head
waters coming from vague mountains to the southeast.
Contemplating this stream, and the exigencies of the fur
trade in the region, Mr. Dobbs saw a great opportunity for
the British, " by forming a Settlement on the River Conde,
which is navigable into the Lake Errie, which is within a small
Distance of our Colonies of Pennsylvania and Maryland, and
being above the great Fall of Niagara, and in the Neighbor
hood of the Iroquese, who are at present a Barrier against
the French, and a sufficient Protection to our Fort and trad
ing House at Oswega, in their Country upon the Lake Fron
tenac, who by that Trade have secured the Friendship of all the
Nations around the Lakes of Huron and Errie. We should
from thence, in a little Time, secure the Navigation of these
great and fine Lakes, and passing to the southward, at the same
time, from Hudson's Bay to the Upper Lake, and Lake of
Hurons, we should cut off the Communication betwixt their
Colonies of Canada and Mississippi, and secure the Inland
Trade of all that vast Continent."
Further on we have more details of the geography, real and

ANNALS OF THE WILDERNESS 283
imagined, of our region : " The Streight above Niagara at
the Lake is about a League wide. From this to the River
Conde is 20 Leagues South-west; this River runs from the
S. E. and is navigable for 60 Leagues without any Cataracts
or Falls; and the Natives say, that from it to a River which
falls into the Ocean, is a Land Carriage of only one League.
This must be either the Susquehanna or Powtomack, which
fall into the Bay of Chisapeak." He further argues the wis
dom of making a settlement on this wonderful river Conde, of
building proper vesseli there to navigate these lakes, so that
" we might gain the whole Navigation and Inland Trade of
Furs, etc., from the French, the Fall of Niagara being a suffi
cient Barrier betwixt us and the French of Canada," etc. It
was alleged that the British Government might readily induce
colonists from Switzerland and Germany " to strengthen our
settlements upon this River and Lake Erie." Another sug
gestion was that disbanded British troops be sent on half pay
to Lake Erie, where they would " make good our possessions,
which would be a fine retreat to our Soldiers, who can't so
easily, after being disbanded, bring themselves again to hard
Labour, after being so long disused to it." The more Mr.
Dobbs dwelt upon it the more important this particular pro
ject appeared. The French were to be cut off from commu
nication with the Mississippi ; Canada was to be " made insig
nificant for the French." The entire fur trade of North
America was to fall into the hands of the English. And
finally, with a burst of sentiment which recalls the devout as
pirations of the French missionaries, but is an anomaly in the
plans of British traders, he exclaims : " How glorious would
it be for us at the same time to civilize so many Nations, and
improve so large and spacious a country! by communicating
our Constitution and Liberties, both civil and religious, to such
immense Numbers, whose Happiness and Pleasure would in
crease, at the same Time that an Increase of Wealth and Power
would be added to Britain." 2
2 See " An Account of the Countries adjoining to Hudson's Bay'," etc.,
by Arthur Dobbs, London, 1744. Dobbs became Governor of North Caro
lina, and died about 1765.

284 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
Life at Fort Niagara never ceased to be dependant on the
King's provision ships. If the annual shipment came early
in the season, the garrison abated its chronic discontent in
reasonable assurance that it could endure until spring on the
inevitable flour and pork. But often the ships reached Que
bec so late that the annual cargo of food and other necessaries
could not be sent through to Niagara until the following spring.
In 1732 the Ruby, bringing subsistence for the forest garri
sons, reached Quebec late in September. The utmost dispatch
was made, but the supplies designed for Niagara got no further
that fall than Frontenac. The winter of 1732-33 was a most
severe one, the meager harvests of the colony had been even
smaller than usual, and there were privation and distress in
the towns as well as at the lake posts. At Niagara they felt
the additional burden of the smallpox, which this winter ran
through the Iroquois villages, interfering with the usual hunt
ing and trapping. In the summer of 1733, stimulated by the
urgent tone of the official reports, the King's ship anchored
off Quebec on July 9th. Even with this early arrival, it was
September before the barrels of flour which she brought were
safe in the storehouse at Niagara. In 1734, the Ruby ar
rived, August 16th ; but in 1735 there was another failure to
receive anything; the Niagara provisions indeed reached Fron
tenac, and were loaded on a bateau; but when the lumbering,
laden craft essayed the autumnal lake, a gale drove her ashore
and the trip was abandoned — with what result at the wait
ing garrison, may be imagined. There, short rations and bad
more than once bore fruit in mutiny and desertion. Again
the Government sought to atone for the costly delays of one
season, with excess of zeal in the next; so that in 1736 the
King's ship was at Quebec on August 7th, and in the next sum
mer the Jason arrived August 8th. And so it went, with vary
ing uncertainty, the efficiency and well nigh the existence of
Niagara depending largely on the modicum of attention it
might receive from the Minister and his agents in France.
Although the two barques which had been constructed at
Frontenac in the winter of 1725 were only eight years old in
1733, one of them had then become unfit for service, so that

ANNALS OF THE WILDERNESS 285
there remained but one sailing vessel on Lake Ontario that sea
son. The Intendant, Hocquart, sent four ship-carpenters to
Frontenac to repair the other, but they found it so far gone
that the best they could do was to take the iron-work from it
and build a new vessel. This they did, at an expense of some
5,000 livres. The second boat, says a report of that summer,
was greatly needed to carry goods to Niagara.
At Detroit, after the first few bitter years, conditions for
self-mainenance were far better than they ever were at Niagara.
The latter post never had the thrifty class of settlers about
it, which very early began to provide flour and other produce
not only for Detroit but for Mackinac and other upper-lake
posts as well.
So productive were those early grain fields about Detroit
that in 1730 a memorialist of the Crown — possibly de Noyan,
though this particular memorial 3 is not signed — seeking cer
tain privileges in the western trade, unfolded a plan for sup
plying Niagara with flour. To further this project, the Gov
ernment was asked to build one or two light-draught vessels
(" barques plates ") to navigate between the Niagara, Detroit
and the Upper Lakes. The advantage of such vessels, in case
of Indian troubles, was pointed out: soldiers could be quickly
transported. But the opportunities of trade loomed large in
the eye of this speculator. At present, he wrote, it costs the
voyageurs twenty livres freight per packet of furs, from De
troit to Montreal. With the desired sailing vessels the furs
could be carried for ten or twelve livres per packet. Detroit
would gather from its tributary country annually 1,000 to
1,200 packets ; Mackinac and the upper posts could be counted
on for 2,000 more. The petitioner knew well the conditions of
the fur trade. The voyageurs — canoe freighters — reached
market by the Ottawa route. By the Niagara route he pro
posed to carry them at fifteen livres each. Thus on 1,000
packets from Mackinac he counted on 15,000 livres, and on
1,000 from Detroit, 10,000 more; and 25,000 livres freight
receipts in one season should have appealed to a Ministry ac-
a"Mimoires concernant I'itat-present du Canada en Van 1780," MS.
copy in the Archives Office, Ottawa.

286 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
customed to know only of outlay in connection with the lake
posts.
True, some expense must be incurred, to start the business.
This plan contemplated the construction of a palisaded ware
house above the Niagara fall, at a point where the barques
could make easy and safe harbor. The portage road was to
be extended, and improved. There would have to be a clerk
at the warehouse above the falls, and carts for carrying the
peltries down to the lower river — the landing of the old Mag
azin Royal — where two flat-boats would be needed to convey
them on down to the mouth of the river each summer in July
or early in August. The desired barques, it was urged,
could make at least three voyages, Niagara to Mackinac, be
tween June and mid-August. On their first down trip they
could bring away the furs collected in the neighborhood of
Mackinac; on the second and third trips, they would take the
packets which by that time would have been brought in from
the Lake Superior and more distant posts. The author of
this memoir foresaw the prejudice which he would have to over
come among the traders ; but if even half of them were afraid
to risk Niagara, and chose to forward by canoe down the Ot
tawa route, he figured that even then the profit with the barques
would be considerable. Each packet paid in freight twenty-
five livres, Mackinac to Montreal, by the Niagara, where the
Ontario barques would receive them. It was recommended that
the Lake Erie craft be built " five or six leagues above the
Niagara portage," and the promoter thought that with a mas
ter and four sailors for each vessel, business could begin, espe
cially if soldiers from Fort Niagara and other posts could be
called on for service when required.
This was probably the first project for trade by sailing ves
sels from the Niagara to the Upper Lakes, since the disastrous
voyage of La Salle's Griffon, fifty years before. The Gov
ernment did not lend its aid, and the plausible and elaborate me
moir bore no immediate fruit.4
* The Intendant Hocquart wrote to the Minister, Oct. 23, 1730, in be
half of one Fleury who had "particularly at heart the building of a
barque on Lake Erie for the fur trade." Hocquart approved the under-

ANNALS OF THE WILDERNESS 287
With the growth of trade and settlement at Detroit, and,
from about 1730, the increasing substitution of the Niagara
route over that of the Ottawa — the grande riviere of the toil
ful old days — traffic adjusted itself to a recognized tariff; so
that, in the latter days of the period we are studying, if not
indeed to the very end of the French dominion on the Lakes,
transportation by the Niagara route was to be counted on
for its fixed charges as much as any inland transportation by
boat or rail is to-day ; but how different the items ! The De
troit merchant of say 1730, returning homeward from Mont
real with goods, brought them by canoes or flat-boats to Fort
Frontenac, there transferred them to the little barque that
took its chances with all the winds of heaven, on the long
traverse to Fort Niagara, some seventy leagues, as the old
sailing-masters made it. Reloaded on bateaux, the freight
was poled and pulled up the Niagara, to the foot of the port
age. There, in the earlier years, each packet and cask was
hoisted to the shoulders of an Indian or Canadian engagS, for
the hard climb up the levels and through the forest, some seven
miles to the point of reembarking above the cataract. Just
when horses or oxen were first used on the portage road is un
certain. We know that the English had proposed to use them
there, in 1720, and that the French did use them for a number
of years. All this transportation was paid for by a percentage
on the weight. The cost of outfit, too, was considerable. If
the merchant owned his own canoe — a canot de maitre, of
six or eight places — it cost him at least 500 francs. For the
journey, he paid his six engages, who not only paddled the
canoe but helped make the portage, 250 francs each. The
needed food for the journey would include at least 100 pounds
of biscuit and twenty-five pounds of pork or bacon, per man.
These with other necessaries brought the cost of equipment and
maintenance to 2,260 francs. Such are the actual figures of
one " voyage."
taking but the Minister did not. Forty years before (1690) one Sieur
Charron had advocated a system of "barges" to be used as freighters
from Fort Frontenac "and at the fort that would be established for
navagating the Lakes above the Fall of Niagara," but nothing came of it.

288 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
It has been noted that the winter's supplies occasionally
failed to reach the Niagara garrison. Sometimes the supplies
which were there were bad. There was a serious state of af
fairs in 1738, owing to the wretched quality of flour furnished
by the Government for the subsistence of the garrison. The
supply was eked out by Canadian flour, of which there was
great scarcity. The commandant, to head off, if possible, the
desertions to which the soldiers at Niagara were always prone,
if not indeed a mutiny of the whole garrison, sent several
officers as an express to Montreal. They reported that the sol
diers were absolutely unable to live on their short rations of
bad bread and salt meat, and begged that better supplies be
sent. Some relief was gained from the Canadian harvest, and
the spoiled French flour was shipped back from the lake posts
to Montreal.
In the summer of 1729, life at the little garrison had been
disturbed by a mutiny among the soldiers, due probably to
bad food and not enough of it. Whatever the cause, it made
a most crucial season for Rigauville, commandant at the time.
The prime mover in the uprising was one Charles Panis, and
with him in rebellion were Laignille, La Joye, one Bernard —
" called Dupont," — and so many others that the maintenance
of any discipline at all was in jeopardy. The especial enmity
of the mutineers was directed against the commandant and
Ensign Ferriere. A Government secretary, Bernard, who was
at Niagara at the time auditing the accounts of the store
keeper, was sent off post-haste to Montreal with a report of
the affair. Beauharnois promptly sent back Captain Gauche-
tiere and Ensign Celoron, with a detachment of twenty trusty
men to replace the rebels. The latter were taken to Montreal,
where they were held under arrest, in irons. An affair fol
lowed which made more of a stir than the original mutiny.
The uprising at Niagara had occurred on July 26th. It was
not until after a long and dangerous delay that the offenders
were brought to trial before a council of war, which in due
time, pronounced sentence. Laignille and La Joye were con
demned to be hanged and broken [" pendus et rompus "] ;
while Dupont, a deserter, was merely to be hanged. Early in

ANNALS OF THE WILDERNESS 289
the morning of October 18th, before the executions were to take
place, one of the condemned men cried out for help for his
comrade, who feigned to be sick. The jailor's daughter ran
to them, but scarcely had she opened the door of their dun
geon, than the three criminals, who had broken off their irons,
threw themselves upon her, overcame the sentry, climbed over
the palisades and ran away. The gallows and platform, which
had been made ready for the executions, were surreptitiously
taken down and carried off, by whom the authorities could not
learn. As it was deemed necessary to make an example of
some one, the jailor was removed from his post, though it was
not shown that he was in any wise responsible for the escape.
There is no record found that any of the seditious soldiers were
punished. The official reports became very fretful over the matter. It
was complained that the priests and women had meddled with
the affair, creating sympathy for the prisoners. The whole
system of procedure was criticised; there had been shown a
complete ignorance of the laws and ordinances. " There is
scarcely an officer in the country, and especially at Montreal,
who knows how to conduct a procedure of this sort." " If
the officers who composed the council of war had been in
structed in the ordinance of July 26, 1668, the execution of
the criminals need not have been delayed more than twenty-four
hours," etc. The Governor and Intendant took the occasion
to renew with great urgency their frequent request that more
troops be sent to the colony.
As for " Charles Panis," the instigator of the Niagara mu
tiny, he was put aboard the French vessel St. Antoine, and
sent to Martinique in banishment. The Governor there was
requested to hold him forever as a slave, forbidding him ever
to return to Canada or to go even to the English colonies.
This culprit, whose name is written in the documents as
Charles Panis, may not unlikely have been Charles, a Panis or
Pani, the name by which the French designated the Nau-
dowasses or slave Indians. These people occupy a strange
position in the history of North American tribes. In Jon
caire's time, they are frequently found as slaves and menials

290 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
not only among the Senecas and other warlike tribes, but among
the French. Nor is it wholly improbable that such an In
dian should have been the instigator of a mutiny among French
soldiers, for more than once in the records may be found men
tion of Panis who served with the French troops. Several of
them, in Pean's following, were killed at Fort Necessity in
July, 1754. In 1747 a runaway Panis was shipped from Mont
real to Martinique, there to be sold for the benefit of his owner.
Facts like these, and the further fact that " Panis " is an un
likely French name, pretty clearly point out the character of
the instigator of the mutiny at Fort Niagara.5
As for Laignille and his lawless associates, they no doubt
soon found their way into the ranks of coureurs de bois and
unlicensed traffickers with the Indians, not improbably allying
themselves with some remote tribe, where they forever merged
their identity with that of their savage associates. The wil
derness lodges were harbingers of many a white outlaw in those
days. To the period we are considering, belongs — if it belongs
to history at all — the Niagara visit of one Claude Le Beau,
" avocat en parlement," romancer and adventurer at large.
According to his own testimony, this young man, a native of
Rochelle, went to Paris in 1729, and in the same year was
drawn from his legal studies into a voyage to Canada. Ship
wrecked in the St. Lawrence, he arrived at Quebec, in sad
plight, June 18, 1729. He found employment as a clerk in the
fur business (" bureau du castor "), where he continued, mak
ing his home with the Recollect Fathers, for more than a year.
He ran away from sober pursuits, in March, 1731, and took to
the woods with two Indians. His many adventures are too
numerous, and of too little consequence, to make even a sum
mary of them worth while here. His narrative puts the time
of his arrival at Niagara in June, 1731, and under sufficiently
fantastic conditions. He was accompanied, with other In
dians, by his mistress, an Abenaki maiden, with whom he had
5 Details of the Fort Niagara mutiny are given in a report of Beau
harnois and Hocquart to the Minister, Oct. 23, 1730, and in other documents
of the time.

ANNALS OF THE WILDERNESS 291
exchanged clothes. He had resorted to this and other dis
guise to avoid arrest by the French as a deserter. A long
story is made of his encounter with soldiers from Fort Niagara,
and of his final sanctuary in Seneca villages. He says that
letters were received from Montreal, by the commandant at
Fort Niagara, ordering his arrest, if he appeared in the neigh
borhood. Needless to say, no mention of Le Beau is found in the of
ficial correspondence. His book has for the most part the air
of truth; he is precise with his dates, and in his account of
Indian customs shows much accurate knowledge. Among the
things that tell against him are his allusions to a Jesuit priest,
Father Cirene, among the Mohawks; but this name is not
found in all the Relations of the order; although there
was a Father Jacques Sireme. Le Beau's account of Ni
agara Falls is dubious ; he says they are 600 feet high. This
is La Hontan's figure of many years before. Le Beau has
much to say of La Hontan and his misrepresentations, but the
indications are that he accepted one of that gay officer's wildest
exaggerations, and that he may never have seen Niagara at
all. He probably came to Canada and had some experience
among the Indians ; and when he wrote his book, chose to so
enlarge upon what he had really seen and experienced, still
holding to a thread of fact, that the result has little interest as
fiction, and no value whatever as history.6
From the time of the establishment of Fort Niagara, Chabert
Joncaire the elder was more and more an object of jealousy
and hatred for the English. It was not without reason that
they ascribed to him the success of the French on the Niagara.
Now rumors began to fly. It was reported to the French
6 See the " Avantures du Sr. C. Le Beau, avocat en parlement, ou Voy
age curieux et nouveau, parmi les Sauvages de V Amerique Septentrionale ,"
etc., Amsterdam, 1738. So far as I am aware, this curious book has never
been published in English. While the cause of history would scarcely be
promoted by such a publication, yet it is singular in these days of reprint
ing anything that is old and curious, that no publisher has given us a new
edition — " with notes " — of Le Beau. There is a German edition. Le
Beau's American adventures are discussed in J. Edmond Roy's paper,
" Des Fils et Famille envoyis au Canada," Memoirs, Roy. Soc. Canada, Vol.
VII.

292 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
King, on the word of Sieur de La Corne, that an Indian had
promised the English that the house at Niagara should be
razed, and that the Iroquois had been bribed by the Albany
people to get rid of Joncaire. Louis approved the order
to send word to Joncaire himself of all this, and instructed
him to learn the truth of these reports, and to prevent the
accomplishment of English designs. As the English at this time
were making lavish presents to the Indians, Joncaire's task
was no light one. They even sent wampum peace belts to re
mote tribes — to the Indians of Sault St. Louis, the Lake
of the Two Mountains, to the Algonkins and Nepissings, in
viting them all to remain quiet while the Iroquois were tear
ing down Fort Niagara. When the English overtures took
any other form than substantial gifts, the Indians tired of
them. As we have seen, to the English demand that the Iro
quois should allow them to build a fort on the west side of the
Niagara, opposite the French establishment, the savages re
plied that they did not wish to be troubled further about it;
that they did not regret having given their consent to the
French; and if the English wished to build on the Niagara,
they must settle it with " Onontio " ; as for them, they would
not interfere ; 7 which, after all, was not bad diplomacy on
the part of the savage.
For the next few years Joncaire's chief employment was to
inform his superior officers of English intrigues among the
Iroquois, and to thwart them by his experience and influence.
He was among the Senecas on such a mission in 1730, the Sieur
de Rigauville being then in command at Fort Niagara.
It was at this time (1730) that he appears to have essayed
to repeat, at Irondequoit Bay, his achievements on the Ni
agara, but without a like success. I find no record of the
enterprise in the French documents; the English report of it
puts Joncaire in a ridiculous role. It was Lawrence Claessen
who carried the news to Albany in the autumn of this year,
that Joncaire with a following of French soldiers, had gone
among the Senecas and told them " that he having disobliged
his governor was Duck'd whip'd and banished as a malefac-
i Marquis de Beauharnois to the Minister, Sept. 25, 1726.

ANNALS OF THE WILDERNESS 293
tor, and said, that as he had been a prisoner among that Na
tion, and that then his life was in their hands, and as they then
saved his life, he therefore deemed himself to be a coherent
brother to that Nation, and therefore prayed that they might
grant him toleration to build a trading house at a place called
Tiederontequatt, at the side of the Kadarachqua lake about
ten Leagues from the Sinnekes Country, and is about middle
way Oswego and Yagero [Niagara] . . . and that he the said
Jean Ceure entreated and beg'd the Sinnekes that they would
grant him liberty to build the aforesaid Trading house at that
place, in order that he might get his livelyhood by trading there
and that he might keep some Soldiers to work for him there
whom he promised should not molest or use any hostility to his
Brethren the Sinnekes," and much more to like purport. He
was further said to be an emissary of the Foxes.
Some correspondence ensued, on this extraordinary report
by Claessen. The commissioners for Indian affairs at Albany
made it the subject of a long letter to representatives of Eng
lish interests among the Senecas, but even they saw the ab
surdity of Joncaire having a following of French soldiers if
he had been banished from Canada. The part assigned to him
in this affair by the Dutch interpreter is at utter variance
with what we know of Joncaire's character and employment at
this time.
The more one studies the old records, with the purpose of
gaining therefrom a true conception of Joncaire's character
— of discovering just what manner of man he was, and what
is his true position among the men who made the history of his
times — the less does he appear as a half -wild sojourner among
the savages, the more is he seen to be a man of character, of
marked ability to control others, and of some social standing
and culture, as those qualities went at the time. His own
letters, written in a day when many, even men of affairs, knew
not how to hold a pen, testify to the excellent quality of his
mind. He had the reputation among his brother officers of
being a braggart ; but even those who charged him with it, ad
mitted that his achievements, especially in handling the Senecas,
gave good warrant for boasting.

294 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
For forty years his relations with the missionaries, espe
cially of the Order of Jesuits, were intimate. His association
in his early years with Fathers Milet, Bruyas and Vaillant
has been noted in the narrative. For Charlevoix he became
host on the banks of the Niagara, and no doubt gave the priest
many useful suggestions for his famous journey up the Lakes
in 1721. It was Joncaire who told Charlevoix of the famous
oil spring at Ganos,8 now near Cuba, N. Y. " The place where
we meet with it," wrote Charlevoix, " is called Ganos ; where an
officer worthy of credit [Joncaire] assured me that he had seen
a fountain, the water of which is like oil and has the taste of
iron. He said also that a little further there is another foun
tain exactly like it, and that the savages make use of its waters
to appease all manner of pains." Joncaire may have been the
first white man to visit these or other oil springs in the region,
and so, possibly, to become the discoverer of petroleum. But
others had heard of them, whether they visited them or not,
long before Joncaire's day. The " Relation " of the Jesuits
for 1656—57, edited by Le Jeune, says, in its description of the
Iroquois country : " As one approaches nearer to the country
of the Cats [i. e., the Eries], one finds heavy and thick water,
which ignites like brandy, and boils up in bubbles of flame
when fire is applied to it. It is moreover so oily that all our
savages use it to anoint and grease their heads and their
bodies." Father Chaumonot was among the Senecas in 1656,
as were, at various times, Fathers Fremin, Menart and Vaillant.
These or still other missionaries may have been led to the
oil springs more than half a century before Joncaire; to
whom none the less belongs some credit for making them
known. One of the few students of our history who have discovered
in Joncaire anything more than a rough soldier and interpre
ter, erroneously calls him a " chevalier," and pictures him as
especially zealous in behalf of the Roman Catholic religion.
" To extend the dominion of France," says William Dunlap,
s Ganos is derived from Genie or Gaienna, which in the Iroquois signifies
oil or liquid grease (Bruyas). This oil spring is in the town of Cuba,
Allegany Co., N. Y. The other referred to is in Venango Co., Pa.

ANNALS OF THE WILDERNESS 295
" and of the Roman religion, this accomplished French gentle
man bade adieu to civilized life, and by long residence among
the Senecas, adopting their mode of life, and gaining their
confidence, he procured himself to be adopted into the tribe,
and to be considered as a leader in their councils. His in
fluence with the Onondagas was about as great as with his own
tribe. By introducing and supporting the priests, and other
missionaries, employed by the Jesuits and instructed by the
Governor; by sending intelligence to Montreal or Quebec, by
these spies ; by appearing at all treaty councils, and exerting
his natural and acquired eloquence — it is necessary to say,
he was master of their language — he incessantly thwarted in
a great measure the wishes of the English, and particularly set
himself in opposition to the Government of New York. But
the views of Burnet, in regard to the direct trade, backed by
the presents displayed to the savages, met their approbation in
despite of Joncaire and the Jesuits." Dunlap adds that the
conduct of Joncaire is only paralleled by that of the Jesuit
Ralle (Rasle). " It is not improbable," he continues, " that
Joncaire as well as Ralle, was of the Society of Jesuits, for it
is the policy of this insidious combination that its members
shall appear as laymen, in many instances, rather than as ec
clesiastics." 9 He elsewhere speaks of the influence of " the
Jesuit's, Longueil and Jonceau." In references like this to
Joncaire, he may naturally have been confused with his priest
brother, Francois.
Obviously hostile, with the old-time prejudice of his kind,
to the work of the Catholic missionaries, Dunlap nevertheless
does a certain justice to Joncaire, in bringing out this phase
of his activities. There is no warrant found in the documents
for the supposition that Joncaire was a member of the Society
of Jesus ; many things indicate that he was not. Nor was he,
probably, above the average standard of morality among the
French soldiers of his day — a type, as we well know, not
conspicuous either for piety or purity. But it remains true
that Joncaire's services among the Senecas were calculated to
» "History of the New Netherlands," etc., by William Dunlap (N. Y.,
1839), Vol. I, pp. 286, 287.

296 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
help on the efforts of the missionaries, who found him an in
valuable ally against the ungodly English.
There exists, of date 1725, a memoir " by a member of the
Congregation of St. Lazare," in which various measures are
urged to prevent the English from working injury to the colony
of Canada and the cause of true religion among the Indians.
The author suggests that the Recollects (who were Francis
cans), should be allowed to remain at any posts where they
then were, in capacity of missionaries or chaplains; and that
in these capacities they be sent to posts which should thereafter
be established, where regular parochial organization could not
be effected ; but that the Jesuits, who preferred to be mission
aries among the Indians rather than chaplains at the French
posts, might nevertheless be established at Niagara, " in order
that from this post they may carry on their mission among the
Iroquois. It is highly important to the Colony to establish
and to maintain these missions in the interests of France. To
the end that the Jesuits may find means to hold the Iroquois
nations it is desirable to give to them a tract of land near
Niagara where they may build a house and make an establish
ment." This plea for a Jesuit establishment at Niagara, which,
plausibly, was made with the knowledge and endorsal of Jon
caire, was not granted; but when the new post was garrisoned,
it is probable that the first priest who as chaplain accompanied
troops thither, was a Jesuit. The traditions of the post al
ready associated it with that order. At least three Jesuits
had been at the short-lived Fort Denonville on the same spot —
Fathers Enjalran, Lamberville and Milet. No priest is men
tioned among the soldiers who brought new life and stir to
the old plateau in 1726. The first clergyman of whom we find
record at Fort Niagara was Father Emmanuel Crespel, also a
Jesuit. He was stationed there for about three years from
1729, interrupting his ministrations there with a short soj ourn
at Detroit where a mission of his order had been established.
Of Fort Niagara at this time he says : " I found the place
very agreeable ; hunting and fishing were very productive ; the
woods in their greatest beauty, and full of walnut and chestnut

ANNALS OF THE WILDERNESS 297
trees, oaks, elms and some others, far superior to any we see
in France. The fever," he continues, " soon destroyed the
pleasures we began to find, and much incommoded us, until
the beginning of autumn, which season dispelled the unwhole
some air. We passed the winter very quietly, and would have
passed it very agreeably, if the vessel which was to have
brought us refreshments had not encountered a storm on the
lake, and been obliged to put back to Frontenac, which laid
us under the necessity of drinking nothing but water. As the
winter advanced she dared not proceed, and we did not receive
our stores until May." Father Crespel records that while at
Niagara he learned the Iroquois — probably the Seneca — and
Ottawa languages well enough to converse with the Indians.
" This enabled me," he writes, " to enjoy their company when
I took a walk in the environs of the post." 10 The ability to
talk with Indians afterward saved his life. When his three
years of residence at Niagara expired, he was relieved, accord
ing to the custom of his order, and he passed a season in the
convent at Quebec. While he was, no doubt, succeeded at
Niagara by another chaplain, it is not until some years later
that we find in the archives any mention of a priest at that
post. In 1731 Joncaire entered upon a new service, which, appar
ently, was to be his chief employment for the few remaining
years of his life. He was now past sixty years. Grown gray
in the King's service, seasoned by a lifetime of exposure and
arduous wilderness experience, wise in the ways of the Indian,
and understanding the intrigues and ambitions of the English,
he was preeminently a man to be entrusted with an important
mission. It is not to be inferred, however, that his lifetime of
service on the outposts had cut him off from the official, the
military or the domestic associations of Quebec and Montreal.
The latter town, then of not above 5,000 inhabitants, was his
io " Voiages du R. P. Emmanuel Crespel, dans le Canada et son naufrage
en revenant en France. Mis au jour par le Sr. Louis Crespel, son Frire.
A Francfort sur le Meyn, 1742." There are numerous editions: 1st Ger
man, Frankfort and Leipsig, 1751; 2d French, Frankfort, 1752; Amsterdam,
1757; an English edition, 1797, etc., with numerous variations in title. The
rare first edition was reprinted at Quebec in 1884.

298 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
home ; and there, from 1707 to 1723, Madame de Joncaire bore
to him, as we have already noted, ten children, the eldest of
whom, Philippe Thomas, and his younger brother Daniel, known
respectively as Joncaire the younger and Chabert, are both
to bear a part in the history of the Niagara. In 1731, Jon
caire, Jr., then about twenty-four years old, accompanied his
father to the Senecas' villages, and probably to Niagara. He
had even then " resided a long time among those Indians " and
was " thoroughly conversant with their language." But now
he was to be intrusted with new responsibilities ; he was to as
sume the role which his father had filled for so many years
among these vacillating and uncertain people. Reporting on
these arrangements to the French Minister, de Maurepas, in
October, 1731, Beauharnois wrote: "There is reason to be
lieve that Sieur de Joncaire's presence among the Iroquois has
been a check on them as regards the English, and that by
keeping a person of some influence constantly among them, we
shall succeed in entirely breaking up the secret intrigues they
have together. On the other hand, the Iroquois will be more
circumspect in their proceedings, and less liable to fall into the
snares of the English, when they have some one convenient to
consult with, and in whom they will have confidence. Sieur de
Joncaire's son is well adapted for that mission."
The story of this son, and his share in Niagara history, be
long for the most part to a later period than we are now con
sidering. It may be noted here, however, that it was the brother
Chabert who, in the winter of 1734, came from Montreal
to Fort Niagara on snowshoes, bringing letters from the Gov
ernor. He returned through the heart of New York State,
visiting the Iroquois villages en route. He was then in his
twenty-seventh year; active, hardy, speaking the Seneca and
probably other dialects of the Iroquois as well as his native
French, " wise and full of ardor for the service." Later in this
year he was serving in the company commanded by Desnoyelles,
and from this time on his career becomes more and more a
part of Niagara history.
It is plain that no credence was given by Beauharnois to the
reports reflecting on the integrity of the elder Joncaire's char-

ANNALS OF THE WILDERNESS 299
acter. That he was thoroughly loyal to the French might also
be inferred from the responsibility of his new mission. He
was entrusted with the removal to a new place of residence of
the Chaouanons.
These people are better known as the Shawanese. To enter
fully into their history here would be to travel afar from our
especial theme. It will suffice to state that they were of south
ern origin. About 1698, three or four score families of them,
with the consent of the Governor of Pennsylvania, removed from
Carolina and established themselves on the Susquehanna, at
Conestoga. Others followed, so that by 1732, when the number
of Indian fighting men in Pennsylvania was estimated at about
700, one half of them were Shawanese immigrants. About the
year 1724 the Delaware Indians, in quest of better hunting-
grounds, removed from their old seats on the Delaware and
Susquehanna rivers, to the lower Allegheny, upper Ohio, and its
branches, and from 1728 the Shawanese gradually followed them.
The friendship of these Ohio Delawares and Shawanese be
came an object of rivalry for the British and French; the in
terests of the latter among them were now confided to Joncaire.
The vanguard of the Shawanese migrants appears to have
gained the upper Ohio as early as 1724, for in that year we
find that Vaudreuil had taken measures to weld them to the
French. An interpreter, Cavelier, had been sent among them,
and had even induced four of their chiefs to go with him to
Montreal, where they received the customary assurances of
French friendship. At this date, the Ohio Shawanese num
bered over 700, but their attachment to the English appears to
have been even greater than to the French. They evidently
paid some respect to the authority of the French in the Ohio
Valley, for on this Montreal visit they asked if the French Gov
ernor " would receive them, and where he would wish to locate
them." Beauharnois replied that he would " leave them en
tirely at liberty to select, themselves, a country where they
might live conveniently and within the sound of their Father's
voice " — i. e., within French influence ; " that they might re
port, the next year, the place they will have chosen, and he
should see if it were suitable for them."

300 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
In the spring of 1732 Joncaire reported to the Governor
that these Indians were settled in villages (" en village ")
" on the other side of the beautiful river of Oyo, six leagues
below the river Atigue. The " Beautiful river," or Ohio, at
that time designated the present Ohio and the Allegheny to its
source. The Atigue 1X was the Riviere au Bceuf, now known
as Le Bceuf Creek or Venango River. This seat of the Shaw
anese, therefore, was a few miles below the present city of
Franklin, Pa. To them Joncaire was remanded with gifts and
instructions to keep English traders away, and to do all possi
ble to cement their friendship with the French.
In this connection may be noted a curious statement made
by an old Seneca chief, whose name is written by the French
as Oninquoinonte. Being with Joncaire at Montreal in 1732,
the Seneca made a speech to the Governor in which he said:
" You know, my father, it is I who made it easy to build the
stone house at Niagara, my abode having always been there.
Since I cannot conquer my love for strong drink, I surrender
that place and establish myself in another place, at the port
age of the Le Bceuf Biver, which was and is the rendezvous
of the Chaouanons." He added with unwonted ardor, that
the French were masters of all this region, and he would die
sooner than not sustain them in their work of settling the
Shawanese. A fair degree of success appears to have rewarded Joncaire's
efforts. He is hereafter spoken of as commandant among the
Shawanese, and his residence for a considerable part of each
year was in the beautiful valley that stretches between long-
sloping hills below the junction of the Venango and the Alle
gheny. Already a historic region, it was destined in a few
years to be the scene of important events which should link
its story yet more closely with that of the Niagara. Here
at the junction of the rivers, Washington is to camp on his
way to demand that the French withdraw from the region.
Here France is soon to stretch her chain of forest-buried forts,
that rope of sand on which she vainly relied for the control of
a continent.
n See Bellin's " Carte de la Louisiana."

ANNALS OF THE WILDERNESS 301
The disposition to migrate further west, shown by several of
the Indian tribes at this period, gave a remarkable turn to the
policies of the rival white nations on the continent. It was an
early wave in the movement of an inevitable flood ; though there
is little in the old records to indicate that either the English
or French saw very far into the future, or gave much heed to
anything save relations of immediate profit and advantage.
The migrations of the Shawanese covered many years, and in
cluded many removes. In 1736 Joncaire found his villages on
the Allegheny restless with the prospect of a new settlement
in the vicinity of Detroit, on lands ranged over by their friends
the Hurons. The next year, the sale by the Senecas and
Cayugas of certain lands on the Susquehanna, near where some
of the Shawanese had continued to live, started a new migra
tion, and fostered bitterness towards the English. From this
time on for many years — for many years indeed after the fall
of New France — we find traces of the Shawanese at many
points in the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys ; and not until the
French were finally forced out did the rivalry cease for the
friendship of these shifty and uncertain savages ; not, obviously,
for the sake of that friendship, but because the rival Powers
deemed it essential for their control of the inland highways and
of the fur trade.
Regarding the proposed settlement at Detroit, the Shawanese
pledged themselves to Joncaire to go to Montreal in the spring
of 1737, " to hear the Marquis de Beauharnois discourse on
their migration." Louis XV, whose phrase has just been
quoted,12 thought that the proposed settlement " is very de
sirable, so as to protect the fidelity of these Indians against the
insinuations of the English. But the delay they interpose to
that movement induces His Majesty to apprehend that the
Marquis de Beauharnois will meet with more difficulties than
he had anticipated, and that the English, with whom His
Majesty is informed they trade, had made sufficient progress
among them to dissuade them therefrom."
And the main instrument on whom both Governor and King
relied was the veteran Joncaire. But the time of his achieve-
12 Dispatches, Versailles, May 10, 1737.

302 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
ments was at an end. On June 29, 1739, he died at Niagara.
A band of Shawanese, conducted by Douville de la Saussaye,
reached Montreal on July 21st following, and carried the news
of the death of the veteran. As the dispatches speak of the
receipt at Montreal of news of his death, and do not state that
his body was carried there, the conclusion is at least plausible
that he was buried somewhere at Niagara.
On September 12, 1740, the Five Nations sent a deputation
to Montreal, where they addressed M. de Beaucourt, the Gov
ernor, with much ceremony and the presentation of many wam
pum belts. " Father," said their spokesman, extending a large
belt, " you see our ceremony ; we come to bewail your dead, our
deceased son, Monsieur de Joncaire; with this belt we cover
his body so that nothing may damage it. . . . The misfortune
which has overtaken us has deprived us of light; by this belt
[giving a small white one] I put the clouds aside to the right
and to the left, and replace the sun in its meridian. Father,"
the orator continued, holding out another string of wampum,
" by this belt I again kindle the fire which had gone out through
our son's death " ; then, by way of condolence, with still another
belt : " We know that pain and sorrow disturb the heart, and
cause bile; by this belt, we give you a medicine which will
cleanse your heart, and cheer you up." Eight days later, the
Governor, who had been detained at Quebec, sent reply to the
warriors : " You had cause to mourn for your son Joncaire,
and to cover his body; you have experienced a great loss, for
he loved you much. I regret him like you." The marquis
promised to send back with them Joncaire's son, already well
known to them. " He will fill, near you, the same place as your
late son. Listen attentively to whatever he will say to you from
me." And thenceforth, in the affections of the Senecas of
Western New York, the son is to reign in his father's stead.
The story of Chabert de Joncaire the elder is ended.
Note.— Much of the data in the foregoing chapters, especially chapters
XIV and XV, is drawn from the unprinted " Correspondance Ginirale," and
accompanying mimoires, special reports and letters preserved in the
Archives at Paris, and in part, by means of copies, in the Archives at
Ottawa.

CHAPTER XVI
SONS OF THE ELDER JONCAIRE
The Varied Services of Philippe Thomas, Daniel and Fran
cois de Joncaire — The Valuable Memoir of Daniel —
The Expedition of 1739 and Discovery of Lake Chautau
qua — A Niagara Incident.
If any ambitious student of French-American history would
have problems to solve, he may find what he seeks by attempt
ing to set forth clearly the records of the sons of Louis Thomas
de Joncaire. The part they played in New York State, in
Canada and the Ohio Valley during the last 20 years of French
dominion, makes it worth while to record all that can be veri
fied about them. The father and two of the sons were the
most influential agents the French ever sent among the Iroquois.
For many years, their influence was the greatest force opposed
to Colonel (later Sir) William Johnson and the English Gov
ernors of New York Province.
The father's achievements are comparatively clear, and have
been set forth with sufficient fullness in preceding pages. But
from the time of his death to the downfall of France in Amer
ica, although the activities of his sons brought them into fre
quent notice, there is nothing but confusion and contradiction
among all writers who speak of them at all.1
iMuch of the confusion that exists in references to Joncaire and his
sons is due to the fact that writers have not noted the death of the elder
Joncaire in 1739; although it is matter of precise record in the French
documents, and of approximate accuracy in English records. It was
known to the New York Indian Commissioners at Albany at least as
early as March 19, 1740 (N. S.), when an Onondaga Indian went to them
"with 7 hands of wampum to acquaint them that the Sachems of their
Castle intend as soon as the Waters are open to go to Canada to condole
the Death of Jean Cceur, and to invite the other Sachems of the 5 Nations
to join them in this Ceremony." (Mcllwain's " Wraxall," 216.) The Eng
lish may naturally have rejoiced at his death, but they also professed to be
angry with the Indians who would show respect to his memory. They
sent Lawrence Claessen to the Mohawk and Onondaga towns to notify the
tribes that the Lieutenant Governor of New York "would take it ex-
303

304 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
If one turns to the documents, he finds the name in many
forms; and the English, especially Sir William Johnson, who
rarely wrote a French name correctly, gave it many strange
spellings, so that the student finds it as Joncaire, Joncoeur,
Jonkeur, Jonquaire, Joan Coeur, Jean Ceur, Jean Ceure, and
in other forms. This variety leads to no particular difficulty.
Confusion sets in when use is made, not of the name, but of
the seigneurial title. The elder Joncaire, who died at Niagara
in 1739, was the Sieur de Chabert, an official interpreter and
lieutenant, and is often spoken of as Chabert, or Joncaire-
Chabert. He had a large family. Four of his sons were in the army,
colonial troops or the Indian service. Two of them were killed
early in life, and may be eliminated from the problem. One
became a priest and resided in France. Two others lived for
treamly ill to have them absent in Canada condoling the Death of a Man
who had ever been an inveterate Enemy to this Colony." (Ib.)
In his Life of Washington, published (vol. I) in 1855, Washington Irving
falls into the error of confusing the Joncaire who met Washington at Ven
ango in 1754 with his deceased father. On Washington's arrival at Ven
ango, says Irving, he " inquired of three French officers whom he saw there,
where the commandant resided. One of them promptly replied that 'he
had command of the Ohio.' It was in fact, the redoubtable Captain Jon
caire, the veteran intriguer of the frontier." The " veteran " Joncaire had
been dead 15 years, and would have been 84 years old had he still lived —
rather aged for strenuous frontier service.
We have no more trustworthy historian of the French in America than
Francis Parkman. His scope is continental, and his thoroughness and
accuracy beyond question. Only one who has in some measure traversed
the same documents that he studied, can realize how unassailable his state
ments usually are. It is therefore in no spirit of pettiness that we note
that in his " Half Century of Conflict " the senior Joncaire and one of his
sons are spoken of as the same person, and no distinction is made between
them in the index.
Franklin B. Hough's translation of Pouchot's "Memoir" goes furtfier
in error. It indexes "Jean Coeur" as one person, and "Joncaire (or
Jonquiere) " as another; an amazing blunder, for Jonquiere was an admiral
of the French Navy, and a Governor of Canada, but in no wise connected
with the family of Joncaire.
These are but sample errors. Less capable writers and editors have in
creased them a thousand fold. One modern instance occurs in Augustus C.
Buell's " Sir William Johnson," in which some of the deeds of Daniel de
Joncaire are ascribed to one "Jean Francois Joncaire," and many state
ments are made utterly at variance with the testimony of contemporary
documents.

SONS OF THE ELDER JONCAIRE 305
many years, and the story of Western New York from 1740
to 1759 cannot be told without frequent mention of them.
The eldest son, Philippe Thomas de Joncaire, in 1739, on
the death of his father, became " Sieur de Joncaire et Chabert."
He was occasionally called Hardi, from the name of his pa
ternal grandmother. In his later years he was oftenest spoken
of as Captain Joncaire, and we will so refer to him, to distin
guish him from his father and brothers.
Daniel de Joncaire, Philippe's junior by at least seven
years,2 was the " Sieur de Chabert et de Clausonne." He is
designated in the documents and reports of his own time, now
as Chabert, now as Joncaire-Chabert, again as Chabert de
Joncaire, and sometimes as Clausonne or Clauzon. In these
pages he will be called Chabert.
The service in which the two brothers were engaged was at
some periods the same, and they went and came throughout the
same region. Many a reference to them as " Joncaire " or
" Chabert " it is impossible to refer with certainty to Philippe
Thomas, or to Daniel.3
A third brother enters slightly into our story. This was
Francois, born at Montreal, June 20, 1723. He was ordained
priest, and signed his name " Francois de Joncaire." He
early removed to France, where he became Vicar of Grasse.
Further note of his activities will be made in due place.
The eldest son, Philippe Thomas, born 1707, was taken by
his father when a little boy of ten, to live with the Indians.
Thomas Wildman, an Indian who had been sent to the Onon
dagas to spy on the French, reported to the Indian Commis
sioners at Albany, January 11, 1717 (N. S.), that "Jean
Coeur the French interpreter had introduced a little son of
his to the Indians in the Senecas' country and desired their pro
's Nine, according to Tanguay.
» In the " Documents relating to the Colonial History of the State of
New York," very ably edited many years ago by Dr. O'Callaghan, many
documents appear, as copied from the originals in London or Paris. The
very full index to these volumes contains more than a page of entries re
lating to the Messrs. Joncaire. The present writer has been unable to
reconcile some of these statements with the facts which he has from other
sources.

306 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
tection and favor for him, that after his death this his son
might be received amongst them in the same friendly manner
as he himself had ever been; upon which he gave them a belt
of wampum and they readily assented." 4 Wildman further re
ported that " Jean Coeur had a little trading house in the
Senecas' country by the side of the lake where he kept goods
and traded with them, also a smith to work for them." This
was in the vicinity of old Kanadasaga, near the present Geneva,
N. Y.
Ten years later we find Philippe Thomas with his father at
Fort Niagara; from which post, in 1727, he was sent to the
Senecas to get news of a council which had been held at Albany.
In Montreal, July 23, 1731, he married Madeleine Renoud du
Buisson ; she died about 1746. In an official list of 1732 5 he
is mentioned as an ensign, aged 24. In April, 1736, the King
granted him promotion to ensign en pied, a rank which carried
pay. In 1744 he was made lieutenant, and in 1751 promoted
to a captaincy, by reason of seniority in service; and because
of the requirement that he reside most of the time among the
Iroquois, he was given the rank and pay of captain, without a
company.6 For the next few years he was sometimes at Nia
gara, but oftener among the tribes of Central and Western
New York, and the Allegheny Valley. On his father's death
in 1739, Philippe was looked to as his natural successor as chief
agent for the French among the Iroquois. In September,
1740, these people sent a great delegation to Montreal to ask
that he be so appointed. The Governor granted their request,
and Philippe truly enough " reigned in his father's stead."
Captain Joncaire — to use the title of his later years — be
came associated with the Abbe Picquet, who in 1749 founded
the famous mission of La Presentation on the site of the pres
ent city of Ogdensburg. It is stated by a careful student,7
that it was Captain Joncaire who built the fort at La Presenta
tion, " aided by Picquet," and that a little later he built another
4 Wraxall's N. Y. Indian Records (Mcllwain, ed.), 117.
B Canadian Archives, Ottawa.
6 Navy Board to La Jonquiere, June 6, 1751.
i The Abb6 Daniel, in his Life of the Chevalier Benoist, p. 49.

SONS OF THE ELDER JONCAIRE 307
on Lake Ontario. This last is uncertain ; but certain it is that
the militant priest and the adroit and experienced Indian agent
and interpreter were long and closely associated; so intimately
indeed that by early English writers Captain Joncaire was
sometimes termed a priest. On the other hand, the Abbe Pic
quet, in 1751, mentions Captain Joncaire's Indian wife.
Naturally, the death of the father brought forward both of
the sons. Daniel in that year served as interpreter at Ni
agara and elsewhere, and in official reports was commended
for his zeal and efficiency. He shared in the Chicasaw cam
paign of 1739, as cadet a Vaiguillette — the lowest grade of
officer. On his return he was made ensign en second. At the
time of his marriage, January 11, 1751, he was a lieutenant,
beyond which rank he did not advance.
Chabert's part in our frontier history is more important
than his brother's, and much more may be definitely told about
him. After the conquest of Canada, and on his part, a series
of vicissitudes and misfortunes which will presently be narrated,
Chabert settled at Detroit. From that day to this his family
has been numerously represented in Detroit and vicinity,
though now the generations are much scattered. From the
parish records of St. Anne's Church, Detroit, and from a manu
script genealogy 8 of the family of Daniel, prepared largely
from those parish records by the Rev. Father Denissen, some
of the facts in the following pages are gathered. It may be
noted here that Daniel, whom we are to speak of as Chabert,
had a large family. One of his sons was Colonel Francis
Chabert ; and it is matter of record in the family that of about
100 descendants of Colonel Francis only two bear the name
Chabert. Descent has been in the female lines. So far as the
present writer has carried his inquiries, he has found no member
of the family using the old name Joncaire. In America at least
it seems to have been wholly superceded by Chabert, and this
in turn is nearly lost, later generations bearing other names
gained in marriage.9
Many writers refer to the sons of the first Joncaire in Amer-
8 Preserved in the Burton Library, Detroit.
» For further genealogical notes, see Appendix.

308 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
ica as having an Indian mother. Captain Pouchot, who per
sonally knew both Captain Joncaire and Chabert, wrote qf the
former :
" This colonial captain was a half Indian Canadian living
among that nation, and possessing much influence. He and his
brother Chabert had more than sixty relatives and children
which they or their father had among them." 10 This matter
has been touched on, in sketching the father's career. It may
suffice here to refer to the genealogy as given by Tanguay,
which not only does not recognize any admixture of Indian
strain, but gives the birth dates of the sons, among other
children of the French woman Madelaine le Guay, who was
Madame de Joncaire. The obvious explanation is, that Cha
bert had two families, one in Montreal, the other, a Seneca
wife and numerous half-breed children, who lived either at the
Niagara portage or in one of the Western New York villages,
probably Kanadasaga. This is clearly indicated by several
allusions, even more definite than Pouchot's. When Sir Wil
liam Johnson came to the Niagara in 1761 he learned that the
Senecas had sent messengers to Detroit, to hold council with the
Hurons, Ottawas and other tribes, more or less hostile to the
English. An Onondaga told him that the message " was
chiefly spoken in Shabear Jean Cceur's name, who, before [be
ing] taken, advised that step to be taken, in case the French
should fall." Sir William noted in his private diary that
" Shabear's son, who went with the war belt to Detroit, was
named Tahaijdoris "; he and another Seneca had undertaken
to stir up the Western Indians against the English. Years
after, the memory of this no doubt influenced Sir William, for
he made strong objections to Chabert's request for a permit
to trade at Niagara and Detroit.
Chabert himself said, truly enough, that his relationship
with the Senecas was that of adoption, according to the ancient
custom of the tribes with whom his father, brother and him
self spent a large part of their lives.11
10 Pouchot. '* Mimoires." II, 33, note.
n The Abbe Auguste Gosselin, in his study of the Abbe Picquet (Proc.
Roy. Soc. Can. 1894) says of Daniel de Joncaire: "He was a Frenchman

SONS OF THE ELDER JONCAIRE 309
The most important and trustworthy source of information
about Chabert is the memoir which he wrote, or his lawyers
wrote for him, when after the loss of Canada, he and others
were prosecuted by the French Government for alleged com
plicity in frauds. The memoir forms part of the voluminous
report of the commission established for what was known as
" the Canada Affair." One volume is largely made up of the
"Memoir of Daniel de Joncaire-Chabert, late commander of
the Little Fort Niagara." Printed by Government in Paris in
1763, it has never been put into English, and has long been —
probably has always been — excessively rare. One of the
most valuable of sources for our regional history in the period
under consideration, it is here freely used to picture life on the
Lakes and the Niagara in the last two decades of French power.
Whoever would sketch, be it ever so faintly, the conditions
of native life in Western New York and the region of the
Lower Lakes, as seen by the soldiers and traders of France,
and as intimately shared in by a few men of the type of the
Joncaires, must give due recognition to the known phases of
existence among the Senecas, at this period.
We habitually speak of them as savages, and as the foe of
the white man. It is true, they were savage, but the Iroquois
federation of which they were a part had passed very far be
yond a state of primitive savagery. At the time of the first
coming of white men among them, they had reached a degree
of enlightenment, of social and economic order, far in advance
of anything known elsewhere on the continent. What ulti
mate form it would have taken, if the evolution could have
gone on, uncorrupted by European influence, is a suggestive
theme for speculation. They were no longer nomads, but lived
in fixed villages. If removal to new sites was more frequent
than among Europeans, it was because made necessary by
conditions and way of life.
We conceive of the Indian as the natural enemy of the white ;
an unjust conception, as applied to the aborigines in Western
New York at this period. As a white man's town contains
married to an Indian woman, who enjoyed great credit among the Indians."
This wholly ignores his French-Canadian wife,

310 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
honest men and thieves, old men who are guided by reason and
young men who yield to passion, so in Seneca communities ex
isted like diversity. Many times, in the documents, do we
find the old men of a nation or a village trying to condone
some rash act of their young men. The war parties were made
up of young men, partly because they were physically vigorous,
partly because their savagery was more in evidence than in
maturer years. In time of peace the Seneca was a hospitable
host. Even a Frenchman, intruding into their villages, unless
suspected of crafty and treacherous purpose, would find a
welcome, food and shelter, and an escort on his way. There
are many instances of warm personal friendships between red
men and white.
When Chabert, for instance, made his long sojourns among
the Senecas, he resided, as they did, in a well-built cabin of
bark. There was no regularity of streets in a Seneca town,
but the houses were scattered, like the trees of the forest that
sheltered them. The community or " long house," in which
many families lodged under one roof, which was the earlier cus
tom of these people, gradually gave way to the separate hut.
The village life however always centered around one principal
point, where was the council house, place of meeting, of cere
monies, and of trade. The ancient custom of surrounding
their villages with stockades was no longer observed.
The Senecas had no wells, and so fixed their abodes con
venient to springs and streams. In the years under notice —
one may fairly say, throughout the Eighteenth century —
they relied for subsistence quite as much on agriculture as on
hunting and fishing. We rate them as poor farmers; yet the
first whites who came among them found great fields of corn,
pumpkins and squashes. They had orchards of apples and
plums. They raised hogs ; and before the middle of the cen
tury they kept cattle, and had acquired some horses. They
were expert at pottery-making and basketry, and showed taste
in decoration.
The great spur of modern communities, traffic for the sake
of individual gain, had no place among the Senecas. They
had no money. Before the advent of the white, wampum was

SONS OF THE ELDER JONCAIRE 311
a medium of exchange, but it was ceremonial. It was more in
the nature of a message, a proclamation, a defiance, a con
dolence, than for the payment of debt. It symbolized a great
deal for which the civilization of the white had no counterpart.
The Indian valued trinkets and liquor as the white man
valued furs. While the exchange of these commodities con
stituted a true trading system, for many decades, it never pre
sented to the Indian the opportunity of profit. He might
satisfy his immediate needs and wants; but the accumulation
of property formed no part of his scheme of life.
When Chabert was sent by the Governor to winter among
the Senecas, what did he find?
He traveled over paths as well established as any modern
highway. Save for a few swamps and treeless bottom-lands
in river valleys, Western New York was a forest through
which ran many footpaths. We have no roads to-day as old
as the trails that Chabert knew. They were immemorial in his
time and presented the same features they had borne for cen
turies: here worn deep through forest loam, winding and turn
ing about great roots and boulders ; there skirting some bog or
pond; or, scarcely perceptible to an untrained eye, following
some rocky ridge; yet as a whole making a direct and advan
tageous route between important points. One great trail,
from Lake Erie to the Hudson, is to-day, for much of the way,
the course of the New York Central Railroad. The Indian
trails served so well the purpose of early settlement that the
first white men's roads followed the old highways of travel —
of the beginning of which no man knoweth. Trees were cut
and tracks were widened. Came the horse, sometimes the train
of an army ; then the surveyors, the pioneer's wagon, the stage
coach, the railway, the motor car; but the world of business
and of pleasure to-day merely rolls in luxury where the trader
and the Indian, with pack or deer on their shoulders, plodded
with moccasined feet. Nature for the most part decreed where
paths should go — until in these latter days engineering some
times defies nature.
The Indians were great travelers. Year after year bands
of them gathered at Montreal, some of them coming from the

312 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
region west of Lake Superior or in the Mississippi Valley. As
early as 1677 Indians from the Niagara went to Albany to
meet the New York Commissioners and " renew the chain of
friendship." To come a thousand miles with furs to Fort Ni
agara was a common thing. This aptitude for great journeys
was perhaps but a survival of the nomadic habits of not very
remote ancestors, and is many times illustrated by the Indian's
habit of bringing his family and camping for weeks in the
neighborhood of the fort, to which he looked for sustenance.
One must keep in mind the conditions that still prevailed,
even in the old settled parts of the country. Wild animals
were a pest, in New York and New England, long after the
Indians ceased to be a terror. In the journal of the New York
General Assembly are numerous Acts offering reward for the
destruction of wolves and panthers — these last especially in
Dutchess and Orange counties. Even in Albany County,
wolves and wildcats annoyed the settlements until long after
the period we are studying. In the region of the Lakes and
the Niagara, the dangerous or obnoxious animals had con
stantly to be guarded against, but with many species the value
of their pelt made their presence not unwelcome. Deer and
other useful game abounded, and the Niagara gorge was fa
mous for its rattlesnakes.
Western New York was full of trails, a network of foot
paths between important points; and many of them were fa
miliar to Chabert, whose life was largely spent in coming and
going through the forests. Canoes sometimes served him; but
the records contain no mention of the use of horses, until the
latter part of our story. For the most part, he traveled on
foot, as did his friends the Senecas.
Emerging from the forest path, pausing at the door of the
council house, he found first of all, a greeting, for he was an
adoptive member of the tribe, as his father had been before
him. Seneca friendship, when the trust is once given, is
staunch. The obligations incurred in the ceremony of adop
tion were sacred and not to be lightly treated. Living as he
did, for long periods, year after year, with the Senecas, Cha
bert, however certain his own French parentage, had a Seneqa

SONS OF THE ELDER JONCAIRE 313
family, as his father had. The records, naturally enough,
are silent on this aspect of his life, but Pouchot knew the ways
of the time. It was the rule, rather than the exception, for the
French traders and coureurs de bois to take Indian wives, even
as Sir William Johnson did at his " castle " on the Mohawk.
When Chabert went to his Senecas, he dwelt in intimacy,
in a bark cabin among the trees near fresh water, by some
clear stream or on the margin of one of Western New York's
fair lakes. His coming, after a term of service elsewhere, or
attendance at Montreal or Quebec, was none the less welcome
because he always brought a store of presents. More and
more the Seneca came to rely on the whites — either French
or British, as best served — for the necessities of life. Grad
ually the deerskin garments of their own make, trimmed with
dyed porcupine quills, gave way to the blankets and broad
cloths, the beads and galloon which came out of the stores
at Niagara and Oswego. Grease and vermilion, beads, silver
bracelets, knives, mirrors, tomahawks, powder and flints, guns,
flour and liquor, came from the same source, and through the
generous and friendly hands of Chabert. Sometimes he
brought a smith with him, who set up his forge in the forest,
repaired the guns and supplied the iron work which the Seneca
could not make for himself.
The routine of life in a Seneca village was by no means mo
notonous. It varied with the seasons, but there was always
much for the women to do. They planted, hoed and gathered
the crops. When the hunter returned with game, the women
prepared it. There were removals, for weeks at a time, to
favorable fishing places; and the Seneca village of the Little
Rapid — or as it sometimes is written, the Little Seneca Rapid
— meaning a Seneca settlement at the outlet of Lake Erie,
where is now the city of Buffalo — was such a temporary lodg
ment of a band whose other home was on the banks of the
Genesee or the shore of Seneca Lake. In early spring, when
the sap began to flow, the making of maple sugar engrossed
the village, perhaps taking the people miles from home. More
exciting yet were the raids on the pigeon roosts, when thou
sands of birds were slaughtered.

314 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
These were some of the avocations of peace. The hunting
season occupied the men. There was much leisure for the
playing of games, gambling, the telling of tales, and for danc
ing. The Iroquois dances were an elaborate evolution, and
some of them, combining song and recitative, fitted every mood ;
now medium of devotion and thanksgiving, again serving as a
stimulus to passion, preliminary to the warpath.
With all these aspects of Seneca village life, and many more,
Chabert was as familiar as with the streets of the little French
town of Montreal, or the steep highways and official quarters
of Quebec. In after years, when a prisoner in the Bastille, he
wrote his memoirs, recalling his youth in the forests of West
ern New York.
My father, [he says] prisoner of war with the Iroquois, had the
good fortune of escaping the flames through the protection of an
Indian woman who adopted him. This privilege, hereditary with
these people, made us pass, my brothers and I, as children of the
nation. This adoption caused us to be chosen by the Baron de
Longueuil, then Commander-General of Canada, to be sent as
hostages among the Five Iroquois nations. ... I lived, then, with
them and with several other neighboring tribes (Ottawas, Chippe
was, Shawanese),12 from 1725 to 1735. Thus I have had the honor
of using well for the service of my King several years which in ordi
nary service slide away in pure loss to the country. This military
and Indian education was little likely to fit me for the shady schemes
of fraudulent finance.
That even at this early period in his career Chabert had
won the approval and confidence of the highest officials in
Canada, is indicated by a letter from the Intendant, Hocquart,
to the Minister, October 25, 1734, in which we read :
Pardon the liberty I take, Monseigneur, in writing to you in favor
of a young cadet of the troops, who is both prudent and full of zeal
for the service — the Sieur Chabert Joncaire, the younger son of
the Sr. Joncaire, lieutenant and Iroquois interpreter. This young
man, who is 21 or 22 years of age, is full of honor and [good] feel
ings, and is always ready to proceed as soon as any duty is in ques
tion. Last winter he made a journey on snowshoes as far as Ni
ls Chabert gives them as: " Outaouacs, Sauteux, Chaonasnons."

SONS OF THE ELDER JONCAIRE 315
agara and returned by the country of the Iroquois, whose language
he understands perfectly. He is now in the expedition under the
command of M. Desnoyelles, and I am sure he will distinguish him
self if there is an opportunity to do so. I could not, Monseigneur,
say too much in his favor. He deserves to be promoted. The
Marquis de Beauharnois, who values him, will bear quite as favor
able testimony about him.
The many words of praise for him, found in official reports,
clearly show that he was a young man of exceptional force of
character and devotion to the service, and largely endorse his
own estimate of his achievements.
The reader may be reminded that the memoir from which we
draw these details of Chabert's service was written to win royal
favor. No opportunity is lost in it to assert his honesty and
uprightness. It must be conceded, that Chabert and his law
yers made a very strong case of it; but for the present we
pass over that phase of the story, seeking merely to show what
were his employments during the years now under study.
My brother [Captain Joncaire] having been assigned to the chiefs
of the Five Nations by the Governor in 1735, I found myself alone
among these peoples. I learned that the English, in order to avenge
some particular wrong, were getting ready to fall upon our villages.
I was 18 years old 13 and I had to be my own adviser. I saw noth
ing better to do than to make alliance 14 with the Indians, to get the
start of the enemy. Discovered and forestalled, the English made
overtures ; they were listened to ; peace was concluded.
Chabert was convinced that the English, could they have
taken him at this time, " would have done me a bad turn " ; but,
he adds, " this was only a feeble prelude of dangers without
number which I have since run, in laboring without relaxation
among so many barbarous nations for the good of the Colony."
He continues :
In 1736 I was ordered to go among the Five Nations, to the Fort
of Niagara, there to await the chiefs from the nations of the Sault
13 This date agrees with Tanguay (III, 283), but not with the Detroit
records, which give Daniel's birth as in 1714.
14 Does this mean marriage?

316 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
S. Louis and from the Lake of the Two Mountains, and to escort
them to the Missisagues, in order to make a good peace between these
allies of France. The negotiation succeeded; I returned to the fort,
from which I repaired twice to the Five Nations, in order to keep
them always peaceably disposed.
The tribes on the Ohio were suspected of being prevailed upon by
the English to stir up the neighboring nations against the French.
The suspicion was well founded. I was sent there in company with
chiefs of the Five Nations. I broke up the conspiracy, and re
mained all summer [1737] in that country, from which I came back
to winter, partly at the Fort, partly among the Five Nations.
In the spring [1738] I was again charged with visiting different
villages, in order to keep informed on what happened, and to as
semble the councils, of which I sent a report to the Governor.
As a general thing, when I was not on some military expedition,
my ordinary employment, winter and summer, without let up, was
to travel over this vast continent; in summer by canoe,15 in winter
on foot, across the ice and snow; to cultivate friendship, check im
prudence, dispel plots, or break off the treaties of these people with
the enemy. Also may I add that there is no warrior in his Majes
ty's service who has known less than I the [comforts of] winter
quarters. I do not say in time of war (that would be all the year
in this country), but even in time of peace; for these perpetual ne
gotiations offer dangers as manifold and more formidable than those
of battle, for they are concealed under the false appearance of
peace 10 and of friendship ; and that it may not be thought that the
allurement of profit led me to engage in enterprises so perilous, it is
well to remark that I was only fed by the King [when] in the French
posts. When I set out, they gave me provisions for ten days, such
as would be given to a soldier in France. The rest of the journey,
and my stay in the villages, was entirely at my own expense.
I had thus made more than forty journeys, up to 1738, without
i° Chabert adds this note: "As these rivers are often dry in several
places, one has to transport overland the provisions and goods to a place
more navigable, with what excess of fatigue in a country where the heat
as well as the cold are much more than here. In winter, one absolutely
must walk with snowshoes, which, by compressing a larger surface of snow
prevents one from sinking; this foot-gear doubles the fatigue."
ia " When the Indians break with any one they have no other way of show
ing it than by the tomahawk and the gun; if one comes among them under
these circumstances, a deputy is no more than an enemy in their eyes." —
Note in original.

SONS OF THE ELDER JONCAIRE 317
receiving any recompense, and indeed, for a still longer time, without
being promoted.
After having wintered, as I have said, as much at Niagara as
with the Five Nations, I was ordered to set out for Fort la Reine.17
It was said that the English thought of making an establishment in
the neighborhood. I perceived the falsity of this report. I there
upon descended the Ohio with the troops commanded by M. de
Longueuil. We entered Louisiana, and I was deputed, along with
the chiefs who accompanied us, to treat with the Illinois, whose
warriors I led to the general meeting-place, which was at Fort
de TAssomption.18
Chabert continues with some account of the campaign. The
war waged by the French in 1739—40 against the Chicasaws in
what is now Western Tennessee is obviously a theme remote
from our subject; but it was the occasion of an expedition
through Lake Ontario, the Niagara, and Lake Chautauqua,
which appears to have escaped the notice of those who have
written of the region. Chabert's own memoir and other cor
roborative documents, establish the fact that white men were
on Lake Chautauqua ten years before the expedition led by
Celoron, which has been regarded as the original exploration
of that region.
From the 16th to the 30th June, 1739, 442 men left Mont
real under command of the Baron de Longueuil, Major of
Montreal, to go to serve under Bienville of Louisiana, in his
campaign against the Chicasaws. That this Canadian force
passed through Lake Ontario, up the Niagara, along the south
shore of Lake Erie, and through Chautauqua Lake into the
Ohio, is proved by existing documents.
Among the officers who accompanied de Longueuil in 1739,
were several whose early military training had been had in the
organization known as the Company of Gentlemen Cadets of the
Colonies — La Compagnie des Cadets-Gentilhommes des
Colonies. It was created under the War Department of
it Fort Lorraine.
is Near the mouth of the Margot or Wolf River, Tennessee, according to
Monette. ("Valley of the Mississippi," I, 290.) Bancroft locates it on the
bluff of Memphis. ("United States," III, 363.) Louisiana, as the name
was used in those days, was virtually the Valley of the Mississippi.

318 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
France in 1730, to provide under-officers suitably trained for
service in India and America. The cadets appear to have
been drawn from families of good social standing, their mili
tary training was thorough and judicious, and the Company
not only gained a high repute for the efficiency of the young
men it supplied for colonial service, but it also, and naturally
enough, developed something of zealous pride and exclusive-
ness — a true esprit de corps. In the earlier years of the
existence of this Company, the number of gentleman-cadets
maintained in the establishment was 50; later it was reduced
to 30. From 1730 to 1781, the Company furnished 72 officers
for infantry and artillery regiments in colonial service. From
them were appointed ensigns for the infantry regiments, cor
porals, sergeants, and anspessades. In 1781, apparently for
reasons of economy, the Company of Gentlemen-Cadets was
consolidated in an " auxiliary battalion," which proved, ac
cording to one seemingly well-informed critic,19 against the
good of the service.
There is a list of 28 cadets appointed by the Court in 1731,
signed at Quebec by Beauharnois, whose pay in the same serv
ice began January 1, 1732. In it appear the names of De
Lignery, Portneuf the elder, Contrecoeur, Chabert and Beles-
tre, all of whom figure in our story. Another list (cadets a, V
eguillette), 1739—42, briefly characterizes the officers, many
of whom were to become history-makers, during the next two
decades, in the region here under study.
Of Duplessis Fabert it is noted : " Of little capacity." De
la Chauvignerie is vouched for as " good officer, zealous for
the service, an Iroquois interpreter." De Lery, " good officer."
Chevalier de Repentigny, " of esprit, still young but promis
ing." De Belestre, " good officer, zealous for the service."
Celoron, " young man, discreet and very promising " — an in
teresting note in view of his prominent part in the region a
few years later.
The following are named as having served against the Chica-
i» Author of an unsigned memoir on the Company of Gentleman Cadets,
in the Paris Archives; a copy at Ottawa.

SONS OF THE ELDER JONCAIRE 319
saws, which implies that they shared in the expedition through
the Niagara and Chautauqua Lake in 1739 :
Hertel de la Fresniere; Hertel de Beaubassin; Langly the
elder — of whom it is noted : " Zealous in the service ; was
sent with the detachment against the Chicasaws, but was obliged
to remain at Niagara because of an accident; impossible to
speak too well of him." Langly de Fontenelle; Rigauville
(" promising youth ") ; Marin (" zealous, capable and of good
conduct," etc.); Joncaire de Clauzonne ("interpreter at Ni
agara, zealous," etc.); Joncaire Leguay20 ("detached to the
Senecas, zealous and exemplary, he was in the Chicasaw cam
paign ") ; and several others, of less importance in our annals.
Still another document 21 shows that among the officers of
the expedition were Lieutenants de Sabrevois, de Vassan, and
Le Gardeur de St. Pierre; Portneuf, who ranked as second en
sign; and de Lignery, ensign and major of the detachment.
It names four cadets : Michel Hertel de Rouville, Chaussegros
de Lery, Joncaire de Closonne, and La Gai [Le Guay] de Jon
caire. A Recollect priest, Father Vernet, was attendant chaplain ;
and the expedition was accompanied, at least to Lake Erie, by
the Jesuit missionary La Bretonniere, " of the Iroquois of the
Sault," and by M. Queret, an ecclesiastic from the mission of
the Lake of the Two Mountains. There was also a surgeon,
whose name is not given.
With 24 soldiers — " one drummer " being especially men
tioned — 45 Canadian habitants to manage the canoes, and 319
savages, de Longueuil and his staff, in the early summer of
1739, arrived at Fort Niagara, made the long portage and
skirted the Lake Erie shore to the westward. Many a traveler
to-day notes with pleasure the gradual rise of those Chautau
qua hills, rich with grain fields, orchards and vineyards; but
to the men who marched with de Longueuil they could have
meant little save toil and danger. Just what their route was,
20 " Le Guay " was the mother's family name. Only in this instance have
I found it used for one of the sons.
21 Paris archives; copy at Ottawa.

320 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
from Lake Erie, cannot be stated; but that it approximated
the route of Celoron in 1749, is probable. De Lery's journal
of 1754 indicates a point on Lake Chautauqua " where our
camp was in 1739 " — proof that the expedition passed that
way.22 On this expedition Chabert had hard experiences. Of one
episode he records : " We had 18 days of marching and pro
visions for six days. Moreover, charged to observe and not
to fight, we could not even fire a musket. When our provisions
were consumed we lived on acorns roasted in hot ashes."
A Uttle later in this year, he says, " I again set out with a
war party. . . . We brought back several prisoners to the
fort." In 1740 his service was largely among the Chicasaws
— full of incident and adventure but not essential for the pres
ent narrative. " I served as interpreter," he says ; " an un
derstanding was reached, and I led the chiefs of the Tehicachas
(Chicasaws) to the Fort de 1'Assomption, there to ratify the
treaty; after which the Governor sent me back to Niagara;
whence I had to go, all winter long, from village to village, with
as much of risk as of fatigue, to hold or regain several nations
which the English had drawn to their side." Chabert con
tinues :
The necessity of treating with these and several other nations
which came to Niagara for all sorts of provisions in the good sea
son, kept me there nearly all summer [1741]. When I had ne
gotiated with them, I resumed my ordinary journeys. Again, orders
carried me among the Five Nations to make ratification of neutrality
[1742] and to engage them to defend Forts Frontenac and Niagara,
built on their lands, and which served as entrepot for the trade which
we were making with them; but they demanded on their side that
Oswego, an English fort, should be spared, in the preservation of
22 The Rev. Jacques Quintin de la Bretonniere, who passed through the
Niagara and adjacent lakes with de Longueuil in 1739, had come to Canada
in 1721 or earlier. He spent most of his Ufe at the Sault St. Louis mission,
not far from Montreal. The Jesuit, Nau, wrote, Oct. 2, 1739: "Father
de la Bretonniere accompanied the 300 Iroquois from our village who take
part in the war." A year later he wrote: "Father de la Bretonniere,
who followed our savages . . . went back to France by way of the Missis
sippi." What a meager record of a great adventure 1 Of the missionary
Queret, who went with him, I find no record.

Portion of Bellin"s Map of 17^5, Showing Lake Chautauqua and
the Portage

SONS OF THE ELDER JONCAIRE 321
which they had the same interest; this could not be refused to them,
since the salvation of the colony depended on the tranquility of these
savages, the most redoubtable warriors in all Canada.
This affair ended, I asked permission to join the King's troops;
but the Governor wrote to me that the most brilhant exploits did not
by any means equal the services which I rendered in a single day, in
keeping the Five Nations pacifically disposed; that moreover he had
no one who would be able to replace me among these peoples. So I
continued, by his orders, to hold them in the way of duty. The good
of the service called me three more times this year to Oswego, not to
take them by surprise (this fort being comprised in the neutrality),
but to keep an eye on the English, and discover if they were making
any preparations against Niagara.
The second expedition of white men to the Ohio by way of
the Niagara and Chautauqua route was in 1743. Reporting
on the events of that year to the Minister, Maurepas, Beau
harnois wrote from Quebec, October 13th, that he had in
structed Joncaire to inform the Senecas of the proposed re
moval of the Shawanese, and adds : " I have, besides, en
joined on Sieur la Saussaye, who went up this summer to
where they are collected together, not to neglect anything in
regard to this migration," etc. No detailed account is found
of La Saussaye's embassy; but when, in 1749, Celoron led
his expedition by the Chautauqua portage to the Ohio, La
Saussaye went with him. " The portage," wrote Celoron in
his journal, speaking specifically of the path below the lake
used because the water in the Outlet was low, " was shown to
me by the Sieur de La Saussaye," who had passed that way six
years before.
It was in 1743 that Chabert " got wind," as he says, of a
serious plot against the French, involving Niagara and other
posts. His account of it is too prolix for our present purpose.
The Sauteux, in British interest, were active among all the
tribes on the Ohio and even on the Illinois. According to Cha
bert, there was formed a far-reaching league against the
French, achieved and cemented by English wampum-belts, " to
induce them " — the tribes — " to lay violent hands on all the
French scattered about in the different posts of this country.

AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
I made haste to give notice to the commandant at Niagara.
From there, setting out with four savages of the Five Na
tions, I was so expeditious that in five days I came up to the
English agents, and ordered them to give the belts back to
me. Fear made them docile. I sent them to the Governor
(M. de Beauharnois) from whom I received as my only re
ward, great praise, with promise to make the most at Court
of so essential a service. I doubt," Chabert caustically adds,
" if he kept his word, for while he governed I received no pro
motion at all, nor other recompense for my labors, except the
order to go through them all over again — a service as costly
as it was barren for me."
His service in the year or so following was of the same char
acter as already indicated, save that he was employed more in
what is now New York State. " I continued to go and come,
sometimes at the fort [Niagara], sometimes in the villages,
sparing neither care nor attentions, efforts, blandishments,
presents, to offset the advantage which their offers and their
liberality tended to gain for the English." He complains that
in the Indian villages there were always " busybodies " who
on occasion were ready to murder, " which put me constantly
in danger of being killed." Not even his relationship to the
Senecas guaranteed him safety among other tribes where Eng
lish influence was strong. And he came to be very much hated,
and hunted, by the English. " Constantly," he writes, " when
the English were at war with us, they did my brother and my
self the honor of putting a price on our heads, testimony —
as glorious as it was little intended — of the respect and fear
which our influence and our talent for controling the savage
mind, inspired in them."
It was at this period — Chabert does not give the date, but
it was prior to 1747 — that the Senecas brought word to Fort
Niagara that the English, from Oswego, were planning an at
tack. As soon as messages could be sent, Quebec was apprised.
Word came back that Chabert should go to Oswego, to spy on
the English. " I interrupted my negotiations with the na
tives," says the memoir, " to make three journeys to Oswego,
to discover the purpose of the English, on whose part an ex-

SONS OF THE ELDER JONCAIRE
pedition against Niagara was always feared. Indeed they
were again making plans to possess themselves of this place."
The plot included an attack on Niagara and a massacre of all
the French by the Sauteux and other western tribes supposed
to have been brought under English influence. Chabert learned
of it all from friendly Senecas while absent from Fort Niagara.
" On this information," he writes, " having taken with me
twenty Iroquois, I hastened to notify the commandant of that
place, that he might keep the soldiers from going out. I next
went with a reinforcement of 15 Frenchmen from the garrison
to overtake the Sauteux deputed for the English. I caught up
with them in the second day's march, took them by surprise,
and carried them all prisoners to the fort. They confessed
the plot, after two days in prison. In order to manage their
people carefully, they were set free, on their promise that they
would turn against the English who had won them over. In
fact, they killed several of them." The most exacting French
man could hardly have demanded a more striking proof of good
faith. The year 1747 brought to Fort Niagara new alarms, and in
new guise. Now the cry was that the British had enlisted the
Hurons and the Illinois with other tribes east and west, in a
new plot to massacre the French. Here is Chabert's account
of it:
The full moon of May was the day set for the general uprising.
Some chiefs of the Five Nations, bought up with money, were the
principal agents in this plot. On the other hand, Fort Niagara was
to be surprised by the Loups des Montagnes, whose chief with a
number of his warriors would ask for an audience with the com
mandant of the fort, massacre him with his officers even in the coun
cil, slaughter the garrison and burn the place.
The stroke was well planned and might have succeeded, but that
an Indian woman, one of those called dames de conseil (since they
have a voice in the councils, and know all the secrets of the tribe)
revealed to me all the mystery of this conspiracy.
I went at once to the commandant at Niagara, and to the com
mandants of the other French posts, equally menaced ; thence, with
out loss of time I quickly followed the savages sent by the English.

324 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
I found them in the woods after a march of fifty leagues. I bitterly
reproached them for their treachery. They handed over to me, with
a good grace, the English wampum belts, and assured me that they
had undertaken the affair with regret because they saw that I would
be included in the general massacre of the French.
I brought them back to Fort Niagara where they were well treated.
M. de la Galissoniere gave me thanks proportioned to the magni
tude of the service which I had rendered to the colony in delivering
it from one of the greatest dangers it had ever run.
The following year [1748], Chabert's services were recog
nized by a promotion at the hands of Government ; he was com
missioned " Commander of the Five Nations." In later and un
happy years, when the impoverished and imprisoned veteran
was suing for clemency and justice, he could not refrain, in
speaking of this promotion, from observing that it was " a
mark of esteem and satisfaction for which I paid dear, al
though I had in fact already bought it." He continues:
We were holding these people [the Iroquois] only through their
self-interest. With empty hands I would have lost all the credit and
merit of my adoption; they were not however filled with the King's
goods; my own supplied them. . . .
One day, as I was holding a great council to hear a message from
the Governor-general, four savages bought up by the English en
tered the hall (or cabin) of the council, and approaching me as if
to hear me better, one of them struck me with his dagger, and
wounded me.
As he bent his head I swung on him, instantly, a heavy blow of my
tomahawk, and laid him at my feet.
His three accomplices rushed up as if to pounce upon me, but the
other warriors drove them out of the place, and compelled them the
next day to beg my pardon. With this I had to be content. If
these conspirators had been in larger number, I should have been
lost. Behold to what a chief without a following finds himself ex
posed! At the mercy of the whims of these American barbarians,
he must be prodigal of his goods and of his life, happy indeed if his
obscure but useful services do not remain swallowed up in these vast
wildernesses. Chabert's statements regarding his varied services are well
borne out by numerous documents, both French and English.

SONS OF THE ELDER JONCAIRE 325
A few citations from them will not only shed some further light
on the service in which the brothers Joncaire were engaged,
but will also show how difficult it is to determine, oftentimes,
which of the two is designated, each of them being called (in
various spellings) the Sieur de Joncaire.
The employment of Philippe de Joncaire among the Iroquois
began, as we have noted, several years before his father's death
in 1739. In 1735 he was " assigned " to the chiefs of the Five
Nations. From 1738 he and his brother had to confront a
greater adversary than their father had known, for in that
year William Johnson came among the Mohawks in English
interest; was soon adopted into their tribe, made domestic al
liances and long sustained as intimate and influential a place
among them as the Joncaires did among the Senecas, besides
having a far more absolute authority in his official capacity.
In an address to the Senecas, July 31, 1742, Beauharnois
said : " I still leave you masters of your son, Joncaire, who
came down with you. I send his brother with you to learn
your language; you will not hold any councils except in the
presence of the one or the other, so that I may be informed of
what passes among you." The speech was followed by the
gift of presents, " which," said the Governor, " I have in
structed my son to distribute for me."
In April, 1744, the French Governor went up to Montreal
to meet delegations from the tribes. On the 20th of that
month he wrote to the Minister : " I have just this moment
received a letter from Sieur de Joncaire, who is at the Seneca
village, whereunto he annexes the message of the English sent
to each of the villages of the Five Iroquois Nations." This
message, which was said to have been sent throughout New
York State the preceding December, with strings of wampum
to command attention, was somewhat startling. " Brethren,"
it said, " I grvc"you notice that Menade [New York] has been
attacked, and that so many men have been killed on both sides,
that nothing but blood is to be seen all around. I know not
as yet what nation is attacking us; therefore, brethren, make
haste and send one man from each village to Choueghen (Os
wego) for the defense of the fort there, and you will go on the

AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
scout as far as Fort Frontenac." This and more seemed to
Beauharnois so important that his letter conveying it to Maure-
pas was written, save for a few words, in cypher.23 " One
thing is certain," the Governor added : " according to what
Sieur de Joncaire has written to me, that one Indian from
each nation, except the Senecas, has remained at Choueguen
since the close of December."
Another letter of the same year reports the desire of the
Senecas to have the " Sieur de Joncaire " return to them, he
having gone down to Montreal. In October a chief from the
Sault St. Louis reports at Montreal that the Five Nations
were under arms and that they were saying, " they saw clearly
their Father was angry with them, since he did not send back
their son Joncaire, as that alone could tranquilize them " ;
and he added that " a Mohawk squaw, his relative, had told him,
should Nitachinon (that is, Sieur de Joncaire) return to the
Senecas, all will be changed, and we shall be satisfied." And
in the summer of 1745, when the Senecas heard that Joncaire
was to be stationed elsewhere they begged of the Governor in
characteristic language, that he might remain with them:
" Father, we have a child who heeds us not ; he never ceases
threatening us that he will -leave our country; with that in
tention he has pulled down his house. Father, we pray that
you reprimand him. When he is among us everything goes
well, and when he talks of going away even the children are
alarmed, all confiding in him for good times. Father, be as
sured that no insult will ever be offered him ; we are all ready
to place ourselves in front of him, and will defend him on all
occasions." To this characteristic expression the Governor responded:
" You, it is, who reared the child of whom you now complain.
He will remain with you as long as the good of the service will
not require me to recall him. I am persuaded of your affec
tion for him, and of the quietness he secures you when in your
country." There is no more doubt of Seneca affection for this man
than there is of English hatred of him. Late in 1744 four
23 N. Y. Col. Docs. IX, 1102.

SONS OF THE ELDER JONCAIRE 327
Onondagas " came to Lake Ontario to warn Sieur de Jon
caire not to pass by Choueghen [Oswego] except at night,
as the English had issued orders to take him dead or
alive." 2i
In 1745, writing to the Minister, the Count de Maurepas,
Beauharnois observed: "At their [the Senecas'] request I
have sent Sieur de Joncaire to their country; he is to preserve
them in their apparent dispositions, and to render me an ac
count of the smallest change that may be effected by the ur
gent solicitation of the English, and by the resolutions to be
adopted at a great Council to be held in the course of this
month at Orange, which the Five Nations are to attend." It
was at this council in Albany, October 8, 1745, that Hendrick,
a Mohawk sachem, looking for favors from the English, told a
rambling tale of the plottings of one " Jean Ceur " who, it is
explained in the English record, is " a French Indian who gen
erally resides amongst the Sinnekes, one of our Six Nations,
and does us much Mischief amongst them." 25 Two years
later, a delegation of Cayugas and Onondagas told Governor
Clinton that " some Cocknewaga [Caghnawaga] Indians were
arrived at Yaugree [Niagara] with a large packet of letters,
part of which were for John Ceur at the Seneca's Country, and
part of which were opened at Yaugree, there being Indians
present who say that when they went to read the letters, they
locked the door on them, which made the Indians suspicious ;
so one of them, an Indian that understood French, stood and
listened at the door, and found that they had or was about con
cluding to destroy the Five Nations, particularly the Cayugas.
That three Nations of the Foreign Indians have agreed to de
stroy the Fort at Yaugree, for they say a sort of Witches
about the said Fort always keep the Path foul and dirty, and
for that reason they have resolved to make it clean." 26
This interesting discovery was attributed to " the Missesa-
gues, Wawehattecooks and Ockneharuse, who have eight big
24 N. Y. Col. Docs. IX, llll.
25 N. Y. Col. Docs. VI, 293.
ae Speech of Indians to Gov. Clinton, July 17, 1747. N. Y. Col. Docs. VI,
391.

328 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
Castles — the biggest of all the Nations, these people are 1500
or 2000."
The Mississagas we know as a tribe of Algonquin stock,
with one or more villages on the west side of Niagara. The
other tribes cannot with certainty be identified. First and
last there was no lack of evil spirits — some of them fiends
incarnate — at Fort Niagara ; but the discovery pf witches
must be ascribed to the fondness of the aborigine for figurative
speaking. " To keep the path clean " was one of the Indian's
commonest and most expressive metaphors. While Governor
Clinton and his council would have been well pleased to see the
western tribes destroy Fort Niagara, they apparently paid lit
tle heed to the message, except as regarded " John Ceur."
He was neither a figure of speech nor a thing of imagination,
but an ever-active and able adversary.
Again, in an official report of the operations of the French in
1745, it is noted that " munitions and presents have been sent
to Sieur Joncaire, to enable him to negotiate with the Iro
quois . . . and to retain them neutral." Later (March 15,
1746) in a similar document, mention is made of " Ensign Jon
caire of the troops, who was sent last fall to the Senecas, to
retain the Iroquois of the Five Nations in a strict neutrality."
In May, the " Sieur Joncaire, who resides among the Senecas,
sends us, in a letter, of the 1st April, confirmation of the
neutrality of the Five Nations; that the hatchet of the Eng
lish, which had been accepted by some young Mohawks, had been
returned to them by the chiefs of that nation, who have de
clared that they would remain quiet during the war." 27 In
September, Joncaire writes that " no dependence is to be placed
on the conduct of the Iroquois," etc., until they return from
the Albany Council.28 In a report of April 21, 1747, the
Governor acknowledges letters from " Sieur de Joncaire, resi
dent among the Senecas," who reports, among other things, that
he has sent a spy to Albany, and " that there is a secret under
standing between the Five Nations and our domiciliated Iro
quois, to allow the whites to fight each other without interfer-
zt N. Y. Col. Docs. X, 41.
28 76., 67.

SONS OF THE ELDER JONCAIRE 329
ing with them on either side " ; which would have been a most
wise decision, could the Five Nations have stood by it.
It is interesting to compare the Enghsh records, at this
point, with the French. At the Albany Conference of July,
1748, a Seneca orator declared : " We shall not suffer Jan
Coeur nor any French to come and reside among us " ; and
again : " Jean Couer has been given up already by the Sine-
kes." 29 A French record of the same period, gives the news
in different guise : " Sieur Joncaire, Resident at the Senecas,
having demanded to be relieved, in consequence of his health,
the General [La Galissoniere] has appointed Sieur [Daniel]
Joncaire Clauzonne, his brother, to succeed him." 30
Citations regarding the employment of the two brothers
might be greatly multiplied; but the foregoing sufficiently in
dicate the general character of their service. One or the other
will reappear, often in connection with matters of great mo
ment, as our narrative proceeds. It is clear that Joncaire
pere, who died in 1739, was succeeded as agent to the Iroquois
by his eldest son, Philippe Thomas, otherwise Captain Joncaire.
Most of the allusions in the above quotations are to him.
Daniel, otherwise Chabert, says he was sent to live among the
Indians in 1725. Accepting 1717 as his birth-date, he was
a little boy of nine when this service began. When his father
died, Daniel was 22 years old, and in 1742, when Beauharnois
sent him to the Senecas, he was 25. From that time on for
some years, when both brothers are in like employment, and
both usually referred to in the documents simply as " Jon
caire," it would be pretense to assume to point out which one is
sometimes meant.
In later years the confusion largely disappears. Philippe
Thomas is a captain of the Marine troops; Daniel is a lieu
tenant of infantry in the regiment of Guienne, and as com
mandant of the fort at the upper end of the Niagara portage,
tells his own story for us with graphic pen.
The commanding officers on the Niagara, during the earlier
years of French control, have been indicated in the course of
2» N. Y. Col. Docs. VI, 451, 444.
so/6., IX, 163.

330 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
our narrative. Whoever may have preceded La Salle in the
region, whether priest or trader, had here no exercise of civil
or military authority. La Salle had both, and properly heads
the list. In his absence, La Motte for a brief time was in
command at the mouth of the river, as was Tonty at the ship
yard above the falls. Two officers commanded the short-lived
Fort Denonville — the Sieur de Troyes, and after him, in 1688,
Captain Desbergeres. France neglected the region until 1708,
when the Government agent, d'Aigremont, met with the elder
Joncaire on the site of Fort Niagara and counseled how to
thwart the plans of the English. Not again for 12 years is
French authority in the region maintained by a representative
on the Niagara. The building of Joncaire's trading house in
1720 made him the local commandant. In his absence his au
thority passed to the Sieur de La Corne. Six years later, with
the building of Fort Niagara, began a succession of military
commandants which continued until the French were driven
from the river, in 1759.
The first commanding officer at the fort was the Chevalier de
Longueuil, Jr.; after him, the elder Joncaire. In 1727 M.
Pommeroy was at the head of the post ; Joncaire again served ;
and in 1729 appeared the Sieur de Rigauville, whose advent
was signaled by a mutiny, as already related. In spite of the
disturbance, the dispatches of the time speak well of him. In
a report to the Minister, more than two years after,31 the
Governor wrote that the Niagara mutiny would have been re
ported the year before, "had it originated from any other
cause than the intoxication of some soldiers belonging to the
garrison, on the day of the commotion, and perhaps the state
of discipline which Sieur de Rigauville, the new commandant,
had somewhat neglected." To counteract this accusation the
Governor continued : " This officer comports himself very well
at his post, where he causes the duty of the service to be per
formed with as much exactness as in a hostile country. We
have none other than very favorable testimony to report to you,
of his conduct." He is again commended, five years later,32
si Beauharnois and Hocquart to Count de Maurepas, Oct. 23, 1731.
32 Letter to the Minister, Sept. 12, 1736.

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SONS OF THE ELDER JONCAIRE 331
for his care in keeping voyageurs from passing along the south
shore of the lake, where they might fall into the toils of the
English. The officer commonly designated as de Rigauville, was Nico
las-Blaise des Bergeres et de Rigauville. Born in 1682, he ap
pears in official lists of 1695 as an ensign. At Quebec, April
4, 1712, he married Marie-Francoise, daughter of Francois
Pachot. In 1727 he was seigneur of Bellechasse and lieuten
ant of a company; in 1736 he was made a captain. He ap
pears to have commanded at Niagara from 1729 until about
1740. His death, which may have occurred at the old fort,
is mentioned in a dispatch of May, of that year.
He was still in command, in 1738, when an incident occurred
that broke the monotony of their isolated existence. Two of
his Indian hunters had set out for Grand Island; on the way
over the portage they had " tasted several times " some brandy,
the result being that they were overcome in their canoe, and in
stead of paddling up to Grand Island they drifted towards the
falls. By great effort they reached what is now known as
Goat Island, but they could not get off. They made a ladder
of basswood bark, let themselves down over the cliff between the
two falls and in the lower river tried to swim ashore, but ex
hausted themselves in fighting the eddies and currents, which
they could not get through. Worn out and wounded on the
rocks, they climbed up their ladder, resigned to death by starva
tion. Nine days they were in this extremity. But other In
dians on the eastern shore had seen their plight and carried the
news to the fort. De Rigauville " caused poles to be made
and pointed with iron ; two Indians determined to walk to this
island by the help of the poles, to save the other poor crea
tures, or perish themselves. They took leave of all their friends
as if they were going to death. Each had two such poles in
his hands, to set against the bottom of the stream, to keep
them steady " — the river at the east side of the upper end of
the island being shallow then as now. " So they went and got
to the island, and having given poles to the two poor Indians
there, they all returned safely to the main." A dozen years
later, when Peter Kalm the Swedish botanist visited Niagara,

332 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
the officers of the fort told him of the adventure, the first we
have record of in a vicinity so prolific since of tragic mishaps.
Kalm was so impressed that he wrote down the story, which
was printed in the Gentleman's Magazine, January, 1751 —
the first description by an eye-witness of Niagara Falls, to
appear in English. An engraving, probably intended to ac
company Kalm's letter, appeared in the February issue. It
shows the ladder, which the Indians made and their rescuers,
crossing with staves.

CHAPTER XVII
IRONDEQUOIT AND OSWEGO
Claims and Contests for Strategic Harbors — Projects op
Governor Clarke and His Successors — Features of the
Fur Trade at Oswego — Fort Niagara threatened.
The French had a practical acquaintance with the shores,
bays, harbors, and islands of Lake Ontario while yet it was a
hearsay region to the English. Though only the principal ex
peditions through its waters can be noted, one must remember
that many traders whose names are not recorded, for many
years skirted these shores, and from their many voyages carried
back to Montreal and Quebec an intimate knowledge of every
bay, bar and headland, which became familiar, though under
a confusing variety of names, to all voyageurs, coureurs de
bois, and even the less adventurous traders and officials of the
towns. We have seen how La Salle and de Casson followed the south
shore in 1669. One of the earliest to know that route well,
was the elder Joncaire, whose letter written from the Bay of
the Cayugas, now Sodus Bay, in 1709, has been given.
(P. 171.) Sodus received less attention from the early trav
elers than either the Oswego or Irondequoit. After Joncaire's
visit of 1709 we find no mention of the place until 1725, when
de Longueuil wrote that he was going there to " meet all the
Iroquois, that being the most convenient rendezvous for all the
tribes." After the establishment of the English post at Os
wego, Beauharnois urged that the French build a trading estab
lishment at present Sodus, and even went so far as to ask a
grant of 38,047 livres for it ; 1 but the Minister disapproved,
and on submitting his views to Louis, was endorsed in the fol
lowing unmistakable language :
The King will not have any establishment at Cayuga. That at
Niagara has called forth that built by the English at Choueguen
i Dispatches of Beauharnois and d'Aigremont, Oct. 1, 1728.
333

AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
(Oswego). If one were made at Cayugas Bay, the English would
make one elsewhere. Besides, there are already too many posts.
In all the green circuit of the Lakes there is no fairer spot
than Irondequoit Bay, on the south shore of Ontario some
five miles east of the mouth of the Genesee. Shoal at the en
trance, with a narrow channel, it is of good depth when once
past the bar, and reaches inland five or six miles between pic
turesque banks, its resorts, camps and cottages populous in
summer with pleasure-seekers and nature-lovers from the near
by city of Rochester. A sheltered and fruitful fishing-ground,
it was a favorite abode of the Indian from days immemorial.
Midway between Frontenac and Niagara, the French early
visited it and longed to occupy it. La Salle stopped there,
in 1669, and again in 1678, going by this route to the Seneca
villages. In July, 1684, we find the priest Jean de Lamber
ville advising La Barre to make a friendly visit there — ad
vice which the Governor would have done well to follow, but
did not. Three years later the war-making Denonville made
Irondequoit his rendezvous, and here came Tonty, from the
west, to meet him and share in the inglorious destruction of
Seneca villages and crops.
Irondequoit was reached by several Indian paths, and was
the lakeside terminus of a much-traveled trail from the vil
lages at the foot of Seneca Lake; but it had not the harbor
facilities nor the strategic position of Niagara, gateway to the
Ohio and the West ; so that, save for an effort made by the elder
Joncaire to establish himself there in 1730, the French for
the most part passed by it. It early attracted the atten
tion of the English. In 1700 Colonel Peter Schuyler, Rob
ert Livingston and Hendrick Hanse, New York's commission
ers to the Onondagas, gave credulous ear to Indian reports
that the French were about to build five forts, one of which
was to be on the Niagara, and another at Irondequoit, " where
the path goes up to the Sinnekes Castle." The next year
Lieutenant Governor Nanfan professed to believe that he had
secured for the colony title from the Indians to lands " 800
miles long and 400 miles broad," a point on the boundary of

IRONDEQUOIT AND OSWEGO 335
this valuable grant being " Jarondigat," the Irondequoit of
to-day.2 Occasionally in the correspondence of Indian com
missioners or governors Irondequoit is referred to as belong
ing to New York Colony because of this alleged Indian deed;
but the groundless claim was presently abandoned, and New
York sought to buy a site on the bay. Returning from Jon
caire's house on the Niagara in June, 1720, Lawrence Claes
sen stopped at Irondequoit, where he found a French smith
with forge set up, mending the guns of the Senecas; he was
the first white resident of the region. The aggressiveness of
the French caused much concern in New York Colony, espe
cially at Albany, where, on September 14th, the mayor, re
corder, and aldermen and justices of the peace made a for
mal " representation " on the unfavorable trend of events in
what is now Western New York. In the view of Albany of
ficialdom, the western frontiers were " in a deplorable con
dition " ; the Five Nations were also "in a. stagering condi
tion," since " they dare not oppose the French in any of their
designs, as is manifest by their suffering the French to settle
above the Carrying place of Jagara at Ochsweegee, and also
to suffer them to make another settlement below the great
falls of Jagara this summer." " Jagara at Ochsweegee "
means " Niagara at Lake Erie," and would indicate an at
tempt by the French to gain a permanent footing above the
falls; but of this, at this time, there is no authentic record.
The long document quoted from recites the dangers to the
colony, should a war break out, " which Gord forbid " ; claims
that " the poor inhabitants of this City and County would
have to flee," and " he that got away first was the happiest
man " ; and finally suggests the ousting of the French, " and
the sooner the better by such ways and means as you shall
think proper but that a fort be built in covenant place at
Tierondequat about ten leagues from the Sinnekes Castle and
one at Ochiagara [Niagara] and a sufficient number of brisk
2 Some of the score or more of early spellings of the designation of this
bay are formidable, as witness Onyuidaondagwat, Kaniatarontagouat, and
Garmiagatarontagouat. The priest Jean de Lamberville used the latter
form, and also Paniaforontogouat; all meaning "the lake turns aside."

336 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
young men posted there with proper officers and an intelligent
sencible man reside there to defeat the intreagues of the
French," etc.3 So strong a representation was not without
effect. The next year New York voted £500, the use of which
is best set forth in Governor Burnet's own language:
I have employed the five hundred pounds granted this year by
the Assembly chiefly to the erecting and encouraging a Settlement
at Tirandaquat, a creek on the Lake Ontario about sixty miles on this
side Niagara whither there are now actually gone a company of ten
persons with the approbation of our Indians and with the assurance
of a sufficient number of themselves to live with them and be a guard
to them against any surprize & because the late President of the
Council Peter Schuylers son first offered his service to go at the
head of this expedition I readily accepted him and have made him
several presents to equip him and given him a handsome allowance
for his own salary and a commission of captain over the rest that are
or may be there with him & Agent to treat with the Indians from
me for purchasing Land and other things which I the rather did that
I might show that I had no personal dislike to the family.*
Into this western wilderness then came these Argonauts in
English interest. There is nothing to show that they reached
the Niagara, or tried to; but to Irondequoit Bay, probably
on the east side near the head, the reputed site of the ancient
Seneca village, these young Albany Dutchmen came in the
fall of 1721. Peter Schuyler, Jr., was captain of the band;
his lieutenant was Jacob Verplanck; and others were Gilleyn
Verplanck, Johannis Visger, Jr., Harmanus Schuyler, Johannis
Van der Bergh, Peter Groenendyck and David van der Hey-
den.5 There are said to have been ten in the company, but no
other names appear in the records.
It was a fine adventure; and were the journal which Cap
tain Schuyler was instructed to keep in known existence, it
should afford material for an important and not unpicturesque
chapter in the long strife between Great Britain and France
» " Representation of the authorities of the city of Albany," Sept. 14,
1720. * Burnet to the Lords of Trade, New York, Oct. 16, 1721.
s N. Y. Col. MSS. LXIV.

IRONDEQUOIT AND OSWEGO 337
for control of the fur trade. In lack of it, we have no better
source of information concerning the venture than Governor
Burnet's letter of instructions ; wherein it is set forth that these
young men are to settle in the Senecas' country " to drive a
trade with the far Indians that come from the upper Lakes."
They were also allowed to trade with " Sundry French men
called by the Dutch Bush Loopers and by the French Coureurs
Dubois who have for several years abandoned the French Col
ony of Canada and live wholly among the Indians " ; more
important yet, they were to purchase land at Irondequoit (al
though the English already claimed title to it), and also " such
lands above the falls of Iagara 50 miles to the southward of
said falls" as the Senecas might be willing to sell. Governor
Burnet wrote that " it is thought of great use to the British
Interest to have a Settlement upon the nearest part of the Lake
Eree near the falls of Iagara," 6 in other words, the present
site of Buffalo. It was the first English attempt to gain a
foothold in the region, and the second attempt to wrest from
the French some part of the trade of the lakes. The earlier
one, the disastrous expeditions of Rooseboom and MacGreg
orie in 1685—86, has been related. Nor was any better result
to reward the present effort, for although Burnet was a man
of insight and resolution, the monopoly enjoyed by the French
at Niagara and Frontenac was not seriously disturbed. There
was at this time no sale of lands on Lake Erie, nor at Ironde
quoit; after a year in the wilderness, the Albany Dutchmen
returned home; Governor Burnet abandoned Irondequoit and
a few years later fixed upon the mouth of the Oswego as a base
for operations.
Irondequoit however continued a place of some importance
in the affairs of the time; it was on the old highways and
many a French trader turned his canoe between the headlands
that guard the entrance to the bay, to find profitable traffic
with the Indians, Iroquois or Western, who passed that way.
The English never ceased to covet it. In 1724 the Commis
sioners for Indian Affairs urged that " forts be built and
• Burnet's Instructions to Capt. Peter Schuyler, Jr.; N. Y, Council Min
utes, 1721, XII, 168-173,

338 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
men posted at Och jagara or Therondequat or between these
places." Nothing came of it; but seven years later we find
Governor Clarke upbraiding the Senecas for giving the French
leave to build at Irondequoit. In 1737, Lieutenant Governor
Clarke sought to have the Senecas revoke the consent he heard
they had given, that " John Coeur, a Frenchman from Can
ada," might build a house at Irondequoit. To the New York
Assembly he argued that if the French occupied this point,
they would intercept all the western fur on its way to Oswego.
The chiefs protested that the French should not build there.
The next year Clarke tried, but without success, to gain the
coveted consent for the English. An Indian deed dated Janu
ary 10, 1740, signed by several sachems and decorated with
their crude clan symbols, acknowledges receipt of £500 and
grants to the English a tract 20 by 30 miles, including Iron
dequoit Bay and the site of Rochester. For years after, the
English alluded to this tract as a purchase, and from time
to time made suggestions regarding it. In 1742 Governor
Clarke wrote : " The present I fear is not the time to settle
Tierondequat, the people's apprehensions of a French war de
terring them from the thoughts of it." 7 In a subsequent let
ter8 he pleaded earnestly for the occupation and defense of
the region, though his plans were not confined to the Ironde
quoit grant, for Oswego was now well established. " I en
deavored," he wrote, " all I could, to get people to settle at
Tierondequat, but in vain. The apprehension of a rupture
with France deters them, and makes it absolutely necessary to
secure that important place before the rupture happens." He
proposed that a detachment of 80 men from the four inde
pendent companies of New York Colony, with a captain and
two lieutenants, be posted at Irondequoit, and that " a Proper
Fort be built there, and some small Field Pieces with Ammu
nition, etc., sent thither both for their own defence and for
that of the harbour." If he failed to kindle at Whitehall some
glow of interest in these distant shores and waters, it was
through no lack of enthusiasm on his part.
t Clarke to the Lords of Trade, Nov. 29, 1742.
s Same to same, June 19, 1743,

IRONDEQUOIT AND OSWEGO 339
No historical narrative of Lake Ontario and Western New
York at this period can ignore George Clarke. Could he have
had his way, the French would have been driven summarily
from the Lakes. In a long letter to the Duke of Newcastle,
Clarke outlined the whole situation of lake control and traf
fic; told how the French had lately had three and now (1743)
had two sailing vessels on Lake Ontario ; how from their stone
forts Frontenac and Niagara, they dispatched traders to all
the tribes and down the Mississippi ; to all of which the only op
position made by the English was the little garrison of 20
men at Oswego, sure to fall into the hands of the French as
soon as war broke out. He wished vigorously to contest the
control of the Lakes, and proposed that a regiment of 800
men be sent from England, or if only 400, as many more
might be raised in the colony; these men, with engineers, ar
tillery, ammunition and supplies, he proposed to place at
various points on the Ontario shore " in the Sinecas' coun
try, at a proper Harbour for building Vessells, there being
more than one of sufficient depth of water. . . . That there
be built two or three Vessells of superior Force to those of
the French, on board whereof a few sailors, and a sufficient
number of soldiers being put with the proper officers, we may
take, sink or otherwise destroy the French Vessels, and then
easily take their Forts on the Lake . . . and the Trade and
Influence of our Enemy will be confined to the Cold Country
of Canada, which will scarce be worth keeping." 9 But the
south shore of Ontario was warm and fertile, and in the vision
of this man, no sooner were the English in control of the
lake, than farmers would flock to the lakeside garrisons, " be
ing sure both of protection and of a market for what they
raise." He even proposed that cattle be driven thither from
Albany, " with as much ease as they now are to the garrison
at Oswego."
Visionary, Clarke may be called; yet his vision was clear
and far-sighted, and could his projects have received even a
measure of support from the home government the develop
ment of Western New York under the English would have be-
» Lt. Gov. Clarke to the Duke of Newcastle, June 19, 1743.

340 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
gun half a century sooner than it did, and the control of lake
trade and the Fall of Canada have been materially hastened.
But to the Lords of Trade and Ministers in London, Lake On
tario, its shores and harbors, even the value of its trade con
trol, were remote, vague propositions, on which money was not
to be rashly wasted. Clarke's pleadings were pigeonholed and
forgotten, and the French continued their domination for a
decade and a half yet to come.
Of an old Somersetshire family, Clarke was a young barrister
at Swainswick, near Bath, when in 1703 he was appointed sec
retary of the Province of New York. He was called to the
Council in 1715 and became Lieutenant Governor in 1736.
The suicide of the Governor, Sir Danvers Osborn, in that year,
made Clarke the acting Governor. He administered the Gov
ernment until 1743, when he was succeeded by George Clinton.
Two years later he returned to England, taking with him, it
is said, a fortune of £100,000 — a striking proof of the money-
making opportunities in America, even at that early day, for
public servants who chose to use them. Clarke died at an
advanced age in 1759, the very year in which Great Britain
practically carried out some of the measures against the French
which he had urged twenty years before. He was a member
of the New York Council four years before the elder Jon
caire built his trading station at Lewiston, and ten years be
fore the foundations of Fort Niagara were laid. For 30 years,
as an official and administrator of the affairs of New York
Province, he was a clear-sighted observer of all the French
undertook on the Lakes.
In 1737, having heard that the French were to build a fort
on Irondequoit Bay, Lieutenant Governor Clarke summoned the
Six Nations to a conference. It was held at Albany, June 24th
and days following.
"What is this I hear?" said Clarke to his "brethren";
" I am told you have given leave to the French to build a
house at Tiorondequat ; it is a thing so far beyond belief that
I could give no credit to it on the first report, but it is now
so confidently affirmed that I can no longer doubt of it." He
spoke at length, and although there were the usual phrases

IRONDEQUOIT AND OSWEGO 341
about brightening the chain of friendship, renewing the cove
nant, and the like, his words were irritating to the red men.
" Brother Corlear," replied the spokesman of the Six Na
tions, " You spoke very fierce and roughly to us, and we hope
you will give us the same liberty. We shall likewise tell you
your faults." The Englishman was no match for the Indian
in effective oratory, in courtesy, logic or accusation. " You
tell us you commit your affairs to writing, which we do not,
and so, when you look to your books you know what passed
in former times, but we keep our treaties in our heads. . . .
At the time when the French built a house at Iagara [Ni
agara] the Governor asked us in a public meeting why we
suffered it and did not demolish it. We answered that we
were not able to do it ; but desired of the Governor to write to
the King about it, which he promised to do ; but we have never
heard more about it."
From this telling thrust, to which Clarke could make no
reply, the Indian orator passed to an assurance that the French
should not be allowed to establish themselves at Irondequoit
" on our lands."
In 1738, when the English wished to build a post on Lake
Ontario, they were met by the same argument, and had to be
content. The Indian had discovered that neither French nor
English meant what they said, nor did what they promised, in
regard to protecting him in his territorial rights.
Acting Governor Clarke's letters to the Lords of Trade,
to the Duke of Newcastle, and others, especially towards the
close of his administration, discuss, often at length, the meas
ures which he thought should be taken against the French
on the Lakes. To the Duke of Newcastle, April 22, 1741, he
pointed out that the French were now somewhat crippled on
Lake Ontario, one of their brigantines being " lately stranded
and broke to pieces." They still had two others of about 50
tons each, which were kept busy transporting supplies and
men to and from Frontenac and Niagara ; each of these forts,
he had learned, " garrisoned by a company of regular forces,
consisting of about 30 or 35 men, which may presently be re
inforced by the Indians. Both these forts," he added, " are

AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
built on the lands belonging to our Six Nations or Iroquois."
In the case of Frontenac, at least, this was a fatuous claim.
Clarke proposed that the British at once build two vessels on
Lake Ontario, " of superior bigness and force to those of the
French " at some point (which he could not specify) where
there was a good harbor; and when this considerable achieve
ment had been accomplished
being well manned and provided with gunns and ammunition we
may easily take or destroy those of the French; and being masters
on water, we may transport the troops that may be necessary to take
their two Forts and hinder the Enemy from building any more on
those shores; and no sooner will our conquests be known as it will
immediately by the Indians now in the interest or under the influence
of the power of the French, but they will shake off the yoke and
submit themselves to His Majty's protection, whereby we shall of
course be posest of all the Indian trade from Canada to Messasippi,
which is now in the hands of the French, and cut off the communica
tion between those two places, so long as those vessells are employed
on the Lake, which they ought constantly to be, at least till we have
taken Canada.
And more to the same effect. Governor Clarke wrote in
a similar strain, and repeatedly, to the Lords of Trade, urg
ing that control of the Lakes was essential in order to hold
the Six Nations in allegiance. " I humbly think," he says,
" that if there be a rupture with France it will be absolutely
necessary to take from them their two forts on Cadaraqui
Lake, viz., Frontenac at the northeast end and Niagara at
the southwest end, and to destroy the two brigantines that
they have now on that lake which are employed in carrying their
merchandize from one end to the other, and men, ammunition,
and provisions to those forts."
Irondequoit Bay continued to be a coveted point. In 1744
Governor Clinton, who knew the region better than Clarke ever
did, proposed a fort on Irondequoit, with a strong garrison;
and in 1749 William Johnson, who knew it far better than
even Clinton, wrote to the latter : " There is a place called
Tierondequat in the Senecas' country which I believe was pur
chased in Mr. Clarke's time, that would be a very proper

IRONDEQUOIT AND OSWEGO 343
place to fortify and settle. The French I have been told are
certainly trying to buy it." As late as 1754 we find Lieut.-
Governor De Lancey repeating these same propositions. To
the Lords of Trade he suggested a fort at Irondequoit, where,
he professed to think, " the Indians would settle under its
protection, become firm friends and join us when occasion of
fers to dislodge the French from Niagara." When the com
missioners from the several colonies met at Albany in 1754
to consider a plan of union, it was voted expedient to build
a fort at Irondequoit; but the New York Council, July 11th,
raised objections, arguing that other forts were needed quite
as much as this, and that the general union to be entered upon
would make them unnecessary. These were not sound reasons,
but unpatriotic subterfuges, mere excuses for not spending
money. In October the Lords of Trade, goaded by the neces
sity of taking some decisive action, repeated parrot-like to
the King the recommendation long since made to them, that a
fort be built at Irondequoit, " that the harbor there should
be fortified and that armed vessels, superior in strength and
number to those the French may have upon the Lake, be forth
with built."
Governor Hardy of New York was not unmindful of the
situation on Lake Ontario, though his concern was merely with
the fur trade. It was less to contest the control of those
waters, than to help trade conditions at Oswego that he pro
posed, early in 1756, he placing of a garrison on Irondequoit
Bay. He heard that the soil there was good, and thought a
" valuable settlement " might be made, under protection of a
fort, " if the lands were granted out in small parcels, with
out fees, to persons that would reside on them, at first without
rent for a term of years, and afterwards at a small quit rent
to the Crown." 10 He asked the approval of the Lords of
Trade on this exceedingly chimerical colonization project in
the wilds of Western New York, urging that " by means of
this fort and settlement we should soon be able to supply the
garrison of Oswego at a cheap rate, and by the trade which
would in consequence be carried on, with the Sennekas, so
io Hardy to the Lords of Trade, " Ft. George, N. York, 16 Jan., 1756."

344 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
near their own habitations, we might soon gain an ascendant
over them, as numbers of them would draw near this fort for
security by which means we might be able to fix the affections
of these Indians, who are the most numerous of the Six Nations,
to the British interest." 1X
There are still other recommendations in regard to the place,
but no money was appropriated, nor were troops or builders,
either of forts or vessels, sent to much-talked-of Irondequoit,
which remained unfortified and unsettled, a rendezvous for trad
ers and travelers over the old trails, until the end of the French
regime, and Sir William Johnson's victory at Niagara gave
the English for the first time a substantial hold on the region.
The operations of the French on the Lakes Ontario and
Erie, in the earlier years of their activities, were of much the
same character. Except for an occasional clash with savages
there was little to be chronicled save the passing of expedi
tions. But during the last few years of French control, a
very different train of events developed on the waters of On
tario, from any that Erie was to know. On the latter lake,
with the exception of the portage landings of Chautauqua and
Presqu' Isle, there were no French settlements to be defended,
no fortified points to serve as base of operations; not even
Detroit, which was 30 miles from the lake, became the occasion
of any conflict or strategic movement on Lake Erie.
Sandusky Bay was a point of some importance for various
early expeditions, but there was no French establishment there
that demands our attention. In fact, the English, and not the
French, first fortified it. As early as 1745 English traders
from Virginia and Pennsylvania built a stockaded trading-
post on the bay opposite the mouth of Sandusky River. This
was the chief provocative of Celoron's expedition of 1749. It
was the first English establishment on Lake Erie, and was
made possible only by the enmity towards the French which was
felt by the Indians who had their villages on or near Sandusky
Bay. In 1751, when Celoron was commandant at Detroit, he
built a trading-post on Sandusky Bay; and three years later
the French built Fort Junundat on the east side of that bay.
"76.

IRONDEQUOIT AND OSWEGO 345
For the most part, the operations of the French in that vi
cinity pertain to the story of Detroit, or at least are so little
associated with the movements which make up the history of
the Niagara as to call for no further consideration in this
connection. The conditions on Lake Ontario were different. Here the
French were well established at Frontenac on the northeast,
Niagara to the southwest, and on a small scale at Toronto;
while at Oswego were the English. Each of the rivals, in the
later years, had some armed shipping, and by the time the war
of 1756 was actually declared, was in condition to make an
effort for the control of these waters.
The building of the first English post at the mouth of the
Oswego River — occupied for trade as early as 1724, but first
fortified in 1726, has been noted in a preceding chap
ter. Much to the irritation of the French the post was main
tained, with a fluctuating but at times considerable trade drawn
away from the French. In 1741 the Colonial Assembly granted
£600 for building a stone wall around the trading house; but
the next year Governor Clarke denounced the work as " a jobb
calculated rather to put money in the Pockets of those who
have the management of the business, than any real service to
the publick," which has a singularly modern sound. Nominal
peace between the Powers continued until 1744. During these
first seventeen years of its existence its garrison rarely if ever
exceeded 20 men, with a lieutenant sergeant and corporal ; too
feeble a force to have withstood any considerable body of the
enemy, who were constantly passing between Frontenac and
Niagara. An incident in the latter part of this period was the
visit of John Bartram, the Philadelphia botanist, whose jour
ney thither in July, 1743, and graphic description of conditions
as he found them, need only be alluded to.12
A considerable settlement of traders and Indians grew up
around the fort; but on the breaking out of King George's
War in March, 1744, most of the whites retired to less exposed
places. Lieutenant John Lindesay, founder of the settlement
of Cherry Valley, was appointed commander at Oswego, and a
12 See Bartram's " Observations," London, 1751.

346 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
reluctant Assembly authorized Governor Clinton in some small
expenses for defense, the principal item being six cannon. A
French attack was expected ; now and again there were alarms.
With their two sailing vessels and forts at either end of the
lake, the wonder is the French did not seize Oswego. Beau
harnois contemplated it, but decided the difficulties were too
great. In an elaborate letter to the Minister,13 he argued that,
should he attack Oswego, " the inevitable loss of the post of
Niagara " would follow ; " and you know, My Lord," he added,
" it is far from being in a condition to resist the force the
English can dispatch against it." Niagara at this date had
a garrison of 64 soldiers and six officers, commanded by
Celoron. In the summer of 1744 de Lery and La Moran-
diere had repaired and doubled the stockades, so that it was
now in better state for defense than ever before ; yet its arma
ment was pitiably weak, consisting of five peteraros and four
two-pounders — enough to deter Indians but of little avail
against any English force determined enough to reach the
place. Beauharnois having reasoned that there were too many diffi
culties in the way, did not attack Oswego, but contented him
self with gaining a pledge from the Six Nations that they
would remain neutral. He thought it well, however, to order
Joncaire, who was in Quebec at this time (October) to follow
the north shore of Lake Ontario, in returning to Niagara.
The Senecas were asking for their Nitachinon, by which name
they designated Joncaire; who was warned by a delegation of
four Onondagas not to pass by Oswego except at night, " as
the English had issued orders to take him dead or alive."
Joncaire's younger brother, Chabert, was at this time among
the Senecas. Returning to Niagara he reported to Celoron,
the commandant, that two English messengers had come to the
Seneca villages, with wampum belts, asking that a chief of
each of the Six Nations be sent to Oswego to guard the fort.
The English held that they were entitled to this, since the Sen
ecas went so freely to Niagara. The Senecas replied, they had
a chief on the Niagara " to settle any difficulties that liquor
is Beauharnois to the Count de Maurepas, Oct. 8, 1744.

IRONDEQUOIT AND OSWEGO 347
might occasion among the Indians in the work they had to do
at the carrying-place,," but they did not wish to participate
in the war between the whites. It was a wise and well-kept
neutrality. As for the English at Oswego, they were as fearful of a
French attack as were the French at Niagara, of an English
one; so that the war came to an end, and the Treaty of Aix-
la-Chapelle was signed, October 18, 1748, with no clash at
arms having occurred between the rivals on Lake Ontario. The
only effect of that war in the region was a mutual strengthen
ing of all fortifications, and a disturbance of trade.
Note has been made in preceding pages, of the founding
and early years of Oswego. The only English establishment
in the region we here study, it was of marked effect on the
policy and conduct of the French for more than a quarter cen
tury; not merely in a military way, but, even more vitally, in
its rivalry for trade and for Indian allegiance. Many of the
early provisions for its maintenance and regulation, are curious,
and not without a bearing on our general theme.
An Act of the General Assembly, November 25, 1727, ap
propriated £1682, 7 s. 2A/2 d., to pay for and maintain " a con
venient place called Oswego, a very good stone house of 2
storys high." This act was amended the following year, but
continued in force. In 1729 it was enacted that " fines, pen
alties and forfeitures should be recovered from persons who
have incurred the same by trading with the French during the
time it was unlawfull so to doe, because most of them acquired
great wealth by that means, whilst fair Traders did foregoe
such advantages." These fines were to be applied to the
Oswego debt.
A preamble to an Act of October 29, 1730, sets forth that
the Government held it just and equitable that the traders
should maintain Oswego, " because they reap the entire benni-
fit of the said house " ; yet the General Assembly voted a tax
of three shillings to be paid "by every Inhabitant Resident
or Sojourner of and in this Colony young and old (except
as is hereafter Excepted) as shall wear a whigg or Peruke
made of Human or horse hair or mixt " — the exemptions to

348 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
this tax — truly enough a poll-tax — being poor people re
ceiving alms, and the King's soldiers and sailors. The revenue
under this wig-tax law was to be applied, to the amount of
£550, to victualling the troops at Oswego for one year from
August 1, 1730.
It was ever a question with New York Colony, what to
tax for the up-keep of this post. " An Act to support the
troops at Oswego and to regulate the Indian trade there,"
passed September 30, 1731, laid a tax of a shilling a gallon
on rum and ten shillings on every piece of strouds. This
Act, a very long one, provided for the collection of the tax
by commissioners, fixed their salaries, and aimed to meet every
possible contingency. In 1729 Harmanus Wendel of Albany
had entered into a three-years' contract to supply provisions
for the troops at Oswego, but soon died; the new Act allowed
his successors £406 yearly for the work, gave the doctor resi
dent there £40, and appropriated £60 for shingling and re
pairing the trading-house. It also specified that huts for the
traders should be at least 300 yards from the main trading-
house ; and further : " If any of the Traders shall upon the
appearing of one or more Cannoes with Indians on the Lake
goe with his or their Cannoe or other Vessell and shall either
Trade with such Indians or take their Bevers or other skins
into possession or hinder such Indians from carrying such
Bevers or skins into their Owne Huts," they " shall forfeit the
sume of £50."
Trade had become profitable and competition was keen.
When a flotilla of canoes, gunwale-deep with furs, was seen ap
proaching, enterprising merchants would hasten out in their
own boats, greet the Indians on the lake and consummate a
bargain before the savage vendors could set foot on shore.
They would even seize the Indians' choicest peltries, and in
the name of trade rob the red man at the threshold of the
post. A hard, unscrupulous lot, these traders were. In 1733,
complaint was made to the Governor, by 48 Indian traders,
of the lawless state into which barter had fallen at Oswego.
The Governor appointed David A. Schuyler, who knew trade
conditions and Indian tongues, as commissary at Oswego.

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IRONDEQUOIT AND OSWEGO 349
The bolder spirits held him in contempt. Finally the Colony
took cognizance of their high-handed methods, and passed an
Act (December 16, 1737) forbidding the traders thus to go
out to meet the Indians on the lake, " or take their Beavors or
other Skins into Possession or hinder such Indians from carry
ing such Beavors or Skins into their own Hutts." Disregard
of this law, meant a fine of £20, if not a revocation of license ;
and the commandant was ordered to assign the visiting In
dians a suitable place for their huts, and see " that they be
at full Liberty to trade for, what & with whom they please."
The trading season was from April to August. The com
missary for regulating the trade was required to reside at
Oswego at least four months. Elaborate regulations were made
for the trade and the sale of rum, with penalties for all in
fractions. A quaint view of Oswego, which forms the fron
tispiece of the first edition of William Smith's " History of
New York" (London, 1757), shows a row of houses bordering
the river, and to the west of them another row of huts, pre
sumably used by traders and Indians. The soldiers at Os
wego garrison, after the traders departed each season, had
a playful fashion of burning or wrecking these huts. This
" rudeness," as the old law styles it, was made the subject of
legislation in 1732; for every such offense a fine of £6 was
imposed, with further punishment in the discretion of the
courts. Another thing that gave worry to the General Assembly
was the " pernitious Practice " that many traders had of put
ting water in the rum they supplied to the thirsty red man.
To meet the difficulty, the commissary or commanding officer
at Oswego was required, under an Act of 1735, " to Exam
ine, Taste & Prove once every week or oftener all the Rum
that is or shall be brought to Oswego." Provision was made
for confiscating any liquor not " Really good and Merchant
able," while the too thrifty trader was mulcted £30 for each
offense. If he found adulterated rum, the commissary was
required, " Immediately, and in the presence of the Traders &
Indians, which shall then be present, to Pour out on the Ground,
or into the River or Lake, all and every Drop of such For-

350 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
feited Rum, whether the same be in Cags or any other Ves-
sell." Than such a scene as this, there could have been few
more tragic moments in the history of the post.
More insidious were the attempts of numerous persons in
the French interest to share clandestinely in the profits of the
trade at Oswego. An Act of November 8, 1735, made it a
matter of severe punishment for a trader to employ any for
eigner in any way, even as interpreter; but negroes were ex
cepted. It was also forbidden to employ Indians as inter
preters, because persons thus engaging them " Engross a great
part of the Trade which ought to be of equal benefit to all
the Traders in General." These provisions were continued
without material change, reenacted every two years in the
Oswego supply bill, down to 1754. The Act of that year was
in force when, in 1756, the place fell into the hands of the
French. In 1744, as soon as the English traders at Oswego learned
that a state of war existed, they became singularly panic-
stricken. Most of them left the place at the first alarm, sell
ing such goods as they could to whoever stayed behind, and
hurrying with the remainder back to Albany and New York.
Their timidity excited the contempt of Governor Clinton.
" You will judge," he observed, in a communication to the
General Assembly,14 " what a baulk and discouragement, this
instance of pusilanimity has occasioned to those number of
Indians, of the far Nations, who have rarely come to trade
with us ; but perhaps, finding the French had no goods to sup
ply them at Niagara, resolved to proceed to Oswego, where
some of them found the place was basely deserted by most of the
people, and no goods to exchange for their furs; upon infor
mation whereof, many other Indian canoes were turned back
before they reached that place. How mean an opinion must
the savages entertain of us, when they find our people so easily
frightened, as it were with a shadow."
Much debate resulted in an order, September 5th, that 50
men be sent from Albany to Oswego, to reinforce the garrison
and stay during the winter.
i* Aug. 20, 1744.

IRONDEQUOIT AND OSWEGO 351
It was Walter Butler and Paul Combs who brought to Os
wego the news of the declaration of war — and they charged
the Colony £10 for making the journey. It was one of the
first and one of the smallest expenses imposed on New York
by the War of '44. Although in that war New York did not
meet the French on Lake Ontario, she did go to extravagant
lengths in the effort to gain, or hold, the several Iroquois tribes
as allies. Ten years later, when the colony was on the eve of
another war, a great part of its war debt incurred in 1744-48
was still unpaid.
In a strongly written " Representation," addressed to the
Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, the General
Assembly, through David Jones, its Speaker, accused Governor
Clinton of " applying great part of the money raised by this
colony, to be laid out in presents for the Indians, during the
late war, to his own use." They further accused him of ap
pointing a colonel of militia who favored the French cause.
It was no unusual thing for the New York Assembly to charge
the Governor with wrong-doing; such was the habitual atti
tude towards many Governors; but this was not the ordinary
spirit of fault-finding ; nor was it a faltering hand that wrote,
while protesting loyalty to the King, " yet we have ever looked
upon the People of this Colony as Englishmen, and that as such
they are entitled to the rights and privileges of English sub
jects." Expressions like this, cropping out with increasing
frequency in the utterances of colonial assemblies, were the
subdued thunder before the storm. The year 1754 marks,
with scarcely less definiteness than does 1776, the rise of the
spirit of American independence ; nor can it be doubted that in
the culmination of the conflict with France, there was in more
than one quarter a dawning discernment of the fact that in
winning the Lakes and the Ohio from the French, they were
won not so much for a Power over seas, as for a nascent na
tion, destined to people and enjoy the regions contended for.
Although Canada has remained a loyal colony, yet in the de
velopment and occupancy of what was La Nouvelle France, she
has been practically as untrammeled and independent as her sis
ter to the south of the Lakes.

352 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
Paschal Nelson, whose appointment as lieutenant in one
of the New York companies was recommended in 1729, and
who appears to have received it, was by his own account in
command at Oswego, though the exact period of his service
there cannot be stated. In commending him for promotion,
Governor Montgomerie speaks of him as " a gentleman of this
country." He was a nephew of Sir Thomas Temple, Governor
of Nova Scotia. In 1745, Nelson wrote of his service as fol
lows: My duty as an Officer in one of his Majesty's Independent Com-
panys at New York, has obliged me to be very much in the Inland
Country amongst the Indians and practice their method of travelling.
I have commanded a garrison on the great lake Ontario three years
and a half, 250 miles from Albany, and have marched partys of men
there by land and water six severall times, by which means every
thing relating to this Country and trade is familiar to me. I have
had frequent intercourse with the French Officers of Canada and
have kept a constant correspondence with Mons. Vaudreuele [sic],
now Governor of Mississippi. By my advice and direction the Fort
on that Lake has been enlarged and cannon sent to it. . . . Nigh
seven years of the prime of my life has been spent in this sort of
service, amongst the Indians, back of our Province, to whom I am
well known, and as I was born in that part of the World, I have
travelled thro' most of the Colonies both by the Sea shore and
Inland. There is hardly a family of note with which I am not
acquainted.15 In 1747 Oswego was somewhat strengthened, Lieutenant
Visscher and a company being sent to augment Captain Linde-
say's force. The war ended with no clash between France and
England on the Lakes; the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle signed
October 18, 1748, again proclaimed peace, and the warfare
of trade, which had somewhat abated during the years of
avowed hostility, once more resumed its paradoxical sway.
Captain Lindesay resigned as commandant, but continued at
Oswego as Indian agent and commissary until his death in
1751. In the next few years, Oswego was the seat not only of
is Paschal Nelson to Hon. George Lyttleton, July 23, 1745. The original
MS. of which the above is an excerpt, was offered for sale at auction in
London in 1915.

IRONDEQUOIT AND OSWEGO 353
a growing trade with the Indians, and one of Sir William John
son's important depots, but developed a considerable illicit
trade with the French. In 1752 some building and repair-
work was undertaken, Captain Stoddard and Lieutenant Hol
land being stationed there. In 1754 the New York Assembly
voted the equivalent of $1300 for work on the fort; and the
next year, which witnessed the coming of Shirley and his army,
was further memorable because it saw the beginning of Eng
lish shipping on the Great Lakes. On June 28, 1755, at Os
wego was launched the schooner Ontario, the first English
craft larger than a canoe to sail these waters. She had 40
feet of keel, mounted 14 swivel guns, and was made to row
when necessary. This same season, at Oswego, were also fitted
out a decked sloop of eight 4-pounders and 30 swivels, a
decked schooner of eight 4-pounders and 28 swivels, an un
decked schooner of 14 swivels and 14 oars, and another of 12
swivels and 14 oars. All of these were unrigged and laid up
early in the fall.16
When Shirley withdrew, having relinquished the Niagara un
dertaking, Colonel Mercer was left in command with orders to
build a new fort.
For many years the English maintained blacksmiths or gun
smiths among the Six Nations, who supplied to the Indians
the metal-work they could not make or repair for themselves.
Sometimes they were accompanied by traders, at other times
they themselves were supplied by the Colony with goods, and
carried on barter with the natives. Many of these men were
Albany or Mohawk-Valley Dutchmen. Living thus apart from
their own people at remote Indian villages, it was no doubt
the rule rather than the exception that they took to wife In
dian women and reared a family of half-breeds. That these
people of mixed blood were numerous throughout what is now
New York State, especially towards the close of the Colonial
period and in years following, is attested by many records.
As is the law with mixed strains, the half-breeds were usually
more ignoble, more treacherous and less to be trusted than the
worthier full-blood Indian.
i« Mante, " History of the Late War," p. 30.

354 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
Although the forest from Onondaga to the Niagara — the
mid-lake region where dwelt the Cayugas, and, from Seneca
Lake westward, the habitat of the Senecas — was especially
under French influence, yet even here the English contended
for trade and the friendship of the aborigines. John Lansing
" and company," for services as smiths " in the Seneka's coun
try," from September 1, 1743, to September, 1744, presented
a bill to the General Assembly, of £40.17 In April, 17451, two
traders with goods, a servant and a blacksmith, were sent to
the Senecas; the traders were to receive £100 each, the smith
£30 for remaining a year among the Senecas. Tobias Ten-
Eyck and John Van Sise were thus sent out, in 1749 ; William
Printup in 1751 ; and many another. The smith most fre
quently mentioned was Myndert Wemp or Wemple — both
forms appearing in official records — who in 1753 was sent to
the Senecas "at Seneseo [PGeneseo], lying near Tirondequat
or Niagara," at a yearly wage of £70, with an allowance of £50
for gifts to the Indians.18
The particular point of this service is, not merely that New
York Colony was not neglectful even of the remotest of the
Six Nations ; but that Chabert, his brother Joncaire and other
agents of the French, found their special field disputed and
contended for. Wemple resided for some years between the
Genesee and the Niagara, and it is no flight of fancy to suppose
that there was more than one clash between him and Chabert
as to their respective rights in the villages by the lakes and
streams of Western New York. Here surely is suggestive ma
terial for the romancer, with a basis of fact none can dispute.
In 1756, Wemple was sent into the Seneca country, but
the natives were so short of food that in April they sent him
back to Fort Johnson, where he reported to Sir William that
as they passed eastward some Cayugas, lately at Niagara, told
it This and other instances cited are drawn from the Journal of the N.
Y. General Assembly.
18 In 1747 the Commissioners of Massachusetts, New York and Connecti
cut agreed to send gunsmiths to the Six Nations, two men with each smith,
to spend the winter; £360 N. Y. currency was appropriated to buy goods,
which were to go, to the Senecas, £120; and £60 each to the Oneidas, Onon
dagas, Cayugas and Tuscaroras.

IRONDEQUOIT AND OSWEGO 355
him there were but 100 soldiers at that fort, but that the
French were repairing it, making it very strong, and had plenty
of provisions. It does not appear that Wemple ever reached
the Niagara. He complained much of the rum-selling carried
on by John O'Bail, a famous half-breed, who boasted that he
did not care for Sir William or his regulations, since " for every
quart of rum he sold he got a Spanish dollar " ; but according
to Wemple, even the Senecas themselves protested against the
mischief he worked among them.
English enmity towards the Joncaires finds expression many
times over, in New York colonial documents. At a Council
meeting held at Governor Clinton's house in Greenwich, April
25, 1746, a letter was read from the Commissioners of Indian
Affiairs, " signifying that certain persons will undertake upon
proper encouragement to bring Jean Coeur, a French priest,
to Albany, who is settled among the Sinnecas. And they are
of opinion his removal from the Indians will be of very great
service to the British interest." This proposition, which prob
ably refers to Chabert's elder brother, was referred to a com
mittee, but no Joncaire was carried prisoner to Albany. The
next year a number of Iroquois chiefs assured Colonel John
son they would not let " Jan Cour " live any more among the
Senecas, and even promised to go and destroy Fort Niagara,
if the English would supply the guns and ammunition. John
son thought seriously enough of it to refer the matter to
Governor Clinton, with the suggestion that munitions for the
Indians could be had from Philadelphia; and pledged himself
to bring into the field a thousand warriors in six weeks if
the Colony would clothe and arm them — " or forfeit 1000
pounds." 19 In the New York Council minutes of that sum
mer occurs this entry : " That of the new levies now in this
Province ... 6 or 700, together with 200 Indians, be employed
against the French fort at Ongiara, at the same time as an at
tempt against Crown Point." An estimate of the cost of the
two expeditions was £13,560.
Affairs were at a low ebb, this summer, at the feeble little
fort which was supposed to guard the mouth of the Niagara.
i» Johnson MSS.: Johnson to Clinton, July 25, 1747.

356 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
De Contrecoeur and his uneasy garrison had ample reason to
be apprehensive, for Chabert and his brother kept them in
formed regarding the smoldering hostility which the English
were doing their best to fan into a blaze. The western tribes
also, dissatisfied with the frugal offerings of the French in trade
at Niagara, were reported ready to destroy the place. John
son gave eager ear to these reports, and passed them on with
his own suggestions to the Governor. August 4th he wrote:
Ottrawana, the great Cayuga Indian, and others of the Five Na
tions, since they were at Albany with your Excellency, informed me
at a private meeting at my house, but in the most formal manner,
with belts of wampum, that the foreign nations, viz. the Chonon-
dedeys,20 etc., were resolved to destroy Niagara as being an impedi
ment in their way to Oswego, where they are sensible they have been
always weU treated, and much imposed on at Niagara, having been
stopt there this Spring by their artifice, and obliged to pay 20
Beavers for a Stroud blanket. They have applied to the Six Na
tions privately for liberty to destroy Niagara, which they are likely
to obtain, having the consent of some of the chiefs of each nation,'
though I am rather of opinion that a proper number of the King's
troops against it in conjunction with the Indians who are so hearty,
would make it more practicable ; besides it seems to me, there would
be a necessity of keeping large garrisons both here and at Oswego,
for the French would not quietly brook the loss of it, being of the
greatest consequence, next to the reduction of the whole country.
A few days later 21 Johnson again wrote to the Governor
that the " Foreign Nations " — meaning western tribes, usually
hostile to the Iroquois — had sent six large belts of wampum to
the Six Nations " desiring their liberty to destroy Niagara,
and that it should be done very shortly, meaning in a month
or so." He added that the Six Nations had sent to these west
ern tribes, to come and join them in the proposed attack.
That it did not take place was due to several causes. The
French, forewarned, sent up reinforcements. More effective
yet, were the better bargains which they granted in trade.
Most effective of all, were the constant labors of Chabert and
zo I do not identify this tribe.
21 Johnson MSS.: Johnson to Clinton, Aug. 19, 1747.

IRONDEQUOIT AND OSWEGO 357
his brother. It may be doubted if an Indian uprising against
Niagara was as imminent as Colonel Johnson's letters made it
appear. The Six Nations, at least, would have looked to the
English for substantial backing, and would have been slow,
without such aid, to cast in their lot with traditional enemies
of the west, whose wrath towards the French was liable to
change, like an eddy of a summer breeze, at the first offer that
took their fickle fancy.
The brothers Joncaire continued to be thorns in the flesh
to Johnson, and he wrote often of them to the Governor. " I
am very sensible," replied Clinton,22 " of what service it will
be to win Jancour from among the Indians if he can by any
means be brought over to leave the French and settle with
us." This had evidently been Johnson's suggestion. In a
former letter the Governor had authorized Johnson to win
him by promises, " but if that cannot be done you are to en
deavor by all means to have him removed from among the In
dians, and if possible brought a prisoner hither and you shall
be paid whatever expenses shall be necessary for this service.
It is left to your judgment from the Intelligence you shall re
ceive and take what method you shall think most likely to
succeed, either by promises to bring him over, or to remove him
by force. Perhaps the hints from Jeancour of leaving ye
French may be only to prepare something wherein he may value
himself among his Countrymen."
This allusion is probably to the elder brother, Joncaire, for
at this period Chabert was chiefly occupied with the duties of
the Niagara portage, and the Indians of the Allegheny and
upper Ohio.
22 Johnson MSS.: Clinton to Johnson, March, 1749. The letter to which
this is a reply has not been noted.

CHAPTER XVIII
THE NIAGARA-OHIO ROUTE
Inseparable in Tracing the Story of Trade and War — Tragic
Episodes in the Development of the Great Contest —
The Brothers Joncaire on the Ohio — The Niagara Port
age Fort.
Fkom 1739, when the elder Joncaire died, for 20 years, the
activities of his sons covered the country from the Mohawk
to the present State of Ohio. Often they were associated,
and shared in the same expeditions. The elder brother, Philippe
Thomas, succeeded his father as special agent among the Iro
quois of New York State, but he also was sent on important
missions to the Shawanese and other tribes of the Ohio with
whom his father had been especially concerned in his last years.
In the latter years of his life the elder son was withdrawn from
this field, being succeeded there by his brother Chabert, mas
ter of the Niagara portage; but each, on occasion, appears
in the other's territory, and both made frequent journeys to
Montreal and Quebec, often with delegations from the tribes.
Returning from the councils, with new instructions and stocks
of goods, each would set out from the Niagara to the villages
or tribes he was directed to visit.
It was a curious system of physical and political control;
it was also a costly and wasteful system, nor was it always
successful, for the English more and more pushed into the
territory. In spite of their close relations with the Indians,
in spite of their skill, energy and devotion to the cause of
France, the sons of Joncaire met many a rebuff, ran many a
risk, and on the whole played a losing game, but they played
gamely and with spirit to the very end.
In the last years of his life, as we have related, the elder
Joncaire — Louis Thomas — was instrumental in relocating
the wandering Shawanese in the upper Ohio Valley. Both of
the sons shared with their father in duties relating to them,
358

THE NIAGARA-OHIO ROUTE 359
and in the years following the father's death were often sent
to scattered villages in the wide wild district designated
merely as " the Ohio." As the years passed, it was more
often the younger son, " Sieur de Chabert et Clauzonne,"
whom we speak of as Chabert, than the older brother Philippe
Thomas, who was sent to this field. In 1747 the health of this
Joncaire, broke down and Chabert succeeded him as resident
agent of the French among the Senecas x — whose villages, it
will be borne in mind, were not merely in Western New York,
but throughout the valley of the Allegheny. Chabert was
made a second ensign on full pay in 1748 ; 2 ensign en pied,
1751 ; and lieutenant, 1757. In 1756 he replaced his elder
brother among the Six Nations, who with ceremony pledged
fidelity to him and agreed to send their chiefs with him to Mont
real the ensuing spring.
The elder brother Joncaire having recovered his health was
again in active service in 1750, in which year he was sent on
one of the most important missions of his whole career. He
set out from Montreal with a staff of cadets a I'eguillette, and
four soldiers. Two loaded canoes belonging to the trader
Guilhot, were taken along, for Indian barter. Two Cayuga
chiefs who had been promised a share in the expedition, were
sent for, and the little company proceeded by way of Fort
Frontenac, the Niagara and Chautauqua portages, down the
Allegheny to the old Indian town of Chinangue or Chininque,
where Joncaire was directed to establish a trading-house; it
was to be two stories high, battlemented (crenele) for defense.
So run the instructions of the Governor,3 but one may be
skeptical about the battlements. The word " loop-holes," bet
ter than " battlements," indicates the probable construction.
It suffices that it was to be a house capable of defense. Jon
caire was directed to explore the region, to learn all he could of
i " Sieur Joncaire, resident at the Senecas, having demanded to be re
lieved, in consequence of his health, the General has appointed Sieur Jon
caire Clauzonne, his brother, to succeed him." — Journal of occurrences in
Canada, 1747-8, in N. Y. Col. Docs. X, 163. The same statement occurs
in numerous French documents.
2 President of Navy Board to La Galissoniere, Feb. 28, 1748.
a La Jonquiere to Joncaire, June 22, 1750.

360 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
the Yenangu8kran (Monongahela), and to find a new route by
way of the River Blanche, into Lake Erie. He was to go down
the Ohio as far as the Scioto, discover new routes, make friends
with the tribes, and finally, report to Celoron at Detroit. He
was also instructed to keep a journal — a treasure to the stu
dent to-day could it be brought to light.
Such were the missions on which Joncaire and his brother
Chabert were sent, year after year. Makers of history in a
vast region, their names are scarcely mentioned, their identity
and services confused or unmentioned in most narrative his
tories dealing with their time.
The next year Lieutenant Joncaire made his presence on the
Ohio known to Governor Hamilton of Pennsylvania by the
following letter: De Chininque,4 June 6, 1751
Sir: Monsieur the Marquis de La Jonquiere, Governor of the whole
of New France, having honored me with his orders to watch that the
English should make no treaty in the country of the Ohio, I have
directed the traders of your government to withdraw. You cannot
be ignorant, sir, that all the lands of this region have always be
longed to the King of France, and that the English have no right to
come there to trade. My superior has commanded me to apprise
you of what I have done, in order that you might not affect ignorance
of the reasons of it, and he has given me this order with so much the
greater reason because it is now two years since Monsieur Celoron,
by order of Monsieur de La Galissoniere, then Commandant Gen
eral, warned many English who were trading with the Indians along
the Ohio, against doing so, and they promised him not to return to
trade on the lands, as Monsieur Celoron wrote to you.
I have the honor to be, with great respect, Sir,
Your very humble and obedient servant Joncaire
Lieutenant of a detachment of the Marine,
This letter was written from the old Shawanese town on the
Ohio below Pittsburg which later became Logstown, and later
still, the approximate site of Economy, Pa. This historic name
is now no longer used, the place being a sub-station of Ambridge.
The French by no means had things their own way in the
* Shenango.

THE NIAGARA-OHIO ROUTE 361
valley. In 1752 Chabert de Joncaire, on the Ohio, was assured
by an English trader that the Governor of Virginia was com
ing in September, with many men and 800 horses, to hold a
council at Chiningue; and Chabert as in duty bound, sent the
report to Canada.5 It was a false alarm; but the winter that
followed — a desperate time for every one on the Ohio, with
both famine and smallpox to contend against — so wrought
up the tribes that in the spring of 1753 they sent a deputation
of chiefs to Niagara. At the old fort, in April, a council was
held at which, in formal but we may believe impassioned
speeches, the French were warned to keep out of the Ohio
country. The Indians had heard of the great army that was
coming ; but neither protests nor threats, nor the picture which
they drew of famine and death, stayed the undertaking, one of
the most dramatic in the history of our region.
Increasingly, as the years passed, the French endeavored to
control the Ohio Valley — to make it a recognized possession
of France, to open communication with Louisiana, to hold the
allegiance of the resident tribes, and to keep out the traders
from Pennsylvania and Virginia. Quebec was obsessed with
this idea — the Ohio must belong to France; and instead of
concentrating her forces and promoting the peaceful develop
ment of the St. Lawrence Valley, she frittered away her
strength and exhausted not only the colonial exchequer but the
Royal patience in sending expeditions and great wealth of
presents to the shifty and unfaithful tribes of the Allegheny
and Ohio.
The gateway to the region was the Niagara. The story of
this frontier, always a chronicle of coming and going, is never
more so than for the years on which our narrative now enters.
Nor can that story be told without paying some attention, how
ever slight, to the region to the southward.
If we leave aside the alleged discovery of the Ohio, by La
Salle, it is an open question which people, French or English,
had precedence in the region. English traders were on the
s A memorandum of Oct. 1, 1753, records: "To Sieur de Joncaire, Com
mandant Belle Riviere, annuity falling due in June, 1752, payable to Sieurs
Morin and Penissaut, 3000 livres."

362 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
river as early as 1700, but made no claim for their Govern
ment. In 1715 the French were complaining because traders
from Carolina had appeared on the Wabash. For some years
the situation continued practically unchanged. The English
did the trading, the French did the complaining — and noth
ing came of it. A French officer, one of the Messrs. de Lon
gueuil, was sent thither in 1719, but no narrative of his going
or coming is found in the communications of the time. The
Niagara was the only way, even though he went on to Detroit
before turning south. No mention of a French expedition into
the Ohio country is found until about the time when Fort Ni
agara was built. It was in 1724 that the Marquis de Vau
dreuil began his efforts to establish the Shawanese " nearer to
the colony." His theory was that by assisting them to settle
nearer Detroit, or other French posts, they would be further
removed from British influence and through the agency at De
troit be kept in French interest.
In 1739 Celoron and St. Laurent had passed up the Niagara
with a force of French from Montreal and Quebec, which has
been described as a " company of cadets, composed of select
youths, all of gentle birth, and the sons of officers." After a
short apprenticeship, they were entitled to be, in their turn,
commissioned as officers.6 With these, and a considerable
force of Northern Indians, Celoron apparently made his way
through Lake Erie and into the Illinois country, whence, in
November, he joined forces with other leaders from Western
posts and from Louisiana, in a campaign against the Chica
saws and Natchez. In March, 1740, a treaty was made, by
which a number of the Natchez were turned over to Celoron,
who according to the writer just cited, returned with them to
Canada, " after having razed to the ground Fort Assumption."
Celoron, it is stated, was the only officer who won any honors
in the Chicasaw campaign.
The undertaking scarcely concerns us, except that it proves
the passage of an armed force through the Niagara and ad
jacent lakes in 1739, and its return with captives in the spring
of 1740. That this passage was also through the Chautauqua
« Gayarre, " History of Louisiana," N. Y. ed. 1867, p. 507.

THE NIAGARA-OHIO ROUTE 363
route is established by records which appear later in our nar
rative. Pouchot, describing the Lake Erie region, said : " The
River Chatacoin is the first that communicates from Lake Erie
to the Ohio, and it was by this that they went in early times
that they made a journey in that part." This could hardly
refer to anything so recent in Pouchot's day, as the expedition
of 1749.7
After a decade, more or less, during which the British grew
ever bolder in their trading incursions west of the Alleghanies,
and the French more and more indifferent and expostulatory,
irritation reached the point where the existing peace between
the rival Powers was ignored, and the French commandants at
western posts with the aid of friendly Indians, captured any
traders in English interest whom they could lay hands on.
Some of these captives presently made a great din at the British
Court ; it was in fact the beginning of skirmish fire preliminary
to an inevitable conflict. The story of several of the traders
thus seized comes into the Niagara region and should be noted.
Earliest of all, perhaps, of this category, are the adventures
of John Peter Sailing.
This worthy was a weaver of Williamsburg, Va., of whose
remarkable captivity conflicting accounts exist. The data
which are beyond doubt are to effect that about the year 1738
Sailing and one Thomas Morlin, a peddler, trading from Wil
liamsburg to Winchester, Va., set out on a tour of exploration
into the country to the westward. They traveled up the Shen
andoah, crossing the James and some of its branches and had
reached the Roanoke, when Sailing was taken captive by a
party of Cherokees. His companion, Morlin the peddler,
eluded them, and made out to reach Winchester, where he told
what had happened. There is somewhat less certainty about
what befell Sailing. The most detailed and apparently most
t Reuben Gold Thwaites, a usually careful writer, says that " in 1746
De Lery went with a detachment of troops from Lake Erie to Chautauqua
Lake and proceeded thence by Conewango Creek and Alleghany River to
the Ohio, which he carefully surveyed down to the mouth of the Great
Miami. ("Afloat on the Ohio," Chicago, 1897; p. 304.) He refers to no
authority. De L6ry passed through Chautauqua with the expedition of
1739.

364 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
trustworthy account — Withers' precious " Chronicles of Bor
der Warfare " — says that he was carried to what is now Ten
nessee, where he remained some years. While with a party
of Cherokees on a buffalo hunt, a band of Illinois Indians sur
prised them, captured Sailing from the Cherokees and carried
him to Kaskaskia, where he was adopted into the family of a
squaw whose son had been killed. Sailing made excursions
with his new captors below the mouth of the Arkansas, going
once to the Gulf of Mexico. One account says he returned;
but Withers says that Sailing, on the lower Mississippi, fell in
with a party of Spaniards who needed an interpreter and
bought Sailing from his Indian mother " for three strands of
beads and a calumet." He attended them to the post at Cre
vecceur, on the Illinois, " from which place he was conveyed
to Fort Frontignac." The route, at this period, would have
been by Fort Niagara, which he reached, apparently about
1743 or 1744 ; for at Frontenac he " was redeemed by the Gov
ernor of Canada, who sent him to the Dutch settlement in New
York, whence he made his way home after an absence of six
years." Some time in 1750, Ralph Kilgore and Morris Turner, two
men in the employ of John Fraser, a Lancaster County, Penn
sylvania, trader, who had bought more skins from Miami In
dians than their horses could carry, were returning from Logs-
town for a second load, when seven Indians came into their camp
one evening a little after sunset. They asked for victuals,
and when meat was given them, dressed and ate it in friendly
fashion. After their appetites were satisfied they began ex
amining the traders' guns, apparently from curiosity; one
picked up a tomahawk, and others asked for knives to cut their
tobacco. Suddenly the two traders were seized and securely
tied. The Indians hurried their prisoners off toward Detroit,
which at that time contained about 150 houses, securely stock
aded. The prisoners were delivered to the commandant, Sa-
brevois, who gave to the Indians as reward a 10-gallon keg of
brandy and 100 pounds of tobacco. Kilgore and Turner were
put to work with a farmer, hoeing his corn and cutting his
wheat. The Indians frequently came to see them and exult

THE NIAGARA-OHIO ROUTE 365
over them, taunting them and calling them dogs, and declar
ing that they were going down to the Wabash after more trad
ers. After three months of this servitude, on the arrival of
a new commandant, apparently Celoron, who assumed com
mand at Detroit, February 15, 1751, our traders were sent
down Lake Erie to Fort Niagara, where they met Joncaire,
who they styled " the chief interpreter," and who was just set
ting out on one of his countless journeys to carry a present
to the Indians of the Ohio country. The prisoners saw his
goods spread out on the river bank, and estimated them worth
£1,500. Here too they learned that a reward of £1,000 was
offered for the scalps of George Croghan and James Lowry,
whom the French justly regarded as the most influential of the
Pennsylvania traders. When the French at Niagara under
took to transfer Kilgore and Turner to Montreal, while fol
lowing the shore of Lake Ontario, the prisoners made their
escape.8 It was in reference to these fugitives that Colonel Johnson
wrote to Governor Clinton, in September, 1750, saying that two
Englishmen had come to him " in a miserable naked condition."
He states the circumstances of their capture and escape, sub
stantially as above given ; and adds : " They say the French are
making all preparation possible against the Spring to destroy
some nations of Indians, very steadfast in our interest. . . .
They met in the lake 10 or 12 large battoes, laden with stores
and ammunition for said purpose, with whom were several of
ficers, in particular two sons of one of their Governors, whom
I suppose to be Monsr. Longquile's sons." He was indignant
at hearing the French had offered prizes to any Indians who
would " take or destroy " Croghan and Lawrie, and says of
Joncaire — probably Philippe Thomas — " I wish he may meet
his proper desert." Joncaire this summer had had the temer
ity to appear at Oswego, in the vicinity of which post
he had distributed valuable goods to the Indians.9 His brother
s Summarized from the depositions of Kilgore and Turner. See Wal
ton's " Conrad Weiser and the Indian Policy of Colonial Pennsylvania,"
pp. 241-242.
» " Arent Stephens the interpreter, who came lately from Oswego, saw

366 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
Chabert was at this time similarly occupied on the Ohio, where
he sought to impress upon the none too credulous red men that
the French wished to establish trading posts in the region for
the convenience of the tribes, " to supply what goods they
needed, so they would not have to go so far to market " — in
other words, to Oswego.
When Johnson heard of this he reminded the Indians that
they could get goods cheaper from Philadelphia, than from
the French.
Late in 1750 Chabert loaded five canoes with Indian goods,
at Fort Niagara, and started for the Allegheny Valley. The
need of a protected storehouse and depot of supplies above the
Falls was much felt, and as we shall presently see, was soon to
be supplied. He crossed the eastern end of Lake Erie and
made his way by Chautauqua and the Conewango, into the
beautiful valley which to the French of that day was always
" la belle riviere," and, to the English, by an absurd adapta
tion, the " Bell " River.10 From the junction of the Cone
wango to the junction of Le Bceuf Creek — from Warren to
Franklin — it wound between heavily forested hills, with shal
lows and riffles, and many a willow-grown island, but with ever-
deepening channel. As the valley widened and the hills re
ceded, the flat bottom-lands, thick with rank growth, made
lurking-places for many possible foes. The river was a nat
ural highway, but it was never a secure road. No flotilla of
canoes could pass without detection and the risk of a volley at
a hundred points. Wilderness travel presented problems
which would overwhelm the average modern; but they also de
veloped character, and Chabert, who knew the wilderness and
its signs even as the red man himself, was as thoroughly at
home in these journeys as the wild denizens of the woods them
selves. The wildcat and lynx that lay crouched and watch
ful on the boughs beneath which his canoe glided, were not
more wary than he.
and spoke with Jean Ceur, who made no Scruple to tell the Intent of his
Journey." — Gov. Clinton to Gov, Hamilton, Sept. S, 1750.
io One of the Colonial newspapers reported the taking of Fort Duquesne
as " Fort Du Guerne on the Fine River,"

THE NIAGARA-OHIO ROUTE 367
It was a populous valley, and at its many wigwam or bark
hut villages, he beached his canoes, held palavers with the chiefs,
and dispensed his goods. Further down the river, at old Logs-
town, an Iroquois war party reported to Andrew Montour
and George Croghan that they had seen " John Coeur [Jon
caire] about 150 miles up the river at an Indian town, where
he intends to build a fort, if he can get liberty from the Ohio
Indians." 1X Chabert sent two messengers to Logstown, de
siring the Indians to " clear the road for him," that is, grant
him a favorable reception ; " but," wrote Croghan, " they have
had so little respect for his message that they have not thought
it worth while to send him an answer as yet." 12
It was not all smooth sailing for Chabert, and more than
once his life was in danger. The next year he tried again, but
it was like running into a hornets' nest. With a small Indian
escort and one Frenchman he appeared at Logstown where
Croghan and other representatives of Pennsylvania were in
council with the Indians. It was a large gathering attended
by head men of the Six Nations, whose jurisdiction included
the Upper Ohio Valley, and large numbers from the subservient
tribes, the Delawares, Shawanese, Wyandots and Twightwees,
these last a branch of the Miamis. Croghan, with the English
goods, was cordially received. With great temerity, knowing
that all sentiment was against him, Chabert called a council
and asked his " children " to reply to the speech Celoron 13
had made to them when he went down the river two years be
fore, and asked them to turn away the English traders.
One of the Six Nations' chiefs immediately replied to Cha
bert, with a good deal of heat; refusing to call the French
Governor " Father," or themselves his " children," which was
a great affront. Chabert was told that the English were the
brothers of the Six Nations, and that they should stay in the
Ohio Valley; and they threw back at him the wampum belt
he had given them; which was the greatest insult they could
offer, short of personal violence.
11 Croghan to Gov. Jas. Hamilton, Dec. 16, 1750.
12 Ib. i
isCroghan's journal has it "Monsieur Shularone."

368 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
This was on May 21st. On the 25th, Chabert had a con
ference with Croghan in which — according to the latter's
version — he begged Croghan to excuse him " and not think
hard of him for the speeches he made to the Indians, request
ing them to turn the English traders away; for it was the
Governor of Canada ordered him and he was obliged to obey
him, although he was very sensible which way the Indians would
receive them, for he was sure the French could not accomplish
their design with the Six Nations, without it could be done by
force ; which, he said, he believed they would find to be as diffi
cult as the method they had just tried, and would meet with
the like success." For one who had shown Chabert's resolu
tion, this was a surprisingly indiscreet admission; but it will
be kept in mind that his adversary was the reporter.
The end of the episode was not yet. On May 28th, a treaty
with all these tribes was held at Logstown. There were pres
ent ten English traders, with their loads of goods; Andrew
Montour, interpreter for the English, and George Croghan,
chief spokesman for the Province of Pennsylvania. Chabert
was also present. After much speech-making, and a fulsome
exchange of compliments between Indians and English, one of
the Six Nations' chiefs singled out Chabert, and speaking " very
quick and sharp, with the air of a warrior," harangued him
(according to a version preserved in the Pennsylvania records)
as follows:
How comes it that you have broken the general peace ? Is it not
three years since you, as well as our brothers the English, told us
that there was peace between the English and the French? And
how comes it that you have taken our brothers as prisoners on our
lands? Is it not our land? (stamping on the ground and putting
his finger to Chabert- Joncaire's nose.) What right has Onontio to
our lands ? I desire you may go home directly, off from our lands,
and tell Onontio to send us word immediately, what was his reason
for using our brothers so; or what he means by such proceedings,
that we may know what to do, for I can assure Onontio that we, the
Six Nations, will not take such usage. You hear what I say?
These are the sentiments of our nations. Tell it to Onontio, that
that is what the Six Nations said to you.

THE NIAGARA-OHIO ROUTE 369
And as if this scolding were not enough, they gave Chabert
four strings of black wampum, which meant deadly enmity.
Chabert retraced his way to the Niagara. For the moment, he
was checkmated ; but that he had no thought of giving up the
game, subsequent events will show.
In 1750 there assumed command at Fort Niagara a young
man of marked ability and distinguished lineage — Daniel
Hyacinth Mary Lienard de Beaujeu, scion of a family which
figures in French history from the Eleventh century, and which
has left its name to the Beaujolois, one of the divisions of the
ancient province of Dauphine. Living members of this line
point with warrantable pride to Guichard, Sire de Beaujeu,
who in 1210 was sent by Philip Augustus as his ambassador to
Pope Innocent III; to Humbert V, Sire de Beaujeu, Constable
of France, who attended the coronation of Baudouin II as Em
peror at Constantinople, and to William de Beaujeu, Grand
Master of the Templars in 1288, killed at the siege of Antioch
in 1290. One of the name fought under St. Louis in Egypt;
another fell at the siege of Montbart in 1590; another, Paul
Anthony Quiqueran de Beaujeu, is famous for his daring es
cape from prison in Constantinople in the Seventeenth cen
tury. About the close of the Seventeenth century one of the family,
Louis Lienard de Beaujeu, is found serving his king in Canada,
where he received the Cross of St. Louis, married, was Mayor of
Quebec in 1733, and held grants of land on Chambly River.
His second son, Daniel Hyacinth Mary, born at Montreal,
August 19, 1711, entered early upon military life. In 1748,
at the age of 37, he was a captain of the Marine, and in this
capacity attended the great conference at the Castle of St.
Louis, in Quebec, between the Marquis de La Galissoniere and
deputies from the Six Nations. It was not the least notable
of the many conferences held in the grand council chamber of
the castle, between the cultured and court-wise officers of
France and the painted and befeathered sons of the forest.'
On this second of November the council chamber was
thronged. Besides the Commander, and Bigot the Intendant
General, de Vaudreuil, lieutenant-governor of the town and

370 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
castle of Quebec, Gaspard Chaussegros de Lery, the royal chief
engineer, Captain de Beaujeu and " a great number of per
sons of distinction," were some eighty chiefs and warriors of
the Six Nations ; while fraternizing alike with their brother
officers in the royal service and with the red lords of the wilder
ness were Captain de la Corne and others who could serve as
interpreters, notably Philippe Thomas de Joncaire, in cordial
if not domestic relations with his friends the Senecas from the
Genesee and the Niagara. As for the conference, thus held
with much formal speaking, it was the same old strife for Iro
quois allegiance with which the reader has already become fa
miliar, if not weary. La Galissoniere asked if the " cantons "
had become subjects of the English; read to the chiefs letters
of Governors Clinton and Shirley, claiming that the Six Na
tions were " vassals of the Crown of England, and that you
are bound to go to war for the English, whenever they order you
so to do." It was impossible that these Iroquois should ad
mit that they were vassals to anybody ; and they made the cus
tomary reply, " That they had not ceded to any one their
lands, which they hold only of Heaven," and that they desired
to remain at peace with both French and English. With this
equivocal assurance La Galissoniere had to rest content. He
had the speeches and answer formally transcribed into an acte,
signed by all his officers present, among the others Captain de
Beaujeu, and by the uncouth totem marks of the Six Nations.14
Very soon after this conference de Beaujeu appears to have
been assigned to the command at Detroit ; 15 but we next find
him at Niagara, where the service called for a man able to
cope with the English in holding on both to the friendship of
the Iroquois and the fur trade.
An anecdote is preserved which illustrates his uprightness
and strength of character in dealing with the aborigines.
While he was in command at Niagara serious thefts were
made from the canoes of the sieurs Gaucher-Gamelin and Gode
froy. The thief, a Seneca, was detected, seized and locked up
i* N. Y. Col. Docs. X, 186-188.
15 Documents of Hon. M. Saveuse de Beaujeu, cited by John Gilmary
Shea, Pa. Mag. Hist., vol VIII, p. 123.

THE NIAGARA-OHIO ROUTE 371
in the dungeon of the fort. In great anger, a company of
Seneca chiefs came to the fort, demanding instant release of
the culprit, and menacing de Beaujeu with all the " vengeances
of their nation." The sturdy officer replied to their howls and
threats :
" I am surprised, my children, at the language you use. I
think that you ought to ask pardon for Theou8ayane, obliging
you to make him atone for his fault, or, in his failure, to atone
for it yourselves. As it is late, and the gates of the fort must
be closed, I give you the night to think over what you will do.
As for me, I shall do only what I ought to do. As for your
threats, I do not fear them. I wait for you and your fol
lowers." The next day the Seneca deputies came again to the fort,
in changed mood. They admitted that they had not shown
good sense, but declared that their incarcerated brother was
unable to make restitution, and that they themselves could not
do it for him. De Beaujeu replied:
" My children, in punishing your brother I have wished to
keep him from other follies, and to prevent others from imi
tating him. This house is a house of peace, and I am resolved
that it continues to be. The canoes of Gaucher-Gamelin and
Godefroy have been stolen. They must be returned, or paid
for. That is just and reasonable. Until this affair is set
tled, do not expect any further favors from me."
Whether impressed by the high justice of de Beaujeu's
position, as the old record has it, or whether just making the
best of the situation, the " great chief " Annechoteka prom
ised to make reparation, and presumably did, for the inci
dent concludes: " Then M. de Beaujeu, satisfied, had refresh
ments served to all the Indians and sent them back to their
cabins, well pleased."
De Beaujeu had been especially instructed to pursue a lib
eral and vigorous policy in his traffic with the Indians who came
down with furs from the westward. Report of this reached the
alert Colonel William Johnson, at Mount Johnson on the Mo
hawk, who lost no time in writing to Governor Clinton, under
date of September 14, 1750:

372 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
" Mr. Kalm, a Swedish gentleman (who was lately at my
house in his return from Niagara) said he assured me he read
a letter from the Lord Intendant of Quebec to the commanding
officer at Niagara, dated some time this last summer, wherein he
desires him to supply all Indians (who pass in their way to Os
wego) with goods, at such a Price as may induce them to
trade there to gain which point at the time, he says, the Lord
Intendant in his letter says, he will not regard the loss of 20
or 30,000 Livres a year to the Crown. He also allows said
officer to supply said Indians with what quantity of brandy or
rum they may want, which never was allowed before, for their
Preists [sic] were always against selling them liquor, but find
ing liquor to be one of the principal articles, they trade for,
they are determined to let them have it as they would other
wise go to Oswego for it. I take it their view in this, is as
much if not more, for preventing any communication between
us and said Indians, as for engrossing the trade, and in my
opinion they could not have fallen upon a better scheme to ac
complish. Said Mr. Kalm told me he heard the officers at Ni
agara say that by their letters from Canada, they had an ac
count that Oswego would be given up to them as an equivalent
for the island Tobago."
Colonel Johnson's guest and informant was Peter Kalm, a
Swedish botanist of distinction. His three-volume narrative of
his travels in America, at least in the English translation, con
tain, singularly enough, no account of his journey to Niagara
Falls; but a most interesting record of that visit, is afforded
in a letter which Mr. Kalm wrote from Albany, September 2,
1750, to a friend in Philadelphia — undoubtedly Bartram the
botanist. In this letter Mr. Kalm makes no mention of his
visit at Johnson Hall, nor does he tell how he came to be aware
of instructions to the commandant at Niagara who had recently
been his host. Whether those facts, which as we have seen, he
ungenerously disclosed so soon to the enemy, were surrepti
tiously acquired by his scientific mind, in some unwatched nook
of the old mess house at Niagara, or whether de Beaujeu him
self showed the letter, in an after-dinner hour of good feeling
and boastfulness, is not now essential.

¦$• A jf (*-.- t,-/''

Daniel Hyacinth Mary Lienard de Beaujeu
By Permission, from the Pennsylvania Magazine, Vol, VIII

THE NIAGARA-OHIO ROUTE 373
Available documents are silent regarding the rest of de
Beaujeu's service at Niagara. That it was acceptable may be
inferred from the fact that before entering upon the next
sphere of activity in which we know him, he received that coveted
reward of the French soldier in America, the Cross of St. Louis.
In 1755 he was sent to Fort Duquesne, where he succeeded M.
de Contrecoeur, and where, on that memorable 9th of July, in
the defeat of Braddock's army, he won glory and a grave — a
grave now unknown and unmarked. That he was in chief com
mand of the French forces which defeated Braddock, and that
to him belongs the credit for that victory, has been a subject
of some contention. Dr. John Gilmary Shea, apparently rest
ing his case chiefly on the " Registre du Fort Duquesne," be
stows all the laurels for this defeat of Braddock and Washing
ton upon de Beaujeu, of whom he enthusiastically writes that
" not one even of his gallant race ever achieved so great a
success, or turned a desperate cause into a triumphant defeat
of so superior a force." The French official reports of the bat
tle are of different tenor, speaking of Contrecoeur as command
ant of Fort Duquesne, and as making the arrangements for the
engagement; and of Captain Dumas as having saved the day,
after the death of Beaujeu.16 The latter was carried back
into the fort and on July 12th was buried in the garrison
cemetery, all traces of which long since disappeared.
A further word should perhaps be devoted to Peter Kalm.
Although he had fortified himself with passes and permits, he
was never quite free from French suspicion. Cadwallader Col
den introduced him to Colonel Johnson as " a Sweedish Gent'n
. . . travilling in order to make discoveries in Botany and
Astronomy." He was recommended to La Jonquiere, some
what more accurately, as desiring to visit Canada and the
Niagara, " to make botanical researches." The King directed
his officers to aid him, but at the same time to see that he
did nothing to interfere with trade. Kalm, however, diligently
i« "Such a victory, so entirely unexpected, seeing the inequality of the
forces, is the fruit of Mons. Dumas' experience, and of the activity and valor
of the officers under his command." — N. Y. Col. Docs, X, 304, See also X,
338, 382, 410, 528, 914.

374 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
gathered information regarding the fur trade at Niagara, which
he published at his earliest opportunity.17
The need of a fortified trading post on the Niagara River
above the falls, at the head of the portage, was more and more
felt as travel increased and expeditions multiplied. The great
convoy of 1748, and the still greater one of 1749, with the
added labor, confusion and loss incident to the passing of
Celoron's force, hastened decisive action; but when, in the
spring and early summer of 1750, 220 western canoes, laden
with a thousand packets of furs, swept down the river, ignored
Fort Niagara, and hastened on to make their trade at Oswego,
it was recognized by high and low that if France was to hold
this trade at all, she must strengthen herself on the Niagara.
As usual with achievements in which many are concerned,
several claim credit for this accomplishment, none more justly
than Chabert. It was from representations made by him, and
by de Beaujeu, commandant at Fort Niagara, that the Gov
ernor, La Jonquiere, and Bigot the Intendant, in their official
communications to the Minister, told of its need, and then of
its construction, as though achieved through their own fore
sight and zeal.
The year 1750 was an important one in Chabert's career.
From this time on the part he plays in the drama of the Niagara
grows in importance; nor can we better show the conditions
of the time than by giving him, for a little, the center of the
stage. In the year named, he was charged with a delicate mission
— the escort of a party of chiefs from the Iroquois tribes, to
Montreal, " to make satisfaction to the Abenakquis, of whom
it was said they had killed three men." Chabert gives it to be
it A French translation of his Journal is contained in the Mimoires de la
Sociiti Historique de Montreal, 1880. Nothing about his Niagara visit is
to be found in his well-known " Travels," of which a 3-vol. English transla
tion by Forster appeared 1770-71. It was Kalm's purpose to include
Niagara in a continuation of the " Travels," which never appeared. The
account of his Niagara visit was published with John Bartram's " Observa
tions," in London, 1751, and has been reprinted. An English translation
of the Dedication and Preface to his " Travels " (Stockholm, 1753), by Adam
J. Strohm, is in the Penn. Mag. of History and Biography, vol. XXXVI
(1912).

THE NIAGARA-OHIO ROUTE 375
understood that the desired end was accomplished, though very
difficult " for proud, fierce men whom a single threat threw into
a rage." It was during this visit to Montreal that the new establish
ment above the falls was determined upon, and Chabert was
commissioned to build and command it. It was characteristic
that in returning to Niagara, he should come by way of Os
wego, and in the stronghold of his adversaries boast of what
was to be done.
All, however, was not left to the exuberant Chabert. De
Beaujeu, the distinguished young officer in command that sea
son at Niagara, was supreme in authority on this frontier.
He it was who selected the site for the new post, which La
Jonquiere, although he persisted in writing of it as " below the
portage," assured the Minister was " very advantageous."
" I gave orders," he wrote, " that no time be lost to put it in
good condition, feeling sure that the English, angered by the
harm which it will do to their Oswego trade, would stir up the
Five Nations to oppose it." 18
De Beaujeu, who soon departed for Detroit, left his mark
on the Niagara. He opened a new and shorter road on the
portage, easier for the carts, and, according to La Jonquiere,
" enabling the carters to avoid the drunkards commonly found
in the old road." He explains that de Beaujeu had done a
good deal more than was ordered ; but this officer departing for
Detroit, " I reiterated my intentions to the officer who com
manded at Niagara in his absence; that is to say, that all
that was needed was a trading house where the clerk could
lodge, a room for ten soldiers who would serve as guard, and a
little room for the commandant, the whole surrounded with
a palisade, somewhat flanked. I charged above all things that
care be taken to avoid large expense, and to hasten the
work. "I confided its care to the Sieur Joncaire de Clauzon, en
sign of infantry, chief interpreter in the Iroquois tongue."
This is one of the few instances in the official communica-
18 La Jonquifere to the Minister, Quebec, Oct. 6, 1751. In this letter he
cites correspondence of the year before, and reviews what had been done.

376 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
tions in which the " Sieur de Chabert et de Clausonne " is desig
nated by the second of his seigneurial titles.
Before undertaking actual construction, Chabert addressed
himself to the more difficult task of gaining consent of the
Iroquois. The Five Nations, he says, were opposed to it,
" nevertheless the undertaking was confided to me in the hope
that I would have the credit of making them approve of it,
even as my father had had the credit of building Fort Ni
agara on their land, notwithstanding their unwillingness and
the lively opposition of the English."
Although self-interest inclined the Senecas to consent, they
held off. A greater depot of goods at so convenient and
much frequented a spot, meant much to them. Nevertheless,
intimate as were his relations with them, Chabert had to use
his most persuasive phrases to gain their consent. " Children,"
he said, " your father (the French Governor), having out of a
tender regard for you, considered the great difficulties you
labor under, by carrying your goods, canoes, etc., over the
great carrying-place of Niagara, has desired me to acquaint
you that in order to ease you all of so much trouble for the
future, he is resolved to build a house at the other end of the
carrying-place, which he will furnish with all the necessaries
for your use." The speech was followed by gifts. The In
dians accepted the gifts, but said they would consider the re
quest. The Onondagas, supreme in influence, were also reluc
tant. La Jonquiere ordered further overtures to be made. Three
strings of wampum were sent to the principal villages of the
Five Nations, and a summons to a " little feast," at which
resort was had to the usually effective argument. " Several
pots of wine " having been consumed, " the savages replied
that they consented with pleasure to this establishment." 19
Chabert promptly began work. Plank and joists were sent
by de Vassan, from Fort Frontenac, but the plank giving
out, bark was used for roofing. Construction occupied three
months, and the cost was 15,000 livres. There was no com-
19 La Jonquiere to the Minister, Oct. 6, 1751,

THE NIAGARA-OHIO ROUTE 377
plaint of waste or extravagance in connection with it. A year
or so later the President of the Navy Board wrote to La Jon-
quiere's successor : " The establishments of Toronto and the
Portage of Niagara . . . were approved last year. ... I ap
prove what has been done for the execution." 20
This new post, the building of which made well nigh as much
stir, among both English and Indians, as had the building of
Fort Niagara 24 years before, was officially designated Fort
Little Niagara. It was also styled Fort du Portage, and the
Little Fort.21
As soon as navigation opened in the spring of 1751, two
canoe-loads of trading goods were sent to it, on the King's
account; and on May 3d the first barter with Indians was
held within the enclosure. It is a date of some note in the
commercial history of America, for, though the transactions
were trifling, it marks a definite step in the strife for trade
control, which underlies the whole course of the history we
here seek to trace.
" The Sieur de Joncaire," the Governor reported, " has
employed all his talents with the savages, to stop their canoes
at this establishment; he would have succeeded well if he had
not lacked brandy." One band of Western Indians lingered a
whole month at the Little Fort, awaiting the arrival at Fort
Niagara of the barque bringing goods for trade. This af
fair was finished July 31st, with a satisfactory accumulation
of furs for the French.
Fort Little Niagara, as built at this time, stood about a mile
and a half above the Falls, nearly midway between Grass Island
and the mouth of Gill Creek. Fort Schlosser, subsequently
built by the British, was placed somewhat further down the
river. The old French landing, the earliest known to have
been used, was still nearer the Falls; in fact, just above the
head of the rapids, below the lower end of Grass Island. Here
the earliest portage road came to the river. At the period
we now write of, the increase of traffic made it advisable to
20 Navy Board to Duquesne, June 16, 1752.
21 Lewis Evans' map of 1755 marks it " Fishers Battery."

378 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
have the point of embarkation further up stream, the portage
road being continued along the river bank to the new loca
tion. Later this point was reached by the new portage road di
rect from the north.22
Governor La Jonquiere habitually referred to it as " below
the portage," obviously meaning that it was at the south end ;
but he confused the officials of the Navy Board in Paris, who
wrote that it should be " at the head of the Niagara portage "
— where indeed it was — adding : " By letter of La Jonquiere,
October 6th, it appears they have put it below the portage, a
mistake for many reasons." 23
The head of the portage was a populous vicinity. In the
year that Little Niagara was built Peter Kalm the Swedish
naturalist visited it and reported that some 200 Senecas then
lived " at the carrying-place, who were employed in carrying
on their backs over the portage, packs of bear and deer skins "
at 20 pence a pack. It was at the portage that the Indian of
the region first learned to labor for pay. The ascent of the
escarpment above the Lewiston level was so arduous that the
Senecas called it Duh'-jih-heh-oh, meaning to walk on all fours,
that being the attitude of one climbing the steep path with a
pack on his back.24
Chabert in his memoir has a reference to " the cables " used
at the foot of the portage, thus establishing the fact that the
French used some labor-saving contrivance, probably a hoist
worked by a windlass, to raise packages to the heights above
Lewiston. After the English were in possession, Captain John
22 "The French built a sawmill at the Falls, and cleared a few acres
of land about the forts and landing places, and on the high river bank
opposite Goat Island." — Albert H. Porter, "Niagara," 1875. Mr. Porter
gives neither time nor place of construction, nor any authority for his
statement. It is however, entitled to credence for several reasons. The
writer was a son of Judge Augustus Porter, who personally knew the vicinity
as early as 1796, when remains of French constructions were still to be seen.
Another sawmill was evidently set up by the French not far from the mouth
of Chippewa Creek, for in 1761 Sir William Johnson found there a quantity
of sawn lumber. Our narrative shows that the French carried a sawmill
to Presqu' Isle, to cut plank for bateaux.
23 Navy Board to Duquesne, June 16, 1752.
2* Albert H. Porter's "Historical Sketch of Niagara," pubUshed an
onymously about 1876.

THE NIAGARA-OHIO ROUTE 379
Montresor, in 1764, erected a more efficient device for this
work.25 Fort Little Niagara, as we learn from a description written
the month after trade began there, was a trading house (and
no doubt minor buildings) surrounded by a triangular pali
sade, "badly made," "with two kinds of bastions at the two
angles of the side towards the roads which lead to [Fort] Ni
agara." A gate formed the third angle, on the upper side,
" the whole contrary to rules of fortification." 26
Very promptly Governor Clinton had word of it; and just
as promptly he complained to the Governor General of Can
ada : " I have repeated information that some persons, pre
tending to act by commission from your Excellency, are erect
ing a fortified House on the River of Oniagara, between Lake
Erie and Cadarchin Lake," a blundering designation of the
Niagara-Chautauqua route; but it was Fort Little Niagara
the Governor had heard of. He registered his protest on the
old familiar ground of the Treaty of Utrecht, and in the
same letter protested against the actions of the French who
" detained in Prison in Irons near Oniagara," " six English
men, subjects of the King my Master, who were peacefully pur
suing a Lawful Trade with the Indians.27
In December, when Chabert's fort had been put in state of
defense, the Cayuga sachem Scanaghtradeya appeared at
Mount Johnson and told what Chabert had done, above the
Falls. Colonel Johnson with great show of earnestness,
warned his informant against the French and their plans.
" The only way," he said, " is to turn Jean Cour away at once
from the Ohio and tell him the French shall neither build there,
25 See " The Achievements of Captain John Montresor," a narrative based
on his journal, in Buffalo Historical Society Publications, Vol. V.
26 This none too clear description is the Abbe Picquet's, incidents of whose
visits at Fort Little Niagara will presently be given. No more authentic
description of the place is known to the present writer. Albert H. Porter,
a resident of Niagara Falls, wrote in 1876: "It was a wooden work sur
rounded with palisades, with ditches and angles in the usual form." Ac
cording to the Abbe, it was an unusual form. Mr. Porter adds: " The out
lines are still distinct." In the 40 years since elapsed, all trace of them
has been obliterated.
2T Clinton to the Marquis de la Jonquiere, June 12, 1751.

380 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
nor at the carrying place of Niagara, nor have a foot of land
more from you." 28 But already Chabert's establishment was
capable of defense and the Indians were profiting by his favors.
Four English traders were brought to Niagara in the spring
of 1751 to whose seizure, as much as to any single act, may be
ascribed the ultimate conflict between France and Great
Britain in America. That war was the outcome of a rivalry
which had many centers of activity, but no cause was more
far-reaching than the strife for the fur-trade; nowhere did the
interests of the two Powers clash more sharply than in the
region between the Lakes and the Ohio; and no incident of
that competition did more to bring matters to a climax than
the seizure of these four men.
One of them was Thomas Bourke, 23 years old, who had left
his native town of Cork to try fortune in the new land, and
who called Lancaster, Pa., his home. Another young Irish
man was Luke Irwin of Philadelphia, 28 years old. With him
were John Patton and Joseph Fortiner, the last-named a serv
ant. Irwin described himself as a " traveling merchant."
These young men, of an age and temperament which laughed at
danger and were keen to take risks for the sake of profit, were
typical of a class which followed a highly adventurous and pic
turesque calling. Armed with a license from Governor Hamil
ton of Pennsylvania, they loaded their pack-horses with goods,
substantial or tawdry, which the Indians might fancy, and
following the Indian trails made their way to the villages on the
Allegheny, the Ohio and its tributaries. When the French at
their feeble posts ordered them out of the country, it amused
these cunning Pennsylvanians and Virginians to pretend to com
ply, only to push their adventurous travels still farther, for
the more remote the Indian village the greater the harvest of
furs which they could gather for their wares. Celoron's futile
expedition of 1749 had been little but a threat against invaders
of this class ; but when John Patton boldly came with his train
to the very gate of the fort of the Miamis, now Vincennes, In
diana, the French commandant, de Villiers, under orders from
2s Conference between Col. Johnson and a Cayuga sachem, Mt. Johnson,
Dec. 4, 1750.

THE NIAGARA-OHIO ROUTE 381
Celoron at Detroit, promptly arrested him. A like fate befell
Bourke and his companions " near the little lake of Otsander-
ket," i. e., Sandusky. The four worthies were brought down
Lake Erie and after a brief detention at Fort Niagara, were
sent on to Montreal, where with other prisoners, June 19th,
they underwent an examination by the Marquis de La Jon
quiere. Three of them at least, Bourke, Irwin and Patton,
were sent to France as prisoners, and were still held in con
finement at Rochelle, the following year, when the Earl of
Albemarle, British Ambassador to France, interested him
self in their behalf, and they were set free.29
There had been many English traders in the Ohio country
before Bourke and Patton, and some of them had been roughly
dealt with ; but until now no case had really stirred the British
public. Now, however, the press made much of it, both in
America and in England; and from this time on until the war
is declared the statesman and the pamphleteer — especially the
latter — have much to say regarding French encroachment on
the Ohio.
At this period Governor de Longueuil and other officials
were much concerned over the loss of reports and dispatches
from Celoron, commanding at Detroit, and from other posts as
well. These dispatches were addressed to de Lavalterie at
Niagara, and were duly received by him. He assigned a soldier
from the fort to take them to Fort Rouille, now Toronto,
whence they would be sent down to Quebec. The soldier set
out from Niagara with the precious documents, and was never
seen nor heard of afterwards. A Mississaga Indian from
Toronto, soon after coming in at Niagara, was closely ques-
29 Albemarle to Holdernesse, Paris, Mar. 1, 1752. There was also corre
spondence between Governor George Clinton and the Canadian Governor,
La Jonquiere, regarding these prisoners. "The Mystery Revealed "(Lon
don, 1759), an excessively rare book, contains an account of their capture
and examination at Montreal; but in this and some other accounts the
names are misspelled well nigh beyond recognition, Irwin becoming
"Arowin," Bourke, "Broke," and John Patton, "George Pathon." The
Boston Gazette, June 5, 1753, reports their return to Philadelphia "with
Capt. Budden, by the solicitation of the British Ambassador, who was so
good as to clothe them and send them to England, the French having stript
them naked and used them hardly."

382 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
tioned but knew nothing of the missing messenger. Search
was made, but to no purpose. The one thought was that he
had either deserted or, more likely, been killed by Indians who
made off with the dispatches to the English. The loss of the
soldier may have been regretted, but the official correspondence
laments only the loss of the dispatches.
The story of John Trotter illustrates the conditions of the
time. One night in the summer of 1752 he and a companion,
James McLaughlen, were brought into Fort Niagara, in irons ;
and after a few hours, were put on board a bateau and sent
across to Fort Frontenac, thence to Montreal and Quebec.
It was not until mid-March, 1754, that Trotter's captivity and
wanderings ceased at Philadelphia: where, March 22d, he told
his tale before Chief Justice William Allen, and swore to it,
and, as he could not write, signed the statement with his mark.
Trotter was an Indian trader of Paxtang in the county of
Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and in the year 1752 was 28 years old.
That summer, with Timothy Reerdon as partner and £400
worth of Indian goods, they made their way to the Ohio coun
try. They traded at Atigue, at Logstown and Weningo
[Venango] ; near which place, August 15th, " as he was about
to pass the river opposite to Weningo, in company with James
McLaughlen, a hired servant of his, a party of Frenchmen,
110, came and seized them and their horses, took away the
goods and bound this deponent and the said McLaughlen with
Indian hopples, made of wild hemp, in their arms and legs."
They were " drove " through the woods, part of the time tied
together, and three days from " Weningo " they came to
Presqu' Isle. Trotter's deposition says he " saw the French
had cut a road — and were hawling great guns to a place
where they were going to erect another fort." At Presqu'
Isle the two traders were put in irons and confined under guard
in an out-house for four days. They were then put on a bateau
and brought down Lake Erie to the " small wooden fort," at
the head of the Niagara portage. " From thence they were
put into a cart, and set out about noon, and came to a large
stone fort at night." From old Niagara, as above stated, the
unlucky traders were sent forward on the long water route

THE NIAGARA-OHIO ROUTE 383
which hundreds of other prisoners, French, English and Ameri
can, were to pass over in captivity in the troublous years to
come. Trotter was kept in irons during the whole voyage;
was held in " Jayl" at Montreal four days, and at Quebec
30 days ; then with other English prisoners was put on board a
French man-of-war. Arriving at Rochelle, he was again locked
up in prison for a month, on bread and water; then was set
free, a pauper in a strange land. Trotter and McLaughlen
and one Jacob Evans, a fellow exile, begged their way from
town to town, finally reaching Bordeaux, where Trotter fell
in with Captain Snead of the ship Betty and Sally, who took
pity on him and gave him passage to Philadelphia. Such were
the fortunes and misfortunes of the Indian trade in the Ohio
country in the year of peace, 1752.
In the winter of 1752, the French on the Niagara were
threatened. " The savage allies of the English prowled in mul
titudes around Fort Niagara, and filled them there with fear,"
says Chabert, who was ordered to raise a war-party in behalf of
the French. " I set out over the ice in the month of January,"
he says, " to gather my recruits." Troops appear to have
been sent up from Montreal at this time. Later in this year
we find Chabert, with an attendant band of chiefs, paying his
respects in Montreal to M. de Longueuil, who administered the
colony ad interim, from the death of La Jonquiere until the
appointment of Duquesne. For the next year or so he was
employed in various expeditions, from Quebec to the Ohio, but
with his home at the Little Niagara fort. In the winter of
1753 he was sent into Central New York to notify the Five
Nations, " in the Governor's name, that he was going to the
Ohio, to take possession of it, and to build forts on its banks,
adding to this announcement the most terrible menaces for any
one who would have the audacity to oppose him in this mat
ter. . . . The savage ear will not listen to this sort of talk;
it was received with bitter and insulting laughter. They de
clared to me that nobody but a child of the nation could have
spoken it with impunity."
In the winter of 1753 the command and control of the Ni
agara portage were given to Chabert in addition to his other

384 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
and seemingly conflicting duties of commandant at the upper
fort, on the Niagara, and frequent emissary to distant points.
Years after, summing up his services for the King, he wrote as
follows, of Niagara and the portage :
Canadian history makes mention of this famous fall which the eye
of the traveler never sees except with awe and admiration. Lake
Erie, constantly augmented by the waters of the upper lakes, Huron,
Michigan, etc., contracted by two chains of mountains, pours its
flood into this strait with the impetuosity of a torrent and in the
river Niagara hurls itself down 130 feet with a terrible noise, which
can be heard more than twelve leagues round about. Such is the
invincible obstacle encountered by navigators going to Presqu' Isle,
to the Ohio, to the Straits [Detroit] and other French forts built
above the Niagara.
The trader and the officer are there obliged to put down, below
the falls, the goods, merchandise, supplies for war and for food
destined for the different forts. Men must carry the canoes and
the goods by the narrow and stumbling paths over three steep hills.
As for the very heavy bales they can be transported only by the aid
of cables, and by force of arm.
Before I was appointed Commandant of the Little Fort, there was
no one for this Portage, since the natives would not undertake it
except at very great expense; thus it came about that the service
suffered further on, and that the Governors were unable to carry out
expeditiously movements ordered, which were urgent and necessary.
They encountered there a further inconvenience, still more vexatious.
The Indians entrusted with the transport of goods, and naturally
inclined to pilfer, would quit the open path, open the bales, steal
whatever pleased them, without fear of punishment or restitution,
since they acknowledged no master; still one was obliged to treat
them with consideration, often indeed because their thievery has not
been discovered until too late to lay a claim against them.
The colony fairly echoed 30 with the clamor and complaints of
the merchants and officers. The Governors-General, badly informed,
gave orders which were of no effect. They established regulations,
but without success. Their shrewdness employed all the resources
of the politician, their wisdom spent itself in systems; and the
abuses always continued. Every measure was useless, because the
untractable savage knew only his own caprice, and the most equita-
so *' Retentissoit sans cesse des cris," etc.

THE NIAGARA-OHIO ROUTE 385
ble law could make no impression on barbarian minds, without sin
cerity or discipline. Finally, after a hundred years of effort and
consideration, and the trial of all possible resources, no more effective
means was found for remedying so many inconveniences, than to put
me in charge of the establishment of the Little Fort of Niagara, and
of the business of the portage.
Chabert was reluctant, he says, to assume responsibility for
the Portage, but could not have failed to see the opportunity
for making a fortune, which it afforded. However, he assures
us, " I silenced the voice of interest in order to hear only that
of honor, of duty and of public service." Chabert's service as
Master of the Portage and the Fort Little Niagara continued
for five and a half years, until the end of French controlin the
region. The advent of the British was not the only disaster
that overtook him; for as soon as France could lay hands on
him, and others who were charged with having plundered the
King, he was called to account for his stewardship. In his de
fense he set forth, with a skill that reflects credit either on him
or his legal adviser, the circumstances which induced him to
take charge of the Portage.
He entered into the agreement with the King, he tells us,
because his Majesty "formally pledged himself to return at
the expiration of the lease, the horses, cattle, harness, yokes,
conveyances and implements necessary for the said Portage."
The Governor (Jonquiere), Chabert says, forced him into the
undertaking, and when the lease — apparently for the season
1753-54 — expired, he wished to give it up, because he was
losing on the contract, and because Government had not fur
nished the promised help; but M. Duquesne (Jonquiere's suc
cessor) induced him to renew the contract, promising, in the
King's name, " that the iron, the steel, the repairing of the
iron-work for the carts, and the cost of shoeing the horses,
would be at the King's expense." Again the promises were
not kept, and again Chabert sought " to quit absolutely, but
M. de Vaudreuil would not consent to it, and ordered me al
ways to keep the command of the Little Fort, and to take charge
of the King's food-supplies and stores. Behold," he exclaims,
" the source of all my misfortunes ! "

CHAPTER XIX
THE FUR TRADE IN THE '40'S
Perplexities of a Contractor — Effect of the War of 1744 —
Founding of Toronto — The Convoy System — Celoron's
Expedition of 1748.
In the last chapter we traced the development of the Niagara-
Ohio route, and the varied services of the brothers Joncaire.
We must now return to a somewhat earlier period, for a review
of other phases of the history of the region.
In no period of its Eighteenth century history has so little
been recorded of the Niagara region as in the years immediately
following the death of the elder Joncaire. This is in part due
to the fact that the regional events of that period relate less
to expeditions and military plans than to the development and
prosecution of trade. Far from being barren or even meager,
the unpublished documents of the time afford much from which
to sketch conditions on the Niagara and neighboring lakes.
At this period — the decade of the '40's — Fort Niagara, as
a garrison, was pitiably weak. In 1744, when Celoron was
sent to command there, the post had but 34 men. In that year
34 men were added, and there were six officers. The cannon in
all Canada were so few that Beauharnois, writing to the Count
de Maurepas, October 8th, regretted that he could not send
any more to Niagara, where there then were five peteraros and
four 2-pounders. In this summer de Lery and La Morandiere
came up to make such improvements for defense as the feeble
exchequer permitted. They repaired and doubled the old stock
ade, and apparently did some work on the stone house. Two
years later (October, 1746) when Captain Duplessis was hold
ing the place with 41 men — officers and soldiers all told--
Beauharnois promised that Niagara should be reinforced " on
the first movement of the enemy."
These notes sufficiently indicate the strength — weakness
386

THE FUR TRADE IN THE '40'S 387
rather — of the old fort at the period we are now to consider.
Until near the close of the decade of the '40's, when the con
trol of the Ohio region dominated all else in the Government
policy, Niagara was valued chiefly as a base pf operations in
the fur trade, and a depot of supplies for the Indians. It has
been related [Chap. XIV] how, in order to make that trade
more profitable, the post had been put under the lease system.
It is interesting to note how that system worked at this later
period. In 1742 an agreement was reached with the French Company
of the Indies, by which they undertook to carry on the trade
at Forts Frontenac and Niagara, beginning January 1, 1743,
for a period of six years. Under the company, the active
" farmer of the posts," or lessee of trade privileges, was one
whose name appears in the records as Charles, Chasles, Chales,
Chabet, and — most often and probably correctly — as the
Sieur Chalet. One document styles him " Inspector for the
India Company." The Intendant, Hocquart, wrote that he
had known Chalet a long time, and would vouch for his " ac
tivity and intelligence." In the same letter x the Intendant
urged greater economy at the Lake Ontario posts ; he thought
that 20 soldiers at Niagara, and 15 at Frontenac, with two
officers in each post, would be garrison enough to stand off any
Indian attack likely to be made.
There was much correspondence before the articles of the
lease were agreed upon and approved by the King. Chalet
was to transport goods, and material for warehouses, at his
own expense ; but he was given the use of the two sailing vessels
on the lake, to carry his merchandise to Niagara. In the
autumn of 1743 one of them was stranded, near Niagara,
with considerable loss to Chalet. Apparently as partial offset
to this, the next year he was allowed 300 livres for canoes,
though in general, during the period of his lease, he was re
quired to furnish his own canoes. He was also relieved of the
cost of transporting his supplies from Montreal to Lachine.
The payment required of Chalet to the Government, under
his lease, was, at the outset, 4,000 livres per year for each post.
i Hocquart to the Minister, Quebec, Oct. 15, 1742.

AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
In 1745, because of losses arising from the war, it was reduced
to 2,000 livres.
Under the monopoly of the French India Company, only its
agents could buy or sell beaver skins in Canada ; but trade in
other furs was open to all. Whoever wished to engage in the
Indian trade procured a license from the Governor General,
paying therefor a sum proportionate to the advantages offered
by the locality in which he proposed to operate. The trader
who stocked a bateau and sent it up the Lakes with four or
five men, paid for his license some 500 or 600 livres; some
posts were so profitable that a license to trade at them cost
1,000 livres. All trade permits for certain posts were occa
sionally withheld, which gave rise to the charge that they were
reserved for favored relatives or friends. The money paid
for trade licenses was received by the Governor General, who
was understood to use half of it for the poor, and who did use
a part of it for the relief of widows of officers.
But the forest traffic fluctuated as much as modern stocks.
There were times when traders' licenses were sold very cheaply,
and other times when the Government could not induce men to
undertake the business.
In the summer of 1743 Chalet made the round of Lake On
tario, visiting Forts Frontenac and Niagara, to learn the re
quirements and conditions of the trade. Except for an occa
sional visit of inspection, he appears to have conducted the
business, during the period of his lease, at Quebec, relying on
agents resident at the posts to look after the actual buying
and selling. There was no establishment at Toronto, but
Chalet sent thither, this summer, several voyageurs who camped
at the mouth of the Humber and carried on a considerable
trade with passing Indians, most of whom, had they not found
the French here, would have gone with their furs to Oswego.
One of the principal lieutenants was one Chicot, spoken of as a
carpenter and smith, " of very moderate ability for trade, but
absolutely necessary for the maintenance of buildings at
Frontenac and Niagara." Chalet paid part of his wages.
On his return to Quebec, from Niagara, Chalet made vigorous

THE FUR TRADE IN THE '40'S 389
protest against what he styled as abuses, but which were by no
means peculiar to Niagara.
At all of the posts, for years, the officers had been accus
tomed to engage in the fur trade on their own account. Not
only the officers, but soldiers, clerks, workmen, could exchange
a blanket or a gun with a friendly Indian who had a desirable
peltry to give in exchange. It was an irregularity, long tol
erated because not easily checked, but the lax system had
given rise to many abuses. Certain posts were in favor among
the officers because of the opportunities for profit which they
afforded. When the posts were leased or — to keep close to
the French phrase, " farmed " out, to a " fermier " such as
Chalet — the officers, finding their opportunities thus cur
tailed, did what they could to hamper and embarrass the
usurper of their privileges ; with resultant bickerings and com
plaints which perplexed and angered all who had a hand in the
administration. Nowhere did the situation become more difficult than at Ni
agara, as soon as Chalet undertook to assert his rights. Here
the commandant, Celoron, following the custom of his predeces
sors, had engaged in the Indian trade on his own account.
When he could no longer do so, he made things as difficult as
possible for Chalet ; and each, in letters to their superiors, com
plained of the other.
Chalet's first year or so as farmer of the Lake Ontario posts,
although fairly profitable, resulted in vigorous demands for
better terms of the lease. In 1744 there were gathered furs
valued at more than 94,000 livres. The barque which was
stranded in the autumn of 1743 was not floated until the follow
ing spring; but she was condemned and Chalet replaced her by
another of the same burden. This once more gave Lake On
tario two sailing vessels. In September, 1745, four carpenters
were sent to Frontenac to build another, which was ready in the
spring, when it replaced one of the old boats. Hence, al
though the French at this period operated four vessels on the
lake, not more than two were in commission at the same time,
and often, only one. In 1747 an inventory refers to the two

390 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
" barques " then in commission as the St. Charles and St.
Francois. Many Western Indians who took their wares to Oswego, in
the summer of 1745, not being satisfied with what was offered
in trade, returned with their furs to Detroit, where, obviously
as a last resort, they were disposed of. An official dispatch
which relates the occurrence, observes that this " of a truth
was to the prejudice of the Sieur de Chalet, but the commerce
of the Colony lost nothing." That the company's stores at
Niagara should be thus ignored by savages who had brought a
wealth of furs so far, and for nothing, gave new cause of com
plaint to Chalet ; while the scornful Celoron improved the oc
casion to remind the Governor that the trade at Niagara was
ruined through the incompetence of Chalet; and that troubled
contractor complained to the Intendant that if the Niagara
establishment was for a time not supplied with goods it was
because of the stranding of the vessel which was carrying them
thither; and besides, he could not be expected to foresee that
Indians going to the English at Oswego would bring their
untraded furs back to Niagara. In any case, continues the re
port,2 if Celoron had been less prejudiced against the farm
system, " it would not have been difficult to make with Chalet
proper arrangements, to prevent the complaints of the sav
ages ; but I cannot overlook that this officer, as well as most of
those at the other posts, are little pleased at the arrangements
which have been made for carrying on trade, seeking only to
hamper the lessees instead of assisting them as you ordered
them to do." Celoron not only thwarted the lessee, but re
fused to come to an understanding with Hocquart or with
Michel, the commissioner of the Marine, and Beauharnois
threatened to recall every officer who opposed the lessees. In
April, 1745, the President of the Navy Board, with royal
sanction, wrote as follows to Celoron :
I am informed, sir, that since you have filled the command ac
corded you, of the fort Niagara, the lessee of the trade of that post,
far from receiving from you the assistance and aid which you should
2 President of the Navy Board to Beauharnois, May 5, 1745.

THE FUR TRADE IN THE '40'S 391
give him for the good of his undertaking, has found at your hands
only difficulties and obstructions.
I am likewise informed, although neither M. Hocquart nor M.
Michel have written of it, that since you have been in this post, you
have not deemed it incumbent to take council with either in regard
to the improvement of the trade, nor details concerning the fort and
garrison. ... I warn you, that if you give further occasion for com
plaint, I shall not be able to prevent His Majesty from making you
feel the effects of his displeasure.
Celoron was soon after recalled from the command at Ni
agara, being succeeded by Captain Duplessis. He had per
sisted in his traffic with the Indians, much to the disgust of
Chalet, whose complaints could not be ignored; but the Gov
ernor General, in writing of the affair, did not disguise his
admiration of certain qualities which distingushed the sol
der : " I can only attribute such stubbornness to the inflexi
ble character of this officer who has moreover all the essential
qualities of a man of war. He has, however, felt the blow
which has been given him; I know that he has seriously re
flected," and he begged Monseigneur to " forget this affair,"
promising to report later how Celoron comported himself.3
When a removal for disobedience of orders was coupled with
such praise, it was hardly to be viewed as a disgrace ; the con
ditions in the service were well known, and the following year
we find him reinstated as commandant at Niagara.
Disgusted, and pleading ruin, Chalet sought to have his lease
canceled. His troubles were not confined to quarrels with
Celoron. Trade, which in the first year of his lease, had been
encouraging, soon fell off. The Indians who came down the
river with canoes full of furs, were not satisfied with the goods
which the French offered, nor with the rate of exchange. After
prolonged but unfruitful dickering, they would resume their
paddles and make their way to Oswego, where the English were
better stocked and more liberal in exchange. Not merely at
Frontenac and Niagara, but at all the western posts, the In
dian trade lapsed into a precarious and unprofitable state.
In 1744, war was declared between France and England,
s Beauharnois to the Minister, Oct. 18, 1746.

392 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
and there was a great falling off in the amount of goods taken
up for trade at the posts, in comparison with recent previous
years. The merchants who furnished outfits had but a small
quantity of goods on their hands, and the Indian traders grew
discouraged. Beauharnois complained that although he of
fered licenses for nothing, especially for Detroit, in order that
there should be abundance of goods at that post, only ten
traders went up this year. " I was obliged," he wrote, " to
give seven of these licenses gratis, in return for conveying the
effects of the commandant and of the garrison which could not
otherwise be carried up without great expense to his Majesty."
It required, he continues, " considerable solicitation " to in
duce nine canoes to go to Mackinac, so slight was the prospect
of profit. " The same reasons apply equally to all the other
leased posts; also to those of Niagara and Fort Frontenac,
which are hardly better provided with goods necessary for the
Indian trade there, and will be much less so next year, no
supplies of any description having reached us this year."
The despondent Governor was writing at Quebec, October
28th. The season of gales was at hand, no ships were likely to
arrive for more than half a year; and even were supplies abun
dant at Quebec, relief of the Lake and Western posts during the
winter was out of the question. The Governor realized that
with no goods for trade at the posts, the general trade of the
Colony would fall off, and the Indians, no longer finding their
necessaries at the French posts, would turn to the English,
where their wants would be satisfied, but on conditions en
tirely opposed to the interests of the French.
After the recall of Celoron, Beauharnois wrote to the Minis
ter in sanguine mood : " There has been no more quarreling
since the new order was established in the trade at Niagara and
Frontenac. Nothing has happened contrary to the good of the
trade, at least nothing has come to my knowledge." An ef
fort had been made, before the war of 1744, to reduce the
garrisons to the lowest possible point, in the interest of
economy; but since that date, increases were deemed neces
sary. It was not a happy time at these feeble forts. Duplessis

THE FUR TRADE IN THE '40'S 393
in command at Niagara, fell sick " of fatigue, conjoined to
bad diet," 4 and asked leave to go down to Quebec to recruit
his health. The real trouble was that the Senecas refused to
supply the post with fresh meat. Joncaire, living amongst
them, was also dangerously ill at this time. The Niagara gar
rison was but a feeble handful. Besides Duplessis there were
Lieutenant de Contrecoeur; two ensigns, de Boulascry and
Chevalier de Garner; one 2d ensign, a son of Duplessis; four
sergeants and 33 soldiers, two of them gunners.
And the trouble really grew out of the trade situation. Dis
satisfied with what they received at the fort, and the withhold
ing of brandy, the Senecas refused their customary help as
hunters. It was the first boycott on the Niagara, and it
nearly ruined the post.
Duplessis was allowed to leave, with appreciative mention in
the dispatches : " He is a good officer, who has well acquitted
himself among these people [the Senecas] in very critical
times." The command passed to de Contrecoeur.
A memoir written by Chalet 5 sheds some light on the condi
tions of the trade at the lake posts.
On the basis of the business of 1743 and '44, Chalet declared
that he was being ruined, and must relinquish the lease. The
agreed amount payable to the King for the trade privilege at
Frontenac and Niagara, was 8,000 livres, yearly. The cost
of transporting goods to these posts was 10,000 livres; for
use of bateaux, 1,500 livres were paid; wages of sailors and
bateau-men exclusive of their food, 1,800 livres ; wages of em
ployes and workmen at the posts, 4,000 ; and gratuities to the
officers, 2,400 livres. This last item is frequently mentioned.
It was customary, so long as the French were in control of the
lake posts, to allow to the principal officers a substantial
" gratification," perhaps as solace for the lost privilege of
barter on their own account.
The above items made a total expense account of 27,700
livres ; to which were to be added the cost of rigging, etc., for
the barques, tools, and supplies for boatmen and for employes
* Boisherbert on Indian Affairs, Nov., 1747.
5 Dated Quebec, Oct. 20, 1744.

394 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
at the posts. The other side of the ledger showed as follows:
50,000 livres worth of merchandise sold at Frontenac and
Niagara at 15 per cent, profit, netted the lessee 7,500 livres.
Profit on food supplies was figured at 2,500 livres and on
brandy, sold at 100 per cent, above cost, at 8,000; a total of
19,000 livres, against expenses of 27,700 livres. It is hardly
necessary to observe that the profit on Indian goods which were
paid for in furs, undoubtedly, at least ultimately, far exceeded
the 15 per cent, allowed by Chalet ; but by his own figures the
terms of the lease were ruinous. His pleas resulted in a re*
duction of the annual rent; but the depressed and disturbed
state of trade which followed the declaration of war led to the
abandonment of the contract before the six-year term had ex
pired. The war raised the price of goods in France. After the
risk and difficulty of transport to Quebec, the price was still
further raised ; so that, when finally laid down in the storehouse
at Niagara, the guns and knives, blankets and trinkets repre
sented a far greater value than under more favorable condi
tions. But these far-reaching causes meant nothing to sav
ages who had paddled a thousand miles with their canoes gun
wale-deep with beaver, mink, marten and fox. They only
knew what had been given for these furs on other visits at
Niagara. When Chalet's clerks valued his wares on a basis
60 per cent, higher than their cost in France — as was the
case in 1744 — the Indians refused to trade, and went on to
Oswego. It was estimated in 1744 that all of the posts under company
control produced 200,000 livres' worth of beaver. If this fur
could have reached the manufacturers in France in good sea
son, the market would have been well sustained ; but with ship
ments from Quebec few and uncertain, values fell off, and the
basis of barter at the posts was still further demoralized. " I
am convinced," wrote the Intendant to the Controller-General,
in October, 1744, " that an increase in the price of beaver will
induce all of the Indians who are now going on to the English,
to stop at Niagara." Accounts of the time show that both

THE FUR TRADE IN THE '40'S 395
French and English allowed from three to four francs for green
beaver pelts and 30 for the dry.
In 1746 Chalet relinquished his lease of the Lake Ontario
posts. Efforts were made to induce him to continue, for there
was a scarcity in the colony of men able and honest enough
to assume such duties. He appears indeed to have yielded in
some measure to the call for his continued services; for in
1747 we find him supervising a new arrangement of the con
voys, of the correspondence with the store-keepers at Fron
tenac and Niagara, and in general, working for an economical
administration at those posts. He is also mentioned as having
been very useful during the war (1744-48) because of his
knowledge of English and his ability to learn from prisoners
the state of things with the enemy. He died prior to July,
1748, at which time his brother-in-law, Gobert de St. Martin,
petitioned for a copy of his will and an inventory of his prop
erty. It is worthy of note, that during this four years of war, the
French abode at Frontenac and Niagara, the English at Os
wego, and neither attacked the other. Each party contem
plated such an attack, and both gave it up through mistrust
of the Iroquois, without whose help they dared not hope for
success. In April, 1745, John Lydius reported that the
French with 600 Indians under Belestre, were coming to at
tack Oswego. The matter was considered by the Council at
New York, and by the Mohawks at their castles, but there was
no attack. The French had given it up because the Senecas
and other tribes would not pledge support.6 The English on
their part, also considered an expedition against Fort Niagara,
but abandoned it for the same reason — the refusal of their
Indian allies to aid them. For once, Iroquois neutrality was
respected by both belligerents, though neither would have re
spected it, had he felt strong enough to ignore the Indians.
In the summer of 1745, fearing an English attack on Ni
agara and the portage, and that the convoys to that post and
o Memo, of the King in instructions to the Marquis Duquesne, Versailles,
May 15, 1752. See abstract in Can. Arch. Rept, 1905, L, 165.

396 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
to Detroit would be intercepted and pillaged, Beauharnois had
sent to the Niagara the Sieur de St. Pierre, with 60 Nipissings
and Algonquins. With them came also the Sieur Demuy, the
elder, with a force under orders to proceed to Detroit. At the
same time de Longueuil gathered a horde of friendly savages
and came to the aid of Niagara. It is not clear that the Eng
lish even contemplated an attack on Niagara at this period.
At any rate, none was made; but Beauharnois justified his
elaborate steps for defense by the fact that the English were
deterred, and that his precautions had induced many traders,
coming down from the upper country, to tarry with profit at
Niagara. The scare .also resulted in a strengthening of the
fortifications; but the rapid caving in of the lake banks near
the fort led the Governor General to advise moving the fort
to the other side of the river, "where I am assured it would
be on a rock foundation." 7 A year later, perhaps as a result
of protective work, he writes that " the lake, which was under
mining the place where the fort stands, has made no further
progress for a year." 8 He was now disposed to strengthen
the fortifications and enlarge the garrison ; " it is certain,"
he assured the Minister, " that this place is one of the keys of
the country, and must be made proof against both savages and
the English." He urged the necessity of taking possession
of Oswego; but before his plans could take shape, the Peace
of Aix-la-Chapelle, October 7, 1748, brought armed strife on
the lake to an end. " Only a true " at best, that treaty did
not in the least check the strife for control of the Indian trade.
A serious loss to the French, at this time — the late season
of 1748 — was the wreck of the vessel relied on for transport
between Frontenac and Niagara. Bigot was instructed 9 to
take necessary steps to replace " the Niagara barque," with
out which the lake posts, Niagara most of all, were seriously
handicapped in their efforts to hold the Indian trade.
The strength of the Niagara garrison, as stated by Indians
or English soldiers, carried there captive, can seldom be ac-
f La Galissoniere to the Minister, Oct. 19, 1747.
8 16., Oct. 5, 1748.
» Navy Board to Bigot, Apr. 11, 1749.

THE FUR TRADE IN THE '40'S 397
cepted as trustworthy. Deserters from the post were better
informed. One such wanderer, who reached New York and
was examined in February, 1745, reported that there were 100
men at Niagara, with four cannon.10 Obviously, the size of
the garrison varied with each new arrival or departure of
troops ; and there was much coming and going of small parties.
In 1744 the garrison varied from 30 to 64 soldiers, with six
officers. Not a season passed without some effort at repairs and pro
tective work at Fort Niagara. In the summer of 1744, De
Lery and Morandiere rebuilt the walls. Duplessis, in 1745,
strengthened the fortifications and was commended for his pre
cautions.11 He also tried to stay the constant caving off of the
high lake bank north of the fort. A year later we find the
Navy Board writing about it ; " It is vexatious that the timber
revetment on Lake Ontario to prevent the water from reach
ing the base of Fort Niagara 12 has not been kept up, and the
earth continues to cave in. Some way must be found to pre
vent it, as soon as possible." 13 Many letters were written on
the subject. Replying to a proposal by La Galissoniere, to
abandon the place, and rebuild on the west side of the Niagara,
the President of the Navy Board admitted that a bad choice
had been made in the site of Fort Niagara, and complained of
the endless expense incurred in trying to stop the wearing
away of the banks. However, he added, " before submitting
to the King the proposition you have made, of moving it to the
other side of the river, you must show the advantages to fol
low, both as to substantial location, and in regard to the
Indian trade.14 A great point was, whether such removal
would further the efforts of the French to prevent Western
Indians from carrying their furs to Oswego. The scheme did
not receive royal sanction, and was dropped.
Contrecoeur's request to be relieved was granted. June 15,
1748, when the convoy reached Fort Niagara, it brought a new
io N. Y. Council Minutes.
n Letter from Pres. of the Navy Board, Mar. 7, 1746.
12 " Jusqu' au pii du fort de Niagara."
is Navy Board to La Jonquifcre and Hocquart, Mar. 13, 1747.
i* Pres. of the Navy board to La Galissoniere, "Marly, Jan. 23, 1748."

398 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
commandant in the person of Captain de Raymond, who had
already commanded there in 1743. His full name has not
been noted in the correspondence of the time, and but little
concerning his military service. In July, 1746, he had con
ducted, from Montreal to Quebec, a party of English pris
oners, who had been taken captive by Indians. He had been
at Niagara but a few weeks when he wrote a long letter,15 in
which he dwelt on the importance of the post and the great
danger of an attack by Indians in English interest. It was
because it was so exposed, he boasted, that the Governor,
Galissoniere, had called him to its command. " It is in the
way of all the savage nations of the upper country who are
continually going and coming for trade with the English at
Oswego, Albany and Boston. It is moreover, one of the most
important keys of the country. . . . With Niagara in the
hands of our enemies, the Lakes Ontario and Erie would be closed
to us." He enlarges on this point, and concludes by calling
attention to his 26 years of zealous service for France in
America, and begs for appointment to one of the vacant majori
ties. He was transferred from Niagara apparently in 1749;
was made a captain and commended for his gallantry at Ti
conderoga in 1758, but does not again come within the field of
our narrative.
Out of the trade conditions and rivalries of the time came
the establishment which grew into the present city of Toronto.
An official communication of October 9, 1749, signed by both
La Jonquiere and Bigot, advises that a more substantial es
tablishment be made on the north shore of Lake Ontario near
the mouth of the Humber — a natural harbor and portage
terminal which had long been called Toronto. As has been
noted, traders were sent there some years before; now it was
proposed to send " an officer, 15 soldiers and some workmen
to build there a little palisaded fort," to intercept the Indians
from the West, on their way to Oswego. We shall presently
see how this suggestion was acted upon. For a period, both
Frontenac and Toronto were " King's posts," where trade was
is Raymond to Monseigneur  , dated "Fort de Niagara, 8 7bre
[Sept.] 1748." Can. Arch., ser. F., vol. 92, pp. 163-4.

THE FUR TRADE IN THE '40'S 399
conducted on Government account. Furs received there, by
barter with Indians, were afterwards sold at public auction,
and the proceeds were supposed to be turned into the treasury.
It is not until April 15, 1750, that official record appears
of a new lease of trade privileges at Forts Frontenac and
Niagara. The lessee is only mentioned as " the Sieur Roger,"
and one of his first troubles was the " trade limits " which
were drawn between Niagara and the new post of Toronto ;
traders from the latter place were warned not to encroach on
territory tributary to Niagara.
La Jonquiere would have established trading posts on Lake
Erie, and still others on Lake Ontario, but had to be satis
fied with the new Toronto. " The forts of Niagara and De
troit," wrote the President of the Navy Board, " will always
suffice to assure the communication of these lakes. More posts
would mean merely more expense and a scattering of the forces
of the Colony. The King has not approved your views in
this regard, and his will is that these posts be not made." He
did however look with favor on a new post for the Ohio coun
try, to ensure communication with Louisiana; and later, as
related, a post on the Niagara at the upper end of the port
age, was established, subsidiary to Fort Niagara. It became,
in the few years of its existence, of very great importance.
Its controlling spirit, Chabert, received elaborate instructions
regarding that part of his duties relating to trade. In 1756,
de Vaudreuil authorized him to establish a storehouse for
the Indian goods, and sent out a blacksmith who should be
stationed where most needed among the tribes. " We antici
pate," wrote de Vaudreuil, " that the Five Nations will make
their trade at Niagara," and he admonished Chabert to give
them all possible attention : " We have sent to Niagara pro
visions and goods needed for the trade. The Sieur de Cha
bert knows how important it is to us that the Five Nations have
no occasion to regret the English. The clerks put in charge
of the King's trade shall give the goods to them on as favor
able terms as possible." ie
16 Instructions of the Marquise de Vaudreuil, given to the Sieur de Jon-
caire-Chabert, Oct. 19, 1756.

400 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
There had been, in fact, two objects in establishing the lease
or farm system wherever practicable. One was to increase the
revenue of the King, and, by means of the fur trade, offset
as far as possible, the cost of the posts, which was ever be
coming more and more burdensome. A second object was, to
keep the officers and employees at the posts from being inter
ested in trade profits, and put an end to the constant complain
ing of both traders and Indians.
As late as 1752, the admission was made in official corre
spondence, that the system had not proved satisfactory. In
some cases, the lessees of a post, instead of fighting the issue
to a finish, as Chalet did with Celoron at Niagara, with less
integrity connived with the officer in command, sharing both
privileges and profits. There were so many " deals " of one
sort and another, that in June, 1752, the President of the
Navy Board asked the Governor, Duquesne, to consider if it
might not be better to abolish the farm system, and make
the trade free at the posts, merely imposing certain conditions
on the traders, either in the form of licenses (conges) to be
paid for, or by requiring them to transport provisions and
supplies for the King's storehouses. In 1749 an order had
been issued to the commandants at Frontenac, Niagara and
Detroit to see that the traders or storekeepers of those posts
put on their goods the same prices that the English were
charging at Oswego. It was hoped in this way to check the
swelling tide of trade at Oswego; but it was not materially
checked until, in 1756, the fortunes of war took Oswego itself
away from the English. The Indians of the Lake region then
had no alternative, except by the long journey to Albany; and
so for a time, even in these years of war, the French posts
enjoyed a revival of trade. A report of October 30, 1757,
observes, that the trade of Frontenac, Niagara and on the
Ohio would have been considerable, the past season, if the
posts had been sufficiently stocked with goods; but they were
left unprovided at a time when the upper country Indians
had abundance of peltry. " Most of them have left their
peltries in the King's storehouses, and content themselves
with a receipt from the storekeeper, who pledges himself to

THE FUR TRADE IN THE '40'S 401
satisfy their demands next spring." Vaudreuil, who is here
quoted, foresaw that the lack of supplies would occasion seri
ous want, and did what he could to meet the needs of the
service. " It is certain," he wrote, " that in peace the King's
posts will yield large profit, for the quantity of furs which
come from everywhere have no other market since they have
lost Oswego." But there was to be no more peace ; and in the
closing years of French domination, legitimate trade at the lake
and river posts was to be swallowed up in the general deluge of
fraud and waste.
In the summer of 1747, after the Hurons of Sandusky Lake
had murdered five Frenchmen, and all the Lake posts felt un
easy, unusual care was exercised in making up and dispatch
ing the Convoy. All the trading canoes bound for Detroit
and other western posts were ordered to leave Montreal with
the Convoy carrying the Government shipment of post supplies.
As this large and picturesque flotilla was paddling its way
through Lake Ontario, it came upon a large canoe full of
white men, women and children. Instead of attempting a de
fense or an escape, they rested on the quiet lake until the
canoes of the French overtook and surrounded them, then
informed their amazed and voluble captors that they were
refugees from Oswego. One of the men, who spoke French,
said he was a deserter from the English troops quartered there,
and explained to Commander Dubuisson that his party were
all Irish, who had become dissatisfied with the state of things
at the English post, and had decided to seek their fortunes
among the French. It developed later that this Oswego
refugee was one " Kollin," as Dubuisson reported it ; being
Irish, his name was no doubt Collins. He and his family were
subsequently sent down to Quebec where, on examination, he
stated that " he had fled from Choueguen [Oswego] through
apprehension of being prosecuted for having infringed some
prohibitory regulations," which is vague enough. One or more
soldiers had followed him. The Governor concludes : " They
have remained at Quebec and profess the Catholic religion."
Among other bits of news which the refugees told the French
was the information that the Governor of Menade — that is,

402 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
New York — wishing to corrupt Joncaire Chabert, had of
fered him a captain's commission in the British service. Jon
caire refusing to be thus corrupted, the Governor had turned
his attention to the Senecas, some of whom had gone over to
him. The uncertainty of Seneca friendship at this time made
Dubuisson cautious. At Fort Niagara he landed 20 men to
cut wood for the garrison; then hastened up to the Heights.
" The portage was passed very promptly and quietly," wrote
Duplessis, the commandant at Niagara, " except the last night,
when some drunken fellows of the guard gravely illtreated the
Grand Chief of the Senecas, who is very much dissatisfied in
consequence." Duplessis sent Chabert to the village of the
Little Rapid, "with something to restore the temper of that
chief." What the " something " was, the records fail to state,
but Chabert, as expert as he was diplomatic, unquestionably
knew what palliatives would soothe this ruffled lord of the vil
lage of the Little Rapid — the Buffalo of 1747.
These troubles adjusted, Dubuisson and his laden canoes
paddled off into the mists of Lake Erie; but when Detroit
was reached, de Longueuil, there commanding, announced that
he had authority to detain at his post all the people of the
convoy, even the voyageurs and employees, if any treachery
were apprehended from Indian sources.
Neither travel nor traffic were ever free from great hazard
at this period; but in September, so large a deputation of
Senecas and other Iroquois visited Quebec, that the Admin
istration again " breathed easy " ; for so long as their head
men were guests of the French, no war parties were likely to
molest French posts or settlements. Profiting by this situa
tion, the garrisons at Frontenac and Niagara were reinforced
and newly stocked with food and goods for trade.
The needs of the Detroit colony, and the growing number
of traders in the West, greatly increased the traffic through
the Niagara and over the portage. For many years before the
end of French dominion on the Lakes, for the sake of economy,
convenience and protection, the transport of goods from the
East to the West was somewhat systematized. Although there

THE FUR TRADE IN THE '40'S 403
was much coming and going, during the season of navigation,
the main shipment was made in late summer, and because the
boats were dispatched under armed protection, it came to be
known as the Convoy. Many boats were loaded at Montreal,
by the Government, with goods for the settlers, still more
goods for the Indian trade, building material, arms and am
munition. Even money, and some articles of luxury, were
sent by the Convoy. An adequate armed force of the King's
troops, or of Canadian militia, accompanied. Because of the
protection thus afforded, the merchants of Quebec, Three
Rivers and Montreal, who had agents or representatives any
where to the westward, sent out their supplies and recruits at
the same time. Thus the Convoy was swelled to a large fleet
of laden canoes and bateaux, against which no roving band
of ill-disposed savages was likely to do harm. The departure
from Montreal was in August. The toil of the rapids and
the portages was lightened with jest and song. The force
was so great that the night encampments felt secure. To
gether the laden craft threaded the channels of the Thousand
Isles, and insolent in their strength, swept past the impotent
post of Oswego, to taunt and challenge the handful of help
less British. The arrival of the Convoy at the mouth of the
Niagara was the great event of the year for the lonely gar
rison at the fort. Then followed busy and stirring days, with
profit for the Indians of the portage, who with incredible
loads toiled up the steeps and through the forest to the land
ing above the Falls — after 1750, Fort Little Niagara. If
one would conceive of the labor of the portage, let him even
to-day pass over the improved road, which does not wholly
coincide with the old portage path, and try to imagine the
means and effort required to transport, not the light bark
canoes, but the heavy plank bateaux, up the heights and
through the forest, eight miles to the point of reembarka-
tion. Although bateaux were kept in reserve, at either end
of the portage, there were times when these heavy boats had
to be transported in numbers, up and down the hills. Oxen
and horses were used in the later years; but many a loaded
train passed that way with no motive power but human muscle.

404 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
Small wonder if, after the greater tasks were over, before the
boats paddled off up the river to Lake Erie, there were hours
of idleness and drunkenness. The old portage road was al
ways a place of theft from the goods in transit, and of ex
asperating and demoralizing debauch, especially by the In
dians who served as carriers, and profited by the needs of all
who went that way.
The story of the portage, here touched on only as inci
dental to the general course of our narrative, rivals in inci
dent and importance the story of Fort Niagara itself. In
some respects it is more significant, for the portage is a part
of the great story of the West. For half a century, De
troit, largely dependent on the East for means of subsistence,
watched with apprehension and deep concern, the successful
passing of the Niagara portage, not only by the annual Con
voy, but by her high officials, her soldiers and her traders,
with their families and possessions. One random record from
the old days may serve to vivify the conditions of the times.
It was at the Niagara portage that the baby Nicolas Cam
peau, son of Etienne and Jeanne Cecile (Catin) Campeau,
was dropped in the river by a voyageur; but instead of meet
ing the fate of countless unfortunates since, the lusty young
ster was rescued and lived to be known for many years as
" Niagara " Campeau. In the records of the Huron Mis
sion near Detroit (1733-56) are many references to this " Ni
agara." In 1751 he was farmer for the mission and appears
to have lived on Bois Blanc Island. The reader of the old
mission records will discover that among " Niagara " Campeau's
live stock was a valued cow named " La Niagara " ; but whether
she too had adventures at the portage is not stated; and per
haps we are carrying our regional researches further than is
edifying or essential.
The shipment of goods to Western trading posts was well
systematized. To Detroit and posts east of it, on the Lakes,
90 canoes were sent out annually, of which 10 were appor
tioned to Niagara. As the average value of a laden canoe
was 7,000 livres, the wealth represented by a great flotilla of
them is apparent. These capacious canoes were of three, six,

THE FUR TRADE IN THE '40'S 405
12 and even 24 places, and the larger ones could carry 3000
pounds weight.
In 1748, the Convoy was commanded by an experienced of
ficer, already alluded to, Pierre Joseph Celoron.17 He was a
veteran in Canadian service and had received knighthood in
the Military Order of St. Louis. Prior to 1739 he had been
in command at Mackinac and had shared in the Chicasaw
campaign. In 1740 he was again in command at Mackinac
and passed back and forth through the Niagara, as he prob
ably had in earlier years. As already noted, he was in com
mand at Fort Niagara for about two years from the fall of
1744, and was transferred from the Niagara to Fort St.
Frederic on Lake Champlain where he served in 1746-47. At
the time of his recall from that post, in November, 1747,
Boisherbert wrote of him : " He has acquired the esteem of
everybody " ; " deserves promotion, being one of the best offi
cers we have, and even one of the oldest captains."
The Convoy which this experienced and trusted officer com
manded, in the summer of 1748, was a notable one. The sec
ond in command was M. de La Naudiere, and the escort con
sisted of more than 100 Frenchmen, with 10 or 12 of " the
most reliable Nepissing Indians of the Lake," i.e., Lake of
the Two Mountains, above Montreal, and a great number of
voyageurs, who were going up to trade. This imposing flo
tilla, " while passing Fort Frontenac, made a strong impres
sion on the Iroquois and other nations it met." So wrote
the Governor to the Minister ; 18 and, he adds, " the news of
its approach, I think, determined more than anything else,
the principal chiefs of Detroit to come to Montreal."
Up the Niagara and through Lake Erie the great Con-
i' He was the Sieur de Blainville, but has been inaccurately designated by
writers as Bienville, and even Bienville de Celoron.
is Galissonifere to Count de Maurepas, Quebec, 23d Oct., 1748. In the
Canadian Archives I have noted the following in reference to Celoron: He
was appointed Fort Major ("commandant sidentaire") at Detroit, May
23, 1749, being the first to fill that post. He received 12 livres a year, and
a gratuity of 3000 livres to be taken from the congis funds. Long instruc
tions were given for his conduct. A town on Chautauqua Lake and an
island in the Detroit River, bear his name. For a sketch of his career, by C.
M. Burton, see Mich. Pioneer & Hist. Colls., XXXIV,

406 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
voy was successfully guided. Speedily, too, for Celoron ar
rived back at Quebec September 5th. The down journey,
especially if the canoes were not burdened with fur packs,
was often made with incredible celerity.

CHAPTER XX
TWO FAMOUS EXPEDITIONS
Celoron's Undertaking of 1749 — Adventures of the Broth
ers Joncaire — The Chautauqua Portage — Great Brit
ain Warned from the Ohio — The Abbe Picquet comes to
Niagara.
Less than two months after Celoron's discharge of this duty,
the war between France and England was ended by the Treaty
of Aix-la-Chapelle, signed October 1, 1748. Ostensibly, this
treaty established peace between the two Powers ; but not for
an hour did it lessen the strife for the control of trade at
Niagara and the Lake posts. Of even greater moment was
the utter failure of the treaty to establish boundaries be
tween French and British possessions south of the Lakes.
France had long claimed the region south of Lake Erie, hav
ing no more substantial support for the claim than the
shadowy adventuring of La Salle nearly 80 years before.
Now the British, regardless of French assertions, were inso
lently taking possession. The Ohio Company, a Virginia as
sociation with a royal grant, was sending its traders into the
great valley west of the Alleghenies. If they gained the In
dian trade, more or less certain tribal allegiance would follow.
The energetic Galissoniere, at Quebec, realized that the
hour for aggressive action had come. Sustained by King
and Court, he fitted out an expedition. Its object was, to
show both to British and to Indians, that the region of the
" Beautiful River " belonged to France. No attempt was to
be made to build forts or establish garrisons ; but British in
truders were to be warned off, and the resident tribes were
to be pledged anew in fealty to France. The two Powers
being now at peace, warlike methods might not be used; the
most impudent of traders from Virginia or Pennsylvania might
not be captured or killed; he could just be told to get out;
407

408 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
and the whole vast watershed of the Ohio was to be claimed
anew for France by the singularly peaceful method of bury
ing, at convenient spots, leaden plates inscribed with the procla
mation that France, by means of this expedition and bits of
buried lead, had repossessed herself of her own.
Impotent as such a procedure may seem, it was not with
out precedent, though perhaps it had never been relied on
under such discouraging conditions. The Indian was too
shrewd, the frontier trader too insolent or indifferent, to be
impressed by archaic mummery.
Ineffective as the methods to be used may seem, they were
the main reliance of France for assertion of authority in this
inland empire. It was her first show of force in the region,
where heretofore she had sent only a few emissaries of the type
of Joncaire the elder. The gateway to the region was the
Niagara; and the chosen leader was Celoron.
The force gathered under his command left La Chine on the
afternoon of June 15, 1749. There were 23 canoes, carry
ing 250 men, French and Indians. There were eight subaltern
officers, six cadets, an armorer, 20 French soldiers, 180 Can
adians, 30 Iroquois and 25 Abenakis. The reader will note
that in this expedition, which historically is of such extraor
dinary import, the trained soldiers of France were but a
handful. It was the Canadian — the habitant — on whom the
Governor relied for strength, endurance and knowledge of
waterways and woodcraft. But the main reliance, the prin
cipal influence which at the outset seemed to insure success,
and kept the men from degenerating into a mere rabble of
wilderness wanderers, was Celoron and the officers under him.
They were a picked lot of fine fellows, experienced in fron
tier service and in the control of men, white and Indian. One
of them was de Contrecoeur, whose part in our regional his
tory deserves attention. His full name is written Pierre Claude
de Pecaudy (or Pecaudry), Sieur de Contrecoeur. His fa
ther, an officer in the regiment of Carignan, had been ennobled,
by Letters Patent, January, 1661, and in 1672 secured the
Seigniory of Contrecoeur, which in due course passed to Pierre,
who is thereafter known as De Contrecoeur. He spent a long

TWO FAMOUS EXPEDITIONS 409
life as a soldier for France in Canada. As early as 1710 we
find him an ensign in Acadia. He first came to the Niagara
as a lieutenant under Captain Duplessis, and in 1747 suc
ceeded that officer in command of Fort Niagara. Later in that
year, at his own request, he was relieved, being succeeded by
Captain de Raymond. In later years he is to bear a con
spicuous part in the war which was the natural sequence of the
expedition in which we now find him engaged.1
Still more notable is another of Celoron's company: Joseph
Coulon de Villiers, whose name appears in the documents some
times as " Captain Coulon," sometimes as De Villiers, but most
often as De Jumonville. He was one of seven brothers, six of
whom served in the Canadian wars and four of whom are more
or less identified with the Niagara frontier. A younger
brother, Francois, was also in Celoron's following. A few years
later it was to be the fate of Jumonville to fall by an English
bullet, for which a young Colonial officer in British service, by
name George Washington, was held responsible ; and it was
to still another brother of this same family De Villiers that
Washington surrendered, July 4, 1754. Some further note of
this remarkable family will be made in due course.
Philippe Thomas de Joncaire (the second Sieur de Chabert),
and his brother Daniel were both in the expedition. Years
after, Daniel wrote of it:
In the spring [1749] I went down the Ohio with M. de Celoron
and Father Bonneau,2 royal professor of hydrography at Quebec, to
take possession in the King's name with the accustomed formalities.
We were escorted by a detachment of 250 men.
The second object of the expedition was to drive out the English
established on the banks of this river, and to punish a tribe which
had killed several Frenchmen. My commission did not extend to all
that, for I was ordered by M. de La Galissoniere to go down to
Montreal ; but the commandant, who thought my presence necessary,
i In February, 1748, Contrecoeur, then commandant at Fort Niagara,
was promoted from lieutenant to captain, and given a company. De Vassan,
Legardeur de St. Pierre and Marin at the same time received a like promo
tion. 2 So printed in the Joncaire Mimoire. Obviously an inadvertence for
Bonnecamps.

410 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
kept me, and took upon himself to have the Governor approve this
counter order.
We thought we should perish several times .in this journey, en
countering enemies greatly superior in number; my brother would
have been burned if he had not called out his own name, and awed
these people by the fear of having the arms of the Five Nations
turned against them. These savages have said since, that but for
my brother and myself, not a Frenchman would have escaped.3
Among others who accompanied Celoron were his son; and
the Sieur de Niverville, who was of the Boucher family — prob
ably Joseph, eldest son of Jean Baptiste Boucher. Joseph was
an ensign when serving with Celoron; later he is mentioned
as lieutenant.
In some respects, the most important member of the party,
next to Celoron himself, was the Rev. Jean de Bonnecamps,
" professor of hydrography " in the Jesuit College at Que
bec ; a singular-enough chair of learning for the time and place,
but one that was maintained from 1671 until the Conquest.
Father Bonnecamps styles himself " Jesuitte Mathematicien."
He had mastered astronomical reckoning, and on the march he
made frequent record of latitude and longitude. His journal,
and that of Celoron, are the principal sources of information
regarding the expedition.4
The expedition set out in high spirits, June 15th. Two
days later, at the Cedars, the canoe of " Monsieur de Jon
caire" — Father Bonnecamps' journal does not say which Jon
caire — was lost, and one of the four men in it " perished be
fore our eyes, without our being able to give him the slightest
3 From the "Mimoire de Daniel de Joncaire-Chabert," etc., being a part
of the report of the " Commission itablie pour I'affaire du Canada," Paris,
1763. For the use of a copy of this excessively rare volume, acknowledgment
is herewith made to Mrs. John P. Bronson, of Monroe, Mich., whose great
grandfather was Francis, son of Daniel de Joncaire-Chabert.
* Both documents were discovered, in Paris depositories, by the late
O. H. Marshall of Buffalo; to whose researches all subsequent students of
this episode are indebted.
The Pere Bonnecamps returned to France in 1757. On his representation
that he had received 800 livres per annum in Canada, he was given a gratuity
of 600 livres and sent to live in Touraine " where all the officers from Canada
are stopping."— Orders of the King, and Minutes, Oct. 9, 1762.

TWO FAMOUS EXPEDITIONS 411
aid. This," adds the reverend chronicler, " was the only man
we lost during the expedition." Eight days later they reached
the mouth of the Oswegatchie, now Ogdensburg, where the
Sulpitian missionary, the Abbe Picquet, had just begun his
establishment. They found him " lodged under a shelter of
bark, in the midst of a clearing of nearly 40 arpents." Close
by was the palisaded fort, 70 feet square, which he had built.
His purpose was to gather at this place as many Indians as
he could bring under the influence of France and Christian
ity. He is destined to win a marked success and to play an
extraordinary part in colonial history ; but when Celoron and
his people paused there, " his whole village consisted of two
men, who followed us into the Beautiful River," i.e. the
Ohio. The season was propitious, the lake was calm, and on July
6th, the expedition entered the mouth of the Niagara. No
Convoy ever caused such excitement, for here was an extraor
dinary errand. This large force were to cross to the south
shore of Lake Erie, climb through the forest over the water
shed, and by waterways which the red man knew but which had
seldom been used by white men, were to enter that delectable
but debated land of the Beautiful River.
Father Bonnecamps' journal holds some observations which
should have place in these pages.
Of Lake Ontario he notes that the waters " are very clear
and transparent; at 17 and 18 feet, the bottom can be seen
as distinctly as if one saw it through a polished glass. They
have still another property, very pleasant to travelers — that
of retaining great coolness in the midst of the suffocating
heat which one is sometimes obliged to endure in passing this
lake." The condition of Fort Niagara during its first decade has
already been shown. In 1736 its armament was six small
cannon. In 1745 there were but four efficient cannon, though
the fluctuating garrison reached 100 men. Now, four years
later, Father Bonnecamps, though he does not tell the strength
of armament or garrison, draws a good picture of the
place :

412 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
The Fort of Niagara is a square made of palisades, faced on the
outside of oak timbers, which bind and strengthen the whole work.
A large stone barrack forms the curtain-wall, which overlooks the
lake; its size is almost the same as that of Fort Frontenac. It is
situated on the eastern bank of the channel by which the waters of
Lake Erie discharge themselves. It will soon be necessary to re
move it elsewhere, because the bank, being continually undermined
by the waves which break against it, is gradually caving in, and the
water gains noticeably on the fort. It would be advantageously
placed above the waterfall, on a fine plateau where all canoes are
obliged to land to make the portage. Thus the savages, people who
are naturally lazy, would be spared the trouble of making three
leagues by land; and if the excessive price of merchandise could be
diminished, that would insensibly disgust the English, and we could
see the trade which is almost entirely ruined, again flourishing.
An artillery return for Fort Niagara in 1749 shows that it
had four iron guns throwing 2-pound balls, four others for
1%-pound balls, a 6-inch iron mortar, one mortar for gren
ades, five swivels, and 13 iron shells (boites a pierrier s).
Our " Jesuit-Mathematician " was not the first to suggest
that the fort would have been better placed above the falls;
nor was he to be the last, as we shall see, to comment on the en
croachment of Lake Ontario.
On July 6th and 7th he " observed the western amplitude of
the sun, when it sets in the lake." It gave him 6° 30' north
west for the variation of the compass ; he found the latitude of
the fort to be 43° 28'. We know it to-day as 43° 15'.
Celoron, who crossed Lake Ontario by a different route than
that taken by his Indians, at Quinte fell in with La Naudiere,
his lieutenant of the year before, who assured him that the
nations around Detroit, having learned of his proposed march,
were ready to join him at the first invitation. He did " not
give much" (Je ne donnai pas beaucoup, etc.), he says, for
Indian promises, but none the less he hastened on to Niagara,
where he overtook Jacques Charles de Sabrevois, on his way
to his command at Detroit. They conferred together; Sa
brevois passed on up the portage, as did Contrecoeur with the
canoes that had arrived. Meanwhile Celoron, waiting at Fort

TWO FAMOUS EXPEDITIONS 413
Niagara for the Indian contingent, wrote to Chevalier de
Longueuil, stating what he had learned from La Naudiere and
begging that, if the Detroit Indians were still of a mind to
join him, their setting-out be hastened, so that they could
meet him at the Scioto between August 9th and 12th; but if
they had changed their minds, he wished to be informed of that
as well.
By the 8th, the entire army had passed up the portage, and
four days later were " encamped at the little rapid at the en
trance of Lake Erie," that is, within or opposite the present
site of Buffalo. Oddly enough, no mention is made by any of
the four men who were in the company, and wrote of the ex
pedition — Celoron, Bonnecamps, de Lery or Daniel de Jon
caire — of Buffalo Creek, though they all, probably, became
more or less familiar with it. Father Bonnecamps gives us
a little description of the portage and the cataract :
The channel which furnishes communication between the two
lakes is about nine leagues in length.5 Two leagues above the fort
the portage begins. There are three hills to climb, almost in suc
cession. The third is extraordinarily high and steep; it is, at its
summit, at least 300 feet above the level of the water. If I had
my graphometer, I could have ascertained its exact height; but I
had left that instrument at the fort, for fear that some accident
might happen to it during the rest of the journey. When the top
of this last hill is reached, there is a level road to the other end of
the portage ; the road is broad, fine and smooth.
The famous waterfall of Niagara is very nearly equidistant from
the two lakes. It is formed by a rock cleft vertically, and is 133
feet, according to my measurement, which I believe to be exact. Its
figure is a half-ellipse, divided near the middle by a little island.
The width of the fall is perhaps three-eighths of a league. The
water falls in foam over the length of the rock, and is received in a
large basin, over which hangs a continual mist.
The Indians for whom Celoron waited at Fort Niagara, had
again to be tarried for at the Lake Erie end of the river.
" We remained in our camp at the Little Rapid," wrote Fa-
s The French league is usually reckoned as two and a half miles. The
actual length of the Niagara River is 37 miles.

414 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
ther Bonnecamps on the 13th, " to await our Indians who were
amusing themselves with drinking rum at the portage, with a
band of their comrades who were returning from Oswego."
Later, when a similar delay occurred, he notes in his journal
that the savages are " a class of men created in order to ex
ercise the patience of those who have the misfortune to travel
with them." On the 14th the fleet entered Lake Erie, but a
heavy head wind drove them to an early camp, " some leagues
above the Little Rapid," says Celoron. They were on the
south shore, with which Celoron was not familiar. The first
camp, probably in the little bay, not far beyond the south
western limits of Buffalo or its steel-making suburb of Lacka
wanna, was made under guard of 40 men.
On the 15th, an early start was had, in the hope of reach
ing the place of portage, but Celoron's own canoe struck a
rock ledge which came near the surface, some distance from
shore. " But for quick help," he records, " I and all my crew
would have drowned." This mishap, probably in the vicinity
of Stony Point, sent them ashore to mend their broken boat
and delayed them so that it was noon of the 16th before the
place of portage was reached. This was the mouth of the
stream which the French called Riviere aux pommes — Apple
River — but which, since permanent settlement in the region,
has been known as Chautauqua Creek. The lake shore at
this point was but an open roadstead, beset with rocks and un
sheltered. The place had however long been used by the In
dians in passing from Lake Erie to the Ohio Valley. By this
route, too, six years before, Douville de la Saussaye had prob
ably passed on his mission to the Shawanese. In the present
expedition he is a guide for Celoron through the Chautauqua
region. The boats were beached and toil began. While 50 men, un
der de Villiers and Le Borgne, began to clear a road, Celoron
studied the landing place " in case it should be desired, here
after, to make a settlement." He saw no advantages and many
obstacles. " The lake is so shallow, on the south side, that
barques can come only within half a league of the portage.
There is no isle or harbor which offers shelter ; they would have

TWO FAMOUS EXPEDITIONS 415
to anchor and unload by means of bateaux. Gusts of wind
are frequent, and I think they would be in danger. Moreover,
there is no native village at this place."
The opening of the portage road was excessively hard work.
Some eight miles to the southward was " Chatakoin," on which
they planned to launch their canoes and float easily down by
the Outlet and connecting streams, into the Ohio. But the lake
lay 730 feet above Lake Erie, and to reach it an elevation of
at least 1000 feet had to be overcome. The way, broad
enough and clear enough for the carrying of canoes, was to
be made for much of the distance up the long steep slope of
the divide, through a heavy forest growth of oak, maple, beech
and other native hard woods, mingled with pine and hemlock.
The route cut out was nearly ten miles in length and for the
most part may still be traced. The modern road coincides
with the original path for some distance.6
On the 17th, about two and a half miles were opened; on
the 18th, scarce half as much. Besides the fatigue which the
men experienced, in cutting and climbing on the steep slopes,
heavy rain fell; but Celoron philosophically reflected that if
it delayed progress, it would also raise the streams, by which
he hoped to float southward. Half a league was the record
for the 19th. Two more days they crawled on; and on the
22d stood on the Chautauqua strand, with a " passably good "
road behind them, over which all the impedimenta were brought.
One day they rested on the shore of Lake Yjadakoin, as Bonne
camps writes it ; and at noon of the 23d the flotilla paddled
swiftly past the pleasant shores where in modern days of ease
countless thousands resort for intellectual uplift, or such re
newal of physical vigor as green woods and pure waters give.
Celoron and his army had advanced to the Chautauqua
portage, before news of their proceedings was published in
New York. On July 17th, the New York Gazette had intelli
gence from Thomas Maddox, " an Englishman who is the King's
interpreter," that a thousand French and Indians were going
to a place " called La Belle river, about 300 leagues from Can-
is See " The Old Portage Road," by H. C. Taylor, M. D., Fredonia, N. Y.,
1891.

416 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
ada, on a branch of Mississippi River, in order to destroy some
Indians that were under the allegiance of the Crown of Eng
land, and to drive off the English who were building a fort
there." When the Mayor of Albany heard of it, he remarked
that the place was supported by the Pennsylvania Government !
New York was not concerned in the matter. A few years later
it found itself very much concerned.
Just prior to Celoron's invasion, the Governor of Pennsyl
vania had sent 12 barrels of gunpowder to the Indians of the
Ohio. Naturally, they looked to Pennsylvania for backing, in
their resistance to the French.
At the Outlet, Celoron found, not the swollen stream he
had hoped for, but " barely two or three inches of water."
The boats were unloaded and the goods sent across a portage
which La Saussaye knew. Days of many difficulties followed,
but on the 29th their canoes floated in the deep water of the
Allegheny at the mouth of the Conewangd. The way of the
Beautiful River was clear before them.7
Celoron made his way down the Conewango, the Allegheny
and the Ohio as far as the mouth of the Great Miami, which
he reached August 28th. Six of the lead plates were buried:
i The author made inquiry regarding this portage, of the Hon. Obed
Edson, a resident of the region and close student of its history. Mr. Edson
replied: "The short portage made by Celoron, of three-fourths of a
league, I suppose was made before he entered the real rapids that
he describes. These rapids began where the traction line crosses the
Chadokoin at Jamestown. Above these rapids is a smoother, slow water,
as far up as the foot of the lake. Late in the season (this was July 25th)
the water is often low in some — not all — places, so that loaded boats
could not well pass over them. In the rapids below Jamestown, the swift
running of the same stream in the same direction would aid the passage of
the boats and thus obviate the necessity for a portage. Celoron writes:
" Before entering the place [i. e., the rapids] the greater part of the bag
gage was unloaded, with people to carry it to the rendezvous.' Where the
rendezvous was is obscure, but I believe it was at or near the hills of James
town, and at the head of the rapids. This short portage along the Outlet
to the real rapids seems to have occurred on the 24th, for on the morning
of the 25th a consultation was had which resulted in Joncaire being sent
upon a mission with some savages to Paille Coupie. The canoes were re
paired and probably the 26th was occupied in passing the many rapids be
tween their commencement at the trolley bridge at Jamestown, and their
ending at Levant, a distance of three leagues (7y2 miles), where, on the
morning of the 27th, they first found the still waters of the Cassadaga."

TWO FAMOUS EXPEDITIONS 417
One on the south bank of the Allegheny (which in Celoron's
time was regarded as the Ohio), opposite the mouth of the
Conewango, near present Warren, Pa.; one about nine miles
below the mouth of French Creek, under a great rock en
graved with strange hieroglyphics;8 a third at a point not
clearly indicated, but probably at the junction of the Ohio
and Wheeling Creek, on the north bank of the latter stream;
a fourth, on the right bank of the Muskingum, at its junc
tion with the Ohio ; a fifth, at the confluence of the Kanawha ;
and a sixth at the mouth of what Celoron calls Rock River
(Riviere a, la Roche), now known as the Great Miami.
Two of the plates have been found. In 1798, boys bathing
at the mouth of the Muskingum found a plate of lead in
the river bank, inscribed in a strange tongue. If they knew
nothing of French, or of the ancient claims of France, they
did know the value of lead. The plate was taken home and
a part of it used for bullets. Many years later, the rest of
it, with its mutilated inscription, came to the knowledge of
Caleb Atwater, a historian. He sent it to Governor De Witt
Clinton, who gave it to the American Antiquarian Society, in
whose building at Worcester, Mass., it is now preserved.
In 1846 a boy playing on the margin of the Kanawha, found
the plate which Celoron buried there 97 years before. This
plate is now in the keeping of the Virginia Historical Society.
So far as known, the others have not been recovered, though in
some cases considerable search has been made.
The plates were 11 inches long, 7% inches wide and %
inch thick. The inscriptions were identical, except as to
the place and date of burial. The name of the engraver,
Paul de Brosse, appeared on the reverse. They were evidently
prepared in France, or possibly at Quebec, and were a most
precious part of Celoron's luggage. As it happened, one
of them was stolen, on the Niagara, or between the Niagara
portage and the Chautauqua outlet. This we learn, not from
the French journals, but from the correspondence of Colonel
s The rock, long famous in Western Pennsylvania history, is pictured,
and the inscription given in facsimile, in Schoolcraft's " Indian Tribes in the
U. S.," vol. VI, p; 172.

418 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
William Johnson, to whom a sachem of the Cayugas carried
a lead plate, saying that the Senecas " got it by some artifice
from Jean Coeur (Joncaire)." Johnson referred it to Gov
ernor Clinton, who in reporting the matter to the Lords of
Trade wrote that he " would send to their Lordships in two
or three weeks a plate of lead, full of writings, which some
of the upper nations of Indians stole from Jean Ceur, the
French interpreter, at Niagara, on his way to the river
Ohio," 9 Its mysterious character aroused in the Indian mind
an uneasiness which Johnson did not fail to stimulate, dwell
ing in harangues to them on the dire evils sure to follow if the
sinister designs of the French went unchecked. Even Gov
ernor Clinton's letters to the Lords of Trade expressed uncom
mon concern at the land-grabbing activity of the French, which
contravened the treaties between friendly Powers.
In reality, Celoron's expedition accomplished nothing sub
stantial. At the burial of each plate, the officers and men
were mustered with all possible show of power — and finery,
the Arms of Louis XV were nailed to a tree, the plate was
impressively buried, and a formal Proces Verbal, or decree of
taking possession, was drawn up and signed by the officers,
those who could not write meanwhile contributing to the oc
casion with shouts of "Vive le Roi," and more or less discreet
consultation of the commissariat. The on-looking savages,
more entertained than edified, refused to be impressed; it was
not the sort of show of force for which they had respect. And
as for the British traders in the region, they paid very little
attention to the warnings and threats of Celoron, knowing
that the resident tribes were friendly to them. Even coun
cils conducted by the adroit Joncaire failed to win from the
Indians any satisfactory pledges, and by the time the Great
Miami was reached Celoron was aware that his arduous mis
sion was a failure. He was amazed at the number of English
traders in the region. At the village of Chiningue — later
known as Logstown, near the site of the modern town of
» It cannot be stated what became of the stolen plate. No further men
tion of it is found in the correspondence of Gov. Clinton and the Lords of
Trade.

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TWO FAMOUS EXPEDITIONS 419
Economy, Pa. — he encountered 10 traders from the English
colonies; even the British flag was flying there, the first, ap
parently, to be shown west of the Alleghenies. Celoron or
dered the intruders out of this " French territory." The Eng
lish leader, " who saw us ready to depart," says Bonnecamps,
" acquiesced in all that was exacted from him, firmly resolved,
no doubt, to do nothing of the kind as soon as our backs were
turned." No one was in the least deceived. Several other
Englishmen were encountered, with like result.
Celoron's main reliance, for controlling the Indians, was on
Joncaire and his brother Chabert. There was no one among
all the French in America of greater influence among the
tribes ; yet even they not only found themselves powerless, but
in danger. On one occasion, when the two Joncaires and
Niverville were sent in advance to announce the coming of
Celoron, the savages fired on them, the musket-balls piercing the
French flags ; and when Joncaire began to harangue them, one
of the savages cried out that the French were coming to destroy
them ; the excited horde seized the three envoys and were about
to burn them when a friendly Iroquois appeased the others,
who were Shawanese, " by assuring them that we had no evil
designs." This recalls the occasion referred to by Chabert in a
passage already quoted.10
The English had been kept well informed. It was the sachem
Hendrick who carried news of the expedition to Colonel William
Johnson, and through him to Governor Clinton; and it was
Celoron himself who wrote, August 10th, from his camp on the
Ohio to Governor Hamilton at Philadelphia, that he had ex
pelled the English traders from that region.
Turning northward, Celoron hastened into a safer neigh
borhood. In 37 days the expedition made its way from the
mouth of the Great Miami to Detroit, reaching that post Oc
tober 7th. They traveled up the Great Miami to Loramie
Creek; occupied five and a half days in the long portage to
the Maumee, which they made with the help of horses supplied
by Captain Raymond, in command at Kiskakon, now Fort
Wayne, Indiana. Thence, in Indian pirogues — not canoes,
io See page 316.

420 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
but dug-outs — they descended the Maumee to Lake Erie, some
of them going overland to Detroit. The journey was not with
out its hardships and adventures, upon which we need not
here dwell. October 8th the party again set out by canoe,
skirted the north shore of Lake Erie and on the 19th arrived at
Fort Niagara. After three days for rest and repairs, in
which, we may be sure, many tales of the Ohio wilderness were
told, the party set out once more along the south shore of
Ontario. It was a hard and hazardous traverse, for the gales
of autumn overtook them. On November 10th, Montreal was
reached and on November 18th Celoron and Father Bonne
camps arrived at Quebec, five months and 18 days after having
left it. By the priest's computation they had traveled 1200
leagues; and with the exception of Joncaire's boatman, acci
dentally drowned at the outset, not a life had been lost.
Mention has been made of the officers named Coulon de Vil
liers. Of no one, whose history pertains to the Niagara re
gion, not excepting even the Messrs. Joncaire, has there been
more error and confusion in printed allusions than of the
family Coulon de Villiers, several of whose members were on the
Lakes and the Niagara. A few facts regarding them, mostly
gleaned from documentary sources, may be here submitted, but,
let it be added, with no assumption of infallibility.
Nicolas Antoine Coulon de Villiers, who came to Canada
near the close of the Seventeenth century, in 1705 or 1706
married Angelique Jarret de Vercheres, a sister of the young
Madeleine de Vercheres whose splendid defense against an Iro
quois attack in 1696 made her one of the best-beloved heroines
in Canadian history. Antoine and Angelique gave to the col
ony a typical family of that day, not unworthy to be remem
bered with the Le Moynes. Of their twelve or thirteen chil
dren, at least four shared in history-making on this old fron
tier of France.
Nicolas Antoine the father, about 1725, replaced M. de
Villedonne as commander at Fort St. Joseph of the Illinois.
With the Jesuit priest Charles Michel Mesaiger, he landed at
the mouth of the Niagara before Fort Niagara was built, and
passed over the portage while the elder Joncaire yet main-

TWO FAMOUS EXPEDITIONS 421
tained his Magazin Royal under the heights of Lewiston. With
him, or soon joining him in the West, was his eldest son, also
named Nicolas Antoine. This youth again passed over the
Niagara portage in the fall of 1730, bearing messages from
his father's post to Quebec.
In 1731 the elder Coulon de Villiers was at Fort Niagara
en route to Quebec. A little later he was made commandant
at Green Bay, with the rank of captain; and at that post he
was killed in 1733.11
It is recorded that he had with him at Green Bay, six sons
and two sons-in-law. The latter were Duplessis-Faber and
Dagneau Douville. One of the sons, Francois, afterwards the
Chevalier de Villiers, was wounded; and with his brother-in-
law, Douville, carried to Quebec the news of what had hap
pened at Green Bay. They probably journeyed by the Ni
agara route, as did the elder brother Nicolas Antoine, who
signed himself " Coulon de Villiers," and is referred to in docu
ments as " M. Coulon." He was made lieutenant in 1734, and
succeeded his father in command at Green Bay, and later at
St. Joseph of the Illinois. In 1742, or early in 1743, we
find him again at Fort Niagara, on his way to Quebec, where
he soon after married under the name and title of Captain
Antoine Coulon, Sieur de Villiers. His later service was in
eastern Canada, and he died at Montreal in 1750, having won
the coveted Cross of St. Louis.12
A younger and more famous brother was Joseph Coulon de
Villiers, called de Jumonville. Born at Vercheres in 1718, he
was a lad of 15 when he first came to the Niagara in 1733,
on his way to Green Bay, where he served under his father.
He came again in 1739, as did also his brother Francois,
with that fine company of young soldiers who made the Chica-
n Ferland, II, 440.
12 Numerous writers, Parkman among them, have credited to this Coulon
de Villiers the defeat of Washington at Fort Necessity in 1754; but if he
died in 1750, as the Abbe Amedee Gosselin asserts in his painstaking study
("Notes sur la Famille Coulon de Villiers," L£vis, 1906), the hero of 1754
was obviously not Nicolas Antoine. The Abbe Gosselin's monograph rests on
records found in parish registers, the official correspondence of Governors,
and other original sources.

422 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
saw campaign.13 In succeeding years he saw hard service in
Acadia, and in the Mohawk Valley, where in 1748 he led an
expedition against the English, killing 14 or 15.14 He served
with Celoron in 1749,15 as did his brother Francois; and was
again on the Niagara in 1754, a few weeks before his death.
Of his last coming into the region we here study, further note
will be made in due place.
Jumonville's death left but two brothers, Louis and Fran
cois, both older than himself. It was the former who was to
be the avenger of Jumonville ; and it was Francois — after
wards styled the Chevalier de Villiers — who was to share in
the last French defense of the Niagara, and there become a
prisoner of the English.
An episode of some significance, in the summer of 1751, was
the tour around Lake Ontario and up the Niagara made by
the Sulpitian missionary, Francois Picquet. No other man
of his time, save possibly Chabert de Joncaire, exerted a greater
influence over the Indians of the mid-lake region.
Born at Bourg in Bresse, France, December 4, 1708, we
find him at the age of 27, arrived in Montreal a member of
the Company of St. Sulpice. In the five or six years follow
ing, while fulfilling his priestly duties he devoted himself to
the study of native dialects. Capable and exceptionally zeal
ous, it is said of him that by 1740 he " made known the sov
ereignty of France among the Algonquins, Nipissings, Iroquois
and Hurons." At the mission of Lac des Deux Montagnes —
now Oka, near Montreal — he gained such mastery of the Al
gonquin and Iroquois tongues that, says Fournet, " he surpassed
the ablest orators of those tribes." 16 The mission became
populous, a Catholic center in the midst of pagan tribes. Visi
tors at Oka to-day are shown the Calvary erected by Father
is MSS., Collection Moreau St. Miry (Arch, de la Marine; copies in the
Archives at Ottawa), vol. 44. In these papers one finds the names of
"M. de Villiers" and of the "Chevalier de Villiers." The latter was
Francois. " N. Y. Col. Docs. X, 168.
ib This service of Jumonville is not mentioned by the Abbe Amedee Gos-
selin, but is indicated by the official correspondence of the time.
ia Article " Picquet " in the Catholic Encyclopaedia.

TWO FAMOUS EXPEDITIONS 423
Picquet, with its well-built stations stretching along the moun
tain side facing the lake.
The Abbe Picquet's influence over the tribes was for many
years combated by the English. During the inter-colonial
strife of 1743-48, it was Picquet who held the Five Nations in
virtual neutrality, while the tribes which were open allies of the
French harried New England with their bloody raids, or served
as scouts and aides of the French troops.
In June, 1749, the Abbe founded his famous mission of La
Presentation, now the city of Ogdensburg. To gather recruits
for this establishment he set out, early in the summer of 1751,
on a tour around Lake Ontario. The record of this inter
esting journey is preserved in a memoir by one from whom
we would little expect a chronicle of missionary labors. It
was written by Joseph Jerome de Lalande, the eminent astron
omer, famed alike for his scientific attainments and for his
lack of Christian faith. The atheist is the biographer of the
missionary. Born in 1732, in Picquet's native town of Bourg,
Lalande was but 28 when the Abbe returned to France, and
but 20 when, in 1753, Picquet visited France. It was then
that he first gave Lalande an account of his adventures. " A
missionary," wrote the younger man of the elder, " praiseworthy
for his zeal and for the services which he has rendered to
Church and State, born in the same town as I, and with whom
I have been intimate, has put it in my power to set forth his
labors. I have thought this account worthy of place in the
Lettres edifiantes . . . and have been pleased to be able to
offer honorable testimony to the memory of a compatriot and
friend as estimable as the Abbe Picquet." 17
It is not, however, from Lalande, but from the Abbe Picquet's
own journal,18 that we draw an account of his tour around
Lake Ontario.
•¦¦'"Lettres idiflantes et curieuses (Mimoires des Indes)," Paris, 1783,
vol. XXVI. Andre Chagny's recent work, " Un defenseur de la Nouvelle
France, Francois Picquet ' Le Canadien,'" (Paris, 1913), draws largely
on Lalande's memoir. See also : " Le Fondateur dv la Prisentation," by the
Abb6 Auguste Gosselin. Trans. Roy. Soc. Canada, 1894.
is MS. copies are preserved in the Canadian Archives, and in the library
of the Buffalo Historical Society.

424 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
Setting out June 10th, from his mission at the mouth of
the Oswegatchie, the little flotilla, consisting of a " king's
bateau," in which were the missionary, the Chevalier Le
Borgne, and six Canadians, and a bark canoe paddled by " five
faithful savages," made its way through the islands, reaching
Fort Frontenac on the 12th. The abbe was struck by the
weak and half-abandoned aspect of the place, where thirty sol
diers " with a handful of militia " constituted the garrison.
The missionary laments that the bread and the milk were bad
and there was " not brandy enough to dress a wound."
At Kaoi (Coui), a few hours to the west of Frontenac, the
missionary was amazed to encounter a negro, a fugitive from
Virginia, who informed him that it would not be difficult to
draw to his mission " most of the negroes and negresses of
New England " — evidently meaning the English colonies —
since they would be well received in Canada if they could be
given assistance during the first year, and granted lands like
the habitants. " The Indians," said the Virginia refugee,
" would gladly serve them as guides ; the negroes would be
the most terrible enemies of the English, realizing that they
could never hope for pardon, if the English should become
masters of Canada; and they would contribute greatly to the
development of the colony by their labor." He added that
there were also Hollanders, Lorrains and Swiss who would fol
low the example of the blacks, " since they were uncomfortable
with the English and did not love them."
Considerable might be gathered regarding the negro in the
Lakes region in Colonial times. So many negro slaves ran
away to the French in Canada, from New York and Albany,
that in 1745 the New York Assembly passed an Act to pre
vent it. There were negroes among the Indians of the Lakes
region at an early date but they were never numerous. In
1736 Louis Campau had two negro slaves at Detroit, the
presumption being that they had gone thither by way of the
Niagara. New York was a slave-holding colony, from which
some negroes made their way into the Iroquois country and
even Canada. In January, 1753, four English traders, Alex
ander McGenty, Jabez Evans, David Hendricks and William

TWO FAMOUS EXPEDITIONS 425
Powell, were taken on " Kantucqui " River near the Ohio, by
a band of Caghnawagas, who plundered them and brought them
to Fort Niagara, whence they were later sent to Montreal.
Their captors valued each man at 400 livres ($80 to $100),
and wanted negro boys — " little slaves " — in exchange.
The proposition and basis of exchange, roused the indigna
tion of the Pennsylvania Gazette. " By this insulting letter,"
it said,19 " we may see the contempt in which we are held by
these savages." A letter in French, purporting to come from
the chief Ononraquiete, had reached Colonel Schuyler, say
ing these Indians would return no more prisoners alive un
less paid for. " If they are suffered to go on in this man
ner," continued the Gazette, " and to make a trade of catching
our people and selling them to us again for 400 livres a head,
it may in time cost us more to satisfy the demands of that hand
ful of barbarians than would serve to defend the Province
against all its enemies."
The memoir does not state whether these propositions found
favor with the abbe. Zealous as he was for building up his
mission, we find no mention of negro or other recruits there^
save his beloved Indians.
Making his way through the winding passages of the Bay
of Quinte, the Abbe Picquet next visited the scene of the early
Sulpitian mission where, as early as 1668, two young priests,
the Abbe Trouve and Francois de Salignac-Fenelon — a relative
of the renowned author of " Telemaque " — had labored among
fugitive Cayugas. Here, too, were associations of Dollier de
Casson, of the Abbe d'Urfe and other Sulpitian missionaries
whose presence here more than eighty years before, may well
have made this part of his journey seem to the Abbe Picquet
a veritable pilgrimage.
Skirting the shore to the westward, he arrived at the fort
of Toronto, June 24th. The new establishment there had been
officially named Fort Rouille, for the Count de Jouy, Antoine
Louis Rouille, who in 1749 had succeeded Count Maurepas as
Colonial Minister of France. The Count was eminent, es-
cially as a patron of letters; was the head of the Royal Li-
19 Aug. 15, 1754.

426 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
brary and the friend of authors; but his name found slight
hold in the Lake Ontario region, and the Abbe Picquet, like most
of the men of his time, always spoke of Fort Rouille as the fort
of Toronto.
At the date of his visit, it was but a year old. The bay
and river of Toronto — now the Humber — from days imme
morial had been part of a traveled highway to Lake Simcoe
and the Georgian Bay. The mouth of the river had long been
a place of trade; but no substantial buildings were erected
here until the spring of 1750, when La Galissoniere, spurred
on by the increasing trade of his rivals across the lake at
Oswego, accomplished here the erection of a storehouse, pro
tected by a stockade. Fifteen soldiers and a few workmen
constituted the garrison. In fact, during its first winter, there
were only a clerk or trader's agent, two or three engages, and
a few Indians. The Abbe Picquet does not describe the build
ings, though he says he found good bread and wine there
and everything requisite for trade, " which they lack at all
the other posts." Captain Pouchot, who saw Fort Rouille a
little later, found it a palisaded square of about 30 toises (180
feet), with flanks of 15 feet. The curtains formed the buildings
of the fort. He thought it better built for trade than for de
fense. A plan of Captain Gother Mann, many years later,
shows five buildings within the French stockade.20
The Mississagas gathered in numbers about the missionary
within the stockade, where there was neither church nor chapel,
and in behalf of their wives and children begged for as good
treatment as the Iroquois had had. " They complained that
instead of building a church for them, there had only been
provided a brandy shop" (" qu'un cabaret d' eau-de-vie").
Picquet checked them in their fault-finding, told them that they
had been treated according to their taste, that they had never
shown the least zeal for religion, that their conduct had been
opposed to it, but that the Iroquois, on the contrary, had
shown their love for Christianity. So it seemed, no doubt, to
20 " Plan of the proposed Toronto Harbour," etc., Quebec, 6th Dec, 1788.
The group of old French buildings is marked on the map, " Ruins of a trading
fort, Toronto."

TWO FAMOUS EXPEDITIONS 427
the good priest; though from the general trend of historical
testimony one may be permitted some reservation of judg
ment. The missionary bethought himself in time, that his leave
to gather recruits for his mission did not include the Mississa
gas ; and so, although they indicated a readiness to follow him,
he could not bid them do so, and hastened on his way.
On June 27th, the abbe landed at Fort Niagara. It was
the fete of the holy apostles Peter and Paul, and the mission
ary's first act was to celebrate Mass in the chapel of the fort.
He makes no mention of the resident chaplain. After dinner,
in company with the commandant, M. de Becancour, he looked
over the fort, " there being no savages with whom he might
speak." Triangular in form, the fort presented only one face open
to land attack. That was 300 feet long, looking out upon
a wood from which it was separated by an open plain. On
this side, approach was easy. On the other sides, it com
manded at once both lake and river, to the north and to the
southwest, where its walls rose above natural slopes sufficiently
steep to make scaling difficult. The visitor commented on the
wide view enjoyed from the fort, which made it easy to see
all canoes and barques which came to land there ; " but the
high banks," he wrote, " little by bttle are washed away by
the rain, notwithstanding the great expense the King has been
to, to maintain them." This encroachment of the lake con
tinued for more than a century. There were originally several
rods of ground to the north of the stone mess-house or " cas
tle," so that the garrison garden was there. Gradually it
crumbled into the lake, until, in the latter part of the last cen
tury, the United States Government put in protective work
which appears to have stayed the invasion of the lake, the banks
of which, at this point, are some 25 feet high.
Much had been said, even in Picquet's day, of the insecurity
of Fort Niagara from this cause. He was familiar with the
complaint current at Versailles, that the site was an unfortu
nate one, involving constant cost to maintain ; and he no doubt
was aware that La Galissoniere had but recently, in all seri
ousness, proposed to move the fort to the other side of the

428 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
river, now the site of Niagara-on-the-Lake. " It is evident
to me," wrote Maurepas to La Galissoniere, " that by the bad
choice of a site for Fort Niagara, this fort is exposed to con
tinued wearing away [of the earth banks], and the expenses
for repairs, since it was built prove only too well the truth of
it. However, before the King shall approve the proposition
which you make, of transporting the fort to the other side of
the river, it is well that you should consider more fully the
advantages to follow this change, not only as regards the sol
idity of the fort, but in its effect on the Indian trade, for it
has been urged that this change would tend to stay most of
those who go to Oswego." 21
The abbe, though not an engineer, came to the conclusion
that the present site was not so bad as had been represented;
and recorded the opinion that the space between the high land
and the wharf might be filled in so as to support it and make
a glacis there.
He was disappointed not to find at the fort the Indians
whom he was told came there to trade ; and set out for the port
age fort above the falls in the hope of finding them there.
On his way he turned aside to view the great cataract, of which
he wrote:
This cascade is as marvelous for its height and the volume of
water which descends as for the diversity of its falls, of which there
are six principal ones, separated by a little island, which puts three
to the north and three to the south. They are, together, of a sin
gular symmetry and an astonishing effect. It is one of the mightiest
cataracts which there may be in all the world. We heard it, far
off. Near, one is well compensated for the deafening noise which
the waters make in seeing the whirlpools and the jets which shoot
from the clear and limpid depths, bedecked with the brilliant colors
of the rainbow. The falls are nearly always covered with mist.
The description is not conspicuously accurate. The Abbe
Picquet measured the height of the fall on the south side —
doubtless at Prospect Point — reporting it as 140 feet, i.e.,
21 Archives du Ministere des Colonies, series B. vol. 87, p. 7.

TWO FAMOUS EXPEDITIONS 429
French measure, equivalent to 149.2 English feet ; an approxi
mately accurate measurement.
On June 29th the missionary and his companions passed up
the portage and sought lodging at the new fort. " I was re
ceived by M. Chabert Joncaire," he wrote in his journal, " with
every sort of politeness and with much joy by the savages."
His description of Fort Little Niagara has already been given
(p. 379). On July 1st, M. de Rigauville, fort major at
Niagara, and three of Abbe Picquet's Indians went up to the
Little Rapid — the outlet of Lake Erie — and exacted a prom
ise from the chief residing there, that he would come to meet
the missionary.
At the Little Fort, and on the river in general, the abbe
found trade depressed, for the same reason that he had noted
at Frontenac and Niagara. " The savages, who come there
in great number," he wrote of the Portage, " had every dis
position to carry on trade; but not finding what they want,
they go on to Oswego." He deplored the carelessness or in
competence of the functionaries of the Intendant, the more
when he counted on occasion as many as fifty canoes on the
strand under the palisades of the Little Fort. He adds the
conviction that " several hundred " of them would have landed
their peltries if the storehouse had been better provided with
goods for exchange.
He was, however, gratified to meet here large numbers of
the Indians. He gathered many of the Senecas about him,
talked to them like a father, counseled them to beware of
brandy, and pledged them to join his establishment of La
Presentation. They seem to have taken the summons with
great seriousness, for as a guarantee that they would keep their
word they gave him twelve young boys. " Parents," they as
sured him, " have nothing dearer than their children. Behold,
we give you twelve as hostages, and as proof that we will soon
follow you." The chief of the Little Rapid, whom Picquet's
christianized Indians had exhorted "like veritable apostles,"
assured the missionary that he would join his train with all his
family.

430 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
The incident introduces, all too vaguely, the first aborigine
of influence and authority who is associated with the present
site of Buffalo. We do not know his name. No permanent
Seneca village existed hereabouts at that period. But the
"Little Rapid" was the outlet of Lake Erie, and the chief
who took his name from it evidently brought his people to
the vicinity for fishing and a temporary camp. He antedated
by a generation the Indians who are the first we know by name
as residents of the region; and appears as the First Citizen,
if not the first " Boss " of the site over which now spreads the
city of Buffalo.
The Abbe Picquet was pleased by the obvious success of his
mission to the Portage, and grateful to Daniel de Joncaire,
who, he says, " has forgotten nothing that would help me ac
complish my purpose, and comports himself bvke a good servant
of God and the King."
One day when the missionary was reading his breviary in
the neighboring forest, all the Indians who were in the habit
of resorting to the portage fort, met there in secret council.
The reason of this mysterious confab proved to be that, fear
ing for the life of the missionary, they wished to persuade
him, in returning to La Presentation, not to go by way of
Oswego. They begged Chabert to use his influence; where
upon the commandant, perhaps taking the thing seriously,
sought his guest at the edge of the woods. " Your Indians and
the Senecas," he said, " know your firmness of decision. Learn
ing of your purpose to return by way of Oswego, they have
urgently begged me to pledge you not to do it. They are
aware of the designs of the English, who regard you as their
most redoubtable enemy, the one who can do them most in
jury. They would sooner be cut in pieces than that you should
come to any harm. But," added Chabert, " all that amounts
to nothing, and the Indians, your ' children,' will lose you for
ever through the devices of that nation which hates you. On
my own account, I beg you not to pass that way."
Touched by this solicitude, the abbe thanked the officer. He
was loth to change his plans, but in order not to grieve his dear

TWO FAMOUS EXPEDITIONS 431
Indians, he acquiesced with their desires in the vague formula :
" It shall be as you wish, my children." 22
When, on July 3d, the abbe set out to return to Fort Ni
agara, he was escorted by Chabert, the commandant, M. Ri
gauville, interpreter, and an imposing train of savages. The
missionary led off with his own Indians; Chabert and Rigau
ville followed with the recruits. The return, down the old port
age road took on an aspect somewhat remarkable : " Every
where as we passed," wrote the abbe, " at every place where
there were camps, cabins, storehouses, the Indians saluted us
with a discharge of firearms. That happened so often that
I thought all the trees along the way were loaded with pow
der." This return to Niagara, along the old portage path through
the woods and down the green hills, presents a cheerful pic
ture to the imagination. Nor is it wholly a matter of imagina
tion, for we have his friend Lalande's word for it that the
priest, in spite of the dignity of his calling, was the embodi
ment of high spirits and good humor. " Of an imposing com
manding figure, he had an open and engaging countenance.
He was of a gay disposition. Notwithstanding the exactions
of his office, he exhaled only gayety. He made conversions to
the music of instruments ; he was theologian, orator, poet.
He sang and composed canticles, now in French, now in Iro
quois, with which he amused and interested the savages. He
was indeed a child to some, a hero to others. His mechan
ical ingenuity often won the admiration of the Indians. In
short, he knew how to use all proper means for drawing prose
lytes and attaching them to him. As a result, he had all the
success that could reward his industry, his talents and zeal."
Such a portrait, drawn by an intimate and friendly hand,
warrants a touch of lightness and of color in the present sketch.
It was evidently with a robust school-boy's exuberant over
flow of animal spirits that the abbe led his train of yelling
and powder-wasting savages down the slopes. He might well
22 Lalande gravely records the formidable vocable supposed to embody
this idea: " Ethonciaouin"!

432 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
exult. He had won a goodly following of the primitive folk
he came to seek. His missionary tour prospered. He had
perhaps done something to check the enemy. It was not the
hour for austerity, and so in high spirits, with song and noisy
banter and salvos of muskets, he led the gay and volatile retinue
to the Lewiston plateau, where he took leave of his hosts of
the Portage and with 39 Indians 23 embarked for Fort Niagara.
He was received at the fort with ceremony and a salvo of
cannon. The next day, for the first time, he gathered all
his Seneca recruits in the chapel of the fort where he preached
to them, made them say some prayers, and gave them presents.
The Niagara, more than any other place visited in his tour,
had yielded the recruits he sought.
It was on July 6th that he finally embarked, having waited
for the chief of the Little Rapid, followed by a numerous flo
tilla of canoes, and coasted the lake shore to the eastward.
Entering the Genesee River on the 12th, the priest " encoun
tered a mass of rattlesnakes; the young Indians leaped into
their midst and killed 42, without being bitten." After view
ing the lower falls of the Genesee the journey was resumed.
On the 14th they reached Sodus Bay, which Father Picquet
thought a good place for the French to fortify ; " but," he
adds, " it will be still better to destroy Oswego, and never let
the English rebuild it." On the 16th, he arrived opposite
this post; and to keep the pledge given to Chabert, did not
stop there, but viewed the post in passing, drawing as near
to shore in his boats as seemed discreet. He judged the place
would be easy of capture : " Two batteries, each of three 12-
pounders, would be more than enough to reduce it to ashes."
He passed thence across the lake to Frontenac, where he was
received with ceremony, half military and half religious. By
July 20th he was again at his beloved mission on the Oswegat
chie. The tour around Ontario had been far from fruitless.
It is reported that in the next year 392 Indian families went
there to live, and that on one occasion 132 converts were
baptised by Mgr. de Pontbriand, the last French Bishop of
23 So says Picquet's own memoir: "Nous s'embarqua avec 39 sauvages,
dans mon grand canot."

TWO FAMOUS EXPEDITIONS 433
Quebec. A banner, still preserved at the Oka mission, per
petuates the memory of this event.
The conditions of trade at the lake posts and on the Ni
agara had greatly interested Picquet, whose comments thereon
give color to the report that his tour was made not merely in
the capacity of a missionary, but as a secret agent of the
French Government. He noted that the great menace of
Oswego lay not in its military strength, but in the fact that it
gave to the English an easy means of communication with the
Indian tribes to the north and west. He learned too that the
storehouse at Oswego was stocked, not only with goods for the
Indian trade, but with articles which only the French would
care for. This pointed to an illicit trade. If the orders of
the Minister had been followed, he wrote, " the Oswego trade,
at least with the Indians of Upper Canada, would be almost
ruined ; but it was necessary to supply Niagara, and especially
the Portage, rather than Toronto. The difference between the
first two of these posts and the last is, that 300 or 400 canoes
could come to the Niagara Portage, loaded with peltries ; while
there could only come by way of Toronto such canoes as could
not pass by Niagara and on to Frontenac, such as the Otaois
(Ottawas) from the head of the lake and the Mississagas; so
that Toronto could not but lessen the trade of these two old
posts, which would have been more than sufficient to stop all
the Indians, if the storehouses had been supplied with goods to
their taste. The English should have been imitated in the mat
ter of trinkets which they sell to the Indians, such as silver
bracelets, etc. The storekeeper at Niagara assured me that
they compared and weighed them, and found that the bracelets
from Oswego, which were as heavy, of as pure silver and more
elegant, cost only two beaver-skins, as against ten, asked for
them at the King's posts ; so that we are discredited and this
silver-work remains a dead loss in the store-houses."
The Indians relished French brandy better than English
rum; but the abbe noticed that this did not keep the thirsty
from going to Oswego for their liquor. " To destroy this
trade, the King's posts should be supplied with the same goods
as Oswego, and at the same price."

AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
Note has been made (Chap. XIV) of difficulties occasioned
by the liquor traffic in the earlier years of Fort Niagara.
Those difficulties never ceased ; but whereas in the earlier years
it was the administrators of the Colony who sought to regu
late it, or the priests who grieved at the harm it did, in later
years it was the Indians themselves who asked to be saved from
this great temptation. Over and over again in the reports of
councils and conferences, this touching appeal is made. At a
general meeting of the Six Nations held at Onondaga, Septem
ber 10, 1753, being the conclusion of a long confab between
Sir William Johnson and the Mohawks, the savages begged
that the sale of rum at Oswego be stopped; to which Sir Wil
liam replied that it would greatly please the French, to see
the sale of liquor stopped at Oswego, if they could still sell
" what they thought fitt " at Niagara. " I expected they [the
Indians] would first hinder the French selling liquor there, be
fore they proposed having it stopped at Oswego." It never
was stopped at either place.
In the summer of 1751, Lieutenant Benjamin Stoddart, sta
tioned at Oswego, reported the passing of a French expedition,
bound for the chief town of the Miamis, where the English
were trading and were said to have built a stone house. For
a good many years Stoddart — usually referred to as Captain
— gave useful service to New York Colony, at Oswego and
elsewhere, in gathering information about the French. On
more than one occasion he was sent to Quebec to negotiate the
exchange of prisoners, and by reason of these visits, was bet
ter informed than most of the English as to conditions in
Canada. That the General Assembly was slow in his case, as
in some others, to reimburse expenditures made in the public
service, is indicated in one of Stoddart's outspoken letters:
" I shall be obliged to depend on the D — d Assembly for what
is due to me. Shall expect very little for my trouble, as you
are sensible they are such D — d S  d — Is." 24
For many years the Oswego Supply Act named the Commis
sioner, who was sometimes the Commandant. In 1744, Lieu
tenant John Lindesay, in a letter to the General Assembly,
2* Stoddart to CoL Wm. Johnson, Mch. 7, 1748-9.

TWO FAMOUS EXPEDITIONS 435
recommended himself for Commissary. He was a Scotchman
of good family, a man of repute in the Colony, whose memory
is especially cherished to this day at Cherry Valley, of which
once thriving community he was the founder. He was given
the desired appointment,25 and continued the most able and
active representative of English interests in the Lake region,
until his death in 1751. His name usually appears in the doc
uments as " Lindsay," " Lindsy " or otherwise misspelled. He
was so efficient in gathering the frontier news, and reporting
to his Government the movements and plans of the French,
that they presently came to refer to him in their correspond
ence as " Lindsay the Spy."
He had his troubles, at Oswego. In his zeal to strengthen
the place, he made repairs which the Council of the General
Assembly were discouragingly slow to pay for, although he
had submitted estimates, and was diligent in dunning. In 1745,
he paid out for repairs more than £193 ; but was allowed only
£140. His financial necessities, incurred for the good of the
Colony, are the burden of many letters.
On an April day in 1750 there appeared at Lieutenant Linde-
say's headquarters none other than Chabert de Joncaire him
self. Although the war between the rival Powers was over,
one cannot believe that great cordiality had sprung up be
tween French and English on Lake Ontario. Even in times
of professed peace, French visitors at Oswego were few. It
was the more remarkable, that the most notorious and mis
chievous of them all should favor Lindesay with a visit. Cha
bert was on his way to Niagara from Montreal where, as has
been related, he had just been commissioned to build and com
mand a fort above the Falls, and it is characteristic that he
should cross his rival's threshold and with complacent audacity
tell of his new commission. " He said," Lindesay reported to
the Governor, " he was going to command the new fort on the
carrying place above Niagara." The report 26 speaks of Cha-
25 A sketch of his career (N. Y. Col. Docs., VI, 707, note) says he was
Commandant at Oswego until Feb., 1749, and thereafter Indian Commissary
and agent. In a letter to the Lords of Trade, June 13, 1751, Gov. Clinton
speaks of him as "Commandant and Commissary."
20 N. Y. Col. Docs. VI, 706.

436 AN OLD FRONTIER OF FRANCE
bert as " Joncaire's brother," and tells of " Joncaire " as active
on the Ohio. Lindesay was not likely to confuse the two, and
his statement is entitled to weight as showing that both brothers
shared in service on the Ohio.
Lindesay kept well informed regarding Chabert's operations
to the westward. May 30th, he wrote to Governor Clinton
that " the French are building a fortified house on the river
Oniagara between the Lakes Erie and Cadaraqui." In July
there came in on him a band of savages led by the Bunt and the
Black Prince's son. These singular names designate two chiefs
who were familiar figures on the Niagara at this period, but
regarding whom little that is definite appears in the records.
They told Lindesay that the French had not only built at the
Niagara carrying-place, but also on the Ohio; that they had
landed a large expedition at Niagara, were going to drive all
the English traders from the Ohio, and compel the Miamis,
who were most addicted to English trade, to remove from their
old towns and live where the French should order them.
Lindesay entertained the Bunt, for his friendship was worth
cultivating; and sent on his reports, true and false, for the
edification of the Council and Assembly. In this same month
of July Lindesay had yet more news from the Cayuga chief
Attrowaney, who had been at Fort Frontenac, " where they
were building a large ship, which was to have three masts." He
had seen there six cannon three yards long with a wide bore,
and was told the French were going to cross the lake and take
Oswego. Lindesay reported it to Colonel Johnson; and prob
ably also to others ; it was perhaps his last report, for he died
that year. His services at Oswego were varied and valuable ;
and the reports here noted well illustrate the method by which
intelligence of the enemy was gathered on these frontiers.

END OF VOL. I

YALE UNIVERSITY 1

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