MAGAZINE
of
WESTERN HISTORY
ILLUSTRATED
NO. 1. NOVEMBER 1884
[Illustration]
CONTENTS
PAGE.
Portrait of Arthur St. Clair _Frontispiece._
Discovery of the Ohio River by La Salle, COL. CHARLES
1669–70. WHITTLESEY. 3
Geographical History of Ohio, C. C. BALDWIN. 16
A Description of Fort Harmar, 26
ILLUSTRATION—Fort Harmar in 1788.
Organization of the Ohio Land Company, ALFRED MATHEWS. 32
ILLUSTRATION—Portrait of Rufus Putnam.
Indian Occupation of Ohio, ALFRED MATHEWS. 41
Arthur St. Clair and the Ordinance of 1787, WILLIAM W. WILLIAMS. 49
Geo. Washington’s First Experience as
Surveyor, WALTER BUELL. 62
ILLUSTRATION—Washington on a Surveying
Expedition.
Editorial Notes, 70
Pioneer Societies, 73
Historical News, 75
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Magazine of Western History.
VOL. I. NOVEMBER, 1884. NO. 1
DISCOVERY OF THE OHIO RIVER BY LA SALLE, 1669–70.
What is designated on the early maps of the United States as the
“Territory Northwest of Ohio” embraced all the country east of the
Mississippi and north of the Ohio River. Great Britain acquired it from
France by the treaty of February, 1762, but, having prior claims to it,
had before that time granted most of the territory to her several
colonies. Probably there were not more than three thousand white people
in the territory when this treaty was signed, and these were principally
wandering French traders; very few of them cultivators of the soil. In
1778 Virginia conquered the northwest from Great Britain, and erected
the entire territory into a county, by the name of Illinois. Soon after
the close of the War of the Revolution, in the year 1787, the United
States established in the same region its first provincial government,
and gave it the above title, which in common parlance was known as the
“Northwestern Territory.” Its fixed population did not then exceed five
thousand. There are now five States, and the half of a sixth, whose
inhabitants number not far from 10,000,000, among whom the French
element is scarcely perceptible. The people of these States are
intelligent, and take a lively interest in the history of the
discoverers of their country, among whom La Salle holds the first place.
Having spent a life of the length usually allotted to man, on the waters
of the Ohio, the Upper Mississippi, and the lakes, threading many of the
streams on which they floated their canoes, passing over the same
trails, coasting along the same shores, those intrepid explorers of two
centuries since, have often been, in imagination, vividly near to me.
As early as 1840 I saw evidence of the presence of white men in
northeastern Ohio, of whom we had then no historical proof. This
evidence is in the form of ancient cuts, made by sharp axes on our
oldest forest trees, covered by their subsequent growth. In this climate
the native trees are endogenous, and take on one layer of growth
annually. There are exceptions, but I have tested the accuracy of this
habit, in about forty cases where I have had other proof of the age of
the tree, and find it to be a good general rule.
The Jesuit relations contain no account of establishments on the south
shore of Lake Erie in the seventeenth century. For many years these
wooden records remained an interesting mystery, which I think may
possibly be solved by recent documents brought to light in France. We
know that La Salle in 1680 returned from the Illinois to Montreal most
of the way by land, and it is conjectured that he may have traversed the
south shore of Lake Erie; but the passage of a few men hastily through a
wilderness did not account for the many marks of axes which we find.
The stump of an oak tree was shown me soon after it had been felled in
1838, which stood in the northwestern part of Canfield, Mahoning County,
O. It was two feet ten inches in diameter, and, with the exception of
the concealed gashes, was quite sound. When about fourteen inches in
diameter, this tree had been cut nearly half through; but the scar had
healed over so thoroughly that it did not appear externally. I took a
section from the outside to the heart, showing both the old and the
recent axe marks, which may be seen in the museum of the Western Reserve
Historical Society, at Cleveland. Over the old cuts there had grown one
hundred and sixty annual layers of solid wood, and the tree had died of
age some years before. This would place the cutting between the years
1670 and 1675. The tree stood a few miles south of the great Indian
trail leading from the waters of the Mahoning, a branch of the Ohio, to
the waters of the Cuyahoga River and Lake Erie. In 1848 or 1849, Mr. S.
Lapham, of Willoughby, Lake County, Ohio, felled a hickory tree,
standing a short distance from the ridge, along which was once the main
Indian trail parallel to the lake. The diameter of the stump was about
two feet. Near the heart there were very distinct cuts of a sharp,
broad-bitted axe. Mr. Lapham preserved a piece of this tree, that is now
in our museum, donated by Professor J. L. Cassells. The annual layers of
growth are very thin, and difficult to count, but are about four hundred
in number, outside the ancient chopping. Another tree was found in
Newburgh, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, more than thirty years since, with
marks of an axe near the centre, represented to have one hundred and
fifty to one hundred and sixty layers of growth over it, apparently the
work of a sharp, broad-bitted axe.
In the cabinet of the Ashtabula Historical Society, at Jefferson,
Ashtabula County, Ohio, there was, some years since, a piece of wood
with ancient axe marks of about the same date. I have heard of two
others in northeastern Ohio, which I have not seen, and which may have
been the work of a dull, narrow-bitted axe in the hands of a savage, and
not the work of white men; but the Indians of northern Ohio could not
have long been in possession of metal tomahawks or squaw hatchets, in
the year 1670. Such cuts, if made by them, could be only a few years
more ancient.
The Lake County stump has about twice the number of layers we should
expect, and which would carry the chopping to a period before the
landing of Columbus. Botanists explain this by the exceptional cases
where there is a double layer in a year. If La Salle and his party spent
two or three years exploring and trading in furs in the lake country,
they might well be the authors of these ancient cuttings. There must
have been several hundreds of them, or we should not have met with so
many at this late period. Any person examining the pieces in the Western
Reserve Historical Society museum will be convinced they are not the
work of Indians.
The honor of the first exploration of Ohio has long been claimed by the
French for their countryman, Robert Cavalier de La Salle, but the
details of this exploration were so meager, its date so doubtful, and
the extent of his travels so uncertain, that some historians were not
inclined to give credence to his claims.
A romantic mystery still envelopes his movements in the country between
Lake Erie and the Ohio River, which it was hoped the papers of M. Pierre
Margry would dissipate, and thus place La Salle on record in full and
clear terms. If this cannot be effected by the zeal and industry of M.
Margry, during a life work in search of manuscripts relating to La
Salle, I fear that we must relinquish the hope of a satisfactory
solution.
DeCourcelles and Talon, who were respectively governor and intendant in
New France, sent out several parties of discovery between 1665 and 1680.
They had two principal objects in view: the discovery of copper, and a
route to China through the Great Southern Sea.
In a memoir to the king, dated Quebec, October 10, 1670, (New York
Colonial Documents, page 64) Talon writes: “Since my arrival I have
despatched persons of resolution, who promise to penetrate farther than
has ever been done to the west and northwest of Canada, and others to
the southwest and south.” These parties were instructed to keep
journals, reply to instructions, take possession of the country
formally, and were expected to be absent without news for about two
years. After all these precautions, a distressing fatality overtook most
of their letters, field notes, reports and maps. Joliet was nearly in
sight of Montreal on his return in 1674 from the Mississippi River, when
his canoe was capsized in the rapids, he was nearly drowned, and every
paper was lost. Of La Salle’s memoranda, covering the years 1669 to
1673, nothing has been recovered.
In 1686 Governor DeNonville, writing from Quebec under date of November
8th, to Seignelay, Minister of Marine, says: “I annex to this letter a
memoir of our right to the whole of that country (Ohio), of which our
registers ought to be full, but no memorials of them are to be found. I
am told that M. Talon has the original of the entries in his possession
of a great many discoveries that were made in this country, with which
our registers ought to be full. Doubtless he has given them to my late
Lord, your father.”—Colonial Documents, vol. 9, page 297.
“The River Ohio, otherwise called the Beautiful River, and its
tributaries, belong indisputably to France, by virtue of its discovery,
by the _Sieur de la Salle_, and of the trading posts the French have had
there since. * * * It is only within a few years that the English have
undertaken to trade there.”—Instructions to M. DuQuesne, Paris, 1752,
(Colonial Documents, N. Y., vol. 10, page 243).
“It is only since the last war that the English have set up claims to
the territory on the Beautiful River, the possession whereof has never
been disputed to the French, who have always resorted to that river ever
since it was discovered by Sieur de la Salle.”—Instructions to
Vaudreuil, Versailles, April, 1755, (Colonial Documents, vol. 10, page
293).
As the Jesuits in Canada were personally hostile to La Salle, they never
mention his name in their relations, or the discoveries made by him.
They were jealous of him as a discoverer and a trader, despised him as a
friend of the Sulpitians, and an apostate from the Society of Jesus, an
order at that time so powerful in Canada that the governor-general was
obliged to compliment them in his open dispatches, while he spoke
severely of them in cypher.
Louis XIV. was not required to expend more money in wars than other
French monarchs, but his civil projects were ample and his pleasures
very expensive. He was habitually straitened for funds, and required the
strictest economy in the expenses of all his officers.
In Canada parsimony in public affairs was even more rigid than in
France. The governor-general was unable to live on his salary.
Intendants, ecclesiastics and local governors were in a still worse
predicament. It was expected that all of them would make up this
deficiency by traffic in furs. Many of the dispatches from Versailles
are laden with warnings against incurring expenses, which amounted to
commands. Many of those sent in reply contain passages congratulating
the king on acquisitions of territory and glory, which cost him nothing.
Three-quarters of a century later, as related above, in negotiations
with England, the Ohio country was claimed by the French, on the sole
ground of the discoveries of La Salle.
The personal interest which public officers had in the Indian trade, of
necessity brought about discord between them. La Salle, having no
fortune, was obliged to sustain himself in the same way, which brought
him in direct antagonism with officers, priests and traders. This
reference is necessary to explain the difficulties under which he
labored.
According to the Abbé Galinée, Governor Courcelles requested himself and
Dollier DeCasson, another Sulpitian, to join La Salle in a voyage he had
long contemplated, toward a great river which he conceived, from the
accounts of the Iroquois, to flow westward, beyond which, after seven or
eight months of travel, in their way of stating it, the river and
country were lost in the sea.
By this river, called by them the Ohio, Olighiny-sipu, or Beautiful
River, and by others, Mescha-zebe, or Mississippi, M. de la Salle hoped
to find the long sought passage to the Red, Vermillion, or South Sea,
and acquire the glory of that enterprise. He also hoped to find plenty
of beavers wherewith to meet the expense of the journey.
We must not forget the nature of the French Government when
contemplating the history of Canada. The king was absolute, not only in
public but in private affairs. When he said: “I am the State,” he
expressed a fact, and not a fiction or a boast. The men and women of the
kingdom were subject to the will of one man, even in their personal
relations and occupations. In Canada nothing escaped the supervision of
his officers, who were equally absolute, which explains why permission
was necessary to engage in any enterprise.
The two parties left Montreal in July, 1669, La Salle having four canoes
and fourteen men, the Sulpitians three canoes and eight men. They
reached Ironduquoit Bay, in New York, on the 10th of August, making a
portage to the Genesee valley and some Indian towns near Victor Station
and Boughton Hill, sixteen miles southeasterly from Rochester. The
savages told La Salle that the Ohio had its rise three days’ journey
from “Sonnontouan,” or the country of the Senecas. After a month’s
travel they would reach the _Hon-ni-as-ant-ke-rons_, and the Chouanons
(Shawnees); after passing them and a great fall or chute, there were the
Outagamies (Pottawatomies), and the country of the _Is-konsan-gos_, with
plenty of deer, buffaloes, thick woods, and an immense population.
The Jesuits had a mission at “Gannegora,” the Indian name of a town and
a fort near Boughton Hill, but were absent when La Salle and the
Sulpitians arrived there. The Indians discouraged them from taking the
Genesee route to the Ohio, representing that it required six days’
journey of twelve leagues or thirty-six miles each. Charlevoix affirms
that the Genesee is navigable for canoes sixty leagues or one hundred
and eighty miles, and from thence it is only ten leagues or thirty miles
by land to the Allegheny or Ohio, river of the Iroquois. Mr. Marshall
has shown that this portage was in Allegany County, New York, from near
Belvidere to Olean.
By the united efforts of the Jesuits, the Dutch and the Senecas, they
were persuaded to relinquish this route and hasten back to their canoes,
to avoid violence on the part of the savages. They coasted along the
south shore of Lake Ontario, passing the Niagara without examination,
and reached Burlington Bay on the 22d of September. DeNonville, in 1687,
states that La Salle had houses and people at Niagara in
1668.—(Historical Documents, vol. 1, p. 244). If this is true, La Salle
must have been well acquainted with the portage to Lake Erie, around the
falls. Why he should have selected the more difficult route by way of
Burlington Bay, and a portage of fifteen miles to Grand River, is
nowhere explained.
Not far from the head of the bay was the village of Tenouatouan, on the
path to Grand River. Here the party met Joliet and a few Indians, on his
return from Mackinaw. He had been sent by the intendant to find the
copper mines of Lake Superior, and appears to have been the first
Frenchman to have navigated Lake Erie. He took that route home at the
instigation of the Ottawas, and of an Iroquois prisoner he was taking
home to his people.
According to Galinée, when they were fifty leagues west of Grand River,
this Iroquois became alarmed on account of the Andasterrionons,
Errionons, Eriqueronons, or Eries of the south shore, with whom the
Senecas were at war. They were thus obliged to leave their canoes and
make the journey to Tenouatouan by land.
La Salle’s plan might have been to cross from Lake Ontario to Grand
River, down it to the lake, thence along the north shore of Erie to the
mouth of the Maumee River, on the route referred to by him in 1682; up
this stream to the portage at Fort Wayne, and down the waters of the
Wabash into an unknown world.
In a subsequent letter written from Illinois he speaks of this route,
and also in his memorial to Frontenac in 1677, as the best one for
traffic between the Great River and Canada, though it does not appear
that he ever passed over it.—(Western Reserve Historical Society, Tract
25). Joliet was likewise ambitious of the glory of discovering the Great
River, of which the Jesuit missionaries and the Indians gave glowing
descriptions. He seems to have persuaded Galinée and DeCasson that this
was the better route. La Salle and the Sulpitians here became alienated,
and after attending mass separated on the 30th of September, they to
find Lake Erie and the Ottawas of Mackinaw; he to pursue his original
design. He had been for some days sick of a fever, which Galinée
attributed to the sight of several rattlesnakes. He declared it to be so
late in the season that his _voyageurs_, not accustomed to such a
rigorous climate, would perish in the woods during the winter.
From the hour of this separation we are without explicit information of
his journeyings for a term of nearly three years. During this period the
exploration of the Ohio country was effected, and in the opinion of M.
Margry, the Mississippi was discovered by him, in advance of Joliet and
Marquette. These wanderings, of which after two hundred years we know
very little, show more originality of design, more audacity in
execution, and a more pertinacious resolution under difficulties, than
his later achievements on the Mississippi. No one has set up against him
a rival claim to the discovery of the Ohio. His heirs, his admirers, and
his countrymen should cherish the memory of that discovery as the most
wonderful of his exploits. The historical obscurity which has befallen
these expeditions is a painful fact, but is in some measure compensated
by a glamour of romance, which deepens with the lapse of time. On seeing
his favorite plan of an advance by the north shore of Lake Erie
frustrated, he may have determined to brave all dangers and enter the
lake by way of Niagara. There are many plans which he may have
determined upon, of which we can only form a vague conjecture. He may
have turned his canoes along the north shore, and spent the winter in
hunting in that country. Color is given to this surmise by the statement
of Nicholas Perrot that he met La Salle on the Ottawa in 1670, but this
is not probable. Taken in the order of the anonymous relation, he was on
a river which ran _from east to west_, before passing to Onontague
(Onondaga), but there is no water route passable from Lake Ontario to
the Ohio which would pass Onondaga. It is far more probable that the
enthusiastic young explorer entered Niagara River with his Shawnee guide
and made the portage to Lake Erie. He could soon find one of the
portages to the waters of the Ohio, spoken of by the Senecas. One of
them was from Lake Erie near Portland and Westfield, N. Y., of six or
seven leagues (eighteen to twenty-one miles), to Chatauqua Lake.
Another, of about the same length, answers also to their directions,
which was afterward the usual route from Erie to French Creek, at
Waterford in Pennsylvania. By either of these routes he might have been
on the Allegheny, with his goods and canoes, in ten or twelve days, if
the weather was good. He would, however, have here been among the
Andasterrionons, who were probably the Eries or Errieronons, with whom
the Senecas were then at war. These Indians had been represented at
“Gannegora” as sure to kill the Frenchmen if they went among them.
Gravier has a theory that instead of Onontague or “Gannontague,”
mentioned in the memoir of the friend of Galinée, we should read
Ganestogue or “Ganahogue,” the ancient name of the Cuyahoga. It is not
improbable that the guide of La Salle knew of this route, along which,
ascending the Cuyahoga from Cleveland, the party would be enabled to
reach the waters of the Muskingum, by a portage of seven miles at Akron,
and from thence the Ohio, at Marietta. La Salle states that after he
reached the Ohio, according to the anonymous account, but one very large
river was passed on the north shore before reaching the falls. If he
failed to recognize the Scioto as a very large river, there is only the
Great Miami which meets his description.
He may also have concluded to spend the winter in Ohio, where game was
abundant and beavers numerous, an event to which I have referred in
connection with the axe marks. We have no reliable evidence that he was
at Montreal between July, 1669, and August, 1672. The records of
Villemarie, quoted by Faillon, contain the first solid proof of his
presence on the St. Lawrence, after he departed with Galinée and
DeCasson. During this period we may be certain he was not idle. It is
far from certain how many men he had, but the anonymous relation affirms
that he was deserted by twenty-three or twenty-four of them after
leaving the Falls of the Ohio. Where did he get these additional
recruits? In the absence of historical proof, it is reasonable to infer
that, when he left the Sulpitians, he moved southwesterly in accordance
with his instructions, and did not turn back to Montreal. His honor, his
interest and his ambition all forced him in one direction, toward the
country where he was directed to go and to stay, as long as he could
subsist.
What the Abbé Faillon states in the third volume of his French Colonies
(page 312) confirms this supposition. According to this authority, about
four months after La Salle’s departure, which would be in November,
1669, a part of his men returned, having refused to follow him. He
himself could not have returned at this time without observation and
public discredit.
Such a brief and fruitless effort to reach the Great South Sea could not
have escaped the notice of historians. It is not probable that his
foreman, Charles Thoulamion, or his surgeon, Roussilier, (_Histoire
Colonie Francais_, vol. 3, p. 290) were among those wanting in courage
to follow him. Some soldiers were of the party, furnished by Talon, who
would be likely to remain by force of military discipline.
There are many threads of this tangled skein, which can not yet be drawn
out. In the first volume of the Margry documents (pages 371–78) may be
seen a long recital by a friend of the Abbé Galinée, already referred
to, whose name is a subject of conjecture, but presumed by Mr. Parkman
to have been the second Prince of Conti, Armand de Bourbon, a friend of
La Salle, seventeen or eighteen years of age, purporting to be the
substance of conversations with La Salle, which must have taken place as
late as 1677, when he was in France. One portion of this paper is styled
a “Life of La Salle,” a large part of which is occupied by his troubles
with the Jesuits. “He (La Salle) left France at twenty-one or twenty-two
years of age, in 1665, well instructed in matters in the new world, with
the design of attempting new discoveries. After having been some time in
Canada he acquired some knowledge of the languages, and traveled
northward, where he found nothing worthy of his attention, and resolved
to turn southward; and having advanced to a village of savages on the
Genesee, where there was a Jesuit, he hoped to find guides,
etc.” * * * * * “M. de la Salle continued his route from ‘Tenouatoua’
_upon a river which goes from east to west_, and passed to Onondaga
(Onontague), then to six or seven leagues below Lake Erie; and having
reached longitude 280° or 283°, and to latitude 41°, found a sault,
which falls toward the west into a low, marshy country, covered with dry
trees, of which some are still standing. He was compelled to take the
land, and following a height, which led him very far, he found savages
who told him that very far from there the same river, which was lost in
the low, marshy country, reunited in one bed. He continued his way, but
as the fatigue was great, twenty-three or twenty-four men, whom he had
brought thus far, left him all in one night, regained the river, and
saved themselves, some in New Holland and others in New England. He
found himself alone at four hundred leagues (twelve hundred miles) from
his home, where he failed not to return, reascending the river, and
living by hunting, upon herbs and upon what the savages gave him, whom
he met on the way. After _some time he made a second attempt, on the
same river_, which he left below Lake Erie, making a portage of six or
seven leagues (eighteen or twenty-one miles), to embark on this lake,
which he traversed toward the north” into lakes Huron and Michigan, and
thence to the Illinois.
Aside from the indefinite phrases of this paper, it is characterized by
so many geographical errors that it would possess little value without
the support of the following statement of La Salle himself:
In the year 1667 and following years he La Salle made many voyages, at
much expense, in which he was the first discoverer of much country
south of the great lakes, between them and the great river, Ohio. He
followed it to a place where it falls from a great height into
marshes, in latitude 37°, after having been enlarged by another very
large river, which comes from the north, and all these waters,
according to appearances, discharge into the Gulf of Mexico, and here
he hopes to find a communication with the sea.
No conjecture respecting La Salle’s operations on the Ohio has yet been
formed that reconciles these conflicting accounts.
In nothing direct from his pen does La Salle refer to the desertion of
his men after leaving the falls of the Ohio. According to the supposed
recital of Armand de Bourbon, he had made a long journey from thence by
land, the direction of which is not known. He may have been at that time
in Kentucky or Tennessee, Indiana, Illinois, or Ohio. If he proceeded
westerly he was constantly increasing the distance from Montreal, and
whether he was north or south of the Ohio it is scarcely credible that
he should find his way back alone in the winter of 1669–70. In the
spring of 1681 he made that sad trip from “Crèvecœur” to Niagara, with
an Indian and four men, which occupied sixty-five days. It would consume
fully as much time to return from the falls of the Ohio. He could not
have examined the country near the river, below the falls, or he would
not have reported that it is a vast marsh, with intricate channels,
along which it flowed a great distance before uniting in a single bed.
He could not have traveled far west of the meridian of the falls without
hearing of the Mississippi, and making an effort to reach it, for it was
only through this river that he then expected to reach the Red Sea on
the route to China.
La Salle could not have explored the falls very minutely, and have
spoken of them as very high, nor of the country below as a vast marsh
with numerous and intricate channels. If, in his land journey, he had
gone in a northwesterly direction, he would have struck the Wabash or
its main branches in about one hundred and twenty-five miles. In a
southwesterly direction, the Cumberland and the Tennessee are rivers of
equal magnitude, the waters of which he must have encountered in a few
days’ travel.
Whatever Indians he met would be closely questioned, and if they
communicated anything, the Great River must have been the first object
of their thoughts. An observation of either of these three rivers by La
Salle, in the lower part of their course, or even second-hand
information respecting them from the savages, must have led a mind so
acute as his, sharpened by his purposes and his surroundings, to the
conclusion that he was near the Mississippi.
Did he reach this conclusion, and find himself baffled by the clamors or
the desertion of his men? Did he find means to procure other men and
supplies without returning to Montreal? It appears from the _Colonie
Francaise_, vol. iii, that in the summer of 1671 he had communication
with Montreal, where he obtained a credit of 454 _livres tournois_. Did
this enable him to pass from the waters of the Ohio to those of Lake
Erie, and undertake a long cruise through the lakes to the Illinois
country?
Whatever reply should be made to these queries, it is reasonably evident
that when his great work of 1679 was undertaken he did not know that the
Ohio is a tributary of the Mississippi, or whether the great unknown
river would conduct them to the South Sea. The discoveries of Joliet in
1673 did not remove these doubts from the minds of the governor-general
or the geographers of that period.
La Salle, as late as 1682, after having been at the mouth of the
Mississippi, was inclined to the opinion that the Ohio ran into a great
(but imaginary) river, called Chucugoa, east of the Mississippi,
discharging into the Gulf or the Atlantic in Florida. The French had not
followed the Ohio from the falls to its junction with the Wabash. On a
map made in 1692, ten years later, the Wabash is equivalent to the lower
Ohio, formed by the Miami and the upper Ohio, the Wabash of our maps
being omitted.
The main facts which residents of the Ohio valley are most curious to
know concerning La Salle’s operations here are yet wanting. We have made
diligent search for them, and are as yet unable to say, precisely, how
much time he spent on the waters of the Ohio and Lake Erie prior to
1673; what trading posts he established, if any; what streams he
navigated, or with what tribes he became acquainted. The instructions to
Governor-General DuQuesne in 1752, above referred to, claim that the
French had occupied this country ever since it was discovered by La
Salle. Governor Burnet, of the colony of New York in 1721, states that,
three years before, the French had no establishments on Lake Erie.
We may infer that La Salle was busily occupied during the years 1670 and
1671, on the waters of the Ohio and Lake Erie, collecting furs, for he
had no other means of support. The credit he obtained at Villemarie in
1671 was payable in furs. If his map should be discovered in some
neglected garret in France, we should no doubt find there a solution of
many historical difficulties that now perplex us. It was the custom at
that time to make very full memoranda on maps, amounting to a condensed
report of the author’s travels. If this map exists, Europe does not
contain a paper of more value to us.
Mr. Shea, whose labors on the history of French occupation have been
wonderfully persistent and minute, is of the opinion that we may presume
that unauthorized _voyageurs_, trappers, traders and _coureurs des
bois_, both French and English, were among the Indians in advance of the
explorers.
The Dutch on the Hudson, and after 1664 the English, were on good terms
with the Iroquois, who carried their wars to Lake Superior and the
Mississippi. We have no records of the movements of those half savage
traders, except in the case of Etienne Brulé, and that is of little
value.
La Salle was probably on the waters of the Ohio when Governor Woods, of
the colony of Virginia, sent a party to find that river in September,
1671. This party reached the falls of the Kanawha on the 17th of that
month, where they found rude letters cut upon standing trees. They took
possession of the country in the name of Charles II., of England, and
proceeded no farther.—(Botts’ Journal, New York Colonial Documents, vol.
iii, p. 194). William Penn’s colony was not then organized. In 1685 or
1686 some English traders penetrated as far as Mackinaw, by way of Lake
Erie. They were probably from New York, and having made their purchases
of the Ottawas, returned under the protection of the Hurons or Wyandots,
of the west end of Lake Erie.
If the Virginians were engaged in the Indian trade at this early period,
their route would be up the Potomac to the heads of the Youghiogeny, and
from the forks of the Ohio at Pittsburgh to Lake Erie, by the Allegheny
River and French creek, or by way of the Beaver, Mahoning, and the
Cuyahoga Rivers. These Arabs of the forest would carry axes and hatchets
having a steel bit, whether Dutch, French or English; and thus may have
done the hacking upon our trees which I have described. None of these
people would be likely to leave other records of their presence in a
country claimed by their different governments, on which one party or
the other were trespassers.
I am aware that this presentation of the most interesting period in the
history of Ohio is desultory and incomplete. If there had been a
reasonable prospect of more facts, it would have been delayed; but it is
doubtful if we may expect much more light on the subject of the
discovery of the Ohio valley.
CHARLES WHITTLESEY.
GEOGRAPHICAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
When Columbus found America it was supposed he had reached the eastern
coast of Asia. As discovery progressed, names intended for that
continent were strung along the Atlantic. One of them, the West Indies,
to-day reminds us of the error, as well as Indian, the common name for
the aborigines.
It was by and by suspected that America was not Asia, but it was a long
time before the reality of a vast continent was understood. Succeeding
learned men made it consist of two very long and narrow bodies of land.
South America, coasted by Cape Horn, was first delineated with some
accuracy, but North America not until very much later. The feeble
colonies along the Atlantic grew slowly, and not until two hundred and
fifty years did they really begin to push over the mountains, and there
met other colonies from the interior of the continent. The South Sea
trade led to many voyages of discovery, and many energetic captains
sailed up and down the coast striving and continually hoping to find
some strait to the supposed near coast of Asia.
We, in our day, read the early voyages as if the enterprising men who
conducted them were voyaging purely for science and adventure, but,
then, as now, business was energetic and commerce was reaching out its
hands in every direction for larger profits. Only once did a romantic
chevalier search for the visionary fountain of youth, and he may have
thought that bottled it would be the most popular of mineral waters and
there were “millions in it.”
Cartier entered the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 1534, but returned to France
to get a new outfit to pursue the new sea channel to the west. The next
year he entered the river, but still looked for a passage to Asia. He
thought deep Saguenay led to the Northern Sea and continued up the St.
Lawrence. Stopped by the rapids he was the first European who made the
tour of the mountain, and named the place “Mount Royal.”
The Indians reported to Cartier that there were three large lakes and a
sea of fresh water without end, meaning, no doubt, lakes of middle New
York and Ontario Sea. Cartier and his king, the great Francis, supposed
he was in Asia.
In a mercator map of 1569, the St. Lawrence is represented draining all
the Upper Mississippi valley, while to the northwest is the eastern end
of a vast fresh water sea (_dulce aquarum_) some five hundred or six
hundred miles wide, of the extent of which the Indians of Canada,
learning of it from the Indians of Saguenay, are ignorant. It looks on
the map like Lake Huron, but careful geographers dropped this unfounded
report of a great lake, and rightly. The Saguenay Indians no doubt meant
the Lake St. John.
Quebec was settled in 1608. In 1615 Champlain reached Lake Huron by way
of Ottawa River. On his return he crossed the lower end of Ontario, and
met in battle the Iroquois. His allies, the Hurons, wished him to wait
for five hundred men from the Eries, the tribe from which our lake took
its name. His interpreter, Brulé, visited them and descended the
Susquehanna to salt water, and is supposed to have visited the lake; I
doubt it. He did not need to cross it to return to the French, and he
could hardly have stood on the lake and seen its broad expanse. He
reported to Champlain, who, in 1632 made the first map of the lakes.
Lake Erie, unnamed, is little but a wide irregular river from Lake
Huron, (_Mer Douce_) to Ontario (_Lac St. Louis_). Champlain’s ideas of
Erie were more likely derived from the north, where Long Point and
islands make it look narrower than it does from the south.
The maps of other nations for a long time after show no practical
knowledge of the interior, being quite constant differences in grossest
blunders. But in the meantime the French—“shut up,” says the English
geographer, Heylin, “in a few weak forts on the north of Canada,”—were
really by missionaries and teachers, pushing far into the interior. The
Jesuit map of Lake Superior, of 1671, is wonderful. In a map published
by the Royal Geographer Sanson, in Paris in 1669, Lake Erie is not far
from its true shape, and lake Chautauqua appears with a small
stream—meant, I think, for a little of the Ohio, known from Indian
report.
It is worth while to stop for a moment to glance at the then position of
our State. Between it and the east are the Alleghanies, in those days a
great natural barrier, and not inaptly called “Endless Mountains.” It
was to be nearly one hundred years before the whites were to cross them,
proposing to drive away the French, but really to meet the most
disastrous defeat of Braddock’s field.
At the south was a broad river separating from Kentucky, and not until
still later and many a “dark and bloody” fight was Virginia to assert
its empire over an unknown northwest by calling it “Illinois county.”
Nor was New York to discover Ohio. All along through Western New York,
and controlling the easiest avenues, were the Iroquois, the “Romans of
the new world,” the conquerors of Ohio, who submitted to neither the
English nor the French, and who long asserted an equality with either.
The French were more sociable with Indians, but the introduction of the
Iroquois to civilization was a battle with Champlain in 1608, which made
the Hurons friends of the French, but lost them the conquerors of the
Hurons.
The French had been pursuing their occupation, such as it was, over the
peninsula north of Lake Erie, and established several posts around Lakes
Superior and Huron and at Detroit, where was carried on a valuable
trade. The routes north of the lakes or by the Ottawa, were the
shortest, easiest and much the safest. All the while they were looking
for larger things and full of schemes. Rumors of great rivers reached
them, including some report of that which started from the country of
the Iroquois and gathered strength for its immense unknown course
through distant lands.
No more resolute discoverer than La Salle ever came to New France. A
young man, only twenty-three, he was of good family; lost his
inheritance by joining the Jesuits, but had given up his intention of
becoming a priest. One can see, however, that he had imbibed their
enthusiasm for geographical extension, and turned to designs for
commerce and the king their zeal for their order. His whole life is so
harmonious in its unity that it gives color to the suggestion of Mr.
Parkman that he had planned it before he came. He had a grant at once,
through the influence of his brother, at La Chine, named, it is said, in
ridicule of his plans for a route to China. He palisaded it, traded in
furs, and studied with industry the Indian tongues, learning, it is
said, seven or eight. The Indians who came there talked of the Ohio, a
grand river which rose near Lake Erie, but after a journey requiring
eight or nine months to follow, emptied into a vast sea. La Salle
believed the sea to be the Gulf of California, then thought to
communicate, by a broad passage at its north, with the ocean. Here was
the passage to the commerce of the South Sea and valuable trade with
nations along its banks. In 1667 he asked to be allowed to discover it.
He had the privilege, but his company was merged with that of two
missionaries, Galinée and Dollier. With them, in 1669, he visited the
Iroquois. The river was in its old place, but the Iroquois were not
inclined to have the Frenchmen penetrate their country, intercept their
trade and supply the nations to their rear with the fire arms which made
the Iroquois themselves omnipotent in battle.
They talked of the long, hard journey—almost impossible; of the
Andastes, a terrible nation almost sure to kill them, and the still more
terrible Shawnees. The courage of the missionaries failed them, and La
Salle was obliged to turn with them to the north.
There has lately been published in Paris, by M. Margry, a series of
documents which add much to our knowledge of him. In these volumes
appear his plans, expenses, poverty, drafts upon his family and friends;
how he built upon Lake Ontario and Niagara, and planned to build on Lake
Erie and further west.
In 1667 he was in France. He was already famous and of influence. His
scheme was vast. He wished to penetrate to the great valley of our
continent and lay there the foundation of powerful colonies “in a
country temperate in climate, rich and fertile, and capable of a great
commerce.” He told the king “such a hold of the continent would be
taken, that in the next war with Spain, France would oust her from North
America.” He was graciously allowed to pursue this vast enterprise,
provided he did so at his own expense.
In 1679 he built the Griffin, the first vessel upon Lake Erie. He
founded Fort Miamis upon the river St. Joseph, in southwest Michigan,
and Fort Crèvecœur upon the Illinois, intending to there build a vessel
to descend the Mississippi. The Griffin returned to bring supplies. He
never saw her again. She was lost, he believed, by treachery, and he
must return for succor. Arrived overland at Niagara, he found he had
also lost a vessel with supplies from France. He reached Montreal May 6,
1680. His creditors had seized his property and his resources seemed
entirely wasted. He learned by letter from Tonty, that the men left at
Crèvecœur had deserted after destroying the fort, carrying away what
property they could and destroying the balance. They also destroyed Fort
St. Joseph and seized his property at Niagara. But La Salle was not
disheartened. He started to succor Tonty and save the vessel on the
Illinois. As he reached Crèvecœur, in the winter of 1680, all was
silent; the planks of the vessel were there and on one was written
“_Nous sommes tous sauvages: ce 19, A. 1680_.” Was it prophetic that he
had named the place Crèvecœur (Broken Heart)? Not at all. His first
thought was, did A. stand for April or August, and where was Tonty. The
resolute will and wonderful power of La Salle appear nowhere so strongly
as in the narrative of the Illinois. There seems almost a direct triumph
of mind over matter. He found Tonty at Michilimackinac, and in 1682–3
accomplished his purpose of descending the Mississippi to the sea. He
returned up the river and to France, and in 1685 was in a sea expedition
to found a colony at its mouth. The captain, against his protest,
carried him by and landed him in Texas. He still persisted, with the men
left with him, in the resolve to find the Mississippi, with great
suffering and opposition on their part, but not at all daunted himself.
A part of them revolted from the enterprise, and one of them shot La
Salle, exclaiming: “Lie there Grand Bashaw,” and that resolute will was
still.
Such was the man, who, almost at the outset of his career, and when
hardly twenty-seven, discovered the Ohio. There are no journals or maps
of that discovery, and I have traced the man to enable us to judge of
the manner in which he no doubt pursued that project. We left him with
Galinée in 1669, sadly turning to the north. Of the captive guides
furnished by the Iroquois, he got a Shawnee from Ohio, and persisted in
wishing to seek that river. He shortly separated from the expedition.
The opposition which we have related was not all. The Jesuits were
jealous of his schemes—the only ones more vast and energetic than their
own. Frontenac, the governor, says: “Their design, as appeared in the
end, was to set a trap whichever path I took, or to derange everything;
to place the country in disorder, from which they would not hesitate to
profit and to ruin M. de La Salle.”
Their annual reports are the main reliance for early Canadian history,
and they purposely and sagaciously omitted all mention of his
enterprises or discoveries, or even his name.
Until within a few years it has been said that La Salle did nothing for
the next two or three years after he left Galinée. With such a man that
was impossible. We have the briefest knowledge of what he did. His
reports and his maps, known to be in existence as late as 1756, are
apparently hopelessly lost. In the papers publishing at Paris is one
resulting from conversations with La Salle in 1677, when he was in
France, a too brief narrative. It sets forth La Salle’s resolve to turn
to the south; that Galinée, a missionary, hoped to do good in the north,
and in this hope left our hero. “However,” says the narrative, “M. de La
Salle continued his journey on a river which goes from the east to the
west, and passed to Onontague, then to six or seven leagues below from
Lake Erie, and having reached longitude 280 to 283 degrees, and latitude
41, found a rapid which falls to the west in a low, marshy country, all
covered with dry trees, some of which were still standing. He was
compelled to take to land, and following a height which led him away, he
found some Indians who told him that far off the river lost itself in
the lower country, and reunited again in one stream. He continued on the
journey, but as the fatigue was great, twenty-three or twenty-four men,
which he had brought there, left him by night, returned up the river and
saved themselves, some in New York and some in New England.
“He was alone, four hundred leagues from home, where he returned,
ascending the river and living on game, plants, and what was given him
by the Indians.
“After some time he made a second attempt, on the same river,” which he
left below Lake Erie, making a portage of six or seven leagues to embark
on that lake, which he left towards the north, going through Lake St.
Clair. La Salle himself says in a letter of 1677: “That year, 1667, and
those following he made several expensive journeys, in which he
discovered the first time the country south of the great lakes, and
between them and the great river Ohio. He followed it to a strait, where
it fell into great marshes, below 37° latitude.”
A letter from M. Talon to the king, dated November 2, 1671, says: “Sieur
de La Salle has not yet returned from his journey to the southward of
this country.”
A memoir of M. de DeNonville, March 8, 1688, says: “La Salle had for
several years before he built Crèvecœur, employed canoes for his trade
in the rivers Oyo, Oubache and others in the surrounding neighborhood,
which flow into the river Mississippi.”