THE RICHELIEU RIVER. -- ACADIAN SCENES. - ST. OURS.-- ST.
ANTOINE. -- ST. MARKS. -- BELCEIL. -- CHAMELY CANAL. -- ST.
JOHNS. -- LAKE CHAMPLAIN. THE GREAT SHIP-CANAL. --
DAVID BODFISH 'S CAMP. -- THE ADIRONDACK SURVEY. -- A
CANVAS BOAT. -- DIMENSIONS OF LAKE CHAMPLAIN. -- PORT
KENT. -- AUSABLE CHASM. -- ARRIVAL AT TICONDEROGA.
Quebec was founded by Champlain, July 3,
1680. During his first warlike expedition
into the land of the Iroquois the following year,
escorted by Algonquin and Montagnais Indian
allies, he ascended a river to which was
afterwards given the name of Cardinal Richelieu,
prime minister of Louis XIII. of France. This
stream, which is about eighty miles long,
connects the lake (which Champlain discovered
and named after himself) with the St. Lawrence
River at a point one hundred and forty miles
above Quebec, and forty miles below Montreal.
The waters of lakes George and Champlain
flow northward, through the Richelieu River
into the St. Lawrence. The former stream flows
through a cultivated country, and upon its banks,
after leaving Sorel, are situate the little towns
of St. Ours, St. Rock, St. Denis, St. Antoine, St.
Marks, Beloeil, Chambly, and St. Johns. Small
steamers, tug-boats, and rafts pass from the St.
Lawrence to Lake Champlain (which lies almost
wholly within the United States), following the
Richelieu to Chambly, where it is necessary, to
avoid rapids and shoals, to take the canal that
follows the river's bank twelve miles to St. Johns,
where the Canadian custom-house is located.
Sorel is called William Henry by the Anglo-Saxon
Canadians. The paper published in this
town of seven thousand inhabitants is La
Gazette de Sorel. The river which flows past the
town is called, without authority, by some
geographers, Sorel River, and by others St. Johns,
because the town nearest its source is St. Johns,
and another town at its mouth is Sorel. There
are about one hundred English-speaking families
in Sorel. The American Waterhouse Machinery
supplies the town with water pumped from the
river at a cost of one ton of coal per day. At
ten o'clock on Monday morning we resumed
our journey up the Richelieu, the current of
which was nothing compared with that of the
great river we had left. The average width of
the stream was about a quarter of a mile, and the
grassy shores were made picturesque by groves
of trees and quaintly constructed farm-houses.
It was a rich, pastoral land, abounding in fine
herds of cattle. The country reminded me of
the Acadian region of Grand Pre, which I had
visited during the earlier part of the season.
Here, as there, were delightful pastoral scenes
and rich verdure; but here we still had the
Acadian peasants, while in the land of beautiful
Evangeline no longer were they to be found,
The New Englander now holds the titles to
those deserted old farms of the scattered
colonists. Our rowing was frequently interrupted
by heavy showers, which drove us under our
hatch-cloth for protection. The same large,
two-steepled stone churches, with their
unpainted tin roofs glistening like silver in the sunlight,
marked out here, as on the high banks of the
St. Lawrence River, the site of a village.
Twelve miles of rowing brought us to St. Ours,
where we rested for the night, after wandering
through its shaded and quaint streets. The
village boys and girls came down to see us off the
next morning, waving their kerchiefs, and
shouting "Bon voyage!" Two miles above the town
we encountered a dam three feet high, which
deepened the water on a shoal above it. We
passed through a single lock in company with
rafts of pine logs which were on the way to New
York, to be used for spars. A lockage fee of
twenty-five cents for our boat the lock-master
told us would be collected at Chambly Basin.
It was a pull of nearly six miles to St. Denis,
where the same scene of comfort and plenty
prevailed. Women were washing clothes in large
iron pots at the river's edge, and the hum of the
spinning-wheels issued from the doorways of
the farm-houses. Beehives in the well-stocked
gardens were filled with honey, and the
strawthatched barns had their doors thrown wide
open, as though waiting to receive the harvest.
At intervals along the highway, over the grassy
hills, tall, white wooden crosses were erected;
for this people, like the Acadians of old, are very
religious. Down the current floated "pin-flats,"
a curious scow-like boat, which carries a square
sail, and makes good time only when running
before the wind. St. Antoine and St. Marks
were passed, and the isolated peak of St. Hilaire
loomed up grandly twelve hundred feet on the
right bank of the Richelieu, opposite the town
Beloeil. One mile above Beloeil the Grand
Trunk Railroad crosses the stream, and here we
passed the night. Strong winds and rain squalls
interrupted our progress. At Chambly Basin
we tarried until the evening of July 16, before
entering the canal. Chambly is a
watering-place for Montreal people, who come here to
enjoy the fishing, which is said to be fair.
We had ascended one water-step at St. Ours.
Here we had eight steps to ascend within the
distance of one mile. By means of eight locks,
each one hundred and ten feet long by
twenty-two wide, the Mayeta was lifted seventy-five
feet and one inch in height to the upper level of
the canal. The lock-masters were courteous,
and wished us the usual "Bon voyage!" This
canal was built thirty-four years prior to my visit.
By ten o'clock P. M. We had passed the last lock,
and went into camp in a depression in the bank
of the canal. The journey was resumed at half
past three o'clock the following morning, and
the row of twelve miles to St. Johns was a
delightful one. The last lock (the only one at St.
Johns) was passed, and we had a full clearance
at the Dominion custom-house before noon.
We were again on the Richelieu, with about
twenty-three miles between us and the boundary
line of the United States and Canada, and with
very little current to impede us. As dusk
approached we passed a dismantled old fort,
situated upon an island called Ile aux Noix, and
entered a region inhabited by the large bull-frog,
where we camped for the night, amid the
dolorous voices of these choristers. On Saturday,
the 18th, at an early hour, we were pulling for
the United States, which was about six miles
from our camping-ground. The Richelieu
widened, and we entered Lake Champlain, passing
Fort Montgomery, which is about one thousand
feet south of the boundary line. Champlain has
a width of three fourths of a mile at Fort
Montgomery, and at Rouse's Point expands to two
miles and three quarters. The erection of the
fort was commenced soon after 1812, but in
1818 the work was suspended, as some one
discovered that the site was in Canada, and the
cognomen of Fort Blunder was applied. In the
Webster treaty of 1842, England ceded the
ground to the United States, and Fort
Montgomery was finished at a cost of over half a
million of dollars.
At Rouse's Point, which lies on the west shore
of Lake Champlain about one and one-half miles
south of its confluence with the Richelieu, the
Mayeta was inspected by the United States
custom-house officer, and nothing contraband being
discovered, the little craft was permitted to
continue her voyage.
At the northern end of the harbor of Rouse's
Point is the terminus of the Ogdensburg and the
Champlain and St. Lawrence railroads. The
Vermont Central Railroad connects with the
above by means of a bridge twenty-two hundred
feet in length, which crosses the lake. Before
proceeding further it may interest the reader of
practical mind to know that a very important
movement is on foot to facilitate the navigation
of vessels between the great Lakes, St. Lawrence
River, and Champlain, by the construction of
a ship-canal. The Caughnawaga Ship Canal
Company, "incorporated by special act of the
Dominion of Parliament of Canada, 12th May,
1870," (capital, three million dollars; shares, one
hundred dollars each,) with a board of directors
composed of citizens of the United States and
Canada, has issued its prospectus, from which I
extract the following:
"The commissioners of public works, in
their report of 1859, approved by government,
finally settled the question of route, by declaring
that, 'after a patient and mature consideration of
all the surveys and reports, we are of opinion
that the line following the Chambly Canal and
then crossing to Lake St. Louis near
Caughnawaga, is that which combines and affords in the
greatest degree all the advantages contemplated
by this improvement, and which has been
approved by Messrs. Mills, Swift, and Gamble.'
"The company's Act of Incorporation is in
every respect complete and comprehensive in its
details. It empowers the company to survey, to
take, appropriate, have and hold, to and for the
use of them and their successors, the line and
boundaries of a canal between the St. Lawrence
and Lake Champlain, to build and erect the
same, to select such sites as may be necessary
for basins and docks, as may be considered
expedient by the directors, and to purchase and
dispose of same, with any water-power, as may
be deemed best by the directors for the use and
profit of the company.
"It also empowers the company to cause their
canal to enter into the Chambly Canal, and to
widen, deepen, and enlarge the same, not less in
size than the present St. Lawrence canals; also
the company may take, hold, and use any
portion of the Chambly Canal, and the works
therewith connected, and all the tolls, receipts, and
revenues thereof, upon terms to be settled and
agreed upon between the company and the
governor in council.
"The cost of the canal, with locks of three
hundred feet by forty-five, and with ten feet six
inches the mitre-sill, is now estimated at two
million five hundred thousand dollars, and the
time for its construction may not exceed two
years after breaking ground.
"Probably no question is of more vital
importance to Canada and the western and eastern
United States than the subject of transportation.
The increasing commerce of the Great West, the
rapidity with which the population has of late
flowed into that vast tract of country to the west
and northwest of lakes Erie, Michigan, Huron,
and Superior, have served to convince all
well-informed commercial men that the means of
transit between that country and the seaboard
are far too limited even for the present
necessities of trade; hence it becomes a question of
universal interest how the products of the field, the
mine, and the forest can be most cheaply
forwarded to the consumer. Near the geographical
centre of North America is a vast plateau two
thousand feet above the level of the sea, drained
by the Mississippi to the south, by the St.
Lawrence to the east and by the Saskatchewan and
McKenzie to the north. This vast territory
would have been valueless but for the water
lines which afford cheap transport between it
and the great markets of the world.
"Canada has improved the St. Lawrence by
canals round the rapids of the St. Lawrence, and
by the Welland Canal, connecting lakes Erie and
Ontario, twenty-eight miles in length with a fall
of two hundred and sixty feet, capable of
passing vessels of four hundred tons. The St.
Lawrence, from the east end of Lake Ontario, has a
fall of two hundred and twenty feet, overcome
by seven short canals of an aggregate length of
forty-seven miles, capable of passing vessels of
six hundred and fifty tons. The Richelieu River
is connected with Lake Champlain by a canal
of twelve miles from Chambly. A canal of one
mile in length, at the outlet of Lake Superior,
connects that lake with Lake Huron, and has
two locks, which will pass vessels of two
thousand tons. New York has built a canal from
Buffalo, on Lake Erie, and from Oswego, on
Lake Ontario, to Albany, on the Hudson River,
of three hundred and sixty and of two hundred
and nine miles, capable of passing boats of two
hundred and ten tons; and she has also
constructed a canal from the Hudson River into
Lake Champlain of sixty-five miles, which can
pass boats of eighty tons.
"Such is the nature of the navigation between
tide-water on the Hudson and St. Lawrence and
the upper lakes. The magnitude of the
commerce of the Northwest has compelled the
enlargement of the Erie and Oswego canals from
boats of seventy-eight to two hundred and ten
tons, while the St. Lawrence and Welland canals
have also been enlarged since their first
construction. A further enlargement of the Erie
and Champlain canals is now strongly urged in
consequence of the want of the necessary
facilities of transport for the ever increasing western
trade. The object of the Caughnawaga Ship-canal
is to connect Lake Champlain with the St.
Lawrence by the least possible distance, and
with the smallest amount of lockage. When
built, it will enable the vessel or propeller to
sail from the head of lakes Superior or Michigan
without breaking bulk, and will enable such
vessels to land and receive cargo at Burlington and
Whitehall, from whence western freights can be
carried to and from Boston, and throughout New
England, by railway cheaper than by any other
route.
"It will possess the advantage, when the
Welland Canal is enlarged and the locks of the St.
Lawrence Canal lengthened, of passing vessels
of eight hundred and fifty tons' burden, and with
that size of vessel (impossible on any other route)
of improved model, with facilities for loading and
discharging cargoes at both ends of the route, in
the length of the voyage without transshipment,
in having the least distance between any of
the lake ports and a seaport, and in having the
shortest length of taxed canal navigation. The
Construction of the Caughnawaga Canal, when
carried out, will remedy the difficulties which
now exist and stand in the way of an
uninterrupted water communication between the
western states and the Atlantic seaboard."
From Rouse's Point we proceeded to a
picturesque point which jutted into the lake below
Chazy Landing, and was sheltered by a grove
of trees into which we hauled the Mayeta.
Bodfish's woodcraft enabled him to construct a
wigwam out of rails and rubber blankets, where we
quietly resided until Monday morning. The
owner of the point, Mr. Trombly, invited us to
dinner on Sunday, and exhibited samples of a
ton of maple sugar which he had made from the
sap of one thousand trees.
On Monday, July 20th, we rowed southward.
Our route now skirted the western shore of
Lake Champlain, which is the eastern boundary
of the great Adirondack wilderness. Several of
the tributaries of the lake take their rise in this
region, which is being more and more visited
by the hunter, the fisherman, the artist, and the
tourist, as its natural attractions are becoming
known to the public. The geodetical survey
of the northern wilderness of New York state,
known as the Adirondack country, under the
efficient and energetic labors of Mr. Verplanck
Colvin, will cover an area of nearly five
thousand square miles. In his report of the great
work he eloquently says:
"The Adirondack wilderness may be
considered the wonder and the glory of New York.
It is a vast natural park, one immense and
silent forest, curiously and beautifully broken
by the gleaming waters of a myriad of lakes,
between which rugged mountain-ranges rise as
a sea of granite billows. At the northeast the
mountains culminate within an area of some
hundreds of square miles; and here savage,
treeless peaks, towering above the timber line, crowd
one another, and, standing gloomily shoulder to
shoulder, rear their rocky crests amid the frosty
clouds. The wild beasts may look forth from
the ledges on the mountain-sides over unbroken
woodlands stretching beyond the reach of sight
-- beyond the blue, hazy ridges at the horizon.
The voyager by the canoe beholds lakes in
which these mountains and wild forests are
reflected like inverted reality; now wondrous
in their dark grandeur and solemnity, now
glorious in resplendent autumn color of pearly
beauty. Here -- thrilling sound to huntsman --
echoes the wild melody of the hound,
awakening the solitude with deep-mouthed bay as he
pursues the swift career of deer. The quavering
note of the loon on the lake, the mournful hoot
of the owl at night, with rarer forest voices
have also to the lover of nature their peculiar
charm, and form the wild language of this forest.
"It is this region of lakes and mountains --
whose mountain core is well shown by the
illustration, 'the heart of the Adirondacks' -- that
our citizens desire to reserve forever as a public
forest park, not only as a resort of rest for
themselves and for posterity, but for weighty reasons of
political economy. For reservoirs of water for the
canals and rivers; for the amelioration of spring
floods by the preservation of the forests
sheltering the deep winter snows; for the salvation of
the timber, -- our only cheap source of lumber
supply should the Canadian and western markets
be ruined by fires, or otherwise lost to us, -- its
preservation as a state forest is urgently
demanded. To the number of those chilly peaks amid
which our principal rivers take their rise, I have
added by measurement a dozen or more over
four thousand feet in height, which were before
either nameless, or only vaguely known by the
names given them by hunters and trappers.
"It is well to note that the final hypsometrical
computations fully affirm my discovery that in
Mount Haystack we have another mountain of
five thousand feet altitude. It may not be
uninteresting also to remark that the difference
between the altitudes of Mount Marcy and Mount
Washington of the White Mountains of New
Hampshire is found to be quite eight hundred
feet. Mount Marcy, Mount MacIntyre, and
Mount Haystack are to be remembered as the
three royal summits of the state.
"The four prominent peaks are --
Mount Marcy{ Mount Tahawus -- "I cleave the clouds,"} 5,402.65
Mount Haystack, 5,006.73
Mount Maclntyre, 5,201.80
Mount Skylight, 4,977.76."
If the general reader will pardon a seeming
digression to gratify the curiosity of some of my
boating friends, I will give from the report of
the Adirondack Survey Mr. Colvin's account
of his singular boat, -- one of the lightest yet
constructed, and weighing only as much as
a hunter's double-barrelled gun.
Mr. Colvin says:
"I also had constructed a canvas boat, of my
own invention, for use in the interior of the
wilderness on such of the mountain lakes as were
inaccessible to boats, and which it would be
necessary to map. This boat was peculiar; no
more frame being needed than could be readily
cut in thirty minutes in the first thicket. It was
twelve feet long, with thin sheet brass prows,
riveted on, and so fitted as to receive the keelson,
prow pieces, and ribs (of boughs), when
required; the canoe being made water-proof with
pure rubber gum, dissolved in naphtha, rubbed
into it."
Page 43 of Mr. Colvin's report informs the
reader how well this novel craft served the
purpose for which it was built.
"September 12 was devoted to levelling and
topographical work at Ampersand Pond, a solitary
lake locked in by mountains, and seldom visited.
There was no boat upon its surface, and in order
to complete the hydrographical work we had
now, of necessity, to try my portable canvas boat,
which had hitherto done service as bed or tent.
Cutting green rods for ribs, we unrolled the boat
and tied them in, lashing poles for gunwales at
the sides, and in a short time our canvas canoe,
buoyant as a cork, was floating on the water.
The guides, who had been unable to believe that
the flimsy bag they carried could be used as a
boat, were in ecstasies. Rude but efficient
paddles were hastily hewn from the nearest tree,
and soon we were all gliding in our ten-pound
boat over the waves of Ampersand, which
glittered in the morning sunlight. To the guides
the boat was something astonishing; they could
not refrain from laughter to find that they were
really afloat in it, and pointed with surprise at
the waves, which could be seen through the
boat, rippling against its sides. With the aid of
the boat, with prismatic compass and sextant, I
was able to secure an excellent map of the lake;
and we almost succeeded in catching a deer,
which was driven into the lake by a strange
hound. The dog lost the trail at the water, and
desiring to put him on the track, we paddled to
him. He scrambled into the boat with an air of
satisfaction, as if he had always travelled in just
such a thing. Soon we had regained the trail,
and making the mountains echo to his voice,
he again pursued the deer on into the trackless
forest.
"Continuing our work, we passed down into
the outlet, where, in trying to effect a landing,
we suddenly came face to face with a large
panther, which had evidently been watching us.
He fled at our approach.
"Our baggage was quickly packed, and the
temporary frame of the canoe having been taken
out and thrown away, we rolled up our boat and
put it in the bottom of a knapsack. . . . The same
day by noon we reached Cold Brook again, here
navigable. In an hour and a half we had
re-framed the canvas, cut out two paddles from a
dry cedar-tree, had dinner, loaded the boat, and
were off; easily gliding down stream to the
Saranac River. Three men, the heaped baggage in
the centre, and the solemn hound, who seemed
to consider himself part of the company, sitting
upright near the prow, forming in all a burden
of about one third of a ton, was a severe test of
the green boughs of which we had made the frame.
"Ascending the Saranac River, we struck out
into the broad Saranac Lake, some six miles
in length, and though the winds and the waves
buffeted us, the canvas sides of the boat
responding elastically to each beat of the waves, we got
safely along till near the Sister Islands, when, the
wind blowing very fresh, the white-capped
rollers began to pitch into the boat. The exertions
of the guides brought us under the lee shore, and
at evening we disembarked at Martin's."
Geographies, guide-books, and historical works
frequently give the length of Lake Champlain as
one hundred and fifty, or at the least one hundred
and forty miles. These distances are not correct.
The lake proper begins at a point near
Ticonderoga and ends not far from the boundary line of
the United States and Canada. Champlain is not
less than one hundred nor more than one hundred
and twelve miles long. The Champlain Canal,
which connects the river that flows from
Whitehall into the lake with the Hudson River, is
sixty-four miles long, ending at the Erie Canal at
Junction Lock, near Troy. From Junction Lock
to Albany, along the Erie Canal, it is six miles;
or seventy miles from Whitehall to Albany by
canal route. This distance has frequently been
given as fifty-one miles.
From the United States boundary line south-ward
it is a distance of seven miles to Isle la
Motte, which island is five and a half miles long
by one and three quarters wide, with a
lighthouse upon its northwest point. From the New
York shore of Monti Bay, across the end of Isle
la Motte to St. Albans, Vermont, is a distance of
thirteen and a half miles. Two miles south of
the island, on the west shore, is Point au Roche
light; and two miles and three quarters south of
it is Rocky Point, the terminus of Long Point.
Next comes Treadwell Bay, three miles across;
then two miles further on is Cumberland Head
and its light-house. West from Cumberland,
three miles across a large bay, is Plattsburgh, at
the mouth of the Saranac River, a town of five
thousand inhabitants. In this vicinity
Commodore Macdonough fought the British fleet in 1814.
These are historic waters, which have witnessed
the scene of many a bloody struggle between
French, English, and Indian adversaries. Off
Cumberland Head, and dividing the lake, is
Grand Isle, twelve miles in length and from
three to four in width.
The village of Port Kent is near the mouth of
the Ausable River, which flows out of the
northern Adirondack country. A few miles from the
lake is the natural wonder, the Ausable Chasm,
which is nearly two miles in length. The river
has worn a channel in the Potsdam sandstone
formation to a depth, in places, of two hundred
feet. Between high walls of rock the river is
compressed in one place to ten feet in breadth,
and dashes wildly over falls and rapids on its
way to Lake Champlain. It is said to rival the
famous Swiss Gorge du Triant.
Schuyler's Island, upon the shore of which we
passed Tuesday night, is nearly in the latitude of
Burlington, Vermont. The distance from Port
Douglass on the west, to Burlington on the east
side of Champlain, over an open expanse of
water, is nine miles and three quarters. We
breakfasted by starlight, and passed Ligonier's
Point early in the day. One mile and a half east
of it is the group of little islands called Four
Brothers. The lake grew narrower as we rowed
southward, until, after passing Port Henry Iron
Works, and the high promontory of Crown Point,
upon which are the ruins of the French Fort
Frederic, built in 1731, it has a width of only
two miles.
At eight o'clock P. M. we dropped anchor
under the banks of Ticonderoga, not far from the
outlet of Lake George. It is four miles by road
between the two lakes. The stream which
connects them can be ascended from Champlain
about two miles to the Iron Works, the
remainder of the river being filled with rapids.
A railroad now (1867) connects lakes George
and Champlain, over which an easy portage can
be made. The ruined walls of Fort
Ticonderoga are near the railroad landing. A little
south of this the lake grows so narrow as to
resemble a river. At its southern end,
twenty-four miles from Ticonderoga, is situated the
town of Whitehall, where the Champlain and
Hudson River Canal forms a junction with Lake
Champlain. This long river-like termination of
Champlain gave to the Indians the fancy of
calling it Tisinondrosa -- "the tail of the lake;"
which in mouths inexperienced with the savage
tongue became corrupted into Ticonderoga.
Wednesday broke upon us a glorious day.
Proceeding three miles to Patterson's Landing,
into the "tail of the lake," I left the Mayeta to
explore on foot the shores of Lake George,
promising Bodfish to join him at Whitehall when
my work should be finished.