FROM LAKES GEORGE AND CHAMPLAIN TO THE HUDSON RIVER.
THE DISCOVERY OF LAKE GEORGE BY FATHER JOGUES.--A PEDESTRIAN
JOURNEY.--THE HERMIT OF THE NARROWS.--CONVENT OF ST. MARY'S OF THE
LAKE.--THE PAULIST FATHERS.--CANAL-ROUTE FROM LAKE CHAMPLAIN TO
ALBANY.--BODFISH RETURNS TO NEW JERSEY.--THE LITTLE FLEET IN ITS HAVEN
OF REST.
In the last chapter I gave, from seemingly good authority, the
appellation of the narrow terminal water of the southern end of Lake
Champlain, "the tail of the lake." Another authority, in describing Lake
George, says: "The Indians named the lake, on account of the purity of
its waters, _Horican_, or 'silvery water;' they also called it
_Canderi-oit_, or 'the tail of the lake,' on account of its connecting
with Lake Champlain." Cooper, in his "Last of the Mohicans," says: "It
occurred to me that the French name of the lake was too complicated, the
American too commonplace, and the Indian too unpronounceable for either
to be used familiarly in a work of fiction." So _he_ called it
Horican.
[Illustration: From Plattsburgh to Albany.
Route of CANOE MAYETA From Plattsburgh to Albany Via
Lake Champlain and Champlain Canal Followed by N. H. Bishop in 1874
_Copyright, 1878 by Lee & Shepard_]
History furnishes us with the following facts in regard to the discovery
of the lake. While journeying up the St. Lawrence in a fleet of twelve
canoes, on a mission to the friendly Huron aborigines, Father Isaac
Jogues and his two friends, _donnes_ of the mission, Rene Goupil and
Guillaume Couture, with another Frenchman, were captured at the western
end of Lake of St. Peter by a band of Iroquois, which was on a marauding
expedition from the Mohawk River country, near what is now the city of
Troy. In the panic caused by the sudden onslaught of the Iroquois, the
unconverted portion of the thirty-six Huron allies of the Frenchmen fled
into the woods, while the christianized portion defended the white men
for a while. A reinforcement of the enemy soon scattered these also, but
not until the Frenchmen and a few of the Hurons were made captive. This
was on the 2d of August, 1642.
According to Francis Parkman, the author of "The Jesuits in North
America," the savages tortured Jogues and his white companions,
stripping off their clothing, tearing out their finger-nails with their
teeth, and gnawing their fingers with the fury of beasts. The seventy
Iroquois returned southward, following the River Richelieu, Lake
Champlain, and Lake George, _en route_ for the Mohawk towns. Meeting a
war party of two hundred of their own nation on one of the islands of
Champlain, the Indians formed two parallel lines between which the
captives were forced to run for their lives, while the savages struck at
them with thorny sticks and clubs. Father Jogues fell exhausted to the
ground, bathed in his own blood, when fire was applied to his body. At
night the young warriors tormented the poor captives by opening their
wounds and tearing out their hair and beards. The day following this
night of torture the Indians and their mangled captives reached the
promontory of Ticonderoga, along the base of which flowed the limpid
waters, the outlet of Lake George. Here the party made a portage through
the primeval forests, carrying their canoes and cargoes on their backs,
when suddenly there broke upon their view the dark blue waters of a
beautiful lake, which Mr. Parkman thus eloquently describes:
"Like a fair naiad of the wilderness it slumbered between the
guardian mountains that breathe from crag and forest the stern
poetry of war. But all then was solitude; and the clang of
trumpets, the roar of cannon, and the deadly crack of the rifle
had never as yet awakened their angry echoes. Again the canoes
were launched and the wild flotilla glided on its way, now in
the shadow of the heights, now on the broad expanse, now among
the devious channels of the Narrows, beset with woody islets
where the hot air was redolent of the pine, the spruce, and the
cedar,--till they neared that tragic shore where, in the
following century, New England rustics baffled the soldiers of
Dieskau, where Montcalm planted his batteries, where the red
cross waved so long amid the smoke, and where, at length, the
summer night was hideous with carnage, and an honored name was
stained with a memory of blood. The Indians landed at or near
the future site of Fort William Henry, left their canoes, and
with their prisoners began their march for the nearest Mohawk
town."
Father Jogues lived among his captors until the fall of 1643, when he
escaped in a vessel from the Dutch settlement of Rensselaerswyck
(Albany), to which place the Iroquois had gone to trade with the
inhabitants. He arrived at the Jesuit college of Rennes, France, in a
most destitute condition, on the 5th of January, 1644, where he was
joyfully received and kindly cared for. When he appeared before Queen
Anne of Austria, the woman who wore a diadem thought it a privilege to
kiss his mutilated hands. In the Roman Catholic church a deformed or
mutilated priest cannot say mass; he must be a perfect man in body and
mind before the Lord. Father Jogues wished to return to his old
missionary field; so, to restore to him his lost right of saying mass,
the Pope granted his prayer by a special dispensation. In the spring of
1643 he returned to the St. Lawrence country to found a new mission, to
be called the Mission of Martyrs. His Superior at Montreal ordered him
to proceed to the country of the Mohawks, and in company with Sieur
Bourdon, a government engineer, and six Indians, he followed the
Richelieu and Champlain, which the savages called "the doorway of the
country," until the little party stood on the northern end of Lake
George, on the evening of Corpus Christi; and with the catholic spirit
of the Jesuit missionary he christened it Lac St. Sacrement, and this
name it bore for a whole century. On the 18th of October, 1646, the
tomahawk of the savage ended the life of Father Jogues, who, after
suffering many tortures and indignities from his Iroquois captors, died
in their midst while working for their salvation in his field of
Christian labor.
The right of a discoverer to name new lakes and rivers is old and
unquestioned. A missionary of the cross penetrated an unexplored
wilderness and found this noblest gem of the lower Adirondacks, unknown
to civilized man. Impressed with this sublime work of his Creator, the
martyred priest christened it St. Sacrement. One hundred years later
came troops of soldiers with mouths filled with strange oaths, cursing
their enemies. What respect had _they_ for the rights of discoverers or
martyred missionaries? So General Johnson, "an ambitious Irishman,"
discarded the Christian name of the lake and replaced it with the
English one of George. He did not name it after St. George, the patron
saint of England, of whom history asserts that he "was identical with a
native of either Cappadocia or Cilicia, who raised himself by flattery
of the great from the meanest circumstances to be purveyor of bacon for
the army, and who was put to death with two of his ministers by a mob,
for peculations, A. D. 361;" but he took that of a sensual king, George
of England, in order to advance his own interests with that monarch.
For more than a century Lake George was the highway between Canada and
the Hudson River. Its pure waters were so much esteemed as to be taken
regularly to Canada to be consecrated and used in the Roman Catholic
churches in baptismal and other sacred rites. The lake was frequently
occupied by armies, and the forts George and William Henry, at the
southern end, possess most interesting historical associations. The
novelist Cooper made Lake George a region of romance. To the young
generation of Americans who yearly visit its shores it is an El Dorado,
and the very air breathes love as they glide in their light boats over
its pellucid waters, adding to the picturesqueness of the scene, and
supplying that need ever felt, no matter what the natural beauty,--the
presence of man. I believe even the Garden of Eden itself could not
have been perfect till among its shady groves fell the shadows of our
first parents. The cool retreats, the jutting promontories, the
moss-covered rocks against which the waves softly break,--if these had
tongues, they would, like Tennyson's Brook, "go on forever," for surely
they would never have done telling the tender tales they have heard. Nor
would it be possible to find a more fitting spot for the cultivation of
love and sentiment than this charming lake affords; for Nature seems to
have created Lake George in one of her happiest moments. This lake is
about thirty-four miles long, and varies in width from one to four
miles. Its greatest depth is about the same as that of Champlain. It
possesses (like all the American lakes when used as fashionable
watering-places) the usual three hundred and sixty-five islands.
When I left the Mayeta I followed a narrow footpath to a rough mountain
road, which in turn led me through the forests towards Lake George. In
an isolated dell I found the home of one Levi Smith, who piloted me
through the woods to the lake, and ferried me in a skiff across to
Hague, when I dined at the hotel, and resumed my journey along the
shores to Sabbath Day Point, where at four o'clock P. M. a steamer on
its trip from Ticonderoga to the south end of the lake stopped and took
me on board. We steamed southward to where high mountains shut in the
lake, and for several miles threaded the "Narrows" with its many pretty
islands, upon one of which Mr. J. Henry Hill, the hermit-artist, had
erected his modest home, and where he toiled at his studies early and
late, summer and winter. Three goats and a squirrel were his only
companions in this lonely but romantic spot.
During one cold winter, when the lake was frozen over to a depth of two
feet, and the forests were mantled in snow, Mr. Hill's brother, a civil
engineer, made a visit to this icy region, and the two brothers surveyed
the Narrows, making a correct map of that portion of the lake, with all
its islands carefully located. Mr. Hill afterwards made an etching of
this map, surrounding it with an artistic border representing objects of
interest in the locality.
Late in the afternoon the steamer landed me at Crosbyside, on the east
shore, about a mile from the head of the lake, resting beneath the shady
groves of which I beheld one of the most charming views of Lake George.
Early the following morning I took up my abode with a farmer, one
William Lockhart, a genial and eccentric gentleman, and a relation of
Sir Walter Scott's son-in-law. Mr. Lockhart's little cottage is half a
mile north of Crosbyside, and near the high bluff which Mr. Charles
O'Conor, the distinguished lawyer of New York city, presented to the
Paulist Fathers, whose establishment is on Fifty-ninth Street in that
metropolis. Here the members of the new Order come to pass their summer
vacations, bringing with them their theological students. The Paulists
are hard workers, visiting and holding "missions" in Minnesota,
California, and other parts of the United States. They seem to feel
forcibly the truth expressed in these lines, which are to be found in
"Aspirations of Nature," a work written by the founder of their order,
Father Hecker: "Existence is not a dream, but a solemn reality. Life was
not given to be thrown away on miserable sophisms, but to be employed in
earnest search after truth."
Mr. Lockhart kindly offered to escort me to the convent of St. Mary's of
the Lake; and after following the mountain road for a quarter of a mile
to the north of the cottage of my companion, we entered the shady
grounds of the convent and were kindly received on the long piazza by
the Father Superior, Rev. A. F. Hewit, who introduced me to several of
his co-laborers, a party of them having just returned from an excursion
to the Harbor Islands at the northern end of the Narrows, which property
is owned by the Order. I was told that the members of this new religious
establishment numbered about thirty, and that all but four were converts
from our Protestant faith. Their property in New York city is probably
worth half a million of dollars, and the Sunday schools under their
charge contain about fifteen hundred scholars. Here, among others, I saw
Father D----, who gave up his distinguished position as instructor of
the art of war at the Military Academy of West Point, to become a
soldier of the Cross, preferring to serve his Master by preaching the
gospel of peace to mankind. Under an overhanging rock at a little
distance were conversing, most happily, two young priests, who a few
years before had fought on opposite sides during the civil strife which
resulted in the preservation of the Great Republic.
A mathematician and astronomer from the Cambridge and also from a
government observatory, who had donned the cassock, gave me much
valuable information in regard to the mountain peaks of Lake George,[A]
which he had carefully studied and accurately measured. Through his
courtesy and generosity I am enabled to give on the preceding page the
results of his labors.
The interesting conversation was here interrupted by the tolling of the
convent bell. A deep silence prevailed, as, with uncovered heads and
upon bended knees, the whole company most devoutly crossed themselves
while repeating a prayer. I felt much drawn towards a young priest with
delicate and refined features, who now engaged me in conversation. He
was an adept in all that related to boats. He loved the beautiful lake,
and was never happier than when upon its mirrored surface, except when
laboring at his duties among the poor of the ninth district of New York.
The son of a distinguished general, he inherited rare talents, which
were placed at his Saviour's service. His Christianity was so liberal,
his aspirations so noble, his sympathies so strong, that I became much
interested in him; and when I left the lake, shortly after, he quietly
said, "When you return next summer to build your cottage, let me help
you plan the boat-house." But when I returned to the shores of Lake
George, after the completion of my voyage to the Gulf of Mexico, no
helping hand was there, and I built my boat-house unassisted; for the
gentle spirit of the missionary Paulist had gone to God who gave it,
and Father Rosencranz was receiving his reward.
When I joined my travelling companion, David Bodfish, he grievously
inveighed against the community of Whitehall because some dishonest
boatmen from the canal had appropriated the stock of pipes and tobacco
he had laid in for his three or four days' voyage to Albany. "Sixty
cents' worth of new pipes and tobacco," said David, in injured tones,
"is a great loss, and a Bodfish never was worth anything at work without
his tobacco. I used to pour _speerits_ down to keep my speerits up, but
of late years I have depended on tobacco, as the speerits one gets
nowadays isn't the same kind we got when I was a boy and worked in old
Hawkin Swamp."
Canal voyaging, after one has experienced the sweet influences of lakes
George and Champlain, is indeed monotonous. But to follow connecting
watercourses it was necessary for the Mayeta to traverse the Champlain
Canal (sixty-four) and the Erie Canal (six miles) from Whitehall to
Albany on the Hudson River, a total distance of seventy miles.
There was nothing of sufficient interest in the passage of the canal to
be worthy of record save the giving way of a lock-gate, near Troy, and
the precipitating of a canal-boat into the vortex of waters that
followed. By this accident my boat was detained one day on the banks of
the canal. On the fourth day the Mayeta ended her services by arriving
at Albany, where, after a journey of four hundred miles, experience had
taught me that I could travel more quickly in a lighter boat, and more
conveniently and economically without a companion. It was now about the
first week in August, and the delay which would attend the building of a
new boat especially adapted for the journey of two thousand miles yet to
be travelled would not be lost, as by waiting a few weeks, time would be
given for the malaria on the rivers of New Jersey, Delaware, and
Maryland, and even farther south, to be eradicated by the fall frosts.
David returned to his New Jersey home a happy man, invested with the
importance which attaches itself to a great traveller. I had
unfortunately contributed to Mr. Bodfish's thirst for the marvellous by
reading to him at night, in our lonely camp, Jules Verne's imaginative
"Journey to the Centre of the Earth." David was in ecstasies over this
wonderful contribution to fiction. He preferred fiction to truth at any
time. Once, while reading to him a chapter of the above work, his
credulity was so challenged that he became excited, and broke forth
with, "Say, boss, how do these big book-men larn to lie so well? does it
come nat'ral to them, or is it got by edication?" I have since heard
that when Mr. Bodfish arrived in the pine-wood regions of New Jersey he
related to his friends his adventures "in furrin parts," as he styled
the Dominion of Canada, and so interlaced the _facts_ of the cruise of
the Mayeta with the _fancies_ of the "Journey to the Centre of the
Earth," that to his neighbors the region of the St. Lawrence has become
a country of awful and mysterious associations, while the more knowing
members of the community which David honors with his presence are firmly
convinced that there never existed such a boat as the Mayeta save in the
wild imagination of David Bodfish.
Mr. Bodfish's fictitious adventures, as related by him, covered many
thousand miles of canoe voyaging. He had penetrated the region of ice
beyond Labrador, and had viewed with complacency the north pole, which
he found to be a pitch-pine spar that had been erected by the Coast
Survey "to measure pints from." He roundly censured the crews of
whale-ships which had mutilated this noble government work by splitting
much of it into kindling-wood. Fortunately about two-thirds of Mr.
Bodfish's audience had no very clear conceptions of the character of the
north pole, some of them having ignored its very existence. So they
accepted this portion of his narrative, while they rejected the most
reasonable part of his story.
The Mayeta was sent to Lake George, and afterwards became a permanent
resident. Two years later her successor, the Paper Canoe, one of the
most happy efforts of the Messrs. Waters, of Troy, was quietly moored
beside her; and soon after there was added to the little fleet a cedar
duck-boat, which had carried me on a second voyage to the great southern
sea. Here, anchored safely under the high cliffs, rocked gently by the
loving waters of Lake George, rest these faithful friends. They carried
me over five thousand miles, through peaceful rivers and surging seas.
They have shared my dangers; they now share my peace.
[Illustration: ANCHORED AT LAST.]
FOOTNOTES:
[A] Heights of mountains of Lake George, New York state, obtained by
Rev. George M. Searle, C. S. P.
_Finch_, between Buck and Spruce, 1595 feet.
_Cat-Head_, near Bolton, 1640 feet.
_Prospect Mountain_, west of Lake George village, 1730 feet.
_Spruce_, near Buck Mountain, 1820 feet.
_Buck_, east shore, south of Narrows, 2005 feet.
_Bear_, between Buck and Black, 2200 feet.
_Black_, the monarch of Lake George, 2320 feet.
From another authority I find that Lake Champlain is ninety-three feet
above the Atlantic tide-level, and that Lake George is two hundred and
forty feet above Lake Champlain, or three hundred and thirty-three feet
above the sea.