HISTORIC HIGHWAYS OF AMERICA
VOLUME 7
HISTORIC HIGHWAYS OF AMERICA
VOLUME 7
Portage Paths
THE KEYS OF THE CONTINENT
BY
ARCHER BUTLER HULBERT
_With Maps_
[Illustration]
THE ARTHUR H. CLARK COMPANY
CLEVELAND, OHIO
1903
COPYRIGHT, 1903
BY
THE ARTHUR H. CLARK COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE 9
PART I: PORTAGE PATHS
I. NATURE AND USE OF PORTAGES 15
II. THE EVOLUTION OF PORTAGES 51
PART II: A CATALOGUE OF AMERICAN PORTAGES
I. INTRODUCTORY 85
II. NEW ENGLAND AND CANADIAN PORTAGES 94
III. NEW YORK PORTAGES 122
IV. PORTAGES TO THE MISSISSIPPI BASIN 151
ILLUSTRATIONS
I. THE MORRIS MAP OF 1749: NORTHERN ENGLISH COLONIES 55
II. THE OLD ONEIDA PORTAGE IN 1756 (ROME, NEW YORK) 142
PREFACE
The little portage pathways which connected the heads of our rivers and
lakes or offered the _voyageur_ a thoroughfare around the cataracts and
rapids of our rivers were, as the subtitle of this volume suggests, the
"Keys of the Continent" a century or so ago. The forts, chapels, trading
stations, treaty houses, council fires, boundary stones, camp grounds,
and villages located at these strategic points all prove this. The study
of these routes brings one at once face to face with old-time problems
from a point of view almost never otherwise gained. The newness and
value of reviewing historic movements from the standpoint of highways is
strikingly emphasized in the case of portage paths. While studying them,
one seems to rise on heights of ground like those these pathways
spanned--and from that altitude, gazing backward, to get a better
perspective of the military and social movements which made these
little roads historic.
The difficulty of treating such a broad subject in a single monograph
must be apparent. Portages are found wherever lakes or rivers lie, and
our subject is therefore as broad as the continent. It is obvious that
in a limited space it is possible to treat only of portages most used
and best known--which most influenced our history. These are practically
included in the territory lying south of the Great Lakes between the
Atlantic Ocean and the Mississippi River. Historically, too, we are
taken back to the early days of our history when America was coextensive
with the continent, for the important portages were those binding the
St. Lawrence with the rivers of New England, and the tributaries of the
Great Lakes with those of the Mississippi.
It has seemed most profitable to divide the subject into two parts: in
the first, under the specific title of "Portage Paths" is given a
description of these routes, their nature, use, and evolution. The
second part is devoted to a "Catalogue of American Portages," and in it
are included extracts from the studies of students who have given the
subject of portages their attention, showing style of treatment, methods
of investigation and research, and results of field-work. Among these
Dr. Wm. F. Ganong's _Historic Sites in the Province of New Brunswick_
and Elbert J. Benton's _The Wabash Trade Route_ are commanding examples
of critical, scholarly field-work and specific historical analysis.
Professor Justin H. Smith's impressive monograph on _Arnold's Battle
with the Wilderness_, and Secretary George A. Baker's _The St.
Joseph-Kankakee Portage_ are illustrations of what could and should be
done in many score of cases throughout the United States. To Sylvester's
_Northern New York_ and Dr. H. C. Taylor's _The Old Portage Road_ the
author is likewise indebted. The author has attempted to make good in
some degree the astonishing lack of material concerning the famous
Oneida Portage in New York, a subject which calls loudly for earnest
and minute study--for this portage path at Rome, New York, with the
exception of Niagara, was the most important west of the Hudson River.
A plea for the study of the subject of portages and the marking of
historic sites occupies the concluding pages.
A. B. H.
MARIETTA, OHIO, May 22, 1903.
PART I
Portage Paths
CHAPTER I
NATURE AND USE OF PORTAGES
There may be no better way to introduce the subject of the famous old
portages of America, than to ask the reader to walk, in fancy, along
what may be called a "Backbone of America"--that watershed which runs
from the North Atlantic seaboard to the valley of the Mississippi River.
It will prove a long, rough, circuitous journey, but at the end the
traveler will realize the meaning of the word "portage," which in our
day has almost been forgotten in common parlance, and will understand
what it meant in the long ago, when old men dreamed dreams and young men
saw visions which will never be dreamed or seen again in human history.
As we start westward from New Brunswick and until we reach the sweeping
tides of the Mississippi we shall see, on the right hand and on the
left, the gleaming lakes or half-hidden brooks and rivulets which flow
northward to the St. Lawrence or the Great Lakes, or southward to the
Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico. On the high ground between the
heads of these water-courses our path lies.
For the greater portion of our journey we shall find neither road nor
pathway; here we shall climb and follow long, ragged mountain crests,
well nigh inaccessible, in some spots never trod by human foot save the
wandering hunter's; there we shall drop down to a lower level and find
that on our watershed run roads, canals, and railways. At many points in
our journey we shall find a perfect network of modern routes of travel,
converging perhaps on a teeming city which owes its growth and
prosperity to its geographical situation at a strategic point on the
watershed we are following. And where we find the largest population and
the greatest activity today, just there, we may rest assured, human
activity was equally noticeable in the old days.
As we pass along we must bear in mind the story of days gone by, as well
as the geography which so much influenced it. It is to the earliest
days of our country's history that our attention is attracted--to the
days when the French came to the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes, and
sought to know and possess the interior of the continent, to which each
shining tributary of the northern water system offered a passage way.
Passing the question how and why New France was founded on the St.
Lawrence, it is enough for us to know she was there before the
seventeenth century dawned, and that her fearless _voyageurs_, undaunted
by the rushing tides of that great stream, were pushing on to a conquest
of the temperate empire which lay to the southward. Here in treacherous
eddies, the foaming rapids, and the mighty current of that river, they
were soon taught the woodland art of canoeing, by the most savage of
masters; and in canoes the traders, trappers, missionaries, explorers,
hunters, and pioneers were soon stemming the current of every stream
that flowed from the south.
But these streams found their sources in this highland we are treading.
Heedless of the interruption, these daring men pushed their canoes to
the uttermost navigable limit, and then shouldered them and crossed the
watershed. Once over the "portage," and their canoes safely launched,
nothing stood between them and the Atlantic Ocean. It is these portage
paths for which we shall look as we proceed westward. As we pass, one by
one, these slight roadways across the backbone of the continent, whether
they be miles in length or only rods, they must speak to us as almost
nothing else can, today, of the thousand dreams of conquest entertained
by the first Europeans who traversed them, of the thousand hopes that
were rising of a New France richer and more glorious than the old.
Advancing westward from the northern Atlantic we find ourselves at once
between the headwaters of the St. John River on the south and sparkling
Etchemin on the north, and we cross the slight track which joins these
important streams. Not many miles on we find ourselves between the
Kennebec on the south and the Chaudière on the north, and cross the
pathway between them which has been traversed by tens of thousands
until even the passes in the rocks are worn smooth. The valley of the
Richelieu heads off the watershed and turns it southwest; we accordingly
pass down the Green Mountain range, across the historic path from Otter
Creek to the Connecticut, and below Lake George we pass northward across
the famous road from the extremity of that lake to the Hudson. Striking
northward now we head the Hudson in the Adirondacks and come down upon
the strategic watershed between its principal tributary, the Mohawk, and
Lake Ontario. The watershed dodges between Wood Creek, which flows
northward, and the Mohawk, at Rome, New York, where Fort Stanwix guarded
the portage path between these streams. Pressing westward below Seneca
Lake and the Genessee, our course takes us north of Lake Chautauqua,
where we cross the path over which canoes were borne from Lake Erie to
Lake Chautauqua, and, a few miles westward, we cross the portage path
from Lake Erie to Rivière aux Boeufs, a tributary of the Allegheny.
Pursuing the height of land westward we skirt the winding valley of the
Cuyahoga and at Akron, Ohio, find ourselves crossing the portage between
that stream and the Tuscarawas branch of the Muskingum. As we go on, the
valley of the Sandusky turns up southward until we pass between its
headwaters and just north of the Olentangy branch of the Scioto.
We face north again and look over the low-lying region of the Black
Swamp until the Maumee Valley bars our way and we turn south to cross
the historic portage near Fort Wayne, Indiana, which connects the Maumee
and the Wabash. By a zig-zag course we approach the basin of Lake
Michigan and pass deftly on the height of ground between the St. Joseph
flowing northward and the Kankakee flowing southward. Here we cross
another famous portage path. Circling the extremity of Lake Michigan by
a wide margin, our course leads us to a passage way between the Chicago
River and the Illinois. Here we find another path. The Wisconsin River
basin turns us northward now, and near Madison, Wisconsin, we run
between the head of the Fox and the head of the Wisconsin and cross the
famed portage path which connected them. Just beyond lies the
Mississippi, and if we should wish to avoid it we would be compelled to
bear far north among the Canadian lakes.
Thus from the Atlantic coast we have passed to the Mississippi without
crossing one single stream of water; but we have crossed at least twelve
famous pathways between streams that flow north and south--routes of
travel, which, when studied, give us an insight into the story of days
long passed which cannot be gained in any other way. Over these paths
pushed the first explorers, the men who, first of Europeans, saw the
Ohio and Mississippi. Possessing a better knowledge of their routes and
their experiences while voyaging in an unknown land, we realize better
the impetuosity of their ambition and the meaning of their discoveries
to them. We can almost see them hurrying with uplifted eyes over these
little paths, tortured by the luring suggestions of the glimmering
waterways in the distance. Whether it is that bravest of brave men, La
Salle, crossing from Lake Erie to the Allegheny, or Marquette striding
over the little path to the stream which should carry him to the
Mississippi, or Céloron bearing the leaden plates which were to claim
the Ohio for France up the difficult path from Lake Erie to Lake
Chautauqua, there is no moment in these heroes' lives more interesting
than this. These paths crossed the dividing line between what was known
and what was unknown. Here on the high ground, with eyes intent upon the
vista below, faint hearts were fired to greater exertions, and dreamers
heavy under the dead weight of physical exhaustion again grew hopeful at
the camping place on the portage path.
Of all whose ambitions led them over these little paths, none appeal
more strongly to us than the daring, patient missionaries who here wore
out their lives for the Master. Each portage was known to them, better,
perhaps, than to any other class of men. Here they encamped on their
pilgrimages, though, from being spots of vantage which excited them
onward, they were rather the line of demarcation between the near and
the distant fields of service, and all of them full of trial and
suffering and seeming defeat. Nowhere in the North can the heroism of
the Catholic missionaries be more plainly read today in any material
objects than in the deep-worn, half-forgotten portage paths which lay
along their routes. The nobility of their ambitions, compared with those
of explorers, traders, and military and civil officials, has ever been
conspicuous, but the full measure of their self-sacrifice cannot be
realized until we know better the intense physical suffering they here
endured. If the study of portage paths results only in a deeper
appreciation of the bravery of these black-robed fathers, it will be
worth far more than its cost.
In this connection it is proper to make a restriction; portage paths not
only joined the heads of streams flowing in opposite directions, but
were also land routes between rivers and lakes, between lakes, and even
between rivers running in the same direction. They not only connected
the Etchemin and St. John, and the Chaudière and Kennebec, but also the
St. John and the Kennebec, and the Kennebec and Penobscot. Many portages
joined the lesser lakes; for example, such as Lake Simcoe, lying
between Lake Ontario and Georgian Bay, or Lake Chautauqua lying between
Lake Erie and the Allegheny River. The most common form of portage,
however, was the pathway on a river's bank around rapids and waterfalls
which impeded the _voyageur's_ way. These were very important on such a
turbulent river as the St. Lawrence, and on smaller rivers such as the
Scioto or Rivière aux Boeufs which were almost dry in certain places in
midsummer.[1] In midwinter, with ice running or blocking the course on
small streams, these carrying places were as important as in the dry
season.
The clearest pictures preserved for us of travelers on these first
highways are, happily, to be found in the letters of the Jesuit
missionaries who knew them so well, and whose heroism it were a sin to
forget. Without attempting to distinguish the various personalities of
these brave men, let us take some descriptions of their routes from
their own lips.
"These places are called portages, inasmuch as one is compelled to
transport on his shoulders all the baggage, and even the boat, in order
to go and find some other river, or make one's way around these rapids
and Torrents; and it is often necessary to go on for several leagues,
loaded down like mules, and climbing mountains and descending into
valleys, amid a thousand difficulties and a thousand fears, and among
rocks or amid thickets known only to unclean animals."[2]
"We returned by an entirely different road from that which we had
followed when going there. We passed almost continually by torrents, by
precipices, and by places that were horrible in every way. In less than
five days, we made more than thirty-five portages, some of which were a
league and a half long. This means that on these occasions one has to
carry on his shoulders his canoe and all his baggage, and with so little
food that we were constantly hungry, and almost without strength and
vigor. But God is good and it is only too great a favor to be allowed
to consume our lives and our days in his holy service. Moreover, these
fatigues and difficulties--the mere recital whereof would have
frightened me--did not injure my health.... I hope next Spring to make
the same journey and to push still farther toward the North Sea, to find
there new tribes and entire new Nations wherein the light of faith has
never yet penetrated."[3]
"On the third day of June, after four Canoes had left us to go and join
their families, we made a portage which occupied an entire day spent now
in climbing mountains and now in piercing forests. Here we had much
difficulty in making our way, for we were all laden as heavily as
possible--one carrying the Canoe, another the provisions, and a third
what we needed in our commercial transactions. I carried my Chapel and
my little store of provisions; there was no one who was not laden and
sweating from every pore. We entered, somewhat late, the great river
Manikovaganistikov, which the French call rivière Noire ["Black river"],
because of its depth. It is quite as broad as the Seine and as swift as
the Rhone. The eleven portages which we had to make there and the
numerous currents which it was necessary to overcome by dint of paddling
gave us abundant exercise."[4]
"But what detracts from this river's [St. Lawrence] utility is the
waterfalls and rapids extending nearly forty leagues,--that is from
Montreal to the mouth of Lake Ontario,--there being only the two lakes I
have mentioned where navigation is easy. In ascending these rapids it is
often necessary to alight from the canoe and walk in the river, whose
waters are rather low in such places, especially near the banks. The
canoe is grasped with the hand and dragged behind, two men usually
sufficing for this.... Occasionally one is obliged to run it ashore, and
carry it for some time, one man in front and another behind--the first
bearing one end of the canoe on his right shoulder, and the second the
other end on his left."[5]
"Now when these rapids or torrents are reached, it is necessary to land
and carry on the shoulder, through woods or over high and troublesome
rocks, all the baggage and the canoes themselves. This is not done
without much work; for there are portages of one, two, and three
leagues, and for each several trips must be made, no matter how few
packages one has.... I kept count of the number of portages, and found
that we carried our canoes thirty-five times, and dragged them at least
fifty. I sometimes took a hand in helping my Savages; but the bottom of
the river is full of stones so sharp that I could not walk long, being
barefooted."[6]
"But the mission of the Hurons lasted more than sixteen years, in a
country whither one cannot go with other boats than of bark, which carry
at the most only two thousand livres of burden, including the
passengers--who are frequently obliged to bear on their shoulders, from
four to six miles, along with the boat and the provisions, all the
furniture for the journey; for there is not, in the space of more than
700 miles, any inn. For this reason, we have passed whole years without
receiving so much as one letter, either from Europe or from Kebec, and
in a total deprivation of every human assistance, even that most
necessary for our mysteries and sacraments themselves,--the country
having neither wheat nor wine, which are absolutely indispensable for
the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass."[7]
The following are extracts from the instructions given to missionaries
concerning their conduct on the journey from Montreal to the Huron
country (1637):
"The Fathers and Brethren whom God shall call to the Holy Mission of the
Hurons ought to exercise careful foresight in regard to all the
hardships, annoyances, and perils that must be encountered in making
this journey.... To conciliate the Savages, you must be careful never to
make them wait for you in embarking. You must provide yourself with a
tinder box or a burning mirror, or with both, to furnish them fire in
the daytime to light their pipes, and in the evening when they have to
encamp; these little services win their hearts.... You must try and eat
at daybreak unless you can take your meal with you in the canoe; for the
day is very long, if you have to pass it without eating. The Barbarians
eat only at Sunrise and Sunset, when they are on their journeys. You
must be prompt in embarking and disembarking; and tuck up your gowns so
that they will not get wet, and so that you will not carry either water
or sand into the canoe. To be properly dressed, you must have your feet
and legs bare; while crossing the rapids you can wear your shoes, and,
in the long portages, even your leggings.... It is not well to ask many
questions, nor should you yield to your desire to learn the language and
to make observations on the way; this may be carried too far. You must
relieve those in your canoe of this annoyance, especially as you cannot
profit much by it during the work.... Each one should be provided with
half a gross of awls, two or three dozen little knives called jambettes
[pocket-knives], a hundred fishhooks, with some beads of plain and
colored glass.... Each one will try, at the portages, to carry some
little thing, according to his strength; however little one carries, it
greatly pleases the Savages, if it be only a kettle.... Be careful not
to annoy any one in the canoe with your hat; it would be better to take
your nightcap. There is no impropriety among the Savages."[8]
With the foregoing introduction to the subject of portage paths and the
nature of the journey over them, their historical importance is next to
be noted.
In 1611 Champlain laid the foundation for Montreal, and two years later
pushed northwest up the Ottawa River in search of a northwest passageway
to the East, but he only reached Isle des Allumettes, the Indian
"half-way house" between the St. Lawrence and Lake Huron. Two years
later the missionary Le Caron pushed up the same long voyage; following
the Ottawa and Mattawan he entered the famous portage to Lake Nipissing
which opened the way to "Mer Douce"--Lake Huron. Champlain soon followed
Le Caron over the same course and reached Lake Nipissing by the same
portage. In his campaign against the Iroquois in central New York,
Champlain also found another route to Lake Huron, by way of Lake
Ontario, the Trent, and the Lake Simcoe portage. Champlain's unfortunate
campaigns against the Iroquois were of far-reaching effect; one of the
significant results being to drive the French around to Lakes Huron,
Michigan, and Superior by way of the Lake Nipissing and Lake Simcoe
portages.[9] The finding of Lakes Huron and Ontario and the routes to
them was the hardy "Champlain's last and greatest achievement."
An interpreter of Champlain's, Etienne Brulé, was the first to push west
of "Mer Douce" and bring back descriptions that seem to fit Lake
Superior. This was in 1629. Five years later Nicollet drove his canoe
through the Straits of Mackinaw, discovered the "Lake of the
Illinois"--Lake Michigan--and from Green Bay went up the Fox and crossed
the strategic portage to the Wisconsin. He affirmed that if he had
paddled three more days he would have reached the ocean!
Though Lake Erie was known to the French as early as 1640 it was not
until 1669 that it was explored or even approximately understood. In
September of that year the two men who rank next to Champlain as
explorers, La Salle and Joliet, met on the portage between Lake Ontario
and Grand River, and discussed the question of what the West contained
and how to go there. They had heard of a road to a great river and they
both were men to do and dare. They parted. Joliet went to Montreal,
having converted the two Sulpitian missionaries Galinée and Dollier to
his belief that the western road would be found by passing to the
western lakes. They therefore left La Salle and went up through the
Strait of Detroit, and Galinée made the first map of the Upper Lakes now
in existence.
La Salle on the other hand, believing a story told him by the Senecas,
held that the road sought lay to the southwest, and it is practically
agreed today that he passed from near Grand River across Lake Erie
southward, and entered the stream which was later known as the Ohio, and
passed down this waterway perhaps to the present site of Louisville,
Kentucky. If modern scholarship in this case is correct, La Salle was
the discoverer of the sweeping Ohio, having come to it over the Lake
Erie-Rivière aux Boeufs portage, or the Lake Erie-Chautauqua portage.
There is little reason to believe he ascended the Cuyahoga and descended
the Tuscarawas and Muskingum as has been feebly asserted. The Ohio, if
it was at this time actually discovered by La Salle, remained almost
unknown for nearly a century.
In 1672 Frontenac detailed Joliet to make the discovery of the
Mississippi and the adventurer went westward to Mackinaw where he met
Marquette. The two went down Green Bay, up the Fox, and across the
portage to the Wisconsin; on June 17, 1673, they entered the Mississippi
River. Returning, they ascended the Illinois and (probably) the
Kankakee; crossing the portage to the St. Joseph they were again afloat
on Lake Michigan.
The indomitable La Salle built a vessel of sixty tons on Lake Erie in
1679--the "Griffin," first craft of her kind "that ever sailed our
inland seas above Lake Ontario." In her La Salle was to sail to near the
Mississippi; part of this ship's cargo comprised anchors and tackling
for a boat in which the explorer would descend the Mississippi and reach
the West Indies. The "Griffin" was lost, but her builder pushed on
undismayed to the valley of the Illinois River. Late in 1679 he built
Fort Miamis at the mouth of the St. Joseph, and in December he passed up
that river and over the portage to the Kankakee which Joliet and
Marquette had traversed six years before. "Passing places soon to become
memorable in western annals ... he finally stopped at a point just below
the [Peoria] lake and began a fortification. He gave to this fort a name
that, better than anything else, marks the desperate condition of his
affairs. Hitherto he had refused to believe that the "Griffin" was
lost--the vessel that he had strained his resources to build, and
freighted with his fortunes.... But as hope of her safety grew faint,
he named his fort _Crèvecoeur_--'Broken Heart.'"[10]
Leaving here his thirty men under Tonty to build a new boat, and sending
Hennepin to the Upper Mississippi, the indomitable hero set out for
Canada to secure additional material for his new boat. Ascending the
Kankakee he crossed the portage to the western extremity of Lake Erie
and passed on through the lakes to Niagara.
Fort Crèvecoeur was plundered and deserted, but La Salle, in the winter
of 1681-82 was again dragging his sledges over the portage to the
Illinois on his way to the great river which he, first of Europeans,
should fully traverse, "but which fate seemed to have decreed that he
should never reach." On the ninth of the following April the brave man
stood at last at its mouth, and beside a column bearing the arms of
France, a cross and a leaden plate claiming all the territory from which
those waters came, he took possession of the richest four million square
miles of earth for Louis XIV. "That the Mississippi Valley was laid
open to the eyes of the world by a _voyageur_ who came overland from
Canada, and not by a _voyageur_ who ploughed through the Atlantic and
the Gulf of Mexico from Spain, is a fact of far-reaching import. The
first Louisiana was the whole valley; this and the Lake-St. Lawrence
Basin made up the second New France ... the two blended and supplemented
each other geographically...."[11] The second New France was united to
Louisiana by hinges; these hinges were the portage paths which joined
them.
The importance of these routes of travel did not by any means pass when
once the explorers and missionaries had hurried over them and brought
back news of the lands to which they led. The economic history of these
routes is both interesting and important, and should be considered,
perhaps, before reviewing their military significance.
As we have had occasion to notice, straits and portages were famous
meeting places. La Salle and Joliet met between Lake Erie and Lake
Ontario; Joliet and Marquette met at Mackinaw. All routes converged on
these narrow land and water courses, while on the broad lakes sojourners
passed each other at short distances unwittingly. For in the old days of
canoes the coming and going routes varied with a thousand circumstances.
Of course the traveler's general rule was to reach quickest waters
flowing toward his destination. If he was making for the mouth of the
Mississippi from Montreal his best route would be to turn south from
Lake Ontario to the first easterly head of the Allegheny River, in
preference to pushing further west to the head of any of the other
tributaries of the Mississippi. Following the same rule, the route from
Quebec to the Kennebec Valley was by way of Moosehead Lake; the return
route was by way of the Dead River. A person returning from the "Falls
of the Ohio" (Louisville, Kentucky) to Canada would, other things being
equal, make for the nearest head of a stream flowing into Lake Erie.
In the case of the Great Lakes, winds and changing water-level soon
became understood and governed travel. Parties journeying from Mackinaw
to Illinois or the Mississippi would hold to the western coast of Lake
Michigan, for here they were favored by the winds, and proceeded
southward by the Fox-Wisconsin portage or the Chicago-Illinois portage.
In returning they would, under ordinary circumstances, choose the
Kankakee-St. Joseph portage which would obviate the necessity of
stemming the Illinois or Wisconsin and crossing Lake Michigan. The more
direct route to the head of the Maumee was not discovered or appreciated
until later. Thus traffic, on the lakes at least, was not on the bee
line that it is today, and thus it was that portage paths and straits
were famous meeting-places and camping spots.[12] Straits, in many
cases, may be classed with portages; often a portage was necessary only
in one direction. On the rivers the same portages were usually the
routes of parties ascending and descending, but on such a stream as the
St. Lawrence they were frequently different; descending _voyageurs_
"shot" many rapids about which it was necessary to make a portage when
ascending.
As a meeting place the portage must have been anticipated with an
interest inconceivable to us who know comparatively nothing of woodland
journeying. Eager eyes were often strained to catch first sight across
the water of the opening where the portage path entered the woods. And
when this opening was lost to the sight of the departing traveler, the
last hope of meeting friends had vanished. What this meant in a day when
friends were few and far to seek and enemies quite the reverse, it would
be difficult even to hint. Even in the good old colonial days in the
heart of New England, friends met at the tavern, when a neighbor was to
make a little journey on horseback, to drink his health. Pioneers moving
from New York City to what is now Utica spent an afternoon previous to
starting in prayer with clergymen.[13] What, then, did partings and
meetings mean in the earliest days on the Great Lakes and St.
Lawrence--when every rapid was a danger and every wood concealed an
enemy?[14] Letters were sometimes left hanging conspicuously on trees at
portages.
The social nature of the portage camping ground is illustrated by the
meetings--friendly and otherwise--between the Indian retinues of the
many travelers who encamped here. When Céloron journeyed from Quebec to
the Ohio Valley with his leaden plates, he paused at one of the portages
to allow his Indian allies to jollify with certain comrades whom they
met here.[15] There are cases where such meetings resulted more
seriously than mere drunken sprees.[16]
The meeting-place was also the famous camping ground. To reach the
portage path the tired paddler bent every energy as the red sun lay on
the horizon. Two landings were thus saved. Here the ground around either
end of the path had been cleared and trodden hard by a thousand
campers, and if wood was scarce in the immediate locality there was
abundance at no great distance. No one familiar with camping need be
told the advantages, natural and artificial, to be found on an old
camping ground.
But here it should be noted that the shortest portage between any two
bodies of water was rather an arbitrary line, at least theoretically so.
It was chosen as a good site, not for staying, but for passing. Usually
it traversed some sort of watershed, more or less distinct; on either
side low ground, marshes, and swamps were not uncommon. In many
instances the length of the portage path varied inversely with the stage
of the water. Some portages were a mile long in wet seasons and ten
miles long in dry. Where this was true the country through which the
path ran was not altogether suitable for camps nor for villages, which
the camps on important portages often became. Often, however, the nature
of the country was favorable for habitation, and at many portages the
camps became permanent. At such points Indian villages were sometimes
found; but as a rule portages were not largely inhabited unless they
were defended, and that was not until the era of military occupation.
The portages were frequently used as burying grounds by the Indians, and
beside the little paths around the rapids of the river lies the dust of
hundreds swept away to their death by the boiling waters. The portages
were not infrequently on high, dry ground, favorable for interment.
Here, too, on the portages the toiling missionaries were wont to pause
and erect their crosses and altars. In the long journeys back and forth
from Quebec to the land of the Hurons, for instance, the portage paths
of the Ottawa and St. Lawrence became familiar ground; where one had
raised an altar another would be glad to pray. There were silent, holy
places on these little roads by which we run noisily today--we who know
little of the suffering, the devotion, and the piety of those who first
walked and worshiped here.
The missionaries called the Indian trails "Roads of Iron" to suggest the
fatigue and suffering endured in their rough journeys. If the ordinary
trail was a Road of Iron, what of the portage path--which so often led
over cliffs and mountain spurs in going around a waterfall or rapid? But
these were not the most difficult portages. There were many carrying
places which, uniting heads of streams or lakes, ran over high
mountains, through the most impenetrable fastnesses--paths fit only for
mountain goats. Yet up these rough steeps the missionaries of the Cross,
soldiers, and traders forced their way, slipping, sliding, seizing now
and again at any object which would offer assistance. Many of these
climbs would tax a person free of baggage in this day of cleared fields
and hills; fancy the toil of the old-time _voyageurs_ weighed down by
canoes, provisions, and baggage, assailed by the clouds of insects which
greeted a traveler in the old forests, and perhaps enduring fears of
unseen enemies and unknown dangers.
Then there was the stifling heat of the primeval forests. Our present
day notion of forests is diametrically opposed to old-time experience.
To us, the forest is a popular symbol of restful coolness; formerly
they were exhausting furnaces in the hot season, where horses fell
headlong in their tracks and men fainted from fatigue. We wonder
sometimes that pioneer armies frequently accomplished only ten or twelve
miles a day, sometimes less. But these marches were mostly made in the
months of October and November--the dryest months of the year in the
Central West--and the stifling heat of the becalmed forest easily
explains both slowness and wearing fatigue. It was the heat that all
leaders of pioneer armies feared; for heat meant thirst and at this
season of the year the ground was very dry. Many a crazed trooper has
thrown himself into the first marsh or swamp encountered and has drunk
his fill of water as deadly as any bullet.
All this applies with special force to portages, as all know who have
essayed mountain climbing in the stifling heat of a windless day. All
that marching troops have endured, the brave missionaries and those who
came after them suffered on the carrying place with the additional
hardship, often, of climbing upward in the heat rather than marching on
level ground. When attempting to gain some idea of the physical effort
of old-time traveling, the cost of crossing a difficult portage must be
considered as the most expensive in time and strength. The story of
Céloron's climb up from Lake Erie to Lake Chautauqua, Hamilton's
struggle through the beaver dams and shoals of Petite Rivière on the
Maumee-Wabash portage route, Arnold's desperate invasion of Canada over
"The Terrible Carrying Place" on the Kennebec-Chaudière route, and the
history of the difficulties of the Oneida portage at Rome, New York,
present to us pictures of the portages of America that can never fade
from our eyes.
At the ends of many of the portage paths were to be found busy out-door
work-shops in the old days of pirogues and canoes. The trees nearby and
far away stood stark and white against the forest green, having lost
their coats of bark; many were fallen, and others were tottering. Here
and there were scattered the refuse pieces of bark and wood. The ends of
portage paths were famous carpenter shops.[17] There were humble
libraries here, too. It was while wintering on the Chicago portage that
Marquette wrote memoirs of his voyages.
In some instances, too, peculiar relics of the old life in the heyday of
the canoe have come down to us. The end of the portage path, besides
being a camping spot, was the provisioning place. Here food was to be
made or to be secured and properly seasoned and packed. At the old
French portages stone ovens were erected, in which quantities of bread
might be baked before starting on a journey. At either end of the
Chautauqua portage between Lake Erie and Lake Chautauqua such little
monuments have been discovered. In each case the baking place was a
circular piece of masonry of stone laid in strong mortar, three feet in
height and three or four feet in diameter.[18]
The portages between many waters crossed important transverse watersheds
along which coursed the great landward routes of primeval America. Here
at the junction of the greater and lesser paths were wide, open spaces
where many a camp has been raised and struck, where assemblies
innumerable have been harangued, where a thousand ambuscades have been
laid and sprung.
Portage paths crossed the watersheds which were frequently boundary
lines. They also connected river valleys which came to be boundary
lines. Consequently these routes of travel became themselves, in several
instances, important boundaries. This is illustrated by the line decided
upon at the Fort Stanwix Treaty; in several instances the territory of
the United States has been bounded by a little portage path--such as
that between the Cuyahoga and Tuscarawas Rivers in Ohio--which is now
quite forgotten. In this instance the little path is still to be
identified from the fact that it was a boundary line for such a length
of time that the lands on the eastern and western sides were surveyed by
different systems. The "Great Carrying Place" between the Hudson and
Lake George was one of the boundaries of the first grant of land made by
the Mohawks at Saratoga. At the Treaty of Fort McIntosh, 1785, the
western boundary line of the United States included the courses of two
portage paths.
As in Maine, of which subsequent mention is to be made, so throughout
the continent, portage paths were commonly named from the destinations
to which they led; thus they had two names, as is true of highways in
general. In certain instances, as in the case of the "Oneida
Carrying-place" well-known portages had one general name. To the
portages about the rapids on such rivers as the St. Lawrence and Ottawa,
descriptive names were given by the French. One was called "Portage de
l'Épine," another "Portage des Roses"--suggestive of the fragrant wild
rose which overhung the path to the annoyance of the traveler in spite
of its perfume. Another path was known as "Portage Talon." Perhaps the
most fanciful name recorded is "Portage de la Musique"--where the
river's tide boiled noisily over the rocks and reefs, forever chanting
the same song. Other names were "Portage des Chats," "Portage de
Joachin," "Portage de la Roche fendue," "Portage des Chenes," "Portage
des Galots." One path, at least, bore the noble title "Portage d'
Récollets."[19]
In the Post Office Directory twelve states are today represented by an
office bearing the name Portage or Portageville.
CHAPTER II
THE EVOLUTION OF PORTAGES
From every point of view the portages of America, considered
historically, were most important, because by reason of their strategic
position they were coigns of vantage for military operations.
Picture the continent at the opening of the culminating phases of the
Old French War in 1740-1760. For nearly two centuries military and civil
officials, missionaries and traders had been passing to and fro on the
Ottawa, St. Lawrence, and Richelieu, through Canada, Illinois, and
Louisiana, erecting forts and establishing chapels and trading stations.
Little by little the English settlements had crept back into the
interior. Ten score of portage paths had been traversed; forts and
blockhouses had been built, captured, burned, and rebuilt. Flying
parties of French had swooped down into New York, and English and Dutch
had chased them back. Both sides had become more and more acquainted
with the geography of the continent, and now, when war was about to
begin in earnest, both antagonists leaped forward quickly to seize for
once and all the vital spots in the "communications" in the neutral
ground between them, where the vanguards had been bickering and fighting
for at least a century.
The Richelieu River, Lake Champlain, and the Hudson had offered the
founders of Quebec and Montreal the most direct course to the New
England settlements. They had learned it well in their campaigns against
the Iroquois. The keys of this route were the portage paths between the
St. Lawrence and the Richelieu in the north; and the portages between
Lakes Champlain and George, and Lake George and the Hudson River in the
south. As early as 1664 Jacques de Chambly erected a fort at the foot of
the rapids, at Chambly on the Richelieu, at the end of the thirteen-mile
portage from La Prarie three miles above Montreal on the St. Lawrence.
Two other forts, Fort St. Louis and Fort Sainte Terese, also guarded
the Richelieu River; and at its head, at the foot of Lake Champlain,
stood Fort Richelieu.
Later a portage path fifteen miles in length was built from La Prarie
(Laprairie) to Fort John (St. Johns), below the "Island of St. Therese."
Ascending Lake Champlain the French quickly perceived the strategic
positions of Crown Point and "Carillon"--at the end of the portage from
Lake George--where they erected Fort Crown Point in 1727, and Fort
Frederick (Ticonderoga) in 1731.
The English on the other hand ascended the Hudson from Albany, and built
Fort Ingoldesby at Stillwater in 1709, and Fort Nicholson at Fort Edward
in the same year. At the Wood Creek end of the portage another fort was
built first named Fort Schuyler, later named Fort Anne. Fort Edward and
Fort William Henry were built in 1755.
This chain of forts from Albany to Montreal, guarding the important
passageways on land and water, marks the line of what was known as "the
Grand Pass from New York to Montreal." The last struggle for this line
of communication, Johnson's rebuke to the advancing Dieskau,
Abercrombie's stroke at Fort Ticonderoga, the brilliant Montcalm's
capture of Fort William Henry, and, finally, the wresting of the
Champlain Valley from the French by the hitherto defeated English, forms
a unique romance which finds its key of action at the portage paths
which united the Hudson, Lake George, and Lake Champlain.
There were other routes into New England, known of old, on which the
French had spread terror throughout the North Atlantic slope. They came
up the Chaudière and down the Kennebec into Massachusetts' "Province of
Main." Early in the French and Indian wars Massachusetts began another
series of campaigns, to secure again and once for all the Kennebec
Valley, building Forts Halifax (1754) and Western (1752) at the head of
navigation. At the northern end of the portage between the Kennebec and
"Rivière Puante," on the Morris map of 1749, here presented, we find the
Indian village Wanaucok still described as a nest of "Indians in the
French interest." These allies of the French around the highland
portages explain the need of English forts on the Kennebec. The forts of
the Connecticut River were largely necessitated by the routes of travel
between the heads of its tributaries and the "Rivière S^t. Francis" and
"Otter River." On the Morris map we read "Indians of S^t. Francis in
league with the French." The mouth of Otter Creek was near Fort
Ticonderoga, and it offered, with a portage to the Connecticut, another
route of French aggression. "From this Fort the French make their
excursions," reads the interesting Morris map, "and have this war [1745
_seq._] burnt and destroy'd two Forts (Saratoga and Fort Massachusets)
and broke up upwards of 30 Settlements."
[Illustration: THE MORRIS MAP OF 1749
[_Showing important portages between the St. Lawrence and New England
rivers_] (_From the original in the British Museum_)]
The Hudson-Lake George portage marked the most important course from
Canada to New York, but there was another route which was fought for
earnestly. The French could ascend the St. Lawrence to Lake Ontario and
gain access to the entire rear of New York, and by a dozen minor
waterways the Hudson again could be reached. The St. Lawrence had long
been an avenue of French exploration and missionary activity. "The
route thither (from Quebec up the St. Lawrence to Lake Ontario and Lake
Simcoe to Georgian Bay to the land of the Hurons) is very easy, there
being only two waterfalls where it is necessary to land and make a
portage--a short one at that; and there it would be easy to construct a
small redoubt for the purpose of maintaining free communication and of
making ourselves masters of this great lake."[20] Thus the Jesuits "had
anticipated by twenty years Frontenac's plan of building a fort for the
control of Lake Ontario."[21] Fort Frontenac (Kingston, Canada, 1673)
guarded the French end of Lake Ontario, while the English ascended the
Mohawk and descended the "Onnondaga" (Oswego) to its mouth (Oswego, New
York) where they erected Fort Oswego in 1722, which Montcalm captured in
1757.
To reach the mouth of the Onondaga, the English crossed the already
well-worn path, the "Oneida Portage" a mile in length, between the
Mohawk River and Wood Creek. The strategic position of this path is not
shown more clearly than by the number and importance of the military
works erected there, Forts Williams (1732), Bull (1737), Newport and
famed Stanwix (1758). Throughout the old French War this strip of ground
was the scene of bloody battles, massacres, and sieges; and its detailed
story--a fascinating one--should be written immediately. The Mohawk end
of the portage path forms the main avenue of Rome, New York, and at the
center of the little city the site of Fort Stanwix, "a fort which never
surrendered," is appropriately marked. It is the boast of the Romans
that from this site the stars and stripes were "first unfurled in
battle" August 3, 1777. The flag was made from an officer's blue camlet
cloak and the red petticoat of a soldier's wife. The white stars and
stripes were cut from ammunition bags. The news that Congress, on June
14, had adopted the flag had just reached the inland portage fortress by
a batteau from down the Mohawk.
The granting of the vast area of land on the Ohio River by the King of
England to the Ohio Land Company in 1749 brought home to the French the
realization that the West was disputed territory, and Governor
Galissonière immediately dispatched Céloron de Bienville with a band of
two hundred and seventy men to reënforce the French claim to the Ohio
Valley. It is an ancient French custom to bury leaden plates at the
mouths of rivers as a sign of possession, and Céloron bore a supply of
such memorials to bury at the mouths of rivers emptying into the Ohio.
Ascending the St. Lawrence the party crossed Lake Ontario to the Niagara
River. This strategic portage path around Niagara Falls, which joined
Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, used from time immemorial, became important
to the French when they secured the mastery of Lake Ontario after the
erection of Fort Frontenac. Four years after the English came to Oswego
the French erected the first permanent Fort Niagara here in 1726,
absolutely controlling all intercourse with the West by way of the Great
Lakes. It was the key of the lake system, and the numerous campaigns of
the English projected against Fort Niagara until its capture in 1759 are
evidence of its strategic position and the importance of the little worn
road it guarded.
Once beyond the Niagara portage Céloron's attention was turned to the
rival routes from Lake Erie to La Belle Rivière. There were at least
five passageways well-known to the Indians. Of these the French knew
very little, for, having found the Mississippi, they had been less
interested in this branch of it. But now that the English were claiming
and even settling the land along its half-known shores it was time they
were enforcing their claims. So Céloron made for the first portage
southward in order to strike the Ohio on its headwaters. This was the
Chautauqua Lake portage from Chautauqua Creek--which the French knew as
"Rivière aux Pommes"--six miles by land from the present Barcelona, New
York, to Lake Chautauqua. From the seventeenth to the twenty-second of
July was spent in making the difficult march over what has long been
known as the "Old Portage Road." Bonnécamps, who accompanied Céloron,
wrote: "The road is passably good. The wood through which it is cut
resembles our forests in France."[22]
Céloron went his way, having given great prominence to the Chautauqua
portage, indirectly suggesting that it was the most convenient pass from
Lake Erie into the disputed Ohio Valley. It remained for another to mark
a more practicable course.
Céloron's report to his governor was thoroughly alarming, and a French
force under M. Marin was sent from Montreal in 1752 to fortify the route
to the Ohio River and to erect forts to hold that river itself.
After looking over the formidable Chautauqua route, Marin moved along
the shore of Lake Erie to "Presque Isle" (Erie, Pennsylvania), where the
French had made a settlement as early as 1735. Marin chose to make this
twenty-mile portage from Presque Isle to "Rivière aux Boeufs" the armed
route of French aggression into the Ohio Valley, in preference to the
shorter but more tedious and more uncertain Chautauqua pass. At the
northern end of the portage he built Fort Presque Isle and at its
southern extremity Fort Le Boeuf.[23] The arrival of the French upon the
headwaters of the Allegheny will forever be remembered by the new and
significant name Washington now gave Rivière aux Boeufs--which the
stream still bears--French Creek. Marin, who hurried on down the
Allegheny building Forts Machault (Venango) at the junction of Rivière
aux Boeufs and the Allegheny, and Duquesne at the junction of Allegheny
and Monongahela, should have named the Youghiogheny "English Creek."
When once on the way, the time taken by the French and English to reach
the key position of the West--Pittsburg--varied inversely as the length
of the portages they had to traverse. It will be remembered that
Washington in his first campaign of 1754 explored carefully the
Youghiogheny River in the hope that the road he had just opened from the
Potomac at Cumberland, Maryland to the "Great Crossings" (Smithfield,
Pennsylvania) might after all be a portage path between Atlantic waters
and the Mississippi system. He found the Youghiogheny useless.[24] The
English route to the Ohio was practically an all-land route; Braddock
received a little help from the Potomac but did not even attempt to use
any western river, nor did Forbes in 1758 or Bouquet in 1763. The
Monongahela, downward from Redstone Old Fort (Brownsville,
Pennsylvania), at the end of Burd's road, began to be used in the
Revolutionary period, and in pioneer days was a famous point of
embarcation for western travelers.
On the other hand, the French portage at Presque Isle was the key to
their position in the Ohio Valley, for over it came every ounce of
ammunition and stores for Fort Duquesne. It was Braddock's purpose in
1755 to ascend the Allegheny after the capture of Fort Duquesne, raze
the forts that guarded this portage path, and then meet Governor Shirley
who was marching upon Niagara.[25] With Fort Duquesne captured, Forts
Le Boeuf and Presque Isle razed, and Fort Niagara besieged, the French
would have had as little hope of holding the Ohio Valley as the
Shenandoah. Nothing could show more plainly the signification of these
fortified portages than the campaigns directed against them.
Further west, the Maumee Valley was of early importance to the French
because of the two portages which gave them access to the Miami River on
the south and the Wabash on the southwest. The use to explorers of the
latter portage has been mentioned. Here, near the present site of Maumee
City, the first settlement of whites in the limits of the state of Ohio
was made about 1679. The city of Fort Wayne, Indiana, marks the Maumee
terminus of the important portage to the Wabash River--the modern name
carrying the significance of fortification which we are emphasizing. It
is to be deplored that the name Fort Stanwix, rather than Rome, is not
retained for the city at the Mohawk terminus of the Oneida Portage in
New York. Here the French built forts in 1686 and 1749, the latter being
surrendered in 1760. Here General Anthony Wayne built a fortress in
1794 which controlled all traffic over the old pathway as had its
predecessors.
Passing further west, two forts, at least, guarded well-known portages:
Fort St. Joseph's (1712), located a little below South Bend, Indiana,
guarding the Kankakee-St. Joseph portage; and Fort Winnebago (1829)
guarding the Fox-Wisconsin portage. The post Ouiatanon founded on the
Wabash in 1720 was the first military establishment within what is now
the state of Indiana. It was located eighteen miles (by the river) below
the mouth of the Tippecanoe and near the city of Lafayette. Many writers
have located this historic site incorrectly--a mistake it is impossible
to make when the actual meaning of the post is understood. It guarded
the key of the upper Wabash, for this point "was the head of navigation
for pirogues and large canoes, and consequently there was a transfer at
this place of all merchandize that passed over the Wabash."[26]
Coming down to the Revolutionary period, the battles fought upon these
portages and the forts that were built show that these historic paths
had lost little of their significance. All the way across the continent
from the portage from the Kennebec to Quebec, over which Arnold led his
army, to Fallen Timbers on the Maumee, near which Wayne built Fort
Wayne, a significant portion of the struggle for a free America took
place on portage paths. As in the French War, so in this later struggle,
the paths between Lake Champlain and the Hudson and between the Mohawk
and Lake Oneida were all-important passageways. Burgoyne was defeated
not far from the spot where the French Dieskau was repulsed, and on the
Oneida carrying-place, as has been said, the first United States flag
was unfurled in battle in 1777. In the West, of course, Niagara never
lost its importance, but the remainder of the portages had now lost
something of their military significance, as the Revolution in the West
was a series of raids and counter-raids on the settlements of the whites
in Virginia and Kentucky, and upon the Indians in the valleys of the
Muskingum, Scioto, Sandusky, Maumee, and Wabash. Cross-country land
routes were well-worn at this date and few military movements were made
which involved portages; such were Hamilton's capture of Vincennes by
way of the Maumee and the Wabash, and Burd's keel-boat invasion up the
Licking River into Kentucky. Savage strokes like those of Robertson and
Sevier, Clark at Vincennes, McIntosh, Lewis, Brodhead, Bowman, Crawford,
Harmar, St. Clair, and Wayne were distinctively land campaigns.
Yet in these, too, the value of the portage routes is most clearly seen,
as for instance during the conquest of the northwestern Indians by
General Anthony Wayne in 1793-94. The permanent headquarters of Wayne
were at Fort Washington (Cincinnati), and temporary headquarters were at
Fort Greenville (Greenville, O.) and Fort Defiance (Defiance, O.) The
conquest was directed northward up the Great Miami Valley to the heads
of the Wabash and Maumee. It was directed against the Indian villages,
as was true of Harmar's and St. Clair's campaigns before it; and these
villages, like so many others, were located in part at the portages
between the Miami, Auglaize, St. Mary, and Wabash. At these places Wayne
struck swiftly--building Forts Greenville, Recovery, Adams, and a fort
on the headwaters of the Auglaize, the name of which is not known. From
these points he made his heroic campaign of 1794 in the valleys of the
Maumee, Auglaize and St. Mary. But with the successful prosecution of
this campaign General Wayne's work was not done. The country conquered
must be held--the crops destroyed must not be resown--the villages
destroyed must not be rebuilt. All this was as important a feat as the
victory at Fallen Timber, and much more difficult.
And so, in the months succeeding his victory, Wayne did as valuable work
for his country as at any time, and one of the most important of his
plans was a movement which looked toward holding the northern portages
from the Miami River to the St. Mary and Auglaize. In a letter to the
Secretary of War, dated October 17, 1794, at the Miami villages, Wayne
observes: "The posts in contemplation at Chillicothe, or Picque town,
on the Miami of the Ohio, at Lormie's stores, on the north branch, and
at the old Tawa town, will reduce the land carriage of dead or heavy
articles, at proper seasons, viz: late in the fall, and early in the
spring, to thirty-five miles, and in times of freshets, to _twenty_ in
place of 175, by the most direct road to Grand Glaize, and 150 to the
Miami villages, from fort Washington, on the present route, which will
eventually be abandoned, as the one now mentioned will be found the most
economical, and surest mode of transport, in time of war, and decidedly
so in time of peace."[27]
From Greenville on the twelfth of November he wrote again:
"As soon as circumstances will admit, the posts contemplated at Picque
town, Lormie's stores, and at the old Tawa towns, at the head of
navigation, on Au Glaize river, will be established for the reception,
and as the deposites, for stores and supplies, by water carriage, which
is now determined to be perfectly practicable, in proper season; I am,
therefore, decidedly of opinion, that _this_ route ought to be totally
abandoned, and _that_ adopted, as the most economical, sure, and certain
mode of supplying those important posts, at Grand Glaize and the Miami
villages, and to facilitate an effective operation towards the _Detroit_
and Sandusky, should that measure eventually be found necessary; add to
this, that it would afford a much better chain for the general
protection of the frontiers, which, with a block house at the landing
place, on the _Wabash_, eight miles southwest of the post at the Miami
villages, [southern end of the Maumee-Wabash portage path on Little
River] would give us possession of all the portages between the heads of
the navigable waters of the Gulfs of Mexico and St. Lawrence, and serve
as a barrier between the different tribes of Indians...."[28] In the
treaty of Greenville, signed by the confederated nations and the United
States authorities, the reserved tracts indicate the line of policy
previously suggested by General Wayne, and the following section
emphasizes the strategic meaning of the portages of the interior of the
West: "And the said Indian tribes will allow to the people of the United
States, a free passage by land and by water, as one and the other shall
be found convenient, through their country, along the chain of posts
hereinbefore mentioned; that is to say, from the commencement of the
portage aforesaid, at or near Loramie's store, thence, along said
portage to the St. Mary's, and down the same to fort Wayne, and then
down the Miami to lake Erie; again, from the commencement of the portage
at or near Loramie's store, along the portage; from thence to the river
Auglaize, and down the same to its junction with the Miami at fort
Defiance; again, from the commencement of the portage aforesaid, to
Sandusky river and down the same to Sandusky bay and lake Erie, and from
Sandusky to the post which shall be taken at or near the foot of the
rapids of the Miami of the lake; and from thence to Detroit. Again, from
the mouth of Chicago, to the commencement of the portage between that
river and the Illinois, and down the Illinois river to the Mississippi;
also, from fort Wayne, along the portage foresaid, which leads to the
Wabash and then down the Wabash to the Ohio."[29]
As a site for forts the old portage paths came to take an important
place in the social order of things. In many parts settlements were safe
only within the immediate vicinity of a fort. Often they were safe only
within the palisade walls of upright logs;[30] and around these interior
fortresses the first lands were cleared and the first grain sowed. They
were trading posts as well as forts--indeed many of the portage forts
were originally only armed trading stations located at the portages
because these were common routes of travel. Around them the Indians
raised their huts when the semi-annual hunting seasons were over. Thus
on the portage, settlements sprang up about the forts to which the
military régime had no objection--though such settlements were
discouraged equally by those devoted to the earliest fur trade and to
missionary expansion.[31] But military officers found their one hope of
retaining the land lay in allying the Indians firmly with them. The
attempts of the French so to shift the seats of the Indian tribes in the
West that the English could not trade with them or deflect them from
French interest forms an interesting chapter in the early rivalry for
Indian support.[32] This never appeared more acute than at Fort Duquesne
in 1758 when Forbes's army was approaching and the brave missionary Post
was among the Delawares urging them to leave the region about the fort
and abandon the French.
These portage forts being, oftentimes, half-way places, were convenient
points for conventions and treaties. The Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1768)
was one of the most important in our national history; other
conventions, such as at Fort Watauga (1775), Fort Miami (1791),
Greenville (1795), and Portage des Sioux (1815), are instances of
important conventions meeting at half-way fortresses on or near the
portage passageways.
When the pioneer era of expansion dawned, these worn paths, in many
cases, became filled with the eager throngs hastening westward to occupy
the empire beyond the mountains. The roads the armies had cut during the
era of military conquest became the main lines of the expansive movement
and only the waterways which gave access to the Ohio River or the Great
Lakes were of great importance. The two important roadways which served
as portages were the Genesee Road from the Mohawk to Buffalo, and
Braddock's Road from Alexandria, Virginia to Brownsville (Redstone Old
Fort), Pennsylvania. The heavier freight of later days tended to
lengthen the old portages, as each terminus had to be located at a depth
of water which would float many hundred-weight. But, as in the old days
of canoes, the stage of water still determined the length of portage.
Freight sent over the Alleghenies for the lower Ohio River ports of
Indiana and Kentucky was shipped at Brownsville if the Monongahela
contained a good stage of water; if not, the wagons continued onward to
Wheeling with their loads. Old residents at such points as Rome, New
York; Watertown, Pennsylvania; Akron, Ohio; Fort Wayne, Indiana remember
vividly the pioneer day of the portages when barrels of salt and flour,
every known implement of iron, mill stones, jugs and barrels of liquor,
household goods, seeds, and saddles composed the heterogeneous loads
that were dragged or rolled or hauled or "packed" over the portages of
the West. Strenuous individuals have been known to roll a whiskey barrel
halfway across a twenty-mile portage.
With the settling of the country and a new century came a new age of
road-building. Travel until now had been on north and south routes--on
portage paths, which usually ran north and south between the heads of
rivers which flowed north or south, on routes of the buffalo, which the
herds had laid on north and south lines during their annual migrations,
and on Indian trails which had been worn deep by the nations of the
north and those of the south during their immemorial conflicts. The main
east and west land routes, such as Forbes's and Braddock's, were now to
be replaced by well-made thoroughfares. In the building of certain of
these, the dominating influence of water transportation, and,
consequently, the strategic routes between them, were considered of
utmost importance. This is emphasized strikingly in the building of the
Cumberland National Road across the Alleghenies by the United States
Government (1806-1818). In the Act passed by Congress enabling the
people of Ohio to form a state we read: "That one-twentieth of the net
proceeds of the lands lying within said State sold by Congress shall be
applied to the laying out and making public roads leading from the
navigable waters emptying into the Atlantic, to the Ohio."[33] The
Commissioners appointed according to law by President Jefferson surveyed
the territory through which the road should pass and met at Cumberland,
Maryland for consultation. In their report of 1806 they said: "In this
consultation the governing objects were:
1. Shortness of distance between navigable points on the eastern and
western waters.
2. A point on the Monongahela best calculated to equalize the
advantages of this portage in the country within reach of it.
3. A point on the Ohio river most capable of combining certainty of
navigation with road accommodation; embracing, in this estimate, remote
points westwardly, as well as present and probable population on the
north and south.
4. Best mode of diffusing benefits with least distance of road."
In their choice of Cumberland as the eastern terminus for this national
road the question of portage entered largely into consideration: "... it
was found that a high range of mountains, called Dan's, stretching
across from Gwynn's to the Potomac, above this point, precluded the
opportunity of extending a route from this point in a proper direction,
and left no alternative but passing by Gwynn's; the distance from
Cumberland to Gwynn's being upward of a mile less than from the upper
point, which lies ten miles by water above Cumberland, the Commissioners
were not permitted to hesitate in preferring a point which shortens the
portage, as well as the Potomac navigation."
After outlining the route of the road, the Commissioners summed up
matters as follows: "... it will lay about twenty-four and a half miles
in Maryland, seventy-five and a half in Pennsylvania, and twelve miles
in Virginia; ... this route ... has a capacity at least equal to any
other in extending advantages of a highway; and at the same time
establishes the shortest portage between the points already navigated,
and on the way accommodates other and nearer points to which navigation
may be extended, and still shorten the portage.... Under these
circumstances the portage may be thus stated:
"From Cumberland to Monongahela, sixty-six and one-half miles. From
Cumberland to a point in measure with Connelsville, on the Youghiogeny
river, fifty-one and one-half miles. From Cumberland to a point in
measure with the lower end of the falls of the Youghiogeny, which will
lie two miles north of the public road, forty-three miles. From
Cumberland to the intersection of the route with the Youghiogeny river,
thirty-four miles.... The point which this route locates, at the west
foot of Laurel Hill, having cleared the whole of the Alleghany mountain,
is so situated as to extend the advantages of an easy way through the
great barrier, with more equal justice to the best parts of the country
between Laurel Hill and the Ohio. Lines from this point to Pittsburg and
Morgantown, diverging nearly at the same angle, open upon equal terms to
all parts of the western country that can make use of this portage; and
which may include the settlements from Pittsburg up Big Beaver, to the
Connecticut reserve, on Lake Erie, as well as those on the southern
borders of the Ohio and all the intermediate country."
Thus it is clear that our one great national turnpike was, in reality, a
portage path. Upon this same general principle many of our first
highways were built, in an era when inland water navigation, on canal
and river, was considered the secret of commercial prosperity.
With the building of canals, the ancient portages again became prominent
because of geographical position; in every state the portage paths
marked the summit levels. In the cases of such important works as the
Erie Canal and the Ohio Canal the portages between the Mohawk and Wood
Creek in New York and between the Cuyahoga and Tuscarawas in Ohio were
of vital importance. In many instances, at the points where the old
portages mark the spots of least elevation, two canals are found
converging from three or four valleys.
It is quite impossible for us to realize the importance attached to the
portage routes in days when steam navigation and locomotion were not
dreamed of. This is suggested by the clause of the famous Ordinance of
1787 in which they were again declared to be "common highways forever
free." Washington's serious study of this subject is exceedingly
interesting--not less so because many of his plans which seemed to many
idle dreaming were completely realized not long after his death.[34]
With the advent of the era of railway building, and as the number of the
shining rails increase yearly at these geographical centers, the
strategic nature of the portage routes has been and is still being
strongly emphasized. Engineering art is now defying nature everywhere,
and daring feats of bridge-building are daily accomplished; but the old
routes and passes still remain the most practicable, and in the long run
pay best. In spite of the fact that tunnels can go wherever money
dictates, and bridges can be swung across the most baffling chasms, at
the same time the fiercest struggles for rights of way (outside the
cities) are being waged today for the portage paths first trod by the
Indian.
PART II
A Catalogue of American Portages
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
As introductory to the description of the more noted American portages,
it will be advantageous to present them at a bird's-eye view in the form
of a comparative chart stating the names and termini of each, with a
remark concerning its specific function:
_Portage Route._ _Water Termini._ _Remarks._
----------------------------------------------------------------------
St. Johns--St. Grand River--Wagan. This and the two
Lawrence. following are important
land passes in the
water route up the St.
Johns to Canada.
Same. Touladi--Trois Pistoles.
Same. Ashberish--Trois Pistoles.
Same. Temiscouata--Rivière Route of present post
du Loup. road between same
points.
Same. St. Francis--Lake Short but difficult
Pohenegamook, to head portage.
of La Fourche branch
of Rivière du Loup.
Same. Black River--Ouelle. Morris Map describes
this as an express
route.
Same. North-West Branch of "Grand Portage."
St. John River--Rivière
du Sud.
Same. Lake Etchemin route. Route of Etchemin
Indians to Quebec.
Kennebec--St. Rivière des Probably the most
Lawrence. Loups--Moosehead practicable route from
Lake--Rivière Quebec up the Chaudière
Chaudière. and over the divide into
the Kennebec River.
Same. Dead River--Chaudière Probably the most
("The Terrible practicable route from
Carrying-place"). the south by way of
the Kennebec to Quebec.
Arnold's route.
Connecticut--St. Same. Important Indian route
Francis. from Canada into New
Hampshire.
Connecticut-- Otter Creek--Black(?) Route from French
Lake Champlain. River. ports on Lake Champlain
to the Connecticut
Valley.
Hudson--Lake Hudson--Lake George. The "Grand Pass" from
Champlain. the Hudson Valley toward
Canada. Followed by
Dieskau, Johnson,
Montcalm, Abercrombie
and Burgoyne.
Same. Hudson--Wood Creek--Lake Portage to Fort Ann.
George.
St. Lawrence-- St. Lawrence--Richelieu. Last portage in the
Lake Champlain. "Grand Pass" from
New York to Montreal.
Hudson--Lake Mohawk--Wood Creek Strategic portage in
Ontario. (feeder of Lake Oneida). the route from Albany
and New York to Oswego
and Niagara.
Mohawk-- Mohawk--Lake Otsego. Route from Central
Susquehanna. New York to Pennsylvania.
Niagara. Portage around Niagara Another route around
Falls. Niagara Falls was by
portage from western
extremity of Lake
Ontario to Grand River.
Chautauqua. Chautauqua Céloron's Route to the
Creek--Chautauqua Lake. Ohio.
Lake Erie-- Lake Erie--French Creek. Marin's Route to
Allegheny. Fort Duquesne.
Ohio River-- Cuyahoga--Tuscarawas. Route from Muskingum
Lake Erie. to Lake Erie.
Same. Scioto--Sandusky.
Same. Miami--Auglaize and Céloron's return route
St. Mary. from the Ohio to Lake
Erie.
Wabash--Lake Maumee--St. "The Wabash--Maumee
Erie. Mary--Little River Trade Route."
("Petite Rivière.")
Wabash--Lake Wabash--St. Joseph.
Michigan.
Illinois--Lake Kankakee--St. Joseph.
Michigan.
Illinois--Lake Des Plaines--Illinois.
Michigan.
Mississippi-- Pigeon River--Lake of Direct route from
Lake Michigan. the Woods. Georgian Bay and Lake
Michigan to the
Mississippi.
Lake Superior-- Green Bay--Fox-Wisconsin. "The Grand Portage."
Hudson Bay.