_An Episode in the History of Fort Niagara; being an Extract from
the hitherto unknown Memoirs of the Chevalier De Tregay, Lieutenant
under the Sieur de Troyes, commanding at Fort Denonville (now
called Niagara), in the Year of Starvation 1687; with Captain
Desbergeres at that remote fortress from the joyfull Easter of 1688
till its abandonment; Soldier of His Excellency the Sr. de Brissay,
Marquis de Denonville, Governor and Lieutenant General in New
France; and humble Servitor of His Serene Majesty Louis XIV._
It has been my lot to suffer in many far parts of the earth; to bleed a
little and go hungry for the King; to lie freezing for fame and
France--and gain nothing thereby but a distemper; but so it is to be a
soldier.
And I have seen trouble in my day. I have fought in Flanders on an empty
stomach, and have burned my brain among the Spaniards so that I could
neither fight nor run away; but of all the heavy employment I ever knew,
naught can compare with what befel in the remote parts of New France,
where I was with the troops that the Marquis de Denonville took through
the wilderness into the cantons of the Iroquois, and afterwards employed
to build a stockade and cabins at the mouth of the Strait of Niagara, on
the east side, in the way where they go a beaver-hunting. "Fort
Denonville," the Sieur de Brissay decreed it should be called, for he
held great hopes of the service which it should do him against both the
Iroquois and the English; but now that he has fallen into the disfavor
that has ever been the reward of faithful service in this accursed land,
his name is no more given even to that unhappy spot, but rather it is
called Fort Niagara.
There were some hundreds of us all told that reached that fair plateau,
after we left the river of the Senecas. It was mid-summer of the year of
grace 1687, and we made at first a pleasant camp, somewhat overlooking
the great lake, while to the west side of the point the great river made
good haven for our batteaux and canoes. There was fine stir of air at
night, so that we slept wholesomely, and the wounded began to mend at a
great rate. And of a truth, tho' I have adventured in many lands, I have
seen no spot which in all its demesne offered a fairer prospect to a man
of taste. On the north of us, like the great sea itself, lay the Lake
Ontario, which on a summer morning, when touched by a little wind, with
the sun aslant, was like the lapis lazuli I have seen in the King's
palace--very blue, yet all bright with white and gold. The river behind
the camp ran mightily strong, yet for the most part glassy and green
like the precious green-stone the lapidaries call verd-antique. Behind
us to the south lay the forest, and four leagues away rose the triple
mountains wherein is the great fall; but these are not such mountains as
we have in Italy and Spain, being more of the nature of a great
table-land, making an exceeding hard portage to reach the Strait of
Erie above the great fall.
It was truly a most fit place for a fort, and the Marquis de Denonville
let none in his command rest day or night until we had made a
fortification, in part of earth, surmounted by palisades which the
soldiers cut in the woods. There was much of hazard and fatigue in this
work, for the whole plain about the fort had no trees; so that some of
us went into the forest along the shore to the eastward and some cut
their sticks on the west side of the river. It was hard work, getting
them up the high bank; but so pressed were we, somewhat by fear of an
attack, and even more by the zeal of our commander, that in three days
we had built there a pretty good fort with four bastions, where we put
two great guns and some pattareras; and we had begun to build some
cabins on the four sides of the square in the middle of it. And as we
worked, our number was constantly diminished; for the Sieurs Du Luth and
Durantaye, with that one-handed Chevalier de Tonty of whom they tell so
much, and our allies the savages who had come from the Illinois to join
the Governor in his assault upon the Iroquois, as soon as their wounded
were able to be moved, took themselves off up the Niagara and over the
mountain portage I have spoken of; for they kept a post and place of
trade at the Detroit, and at Michillimackinac. And then presently the
Marquis himself and all whom he would let go sailed away around the
great lake for Montreal. But he ordered that an hundred, officers and
men, stay behind to hold this new Fort Denonville. He had placed in
command over us the Sieur de Troyes, of whom it would not become me to
speak in any wise ill.
There were sour looks and sad, as the main force marched to the
batteaux. But the Marquis did not choose to heed anything of that. We
were put on parade for the embarkation--though we made a sorry show of
it, for there were even then more rags than lace or good leather--and
His Excellency spoke a farewell word in the hearing of us all.
"You are to complete your quarters with all convenient expediency," he
said to De Troyes, who stood attentive, before us. "There will be no
lack of provision sent. You have here in these waters the finest fish in
the world. There is naught to fear from these Iroquois wasps--have we
not just torn to pieces their nests?"
He said this with a fine bravado, though methought he lacked somewhat of
sincerity; for surely scattered wasps might prove troublesome enough to
those of us who stayed behind. But De Troyes made no reply, and saluted
gravely. And so, with a jaunty word about the pleasant spot where we
were to abide, and a light promise to send fresh troops in the spring,
the General took himself off, and we were left behind to look out for
the wasps. As the boats passed the sandbar and turned to skirt the lake
shore to the westward, we gave them a salvo of musketry; but De Troyes
raised his hand--although the great Marquis was yet in sight and almost
in hailing distance--and forbade another discharge.
"Save your powder," was all he said; and the very brevity of it seemed
to mean more than many words, and put us into a low mood for that whole
day.
Now for a time that followed there was work enough to keep each man
busy, which is best for all who are in this trade of war, especially in
the wilderness. It was on the third of August that M. de Brissay left
us, he having sent off some of the militia ahead of him; and he bade M.
de Vaudreuil stay behind for a space, to help the Sieur de Troyes
complete the fort and cabins, and this he did right ably, for as all
Canada and the King himself know, M. de Vaudreuil was a man of exceeding
great energy and resources in these matters. There was a vast deal of
fetching and carrying, of hewing and sawing and framing. And
notwithstanding that the sun of that climate was desperately hot the men
worked with good hearts, so that there was soon finished an excellent
lodgment for the commandant; with a chimney of sticks and clay, and
boards arranged into a sort of bedstead; and this M. de Troyes shared
with M. de Vaudreuil, until such time as the latter gentleman quit us.
There were three other cabins built, with chimneys, doors and little
windows. We also constructed a baking-house with a large oven and
chimney, partly covered with boards and the remainder with hurdles and
clay. We also built an extensive framed building without chimney, and a
large store-house with pillars eight feet high, and made from time to
time yet other constructions for the men and goods--though, _Dieu
defend_! we had spare room for both, soon enough. In the square in the
midst of the buildings we digged a well; and although the water was
sweet enough, yet from the first, for lack of proper curbing and
protection, it was ever much roiled and impure when we drew it, a
detriment alike to health and cookery.
M. de Vaudreuil seeing us at last well roofed, and having directed for a
little the getting of a store of firewood, made his adieux. Even then,
in those fine August days, a spirit of discontent was among us, and more
than one spark of a soldier, who at the first camp had been hot upon
staying on the Niagara, sought now to be taken in M. de Vaudreuil's
escort. But that gentleman replied, that he wished to make a good report
of us all to the Governor, and that, for his part, he hoped he might
come to us early in the spring, with the promised detachment of troops.
And so we parted.
Now the spring before, when we had all followed the Marquis de
Denonville across Lake Ontario to harass the cantons of the Iroquois,
this establishment of a post on the Niagara was assuredly a part of that
gentleman's plan. It is not for me, who am but a mere lieutenant of
marines, to show how a great commander should conduct his expeditions;
yet I do declare that while there was no lack of provision made for
killing such of the savages as would permit it, there was next to none
for maintaining troops who were to be left penned up in the savages'
country. We who were left at Fort Denonville had but few mattocks or
even axes. Of ammunition there was none too much. In the Senecas'
country we had destroyed thousands of minots[6] of corn, but had brought
along scarce a week's rations of it to this corner. We had none of us
gone a-soldiering with our pockets full of seed, and even if we had
brought ample store of corn and pumpkin seed, of lentils and salad
plants, the season was too late to have done much in gardening. We made
some feeble attempts at it; but no rain fell, the earth baked under the
sun so hard that great cracks came in it; and what few shoots of corn
and pumpkin thrust upward through this parched soil, withered away
before any strengthening juices came in them. To hunt far from the fort
we durst not, save in considerable parties; so that if we made ourselves
safe from the savages, we also made every other living thing safe
against us. To fish was well nigh our only recourse; but although many
of our men labored diligently at it, they met with but indifferent
return.
Thus it was that our most ardent hopes, our very life itself, hung upon
the coming of the promised supplies. There was joy at the fort when at
length the sail of the little bark was seen; even De Troyes, who had
grown exceeding grave and melancholy, took on again something of his
wonted spirit. But we were not quite yet to be succored, for it was the
season of the most light and trifling airs, so that the bark for two
days hung idly on the shining lake, some leagues away from the mouth of
the river, while we idled and fretted like children, impatient for her
coming. When once we had her within the bar, there was no time lost in
unlading. It was a poor soldier indeed who could not work to secure the
comfort of his own belly; and the store was so ample that we felt secure
for the winter, come what might. The bark that fetched these things had
been so delayed by the calms, that she weighed and sailed with the first
favoring breeze; and it was not until her sail had fall'n below the
horizon that we fairly had sight or smell of what she had brought.
From the first the stores proved bad; still, we made shift to use the
best, eked out with what the near-by forest and river afforded. For many
weeks we saw no foes. There was little work to do, and the men idled
through the days, with no word on their lips but to complain of the food
and wish for spring. When the frosts began to fall we had a more
vigorous spell of it; but now for the first time appeared the Iroquois
wasps. One of our parties, which had gone toward the great fall of the
Niagara, lost two men; those who returned reported that their comrades
were taken all unawares by the savages. Another party, seeking game to
the eastward where a stream cuts through the high bank on its way to the
lake,[7] never came back at all. Here we found their bodies and buried
them; but their scalps, after the manner of these people, had been
taken.
Christmas drew on, but never was a sorrier season kept by soldiers of
France. De Troyes had fallen ill. Naught ailed him that we could see
save low spirits and a thinning of the blood, which made him too weak to
walk. The Father Jean de Lamberville, who had stayed with us, and who
would have been our hope and consolation in those days, very early fell
desperate ill of a distemper, so that the men had not the help of his
ministrations and holy example. Others there were who either from
feebleness or lack of discipline openly refused their daily duty and
went unpunished. We had fair store of brandy; and on Christmas eve those
of us who still held some soul for sport essayed to lighten the hour. We
brewed a comfortable draught, built the blaze high, for the frosts were
getting exceeding sharp, gathered as many as could be had of officers
and worthy men into our cabin, and made brave to sing the songs of
France. And now here was a strange thing: that while the hardiest and
soundest amongst us had made good show of cheer, had eaten the vile food
and tried to speak lightly of our ills, no sooner did we hear our own
voices in the songs that carried us back to the pleasantries of our
native land, than we fell a-sobbing and weeping like children; which
weakness I attribute to the distemper that was already in our blood.
For the days that followed I have no heart to set down much. We never
went without the palisades except well guarded to fetch firewood. This
duty indeed made the burden of every day. A prodigious store of wood was
needed, for the cold surpassed anything I had ever known. The snow fell
heavily, and there were storms when for days the gale drave straight
across our bleak plateau. There was no blood in us to withstand the icy
blasts. Do what we would the chill of the tomb was in the cabins where
the men lay. The wood-choppers one day, facing such a storm, fell in the
deep drifts just outside the gate. None durst go out to them. The second
day the wolves found them--and we saw it all!
There was not a charge of powder left in the fort. There was not a
mouthful of fit food. The biscuits had from the first been full of worms
and weevils. The salted meat, either from the admixture of sea-water
through leaky casks, or from other cause, was rotten beyond the power
even of a starving man to hold.
_Le scorbut_ broke out. I had seen it on shipboard, and knew the signs.
De Troyes now seldom left his cabin; and when, in the way of duty, I
made my devoirs, and he asked after the men, I made shift to hide the
truth. But it could not be for long.
"My poor fellows," he sighed one day, as he turned feebly on his couch
of planks, "it must be with all as it is with me--see, look here, De
Tregay, do you know the sign?" and he bared his shrunken arm and side.
Indeed I knew the signs--the dry, pallid skin, with the purple blotches
and indurations. He saw I was at a loss for words.
"_Sang de Dieu!_" he cried, "Is this what soldiers of France must come
to, for the glory of"----. He stopped short, as if lacking spirit to go
on. "Now I bethink me," he added, in a melancholy voice, "it _is_ what
soldiers must come to." Then, after a while he asked:
"How many dead today, De Tregay?"
How many dead! From a garrison of gallant men-at-arms we had become a
charnel-house. In six weeks we had lost sixty men. From a hundred at the
beginning of autumn, we were now scarce forty, and February was not
gone. A few of us, perhaps with stouter stomachs than the rest, did all
the duty of the post. We brought the firewood and we buried the
dead--picking the frozen clods with infinite toil, that we might lay the
bones of our comrades beyond the reach of wolves. Sometimes it was the
scurvy, sometimes it was the cold, sometimes, methinks, it was naught
but a weak will--or as we say, the broken heart; but it mattered not,
the end was the same. More than twenty died in March; and although we
were now but a handful of skeletons and accustomed to death, I had no
thought of sorrow or of grief, so dulled had my spirit become, until one
morning I found the brave De Troyes drawing with frightful pains his
dying breath. With the name of a maid he loved upon his lips, the light
went out; and with heavy heart I buried him in that crowded ground, and
fain would have lain down with him.
And now with our commander under the snow, what little spirit still
burned in the best of us seemed to die down. I too bore the signs of the
distemper, yet to no great extent, for of all the garrison I had labored
by exercise to keep myself wholesome, and in the woods I had tasted of
barks and buds and roots of little herbs, hoping to find something akin
in its juices to the _herbe de scorbut_[8] which I have known to cure
sick sailors. But now I gave over these last efforts for life; for,
thought I, spring is tardy in these latitudes. Many weeks must yet pass
before the noble Marquis at Montreal (where comforts are) will care to
send the promised troop. And the Western savages, our allies the
Illinois, the Ottawais, the Miamis, were they not coming to succor us
here and to raid the Iroquois cantons? But of what account is the
savage's word!
So I thought, and I turned myself on my pallet. I listened. There was no
sound in all the place save the beating of a sleet. "It is appointed," I
said within me. "Let the end come." And presently, being numb with the
cold, I thought I was on a sunny hillside in Anjou. It was the time of
the grape-harvest, and the smell of the vines, laughter and sunshine
filled the air. Young lads and maids, playmates of my boyhood days, came
and took me by the hand....
A twinge of pain made the vision pass. I opened my eyes upon a huge
savage, painted and bedaubed, after their fashion. It was the grip of
his vast fist that had brought me back from Anjou.
"The Iroquois, then," I thought, "have learned of our extremity, and
have broken in, to finish all. So much the better," and I was for
sinking back upon the boards, when the savage took from a little pouch a
handful of the parched corn which they carry on their expeditions.
"Eat," he said, in the language of the Miamis. And then I knew that
relief had come--and I knew no more for a space.
Now this was Michitonka himself, who had led his war party from beyond
Lake Erie, where the Chevalier de Tonty and Du Luth were, to see how we
fared at Fort Denonville, and to make an expedition against the
Senecas--of whom we saw no more, from the time the Miamis arrived. There
were of all our garrison but twelve not dead, and among those who threw
off the distemper was the Father de Lamberville. His recovery gave us
the greatest joy. He lay for many weeks at the very verge of the grave,
and it was marvelous to all to see his skin, which had been so empurpled
and full of malignant humors, come wholesome and fair again. I have
often remarked, in this hard country, that of all Europeans the Fathers
of the Holy Orders may be brought nearest to death, and yet regain their
wonted health. They have the same prejudice for life that the wildest
savage has. But as for the rest of us, who are neither savage nor holy,
it is by a slim chance that we live at all.
Now the Father, and two or three of the others who had the strength to
risk it, set out with a part of Michitonka's people to Cataracouy[9] and
Montreal, to carry the news of our extremity. And on a soft April day as
we looked over lake, we saw a sail; and we knew that we had kept the
fort until the relief company was sent as had been commanded. But it had
been a great pinch.
Now I am come to that which after all I chiefly set out to write down;
for I have ever held that great woes should be passed over with few
words, but it is meet to dwell upon the hour of gladness. And this hour
was now arrived, when we saw approach the new commandant, the Sieur
Desbergeres, captain of one of the companies of the Detachment of the
Marine, and with him the Father Milet, of the Society of Jesus. There
was a goodly company, whose names are well writ on the history of this
New France: the Sieurs De la Mothe, La Rabelle, Demuratre de Clerin and
de Gemerais, and others, besides a host of fine fellows of the common
rank; with fresh food that meant life to us.
Of all who came that April day, it was the Father Milet who did the
most. The very morning that he landed, we knelt about him at mass; and
scarce had he rested in his cabin than he marked a spot in the midst of
the square, where a cross should stand, and bade as many as could, get
about the hewing of it; and although I was yet feeble and might rest as
I liked, I chose to share in the work, for so I found my pleasure. A
fair straight oak was felled and well hewn, and with infinite toil the
timber was taken within the palisades and further dressed; and while the
carpenters toiled to mortise the cross-piece and fasten it with pins,
Father Milet himself traced upon the arms the symbols for the legend:
Regnat, Vincit, Imperat Christus.
And these letters were well cut into the wood, in the midst of them
being the sign of the Sacred Heart. We had it well made, and a place dug
for it, on a Thursday; and on the next morning, which was Good Friday,
the reverend Father placed his little portable altar in the midst of the
square, where we all, officers and men, and even some of the Miamis who
were yet with us, assembled for the mass. Then we raised the great cross
and planted it firmly in the midst of the little square. The service of
the blessing of it lay hold of my mind mightily, for my fancy was that
this great sign of victory had sprung from the midst of the graves where
De Troyes and four score of my comrades lay; and being in this tender
mood (for I was still weak in body) the words which the Father read from
his breviary seemed to rest the more clearly in my mind.
"_Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini._" Father Milet had a good voice,
with a sort of tenderness in it, so that we were every one disposed to
such silence and attention, that I could even hear the little waves
lapping the shore below the fort. And when he began with the
"_Oramus_"--"_Rogamus te Domine sancte Pater omnipotens_,"--I was that
moved, by the joy of it, and my own memories, that I wept--and I a
soldier!
It may be believed that the Sunday which followed, which was the
Paschal, was kept by us with such worship and rejoicing as had never yet
been known in those remote parts. Holy men had been on that river
before, it is true; but none had abode there for long, nor had any set
up so great a cross, nor had there ever such new life come to men as we
knew at Fort Denonville that Easter.
For a space, all things went well. What with the season (for spring ever
inspires men to new undertakings) and the bitter lessons learned in the
great pinch of the past winter, we were no more an idle set, but kept
all at work, and well. Yet the Iroquois pestered us vastly, being set on
thereto by the English, who claimed this spot. And in September there
came that pilot Maheut, bringing his bark La General over the shoal at
the river's mouth all unexpected; and she was scarce anchored in the
little roadstead than Desbergeres knew he was to abandon all. It was
cause of chagrin to the great Marquis, I make no doubt, thus to drop the
prize he had so tried to hold; but some of us in the fort had no stomach
for another winter on the Niagara, and we made haste to execute the
orders which the Marquis de Denonville had sent. We put the guns on
board La General. We set the gate open, and tore down the rows of pales
on the south and east sides of the square. Indeed the wind had long ago
begun this work, so that towards the lake the pales (being but little
set in the earth) had fallen or leaned over, so they could readily have
been scaled, or broken through. But as the order was, we left the cabins
and quarters standing, with doors ajar, to welcome who might come,
Iroquois or wolf, for there was naught within. But Father Milet took
down from above the door of his cabin the little sun dial. "The shadow
of the great cross falls divers ways," was his saying.
Early the next morning, being the 15th of September, of the year 1688,
being ready for the embarkation, Father Milet summoned us to the last
mass he might say in the place. It was a sad morning, for the clouds
hung heavy; the lake was of a somber and forbidding cast, and the very
touch in the air forebode autumnal gales. As we knelt around the cross
for the last time, the ensign brought the standards which Desbergeres
had kept, and holding the staves, knelt also. Certain Miamis, too, who
were about to make the Niagara portage, stayed to see what the priest
might do. And at the end of the office Father Milet did an uncommon
thing, for he was mightily moved. He turned from us toward the cross,
and throwing wide his arms spoke the last word--"Amen."
There were both gladness and sorrow in our hearts as we embarked. Lake
and sky took on the hue of lead, foreboding storm. We durst carry but
little sail, and at the sunset hour were scarce a league off shore. As
it chanced, Father Milet and I stood together on the deck and gazed
through the gloom toward that dark coast. While we thus stood, there
came a rift betwixt the banked clouds to the west, so that the sun, just
as it slipped from sight, lighted those Niagara shores, and we saw but
for an instant, above the blackness and the desolation, the great cross
as in fire or blood gleam red.
With Bolton at Fort Niagara.