Niagara under Three Flags
The abdication of De Nonville at Niagara marks, as nothing else perhaps
can, the rise of English influence along the Lakes and among the crafty
Iroquois. Slowly but surely this influence made itself felt among the
Six Nations in the attempt to swing the entire current of the fur trade
from the north-west through the Long House to New York.
With the destruction of the little fort built by De Nonville, however,
it becomes clear that when on the same basis the English were no match
for the French, so far as winning the redskins to their interests was
concerned; it may be that with the withdrawal of the French there
followed a natural diminution of English anxiety and activity in the
matter: whether this was true or not there immediately ensued a notable
increase of French attention to the Six Nations who, after all,
controlled the destinies of this key of the continent. As days of war
and days of peace came and went the governors both of New York and
Quebec sought permission to fortify the Niagara River, but the
eighteenth century dawned with no step taken by either side, though each
had most jealously been watching the other.
It was characteristic of Frenchmen, however, to meet and mingle with
the Indians as the English seldom did; it was not wholly out of the
common, indeed, for them to adopt Indian dress and customs and be, in
turn, adopted into some Indian tribe. Through the fortunate influence
exerted by one of these adopted sons of the wilderness was New France
now able to refortify the strategic Niagara region, temporarily besting
England in the contest for the supremacy here. Chabert Joncaire, taken
prisoner by the Senecas and adopted into their tribe, married an Indian
woman and became an important factor among the warriors and war councils
of the western end of the Long House. In the year 1700 Joncaire became a
missionary for the French political cause, and he seems to have managed
affairs so diplomatically that he in no wise lost caste among the
Iroquois, for six years later they suggested to him "to establish
himself among them, granting him liberty to select on their territory
the place most acceptable to himself for the purpose of living and in
peace, even to remove their villages to the neighbourhood of his
residence in order to protect him."[24]
In the next decade France made considerable headway in undoing the
miserable work of De Nonville by disarming the hostility of the Iroquois,
especially with the Senecas who held the Niagara frontier, through
Joncaire, who in 1719 was sent to "try the minds of the Seneca nation
and ascertain if it would permit the building of a French house in
their country." As a result, in 1720, Joncaire built a bark cabin at
Lewiston which he called "Magazine Royal." In November of that year,
according to English report, which was undoubtedly exaggerated through
prejudice, the "cabin" is described as a blockhouse forty feet in length
and thirty in width, enclosed with palisades, musket-proof and provided
with port-holes. The location of this post signifies of itself alone the
larger strategic nature of Niagara geographically, for it was not at the
mouth of the river but at the beginning of the portage around the Rapids
and Falls, at Lewiston, just where La Salle's storehouse, built in 1679,
had stood. It is believed that the former building had disappeared by
this time. Charlevoix, who came here the next year, 1721, confounds the
sites of De Nonville's fort and the "Magazine Royal." Mr. Porter brings
out well the office of Joncaire's cabin, in which, by the way, a few
soldiers were maintained as "traders" by saying:
. . . The trade in furs was brisk, the Indians from the north,
west, and south coming there to barter. The chain of friendship
with the Senecas was kept bright by friendly intercourse with
their warriors, who constantly came there; French trading
vessels came often to its rude wharf bringing merchandise to
Frontenac and returning laden with furs. Thus the English for
the first time failed to overcome the French, while the English
in New York did not delay their expostulations regarding what
they called French incroachment at Niagara; but so far were they
from being successful that the French were able within four
years to begin a more important fortification on the site of the
"Magazine Royal."
[Illustration: Stones on the Site of Joncaire's Cabin under Lewiston
Heights, where the Magazine Royal was Erected in 1719.]
American history furnishes many illustrations of the genius of the
French _coureurs-de-bois_ for winning to themselves the friendship of
the Indians, but perhaps there is no specific illustration of this more
clear than this reabsorption of the Niagara region after having once
abandoned it. Said Sir Guy Carleton:
France did not depend upon the number of her troops, but upon
the discretion of her officers who, learned the language of her
natives, distributed the king's presents, excited no jealousy,
entirely gained the affections of an ignorant, credulous, but
brave people, whose ruling passions are independence, gratitude,
and revenge.
Governor Duquesne once said to a deputation of Indians:
Are you ignorant of the defence between the king of France and
the English? Look at the forts which the king has built; you
will find that under their very walls the beasts of the forests
are hunted and slain; that they are, in fact, fixed in places
most frequented by you merely to gratify more conveniently your
necessities.
M. Garneau, the historian, frankly acknowledges that the Marquis
accurately stated the route of Indian admiration for the Frenchmen they
saw; but it should not be overlooked that the French also were "the most
romantic and poetic characters ever known in American frontier life.
Their every moment attracts the rosiest colour of imagination"; all this
helps to fascinate the savage.
In 1725, the Marquis De Vaudreuil proposed the erection of a storehouse
at Niagara, and soon the agent met the council of the Five Nations and
got their permission to build what was really a fort at Niagara, which
was to cost $5592; one hundred men were instantly sent to begin the
work.[25] Thus the historic pile known as the "Mess House" or "Castle"
was begun in 1725 and completed in 1726; at a council fire at Niagara
the Senecas gave their final ratification to this project, July 14,
1726.
Joncaire's "Magazine Royal" was permitted to fall into decay, being
abandoned in 1728 despite the fact that Louis XV. gave his approval to a
plan for spending twenty thousand livres for its repair although
approving strongly the erection of the castle, as it would prevent the
English from trading on the north shore of Lake Ontario as well as
getting a foothold on the Niagara River. Mr. Porter brings out well the
service of Joncaire's "Magazine Royal" by saying:
That building had done good service; it had given the French the
desired foothold on the Niagara River; it had held and fostered
the trade in furs; it had established French supremacy in this
region, and furnished them with the key to the possession of the
Upper Lakes and the Ohio Valley; and last, and most important of
all, it had been the means of France obtaining a real fortress
at the point where her diplomats and armies had been waiting to
erect one; for over half a century it had served its purposes; a
fort had been built at the mouth of the river, its usefulness
was ended, and it was abandoned forever.
The story that the foundations of the castle were laid within a gigantic
wigwam at a time when the French had induced the Indians to go on a
hunting expedition is probably no less true than most legends of the
kind with which our history is filled; and if it is not literally true,
the spirit of it undoubtedly is, for there must have been a fine story
of stratagem and diplomacy in the conception and the erection of this
massive old building upon which the tourist looks to-day with much
interest. It is also a legend that the stone for the fort was brought
from Fort Frontenac; this in a way threatens the authenticity of the
former legend of the magical erection of the building. De Witt Clinton
writing in 1810 explains that as the stones about the windows are
different and more handsome than those in the rest of the building it is
possible that they were brought from Kingston; he gave the measurements
of the building as 105 by 47 feet.
It is interesting and informing to observe from whence the fort here at
the mouth of the Niagara received, first and last, its armament; it
appears that upon the capture of Oswego twenty-four guns "of the largest
calibre" were sent to Fort Niagara, and we know that during the final
siege in 1759 some of the guns trained upon Johnson's army were lost by
Braddock away down in the forests beside the Monongahela River. The
position held by Fort Niagara in the French scheme of western occupation
is clearly suggested by these facts.
The modern tourist looking upon the massive, picturesque "Mess House"
must not forget that "Fort Niagara" was a thing of slow growth. The
first work here was undoubtedly the foundation and first story of the
Mess House, surrounded by the common picket wall always found around the
frontier fort. The first picket wall was falling down by 1739, when it
was repaired. At this time Niagara was fast losing its hold on western
trade because of the enforcing of the policy of not selling the Indians
liquor; however, in 1741, the Governor of New York affirmed that he held
the Six Nations only by presents and that Fort Niagara must be captured.
In 1745, when the French policy regarding the Indians was changed, Fort
Niagara contained only a hundred men and four guns. It is said that the
fort had been used to some extent as a State prison; surely few French
prisons, at home or abroad, had a more gloomy dungeon than that in Fort
Niagara which is shown visitors to-day; the apartment measures six by
eighteen feet and ten feet in height, of solid stone with no opening for
light or air. The well of the castle was located here, and many a weird
story attaches, especially of the headless trunk of the French general
that haunted the curbstone moaning over his sorry lot. This dungeon is
one of the places named as the scene of imprisonment of the anti-Masonic
agitator William Morgan in later days.
As the middle of the eighteenth century drew on France and England
turned from the European battlefields to America to settle their
immemorial quarrel for the possession of the continent. It is
interesting to note that the opening of the struggle occurred not in the
North or East, as would naturally be expected, but in the West to which
Niagara offered "the communication."
In 1747 the Ohio Company was formed in Virginia and received its grant
of land beyond the Alleghanies from the British King. With the exception
of Lederer, whose explorations did not reach westward of Harper's Ferry,
and Batts, who had visited the Falls of the Great Kanawha, the English
colonies knew little or nothing of the West, save only the fables
brought back by Spottswood's _Knights of the Golden Horseshoe_. But the
doughty Irish and Scotch-Irish traders had pierced the mountains and
made bold to challenge the trade of the French with the western
nations. Immediately Celoron was sent from Montreal on the long voyage
by way of Niagara to bury his leaden plates on the Ohio to re-establish
the brave claim incised on La Salle's plate buried at the mouth of the
Mississippi in 1682, which vaunted French possession of all lands
drained by waters entering the Gulf of Mexico through the mouth of the
Mississippi.
Celoron's expedition is interesting because this was the first open
advance upon the Ohio Valley by France, leading to the building of a
chain of forts westward from the key position, Fort Niagara. Celoron's
Journal reads:
I arrived at Niagara on the 6th of July, where I found him [Mr.
Labrevois]; we conferred together, and I wrote to the Chevalier
de Longnaiul that which I had learned from Mr. de la Nardiere,
and desired him, that if these nations of Detroit were in the
design to come and join me, and not delay his departure, I would
give the rendezvous at Strotves[26] on the 9th or 10th of
August; that if they had changed their mind I would be obliged
to him to send me couriers to inform me of their intentions, so
that I may know what will happen to me. On the 7th of July, I
sent M. de Contrecoeur, captain and second in command of the
detachment, with the subaltern officers and all my canoes to
make the portage. I remained at the fort, to wait for my savages
who had taken on Lake Ontario another route than I had; having
rejoined me I went to the portage which M. de Contrecoeur had
made, on the 14th of the same month we entered Lake Erie; a high
wind from the sea made me camp some distance from the little
rapid; there I formed three companies to mount guard, which were
of forty men commanded by an officer.
Returning from the Ohio trip Celoron reached Niagara again the 19th of
February, 1750, and Montreal the 10th of March. At last reaching Quebec
the frank leader of this spectacular expedition rendered his report
concerning French possession of the West. "All that I can say is, that
the [Indian] nations of these places are very ill-disposed against the
French," were his words, "and entirely devoted to the English. I do not
know by what means they can be reclaimed." Then followed one of the
earliest suggestions of the use of French arms to retain possession of
the great interior. "If violence is employed they [Indians] would be
warned and take to flight . . . if we send to trade with them, our
traders can never give our merchandize at the price the English do . . .
people our old posts and perpetuate the nations on the Belle Riviere and
who are within the reach of the English Government."
[Illustration: Specimen Manuscript Map of Niagara Frontier of Eighteenth
Century.
From the original in the British Museum.]
The plates of lead along the Ohio had very little effect in retarding
the Ohio Company of Virginians, and Celoron had hardly left the Ohio
Valley when Christopher Gist entered it to pick out and mark the
boundaries of the Ohio Company's grant of land. This was in 1750. The
Quebec Government, too, acted. If leaden plates would not hold the Ohio,
then forts well guarded and manned would accomplish the end sought; and
English spies on watch at Fort Oswego now saw a strange flotilla
crossing Lake Ontario and knew something extraordinary was in the air.
It was Marin's party on its way to fortify Celoron's route by building a
chain of posts from Fort Niagara to the present site of Pittsburg at the
junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers. After a rest at
Niagara the fort-building party proceeded along Lake Erie to Presqu'
Isle, now Erie, Pennsylvania. There they built Fort Presqu' Isle; at
Watertown Fort La Boeuf was erected and Fort Machault at Franklin on the
Allegheny, and Fort Duquesne at the junction of the Allegheny and
Monongahela. All this between 1752 and 1754, despite the message sent by
Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia by the hand of Major Washington
requesting that the French withdraw from the Ohio Valley. In the latter
year Washington marched westward to support the party of Virginian
fort-builders who had been sent to fortify the strategic position on the
Ohio, but was forced to capitulate by the French army, which drove back
the English and on their beginnings erected Fort Duquesne.
The line of forts from Quebec to Fort Duquesne was now complete, and of
them Fort Niagara was the key. To wrest from the French this western
empire it was necessary to strike Fort Niagara, but, with the rare lack
of foresight characteristic of the government headed by the impossible
Newcastle, the great campaign of 1755 was as poorly conceived as it was
executed. It was composed of three spectacular advances on this curling
line of French forts that hemmed in the colonies; one army, under Sir
William Johnson, should attack the forts on Lakes George and Champlain;
Governor Shirley of Massachusetts should leap at Fort Niagara, and
General Braddock, formerly commander of Gibraltar, should lead an army
from Virginia across the mountains upon Fort Duquesne, after capturing
which he should then join forces with Shirley for the conquest of
Niagara if that post had not been previously reduced.
From almost any view-point the scheme of conquest seems a glaring
inconsistency, but from what is this so conspicuous as by looking upon
this French line of fortresses as a serpent whose head was Quebec,
whose heart was Fort Niagara, and whose tail rattled luringly on the
Ohio at Fort Duquesne? The chief expedition, on which the eyes of the
ministry were centred, was the one which launched at this serpent's
tail. Moreover, in addition to being wrongly directed it was improperly
routed, since there were both waggons and wheat in Pennsylvania but
comparatively none in Virginia, and the ill-fated commander of the
expedition, General Edward Braddock, was the victim of the lethargy and
indifference of the colonies.
It is pitifully interesting to observe in the letter of instruction
issued by Cumberland to Braddock that the latter seemed to have held the
view that his most proper course was to strike at Niagara at the outset,
undoubtedly appreciating the significant fact that to capture that key
position of communication was to doom the Allegheny line of forts to
starvation itself. "As to your design," read those instructions, "of
making yourself master of Niagara, which is of the greatest consequence,
his Royal Highness recommends you to leave nothing to chance in the
prosecution of that enterprise." In all that was planned for this grand
campaign those words give us the only hint of Braddock's own notion.[27]
Those instructions also advise that if the Ohio campaign should progress
slowly Braddock was to consider whether he should not give over the
command of that campaign to another officer and proceed to Niagara.
Nothing could illustrate more clearly than this the importance of the
position of Niagara in the old French War. But as Braddock did not deem
it wise to give over the command of the Ohio campaign, Governor Shirley
was left in charge of it.
The Northern campaigns, however, were of little more success than that
of the ill-fated Braddock. True, Johnson won his knighthood beside the
lake to which he gave his master's name, but the victory was as much of
an accident as was Braddock's defeat, and was not followed up with the
capture of the forts on Lake Champlain which was the object of the
campaign. Shirley, on the other hand, made an utter failure of his
_coup_, after reaching Oswego with incredible hardship; the news of
Braddock's defeat demoralised whatever spirit was left in his sickly
army; and Fort Niagara was not even threatened. We note here again the
interdependence of the Braddock and Shirley campaigns, and the pity that
the two armies could not have been combined for a strong movement
against Fort Niagara. The Ohio fortress could not have existed with the
line of communication once cut, and Braddock's as well as Forbes's
campaigns, costing such tremendous sums, would have been unnecessary--or
Prideaux's in '59 either, for that matter.
And yet the English campaigns of this year played their part in
awakening the French to the situation; and Niagara was taken in hand at
once, as though the presentiment was plain that the flag of the Georges
would wave over the Niagara some day. Writes Mr. Porter:
The contemplated attack on Fort Niagara, in 1755, under Shirley,
had told the French that that fort must be further strengthened,
and Pouchot, a captain in the regiment of Bearn, and a competent
engineer, was sent to reconstruct it. He reached the fort with a
regiment in October, 1755. Houses for these troops were at once
constructed in the Canadian manner. These houses consisted of
round logs of oak, notched into each other at the corners, and
were quickly built. Each had a chimney in the middle, some
windows, and a plank roof. The chimneys were made by four poles,
placed in the form of a truncated pyramid, open from the bottom
to a height of three feet on all sides, above which was a kind
of basket work, plastered with mud; rushes, marsh grass or straw
rolled in diluted clay were driven in between the logs, and the
whole plastered. The work of strengthening the fort was pushed
on all winter, 300 men being in the garrison, and in March,
1756, the artillery taken from Braddock arrived. By July, 1756,
the defences proposed were nearly completed, and Pouchot left
the fort. Vaudreuil stated that he [Pouchot] "had almost
entirely superintended the fortifications to their completion,
and the fort, which was abandoned and beyond making the smallest
resistance, is now a place of considerable importance in
consequence of the regularity, solidity, and utility of its
works." Pouchot was sent back to Niagara, as commandant, with
his own regiment, in October, 1756, and remained there for a
year. He still further strengthened the fort during this period,
and when he left he reported that "Fort Niagara and its
buildings were completed and its covered ways stockaded." On
April 30, 1759, he again arrived at Niagara to assume command
and "began to work on repairing the fort, to which nothing had
been done since he left it. He found the ramparts giving way,
the turfing all crumbled off, and the escarpment and counter
escarpment of the fosses much filled up. He mounted two pieces
to keep up appearances in case of a siege." From the general
laudatory tone of his own work we are led to feel that Pouchot
overpraised his own work of fortifying Niagara in 1756 and 1757,
when no immediate attack was looked for, otherwise it could
hardly have been in so poor a condition eighteen months
afterwards (1759, as just quoted), unless, as is very likely, he
foresaw defeat when attacked, as he was advised it would be, and
wanted to gain special credit for a grand defence under very
disadvantageous conditions. By July Pouchot had finished
repairing the ramparts. He gives this description of the
defence: "The batteries of the bastions which were in barbette
had not yet been finished. They were built of casks and filled
with earth. He had since his arrival constructed some pieces of
blindage of oak, fourteen inches square and fifteen feet long,
which extended behind the great house on the lake shore, the
place most sheltered for a hospital. Along the faces of the
powder magazine, to cover the wall and serve as casemates, he
had built a large storehouse with the pieces secured at the top
by a ridge. Here the guns and gunsmiths were placed. We may
remark that this kind of work is excellent for field-forts in
wooded countries, and they serve very well for barracks and
magazines; a bullet could only fall upon an oblique surface and
could do little harm, because this structure is very solid."
Pouchot says that the garrison of the fort at this time
consisted of 149 regulars, 183 men of colonial companies, 133
militia and 21 cannoniers. A total of 486 soldiers and 39
employees, of whom 5 were women or children. These served in the
infirmary, as did also two ladies, and sewed cartridge bags and
made bags for earth. There were also some Indians in the fort,
and the officers may not have been included in this number. The
fort was capable of accommodating 1000 men.
[Illustration: A Drawing of Fort Niagara and Environs Showing Plan of
English Attack under Johnson.]
The great campaigns of 1759 were planned by the new commander-in-chief,
Sir Jeffrey Amherst. The Niagara attack was placed in the hands of
General John Prideaux, who was ready to sail from Oswego to his death at
Fort Niagara on the 1st of July, 1759, with twenty-two hundred regulars
and provincials and seven hundred of the Six Nations, brought very
quickly to their senses after the successes of British arms in the year
previous when Fort Duquesne was captured, under Sir William Johnson. On
the 6th of July a hunter brought word to Pouchot that the English were
at the doors of Niagara, the army having landed down the shore of the
lake at a distance of four miles. The commander, realising that the
crucial moment had come, sent a messenger post-haste to Little Fort
Niagara, at the upper end of the portage, and on to the forts in the
West for aid; Niagara had assisted Fort Duquesne and the Allegheny forts
in their days of trial and it was now turn for them to help her. Little
Fort Niagara, or, more properly, Fort du Portage, previously mentioned,
was erected probably about ten years before this to defend the portage
landing. It was now commanded by the Joncaire--son of the famous French
emissary among the Senecas who had given New France a foothold at
Niagara--who had proved such a diplomatic guide to Celoron in his
western trip; Pouchot ordered him to move the supplies at Fort du
Portage across to the mouth of the Chippewa Creek and hasten to Fort
Niagara. It is worth while to pause a moment to observe that we have
here one of the first references to that shadowy western shore of the
Niagara, where Forts Erie, George, and Mississauga were soon to appear;
though the town of Newark, or Niagara-on-the-Lake, as it is known
to-day, was the first settlement on this side of the river, it is clear
that there was at least a storehouse at Chippewa Creek in 1759;
unquestionably the portage path on the western shore of the river was a
well-worn highway long before even Fort Niagara itself was proposed, for
we know that it was the northern shore of Lake Erie that was the common
route of the French rather than the southern from the record left by the
Celoron expedition and Bonnecamp's map.
[Illustration: A Sketch of Fort Niagara and Environs; by the French
Commander Pouchot, Showing Improvements of 1756-1758.]
Prideaux forced the siege by digging a series of trenches toward the
fort, each one in advance of the last. Finally, just before merited
success was achieved, a bursting cohorn killed Prideaux and thrust the
command upon that deserving but lucky son of fortune, Sir William
Johnson. The siege was pressed most diligently--as though Johnson was
fearful that the honour thrust upon him would escape him through the
arrival of General Gage, who was on his way to assume command. The fort
was completely hemmed in, and its surrender was peremptorily demanded.
Johnson was more than a match for the intriguing French Indians who
attempted to alienate his Iroquois. He likewise played the clever
soldier in handling the relieving army that was already on its Way from
the West. Three of the four messages sent by Pouchot had been
intercepted by the English commander's scouts. The one that went through
successfully accomplished its purpose and twelve hundred recruits were
en route for the besieged fortress. The scouts told of their progress,
to which captured letters from the commanding officers, D'Aubrey and De
Lignery, to General Pouchot, gave added information. Descending the
Niagara from its head to Navy Island, the reinforcements awaited the
commands of their general. The order was to hasten on. Johnson
redistributed his force to meet the crisis, at once detailing a
sufficient part to cope with the relieving party and retaining a
sufficient quota to prevent a sortie from the rapidly crumbling fort,
which at best could not hold out longer unless succoured. At an eighth
of a mile from the fort, in olden times called _La Belle Famille_, now
within the limits of the beautiful village of Youngstown, the clash
occurred that settled the fate of the brave Pouchot. With the Iroquois
posted in hiding on either flank and the regulars waiting behind slight
breastworks, the French force rushed headlong to the attack within the
carefully laid ambuscade. After the opening fire of the Indians, the
English troop made a savage charge--and the affair was over; the
retreating French were followed and nearly a hundred and fifty were
captured, including the officers.
Sir William Johnson used his leverage thus gained upon the commander of
the doomed fortress with alacrity and success, sending with the officer
who went to demand its surrender some of the prisoners captured at the
scrimmage up the river, who told the story of their defeat and rout. Had
they known it, they might have added that the terror-stricken fugitives
from that field of strife hastened to the fleet of boats (in which they
had descended the Niagara) and, steering them all into what is called
even to this day Burnt Ship Bay, on the shore of Grand Island, set fire
to the entire flotilla, lest the English secure an added advantage; and
from this fact may we not draw the conclusion that these French hoped to
hold the remainder of the great western waterway even if Fort Niagara
fell? They could not use those boats very well on the lower Niagara,
though with them once in hand they could easily strike at Presqu' Isle
and Detroit.
[Illustration: Canadian Trapper, from La Potherie.]
Poor Pouchot demanded the best terms that he dared; it was agreed that
the garrison should retain arms and baggage and one cannon as they
marched out of the battered shell of a fort they had endeavoured to
hold, and, upon laying down their arms, should be transported, in
vessels furnished by the English, to New York; it was also demanded that
they should be protected from the insults of the redskin allies of the
English. That the latter stipulation was agreed to and honestly enforced
illustrates the genuine hold Johnson had upon his brown brethren of the
Long House. The articles were signed on the night of July 24th and on
the 25th the flag of England rose to the breeze that fanned the lake and
the wide-sweeping Niagara frontier--the second flag that had dominated
that strategic spot in the century. The garrison numbered over six
hundred men and eleven officers; the French total loss was about two
hundred including the action at Youngstown; the English loss was sixty
killed and 180 wounded. Forty-three iron cannon were found within the
fort, fifteen hundred round shot, forty thousand pounds of musket-balls,
five hundred hand grenades, and many tools, etc. The important result,
however, was the removal of French domination over the warlike Seneca
nation in this region and the natural inheritance that came with
Niagara, the trade of which it was the centre. Near the site of the
destroyed Fort du Portage, at the upper end of the portage, Captain
Schlosser erected Fort Schlosser. Fort Niagara itself was improved; the
present "bakehouse" was built in 1762. The Niagara of this time has been
well described by Mr. Porter:
It was the head centre of the military life of the entire
region, the guardian of the great highway and portage to and
from the West; and hereabouts, as the forerunners of a coming
civilisation and frontier settlement, the traders were securing
for themselves the greatest advantages. To the rude transient
population--red hunters, trappers, Indianised
bush-rangers--starting out from this centre, or returning from
their journeys of perhaps hundreds of miles, trooping down the
portage to the fort, bearing their loads of peltries, and
assisted by Indians who here made a business of carrying packs
for hire, Fort Niagara was a business headquarters. There the
traders brought their guns and ammunition, their blankets, and
cheap jewelry, to be traded for furs; there the Indians
purchased, at fabulous prices, the white man's "fire water," and
many, yes, numberless were the broils and conflicts in and
around the fort, when the soldiers under orders tried to calm or
eject the savage element which so predominated in the life of
the Garrison.
[Illustration: Youngstown, N. Y., from Paradise Grove.]
Pontiac's rebellion came fast on the heels of the old French War, so
fast indeed that we cannot really distinguish the line of division
except for the fact of English occupation of Fort Niagara; with
astonishing alacrity the incorrigible Senecas took up Pontiac's bloody
belt, especially disgruntled with English rule in the Niagara country
because the carrying business at the Niagara portage had been taken away
from them upon the introduction of clumsy carts which carried to Fort
Schlosser what had before been transported on the backs of Seneca
braves. The retaliation for this serious loss of business was the
terrible Devil's Hole Massacre of September 14, 1763, which occurred on
the new portage road between Fort Schlosser and Lewiston at the head of
what is known as Bloody Brook, in the ravine of which at the Gorge lies
the Devil's Hole. Here a party of five hundred Senecas from Chenussio,
seventy miles to the eastward of Niagara, waylaid a train of twenty-five
waggons and a hundred horses and oxen, guarded, probably indifferently,
by a detachment of troops variously estimated from twenty-five to three
hundred in number, on its way from Lewiston to the upper fort. But three
seem to have escaped that deadly ambuscade, and a relieving party,
coming hurriedly at the instance of one of the survivors, ran into a
second ambush, in which all but eight out of two companies of men
escaped. On the third attempt the commander of the fort hastened to the
bloody scene with all of the troops at his command except what were
needed to defend the fort. But the redskins had gone, leaving eighty
scalped corpses on the ground. The first convoy probably numbered about
twenty-five and the relieving party probably twice that number. The
Indians had thrown or driven every team and all the whites surviving the
fire of their thirsty muskets over the brink of the great ravine in
which lies the Devil's Hole, fitly named.
At the great treaty that Sir William Johnson now held at Niagara with
all the western Indians--one of the most remarkable convocations ever
convened on this continent--the Senecas were compelled to surrender to
the English Government all right to a tract four miles wide on each side
of the Niagara River from Fort Niagara to Fort Schlosser. When it came
time to sign the articles agreeing to this grant, Johnson, at the
suggestion of General Bradstreet, who had in mind a fortification of the
present site of Fort Erie, asked to extend the grant to include all land
bordering the entire river from mouth to source and for four miles back.
To this the Senecas agreed, but signed the treaty, as it were, with
their left hands, never intending to keep it. However, it is to this
date that we trace first actual white man's ownership of the first foot
of land on the Niagara frontier, save perhaps the enclosure at Fort
Niagara. Until this agreement was reached Sir William refused to deal
with the gathered host of Indians from the West; thus was the Devil's
Hole Massacre avenged.
Over two thousand Indians had met to treat with the now famous Indian
Commissioner for the Crown, coming from Nova Scotia in the East and the
head streams of the Mississippi River in the West; that Niagara should
have been the chosen meeting-place illustrates again its geographical
position on the continent. Shrewd at this form of procrastinating
business, Sir William laid down the policy of treaty with each tribe
separately and not with the nations as such, and this, added to the
formality observed, tended to make the procedure of almost endless
duration. But Johnson knew his host and it is said on good authority
that the vast sum now invested by the Crown paid good interest; the
congress cost about ten thousand dollars in New York currency, and about
two hundred thousand was distributed in presents to the vast assemblage.
"Though this assemblage consisted of peace-desiring savages, their
friendly disposition was not certain. Several straggling soldiers were
shot at, and great precautions were taken by the English garrison to
avert a rupture." Writes the graphic Parkman: "The troops were always on
their guard, while the black muzzles of the cannons, thrust from the
bastions of the fort, struck a wholesome awe into the savage throng
below."
[Illustration: The Stone Redoubt at Fort Niagara, Built in 1770.
From the original in the British Museum.]
The Fort Niagara of that day little resembled the sight that greets the
tourist's eye at that point to-day. When the French built the "Mess
House" or "Castle" they built one story only, but afterward added a
second, the walls of which probably extended above the roof to serve as
a breastwork for gunners. The present roof is an English addition,
comparatively modern. The French built also the two famous block-houses,
the walls of which also protruded from the ancient roof for the same
purpose as on the "Mess House," and these were used as late as the War
of 1812. The old Magazine was built by the French, but its present-day
roof is, of course, of modern construction, being in reality nothing but
a covering over the stone arch which was the ancient roof. So far as
appearance goes the waters of the hungry lake have probably done more
altering of the natural aspect than has the hand of man. The fantastic
"castle" now stands close to the water's edge, whereas, in the olden
time there were upwards of thirty rods of ground between the "Mess
House" and the lake, supporting an orchard. The present stone wall was
erected in 1839, and the brick walls constructed outside the old line of
breastworks in 1861; four years later the lighthouse was established in
the upper story of the "Castle"; in 1873 the present lighthouse was
erected.
No serious conflict now marked England's rule in her new territory, and
the people of Canada, and especially of the Niagara region, had now
comparatively a few years' repose, but then came one of the most
important periods in its history. Their country was invaded, and for a
time seemed on the point of passing under the control of the Congress of
the old Thirteen Colonies, now in rebellion against England. Only the
genius of an able governor-general saved the valley of the St. Lawrence
to the British Crown.
In the year 1774, Parliament intervened for the first time in Canadian
affairs, and passed what was known as the "Quebec Act," which greatly
extended the boundaries of the province of Quebec, as defined by the
Proclamation of 1763. On one side the province now extended to the
frontiers of New England, Pennsylvania, New York Province, the Ohio, and
the left bank of the Mississippi; on the other to the Hudson's Bay
Territory; Labrador, Anticosti, and the Magdalen Islands, annexed to
Newfoundland by the Proclamation of 1763, were made part of the province
of Quebec. The "Quebec Act" created much debate in the House of Commons.
The Earl of Chatham, in the House of Lords, described it as a "most
cruel and odious measure." The opposition in the province was among the
British inhabitants, who sent over a petition for its repeal or
amendment, their principal grievance being that it substituted the laws
and usages of Canada for English law. The "Act of 1774" was exceedingly
unpopular in the English-speaking colonies, then at the commencement of
the Revolution, on account of the extension of the limits of the
province so as to include the country long known as the "Old North-west"
in American history, and the consequent confinement of the Thirteen
Colonies between the Atlantic coast and the Alleghany Mountains, beyond
which the hardy and bold frontiersmen of Virginia and Pennsylvania were
already passing into the great valley of the Ohio. Parliament, however,
appears to have been influenced by a desire to adjust the government of
the province so as to conciliate the majority of the Canadian people at
the critical time.
The advice of Sir Guy Carleton, afterwards Lord Dorchester, who
succeeded General Murray as Governor-General, had much to do with the
liberality of the "Quebec Act" towards the French Canadians. He crossed
the Atlantic in 1769 and remained absent from Canada for four years. He
returned to carry out the "Quebec Act," which was the foundation of the
large political and religious liberties which French Canada has ever
since enjoyed. The "Act" aroused the indignation of the older American
colonies, and had considerable influence in directing the early course
of the Revolution which ended in the establishment of a federal
republic. To it the Declaration of Independence refers as follows:
"Abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighbouring province,
establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its
boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for
introducing the same absolute rule in other colonies." During the
Revolution the Continental Congress attempted to secure the active
alliance of Canada, and to that end sent a commission made up of
Franklin, Chase, Charles Carroll, and John Carroll to Quebec; but the
province remained loyal throughout. It will be noticed in another
chapter that General Brock, in answering the "Proclamation" issued by
Hull in 1812, voiced the belief that Canada was the price the American
Colonies had promised to pay France in return for her valuable aid in
the Revolution!
[Illustration: Pfister's Sketch of Fort Niagara and the "Communication,"
Two Years before the Outbreak of the Revolutionary War.]
It is not necessary to dwell here on the events of a war the history of
which is so familiar to every one.[28] When the first Continental
Congress met at Philadelphia on September 5, 1774, the colonies were on
the eve of independence as a result of the coercive measures forced on
Parliament by the King's pliable ministers led by Lord North. The
"Declaration," however, was not finally proclaimed until nearly two
years later, on July 4, 1776, when the Thirteen Colonies declared
themselves "free and independent States," absolved of their allegiance
to the British Crown. But many months before this great epoch-making
event, war had actually commenced on Lake Champlain. On an April day, in
the now memorable year 1775, the "embattled farmers" had fired at
Concord and Lexington, the shots "heard round the world," and a few
weeks later the forts at Crown Point and Ticonderoga, then defended by
very feeble garrisons, were in the possession of colonial troops, led by
Ethan Allen and Seth Warner, the two "Green Mountain Boys" who organised
this expedition. Canada was at this time in a very defenceless
condition. Burgoyne was defeated at Saratoga, and his army, from which
so much was expected, made prisoners of war. This great misfortune of
the British cause was followed by the alliance of France with the
States. French money, men, and ships eventually assured the independence
of the Republic, whose fortunes were very low at times despite the
victory at Saratoga. England was not well served in this American war;
she had no Washington to direct her campaign, and Gage, Burgoyne, and
Cornwallis were not equal to the responsibilities thrown upon them.
Cornwallis's defeat at Yorktown, October 19, 1781, was the death blow to
the hopes of England in North America.
Had General Sullivan's campaign of 1779, as planned, been successful, he
would have attacked Fort Niagara, but disaster overtook him, though he
led an expedition against the Iroquois, routed a force of Indians and
Tories at Newtown, near the present Elmira, and wrought wide devastation
in the country of the Cayugas and Senecas.
Yorktown led to the Treaty of Versailles and independence, but oddly
enough it was almost a generation before a third flag arose above the
historic "Castle" at the mouth of the Niagara. In 1784 the United States
came into the control of the territory extending from Nova Scotia (which
then included New Brunswick) to the head of the Lake of the Woods and to
the Mississippi River in the West, and in the North from Canada to the
Floridas in the South, the latter having again become Spanish
possessions. The boundary between Nova Scotia and the Republic was so
ill defined that it took over fifty years to fix the St. Croix and the
Highlands which were, by the treaty, to divide the two countries. In
the Far West the line of division was to be drawn through the Lake of
the Woods "to the most north-western point thereof, and from thence on a
due west course to the River Mississippi"--a physical impossibility,
since the head of the Mississippi, as was afterwards found, was a
hundred miles or so to the south! In later times this geographical error
was corrected, and the curious distortion of the boundary line that now
appears on the maps was necessary at the Lake of the Woods in order to
strike the forty-ninth parallel of north latitude, which was
subsequently arranged as the boundary line as far as the Rocky
Mountains.
A strip of land one mile wide along the American shore from Lake Ontario
to Lake Erie had been exempted when New York ceded the ownership of what
is now the western part of this State to Massachusetts, which ownership
New York subsequently reacquired. Finally the Indians, who, in spite of
their former cessions to England, still claimed an ownership, ceded to
New York, for one thousand dollars and an annuity of one thousand five
hundred dollars, their title to all the islands in the Niagara River.
The State of New York patented the mile-strip to individuals, commencing
in the first decade of the nineteenth century.
In spite of the Treaty of Versailles in 1783, as noted, neither Niagara
nor Detroit was surrendered by the British until 1796. Both forts were
held as English outposts and strengthened. We have shown that the
boundary-line between Canada and the United States was improperly
conceived; but it is a fact that during the Revolutionary War the people
of the North-west had been warned from Niagara and Detroit to take up
arms in behalf of the Americans. Nothing aggressive, however, had been
accomplished. The wilderness of three hundred miles between Detroit and
the Eastern States made an attack upon the posts by the Americans
impracticable; moreover, most of the fighting in this region was done by
the British and the Indians and the people of Pennsylvania and Ohio.
It is due to the statesmanship of John Jay that the posts still
garrisoned by British troops in the United States, contrary to the
stipulations of the Treaty of Paris, were finally evacuated in 1796. Jay
had been sent by President Washington to go to Great Britain in 1794 as
special envoy to settle differences growing out of the failure of that
country to keep the obligations of the Treaty of 1784, differences which
had aroused a strong war-spirit all over the States. It was easy to
foresee, as Jay recognised, that the outcome of the situation would in
all probability be unpopular with the people, but he did not hesitate to
meet the responsibility that Washington believed he could meet better
than any other man, partially because of the reputation he had
established in England while negotiating the Treaty of 1784. Jay set
sail on May 12, 1794 in the ship _Ohio_, with his son Peter Augustus,
and with John Trumbull as secretary. On June 8th he landed at Falmouth
and at once entered into relation with Lord Grenville, the Secretary of
Foreign Affairs, who was commissioned by the King to treat with Mr. Jay.
The sincerity and candour of the two negotiators soon led to a degree of
mutual confidence that both facilitated and lightened their labours. A
treaty resulted known on this side of the ocean as "Jay's Treaty,"
which settled the eastern boundary of Maine, recovered for illegal
captures by British cruisers $10,000,000, secured the surrender of the
western forts still garrisoned by the British, and contained an article
about the West India trade. With the exception of the latter article,
the treaty was approved by the President and ratified by the Senate. But
many were not satisfied, and denounced Jay with tongue and pen, and even
burned him in effigy in Boston, Philadelphia, and at his own home in New
York. How different was the homecoming from that after the negotiation
of the other treaty, when the freedom of the city was presented to him
in a golden box, and each one seemed to vie with every other in
extending a welcome! In a letter to a friend, Jay said at that time,
"Calumny is seldom durable, it will in time yield to truth," and he bore
himself at that time as one having full confidence that he had acted
both wisely and skilfully, and expected the people to realise it in
time. The British, however, would not evacuate Niagara and the other
forts without a semblance of fighting on paper. They held, amongst other
reasons, that they were yet justified in maintaining a garrison on
American soil because "it was _alleged_ by divers merchants and others,
His Majesty's subjects," that they had sustained various losses by the
legal impediments they had experienced in collecting debts in America
due to them before the war. Mr. Jay, however, with great diplomacy,
removed this obstacle by the appointment of Commissioners of Award, and
as the British finally were deprived of all pretence for maintaining the
posts, it was agreed that they should be surrendered on or before the
first of June, 1796. This was finally done and the third and last flag
floated lazily in the Lake Ontario breezes over the historic point. The
settlers and traders within the jurisdiction of the posts were permitted
to remain and to enjoy their property without becoming citizens of the
United States unless they should think proper to do so.
[Illustration: Fort Erie and the Mouth of the Niagara, by Pfister, in
1764.
From the original in the British Museum.]
Anthony Wayne's army now took full possession of the Niagara region.
With the exception of a small strip of land on the river and lake, all
the present State of Michigan was occupied by Indians--Pottawattomies,
Miamis, Wyandots, Chippewas, Winnebagoes, and Ottawas. The first
American commander of the post was Colonel John Francis Hamtramck, who
died in 1803. At that period Detroit was headquarters of the Western
Army, but the whole garrison only consisted of three hundred men.
Niagara-on-the-Lake may be called the Plymouth Rock of upper Canada. It
was once its proud capital. Variously known in the past as Loyal
Village, Butlersbury, Nassau, and Newark, it had a daily paper as early
as 1792, and was a military post of distinction at the same period, its
real beginnings, however, being contemporaneous with the War of
Independence. Here, within two short hours' ride of the most populous
and busy city of western New York, typical of the material forces that
have moulded the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, we come upon a spot
of intensest quiet, in the shadow of whose ivy-mantled church tower
sleep trusted servants of the Georges, Loyalists and their Indian
allies.
The place has been overtaken by none of that unpicturesque commercial
prosperity which further up the frontier threatens to destroy all the
natural beauties of the river-banks.
The Welland Canal and the Grand Trunk and Great Western Railway systems
diverted the great part of the carrying trade, and with it that growth
and activity which have signalised the neighbouring cities of Canada.
"Refuse the Welland Canal entrance to your town," said the
Commissioners, "and the grass will grow in your streets." Here General
Simcoe opened the first Upper Canadian Legislature; and later, from here
the noble Brock planned the defence of Upper Canada. While the cities of
western New York, which have now far eclipsed it, were rude log
settlements, at "Newark" some little attempt was made at decorum and
society.
Here landed in 1783-'84 ten thousand United Empire Loyalists, who, to
keep inviolate their oaths of allegiance to the King, quitted their
freeholds and positions of trust and honour in the States to begin life
anew in the unbroken wilds of Upper Canada. History has made us somewhat
familiar with the settlement of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick by the
expatriated Loyalists. Little has been written of the sufferings and
privations endured by the "makers" of Upper Canada. Students and
specialists who have investigated the story of a flight equalled only by
that of the Huguenots after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes have
been led to admire the spirit of unselfish patriotism which led these
one hundred thousand fugitives to self-exile. While the Pilgrims came to
America leisurely, bringing their household goods and their charters
with them, the United Empire Loyalists, it has well been said, "bleeding
with the wounds of seven years of war, left ungathered the crops of
their rich farms on the Mohawk and in New Jersey, and, stripped of
every earthly possession, braved the terrors of the unbroken wilderness
from the Mohawk to Lake Ontario." Inhabited to-day by the descendants of
these pioneers, the old-fashioned loyalty and conservatism of the
Niagara district is the more conspicuous by contrasting it with
neighbouring republicanism over the river.
Here, over a century ago, near Fort George, stood the first Parliament
House of Upper Canada. Here, seventy years before President Lincoln's
Emancipation Proclamation, the first United Empire Loyalist Parliament,
like the embattled farmers at Concord, "fired a shot heard round the
world." For one of the first measures of the exiled patricians was to
pass an act forbidding slavery. Few readers know that at Newark, now
Niagara, was enacted that law by which Canada became not only the first
country in the world to abolish slavery, but, as such, a safe refuge for
the fugitive slaves from the Southern States.
General Simcoe, the first governor, was born in 1752 and died in 1806. A
landed gentleman of England and likewise a member of the British House
of Commons he voluntarily relinquished all the luxuries of his beautiful
English home and estates to bury himself in the wilderness of Canada and
the Niagara region. As governor-general he exemplified the extremest
simplicity. His guard consisted of four soldiers who came from Fort
George, close by, to Newark, every morning and returned thither in the
evening. Mrs. Simcoe not only performed the duties of wife and mother,
but also acted as her husband's secretary. The name of Simcoe is
indelibly entered in the history of the development of the Niagara, and
it is doubly appropriate that her interesting drawings should illustrate
a volume dealing with this region she loved.
Here Cooper is said to have written his admirable novels of border and
Indian life, novels which have been devoured by me and millions of
readers; it is fair to predict that the stories will be read for another
century to come.[29] Many other interesting characters have at different
periods made Fort George their abode. In 1780, a handsome house within
its enclosure was occupied by General Guy Johnson.
[Footnote 24: _Colonial Documents of New York_, vol. ix., p. 773; in the
history of the French regime at Niagara special acknowledgment must be
made to Porter's _Brief History of Old Fort Niagara_ (Niagara Falls,
1896), which is particularly rich in references to the important sources
of information concerning the French along and at the mouth of the
Niagara River.]
[Footnote 25: _Colonial Documents of New York_, vol. ix., pp. 952, 958.]
[Footnote 26: Logstown?]
[Footnote 27: In the author's _Historic Highways of America_, vol. iv.,
chap. 2, this whole problem is discussed and Cumberland's instructions
quoted.]
[Footnote 28: The record of these bloody years is hinted in the
number of prisoners brought to Niagara. On this topic Frank H.
Severance writes [In _Old Trails on the Niagara Frontier_, pp. 89-91.
Mr. Severance, Secretary of the Buffalo Historical Society, has
ably taken the place of the eminent scholar of the Niagara country
O. H. Marshall. In his volume above quoted Mr. Severance provides a
most interesting, scholarly series of papers which no one who loves
New York's old frontier should miss. Our story of the famine at De
Nonville's fort was written with Mr. Severance's book open before us.]:
"Just how many American prisoners were brought into Fort Niagara
during this period I am unable to say, though it is possible
that from the official correspondence of the time figures could
be had on which a very close estimate could be based. My
examination of the subject warrants the assertion that several
hundred were brought in by the war-parties under Indian,
British, and Tory leaders. In this correspondence, very little
of which has ever been published, one may find such entries as
the following:
"Guy Johnson wrote from Fort Niagara, June 30, 1781:
"'In my last letter of the 24th inst. I had just time to enclose
a copy of Lieut. Nelles's letter with an account of his success,
since which he arrived at this place with more particular
information by which I find that he killed thirteen and took
seven (the Indians not having reckoned two of the persons whom
they left unscalped). . . .'
"Again:
"'I have the honour to transmit to Your Excellency a general
letter containing the state of the garrison and of my Department
to the 1st inst., and a return, at the foot, of the war parties
that have been on service this year, . . . by which it will
appear that they have killed and taken during the season already
150 persons, including those last brought in. . . .'
"Again he reports, August 30, 1781:
"'The party with Capt. Caldwell and some of the Indians with
Capt. Lottridge are returning, having destroyed several
settlements in Ulster County, and about 100 of the Indians are
gone against other parts of the frontiers, and I have some large
parties under good leaders still on service as well as scouts
towards Fort Pitt. . . .'
"Not only are there many returns of this sort, but also
tabulated statements, giving the number of prisoners sent down
from Fort Niagara to Montreal on given dates, with their names,
ages, names of their captors, and the places where they were
taken. There were many shipments during the summer of '83, and
the latest return of this sort which I have found in the
archives is dated August 1st of that year, when eleven prisoners
were sent from the fort to Montreal. It was probably not far
from this time that the last American prisoner of the Revolution
was released from Fort Niagara. But let the reader beware of
forming hasty conclusions as to the cruelty or brutality of the
British at Fort Niagara. In the first place, remember that
harshness or kindness in the treatment of the helpless depends
in good degree--and always has depended--upon the temperament
and mood of the individual custodian. There were those in
command at Fort Niagara who appear to have been capable of
almost any iniquity. Others gave frequent and conspicuous proofs
of their humanity. Remember, secondly, that the prisoners
primarily belonged to the Indians who captured them. The Indian
custom of adoption--the taking into the family circle of a
prisoner in place of a son or husband who had been killed by the
enemy--was an Iroquois custom, dating back much further than
their acquaintance with the English. Many of the Americans who
were detained in this fashion by their Indian captors, probably
never were given over to the British. Some, as we know, like
Mary Jemison, the White Woman of the Genesee, adopted the Indian
mode of life and refused to leave it. Others died in captivity,
some escaped. Horatio Jones and Jasper Parrish were first
prisoners, then utilised as interpreters, but remained among the
Indians. And in many cases, especially of women and children, we
know that they were got away from the Indians by the British
officers at Fort Niagara, only after considerable trouble and
expense. In these cases the British were the real benefactors of
the Americans, and the kindness in the act cannot always be put
aside on the mere ground of military exchange, prisoner for
prisoner. Gen. Haldimand is quoted to the effect that he 'does
not intend to enter into an exchange of prisoners, but he will
not add to the distresses attending the present war, by
detaining helpless women and children from their families.'"
In justice to Col. Guy Johnson's administration at Fort Niagara,
as well as to give one of the clearest (if biased) views of the
trials and perplexities of those hard days, we reproduce a
"Review of Col. Johnson's Transactions"; as Mr. Severance notes,
this review shows "the real state of affairs at Fort Niagara
towards the close of the Revolutionary war" better than does
almost any other document [I quote Mr. Severance's copy from
_Canadian Archives_, Series B, vol. 106, p. 122, _et seq._]:
"Montreal, 24th March, 1782.
"Before Colonel Johnson arrived at Niagara in 1779 the Six
Nations lived in their original possessions the nearest of which
was about 100 and the farthest about 300 miles from that post.
Their warriors were called upon as the service required parties,
which in 1776 amounted to about 70 men, and the expenses
attending them, and a few occasional meetings ought to have been
and he presumes were a mere Trifle when compared with what must
attend their situation when all [were] driven to Niagara,
exposed to every want, to every temptation, and with every claim
which their distinguished sacrifices and the tenor of Soloman
[solemn] Treaties had entitled them to from Government. The
years 1777 & 1778 exhibited only a larger number occasionally
employed and for their fidelity and attachment to Government
they were invaded in 1779 by a rebel army reported to be from 5
to 600 men with a train of Artillery who forced them to retire
to Niagara leaving behind them very fine plantations of corn and
vegetables, with their cloathing, arms, silver works, Wampum
Kettles and Implements of Husbandry, the collection of ages of
which were destroyed in a deliberate manner and march of the
rebels. Two villages only escaped that were out of their route.
"The Indians having always apprehended that their distinguished
loyalty might draw some such calamity towards them had
stipulated that under such circumstances they effected
[expected] to have their losses made up as well as a liberal
continuation of favours and to be supported at the expence of
Government till they could be reinstated in their former
possessions. They were accordingly advised to form camps around
Niagara which they were beginning to do at the time of Colonel
Johnson's arrival who found them much chagrined and prepared to
reconcile them to their disaster which he foresaw would be a
work of time requiring great judgment and address in effecting
which he was afterwards successful beyond his most sanguine
expectations, and this was the state of the Indians at Colonel
Johnson's arrival. As to the state and regulation of Colonel
Johnson's officers and department at that period he found the
duties performed by 2 or three persons the rest little
acquainted with them and considered as less capable of learning
them, and the whole number inadequate to that of the Indians,
and the then requisite calls of the service, and that it was
necessary after refusing the present wants of the Indians to
keep their minds occupied by constant military employment, all
which he laid before the Commander in Chief who frequently
honoured his conduct with particular approbation."]
[Footnote 29: Here, the story runs, the brother of Sir Walter Scott
concocted the plots and outlines of Sir Walter's famous novels and sent
them on to England to be polished up for publication--a story worthy of
a Hennepin.]