Historic Handbook of the Northern Tour Part 1

Historic Handbook of the Northern Tour.

by Francis Parkman.

DISCOVERY OF LAKE CHAMPLAIN.

This beautiful lake owes its name to Samuel de Champlain, the founder of Quebec. In 1609, long before the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth, he joined a band of Huron and Algonquin warriors on an expedition against their enemies, the Iroquois, since known as the Five Nations of New York. While gratifying his own love of adventure, he expected to make important geographical discoveries.

After a grand war dance at the infant settlement of Quebec, the allies set out together. Champlain was in a boat, carrying, besides himself, eleven men, chief among whom were one Marais and a pilot named La Routte, all armed with the arquebuse, a species of firearm shorter than the musket, and therefore better fitted for the woods.

They ascended the St. Lawrence and entered the Richelieu, which forms the outlet of Lake Champlain. Here, to Champlain's great disappointment, he found his farther progress barred by the rapids at Chambly, though the Indians had a.s.sured him that his boat could pa.s.s all the way un.o.bstructed. He told them that though they had deceived him, he would not abandon them, sent Marais with the boat and most of the men back to Quebec, and, with two who offered to follow him, prepared to go on in the Indian canoes.

The warriors lifted their canoes from the water, and in long procession through the forest, under the flickering sun and shade, bore them on their shoulders around the rapids to the smooth stream above. Here the chiefs made a muster of their forces, counting twenty-four canoes and sixty warriors. All embarked again, and advanced once more, by marsh, meadow, forest, and scattered islands, then full of game, for it was an uninhabited land, the war-path and battle-ground of hostile tribes. The warriors observed a certain system in their advance. Some were in front as a vanguard; others formed the main body; while an equal number were in the forests on the flanks and rear, hunting for the subsistence of the whole; for, though they had a provision of parched maize pounded into meal, they kept it for use when, from the vicinity of the enemy, hunting should become impossible.

Still the canoes advanced, the river widening as they went. Great islands appeared, leagues in extent: Isle a la Motte, Long Island, Grande Isle. Channels where ships might float and broad reaches of expanding water stretched between them, and Champlain entered the lake which preserves his name to posterity. c.u.mberland Head was pa.s.sed, and from the opening of the great channel between Grande Isle and the main, he could look forth on the wilderness sea. Edged with woods, the tranquil flood spread southward beyond the sight. Far on the left, the forest ridges of the Green Mountains were heaved against the sun, patches of snow still glistening on their tops; and on the right rose the Adirondacks, haunts in these later years of amateur sportsmen from counting-rooms or college halls, nay, of adventurous beauty, with sketch-book and pencil. Then the Iroquois made them their hunting-ground; and beyond, in the valleys of the Mohawk, the Onondaga, and the Genesee, stretched the long line of their five cantons and palisaded towns.

The progress of the party was becoming dangerous. They changed their mode of advance, and moved only in the night. All day, they lay close in the depth of the forest, sleeping, lounging, smoking tobacco of their own raising, and beguiling the hours, no doubt, with the shallow banter and obscene jesting with which knots of Indians are wont to amuse their leisure. At twilight they embarked again, paddling their cautious way till the eastern sky began to redden. Their goal was the rocky promontory where Fort Ticonderoga was long afterward built. Thence, they would pa.s.s the outlet of Lake George, and launch their canoes again on that Como of the wilderness, whose waters, limpid as a fountain-head, stretched far southward between their flanking mountains. Landing at the future site of Fort William Henry, they would carry their canoes through the forest to the River Hudson, and descending it, attack, perhaps, some outlying town of the Mohawks. In the next century this chain of lakes and rivers became the grand highway of savage and civilized war, a b.l.o.o.d.y debatable ground linked to memories of momentous conflicts.

The allies were spared so long a progress. On the morning of the twenty-ninth of July, after paddling all night, they hid as usual in the forest on the western sh.o.r.e, not far from Crown Point. The warriors stretched themselves to their slumbers, and Champlain, after walking for a time through the surrounding woods, returned to take his repose on a pile of spruce-boughs. Sleeping, he dreamed a dream, wherein he beheld the Iroquois drowning in the lake; and, essaying to rescue them, he was told by his Algonquin friends that they were good for nothing and had better be left to their fate. Now, he had been daily beset, on awakening, by his superst.i.tious allies, eager to learn about his dreams; and, to this moment, his unbroken slumbers had failed to furnish the desired prognostics. The announcement of this auspicious vision filled the crowd with joy, and at nightfall they embarked, flushed with antic.i.p.ated victories.

It was ten o'clock in the evening, when they descried dark objects in motion on the lake before them. These were a flotilla of Iroquois canoes, heavier and slower than theirs, for they were made of oak or elm bark. Each party saw the other, and the mingled war-cries pealed over the darkened water. The Iroquois, who were near the sh.o.r.e, having no stomach for an aquatic battle, landed, and, making night hideous with their clamors, began to barricade themselves. Champlain could see them in the woods, laboring like beavers, hacking down trees with iron axes taken from the Canadian tribes in war, and with stone hatchets of their own making. The allies remained on the lake, a bowshot from the hostile barricade, their canoes made fast together by poles lashed across. All night, they danced with as much vigor as the frailty of their vessels would permit, their throats making amends for the enforced restraint of their limbs. It was agreed on both sides that the fight should be deferred till daybreak; but meanwhile a commerce of abuse, sarcasm, menace, and boasting gave unceasing exercise to the lungs and fancy of the combatants,--"much," says Champlain, "like the besiegers and besieged in a beleaguered town."

As day approached, he and his two followers put on the light armor of the time. Champlain wore the doublet and long hose then in vogue. Over the doublet he buckled on a breastplate, and probably a back-piece, while his thighs were protected by _cuisses_ of steel, and his head by a plumed casque. Across his shoulder hung the strap of his bandoleer, or ammunition-box; at his side was his sword, and in his hand his arquebuse, which he had loaded with four b.a.l.l.s. Such was the equipment of this ancient Indian-fighter, whose exploits date eleven years before the landing of the Puritans at Plymouth, and sixty-six years before King Philip's War.

Each of the three Frenchmen was in a separate canoe, and, as it grew light, they kept themselves hidden, either by lying at the bottom, or covering themselves with an Indian robe. The canoes approached the sh.o.r.e, and all landed without opposition at some distance from the Iroquois, whom they presently could see filing out of their barricade, tall, strong men, some two hundred in number, of the boldest and fiercest warriors of North America. They advanced through the forest with a steadiness which excited the admiration of Champlain. Among them could be seen several chiefs, made conspicuous by their tall plumes.

Some bore shields of wood and hide, and some were covered with a kind of armor made of tough twigs interlaced with a vegetable fibre supposed by Champlain to be cotton.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHAMPLAIN'S FIGHT WITH THE IROQUOIS.

(Drawn by himself)]

The allies, growing anxious, called with loud cries for their champion, and opened their ranks that he might pa.s.s to the front. He did so, and, advancing before his red companions-in-arms, stood revealed to the astonished gaze of the Iroquois, who, beholding the warlike apparition in their path, stared in mute amazement. But his arquebuse was levelled; the report startled the woods, a chief fell dead, and another by his side rolled among the bushes. Then there rose from the allies a yell, which, says Champlain, would have drowned a thunder-clap, and the forest was full of whizzing arrows. For a moment, the Iroquois stood firm and sent back their arrows l.u.s.tily; but when another and another gunshot came from the thickets on their flank, they broke and fled in uncontrollable terror. Swifter than hounds, the allies tore through the bushes in pursuit. Some of the Iroquois were killed; more were taken.

Camp, canoes, provisions, all were abandoned, and many weapons flung down in the panic flight. The arquebuse had done its work. The victory was complete.

The victors made a prompt retreat from the scene of their triumph. Three or four days brought them to the mouth of the Richelieu. Here they separated; the Hurons and Algonquins made for the Ottawa, their homeward route, each with a share of prisoners for future torments. At parting they invited Champlain to visit their towns and aid them again in their wars,--an invitation which this paladin of the woods failed not to accept.

Thus did New France rush into collision with the redoubted warriors of the Five Nations. Here was the beginning, in some measure doubtless the cause, of a long suite of murderous conflicts, bearing havoc and flame to generations yet unborn. Champlain had invaded the tiger's den; and now, in smothered fury, the patient savage would lie biding his day of blood.

DISCOVERY OF LAKE GEORGE.

It was thirty-three years since Champlain had first attacked the Iroquois. They had nursed their wrath for more than a generation, and at length their hour was come. The Dutch traders at Fort Orange, now Albany, had supplied them with firearms. The Mohawks, the most easterly of the Iroquois nations, had, among their seven or eight hundred warriors, no less than three hundred armed with the arquebuse. They were masters of the thunderbolts which, in the hands of Champlain, had struck terror into their hearts.

In the early morning of the second of August, 1642, twelve Huron canoes were moving slowly along the northern sh.o.r.e of the expansion of the St.

Lawrence known as the Lake of St. Peter. There were on board about forty persons, including four Frenchmen, one of them being the Jesuit, Isaac Jogues. During the last autumn he, with Father Charles Raymbault, had pa.s.sed along the sh.o.r.e of Lake Huron northward, entered the strait through which Lake Superior discharges itself, pushed on as far as the Sault Sainte Marie, and preached the Faith to two thousand Ojibwas, and other Algonquins there a.s.sembled. He was now on his return from a far more perilous errand. The Huron mission was in a state of dest.i.tution.

There was need of clothing for the priests, of vessels for the altars, of bread and wine for the eucharist, of writing materials,--in short, of everything; and, early in the summer of the present year, Jogues had descended to Three Rivers and Quebec with the Huron traders, to procure the necessary supplies. He had accomplished his task, and was on his way back to the mission. With him were a few Huron converts, and among them a noted Christian chief, Eustache Ahatsistari. Others of the party were in course of instruction for baptism; but the greater part were heathen, whose canoes were deeply laden with the proceeds of their bargains with the French fur-traders.

Jogues sat in one of the leading canoes. He was born at Orleans in 1607, and was thirty-five years of age. His oval face and the delicate mould of his features indicated a modest, thoughtful, and refined nature. He was const.i.tutionally timid, with a sensitive conscience and great religious susceptibilities. He was a finished scholar, and might have gained a literary reputation; but he had chosen another career, and one for which he seemed but ill fitted. Physically, however, he was well matched with his work; for, though his frame was slight, he was so active, that none of the Indians could surpa.s.s him in running.

With him were two young men, Rene Goupil and Guillaume Couture, _donnes_ of the mission,--that is to say, laymen who, from a religious motive and without pay, had attached themselves to the service of the Jesuits.

Goupil had formerly entered upon the Jesuit novitiate at Paris, but failing health had obliged him to leave it. As soon as he was able, he came to Canada, offered his services to the Superior of the mission, was employed for a time in the humblest offices, and afterwards became an attendant at the hospital. At length, to his delight, he received permission to go up to the Hurons, where the surgical skill which he had acquired was greatly needed; and he was now on his way thither. His companion, Couture, was a man of intelligence and vigor, and of a character equally disinterested. Both were, like Jogues, in the foremost canoes; while the fourth Frenchman was with the unconverted Hurons, in the rear.

The twelve canoes had reached the western end of the Lake of St. Peter, where it is filled with innumerable islands. The forest was close on their right, they kept near the sh.o.r.e to avoid the current, and the shallow water before them was covered with a dense growth of tall bulrushes. Suddenly the silence was frightfully broken. The war-whoop rose from among the rushes, mingled with the reports of guns and the whistling of bullets; and several Iroquois canoes, filled with warriors, pushed out from their concealment, and bore down upon Jogues and his companions. The Hurons in the rear were seized with a shameful panic.

They leaped ash.o.r.e; left canoes, baggage, and weapons; and fled into the woods. The French and the Christian Hurons made fight for a time; but when they saw another fleet of canoes approaching from the opposite sh.o.r.es or islands, they lost heart, and those escaped who could. Goupil was seized amid triumphant yells, as were also several of the Huron converts. Jogues sprang into the bulrushes, and might have escaped; but when he saw Goupil and the neophytes in the clutches of the Iroquois, he had no heart to abandon them, but came out from his hiding-place, and gave himself up to the astonished victors. A few of them had remained to guard the prisoners; the rest were chasing the fugitives. Jogues mastered his agony, and began to baptize those of the captive converts who needed baptism.

Couture had eluded pursuit; but when he thought of Jogues and of what perhaps awaited him, he resolved to share his fate, and, turning, retraced his steps. As he approached, five Iroquois ran forward to meet him; and one of them snapped his gun at his breast, but it missed fire.

In his confusion and excitement, Couture fired his own piece, and laid the savage dead. The remaining four sprang upon him, stripped off all his clothing, tore away his finger-nails with their teeth, gnawed his fingers with the fury of famished dogs, and thrust a sword through one of his hands. Jogues broke from his guards, and, rushing to his friend, threw his arms about his neck. The Iroquois dragged him away, beat him with their fists and war-clubs till he was senseless, and, when he revived, lacerated his fingers with their teeth, as they had done those of Couture. Then they turned upon Goupil, and treated him with the same ferocity. The Huron prisoners were left for the present unharmed. More of them were brought in every moment, till at length the number of captives amounted in all to twenty-two, while three Hurons had been killed in the fight and pursuit. The Iroquois, about seventy in number, now embarked with their prey; but not until they had knocked on the head an old Huron, whom Jogues, with his mangled hands, had just baptized, and who refused to leave the place. Then, under a burning sun, they crossed to the spot on which the town of Sorel now stands, at the mouth of the River Richelieu, where they encamped.

Their course was southward, up the River Richelieu and Lake Champlain; thence, by way of Lake George, to the Mohawk towns. The pain and fever of their wounds, and the clouds of mosquitoes, which they could not drive off, left the prisoners no peace by day nor sleep by night. On the eighth day, they learned that a large Iroquois war-party, on their way to Canada, were near at hand; and they soon approached their camp, on a small island near the southern end of Lake Champlain. The warriors, two hundred in number, saluted their victorious countrymen with volleys from their guns; then, armed with clubs and th.o.r.n.y sticks, ranged themselves in two lines, between which the captives were compelled to pa.s.s up the side of a rocky hill. On the way, they were beaten with such fury, that Jogues, who was last in the line, fell powerless, drenched in blood and half dead. As the chief man among the French captives, he fared the worst. His hands were again mangled, and fire applied to his body; while the Huron chief, Eustache, was subjected to tortures even more atrocious. When, at night, the exhausted sufferers tried to rest, the young warriors came to lacerate their wounds and pull out their hair and beards.

In the morning they resumed their journey. And now the lake narrowed to the semblance of a tranquil river. Before them was a woody mountain, close on their right a rocky promontory, and between these flowed a stream, the outlet of Lake George. On those rocks, more than a hundred years after, rose the ramparts of Ticonderoga. They landed, shouldered their canoes and baggage, took their way through the woods, pa.s.sed the spot where the fierce Highlanders and the dauntless regiments of England breasted in vain the storm of lead and fire, and soon reached the sh.o.r.e where Abercrombie landed and Lord Howe fell. First of white men, Jogues and his companions gazed on the romantic lake that bears the name, not of its gentle discoverer, but of the dull Hanoverian king. Like a fair Naiad of the wilderness, it slumbered between the guardian mountains that breathe from crag and forest the stern poetry of war. But all then was solitude; and the clang of trumpets, the roar of cannon, and the deadly crack of the rifle had never as yet awakened their angry echoes.[1]

Again the canoes were launched, and the wild flotilla glided on its way,--now in the shadow of the heights, now on the broad expanse, now among the devious channels of the narrows, beset with woody islets, where the hot air was redolent of the pine, the spruce, and the cedar,--till they neared that tragic sh.o.r.e, where, in the following century, New England rustics baffled the soldiers of Dieskau, where Montcalm planted his batteries, where the red cross waved so long amid the smoke, and where at length the summer morning was hideous with carnage, and an honored name was stained with a memory of blood.

The Iroquois landed at or near the future site of Fort William Henry, left their canoes, and, with their prisoners, began their march for the nearest Mohawk town. Each bore his share of the plunder. Even Jogues, though his lacerated hands were in a frightful condition and his body covered with bruises, was forced to stagger on with the rest under a heavy load. He with his fellow-prisoners, and indeed the whole party, were half starved, subsisting chiefly on wild berries. They crossed the upper Hudson, and, in thirteen days after leaving the St. Lawrence, neared the wretched goal of their pilgrimage, a palisaded town, standing on a hill by the banks of the River Mohawk.

Such was the first recorded visit of white men to Lake George. In the Iroquois villages Jogues was subjected to the most frightful sufferings.

His friend Goupil was murdered at his side, and he himself was saved as by miracle. At length, with the help of the Dutch of Albany, he made his escape and sailed for France; whence, impelled by religious enthusiasm, he returned to Canada and voluntarily set out again for the Iroquois towns, bent on saving the souls of those who had been the authors of his woes. Reaching the head of Lake George on Corpus Christi Day, 1646, he gave it the name of Lac St. Sacrement, by which it was ever after known to the French. Soon after his arrival the Iroquois killed him by the blow of a hatchet.

[Footnote 1: Lake George, according to Jogues, was called by the Mohawks "Andiatarocte," or _Place where the Lake closes_. "Andiataraque" is found on a map of Sanson. Spofford, _Gazetteer of New York_, article "Lake George," says that it was called "Canideri-oit," or _Tail of the Lake_. Father Martin, in his notes on Bressani, prefixes to this name that of "Horicon," but gives no original authority.

I have seen an old Latin map on which the name "Horiconi" is set down as belonging to a neighboring tribe. This seems to be only a misprint for "Horicoui," that is, "Irocoui," or "Iroquois." In an old English map, prefixed to the rare tract, _A Treatise of New England_, the "Lake of Hierocoyes" is laid down. The name "Horicon," as used by Cooper in his _Last of the Mohicans_, has no sufficient historical foundation. In 1646, the lake, as we shall see, was named "Lac St. Sacrement."]

BATTLE OF LAKE GEORGE.

For more than a century after the death of Jogues, Lakes George and Champlain were the great route of war parties between Canada and the British Colonies. Courcelles came this way in 1666 to lay waste the Mohawk towns; and Mantet and Sainte-Helene, in 1690, to destroy Schenectady in the dead of winter; while, in the next year, Major Schuyler took the same course as he advanced into Canada to retort the blow. Whenever there was war between France and England, these two lakes became the scene of partisan conflicts, in which the red men took part with the white, some as allies of the English, and some as allies of the French. When at length the final contest took place for the possession of the continent, the rival nations fiercely disputed the mastery of this great wilderness thoroughfare, and the borders of Lake George became the scene of noteworthy conflicts. The first of these was in 1755, the year of Braddock's defeat, when Shirley, governor of Ma.s.sachusetts, set on foot an expedition for the capture of Crown Point, a fort which the French had built on Lake Champlain more than twenty years before.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE REGION OF LAKE GEORGE from surveys made in 1762]

In January, Shirley had proposed an attack on it to the Ministry; and in February, without waiting their reply, he laid the plan before his a.s.sembly. They accepted it, and voted money for the pay and maintenance of twelve hundred men, provided the adjacent colonies would contribute in due proportion. Ma.s.sachusetts showed a military activity worthy of the reputation she had won. Forty-five hundred of her men, or one in eight of her adult males, volunteered to fight the French, and enlisted for the various expeditions, some in the pay of the province, and some in that of the King. It remained to name a commander for the Crown Point enterprise. n.o.body had power to do so, for Braddock, the commander-in-chief, was not yet come; but that time might not be lost, Shirley, at the request of his a.s.sembly, took the responsibility on himself. If he had named a Ma.s.sachusetts officer, it would have roused the jealousy of the other New England colonies; and he therefore appointed William Johnson, of New York, thus gratifying that important province and pleasing the Five Nations, who at this time looked on Johnson with even more than usual favor. Hereupon, in reply to his request, Connecticut voted twelve hundred men, New Hampshire five hundred, and Rhode Island four hundred, all at their own charge; while New York, a little later, promised eight hundred more. When, in April, Braddock and the Council at Alexandria approved the plan and the commander, Shirley gave Johnson the commission of major-general of the levies of Ma.s.sachusetts; and the governors of the other provinces contributing to the expedition gave him similar commissions for their respective contingents. Never did general take the field with authority so heterogeneous.

He had never seen service, and knew nothing of war. By birth he was Irish, of good family, being nephew of Admiral Sir Peter Warren, who, owning extensive wild lands on the Mohawk, had placed the young man in charge of them nearly twenty years before. Johnson was born to prosper.

He had ambition, energy, an active mind, a tall, strong person, a rough, jovial temper, and a quick adaptation to his surroundings. He could drink flip with Dutch boors, or Madeira with royal governors. He liked the society of the great, would intrigue and flatter when he had an end to gain, and foil a rival without looking too closely at the means; but compared with the Indian traders who infested the border, he was a model of uprightness. He lived by the Mohawk in a fortified house which was a stronghold against foes and a scene of hospitality to friends, both white and red. Here--for his tastes were not fastidious--presided for many years a Dutch or German wench whom he finally married; and after her death a young Mohawk squaw took her place. Over his neighbors, the Indians of the Five Nations, and all others of their race with whom he had to deal, he acquired a remarkable influence. He liked them, adopted their ways, and treated them kindly or sternly as the case required, but always with a justice and honesty in strong contrast with the rascalities of the commission of Albany traders who had lately managed their affairs, and whom they so detested that one of their chiefs called them "not men, but devils." Hence, when Johnson was made Indian superintendent there was joy through all the Iroquois confederacy. When, in addition, he was made a general, he a.s.sembled the warriors in council to engage them to aid the expedition.

This meeting took place at his own house, known as Fort Johnson; and as more than eleven hundred Indians appeared at his call, his larder was sorely taxed to entertain them. The speeches were interminable. Johnson, a master of Indian rhetoric, knew his audience too well not to contest with them the palm of insufferable prolixity. The climax was reached on the fourth day, and he threw down the war-belt. An Oneida chief took it up; Stevens, the interpreter, began the war-dance, and the a.s.sembled warriors howled in chorus. Then a tub of punch was brought in, and they all drank the King's health. They showed less alacrity, however, to fight his battles, and scarcely three hundred of them would take the war-path. Too many of their friends and relatives were enlisted for the French.

While the British colonists were preparing to attack Crown Point, the French of Canada were preparing to defend it. Duquesne, recalled from his post, had resigned the government to the Marquis de Vaudreuil, who had at his disposal the battalions of regulars that had sailed in the spring from Brest under Baron Dieskau. His first thought was to use them for the capture of Oswego; but letters of Braddock, found on the battle-field of the Monongahela, warned him of the design against Crown Point; while a reconnoitring party which had gone as far as the Hudson brought back news that Johnson's forces were already in the field.

Therefore the plan was changed, and Dieskau was ordered to lead the main body of his troops, not to Lake Ontario, but to Lake Champlain. He pa.s.sed up the Richelieu, and embarked in boats and canoes for Crown Point. The veteran knew that the foes with whom he had to deal were but a mob of countrymen. He doubted not of putting them to rout, and meant never to hold his hand till he had chased them back to Albany. "Make all haste," Vaudreuil wrote to him; "for when you return we shall send you to Oswego to execute our first design."

Johnson on his part was preparing to advance. In July about three thousand provincials were encamped near Albany, some on the "Flats"