Historic Highways of America Volume VII Part 1

Historic Highways of America.

Vol. 7.

by Archer Butler Hulbert.

PREFACE

The little portage pathways which connected the heads of our rivers and lakes or offered the _voyageur_ a thoroughfare around the cataracts and rapids of our rivers were, as the subt.i.tle of this volume suggests, the "Keys of the Continent" a century or so ago. The forts, chapels, trading stations, treaty houses, council fires, boundary stones, camp grounds, and villages located at these strategic points all prove this. The study of these routes brings one at once face to face with old-time problems from a point of view almost never otherwise gained. The newness and value of reviewing historic movements from the standpoint of highways is strikingly emphasized in the case of portage paths. While studying them, one seems to rise on heights of ground like those these pathways spanned--and from that alt.i.tude, gazing backward, to get a better perspective of the military and social movements which made these little roads historic.

The difficulty of treating such a broad subject in a single monograph must be apparent. Portages are found wherever lakes or rivers lie, and our subject is therefore as broad as the continent. It is obvious that in a limited s.p.a.ce it is possible to treat only of portages most used and best known--which most influenced our history. These are practically included in the territory lying south of the Great Lakes between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mississippi River. Historically, too, we are taken back to the early days of our history when America was coextensive with the continent, for the important portages were those binding the St. Lawrence with the rivers of New England, and the tributaries of the Great Lakes with those of the Mississippi.

It has seemed most profitable to divide the subject into two parts: in the first, under the specific t.i.tle of "Portage Paths" is given a description of these routes, their nature, use, and evolution. The second part is devoted to a "Catalogue of American Portages," and in it are included extracts from the studies of students who have given the subject of portages their attention, showing style of treatment, methods of investigation and research, and results of field-work. Among these Dr. Wm. F. Ganong's _Historic Sites in the Province of New Brunswick_ and Elbert J. Benton's _The Wabash Trade Route_ are commanding examples of critical, scholarly field-work and specific historical a.n.a.lysis.

Professor Justin H. Smith's impressive monograph on _Arnold's Battle with the Wilderness_, and Secretary George A. Baker's _The St.

Joseph-Kankakee Portage_ are ill.u.s.trations of what could and should be done in many score of cases throughout the United States. To Sylvester's _Northern New York_ and Dr. H. C. Taylor's _The Old Portage Road_ the author is likewise indebted. The author has attempted to make good in some degree the astonishing lack of material concerning the famous Oneida Portage in New York, a subject which calls loudly for earnest and minute study--for this portage path at Rome, New York, with the exception of Niagara, was the most important west of the Hudson River.

A plea for the study of the subject of portages and the marking of historic sites occupies the concluding pages.

A. B. H.

MARIETTA, OHIO, May 22, 1903.

PART I

Portage Paths

CHAPTER I

NATURE AND USE OF PORTAGES

There may be no better way to introduce the subject of the famous old portages of America, than to ask the reader to walk, in fancy, along what may be called a "Backbone of America"--that watershed which runs from the North Atlantic seaboard to the valley of the Mississippi River.

It will prove a long, rough, circuitous journey, but at the end the traveler will realize the meaning of the word "portage," which in our day has almost been forgotten in common parlance, and will understand what it meant in the long ago, when old men dreamed dreams and young men saw visions which will never be dreamed or seen again in human history.

As we start westward from New Brunswick and until we reach the sweeping tides of the Mississippi we shall see, on the right hand and on the left, the gleaming lakes or half-hidden brooks and rivulets which flow northward to the St. Lawrence or the Great Lakes, or southward to the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico. On the high ground between the heads of these water-courses our path lies.

For the greater portion of our journey we shall find neither road nor pathway; here we shall climb and follow long, ragged mountain crests, well nigh inaccessible, in some spots never trod by human foot save the wandering hunter's; there we shall drop down to a lower level and find that on our watershed run roads, ca.n.a.ls, and railways. At many points in our journey we shall find a perfect network of modern routes of travel, converging perhaps on a teeming city which owes its growth and prosperity to its geographical situation at a strategic point on the watershed we are following. And where we find the largest population and the greatest activity today, just there, we may rest a.s.sured, human activity was equally noticeable in the old days.

As we pa.s.s along we must bear in mind the story of days gone by, as well as the geography which so much influenced it. It is to the earliest days of our country's history that our attention is attracted--to the days when the French came to the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes, and sought to know and possess the interior of the continent, to which each shining tributary of the northern water system offered a pa.s.sage way.

Pa.s.sing the question how and why New France was founded on the St.

Lawrence, it is enough for us to know she was there before the seventeenth century dawned, and that her fearless _voyageurs_, undaunted by the rushing tides of that great stream, were pushing on to a conquest of the temperate empire which lay to the southward. Here in treacherous eddies, the foaming rapids, and the mighty current of that river, they were soon taught the woodland art of canoeing, by the most savage of masters; and in canoes the traders, trappers, missionaries, explorers, hunters, and pioneers were soon stemming the current of every stream that flowed from the south.

But these streams found their sources in this highland we are treading.

Heedless of the interruption, these daring men pushed their canoes to the uttermost navigable limit, and then shouldered them and crossed the watershed. Once over the "portage," and their canoes safely launched, nothing stood between them and the Atlantic Ocean. It is these portage paths for which we shall look as we proceed westward. As we pa.s.s, one by one, these slight roadways across the backbone of the continent, whether they be miles in length or only rods, they must speak to us as almost nothing else can, today, of the thousand dreams of conquest entertained by the first Europeans who traversed them, of the thousand hopes that were rising of a New France richer and more glorious than the old.

Advancing westward from the northern Atlantic we find ourselves at once between the headwaters of the St. John River on the south and sparkling Etchemin on the north, and we cross the slight track which joins these important streams. Not many miles on we find ourselves between the Kennebec on the south and the Chaudiere on the north, and cross the pathway between them which has been traversed by tens of thousands until even the pa.s.ses in the rocks are worn smooth. The valley of the Richelieu heads off the watershed and turns it southwest; we accordingly pa.s.s down the Green Mountain range, across the historic path from Otter Creek to the Connecticut, and below Lake George we pa.s.s northward across the famous road from the extremity of that lake to the Hudson. Striking northward now we head the Hudson in the Adirondacks and come down upon the strategic watershed between its princ.i.p.al tributary, the Mohawk, and Lake Ontario. The watershed dodges between Wood Creek, which flows northward, and the Mohawk, at Rome, New York, where Fort Stanwix guarded the portage path between these streams. Pressing westward below Seneca Lake and the Genessee, our course takes us north of Lake Chautauqua, where we cross the path over which canoes were borne from Lake Erie to Lake Chautauqua, and, a few miles westward, we cross the portage path from Lake Erie to Riviere aux Boeufs, a tributary of the Allegheny.

Pursuing the height of land westward we skirt the winding valley of the Cuyahoga and at Akron, Ohio, find ourselves crossing the portage between that stream and the Tuscarawas branch of the Muskingum. As we go on, the valley of the Sandusky turns up southward until we pa.s.s between its headwaters and just north of the Olentangy branch of the Scioto.

We face north again and look over the low-lying region of the Black Swamp until the Maumee Valley bars our way and we turn south to cross the historic portage near Fort Wayne, Indiana, which connects the Maumee and the Wabash. By a zig-zag course we approach the basin of Lake Michigan and pa.s.s deftly on the height of ground between the St. Joseph flowing northward and the Kankakee flowing southward. Here we cross another famous portage path. Circling the extremity of Lake Michigan by a wide margin, our course leads us to a pa.s.sage way between the Chicago River and the Illinois. Here we find another path. The Wisconsin River basin turns us northward now, and near Madison, Wisconsin, we run between the head of the Fox and the head of the Wisconsin and cross the famed portage path which connected them. Just beyond lies the Mississippi, and if we should wish to avoid it we would be compelled to bear far north among the Canadian lakes.

Thus from the Atlantic coast we have pa.s.sed to the Mississippi without crossing one single stream of water; but we have crossed at least twelve famous pathways between streams that flow north and south--routes of travel, which, when studied, give us an insight into the story of days long pa.s.sed which cannot be gained in any other way. Over these paths pushed the first explorers, the men who, first of Europeans, saw the Ohio and Mississippi. Possessing a better knowledge of their routes and their experiences while voyaging in an unknown land, we realize better the impetuosity of their ambition and the meaning of their discoveries to them. We can almost see them hurrying with uplifted eyes over these little paths, tortured by the luring suggestions of the glimmering waterways in the distance. Whether it is that bravest of brave men, La Salle, crossing from Lake Erie to the Allegheny, or Marquette striding over the little path to the stream which should carry him to the Mississippi, or Celoron bearing the leaden plates which were to claim the Ohio for France up the difficult path from Lake Erie to Lake Chautauqua, there is no moment in these heroes' lives more interesting than this. These paths crossed the dividing line between what was known and what was unknown. Here on the high ground, with eyes intent upon the vista below, faint hearts were fired to greater exertions, and dreamers heavy under the dead weight of physical exhaustion again grew hopeful at the camping place on the portage path.

Of all whose ambitions led them over these little paths, none appeal more strongly to us than the daring, patient missionaries who here wore out their lives for the Master. Each portage was known to them, better, perhaps, than to any other cla.s.s of men. Here they encamped on their pilgrimages, though, from being spots of vantage which excited them onward, they were rather the line of demarcation between the near and the distant fields of service, and all of them full of trial and suffering and seeming defeat. Nowhere in the North can the heroism of the Catholic missionaries be more plainly read today in any material objects than in the deep-worn, half-forgotten portage paths which lay along their routes. The n.o.bility of their ambitions, compared with those of explorers, traders, and military and civil officials, has ever been conspicuous, but the full measure of their self-sacrifice cannot be realized until we know better the intense physical suffering they here endured. If the study of portage paths results only in a deeper appreciation of the bravery of these black-robed fathers, it will be worth far more than its cost.

In this connection it is proper to make a restriction; portage paths not only joined the heads of streams flowing in opposite directions, but were also land routes between rivers and lakes, between lakes, and even between rivers running in the same direction. They not only connected the Etchemin and St. John, and the Chaudiere and Kennebec, but also the St. John and the Kennebec, and the Kennebec and Pen.o.bscot. Many portages joined the lesser lakes; for example, such as Lake Simcoe, lying between Lake Ontario and Georgian Bay, or Lake Chautauqua lying between Lake Erie and the Allegheny River. The most common form of portage, however, was the pathway on a river's bank around rapids and waterfalls which impeded the _voyageur's_ way. These were very important on such a turbulent river as the St. Lawrence, and on smaller rivers such as the Scioto or Riviere aux Boeufs which were almost dry in certain places in midsummer.[1] In midwinter, with ice running or blocking the course on small streams, these carrying places were as important as in the dry season.

The clearest pictures preserved for us of travelers on these first highways are, happily, to be found in the letters of the Jesuit missionaries who knew them so well, and whose heroism it were a sin to forget. Without attempting to distinguish the various personalities of these brave men, let us take some descriptions of their routes from their own lips.

"These places are called portages, inasmuch as one is compelled to transport on his shoulders all the baggage, and even the boat, in order to go and find some other river, or make one's way around these rapids and Torrents; and it is often necessary to go on for several leagues, loaded down like mules, and climbing mountains and descending into valleys, amid a thousand difficulties and a thousand fears, and among rocks or amid thickets known only to unclean animals."[2]

"We returned by an entirely different road from that which we had followed when going there. We pa.s.sed almost continually by torrents, by precipices, and by places that were horrible in every way. In less than five days, we made more than thirty-five portages, some of which were a league and a half long. This means that on these occasions one has to carry on his shoulders his canoe and all his baggage, and with so little food that we were constantly hungry, and almost without strength and vigor. But G.o.d is good and it is only too great a favor to be allowed to consume our lives and our days in his holy service. Moreover, these fatigues and difficulties--the mere recital whereof would have frightened me--did not injure my health.... I hope next Spring to make the same journey and to push still farther toward the North Sea, to find there new tribes and entire new Nations wherein the light of faith has never yet penetrated."[3]

"On the third day of June, after four Canoes had left us to go and join their families, we made a portage which occupied an entire day spent now in climbing mountains and now in piercing forests. Here we had much difficulty in making our way, for we were all laden as heavily as possible--one carrying the Canoe, another the provisions, and a third what we needed in our commercial transactions. I carried my Chapel and my little store of provisions; there was no one who was not laden and sweating from every pore. We entered, somewhat late, the great river Manikovaganistikov, which the French call riviere Noire ["Black river"], because of its depth. It is quite as broad as the Seine and as swift as the Rhone. The eleven portages which we had to make there and the numerous currents which it was necessary to overcome by dint of paddling gave us abundant exercise."[4]

"But what detracts from this river's [St. Lawrence] utility is the waterfalls and rapids extending nearly forty leagues,--that is from Montreal to the mouth of Lake Ontario,--there being only the two lakes I have mentioned where navigation is easy. In ascending these rapids it is often necessary to alight from the canoe and walk in the river, whose waters are rather low in such places, especially near the banks. The canoe is grasped with the hand and dragged behind, two men usually sufficing for this.... Occasionally one is obliged to run it ash.o.r.e, and carry it for some time, one man in front and another behind--the first bearing one end of the canoe on his right shoulder, and the second the other end on his left."[5]

"Now when these rapids or torrents are reached, it is necessary to land and carry on the shoulder, through woods or over high and troublesome rocks, all the baggage and the canoes themselves. This is not done without much work; for there are portages of one, two, and three leagues, and for each several trips must be made, no matter how few packages one has.... I kept count of the number of portages, and found that we carried our canoes thirty-five times, and dragged them at least fifty. I sometimes took a hand in helping my Savages; but the bottom of the river is full of stones so sharp that I could not walk long, being barefooted."[6]

"But the mission of the Hurons lasted more than sixteen years, in a country whither one cannot go with other boats than of bark, which carry at the most only two thousand livres of burden, including the pa.s.sengers--who are frequently obliged to bear on their shoulders, from four to six miles, along with the boat and the provisions, all the furniture for the journey; for there is not, in the s.p.a.ce of more than 700 miles, any inn. For this reason, we have pa.s.sed whole years without receiving so much as one letter, either from Europe or from Kebec, and in a total deprivation of every human a.s.sistance, even that most necessary for our mysteries and sacraments themselves,--the country having neither wheat nor wine, which are absolutely indispensable for the Holy Sacrifice of the Ma.s.s."[7]

The following are extracts from the instructions given to missionaries concerning their conduct on the journey from Montreal to the Huron country (1637):

"The Fathers and Brethren whom G.o.d shall call to the Holy Mission of the Hurons ought to exercise careful foresight in regard to all the hardships, annoyances, and perils that must be encountered in making this journey.... To conciliate the Savages, you must be careful never to make them wait for you in embarking. You must provide yourself with a tinder box or a burning mirror, or with both, to furnish them fire in the daytime to light their pipes, and in the evening when they have to encamp; these little services win their hearts.... You must try and eat at daybreak unless you can take your meal with you in the canoe; for the day is very long, if you have to pa.s.s it without eating. The Barbarians eat only at Sunrise and Sunset, when they are on their journeys. You must be prompt in embarking and disembarking; and tuck up your gowns so that they will not get wet, and so that you will not carry either water or sand into the canoe. To be properly dressed, you must have your feet and legs bare; while crossing the rapids you can wear your shoes, and, in the long portages, even your leggings.... It is not well to ask many questions, nor should you yield to your desire to learn the language and to make observations on the way; this may be carried too far. You must relieve those in your canoe of this annoyance, especially as you cannot profit much by it during the work.... Each one should be provided with half a gross of awls, two or three dozen little knives called jambettes [pocket-knives], a hundred fishhooks, with some beads of plain and colored gla.s.s.... Each one will try, at the portages, to carry some little thing, according to his strength; however little one carries, it greatly pleases the Savages, if it be only a kettle.... Be careful not to annoy any one in the canoe with your hat; it would be better to take your nightcap. There is no impropriety among the Savages."[8]

With the foregoing introduction to the subject of portage paths and the nature of the journey over them, their historical importance is next to be noted.

In 1611 Champlain laid the foundation for Montreal, and two years later pushed northwest up the Ottawa River in search of a northwest pa.s.sageway to the East, but he only reached Isle des Allumettes, the Indian "half-way house" between the St. Lawrence and Lake Huron. Two years later the missionary Le Caron pushed up the same long voyage; following the Ottawa and Mattawan he entered the famous portage to Lake Nip.i.s.sing which opened the way to "Mer Douce"--Lake Huron. Champlain soon followed Le Caron over the same course and reached Lake Nip.i.s.sing by the same portage. In his campaign against the Iroquois in central New York, Champlain also found another route to Lake Huron, by way of Lake Ontario, the Trent, and the Lake Simcoe portage. Champlain's unfortunate campaigns against the Iroquois were of far-reaching effect; one of the significant results being to drive the French around to Lakes Huron, Michigan, and Superior by way of the Lake Nip.i.s.sing and Lake Simcoe portages.[9] The finding of Lakes Huron and Ontario and the routes to them was the hardy "Champlain's last and greatest achievement."

An interpreter of Champlain's, Etienne Brule, was the first to push west of "Mer Douce" and bring back descriptions that seem to fit Lake Superior. This was in 1629. Five years later Nicollet drove his canoe through the Straits of Mackinaw, discovered the "Lake of the Illinois"--Lake Michigan--and from Green Bay went up the Fox and crossed the strategic portage to the Wisconsin. He affirmed that if he had paddled three more days he would have reached the ocean!

Though Lake Erie was known to the French as early as 1640 it was not until 1669 that it was explored or even approximately understood. In September of that year the two men who rank next to Champlain as explorers, La Salle and Joliet, met on the portage between Lake Ontario and Grand River, and discussed the question of what the West contained and how to go there. They had heard of a road to a great river and they both were men to do and dare. They parted. Joliet went to Montreal, having converted the two Sulpitian missionaries Galinee and Dollier to his belief that the western road would be found by pa.s.sing to the western lakes. They therefore left La Salle and went up through the Strait of Detroit, and Galinee made the first map of the Upper Lakes now in existence.

La Salle on the other hand, believing a story told him by the Senecas, held that the road sought lay to the southwest, and it is practically agreed today that he pa.s.sed from near Grand River across Lake Erie southward, and entered the stream which was later known as the Ohio, and pa.s.sed down this waterway perhaps to the present site of Louisville, Kentucky. If modern scholarship in this case is correct, La Salle was the discoverer of the sweeping Ohio, having come to it over the Lake Erie-Riviere aux Boeufs portage, or the Lake Erie-Chautauqua portage.

There is little reason to believe he ascended the Cuyahoga and descended the Tuscarawas and Muskingum as has been feebly a.s.serted. The Ohio, if it was at this time actually discovered by La Salle, remained almost unknown for nearly a century.

In 1672 Frontenac detailed Joliet to make the discovery of the Mississippi and the adventurer went westward to Mackinaw where he met Marquette. The two went down Green Bay, up the Fox, and across the portage to the Wisconsin; on June 17, 1673, they entered the Mississippi River. Returning, they ascended the Illinois and (probably) the Kankakee; crossing the portage to the St. Joseph they were again afloat on Lake Michigan.

The indomitable La Salle built a vessel of sixty tons on Lake Erie in 1679--the "Griffin," first craft of her kind "that ever sailed our inland seas above Lake Ontario." In her La Salle was to sail to near the Mississippi; part of this ship's cargo comprised anchors and tackling for a boat in which the explorer would descend the Mississippi and reach the West Indies. The "Griffin" was lost, but her builder pushed on undismayed to the valley of the Illinois River. Late in 1679 he built Fort Miamis at the mouth of the St. Joseph, and in December he pa.s.sed up that river and over the portage to the Kankakee which Joliet and Marquette had traversed six years before. "Pa.s.sing places soon to become memorable in western annals ... he finally stopped at a point just below the [Peoria] lake and began a fortification. He gave to this fort a name that, better than anything else, marks the desperate condition of his affairs. Hitherto he had refused to believe that the "Griffin" was lost--the vessel that he had strained his resources to build, and freighted with his fortunes.... But as hope of her safety grew faint, he named his fort _Crevecoeur_--'Broken Heart.'"[10]

Leaving here his thirty men under Tonty to build a new boat, and sending Hennepin to the Upper Mississippi, the indomitable hero set out for Canada to secure additional material for his new boat. Ascending the Kankakee he crossed the portage to the western extremity of Lake Erie and pa.s.sed on through the lakes to Niagara.

Fort Crevecoeur was plundered and deserted, but La Salle, in the winter of 1681-82 was again dragging his sledges over the portage to the Illinois on his way to the great river which he, first of Europeans, should fully traverse, "but which fate seemed to have decreed that he should never reach." On the ninth of the following April the brave man stood at last at its mouth, and beside a column bearing the arms of France, a cross and a leaden plate claiming all the territory from which those waters came, he took possession of the richest four million square miles of earth for Louis XIV. "That the Mississippi Valley was laid open to the eyes of the world by a _voyageur_ who came overland from Canada, and not by a _voyageur_ who ploughed through the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico from Spain, is a fact of far-reaching import. The first Louisiana was the whole valley; this and the Lake-St. Lawrence Basin made up the second New France ... the two blended and supplemented each other geographically...."[11] The second New France was united to Louisiana by hinges; these hinges were the portage paths which joined them.