Old Trails on the Niagara Frontier Part 6

A French exploratory expedition headed by Robert Cavelier, called La Salle, attempted the first fortification here in 1679.[29] There was a temporary Indian village on the west side of the river, but no settlement here, neither were there trees on this point. Here, under the direction of La Motte de Lussiere, were built two timber redoubts, joined by a palisade. This structure, called Fort Conty, burned the same year, and the site of Fort Niagara was unfortified until the summer of 1687, when the Marquis de Denonville, Governor General of Canada, after his expedition against the Senecas, made rendezvous on this point, and (metaphorically) shaking his fist at his rival Dongan, the Governor of the English Colony of New York, built here a fort which was called Fort Denonville. It was a timber stockade, of four bastions; was built in three days, occupied for eleven months by a garrison which dwindled from 100 men to a dozen, and would no doubt entirely have succ.u.mbed to the scurvy and the besieging Iroquois but for the timely arrival of friendly Miamis. It was finally abandoned September 15, 1688, the palisades being torn down, but the little huts which had sheltered the garrison left standing. How long they endured is not recorded. All traces of them had evidently vanished by 1721, when in May of that year Charlevoix rounded yonder point in his canoe and came up the Niagara. His Journal gives no account of any structure here. Four years more elapsed before the French ventured to take decided stand on this ground. In 1725 Governor De Vaudreuil deputed the General De Longueil to erect a fort here. The work was entrusted to the royal engineer Chaussegros de Lery--the elder of the two distinguished engineers bearing that name. He came to this spot, got his stone from Lewiston Heights and his timber from the forest west of the river, and built the "castle." Some of the cut stone was apparently brought from the vicinity of Fort Frontenac, now Kingston, across the lake. The oldest part of this familiar pile, and more or less of the superstructure, is therefore 171 years old.[30] There is, however, probably but little suggestion of the original building in the present construction, which has been several times altered and enlarged.

But from 1725 to the present hour Fort Niagara has existed and, with one brief interim, has been continuously and successively garrisoned by the troops of France, England, and the United States.

By 1727 De Lery had completed the fortification of the "castle," and the French held the post until 1759, when it surrendered to the English under Sir William Johnson. It was in its last defence by the French that the famous Capt. Pouchot first established the fortification to the eastward, with two bastions and a curtain-wall, apparently on about the same lines as those since maintained. The story of the siege, the battle, and the surrender is an eventful one; it is also one of the most familiar episodes in the history of the place, and may not be dwelt upon here.

July 25, 1759, marks the end of the French period in the history of Fort Niagara. The real significance of that period was even less in its military than in its commercial aspect. During the first century and more of our story the possession of the Niagara was coveted for the sake of the fur trade which it controlled. I cannot better tell the story of that hundred years in less than a hundred words, than to symbolize Fort Niagara as a beaver skin, held by an Indian, a Frenchman, an Englishman and a Dutchman, each of the last three trying to pull it away from the others (the poor Dutchman being early bowled over in the scuffle), and each European equally eager to placate the Indian with fine words, with prayers or with brandy, or to stick a knife into his white brother's back.

This vicinity also has peculiar precedence in the religious records of our State. It was near here[31] that Father Melithon Watteaux, the first Catholic priest to minister to whites in what is now New York State, set up his altar.[32] It has been claimed, too, by eminent authority, that on this bank of the Niagara, was acquired by the Catholic Church its first t.i.tle to property in this State[33]; and here at Fort Niagara, under the French _regime_, ministered Fathers Lamberville and Milet, Crespel and others of shining memory. But the capture of Fort Niagara by Sir William Johnson overthrew the last altar raised by the French on the east bank of the Niagara.

The first period of British possession of this point extends from 1759 to 1796. This includes the Revolutionary period, with sixteen years before war was begun, and thirteen years after peace was declared. When yielded up by the French, most of the buildings were of wood. Exceptions were the castle, the old barracks and magazine, the two latter, probably, dating from 1756, when the French engineer, Capt. Pouchot, practically rebuilt the fort. The southwest blockhouse may also be of French construction. A tablet on the wall of yonder bake-house says it was erected in 1762. There were constant repairs and alterations under the English, and several periods of important construction. They rebuilt the bastions and waged constant warfare against the encroaching lake. In 1789 Capt. Gother Mann, Royal Engineer, made report on the needs of the place, and his recommendations were followed the succeeding year. In his report for 1790 he enumerates various works which have been accomplished on the fortifications, and says: "The blockhouse [has been] moved to the gorge of the ravelin so as to form a guard-house for the same, and to flank the line of picketts.... A blockhouse has been built on the lake side." This obviously refers to the solid old structure still standing there.[34]

The real life of the place during the pre-Revolutionary days can only be hinted at here. It was the scene of Sir William Johnson's activities, the rendezvous and recruiting post for Western expeditions. Here was held the great treaty of 1764; and here England made that alliance with the tribes which turned their tomahawks against the "American rebels."

It may not be too much to say that the greatest horrors of the Revolutionary War had their source in this spot. Without Fort Niagara there would have been no ma.s.sacre of Wyoming,[35] no Cherry Valley and Bowman's Creek outrages. Here it was that the cunning of Montour and of Brant joined with the zeal of the Butlers and Guy Johnson, and all were directed and sanctioned by the able and merciless Haldimand, then Governor General of Canada. When Sullivan, the avenger, approached in 1779, Fort Niagara trembled; had he but known the weakness of the garrison then, one page of our history would have been altered. The British breathed easier when he turned back, but another avenger was in the camp; for the 5,000 inflocking Indians created a scarcity of provisions; and starvation, disease and death, as had been the case more than once before on this point, became the real commanders of the garrison at Fort Niagara.

I hurry over the Revolutionary period in order to dwell, briefly, on the time following the treaty of 1783. By that treaty Great Britain acknowledged the independence of this country. When it was signed the British held the posts of Point au Fer and Dutchmen's Point on Lake Champlain, Oswegatchie on the St. Lawrence, Oswego, Niagara, Detroit and Mackinac. The last three were important depots for the fur trade and were remote from the settled sections of the country. The British alleged that they held on to these posts because of the non-fulfillment of certain clauses in the treaty by the American Government. But Congress was impotent; it could only recommend action on the part of the States, and the impoverished States were at loggerheads with each other.

England waited to see the new Nation succ.u.mb to its own domestic difficulties. It is exceedingly interesting to note at this juncture the att.i.tude of Gov. Haldimand. In November, 1784, more than a year after the signing of the treaty, he wrote to Brig. Gen. St. Leger: "Different attempts having been made by the American States to get possession of the posts in the Upper Country, I have thought it my duty uniformly to oppose the same until His Majesty's orders for that purpose shall be received, and my conduct upon that occasion having been approved, as you will see by enclosed extract of a letter from His Majesty's Minister of State, I have only to recommend to you a strict attention to the same, which will be more than ever necessary as uncommon returns of furs from the Upper Country this year have increased the anxiety of the Americans to become masters of it, and have prompted them to make sacrifices to the Indians for that purpose"; and he adds, after more in this vein, that should evacuation be ordered, "on no account whatever are any stores or provisions to be left in the forts" for the use of the Americans.

Not only did Haldimand, during the years immediately following the treaty, refuse to consider any overtures made by the Americans looking to a transfer of the posts, but he was especially solicitous in maintaining the garrisons, keeping them provisioned, and the fortifications in good repair. There were over 2,000, troops, Loyalists and Indians, at Fort Niagara, October 1, 1783. A year later it was much the best-equipped post west of Montreal; and ten years later it was not only well garrisoned and armed, mounting twelve 24-pounders, ten 12-pounders, two howitzers and five mortars, with large store of sh.e.l.l and powder, but it had become such an important depot of supply to the impoverished Loyalists that a great scandal had arisen over the matter of feeding them with King's stores; and the last spring of the Britishers' sojourn here was enlivened by the proceedings of a court of inquiry, with a possible court-martial in prospect, over a wholesale embezzlement of the King's flour.

Haldimand prized Niagara at its true value. In October, 1782, several months before peace was declared, with admirable forethought and diplomacy, he wrote to the Minister: "In case a peace or truce should take place during the winter ... great care should be taken that Niagara and Oswego should be annexed to Canada, or comprehended in the general words, that each of the contending parties in North America should retain what they possessed at the time. The possession of these two forts is essentially necessary to the security as well as trade of the country."[36] He ordered the commandant at Fort Niagara to be very much on his guard against surprise by the wily Americans, and at the same time to "be very industrious in giving every satisfaction to our Indian allies."[37]

On the 2d of May, 1783, an express messenger from Gen. Washington arrived at Fort Niagara, bringing the terms of the treaty. The news gave great uneasiness to Indian-Supt. Butler. "Strict attention to the Indians," he wrote next day to Capt. Mathews, "has. .h.i.therto kept them in good humor, but now I am fearful of a sudden and disagreeable change in their conduct. The Indians, finding that their lands are ceded to the Americans, will greatly sour their tempers and make them very troublesome." The British, with good reason, were constantly considering the effect of evacuation upon the Indians.

The Americans made an ineffectual effort to get early possession of the posts. New York State made a proposition for garrisoning Oswego and Niagara, but Congress did not accede. On January 21, 1784, Gov. Clinton advised the New York State Senate and a.s.sembly on the subject. The British commander [Haldimand], he said, had treated the Provisional Articles as a suspension of hostilities only, "declined to withdraw his garrison and refused us even to visit those posts."[38] The Legislature agreed with the Governor that nothing could be done until spring.[39]

Spring found them equally impotent. In March Gov. Clinton sent a copy of the proclamation announcing the ratification of the treaty to Gen.

Haldimand: "Having no doubt that Your Excellency will, as soon as the season admits, withdraw the British garrisons under your command from the places they now hold in the United States, agreeable to the 7th Article of the Treaty, it becomes a part of my duty to make the necessary provisions for receiving the Post of Niagara and the other posts within the limits of this State, and it is for this purpose I have now to request that Your Excellency would give me every possible information of the time when these posts are to be delivered up."

Lieut.-Col. Fish, who carried Gov. Clinton's letter to Quebec, received no satisfaction. Gen. Haldimand evaded anything like a direct reply, saying that he would obey the instructions of His Majesty's Ministers--whom he was meanwhile urging to hold on to the posts--but he gave the American officer the gratuitous information that in his [Haldimand's] private opinion "the posts should not be evacuated until such time as the American States should carry into execution the articles of the treaty in favor of the Loyalists; that in conformity to that article [I quote from Haldimand's report of the interview to Lord North], I had given liberty to many of the unhappy people to go into the States in order to solicit the recovery of their estates and effects, but that they were glad to return, without effecting anything after having been insulted in the grossest manner; that although in compliance with His Majesty's order, and [to] shun everything which might tend to prevent a reconciliation between the two countries, I had make no public representation on that head. I could not be insensible to the sufferings of those who had a right to look up to me for protection, and that such conduct towards the Loyalists was not a likely means to engage Great Britain to evacuate the posts; for in all my transactions," he adds, "I never used the words either of my 'delivering' or their 'receiving' the posts, for reasons mentioned in one of my former letters to Your Lordship." And with this poor satisfaction Col. Fish was sent back to Gov. Clinton.[40]

In June, Maj.-Gen. Knox, Secretary of War, sent Lieut.-Col. Hull to Quebec on the same errand. In a most courteous letter he asked to be notified of the time of evacuation, and proposed, "as a matter of mutual convenience, an exchange of certain cannon and stores now at these posts for others to be delivered at West Point upon Hudson's River, New York, or some other convenient place," and he added that Lieut.-Col. Hull was fully authorized to make final arrangements, "so that there may remain no impediment to the march of the American troops destined for this service." Holdfast Haldimand sent him back with no satisfaction whatever, and again exulted, in his report to Lord Sydney, over his success in withstanding the Americans.[41] It was with great reluctance that in the summer of 1784 he reduced the number of British vessels by one on each of the lakes Erie and Ontario. "It appears to be an object of National advantage," he wrote to an official of the British Treasury, "to prevent the fur trade from being diverted to the American States, and no measure is so likely to have effect as the disallowing, as long as it shall be in our power, the navigation of the lakes by vessels or small crafts of any kind belonging to individuals; hence I was the more inclined to indulge the merchants, though in opposition to the plan of economy which I had laid down."[42]

In October, 1784, Congress ordered 700 men to be raised for garrisoning the posts; but the season was late, the States impotent or indifferent, and nothing came of the order. Congress faithfully exercised all the power it possessed in the matter. In 1783, and again in 1787, it unanimously recommended to the States (and the British commissioner was aware, when the treaty was made, that Congress could do no more than recommend) to comply speedily and exactly with that portion of the treaty that concerned creditors and Royalists. The States were unable to act in concert, and alleged infractions of the compact by the British, as, indeed, there were. There was a sporadic show of indignation in various quarters over the continued retention of the posts; but in view of more vital matters, and consciousness that the British claim of unfulfilled conditions was not wholly unfounded, the agitation slumbered for long periods, and matters remained _in statu quo_.

The establishment of the Federal Const.i.tution in 1789 gave the States a new and firmer union; and the success of Wayne's expedition materially loosened the British hold on the Indians and the trade of the lake region; so that Great Britain readily agreed to the express stipulation in the commercial treaty of 1794, that the posts should be evacuated "on or before the 1st of June, 1796." This treaty, commonly called Jay's, was signed in London, November 19, 1794, but not ratified until October 28, 1795. No transfer of troops was then reasonably to be expected during the winter. Indeed, it was not until April 25, 1796, that Lord Dorchester officially informed his council at Castle St. Louis that he had received a copy of the treaty. Even then the transfer was postponed until a.s.surances could be had that English traders among the Indians should not be unduly dealt with.[43] There was much highly-interesting correspondence between Lord Dorchester and the commandant at Niagara on this point; with James McHenry, our Secretary of War; with Robert Liston, the British Minister at Philadelphia; and, of course, with the Duke of Portland and others of the Ministry. Capt. Lewis, representing the United States, was sent to Quebec for definite information of British intention. He fared better than the American emissaries had twelve years before. He was cordially received and supplied with a copy of the official order commanding evacuation of the posts. Whereupon, having received the a.s.surance which his Government had so long sought, he immediately requested that the posts should not be evacuated until the troops of the United States should be at hand to protect the works and public buildings. "Being desirous," wrote Lord Dorchester, "to meet the wishes of the President, I have qualified my orders in a manner that I think will answer this purpose."[44] Thus it happened that the evacuation occurred at several different dates. It not being thought necessary to await the coming of American forces at the small posts on Lake Champlain and at Oswegatchie, the British withdrew from those points without ceremony about July 1st. Detroit followed, July 11th; then Oswego, July 15th. Most of the garrison appears to have left Fort Niagara early in July, but an officer's guard remained until August 11th,[45] when American troops arrived from Oswego, and the Stars and Stripes went to the masthead.

I have dwelt upon this period in the history of Fort Niagara at some length, partly because it is the exact period marked by our celebration today, partly because most of the data just related are gleaned from unpublished official MSS., of which but scant use appears to have been made by writers on the subject.

Of Fort Niagara under the American flag I shall be very brief. No loyal American can take pride in telling of its surrender to the British, December 19, 1813. There was neither a gallant defense nor a generous enemy. Cowardice on the one hand and retaliation on the other sum up the episode. The place was restored to the United States March 27, 1815, and with the exception of one brief interim has been maintained as a garrison to this day. The Morgan affair of 1826 need only be alluded to. The last defensive work of consequence--the brick facing of the bastions, fronting east--dates from 1861.

In the continental view, Fort Niagara was never of paramount importance.

Before the British conquest, Niagara was the key to the inner door, but Quebec was the master-lock. The French Niagara need never have been attacked; after the fall of Quebec it would inevitably have become Great Britain's without a blow. In English hands its importance was great, its expense enormous. Without it, Detroit and Mackinac could not have existed; yet England's struggle with the rebellious colonies would have been inevitable, and would have terminated exactly as it did, had she never possessed a post in the lake region. And of Fort Niagara as an American possession, the American historian can say nothing more true than this: that it is a striking exemplification of the fact that his beloved country is ill prepared upon her frontiers for anything save a state of international amity and undisturbed peace.

The Journals and Journeys of an Early Buffalo Merchant.

THE JOURNALS AND JOURNEYS OF AN EARLY BUFFALO MERCHANT.

On the frosty morning of February 5, 1822, a strange equipage turned out of Erie Street into Willink Avenue, Buffalo, drove down that steep and ungraded highway for a short distance, then crossed to Onondaga Street, and turning into Crow, was soon lost to sight among the snowdrifts that lined the road running round the south sh.o.r.e of Lake Erie. At least, such I take to have been the route, through streets now familiar as Main, Washington and Exchange, which a traveler would choose who was bound up the south sh.o.r.e of Lake Erie.

The equipage, as I have said, was a strange one, and a good many people came out to see it; not so much to look at the vehicle as to bid good-bye to its solitary pa.s.senger. The conveyance itself was nothing more nor less than a good-sized crockery-crate, set upon runners. Thills were attached, in which was harnessed a well-conditioned horse. The baggage, snugly stowed, included a saddle and saddle-bags, and a sack of oats for the horse. Sitting among his effects, the pa.s.senger, though raised but a few inches above the snow, looked snug and comfortable.

With a chorus of well-wishes following him, he left the village and by nightfall had traveled many miles to the westward, taking his course on the ice that covered Lake Erie.

This was John Lay, a merchant of the early Buffalo, whom even yet it is only necessary to introduce to the young people and to new-comers. The older generation remembers well the enterprising and successful merchant who shared fortunes with Buffalo in her most romantic days. Before going after him, up the ice-covered lake, let us make his closer acquaintance.

Mr. Lay, who was of good New-England stock, came to Buffalo in 1810 to clerk in the general store of his brother-in-law, Eli Hart. Mr. Hart had built his store on Main near the corner of Erie Street, the site now occupied by the American Express Co.'s building. His dwelling was on Erie Street, adjoining, and between the house and store was an ample garden. The s.p.a.ce now occupied by St. Paul's Church and the Erie County Savings Bank was a rough common; native timber still stood thick along the east side of Main, above South Division Street; the town had been laid out in streets and lots for four years, and the population, exceeding at that time 400, was rapidly increasing. There was a turnpike road to the eastward, with a stage route. Buffalo Creek flowed lazily into the lake; no harbor had been begun; and on quiet days in summer the bees could still be heard humming among the ba.s.swoods by its waters.

This was the Buffalo to which young Lay had come. Looking back to those times, even more novel than the condition of the frontier village, was the character of the frontier trade carried on by Mr. Hart. The trade of the villagers was less important than that which was held with the Canadians or English who were in office under the Government. To them they sold India goods, silks and muslins. Side by side with these the shelves were stocked with hardware, crockery, cottonades, jeans and flannels, Indian supplies, groceries and liquors. The young New Englander soon found that with such customers as Red Jacket and other representative red-men his usefulness was impaired unless he could speak Indian. With characteristic energy he set himself at the task, and in three months had mastered the Seneca. New goods came from the East by the old Mohawk River and Lewiston route, were poled up the Niagara from Schlosser's, above the falls, on flatboats, and were stored in a log house at the foot of Main Street.

Up to 1810 the growth of Buffalo had been exceedingly slow, even for a remote frontier point. But about the time Mr. Lay came here new life was shown. Ohio and Michigan were filling up, and the tide of migration strengthened. Mr. Hart's market extended yearly farther west and southwest, and for a time the firm did a profitable business.

Then came the war, paralysis of trade, and destruction of property. Mr.

Lay was enrolled as a private in b.u.t.ts's Company, for defense. The night the village was burned he with his brother-in-law, Eli Hart, were in their store. The people were in terror, fearing ma.s.sacre by the Indians, hesitating to fly, not knowing in which direction safety lay.

"John," said Mr. Hart, "there's all that liquor in the cellar--the redskins mustn't get at that."

Together they went down and knocked in the heads of all the casks until, as Mr. Lay said afterwards, they stood up to their knees in liquor. As he was coming up from the work he encountered a villainous-looking Onondaga chief, who was knocking off the iron shutters from the store windows. They had been none too quick in letting the whisky run into the ground. Mr. Lay said to the Indian:

"You no hurt friend?"

Just then a soldier jumped from his horse before the door. Mr. Lay caught up a pair of saddle-bags, filled with silver and valuable papers, threw them across the horse, and cried out to his brother-in-law:

"Here, jump on and strike out for the woods."

Mr. Hart took this advice and started. The horse was shot from under him, but the rider fell unharmed, and, catching up the saddle-bags, made his way on foot to the house of another brother-in-law, Mr. Comstock.

Later that day they came back to the town, and with others they picked up thirty dead bodies and put them into Rees's blacksmith shop, where the next day they were burned with the shop.

After starting his relatives toward safety, Mr. Lay thought of himself.

The Onondaga had disappeared, and Mr. Lay went into the house, took a long surtout that hung on the wall and put it on. As he stepped out of the door he was taken prisoner, and that night, with many others, soldiers and civilians, was carried across the river to Canada.

And here begins an episode over which I am tempted to linger; for the details of his captivity, as they were related to me by his widow, the late Mrs. Frances Lay, are worthy of consideration. I will only rehea.r.s.e, as briefly as possible, the chief events of this captivity in Canada, which, although not recorded in Mr. Lay's journals, resulted in one of his most arduous and adventurous journeys.

The night of December 30, 1813, was bitterly cold. The captured and the captors made a hard march from Fort Erie to Newark--or, as we know it now, Niagara, Ont., on Lake Ontario. The town was full of Indians, and many of the Indians were full of whisky. Under the escort of a body-guard Mr. Lay was allowed to go to the house of a Mrs. Secord, whom he knew. While there, the enemy surrounded the house and demanded Lay, but Mrs. Secord hid him in a closet, and kept him concealed until Mr.

Hart, who had followed with a flag of truce, had learned of his safety.

Then came the long, hard march through Canadian snows to Montreal. The prisoners were put on short rations, were grudgingly given water to drink, and were treated with such unnecessary harshness that Mr. Lay boldly told the officer in charge of the expedition that on reaching Montreal he should report him to the Government for violating the laws of civilized warfare.

In March he was exchanged at Greenbush, opposite Albany. There he got some bounty and footed it across the country to Oneida, where his father lived. As he walked through the village he saw his father's sleigh in front of the postoffice, where his parents had gone, hoping for news from him. They burned his war-rags, and he rested for a time at his father's home, sick of the horrors of war and fearful lest his const.i.tution had been wrecked by the hardships he had undergone. It will be noted that this enforced journey from Buffalo through Canada to Montreal and thence south and west to Oneida had been made in the dead of winter and chiefly, if not wholly, on foot. Instead of killing him, as his anxious parents feared it might, the experience seems to have taught him the pleasures of pedestrianism, for it is on foot and alone that we are to see him undertaking some of his most extended journeys.

I cannot even pause to call attention to the slow recovery of Buffalo from her absolute prostration. The first house rebuilt here after the burning was that of Mrs. Mary Atkins, a young widow, whose husband, Lieut. Asael Atkins, had died of an epidemic only ten days before the village was destroyed. The young widow had fled with the rest, finding shelter at Williamsville, until her new house was raised on the foundation of the old. It stood on the corner of Church and Pearl streets, where the Stafford Building now is.

The reader is perhaps wondering what all this has to do with John Lay.

Merely this: that when, at Mr. Hart's solicitation, Mr. Lay once more returned to Buffalo, he boarded across the common from the rebuilt store, with the Widow Atkins, and later on married her daughter Frances, who, many years his junior, long survived him, and to whose vigorous memory and kind graciousness we are indebted for these pictures of the past.

The years that followed the War of 1812 were devoted by Messrs. Hart & Lay to a new upbuilding of their business. Mr. Hart, who had ample capital, went to New York to do the buying for the firm, and continued to reside there, establishing as many as five general stores in different parts of Western New York. He had discerned in his young relative a rare combination of business talents, made him a partner, and entrusted him with the entire conduct of the business at Buffalo. After peace was declared the commercial opportunities of a well-equipped firm here were great. Each season brought in larger demands from the western country. Much of the money that accrued from the sale of lands of the Holland Purchase flowed in the course of trade into their hands. The pioneer families of towns to the west of Buffalo came hither to trade, and personal friendships were cemented among residents scattered through a large section. I find no period of our local history so full of activities. From Western New York to Illinois it was a time of foundation-laying. Let me quote a few paragraphs from memoranda which Mrs. Lay made relating to this period: