#'.t
» »
* * *:*i^ . .
%.*$■%
«* ''a. ■•*
r< H # % §; # # Ife !l^^^ Ii^' tl i t; »:
' # # P' # # # fr # #' n^' ^
■* K tt « A »k ife »
t ' f
i'm.
« jpjf :» jrtzi :ci:ci
t:*:cf:s:i:;i
» * « s.
»'fr:i
NYPL RESEARCH LIBRARIES
3 3433 06250179 0
'V
'f
fi
:6cn<^€. li)0\M
f
HISTORY
OF THE
PIONEER SETTLEMENT
OF
PfllLPS AND GOMAM'S PURCHASi
AND
MORRIS' RESERVE;
EMBEACING THE COUNTIES OF
MONROE, ONTARIO, LIVINGSTON", YATES, STEUBEN,
MOST OF WAYNE AND ALLEGANY, AND PARTS
OF ORLEANS, GENESEE AND WYOMING.
TO WHICH IS ADDED, A SUPPLEMENT, OR EXTENSION OF THE PIONEER HISTORY OF
MONROE COUNTY.
THE WHOLE PRECEDED BY
SOME ACCOUNT OF FRENCH AND ENGLISH DOMINION BORDER WARS OF THE EEVOLU-
TION INDIAN COUNCILS AND LAND CESSIONS THE PROGRESS OF SETTLEMENT
WESTWARD FROM THE VALLEY OF THE MOHAWK — EARLY DIFFICUL- TIES WITH THE INDIANS — OUR IMMEDIATE PREDECESSORS THE SENEGAS — WITH "A GLANCE AT THE IROQUOIS."
BY 0. TURNER,
[author OF THE "HISTORY OF THE HOLLAND PURCHASE."]
ROCHESTER:
PUBLISHED BY WILLIAM ALLING.
1851
Check d May li^U
Entered according to act of Cougicss, in the year I80I, by Wm. Alling, in tlie Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Northern District of New York.
^\:^^i^^^§^^
^S^^}r7Q^^^
.'. ', '.13tfci<:0.typcd by J. w, 'Bkorvs'it, Rochester.
FEINTED BY LEE, MAN.V tt CO., Rochester, JV. 1'.
DfMratinn.
TO THE
SURVIVING PIONEERS
AND THE
DESCENDANTS OF PIONEERS
OF
PHELPS AND aORHAM'S PURCHASE,
AND
MORRIS' RESERVE,
THIS "WORK IS EESPEOTFULLY DEDICATED: —
To the first, — as a feeble tribute, a moiety of what is tbeir due, for tlie physical and moral triumphs they have won through long early years of toil, privation and endurance. In view of the brief space allotted to man by an All Wise Providence, as an average existence — (uo more than thirty fleeting years constituting a generation) — you live to be the witnesses of more than it is often given to man to see. The wilderness you entered in your youtlis — some of you in middle age — you have lived to see not only "blossom as the rose," but to bear its matured and ripened fruit. Where you have followed the trails of your immediate predecessors — the Seneca Iroquois — or your own woods paths, are Canals, Rail Roads and Telegraphs. A long line of internal navigation — an artificial River — bearing upon its bosom the products of your own subdued, teeming soil, and continuous fleets, laden with the products of an Empire, that has sprung up around the bor- ders of our Western Lakes — winds along through vallies that you have seen but the abodes of wild beasts ; from whose depths you have heard in your log cabins, the terrific howl of the famishing wolf ! Aqueducts, structures that the architects of the old world might take for models, span the streams you have often forded, and over which you have helped to throw primitive log bndges. And upon these Lakes, whose commerce you have seen to consist of a few batteaux, lazily coasting along near shore, putting into bays and inlets, whenever the elements were disturbed — are fleets of sail vessels, and " float- ing palaces," propelled by a mighty agent, whose powers were but little known when you began to wield the axe in the forests of the Genesee coun- try. A subtle agent was occasionally flashing in the dark forests, indicating its power by scathing and levelling its tall trees ; then but partially subdued to man's use ; now tamed, harnessed, controlled ; traversing those wires, and bringing the extremes of this extended Union to hold converse with each other with the "rapidity of thought," — more than realizing the boasts of the spirit of the poet's imagination, who would
" Put a girdle 'round the Earth in thirty minutes '."
iv DEDICATION.
Villages, cities, institutions of religion and learning, are upon sites wliere you have seen the dark shades of the forest rest with a profound stillness, that you could hardly have expected to see disturbed by the hand of improve- ment But more than all this, you have lived to see an extended region of wilderness converted into fruitful fields; a landscape every where intei-spersed with comfortjible, often luxurious, farm buildings; surrounded by all the evi- dences of substantial, unsurjia.'ssed prosperity. Who else that have planted colonics, founded settlements, have lived to see such consummations ? Peaceful, bloodless, and yet glorious ! The conquerous upon battle fields have been destroyei-s ; you, creatore ; they, have made fields desolate ; you, have clothed them with smiling promise and full fruition. They, have brought mouming ; you, rejoicing. Theirs, was the physical courage of a day, perhaps of a for- tunate hour; yours, was the higher and nobler attrilnite — tlie moral courage — the sj)irit of endurance and i)ei-seYerance, that held out through long years of suUering and privation; that looked dangers and difliculties in the face, till they became familiar associates. In the retrospect of well-spent lives — in uew of the consummation of the great work of ci\ilization and improve- ment, you have helped to commence and carry on — now that the shades of evening are gathering around you — now that you are admonished that your work upon earth is done — well may you say : — " Noio Lord lettest tliou thy servant depart in 2iCC'C<^"
To the second, — as the inheritors of a rich legacy, the fruits of the achievments, of the long years of entei-prise, toil, fortitude and perseverance, of those Pioneer Fathei"s ; the conservators of their memories. Honors, titles, stai-s and garters, such as kings may bestow, ai-e baubles compared with what they have bequeathed ! Far most of them breaking out from their quiet New England homes, in youth, and strength, went first to the battle field, where it was the strong against the weak, the oppressor against the oppressed, and heljK^d to win a glorious national inheritiince ; then, after a short respite, came to this primitive region, and won a local inheritance for you, fair and feilile, as rich in all the elements of prosperity and happiness, as any that the sun of Heaven shines upon ! Guard the trust in a spirit of gratitude ; cherish the memories of the Pioneei-s; imitate their stem virtues; preserve and carry on tlie work they hswa so well bogim !
And both will accept this tribute, from the son of a Pioneer — one " who wa.s to the manor bum," — who has essiiyed to snatch from fading memories, gat) ler from im}>erfect records, and preserve these local Reminiscences; — and who, most of all regrets, that in tlie execution of the task, he has not been able to recognize more of the names and the deeds of the Founders of settle- ments IN TUB Gexksee Countkv. Tiie Author.
ODE,
IN COMMEMORATION OF THE FIRST SETTLEMENT OF WESTERN NEW-YOKE.
[by W. H. 0. HOSMEE, ESQ.J
High was the homage Senates paid To the plumed Conquerors of old,
And freely, at their feet were laid, Eich piles of flasliing gems and gold.
Proud History exhausted thought. Glad bards awoke then- vocal reeds;
While Phidian hands the marble wrought In honor of their wondrous deeds :
But our undaunted Pioneers Have conquests more enduring won.
In scattering the night of years. And opening forests to the sun;
And victors are they nobler far
Than the helmed cliiefs of other times,
"Who rolled their chariots of war, To foreign lands, and distant climes.
Earth groaned beneath their maU-clad men, Bereft of gi-eenness where they trod.
And wQdly rose, from hill and glen. Loud, agonizing shrieks to God.
Purveyors of the carrion bird
Blood streamed from their uphfted hands. And while the crash of States was heard.
Passed on their desolating hordes.
Then tell me not of heroes fled —
Crime, renders foul their boasted fame,
While widowed ones and orphans bled, They earned the phantom of a name.
The sons of our New England Sires, Armed with endurance, dared to roam
Far from the hospitable fires.
And the bright, hallowed bowers of Home.
The storm they met with bosoms bared, And bloodless triumphs bought by toil ;
The wild beast from his cavern scared. And clothed in bloom the virgin soil.
VI
ODE.
Disterapcr leagued with famines wan, Nenx'd to a high resolve, they bore ;
And flocks, upon the thymy lawn. Ranged where the panther yelled before.
Look now abroad ! the scene how changed,
Where fifty fleeting years ago Clad in their savage costume ranged.
The belted lords of shaft and bow.
In praise of pomp let fawning Art Can-e rocks to triumph over years.
The grateful incense of the heart Give to our living Pioneers.
Almighty ! may thine out-stretched arm Guard through long ages, yet to be.
From tread of slave, and kingly hai-ni, Ole Eden of the Geneske.
ERRATA.
Page 131 — arts of peace, instead of " acta"
Page l.'il — read sister instead of " daughter of Zachariah Seymour." Page 171 — in note — Judge Taylor, slioulil be in place of " Judge Wells. " Two references wliirh belong to ]iage 32.") are earned over to page 326. Page 4b3 — Shay's Rebellion — "Ceneral order" — dateshnukl have been 1786. Page 314 — Hthfine, "after," should jjreeede " his appdiiitinent." P4rc 416 — ittli line $200 in^-tead (.f $2,00."
Page r)'J7 — IM\ hue, receij)ts of Rochester P. 0., sliould be as in a few lines above, $3,46, iustead of "$346."
PEEFACE.
A WORK, commenced nearly one year since, the publication of whicli has been delayed far beyond the promised period, owing to causes unforseen — principally to the fact tliat it is of greater magnitude, and has involved a far greater amount of travel, labor and research than was anticipated — is now presented to the public.
The general plan of it will hardly be misunderstood by its readers : — It is a his- tory of the Pioneer, or first settlement, of that portion of the Genesee Country em- braced in the purchase of OUver Plielps and Nathaniel Gorham of the State of Mas- sachusetts and the Seneca Indians, and of that portion purchased by Robert Morris, which he reserved in his sale to the Holland Company. The boundaries of the region embraced are indicated in the title page, and are more clearly defined in the body of the work. It is the eastern, and nearly the one half of what constitutes, properly, Western NeAV York ; its eastern boundary being the Massachusetts line of pre-emption. The work commences with the advent of the French upon the St. Lawrence, and traces their progi'ess to this region, and along the shores of the Western Lakes to the Mississippi ; briefly recognizing the prominent events that followed under English and French dominion.
Enough of colonial history has been embraced — that which tended in the direction of our local region — to make such an induction to the main design of the work, as woiild secure an imbroken chain, or chronology of events, commencing with the landing of the French upon the St. Lawrence, and continued tlu-ough the period of French and English occupancy. As all this was but incidental, it has been, generally, briefly disposed of, for the author was admonished that his space would be required when he had entered upon a less beaten track. Yet he may venture to anticipate that even the student of history, will find something of interest in this precedent portion of the work ; for it is not wholly an explored field, and each new gleaner may bring something from it to add to the common stock of historical knowledge.
It was the original design of the author to incoiporate in the work, something of the histoiy of our immediate predecessors, the Senecas. It was mainly abandoned however, on learning that a local author, quite competent for the task, (as liis now published work bears witness,) was preparing for the press, a work which would em- brace mucli of interest in their history.* Much of them, however, will be found scattered throughout a large portion of the work, and a separate chapter is appropriated to them, from the pen of a native, and resident of the Genesee Valley — a scholar and a poet, whose fame has gone out far beyond our local region, and confeiTed credit upon its literature.t ^^ See chapter II, Part I.
The colonial period passed, — the local events of the Revolution briefly disposed of; — ^Indian treaties, commencing under the administration of George Clinton — the almost interminable difficulties in which the State, and individual purchasers were involved in with the Lessees, — the slow advance of settlement in tliis dnec- tion — are subjects next in order. Much of all this has been drawn from authentic records, and did not previously exist in any connected printed record.
The main subject reached — settlement of the Genesee countiy commenced — a general plan of naiTative, somewhat novel in its character was adopted : — History and brief personal Biography, have been in a great measure blended. This has vastly increased the labor of the work, but it is hoped it will be found to have added to its interest It will readily be inferred that it involved the necessity of selecting the most prominent of the Pioneers in each locahty — those with whom could be blended most of the Pioneer events. In almost every locality there has been regretted omis- sions ; a failure to recognize all who should have been noticed. This has been partly the result of necessity, but oftener the neglect of those who had promised to furnisn the required ijjformation. While the work contains more of names and sketches of ][)ersonal history, than are to be found in any other local annals that have been pub- lished in our country, there are hundreds of Pioneer names reluctantly omitted.
• " League of ttie Iroquois," by Lewis H. Morgan, Esq., of Rochester, t W. H. C. Hosmer, Esq., of Avon.
Viii PREFACE.
In all that relates to early flifficvilties -with the Indians ; to threatened renewals of the Border Wars, after the settlement of the country commenced, Uie author has been fortunate in the possession of authentic records, hitherto neglected, which gives to the subjects a new and enhanced interest. The accfuints of the treaties of Messrs. ritKEKixo and CnAPix, with the Indians, are mostly derived from official coiTespou- dence ; while most of what relates to the councils lield with them to obtain land ces- sions, west of the Seneca Lake, are derived from the iiianuscri])ts of Oliver Phelps and TlK)mas Morris, tlie principal actors in the scenes.
The autlior cannot but coHclude, that poorly as tlic task may have been executed, it has been undertaken at a fortunate period More than one half of this volume is made up from tlie reminiscences, the fading memories, of the living actors in the scenes described and the events related. No less than nine, who, within the last ten months, have rendered in this way, essential sen-ice, —without whose assistance the work must liave l)ecn far more imperfect — are either in their graves, or tlieir memories are wholly impaired.
The thanks of the author arc especially due to Henrv O'Rielly, for the use of val- uable papers collected with reference to continuing some historical researches, lie had so well commenced ; to James H. Woods, for the use of papers of Chas. Williamson ; to Oliver Piielvs an(l James S. Wadswouth, for the use of papery in their possession, as the representatives of Oliver Phelps and James Wadswouth ; to Johx Grkio and Joseph Fellows for access to papei-s in their respective land offices ; and especially to the former, for the essential materials in his possession as the representative of Israel Chapin, and liis son and successor, Israel Chapin ; to the managers of the Rochester Atha-ncum, for free access to their valuable Library ; to C. C. Clarke, of Alh>any, and S. B. B';ckley, of Yates, for valualjle contributions; to numerous other indivicluals, most of whom are indicated in the body of the work. And to Lee, Man'n <k Co., the Printers, and Wm. Alling, the Publisher, for then- liberal terms, and the business accommodation with which they have aided the enteiiirLse.
1^;^" The manner of publishing is a material departure from the original intention. Instead of publishing one work, there will be four. This is the first of the series. Those that will follow in order — (and in rapid succes.sion if no unforeseen difficulties occur) — will be: — P. andG. Purchase — Livingston and Allegany; — P. and G. P. — Ontario and Yates ; — P. and G. P. — Wavne. In this plan it is confidently believed the interests of Author, Publisher and Purchaser, will be made to harmonize. It obviates the necessity of a large work of two volumes, and a hkhi price, fatal to that general sale that a local work must have, within its scone, to remunerate the labor of its preparation and defray the necessary expenses attending it. While the citizens of Monroe, for instance, will have all the general history of Phelps and Gorham'a Purchase, and Morris' Pesen-e — 193 octavo pages — brought down to a late Pioneer period ; they will not be under the necessity of purchasing at an an enhanced price, the mere local history of other counties. The only alteration there will be in the main body of the work, in tlie ■subsequent volumes announced, will be the con'ectionof any 'material errors that are discovered ; but there will be in each one of them, the "Supplement," or "Extension," of the Pioneer history of the counties, as in this in- stance — Monroe.
The historical works which have been essential to the autlior's purposes, other than those duly credited, are: — Conquest of Can.ada, Travels of the Duke De la Roche- foucault Liancourt, Mary Jemison or the White Woman, History of Schoharie, His- tory of Onondaga, History of Rochester.
U;^^ There arc no illustrations : — ]iartly because they are not essential to history, but mainly because they enhance the cost beyond what the sales of any local work ■will warrant. The leading object has been in the mechanical execution of the work, to funiish a large amount of reading matter, in a plain, neat and .substantial manner, at a LOW price, — which object, it will probably be conceded, has been accomplished.
^^ It will be obsen-ed, that little is said of the early history of Steuben. In an early stage of the prejiaration of the work, the author was apprised that a local histo- ry of tliat county, was preparing for the press.
{[[^Errors in names, in dates, in facts, will undoubtedly be discovered. De- pending upon memories often infirm, one disagi-eeing with another, labor, weeks and niontlis of careful research, could not wholly gu.ird against them. HT With reference to the future enterjirises announced, the author will be th;mkful for any con-ections that may be communicated to him personally, or tlirough the maila
PART FIRST.
CHAPTER I
BRIEF NOTICES OF EARLY COLONIZATION.
It was one hundred and sixteen years after the discovery of America by Columbus, before the occupancy of our race was tend- ing in this direction, and Europeans had made a permanent stand upon the St. Lawrence, under the auspices of France and Cham- plain, In all that time, there had been but occasional expeditions to our northern Atlantic coast, of discovery, exploration, and occasional brief occupancy ; but no overt act of possession and dominion. The advent of Champlain, the founding of Quebec, from which events we date French colonization in America, was in 1608. One year previous, in 1607, an English expedition had entered the Chesapeake Bay and founded Jamestown, the oldest English settle- ment in America. In 1609, Henry Hudson, an Englishman, in the employ of the East India Company of Holland, entered the bay of the river that bears his name, and sailed up the river as far as Albany. In 1621, permanent Dutch colonization commenced at New- York and Albany. In 1620 the first English colonists com- menced the permanent occupancy of New England at Plymouth.
In tracing the advent of our race to our local region, French colonization and occupancy, must necessarily, take precedence. Western New- York, from an early period after the arrival of Cham- plain upon the St. Lawrence, — until 1759, — for almost a century and a half, formed a portion of French Canada, or in a more ex- tended geographical designation, of New France.
France, by priority of discovery, by navigators sailing under her flag, and commissioned by her King, in an early period of partition among the nations of Europe, claimed the St. Lawrence and ils tributary waters and all contiguous territory, as her part of the New World. Setting at defiance, as did England the papal bull of Pope
10 PHELrS Am) GORnAM's PUECHASE.
Alexander VI., which conferred all of America, " its towns and cities" included, upon Spain and Portugal, her then King, Francis I. entered vigorously into the national competition for colonial pos- sessions in America. While the English and Dutch were cruizing upon our southern and eastern coasts, entering the bays, and mouths of their rivers, hesitating and vascillating in measures of permanent colonization ; and the Spaniards were making mixed advents of gold hunting and romance, upon our south-western coast ; the French were coasting off the mouth of the St. Lawrence, and unappalled by a rigorous climate, and rough and forbidding landscapes, resolving upon colonization upon its banks. " Touch and take," was the order of the day ; with but little knowledge of the value of the vast region that had been discovered, of its capabilities and resources, but such as had been gained by navigators in a distant view of the coasts, and an occasional entrance into bays and rivers ; the splendid inheritance was parcelled out, or claimed by the nations of Europe, as lightly and inconsiderately as if it had been of little worth.
The subjects of France, as it would now seem, when such a vast field had been opened for possession ; after they had seen and heard of more promising and congenial regions, made but a poor choice of her share in the New World. We are left principally to con- jecture for the explanation : First, the broad stream of the St. Law- rence invited them to enter and explore it ; no where were Europe- ans met by the natives with more friendly manifestations ; and a lucrative trade soon added to the inducements. It was a mighty flood that they saw pouring into the ocean, with a uniformity that convinced them of the vast magnitude and extent of the region it drained. Though ice-bound for long and dreary months, when spring approached, its fetters gave way, and on rolled its rushing tide, a " swift witness" that it came from congenial regions embraced in their discovery. Beside, a " shorter route to the Indies," across this continent, was one of the prominent and early objects of European navigators, following the discovery of Columbus. It was in fact, a main object, allied perhaps with visions of precious metals;— for actual colonization, was at first but incidental to the leading objects.*
* Upon llio slioros of tho ChoHapoake, upon tlie Hucl^on and St. Lawrence, and in the bays of New Eni,'land, the first information swii^ht after by European adventures, of tlic natives, tlirouirli tlie medium of si^^ns, liad reference to tlie directions fi'om which the rivers flowed, and the existence of precious metals.
PHELPS AOTD GORHAm's PURCHASE. 11
It was but a natural deduction, that the broad and deep river they had entered from the ocean, and its tributaries, were stretched out in a lono; line toward the Pacific coast.*
The progress of colonization in all the northern portion of the continent, after discovery, was slow. What in our age, and espe- cially where our own countrymen are engaged, would be but the work of a year, was then the work of a century. It was before the v/orld had been stimulated by the example of a free government and a free people, unincumbered by royal grants and charters, and their odious and paralizing monopolies. It was before governments had learned the simple truths that som.e of them are yet slow in appre- ciating, that the higher destinies of our own race are only to be worked out in the absence of shackles upon the mind and the phy- sical energies of the governed. It was when the good of the few was made subservient to that of the many ; and Kings and their favorites were central orbs around which all there was of human energy, enterprize and adventure, was made to revolve as sattelites. It was when foreign wars and conquests, and civil wars, in which the higher interests of mankind were but little involved, were divert- ing the attention of Europe from the pursuits of peace, civilization, and their extended sphere. There was no prophet to awake the sleeping energies of the Old World to an adequate conception of the field of promise that was opening here ; — no one to even fore- shadow all that was hidden in the womb of time ; and had there been, there would have been unfolded to Kings and Potentates, little for their encouragement ; but how much to man, in all his noblest aspirations, his looking forward to a better time !
When colonization, such as contemplated permanent occupation finally commenced, it was in a measure, simultaneous, upon our northern coasts. Two powerful competitors started in the race
* The intrepid La Salle, with a spirit of daring enterprize that was never excelled, liad no sooner seen the " avalanche of waters" at Niagara, than he detennined to fol- low them to then- source. He had no sooner seen the upper waters of the Mississippi, than he had determined to see the gi-eat basin into which they flowed. Leaving be- hind him detachments of his foUowei.s to mahitaiii the posts he established, and cjury on lucrative trade, he was himself absorbed in the great objects of his mission, a new route to tlie Indies and the discoveiy of gold. The extent of his wanderings is sup- posed to have been Chihuahua, in New Mexico. He was almost upon the right track with reference to both objects. Others beside him, seem to have been prepossessed with the idea tliat there was gold in that direction. Shall we conclude that tlirough some unknown medium, some indistinct idea had been promulgated of what in our day is actual discover}' and acquisition?
12 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE.
for possession and dominion in America ; and a third was awakened and became a competitor. While as yet the Pilgrim Fathers were refugees in Germany, deliberating as to where should be their assylum, aj)palled by all the dangers of the ocean and an inhospita- ble clime, and at times half resolving to go back and brave the per- secution from which they had fled; — while as yet there was but one feeble colony, upon all our southern coast, and the rambling De Soto and the romantic Ponce de Leon had been but disappointed adventurers in the south-west ; the adventurous Frenchmen had entered the St. Lawrence and planted a colony upon its banks ; had erected rude pallisades at Quebec and Montreal, and were making their way by slow stages in this direction. Halting at Kingston, (Frontenac) they struck off across Canada by river and inland lake navigation — carrying their bark canoes over portages — and reached Lake Huron ; then on, amid hostile tribes, until thev had explored and made missionary and trading stations upon Lakes Michigan and Superior, the upper waters of the Mississippi, and the Illinois rivers.
In all the French expeditions to the St. Lawrence, previous to thai of Champlain, there is little interest save in those of Jaques Cartier. In his second one, in 1535, with three ships, and a large number of accompanying adventurers he entered the St. Lawrence and gave it its name ; giving also, as he proceeded up the river, names to other localities which they yet bear. Arrived at the Island ol Orleans, he had a friendly interview with the natives. In a previ- ous voyage he had seized and carried to France, two natives, who, returning with him somewhat instructed in the French languao-e, now acted as his interpreters, and gave a favorable account to their people of those they had been with, and the country they had seen. Proceeding on, he anchored for the winter, at " Stadacona," after- wards called Quebec. Here he was met by an Indian chief, Dona- cona, with a train of five hundred natives who welcomed his arri- val. The Indians giving Cartier intimation that a larger village than theirs lay farther up the river. With a picked crew of thirty- five armed men he ascended the river, had Iriendly interviews with the natives upon its banks. Arriving at the present site of Mon- treal, he found an Indian village called Hochelaga, which "stood in the midst of a great field of Indian corn, was of a circular form, containing about fifty large huts, each fifty paces long and from
PHELPS AND GORHAm's PUECHASE. 13
fourteen to fifteen wide, all built in the shape of tunnels, formed of wood, and covered with birch bark ; the dwellings were divided into several rooms, surrounding an open court in the centre, where the fires burned. Three rows of pallisades encircled the town, with only one entrance ; above the gate and over the whole length of the outer ring of defence, there was a gallery, approached by flights of steps, and plentifully provided with stones and other missiles to resist attack."* The strangers were entertained with fetes and dances, and in their turn, made presents. The sick and infirm came to Jaques Cartier, who in the simple minds of the natives, possessed some supernatural power over disease, which he disclaimed ; but the pious adventurer " read aloud part of the Gospel of St. John, and made the sign of the cross over the sufferers."
Jaques Cartier returned to his colony at St. Croix, after a friendly parting with his newly acquired acquaintances at Hochelaga. In •his absence, the intense cold had come upon his people unprepared, the scurvy had attacked them, twenty-five were dead, and all were more or less affected. The kind natives gave him a remedy that checked the disease.f The expedition prepared to return to France. As if all of the first interviews of our race with the natives were to be signally marked by acts of wrong and outrage, as an earnest of the whole catalogue that was to follow, under pretence that he had seen some manifestations of hostilities, Cartier signalized his depart- ure, and his ingratitude, by seizing the chief, Donacona, the former captives, and two others ; and conveying them on board his vessels, took them to France, The act was mitigated, it has been said, by a kind treatment that reconciled them to their fate.
The expedition had found no " gold nor silver" and for that rea- son disappointed their patron, the King, and the people of France ; added to which, were tales of suffering in a rigorous climate. Ja- ques Cartier, however, made favorable reports of all he had seen and heard ; and the Indian chief, Donacona, as soon as he had acquired enough of French to be intelligible, " confirmed all that had been said of the beauty, richness and salubrity of his native country." The chief, however, sickened and died.
The next commission to visit the new dominions of France, was
* Conquest of Canada.
t A decoction of the leaf ana the bark of the fir tree.
14 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PUTvCHASE.
granted to Jean Francois do la Roche, with Jaques Cartier as his second in command. It was formidable in its orcranization and equipment; after a series of disasters: — the arrival of Cartier, upon his old grounds; a reconciling of the Indians to his outrage, a winter of disease and death among his men ; a failure of de la Roche to arrive in season ; it returned to France to add to a war in which she had just then engaged, reasons for suspending colonial enterprises. Almost a half century succeeded for French advents to become but a tradition upon the banks of the St. Lawrence.
How like a vision, in all this time, must those advents have seemed with the simple natives ! A strange people, with all that could excite their wonder : — their huge ships, tlieir loud mouthed cannon, whose sounds had reverberated upon the summits of their mountains, in their vallies, and been re-echoed from the deep recesses of their forests ; with their gay banners, and music, and all the imposing at- tendants of fleets sent out by the proud monarch of a showy and ostentatious nation of Europe ; who had addressed them in an un- known tongue, and by signs and symbols awed them to a contempla- tion of a Great Spirit, other than the terrible Manitou of their sim- ple creed ; who had showed them a " book" in which were revela- tions they had neither " seen in the clouds nor heard in the winds ;" whose advent had been a mixed one of conciliation and perfidy : — who had given them a taste of "strong water,'" that had steeped their senses in forgetfulness, or aroused their fiercest passions. All this had come and gone, began and ended, and kft behind it a vacu- um, of mingled wonder, amazement and curiosity ; and of dark fore- bodings of evil, if there was some kind spirit, caring for their future destiny, to foreshadow to them the sequel of all they had witnessed. Would the pale faced strangers come again ? — Would their lost ones be restored to reveal to them the mysteries of those wondrous advents; and tell them of all things they had seen in that far oflT land, the home of the strangers ? These were the anxious enquiries, the themes around their council fires, in their wigwams, when they held communion with their pagan deities, or asked the moon and the stars to be the revelators of hidden things. One generation passed away and another succeeded, before the mysterious strangers came,
Note.— Toward the close of the period between the advents of Cartier and Cham-
1)lain, small e.xpeditions of French lishermen and traders, generally coasting off New '"ouudland, occasionally entered the St Lawrence and traded with the natives.
PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE. 15
first to conciliate their favor by offering themselves as allies ; then to wrest from them empire and dominion.
The first expedition of Champlain was in 1603 and '4. The ac- counts of them possess but little interest. In 1608, equipped by his patrons for an expedition, having principally in view the fur trade, he extended his own views to the addition of permanent colonization, and missionary enterprize. Arriving at Quebec, he erected the first European tenements upon the banks of the St. Lawrence. The In- dians, with whom Cartier had cultivated an acquaintance, were re- duced to a few in number, by removal, famine and disease. Re- maining at Quebec through a severe winter, relieving the neccessi- ties of the Indians, his own people suffering under an attack of the scurvy, Champlain in 1609, accompanied by two Frenchmen and a war party of the natives, went up the St. Lawrence, and struck off to the Lake that still bears his name. The war party that accom- panied him, were of the Algonquins and Hui'ons, of Canada, who were then at war with the Iroquois. Their object was invasion of the Ir- oquois country, and Champlain, from motives of policy had become their ally. Upon the shores of a lake to which he gave the name of St. Sacrament — afterwards called Lake George — the party met a war party of two hundred Iroquois ; a battle ensued, the tide of it was as uusual, turning in favor of the warlike and almost every where conquering Iroquois, when Champlain suddenly made his appearance, with his two Frenchmen, and the first fire from their arquabuses, kil- led two of the Iroquois chiefs, and wounded a third. The Iroquois, dismayed, as well by the report and terrible effect of new weapons of war, as by the appearance of those who bore them, held out but little longer; fled in disorder; were pursued, and many of them killed and taken prisoners. This was the first battle of which history gives us any account, in a region where armies have since often met. — And it marks another era, the introduction of fire arms in battle, to the natives, in all the northern portion of this continent. They had now been made acquainted with the two elements that were destined to work out principally their decline and gradual extermination. They had tasted French brandy upon the St. Lawrence, English rum upon the shores of the Chesapeake, and Dutch gin, upon the banks of the Hudson. They had seen the mighty engines, one of which was to conquer them in battle and the other was to conquer them in peace councils, where cessions of their domains were involved.
16 PHELPS AND GOKHAM's PUECHASE.
Champlain returned to France, leaving a small colony at Quebec; was invited to an audience, and had favor with the King, who be- stowed upon all this region, the name of New France. * Cham- plain visited his infant colony again in IGIO, and 1613, recruiting it, and upon each occasion going himself to battle with his neighbors and allies against the Iroquois. In 1015 a company of merchants in France, having procured a charter from the King, which embraced all of French interests in New France, gave to Champlain the prin- cipal direction of their affairs. Having attended to the temporal affairs of the colony, the conversion of the natives, by Catholic missionaries, engaged his attention. Four missionaries of the order of Recollets were enlisted. These were the first missionaries in Canada, and the first upon all our Atlantic coast, with the exception of some Jesuit missionaries that had before reached Nova Scotia. Leaving the large recruit of colonists he brought out at Quebec, where he found all things had gone well in his absence, the intrepid ad- venturer, and soldier as he had made himself, pushed on to Montreal, and joined again a war party of his Indian allies, against the Iroquois. The Iroquois were this time conquerors. Defeat had lessened the importance of Champlain in the eyes of his Indian allies, and they even refused him and his few followers, a guide back to Quebec, althoujih he had been wounded. Remaining for the winter an imwilling guest of his Indian allies, he improved his time, as soon as his wounds would allow of it, in visiting more of the wild region of Canada. In the spring he returned to Quebec, and in July, to France.
For several succeeding years, Champlain visited and revisited the colony, extending and strengthening it ; encountering vicissitudes in France consequent upon the breaking up and change of proprietor- ships ; his colony subjected to attacks from the Iroquois whom he
* Ch.arlevoix.
Note. — It lia.s romainpH for an in(lofatiinia1)le rosoarclirr in the history of the early French occupancv of tliis rciridii — O. H. ^Iar^illall, Eh(i. of ]5utFalo — to ascertain where rhatii|>laiii and his Imiian allies invaded the territory of the Iroquois. They came iicro.s.s the lower end of Lake Ontario, and j3a.ssinjj thronfjh what is now Jefferson and Oswego coiiiitiej<, crossed the Oueide Lake and attacked tlie Onondagas at their prin- cipal settlement and Fort on the banks of the Ononda^ja Lake, when a battle ensued wliich la.Mt<-(l three hours, the invaders gained no advantage ; and Champlain who expected a reinforcement endeavored in vain to induce liis Indian alliesto remain and continue the w^ige. He had received two severe wounds, and was carried in a basket of "wicker-work" to the shores of lake Ontiirio. He spent a dreary winter among the Hurous on the north shore of tliC Lake.
PHELPS AND GOKHAm's PURCHASE. 17
had injudiciously made his implacable enemies. Still, French colo- nization in New France slowly progressed, and trading establish- ments were multiplied. In 1623 a stone Fort was erected at Quebec to protect the colonists against the Iroquois, and a threatened end of amicable relations with the Hurons and Algonquins. In 1625, '6, the first Jesuit missionaries came out from France, among them were names with which we become familiar in tracing the first advents of our race in Western New York and the region of the Western Lakes.
In 1627 the colonization of New France was placed upon a new footing, by the organization of the "Company of One Hundred Asso- ciates." Their charter gave them a monopoly in New France, and attempted to promote christianization and colonization, both of which had been neglected by making the fur trade a principal object. The "Company" engaged to introduce 16,000 settlers before 1643. — Before the advent of this new association, the colony had become but a feeble one ; the Indians had become hostile and kept the French confined to their small settlements, at times, to their fortifications. \
Hostilities having commenced between France and England, the first vessel sent out by the Associates fell into the hands of the English. An English expedition after destroying the French trading establishment at Tadoussac, on the Sagenay, sent a demand for the surrender of Quebec. Champlain replied in a manner so spirited and determined as to delay the attack, until the English force was increased. In July 1629 an English fleet appeared, and demanded a surrender which Champlain with his reduced and feeble means of resistance was obliged to obey. The terms of capitulation se- cured all private rights of the French colonists, and most of them remained. Champlain, however, returned to France. It was a siege and capitulation in miniature, that after the lapse of more than a century, was destined to be the work of concentrated armies and navies, and weeks of fierce contest.
English possession was surrendered by treaty in 1632. At the period of this small conquest : — "the Fort of Quebec, surrounded by a score of hastily built dwellings and barracks, some poor huts on the Island of Montreal, the like at Three Rivers and Tadoussac, and a few fishermen's log houses and huts on the St. Lawrence, were the only fruits of the discoveries of Verrazano, Jaques Cartier, Roberval and Champlain, and the great outlay of La Roche and
18 PHELPS AND GOEHAm's PURCHASE.
*
De Monts, and the toils and sufferings of their followers, for nearly
a century." *
Champlain returned in 1G33, having been re-appointed Governor of New France, bringing with him recruits of Missionary and other colonists, and gave a new impulse to colonial enterprize ; settle- ments began to be extended, and a college, with rich endowments, was formed at Quebec, for the "education of youth,