Production Note Cornell University Library produced this volume to replace the irreparably deteriorated original. It was scanned using Xerox software and equipment at 600 dots per inch resolution and compressed prior to storage using CCITT Group 4 compression. The digital data were used to create Cornell's replacement volume on paper that meets the ANSI Standard Z39.48-1984. The production of this volume was supported in part by the New York State Program for the Conservation and Preservation of Library Research Materials and the Xerox Corporation. Digital file copyright by Cornell University Library 1994.tfotntU Uninewitg Xibrarn ft THE GIFT OF -/ A-j.aar^. y./.f .?..U$0£BUFFALO HISTORICAL SOCIETY BUILDING, FROM D E L A W A R E-P A R K BRIDGE.PUBLICATIONS OF THE BUFFALO Historical Society VOLUME V EDITED by FRANK H. SEVERANCE secretary of the society BUFFALO, NEW YORK: ' PUBLISHED BY THE BUFFALO HISTORICAL SOCIETY 1902 TA. I PRESS 5 UNION AND TIMES BUFFALOOFFICERS OF THE V BUFFALO HISTORICAL SOCIETY 1902 President . . . ..........ANDREW LANGDON. Vice-President.......... GEORGE ALFRED STRINGER. Secretary . ............... . FRANK H. SEVERANCE. Treasurer ...............CHARLES G. NORTH. BOARD OF MANAGERS. Lewis J. Bennett, Wilson S. Bissell, Albert H. Briggs, Joseph P. Dudley, Charles W. Goodyear, George S. Hazard, Henry W. Hill, Andrew Langdon, J. N. Larned, J. J. McWilliams, George B. Mathews, Charles J. North, G. Barrett Rich, • Henry A. Richmond, Frank H. Severance, George Alfred Stringer, James Sweeney, George W. Townsend, William C. Warren, Charles R. Wilson. The Mayor of Buffalo, the Corporation Counsel, the Comptroller, Superintendent of Education, President of the Board of Park Com- missioners, and President of the Common Council, are also ex-oMcio members of the Board of Managers of the Buffalo Historical Society.PREFACE THE greater part of the contents of the present volume, the fifth in the Publication Series of the Buffalo Historical Society, falls naturally into three classes : I. Papers relating to the War of 1812 on the Niagara. II. Papers relating to Buffalo harbor, and early trade and travel on the Lakes. III. Papers relating to comparatively recent events in Buffalo and Vicinity—some of the more important episodes in the local “history of our own times.” In the group of papers and documents relating to the War of 1812, the Society has been especially fortunate in securing for publication the order-book and some of the cor- respondence of Mai.-Gen. Amos Hall. For the use of this material special acknowledgment is due to Gen. Hall's grand- daughter, Mrs. Samuel Johnson of Dowagiac, Mich. The Hall MSS. contain details of the militia service on the Niag- ara, and especially of the camp on Eleven-Mile Creek, other- wise Williamsville, not elsewhere to be found. They well show, too, some of the difficulties encountered in supplying the commonest needs of the troops. The correspondence of Lt. Patrick McDonogh, for the use of which the Society is indebted to Miss Isabel O'Reilly, Overbrook, Pa.; the letters of Jonas Harrison, and the reminiscences of Archer Gallo- way, Gen. Asa Warren and William A. Bird, are all contri- butions of worth to the records of the War of 1812.VI PREFACE. The historical writings of Judge Samuel Wilkeson are in this volume brought together for the first time. While not local in a restricted sense, they relate to a region whose history is closely linked with that of Western New York and the Lakes, and they deal with a most important period, con- cerning which there are few’ chronicles by contemporary hands, and probably none which in fidelity to fact and gra- phic depiction of exciting episode or romantic conditions, surpass in value the record here preserved. Judge Wilke- son’s experience in the early lake and river trade forms a fitting prelude to his own account of the first construction of the harbor of Buffalo. That subject is continued and practically completed to date, by the very valuable history of harbor construction and improvement at Buffalo by the United States Government, written for this volume by Maj. Thomas W. Symons, U. S. A., engineer in charge, and Mr. John C. Quintus. The subject of early lake trade, touched upon by Judge Wilkeson, is most entertainingly continued in the reminis- cences of Capts. James Sloan and Augustus Walker. These are substantial contributions to the history of a phase of American development which should receive all possible illumination, and to which this Society hopes to make further contributions in following volumes. Capt. James Sloan, it may be recalled, was a veteran of the War of 1812, one of the leading spirits in the capture of the Caledonia and Adams in the autumn of 1812. The historian Lossing visited him at his Black Rock home, in i860, and heard from his own lips the story of that enterprise.PREFACE. yn Belonging to the history of recent years, but worthy of the authoritative record here made of it, is the story of the passage of the Niagara Reservation Act in 1885, written by the man best qualified to tell it, the Hon. Thomas V. Welch, superintendent of the Niagara Reservation from its estab- lishment. Of perhaps narrower interest, but forming chap- r ters of no slight importance in the history of Buffalo, is the narrative of the evolution of the city’s Public Library, told by one whose name will always be gratefully associated with its work and growth prior to 1897—Mr* J. N. Larned; and, for the later years, by Supt. Henry L. Elmendorf, who rep- resents and is best qualified to write of the free library move- ment of 1897, and the subsequent development of an institu- tion which has become notable among the free circulating libraries of America. The other papers and miscellaneous material in the vol- ume have all, it is hoped, sufficient worth to warrant publi- cation. The collection has at least the merit of offering to the student of the history of our region a considerable body of information drawn from contemporary but heretofore unprinted manuscripts. The Society hopes to follow it soon with another volume, for which it has already secured some manuscripts of exceptional value. The literal publication of documents in many cases has resulted in the misspelling of proper names. These, and such other errors as have been detected, will be found corrected either in the text, in foot-notes, or in the index. F. H. S.CONTENTS PAGE Officers of the Society............................ iii Preface................................................. . v The Achievements of Capt. John Montresor on the Niagara ......................Frank H. Severance ' i Papers Relating to the War of 1812 on the Niagara Frontier: I. The First Shot. Reminiscences of ...... . Archer Gallozvay 21 II. Militia Service of 1813-14. ' Correspondence of . . Maj.-Gen. Amos Hall 27 III. Two Dramatic Incidents . . . Gen. Asa Warren 61 IV. A Hero of Fort Erie. Correspondence of . ... . Lieut. Patrick McDonogh 64 V. The Sortie from Fort Erie . . . William A. Bird 95 VI. A War-Time. Letter-Book. Correspondence of . . Jonas Harrison 99 A Niagara Falls Tourist of 1817. The Journal of ... . . Capt. Richard Langslozv m Historical Writings of Judge Samuel Wilkeson: Preface: Biographical Sketch . Samuel Wilkeson, Jr. 135 Recollections of the West and the Building of the Buffalo Harbor . . . . .Judge Samuel Wilkeson I. Removal to Western Pennsylvania............... 147 II. Difficulties of Early Settlers............■ . . 151 III. Early Commerce of the West..................... 156 IV. To St. Clair's Defeat . ...................... 160 * V. The Whiskey Insurrection........................... . 163 VI. The Whiskey Insurrection, concluded ..... 168 VII. Channel of Trade—Western Boatmen .... 176X CONTENTS. PAGE VIII. The Life 9F the Keel-Boatmen.............. 179 IX. Land Speculations........................ 182 X. Beginning of Buffalo Harbor.......... . 185 XI. The First Season's Work................... 188 XII. Progress — and Catastrophe .......... 192 XIII. Nature helps make a New Channel ..... 195 XIV. The First Lake Harbor—Two Characters . . . 199 XV. Another Crisis ................ 203 XVI. Fruition—And an Excursion................. 208 Early Trade Routes: Adventures and Recollections of a Pioneer Trader ...............Capt. James Sloan 215 Buffalo Harbor: Its Construction and Improvement dur- ing the XIXth Century : . . , .'........................ Maj. Thomas W. Symons, C. E., U. S. A., and John C. Quintus, M.E. [Introduction : Prior to 1826].................... . 240 I. The Entrance Channel and Piers . . . . . . . 245 II. Protection Work along the Lake Shore . . . . . 252 III. The Breakwaters and Outer Harbor . . . ... 260 . Early Days on the Lakes and the Cholera Visitation of 1832 ........... Capt. Augustus Walker 287 The Wreck of the Walk-in-the-Water ................... Mary A. Witherell Palmer 319 ^ How Niagara was made free; the passage of the Niagara Reservation Act in 1885 . . . Hon. Thomas V. Welch 325 Historical Sketch of the Buffalo Library . . 7. N. Lamed 361 The Buffalo Free Public Library Movement in the Year 1897 .......................Henry L. Elmendorf 377 The new Home of the Buffalo Historical Society in Dela- ware Park: , I. Notes on the Earlier Years . Frank H. Severance 385 II. A Record of Legislation : . Hon. Henry W. Hill 390 III. The Building Described, by its architect... George Cary 397CONTENTS. XI APPENDIX. PAGE I. Julius E. Francis and the Lincoln Birthday Associa- tion . ............................................ 405 II. The Niagara Frontier Landmarks Association . . . 409 III. Bibliography of the Upper Canada Rebellion .... * 427 IV. Buffalo Historical Society Publications ........... 497 Index .................................................... 501 ILLUSTRATIONS. Buffalo Historical Society Building.........Frontispiece Buffalo Historical Society Building: Grand Portico .................................Faces page 1 Portrait, Judge Samuel Wilkeson ....... “ 135 Portrait, Andrew Langdon.................... . “ 385 Buffalo Historical Society Building: Museum “ 389 Buffalo Historical Society Building: Lecture Room .................................... “ 393 Buffalo Historical Society Building: Jos. C. Greene collection........................ 397 Langdon Bronze Doors, Historical Building . 401 Lincoln Statue, Historical Building ..... “ 405BUFFALO HISTORICAL SOCIETY BUILDING, SOUTH FRONT, SHOWING GRAND PORTICO.IL THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF CAPTAIN JOHN MONTRESOR •ON THE NIAGARA, AND THE FIRST CONSTRUCTION OF FORT ERIE. - BY FRANK H. SEVERANCE. Little attention appears to have been given, by students of the history of the Niagara frontier, to the period shortly after the British had succeeded the French in possession of Fort Niagara. The French relinquished that post in July, 1759. The British garrisoned the fort, and immediately established communication with Fort Pitt by way of Presqu* lie, now Erie. The following year came Major Robert Rogers and his rangers, with numerous British officers en route to Detroit to receive the surrender of the French gar- rison at that point. There was much coming and going. Sir William Johnson early returned to the scene of his vic- tory over the French; but the traders were ahead of him, eager to seize the opportunities which the conquest had opened. When on his way to Detroit in 1761, he found that a storehouse had been built at the upper landing on the Niag- ara by Rutherford, Duncan & Co., who were preparing 10 monopolize the carrying-place around the Falls under au- thority of a permit from Gen. Amherst. They had dis- covered a quantity of hand-sawed lumber left by the French in the Chippewa Creek, and were using it to -build a small 552 THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF vessel for the purpose of exploring the unknown shores of the upper lakes. Blockhouses guarded the wharves at the upper and lower landings, the former being known as Little Niagara; windlasses were used for hoisting heavy weights up the heights, and also for helping vessels to ovei- come the rapids at the head of the river. But the march across country, from the point at Lewis- ton Heights to the place of re-embarking above the falls, was all unprotected. The ambuscade and massacre at the Devil’s Hole, in 1763, was one of the most atrocious episodes of this period. It is also one of the most familiar; and I pass over it to dwell upon the important steps which the British immediately took to prevent its repetition. This is the period, the reader will recall, when Pontiac was plotting his great blow at the British. Major Gladwin was hemmed in at Detroit until relieved by the expedition of 1763. To make more vivid the conditions of the time and place, on the Niagara frontier and to the westward, I submit the following episode, of which no mention will be found in Parkman or other less valuable chronicles of the times of Pontiac and his conspiracy: In August or September, 1763, there arrived at Fort Niagara one Lieut. Rutherford, in charge of a vessel which Major Gladwin had sent down from Fort Detroit for goods. Rutherford, who was a mere youth, had just escaped from a long and cruel captivity. In May of that year Major Gladwin of the 80th Regiment, commanding officer at De- troit, being anxious to know whether the lakes and rivers between that place and Mackinac were navigable for ves- sels larger than the small batteaux then in use, dispatched a small party, under command of Capt. Charles Robson of the 77th Regiment, on an exploring trip. Young Ruther- ford went with them. They were surprised by the Indians and Capt. Robson and most of the others were killed and scalped. Rutherford, made a prisoner, saw the body of Capt. Robson served up at a feast, and with great difficulty escaped from being compelled to eat of the remains of his friend. His master, Perwash, a Chippewa, made him wear Indian dress, kept him for a time as a slave, then adoptedCAPTAIN JOHN MONTRESOR. 3 him, and finally sold him to a Frenchman named Quilleim. He was recaptured by a band of Chippewas, taken before Pontiac, where he acted as interpreter, carried off by King Owasser, chief of the Ottawas, and by him delivered again to Perwash, young Rutherford’s former master. He wit- nessed many atrocities and bore many hardships, and finally, by the aid of a Frenchman, made his escape, running away through the woods-at night, clad only in a leathern shirt. His French friend met him at an appointed rendezvous with a canoe and took him down to Detroit. “The whole town turned out to see me,” he afterwards wrote. “My appearance certainly was calculated to excite w their pity as well as laughter. I had, as before remarked, nothing but a greasy painted shirt on, my face painted red, black and green, my hair cut all away, and my skin blacked all over with the moss I had put on. My legs were so lacerated with the briars and thorns, and so affected with poisonous vines, that they were swollen as big as any in His Majesty’s service. Besides this, to those who inspected me narrowly, my arms presented the appearance or impres- sions, one of a turkey’s foot, the other of a flower in pink or purple dyes. I had thus been tatooed by the savages as a mark set upon me as belonging to their tribe, and such is the indelible effect upon the part punctured, that the im- pression will remain as fresh through life as on the first day of the operation.” After ten days’ rest, Rutherford was sent by Major Glad- win in a vessel bound for the Niagara to procure a supply of provisions for the garrison. “I agreed to run the hazard of the undertaking,” he writes, “and accordingly embarked on board the ship. We had some shots fired at us from the Huron Indians going down the river, which we returned. In four days we reached Fort Sche^ope [Schlosser], near the Falls, and marched under a strong guard to [Fort] Niagara, without experiencing any annoyance from the enemy. It was late before the sloop' could be laden and ready to sail again. Some artillery and provisions with about 18 officers and men of the 17th and 46th Regiments, constituted the chief part of what we had on board.”4 THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF They had only sailed one day from Fort Schlosser, and must therefore have been well at the eastern end of the lake, when the vessel sprung aleak. The heavy artillery and other things were thrown overboard, and after desperate work at the pumps, when everybody was in despair, the sinking ship grounded on a sand-bar within fifty yards of the shore. With great difficulty they landed only to be ^at-. tacked by the Indians. The refugees fought from behind a temporary breastwork, several of their party being killed before .the Indians left them. Here—our hero says they called the place Lover’s Leap—they stayed for 24 days, awaiting a reinforcement of batteaux to take them back to Niagara. “It was here,” wrote Rutherford, “that I first entered upon duty as a private soldier. After we had quitted this position we marched over the carrying-place at the Falls just three days after the Indians had defeated our troops in a rencontre”—that is, the massacre of the Devil’s Hole. “We saw about 80 dead bodies, unburied, scalped and sadly mangled. When at Niagara I determined not to attempt fortune longer in the woods, and resolved to go to New York, where after residing some time with my uncle, I proceeded to join the 42d Regiment, in which corps I had obtained an Ensigncy, at the time when they were preparing for an expedition against the Shawanese and Delaware In- dians to the westward, under Gen. Bouquet.”* I have given this episode to help make more vivid the conditions of the time. Now, in the spring of 1764, there came to Niagara Col. Bradstreet and his army, on their way up Lake Erie, to force submission on the tribes in the neigh- borhood of Sandusky and Detroit. The arrival of this army of 1200 men at Fort Niagara, its advance over the portage and its embarkation at Fort Schlosser for Lake Erie, Park- man records in a single page; but of the important work which had been done to make possible this rapid transit from lake to lake and around the great cataract with security against Indian surprise, he says not a word. On that sub- ject, drawinig my data from unfamiliar sources, I offer the following narrative. * For Rutherford’s narrative, see Transactions of the Canadian Institute, Vol. III.CAPTAIN JOHN MONTRESOR. 5 On Sunday night, May 19, 1764, there arrived at Fort Niagara a man whose coming was to prove of great sig- nificance in the Niagara region. This was Capt. John Montresor, His British Majesty’s chief of engineers in America. He was a son of that Col. James Montresor, who, as chief military engineer for Gen. Amherst in 1759, had conceived and in part directed the plan, the successful exe- cution of which won Fort Niagara from the French. Capt. John, like his father, was an able engineer, but his long and arduous service for the King in America was but ill- requited. As he is to perform an important work on the Niagara it is well to form his intimate acquaintance.* He had already served four years at Gibraltar, as an as- sistant engineer under his father, prior to his departure from England for America, Dec. 24, 1754, in the same ship with Gen. Braddock. At first an ensign in the 48th Regiment, Gen. Braddock soon gave him engineer’s rank at ten shil- lings a day; on July 4, 1755, he was made a lieutenant of the 48th; he received an engineer’s commission from Gen. Shirley, May 14, 1756, and thereafter served, according to his own journals, as ‘‘engineer and practitioner of engineer- ing,” “lieutenant and sub-engineer,” “engineer extraordin- ary and captain lieutenant,” and “engineer in ordinary and captain” for ten years. Dec. 18, 1775, he received his special commission from the King as Chief Engineer of America. His American service covered nearly 24 years, in which period he served under 14 commanders in chief, was in 18 actions and made 32 voyages. His journals record a long list of what he terms “special services,” many of these being hazardous expeditious against the enemy, carrying des- patches, scouting, and well nigh every form of adventure which an intrepid soldier could undertake in wilderness warfare. One of these undertakings was what he termed his “great success in 1763, in relieving the garrison of De- -Jl My narrative is bpsed on the Montresor journals, the original MSS. of which are still preserved by the family. In 1882 they were in possession of Col. Henry- Edward Montresor of Stonely Grange, Huntingdonshire, England, who permitted a copy to be made by Mr. G. D. Scull for the New York His- torical Society, which printed them in verbatim journal form in its Publications for the year named.THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF troit with provisions and men, whereby the siege was raised, they having then fourteen days’ Indian corn and bear’s- grease to subsist on.” This expedition brought him to the Niagara apparently in September—his first visit to the re- gion. He reached Detroit Oct. 3d, having been cast away at Presqu’ lie,! attacked by Wyandots with a loss of three men, and again on board the schooner in the Detroit River^ but this time without loss of life. In the late autumn of 1763 he was again at Niagara, on his way back from De- troit to New York. He reached that city Dec. 16th, and de- livered to Gen. Gage dispatches from Col. Gladwin. Lt.- Col. Eyre was then chief engineer. Major Gen. Sir Jeffery Amherst, who had held command in the “Middle British Colonies” (as distinguished from Canada) since 1758, had sailed for England Nov. 19th, nearly* a month before Montresor’s return. This service on the Western lakes in 1763 had in a meas- ure prepared our engineer for the task on the Niagara to which he was ordered in 1764. Important as it undoubtedly was, it is but one of the long list of “extra services” which he afterwards enumerated, obviously with a sufficiently high appreciation of what he had done. He was to the fore in the first battle of the Revolution. “I attended Lord Percy from Boston towards the Battle of Lexington,” he wrote in his journals. “My advancing some miles in front of his corps with four volunteers, and securing the bridge across Cambridge River, 19th April, 1775; which prevented his Body from going the Watertown Road, whereby the Light Infantry and Grenadiers were not cut off, my having sent one Volunteer back to his Lordship; the town of Cambridge in arms, and I galloped through them.” Attempts were twice made, in Boston, to assassinate him. He it was who blew up Castle William, with its batteries and dependencies, in March, 1776. Of the Battle of the Brandywine, Sept. 11, 1777, he writes: “I directed the position and attack of most of the field train; and late in the evening, when the action was near concluded, a very heavy fire was received by our Grenadiers from 6,000 Rebels, Washington’s Rear-guard, when Col. Monckton requested me to ride through it toCAPTAIN JOHN MONTRESOR. 7 Brigadier-General Agnew’s Brigade, and his 4 Twelve Pounders; which I did time enough to support them; and by my fixing the four 12 pounders, Routed the Enemy/’ His journals contain a further list, entitled, with his char- acteristic habit of lapsing into (or affecting) French, “Des petite services qui ne vant pas le peine de reconter avec ceux passes”; among them being the suppression of four mu- tinies, the conveyance of timely warnings to Gen. Gage and Sir William Howe, etc. In the long list is this picturesque “petite service”: “My hearing that the Rebels had cut the King’s head off the Equestrian Statue (in the Centre of the Ellipps, near the Fort) at New York, which represented George the 3rd in the figure of Marcus Aurelius, and that they had cut the nose off, dipt the laurels that were wreathed around his head, and drove a musket Bullet part of the way through his Head, and otherwise disfigured it, and that it was carried to Moore’s tavern, adjoining Fort Washington, on New York Island, in order to be fixed on a Spike on the Truck of that Flagstaff as soon as it could be got ready, I imme- diately sent Corby through the Rebel Camp in the beginning of September, 1776, to Cox, who kept the Tavern at King’s Bridge, to steal it from thence, and to bury it, which was effected, and was dug up on our arrival, and I rewarded the men, and sent the Head by the Lady Gage to Lord Townshend, in order to convince them at home of the In- famous Disposition of the Ungrateful people of this dis- tressed Country.” I cannot stay to enumerate all his services, either “grand” or “petite” or his equally long list of grievances, chief of which was that he never obtained higher rank than colonel. In his day “engineers were scarcely considered as belonging to the military service, and did not rise by seniority or ob- tain army rank. They were called Mr. So-and-So, until the Sovereign as a reward for service, bestowed the honorary rank.”* Though there is much in John Montresor’s jour- nals that conveys an impression of absurd insistence on the * G. D. Scull, editor of the Montresor journals for the N. Y. Hist. Soc., 1882. -8 THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF value of his services, there is much more that testifies to genuine worth and substantial achievement, with scarce a soldier’s meager reward. The Montresors served well their cause in the American wars. Allusion has been made to Capt. John’s father, Col. James Montresor, who in his time was Chief Engineer in America and died in the British serv- ice. They were a family of soldiers, for three generations before Capt. John. He lost two brothers in war, but bought for his three eldest sons commissions in the British Army. His wife lost her father and a brother in the Revolution, and her family were reduced from opulence to poverty through their loyalty to Great Britain. As for Capt. John himself, he was also impoverished, and after 24 years of service in America returned to En- gland in 1778, with a restless rebel ball in his body, broken in health, and embittered in spirit. He had filled an im- portant command, but was honored by no suitable recogni- tion ; others were promoted, but honors were withheld from him. He retired from the army in 1778, and in 1798 had been yet unable to pass his accounts at the Treasury for the expenditures of the Engineering Department between 1774 and 1778. Full satisfaction appears never to have been made. Small wonder that he supplemented his journals with sharp criticism of British ^officers and operations in America. One of his observations, particularly apropos of Fort Niagara was that the war had “become unavoidably a war of Posts chiefly for the protection of the Loyalists, which ever drew our little army.”* The foregoing are but glimpses of the man who, ar- riving at Fort Niagara on this Sunday evening of May, * Capt. John Montresor, afterwards Colonel, was a relative of Susanna Rowson, and is said to have been the prototype of Montraville, the hero of her once exceedingly-popular novel, “Charlotte Temple, or a Tale of Truth” (London, 1790). “Col. John Montresor, while serving in the British army, persuaded Charlotte Stanley, a descendant of the Earl of Derby, to embark with him in 1774 to New York, where he abandoned her. She died in the Old Tree House on Pell and Doyers streets at the age of 19 years, and was buried in the graveyard of Trinity Church. In addition to the inscription, the slab bore the quarterings of the house of Derby, and in after-years the name of Charlotte Temple was substituted for that of Stanley.”—Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography, article “Rozvson ”CAPTAIN JOHN MONTRESOR. 9 1764, led Hither the first regiment of Canadians ever raised in the British service; who was to secure the Niagara por- tage for some seven miles by a chain of redoubts, against the Indians and before the arrival of the troops under Col. Bradstreet; and was to make the first construction of Fort Erie, whose gray ruins, of a much later period of construc- tion, still stand, a picturesque landmark, at the angle of lake and river. In April of this year he had been ordered to join Brad- street. On reporting to that officer at Albany his first duty was to make a map of Lake Erie, with distances marked on it. That done, Bradstreet sent him on ahead to fortify the Niagara carrying-place. The orders were that he should proceed from Fort Ontario with 300 Canadians, and 250 light infantry, the whole under the command of Capt. Mont- gomery. When he reached Fort Ontario on May 2d, he found neither Canadian troops, Indian allies, nor any ves- sels for transport to Niagara. It was slow work, getting the expedition together. On the 5th, a detachment of 150 of the 17th set off, under Capt. Montgomery. One by one the transports arrived from Niagara: the sloop Missassagues* the snow Johnson, two or three schooners. and batteaux; and on the doth 102 batteaux reached the Oswego River, 22 days from Montreal. This flotilla brought ordnance stores, 2600 barrels of pork and flour, and five companies of Cana- dian troops under Major Rigaudville, “310 men and a priest”; and the journal which affords these data furnishes a hint of the factional spirit which made itself felt among the troops by the further record that the “Canadian volun- teers encamped on the Orange side.” The next day Capt. * Spelled in many ways, not only in Montresor’s journals, but in many printed records and narratives. The Jesuit Relations (1670-1) have it Missis- augue, designating a tribe of Indians of Algonquin stock who lived to the west of the Niagara. There was for many years a village of them on Chip- pewa Creek. The point on the west side of the Niagara at its mouth, and the fort which the British built there in 1814, perpetuate the name, now spelled Mississaga. It was presumably the name of these Indians—at one period active allies of the British---that was given’ to the sloop. Whether or not the word is akin to “massasauga,” meaning, in some Indian dialects, a species of rattle- snake, I leave to the philological expert. There was a “Mississauga” on Lake Ontario as late-as 1796. Probably several lake vessels have borne the name.10 THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF Montresor was given command of the battalion of Canadian volunteers. He found them ‘‘without tent, Kettle or Toma- hawk/' but they had been furnished at Montreal with 15 rounds of powder and ball, and 100 rounds in bulk. The following afternoon he exercised them in firing at marks, and finally, after a delay of 12 days at Fort Ontario, he set out at. daybreak of the 14th with his Canadian Volunteers, bound for Niagara. They were 20 boats in all, with five days' provisions and 40 spare barrels of pork and flour. Pork and flour, flour and pork, are always with us in this story of Niagara, except on the numerous occasions when this wearisome provision, often spoiled in transit, gave out utterly. The commissariat of these rough days offered few dainties beyond such as the woods and waters might now and then afford. But for the most part the wars on the Ni- agara were waged on “flour and pork." For five days Capt. Montresor and his Canadians coasted along Lake Ontario. There was nothing of monotony in the voyage except hard work. The weather was fickle, with head winds and high seas. A captain of a Quebec company and a lieutenant of a Montreal company quarreled and fought a duel, the captain being wounded in the sword arm. Montresor put them both under arrest and honor was no doubt satisfied. But not even this episode added to the spirit of the troops as a whole. Short though the voyage was from Oswego, it must be remembered that it, was for most of the men but another weary stage in the long voyage from Mon- treal, Three Rivers and Quebec. For nearly a month the troops had been in transit. The captain complains that they had become indolent, “careless of their arms and slovenly service, falling sick daily overeating themselves and sleeping in the Sun on the bare ground." Improvidence reduced them to short rations; so that Indians were sent out to hunt, and Capt. Montresor pushed on ahead to Niagara. The detachment came up on the 20th, were put into camp at Johnson's Landing, four miles west of the fort; and here was entered upon another stage-in the preparation for Brad- street's expedition. The succeeding days were busy ones at Fort NiagaraCAPTAIN JOHN MONTRESOR. 11 and up and down the river. Capt. Montresor addressed himself zealously to the task assigned him. On May 226. he sent a detachment of his men with an assistant engineer up to Navy Island, where Capt. Montgomery was in com- mand. Montresor made a reconnaissance- of the portage, studying in particular the edge of the mountain, that he might place to best advantage a rope hoist, with cradles above and below, for the raising of provisions, ordnance and ammunition. On the 25th he fixed upon the spot where an entrenchment should be dug for the cradle at the top of the mountain. He doubted that it would work well, and his fears were well founded, for the next day the lower cradle broke down and fourteen barrels of provisions were lost in the river. It was nearly a month before this appara- tus gave satisfaction, but by June 20th there were “3 double cradles and several Crabs or Capstans compleated,” and by their aid provisions and ammunition were being forwarded over the portage at a rate sometimes exceeding 300 barrels a day. On May 20th Capt. Montresor's men had come on from Johnson's Landing to Fort Niagara. The following day he let them rest and make up cartridges for the expedition. But there was not much time lost. Soon, in constant pro- cession, the cumbrous batteaux were making their way back or forth along the green reach of river between the fort and the landing at the carrying-place, where navigation ends on account of the rapids, just under the Lewiston heights. Here hundreds of barrels of provisions and all sorts of army stores were soon accumulated, to be hoisted up the heights. One body of Canadians were set to work cutting brush, trimming poles and building a shed on top of the “moun- tain.” By the 29th Capt. Montresor had at work ©n the portage 656 men, including his Canadian Provincials, regu- lars, teamsters, Indians and artificers. He had tried in vain to get help from Capt. Montgomery's party on Navy Island; he therefore appealed to Col. Browning for whatever men he could spare from the garrison to help entrench the carry- ing-place. The yawning gulf of the Devil's Hole was a con- stant reminder that the massacre of the previous autumn12 THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF might yet have a bloody sequel. Strengthening his request by a display of his instructions from Col. Bradstreet, he suc- ceeded in getting i io men from the 46th Regiment, to pro- tect the carrying-place. Thus reinforced he set about the construction of two redoubts, “the first at 800 yards, the second at 1000 yards further.” On the morning of the 30th, with four companies of Canadian volunteers, one sergeant and 20 men of the 80th and 46th Regulars, he established his posts on the portage, and stationed two 6-pounders, “one at the camp guard on a rising ground fronting the woods, and the other upon the edge of the precipice to scour the cradles, lest the enemy should make ari attempt to destroy them.” There were con- stant reports of threatened Indian attacks, but by the 31st the redoubt on the portage was finished without molesta- tion. On June 1st our engineer pushed on for another stage of his work. Under the protection of a squad often regulars and six Canadians for flankers he marked out three more redoubts extending to within three and a half miles of Little Niagara. The next day, Capt. Montgomery having come from Navy Island to take command of the troops, Capt Montresor pushed ahead and marked out three more re- doubts, the last within 800 yards of Fort Schlosser or Little Niagara. That nearest Little Niagara being situated on rocky ground, he was obliged to construct a log work in- stead of a stockade. By the 3d of June there was reasonable protection against Indian surprise, and great activity all along the portage. One party was building a log wharf at the lower landing; another was at work on the cradles; detachments were busy at the entrenchments, or escorting provisions; while up on Navy Island a large force of troops were helping the ship- builders or mounting guard against the always-dreaded at- tack. During this work Capt. Montresor had sometimes crossed the portage “over 6 times a day.” Now came the 4th of June, the King's birthday. Over 700 barrels of provisions were piled up at Fort Schlosser, and for the first time it was deemed safe for the provisionCAPTAIN JOHN MONTRESOR. 13 trains to cross the portage without armed escort. It always rejoices the heart of man to have accomplished a task. Something more than loyalty to George III. now warranted a celebration. From Fort Niagara, all along this line of re- doubts, to Fort Little Niagara, the woods echoed with salvos from the field artillery. As night came on, rockets were fired from the ‘‘grand fort,” as Engineer Montresor terms it, bonfires were kindled at the camps along the preci- pice, loyal toasts were pledged, and soldier songs rose on the mild June air. Was there ever a holiday not followed by depression and discontent? The second day after the celebration orders came from Fort Niagara recalling to that post the detach- ment of the 46th and 80th that had been assisting Capt. Montresor and guarding the portage. Only 35 men and an officer were allowed him from the garrison, in addition to his own force. Yet the very day of their recall, June 6th, the tracks of four hostile Indians were discovered in the woods. Capt. Montresor confided a criticism or two to his journal. “A total Discord in the Service at Niagara Fort & in all orders from it,” he wrote. “Disunion prevalent more troops than are necessary yet none to spare. In short Dis- sension predominant.” But he pushed the work along with unflagging zeal. While the stores were being gotten over the portage, the brass 6-pounders and boats being hauled by ox teams, the Captain’ “directed an astronomical survey with a plane Table from Niagara to the Fort at Little Niagara,” and on June 8th he began work on the “grand store house” at Little Niagara, the work being interrupted by a fruitless pursuit of “Ennemy Indians.” The next day was an eventful one. The snow Mohawk, the sloop Missisaugas and two other vessels arrived at Fort Niagara with provisions and 39 horses for use on the portage. These are not the first horses on the Niagara, but there had not been many ahead of them. A party of friendly Indians this day, in passing towards the Fort “never sent any word back after passing the first Redoubt on the Portage until they were near the 2d, thought they were near enough to the Indian Encampment & as14 THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF usual began to salute, being loaded with Ball which whistled through the Indian Encampment. They were alarmed and took to the trees & the Garrison taking our new friendly Indians to be Ennemies fired, shot 3 through the legs. ' I ran by desire of Capt. Montgomery and had the Canadians under arms & cut through the woods back to the portage as the Cannon fired & gave the alarm.” After the scare was over, no doubt with some chagrin, work was resumed of forwarding supplies up the portage; but it lagged, “the Canadians making 10,000 Difficulties, as usual, did not work the day, on account of Provision, heat Sick, &c. &c.” And on this same busy day came orders from Col. Brad- street directing Maj. Riquandville [ ? Rigaudville] and a part of the Canadians to go to Navy Island for the pro- tection of the shipping,- while Capt. Montgomery, 168 Cana- dians and men of the 17th were to push on to the “Rapids,” as the outlet of Lake Erie was then termed. This was a marked advance in the progress of the expedition. Capt. Montgomery and his force left Fort Niagara on June 10th. For the next ten days Montresor’s journal is devoted to his own work—the strengthening of defenses at the redoubts on the portage and at Fort Niagara, the progress of his survey, the coming and going of vessels, and the gathering of Indians; but by the 20th he had heard that Capt. Mont- gomery and force had fortified themselves on the east shore, at the Rapids—which would be within the present limits of the city of Buffalo. Two vessels had been launched from Navy Island and a third was on the point of readiness. The first one got safely up the Rapids and into Lake Erie, one sailor being drowned. The second schooner was not got up into the lake until July 2d. She was “hauled up by 150 men without the benefit of either wind or the capstans and loaded with Three hundred Barrels of Provisions for Detroit.” On the 4th of July the third schooner, the Charlotte, which had been damaged at the launching, was hauled up the rapids into Lake Erie; and on the same day the schooner Gladwin sailed for Detroit. On June 22d, another Indian scare disturbed the work all along the Niagara. A man of the Royal Artillery wasCAPTAIN JOHN MONTRESOR. 15 found killed and scalped, with the tomahawk sticking in his skull. This happened between the fourth and fifth redoubts, and^ a mile from the encampment where ioo men, mostly Indians in the British service, were gathered at the time. The tomahawk proclaimed the enemy to be Allegheny In- dians. A party of 30 set out in immediate pursuit, but fail- ing to track the assailants returned to camp. That night a larger party, 60 men with three batteaux, renewed the pur- suit. They made their way up the difficult rapids, out into Lake Erie, around the bar at the mouth of Buffalo Creek, and so up that stream, on the theory that the marauders would have left their canoes in Buffalo Creek, and might be intercepted there on their return. Two days later the pursuers, who had divided into two parties, returned crest- fallen to camp, having found no trace of the wily and au- dacious foe. It is worth noting, in passing, that in his journal, June 22, 1764, Capt. Montresor gives “Buffalo Creek” the same spelling it bears today. I know of no earlier mention of the stream, regarding the origin of whose name so many con- jectures have been made. There were other attacks by hostile Indians, during the weeks that followed; they tried to steal the cattle that were turned out to graze; but beyond wounding a soldier or two, no harm was done. “The Ennemy,” wrote Montresor, “ne- glected a decisive blow by cutting off the cattle before the redoubts were constructed on the portage.” As the summer advanced, the activity increased, especially at the upper end of the portage and thence to Lake Erie. Ox teams and horses were hauling provisions and munitions of war. The portage road was improved. Capt. Montresor made an exact measurement of it.- He ascertained that the carrying- place, from Fort Niagara to Fort Little Niagara, was 25,620 yards long, or 14 miles and 95 yards. The portage proper from the fortification at the lower landing under Lewiston Heights to Fort Little Niagara, was five miles, 1200 yards. By the 28th of June a vast quantity of stores had been for- warded over this road; on that day 4791 barrels of pro- visions lay piled up at Little Niagara or were on their way16 THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF lo the Rapids; besides barrels of powder and ammunition, iron, nails and other equipment for the vessels, ordnance, soldiers’ baggage and the usual necessaries for an advancing army. There being but few axes found in the stores, Capt. Montresor bought from the Indian traders a quantity of large tomahawks. All this freight made necessary the con- struction of a wharf at Little Niagara ioo feet long, so that the long boats could be loaded with facility. By the end of June, there being no more provisions to get over the portage, the ox teams and wagons were frequently un- employed, and part of the “cattle” were put to work hauling timber for the wharf, which was begun on July 2d. On the 6th, Capt. Montresor returned to Fort Niagara ; and at 7 o’clock the next morning the Mohawk arrived with Col. Bradstreet on board—“very ill, also the Commodore, the Commissary of Musters, Surgeon of the Hospital and Brig- ade Major.” Their vessel had left Fort Ontario on the evening of the 3d with the rest of the army, most of which did not reach the Niagara until the 9th o^ July. As soon as Col. Bradstreet had recovered from the dis- turbing effects of Lake Ontario’s waves and was ready for business Capt. Montresor waited on him at the fort and delivered a detailed report of what had been done under his charge at the forts and on the portage; and that even- ing received from his superior officer orders for an important new undertaking. “You will proceed tomorrow at daylight,” said Col. Bradstreet, “to the outlet of Lake Erie. Make examination of the discharge above the rapids and select a proper place for fortification. It must com- mand an anchorage where vessels may lie, while being pro- visioned for Detroit, in all. respects a proper entrepot. You shall have one of the assistant engineers to aid you in the work. The other must be left here; he will have to survey the new limits of the portage, as fixed by this treaty. Sir William Johnson will have instructions for him.” In these orders of Col. Bradstreet, delivered to Capt. Montresor at Fort Niagara on the evening of July 7, 1764, we have the first word in the history of Fort Erie. Montresor left Fort Niagara early the next morning,CAPTAIN JOHN MONTRESOR. 17 but it was io o’clock that evening when he stood on the shore of Lake Erie. The next day was devoted to a trip of exploration. With a small detachment from Capt. Mont- gomery’s party, he went up Buffalo Creek, examining the banks for a site suitable for a post. Once past the bar at the mouth, they rowed up the deep, placid stream, bordered on either hand by fine basswoods, oaks and maples. Further up, thickets of willows fringed the deep bends, beyond which stretched rich low meadows, bearing the marks of inunda- tion at the time of the spring freshets. Signs of game were abundant, and the flash of their oars startled flocks of wild fowl from their sanctuary. As they rowed cautiously from bend to bend a sharp watch was kept on either hand, for this was a favorite highway of the hostile Indians, bands of whom, hidden on the forest-clad banks, no doubt watched jealously the progress of the boats. Such was the stream and such the known conditions on this the first recorded ex- ploration made on its waters by white men. Railroads, wharves and uncouth elevators long since usurped the for- est, and traffic sits enthroned where, at the time we are con- sidering, Nature held sway, and only the wild children of the forest and the stream, and their wild human brother, with noiseless foot or gliding canoe, scarce broke the soli- tudes. Capt. Montresor found no spot along Buffalo Creek or the adjacent shore that suited the needs of the expedition. He was therefore rowed across the river, and here “on the northwest side just at the discharge,” after some survey, he marked out a spot where vessels might be loaded. Hasten- ing back to Fort Niagara the next day (July ioth) he laid before Col. Bradstreet a sketch of the situation; showed how it could be fortified, ^and how advantageous it was for the lading and shelter of vessels. Col. Bradstreet approved of the work and ordered that it be expedited. Some neces- sary delay, however, occurred. Important matters were under consideration at Fort Niagara. The Colonel directed that another redoubt be built on the portage at the Three - Mile bridge; he had no relish for falling into an ambush. Our engineer gave directions for constructing a bake house18 THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF for the army at Fort Schlosser, and for fitting up another oven of masonry at Fort Niagara ; so that it was the 17th before he could return to Lake Erie. On that day, his plans having been approved, Capt. Montresor came over the port- age and up the river with 500 men to establish the new post. He had two battalions of the Connecticut and Jersey forces, 450 men. The flotilla, 12 large boats and four batteaux, camped during the night of the 17th on Navy Island. There were “prodigious rains” that night and all the next day, but the detachment came on, bringing 176 barrels of provisions, tools, etc., to “the point of Lake Erie” at the northwest side and there they encamped; “the ground,” says Capt. Montre- sor’s journal, “extremely rich, covered with Beach, Hickory, Walnut &c. and the situation answering Expectation in every respect for my Fort, Provision Store & Wharf.” Men were at once set to work felling timber and clearing the ground; ax called to ax, and the bannerets of blue smoke that rose from the burning brush were the first heralds to the forest shores around of British occupancy at the east end of Lake Erie. On July 19th the schooner Gladwin arrived from De- troit, in quest of provisions; and on that day Capt. Montre- sor went once more, with a party of light infantry, up Buf- falo Creek, for what purpose the journals do not record. On the 20th an assistant engineer and 14 carpenters arrived. Stockades were cut and pointed. On the 24th four com- panies of light infantry under Major Daly arrived from the east side of the rapids and encamped at the new fort. Ar- tificers were squaring timbers for the barracks and store- houses ; others were setting the stockades, while yet another party were making a stone revetment for the polygon of the fort next the lake. By the 31st the journal records, “the post now becomes defencible.” On the 3d of August Mon- tresor sent to Col. Bradstreet for ox teams to haul out the timbers for the piers and wharves. Masonry foundations were laid for officers’ quarters and soldiers’ barracks; a provision store was begun, next the lake, and a parade ground levelled off. There were at work carpenters, masons, brickmakers, lime burners, shingle makers andCAPTAIN JOHN MONTRESOR. 19 sawyers. And on Aug. 4th dispatches- arrived from Col. Bradstreet in which it was ordered that the new work be known as Fort Erie—the first appearance of this name in history. Constructive work continued, much interrupted by rain, and by fever, ague and “fluxes” [i. e.y dissentery] among the men, for some days thereafter. Vessels were ar- riving down from Detroit, to be loaded with stores and some of the impedimenta of the advancing army; and day after day long-boats and batteaux were arriving from down the river. On the 8th the main body of troops passed up, and crossing to the south shore pursued its course on the far from glorious campaign. But the labors of Capt. John Montresor had enabled the army to pass the dread Niagara portage in safety.